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The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment
In early 1919, Germany put in place a new government to begin rebuilding the country after its crushing defeat in World War I. But the right-wing forces that had led the country into the War and lost the War conspired even before it was over to destroy the new government, the "Weimar Republic." They succeeded.
The U.S. faces a similar "Weimar Moment." The devastating collapse of the economy after eight years of Republican rule has left the leadership, policies, and ideology of the right utterly discredited. But, as was the case with Germany in 1919, Republicans do not intend to allow the new government to succeed. They will do everything they can to undermine it. If they are successful, the U.S. may yet go the way of Weimar Germany.
World War I left Germany utterly devastated. The landed aristocrats, industrial magnates, wealthy financiers, weapons makers, and the officer corps of the military that formed the locus of right wing power were completely discredited. Their failure in provoking and prosecuting the War was catastrophic, undeniable, and complete.
The economy was destroyed. Prices were at 800% of pre-war levels and rising quickly. Agriculture, pillaged for the War, lay in ruins. Social insurance payments for the War's injured, to widows and orphans, and newly unemployed soldiers were astronomical. And all this was before the cost of rebuilding was even begun.
At the same time, Germany faced massive reparations payments to the Allied victors, France and England. But Germany's foreign properties had been confiscated and its colonies turned over to the victors. The combination of these conditions, both domestic and international, made it extraordinarily difficult for the German economy to recover.
As a result of the failure of the right, the German people elected a moderately leftist government to lead the nation's rebuilding. It was named the Weimar Republic for the city in which the new post-imperial constitution was written. The new government was led by Friedrich Ebert, head of the German Socialist Party.
But the country's new parliamentary system had allowed dozens of parties to run, making it impossible for any one party to win an outright majority. Ebert's party had achieved the highest portion of votes, 38%, in the first post-War elections, held in January 1919. Ebert would have to govern by coalition.
It was at this time that the right wing made its crucial decision. Despite its shocking, naked failure over the prior decade, despite the horrific devastation it had wrought on the German people, despite the discrediting of everything they had purported to stand for, they would fight Ebert, his new government, and its plans for recovery. They would do everything they could to make sure that the new government failed.
Their strategy was two-fold: first, stoke the resentment of the population about the calamitous state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions had been created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretended to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.
And stoking resentment was easy to do. Just before the War ended, the military concocted its most sensational lie: the German army hadn't actually been defeated. It had been "stabbed in the back" by communists, traitors, and Jews. It was an easy lie to sell. It entwined an attack on an alien political ideology - liberalism- with the latent, pervasive myth of German racial superiority.
The second strategy of the right was to prevent the new government from succeeding. To begin with, success of the left would conspicuously advertise the failure of the right. Moreover, success by the left would legitimize republican government, so hated by the oligarchs of the right. Much better for the people to be ruled by the self-aggrandizing right-wing autocracy that had governed Germany for centuries.
So the rightists set out to do everything they could to make it impossible for the leftists to govern. They would use parliamentary maneuver, shifting coalitions, domination of the new mass media, legislative obstruction, staged public relations spectacles, relentless pressure by narrow but powerful interests, judicial intimidation and, eventually, outright murder of their political opponents.
Contrition for their abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those had nothing to do with it. All they possessed was a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.
Eventually, they succeeded. Every setback in recovery - and there would inevitably be many - was met with hysterical demonizing of the left wing government. The lie was repeated relentlessly that the government was run by communists, traitors, and Jews-the same furtive cabal that had purportedly stabbed the country in the back at the end of the War. They steadily chipped away at the efficacy and, thereby, the legitimacy of successive republican governments.
By the time of the Great Depression, Adolph Hitler's ironically named National Socialist Party had become the biggest vote getter in the nation. The Nazis had once been derided as the lunatic fringe of the far right. But the "respectable" right-wing power brokers who had started and lost the Great War anointed Hitler Chancellor in January, 1933.
He immediately suspended the constitution, abolishing most civil liberties. He outlawed opposition parties, began a massive military build-up and a relentless propaganda campaign, and set Germany and the world onto the path of the greatest destruction it would ever know.
America now faces its own "Weimar moment."
The failure of right wing policy and leadership over the past eight years, especially in matters economic, is comparable to Germany's right-wing failure in World War I. It is catastrophic, undeniable, and complete.
Consider:
According to the World Economic Forum, forty percent of the entire world's wealth has been destroyed in the recent financial collapse. In the U.S. alone, between housing and the stock market, more than $18 trillion in wealth has already been destroyed.
The private mega-banks that anchor the financial systems of the western world are bankrupt. This makes it all but impossible to jump-start the western world's economies which are heavily dependent on bank-system credit to operate.
More than 10,000 homes go into foreclosure every day. More than 20,000 people lose their job every day. And the collapse is accelerating, developing its own self-reinforcing dynamic. Job losses breed foreclosures, reducing demand, leading to more job losses and further degradation of the financial system. None of the stopgaps designed to stanch the bleeding have yet worked. There is no bottom in sight.
Meanwhile, debt has risen to astronomical levels. Reagan and Bush I quadrupled the national debt in only twelve years. Bush II doubled it again in only eight. It is now ten times higher than it was in 1980 when Reagan was elected. Total public and private debt exceeds 300% of GDP, half again higher than it was in 1929.
The government's unfunded liabilities, promises it has made to the American people but for which no payment source can be identified, now exceed $60 trillion, a literally inconceivable sum that can never, will never, be paid. Federal Reserve economist Lawrence Kotlikoff has suggested that the U.S. government is "actuarially bankrupt."
The full measure of the nation's plight is revealed in Hillary Clinton's first trip as Secretary of State. It was to China, to beg them to fund Obama's new fiscal deficits. Without loans from China, the U.S. economy cannot be revived. The significance of this cannot be overstated: the U.S. no longer exercises sovereignty over its own economic affairs. That sovereignty now resides in the hands of China, the U.S.'s greatest long-term rival.
Thanks to Republican policies of massive debt and shipping jobs abroad, the U.S. has technically become a colony of China. It exports raw materials and imports finished goods, together with the capital to make up the difference. Should the Chinese decide not to lend the trillions of dollars the U.S. is begging for, the U.S. economy will implode, plummeting onto itself in a World Trade Center-like collapse that will leave dust clouds circling the planet for decades.
Notwithstanding the destruction inflicted on the economy by Republican policies, the most devastating breakdown is in the intellectual foundation on which right wing economic ideology itself is premised. Free market doctrine, the secular religion of right-wing America, is in utter, irretrievable shambles.
One of the most lofty tenets on which free markets are premised is their claim for themselves that they are "efficient," that is, that market prices always reflect "fundamental values" of assets. But if that's true, how could the world's largest insurance company, AIG, have lost 99.5% of its market value in only 18 months? How could the world's largest bank, Citibank, have lost 98% of its value over the same period?
How could the world's largest brokerage company, Merrill Lynch, have gone bankrupt and need to be bought by Bank of America? How could the world's largest car company, General Motors, have lost 95% of its value and stand on the threshold of extinction? How could the world's largest industrial conglomerate, General Electric, have lost 85% of its value in only 18 months?
If the largest companies in the world, those at the very heart of the capitalist system itself, can lose virtually all of their value in only 18 months, what is the possible meaning of the phrases "efficient markets" and "fundamental value"?
The other core tenets of free market ideology are equally compromised. Major actors are clearly not rational - a breakdown of theological proportions admitted by no less an avatar of the cult than its pope himself, Alan Greenspan. Free markets clearly cannot, will not, regulate themselves. It is precisely their innate, irrepressible propensity for sociopathic greed and predatory fraud that has brought the whole of the world's economy to the precipice of collapse.
Free markets clearly do not align risk and reward, allocating capital to its most productive uses, as its promoters advertise. They clearly do not automatically return to equilibrium, but must be bailed out with trillions of dollars of injections from the shrinking coffers of the public to the ever-bulging coffers of a private priesthood of pillage and plunder.
And in perhaps the greatest indictment of all, one going back to its primeval roots in Adam Smith's eighteenth century opus, The Wealth of Nations, the unrestrained behavior of self-interested individuals clearly, manifestly, does not "coalesce as if by an Invisible Hand to the greatest good for the greatest number."
These are not peripheral premises that have failed. They are not tangential tenets. Efficient markets. Rational actors. Market equilibrium. Risk and reward. Self interest. These are the essential sacraments on which the entire free market system is founded. They are in tatters. And it isn't that any one of them has been discredited by the glaring, merciless force of events. All of them have been. All of them together. And all of them at the same time.
Free markets have long been the basis for a legitimate - though rightly debated - economic policy framework. But they have become little more than a robotically-recited cultural catechism, a mindless mantra mumbled to mask the looting of the nation's resources that is the true purpose of Republican economic policy as demonstrated by the staggering upward transfers of wealth that inevitably occur under Republican regimes. A more complete, conspicuous, catastrophic, and irrefutable repudiation of right wing leaders, right wing policies, and right wing ideology could not possibly be contrived.
So what is the right wing response?
They have adopted the strategy and tactics of the failed right wing plotters in Weimar Germany. First, stoke the resentment of the population about the increasingly dire state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions were created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretend to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.
Second, prevent the new government from succeeding in any meaningful endeavor. The Republicans have set all their efforts to doing everything they can to make sure the Obama administration fails. Rush Limbaugh's infamous, "I hope he fails" pronouncement is only the beginning of the fomenting of hatred from the right. As Limbaugh said, "Let's be honest. Every Republican in America is hoping for Obama's failure."
The same malignant hope oozes unadulterated from all the other Dogpatch Demagogues that rent themselves out to the Republican party to foment resentment against anything liberal: Joe the "Plumber," Rick Santelli, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, and virtually every other wing-nut operative whose intellectual stock in trade has been vaporized by the collision of right-wing policies with objective reality.
Equally so for the "respectable" members of the party, the all-but-three Republican members of Congress who refused to sign on to Obama's first stimulus package and continue to grandstand against every effort toward any form of progress. Contrition for their own abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those have nothing to do with it. All they possess is a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.
And what else can they do? Bereft of ideas, bankrupt in ideology, architects of collapse, obstruction is all they have. If Obama is successful, it will not only advertise the full extent of their failure, it will provide a model of liberal governance that would render Republicans irrelevant for decades, much as FDR's success left them out in the political cold for an entire generation. Liberal failure is a matter of life and death for Republicans.
And it's not at all clear that the liberals won't fail. No one should underestimate the task at hand. Never before - not even during the Great Depression - has the country inherited such a daunting, intractable set of economic problems: a debt burden so crushing; inequality so vast; a loss of financial sovereignty so constricting; an intellectual edifice so bankrupt; a private economy so uncompetitive; or an opposition so callously self interested in its own recovery and so cavalierly disinterested in the nation's.
The economy has been so damaged, successful rescue requires threading a series of policy needles, each of them so complex in their own right that none could be solved by any administration of the past 50 years. This includes rehabilitating and re-regulating the nation's banking system, restructuring health care, reducing national dependence on oil, reviving manufacturing so as to reduce the trade deficit, rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure, dealing with a soaring national debt, trying to resuscitate a collapsing housing market, and all the while maintaining the safety net under 77 million baby boomers entering retirement with a net worth 60% what it was only 18 months ago.
Success will require much more than luck, hard work, brilliant policy, or soaring rhetoric. It will require cooperation and contribution from every American. It is those two offerings, cooperation and contribution, that Republicans are intent on withholding, the better to ensure Obama's failure. Simply put, the Republicans hate Democrats more than they love America.
If they succeed in derailing Obama's efforts, the cost will be incalculable.
After World War I, one of the consequences of the liberal government's failure was Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a genius for exploiting the resentment of the German people for their condition. More than 80% of the Nazi party's members were unemployed. It was these legions of idle thugs who made up the ranks of Hitler's brownshirt militia, the SA. The right wing oligarchy that had set out from the beginning to destroy the Weimar Republic recognized the potency of resentment and Hitler's genius at exploiting it. It was they who sponsored Hitler's ascension to Chancellor in 1933.
Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s.
The Republican propensity for fascism must not be underestimated. Witness their phony justifications for the war in Iraq, fanning the flames of nationalistic aggression, just as Hitler did with Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the 1930s. Consider their symbiotic embrace of corporate interests in the oil, weapons, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, finance, and other industries-the same type of corporate interests that sponsored Hitler's ascent to power. Look at their efforts to dismantle civil liberties with the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. Or their relentless, pervasive propaganda laundered through their corporate-owned right-wing media machine.
These are the classic hallmarks of fascism. The strategy is to obstruct recovery, facilitate collapse, and then incite the faux-populism of public resentment to re-install a corporatist oligarchy which has failed, but which will not abide a reduction of its privileges or a diminution of its control. It is a fetid, seditious agenda, awaiting only its own latter day mustachioed messiah for its final fulfillment.
World War I was a once-in-a-millennium upset in the architecture of global power. In four years, it shifted the center of that power from Europe to the United States. But failure now by the U.S. will shift that center once again, from the United States to China, out of the western world where it has resided for the past 500 years. The psychic shock to the billion-odd people living in western civilization, with its liberal democracies, capitalist economies, and Enlightenment ideals, will be incalculable, irretrievable.
This shift may be inevitable and only a matter of time. It is quite possible that the damage inflicted on the western world's economy by rapacious Republicans is already beyond repair. But it will be tragedy beyond measure if such a shift is consummated by the very wrecking crew that took us down the road to ruin, all the while so unctuously proclaiming "patriotism" as its crowning ideal. They are not patriots and their goal is not the revival of American power. It is the revival of their own power, even at the expense of America's. They represent a very dangerous threat to the nation's future.
Comments
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212 Comments so far
Show AllUh, well. I guess you are right, if we ignore the latent inflationary pressure of Nixon's aborgation of Bretton Woods, the enormous downturn in production brought on by the simultaneous end of the Viet Nam War AND the space program, both the big ticket items of the day; and the fact that Nixon chose to SPEND a surplus rather than pay down the debt with it, a model both Bushes seemed too happy to follow.
Yeah, the car companies are complicit; but the real blame are the mix of fiscal and monetary policies followed by Nixon / Ford.
MY POST ABOUT GERMANY OVERTRHOWN BY ZIONIST BANKERS WAS DELETED, WHY? IF USA ITSELF IS OWNED AND RULED BY ZIONISTS !! AIPAC, AND ZIONIST ELITES OWN USA, THAT'S NOT NEWS AT ALL !!
Great that it was deleted. As I wrote in my reply to your original post, you would be indicted for your post in Germany and a few other European countries on the grounds of resurrection of Nazi thinking, and quite rightly so!
It seems to me that some people in America need a de-nazification process as well.
you aint a nwo shill are you
indictments indeed
folks like you who are so upset with free speech should relocate to places where the governments agree
we can fix you up with a cell in israel or saudi arabia
What you mean "relocate"? I am European and live in Europe!!
And I am trying to educate you. Since you need it. So just be grateful.
Tell it to your 'dog.' Your anti-semitic trash, well, let's put it this way,
'Bye, bye.'
Is your caps lock key stuck? Then it is in accor5d with your neurotic world view as well...stuck on empty.
ardee-Red Rick.
STOP insulting everyone you don't agree with!
Again, no more insults!
REMEMBER the quote you yourself always posted by Anais Nin-more or less this,
"We see things not as they are, but as we are." Remember that when you call others nuerotic, stupid, stuck on empty, et al, as is your wont.
It is a Beautiful Day.
Joe.
Somebody please close the window, a buzzing fly has gotten in...
my posts here are routinely deleted here also. freedom of speech isn't always tolerated on this site. censorship - and the same sad pro-israel (dare not call it jewish) bias is alive and well on common dreams, sadly. i've become aware of that.
I went to respond to a post and it disappeared before I could finish writing. I wouldn't assume it stems from CD editors. It could just as easily be NSA/CIA monitors with a program that lets them scour whatever they see fit....
common dreams regularly delete many good posts my friend
its called genetic engineering
just be happy you weren't barred from the site as so many of the best posters are
This analogy doesn't perfectly fit, but...
1968 is the founding the current state of America, correlating to the unstable, divided, and increasingly rightist Wiemar Republic.
1980s corresponds quite well to increasing rightist executive power (Reagan/Bush --- von Hindenburg)
9/11 corresponds to the Reichstag Fire (catalyst for the open removal of rights)
Naturally, the next stage is the openly fascist stage.
Unfortunately, most Americans don't seem to see a problem.
The political center has shifted globally to the right since the last thirty years. In America, the shift has been the largest as most of the rightist exponents (and money) originated here. Yet the American news media, with their political relativism, do not see a problem. To them (and certainly to the benefit of their owners), the Democrats are merely left of "center", the Republicans right, regardless of where the objective "center" lies (and most Americans accept this simple analysis. It conforms to the belief in the fundamental soundness of the political system, the belief in a "civil" government where no one side is more correct, the political correctness orthodoxy where all "political opinions" are valid, though they have to establishment-friendly).
It is certainly true that most of these exponents are Republicans and the intention (and usually the official policy) of these plutocrats is further power in their hands in any era. However, as the New Deal Coalition collapsed, most Democrats came to espouse or at least tacitly accept these ideas. Thus, today, we leftists have no voice to counterbalance the road to fascism.
We cannot rely on the Democratic party to save us. At the least, given how effete it is, the situation should be reversed; the party base (people like us) should threaten desertion to force a sharper idealogical position (if not give up on it altogether).
I thought this was a great article aside from the fact that the author once again puts the Democrats on a pedestal when they are clearly only a milder strain of the right-wing virus. Also, Mr. Freeman keeps intimating that fixing America's problems are going to be so Herculean. Perhaps I'm naive, but cancelling debt, cleaning up the planet, ending our wars, making sure everyone has a job that pays at least pretty well and free healthcare, for examples are pretty simple solutions.
I mean, the website for Obama's stimulus is an overcomplicated joke.
And we need radicals, not "liberals." Liberals want modest at best change within a capitalist framework. Radicals see that the problem is capitalism.
Amen - to bringing in more radical action not squashy ineffective liberal flounder. However this article is stunning & scary in calling up this pattern from Germany - Can we work smarter not harder and NOT fulfill this prophesy ?
t_g
It is good and well to point out problems in the present system and the similarities with an evil regime in the past. What we need however is suggestions. Solutions. I enjoyed the article, very clever, but it stopped short of suggesting how to proceed now? What to do?
The Reichstag fire turned out to have been an inside job. I have read some pretty convincing arguments, including those by professional architects, that the official explanation of 9/11 can't possibly be true.
Steel reinforced skyscrapers do not fall into their own footprints by chance.
See Architects for 911 Truth at: http://www.ae911truth.org/
http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/analysis/index.html
9/11 is the fundamental issue of our times, from which all others stem. The evidence of Israeli involvement in planning and executing these attacks is overwhelming, and that, should it ever become public knowledge, will be a much greater force for anti-semitism than anything that ever occurred prior to or during Nazi Germany.
Look at the evidence. Look at the motive. See the truth.
let's just have a real investigation into the events of that day
let's just start with that
we may all be surprised where that goes
conscious,
Go back to sleep you fascist swine.
9/11 is an enormously important event in modern history, and it is equally important that we understand it fully. to dismiss it as a "pet issue" relegated to "zealots" and "fanatics" is, frankly, stupid.
9/11 was the event that set loose a firestorm of hatred against islamic peoples, resulted in loss of civil liberties, rights and freedoms for all americans, and set the stage for the invasions of Afghanistan and Irag, which in itself, ended with hundreds of thousands of people being tortured and killed, millions of people displaced, billions of dollars in loss of property, etc etc.
9/11 was a turning point for America and it's been downhill ever since. It's a large part of the reason America is practically in ruin today. so don't tell me it doesn't matter.
Mr. Bronstein, I'd suggest you do some homework. If you'd bet that the official version is at least substantially a whitewash, well, wouldn't you be interested in educating yourself as to what actually did happen?
I never said anything about the CIA or JFK, but since you mention it, there's evidence to support the hypothesis that both 9/11 and JFK assassination were combined CIA/Mossad efforts, so I wouldn't go on about how evil CIA is without mentioning Mossad. And if I were an American, I think I'd somehow find the thought of Mossad activity in subverting democracy and the rule of law - in my own country - even more odious than if the same were being done by the CIA.
let me give you my parallel between JFK and 9/11
lets say it could be proven with mathematical 100% certainty that Mossad agents bumped off JFK, because of his opposition to Israel's nuclear weapons program, would that make Israel significantly more evil? The answer is No, it wouldn't because we already know beyond doubt of so many Israeli crimes, that being innocent of the JFK murder wouldn't change the fact that they're still a criminal organization. There's still more than enough evidence to convict Ben Gurion, Sharon, Olmert, Netanyahu etc many times over for war crimes & violations of international law.
My point is this. The principal corrupting influence on american electoral politics, on American foreign and domestic policy, is Israel, is zionism, is AIPAC, is the lobby. 9/11 is the foremost expression of that. So of course, that's not to excuse Bush, Cheney, Rummy etc. They are criminal, that's true. But they're not acting alone any more than Lee Harvey Oswald was. They're pretty much puppets as far as I'm concerned. That is my perspective.
Sioux Rose
DAVE B: By reading your comments, my own logic gets honed. You're a good teacher when it comes to dissecting data. Thank you for your contributions to this forum.
conscious-You are correct.
If the real perpetrators of 9-11 were un-masked, de-yarmulke'd, and exposed it would change EVERYTHING.
How Bungling the 5 Dancing Israeli Mossad Agents were, to get CAUGHT!
Or Siverstein, to say ON CAMERA, "Pull it," regarding what to do about WTC7 minutes before it's demolished. CAUGHT on camera! How Stupid! Oy Vey!
Safely back in Israel one of the bungling Mossad agents THEN goes on a talk show to say they were only set up to "document" the impacts. And Dance! For Joy! (sorry, we didn't want to save 3,000 worthless American lives, that would have taken a phone call, we were low on minutes.)
Silverstein fully, totally, insuring the Towers against Terrorist Attacks w/ GERMAN insurers mere weeks b4 9-11, and collecting of course For Joy!
And the US attacked Iraq, just like we planned-For Joy!
The absolute obviousness of this is total,
Cheney,NeoCon,Satan's complicity, yeah, but the one's in the lead are the one's that got caught, bungling and stupid.
Joe.
The author seems to point the finger in only one direction.. He should recall that it was under Clinton that "Glass/Stegall" was repealed, which in it self might have helped prevent the current crisis.
This article contributes to the old game of the elites, of playing the left off against the right in a continuing cycle of finger pointing.
Interesting article, and I don't take issue with the argument that we here on the left should keep an eagle eye on the conservatives and far right, but I think Freeman entirely glosses over a very important factor in the early days of the Weimar Republic - one that *doesn't* have a parallel with the current situation in the United States.
What Freeman nods towards in his second paragraph with the mention of numerous political parties is that there was a highly active and militant radical left in Germany, mainly in the form of the Independent Socialists (USPD) and the Spartacists. Ebert (and later, Noske) made common cause with the right wing to smash the radical left and defuse the workers' anger that supported it. Noske's Freikorps were responsible for the murders of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of Germany's leading revolutionary socialists at the time.
Here's where I feel Freeman's parallel falls apart - there is a left in the US but it is far from being the militant movement that Germany had in 1919. If there were I have no doubt that the Democrats would be working very hard to do the same thing. Look at how they acted towards communists, socialists, and the radical left after WWII, under McCarthyism, and even up to 1968 at their convention in Chicago. The collapse of the Weimar Republic into Nazi Germany was not the sole responsibility of the far right; the SDP bears much of the blame as well. If the US truly does have a Weimar moment, it won't be a contest of Democrats vs. Republicans.
I highly recommend Pierre Broué's "The German Revolution" (a hefty book but well worth the time) for an excellent description and analysis of the years after WWI in Germany.
Excellent observations!!
There is also the unmentioned complicity of western news publications and the US government (Wilson) in preventing the immediate publication of George Seldes's remarkable interview with Germany's leading general Hindenburg who announced just after the Armistence went into effect--well before the "stab-in-the-back" story was formulated--that "The American infantry won the World War in the battle of the Argonne" (Seldes, "You Can't Print That," 1929, p.24). Had that been done, today's world would be very different. Note also how the Right has very effectively manipulated "Munich's appeasement" and the whole premise for the Cold War and justification for the National Security State.
The Right uses any country it resides in as a vehicle to increase its own power at the expemse of all other citizens, which is why it hates democracy and republican forms of government, and provides us with the reason why the US Empire sides(d) with so many such governments and why it can no longer do so--the propaganda no longer works in most other countrues. Thus the huge media push to destroy Obama's efforts, like today's Broder column. For a long time, I've characterized the Right and its allies as The Death Party, which includes many Democrats. Freeman certainly confirms my label.
"The Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, at a time when its economy was in total collapse, with ruinous war-reparation obligations and zero prospects for foreign investment or credit. Yet through an independent monetary policy of sovereign credit and a full-employment public-works program, the Third Reich was able to turn a bankrupt Germany, stripped of overseas colonies it could exploit, into the strongest economy in Europe within four years, even before armament spending began."
Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GE24Dj01.html
Hitler did not want Germany to become "a debt slave" to the international bankers and issued Labor Treasury Certificates to combat hyperinflation (caused partly by speculation)and pay for a public works stimulus program to get people back to work. This "Feder money" circulated as money and was renewable indefinitely and it was backed by WORK.
Gottfried Feder, a German economist was convinced that the state should create and control the money supply (with no compounding interest) not a cartel of private banks...
Of course this is no endorsement for right-wing dictators to solve our economic problems but - given the incredible "bail-out" of banksters that committed the greatest financial fraud in history -how democracy enhancing is our economy at closer inspection?
In Eastern Europe neoliberal policies, IMF "austerity measures" and the greatest pyramid scheme of all times have already created the perfect breeding ground for fascist political extremism...(neo-Nazis are popular among young voters)
Hitler wrote this- before he came to power: (Can future fascist mass-murderers and war-criminals still be right about one thing?)
"Thus, the task of the state toward capital was comparatively simple and clear: it only had to make certain that capital remains the handmaiden of the state and not fancy itself the mistress of the nation. This point of view could then be defined between two restrictive limits: preservation of a solvent, national, and independent economy on the one hand, assurance of the social rights of the workers on the other.
For the first time in my life I heard a principled discussion of international stock exchange and loan capital.....Previously I had been unable to recognize with the desired clarity the difference between this pure capital as the end result of PRODUCTIVE LABOUR and a capital whose existence and essence rests exclusively on SPECULATION. [he attended economic lectures by Gottfried Feder at the time]
In my eyes Feder's merit consisted in having established with ruthless brutality the speculative and economic character of stock exchange and loan capital, and in having exposed its eternal and age-old presupposition which is interest..........
“As I listened to Gottfried Feder's first lecture about the 'breaking of interest slavery,' I knew at once that this was a theoretical truth which would inevitably be of immense importance for the future of the German people. The sharp separation of stock exchange capital from the national economy offered the possibility of opposing the internationalization of the German economy without at the same time menacing the foundations of an independent national self-maintenance by a struggle against all capital. The development of Germany was much too clear in my eyes for me not to know that the hardest battle would have to be fought, not against hostile nations, but against international capital......
In proportion as economic life grew to be the dominant mistress of the state, money became the god whom all had to serve and to whom each man had to bow down...... the alienation of property from the wage-worker was increased ad infinitum. The stock exchange began to triumph and prepared slowly but surely to take the life of the nation into its guardianship and control.”
What do you think? Is it outrageous even to quote Hitler or need these thoughts be discussed to understand more of the economic context between the two world wars? And does it relate to the "international capital" of today (which created the current global crisis)?
Unmentioned by atimes was the very large amount of trade between the USSR and Hitler's Germany--a situation where the USSR acted evry bit as much as any raw material colony exploited for its natural resources, which helped maintian and enhance Stalin's power while providing the means for Germany's economic recovery. At the time, great efforts were made to keep this trade hidden, as it would make a lie of Germany's explanation as to why it could no longer pay reparations. (That the Versallies Treaty would provoke another war was noted prominantly by many at the time, but marginalized by the day's media. Keynes wrote a whole book about it: "The Economic Consequences of the Peace.")
As a historian, IMO, every aspect of Hitler's rise to power must be examined as he was seen as a "curative" to the real "menace"--Red Communism. Taking as the number one premise for historical examination that the Domestic and International Right only act in their own interest even if that's detrimental to their own country's interest will likely lead to some rather revealing revisionist histories, like that of "The Anti-Communist Impulse," by Parenti.
Credit enables a monetary exchange system to increase productivity based upon future payment of debt. That's a rough definition defending capitalism. Hitler was blinded by bigotry, and/or used bigotry and class warfare to support his rise to political power while Germany was suffering under the hardship of reparations.
Rather than blame any person or elite class, it seems better to examine the means by which powerful people exert control over the masses. That means, before and after WWI, was principally automobile manufacturing as a means to establish a 'transportation monopoly' and otherwise profit from automobile dependency. In this way, a more suitable target for scorn, the automobile epidemic, is upheld as a shared problem.
What are GM, Chrysler and most car companies today doing to reduce car dependency? Nothing! Instead, they are acting against the interests of humanity. We can choose to blame powerful people for our woes, or choose to examine how each of us are complicit in our own economic, environmental and social downfall.
Freeman's article although it contains a few facts, proceeds without reason,logic, principle or direction and is itself exemplary of it's predecessors in Nazi Germany and other socialist failures. Most telling is the steady attempt to discredit freedom by obfuscation and association with unfree entities, the vituperative hatred where free speech does exist and the complete absence of constructive thought or proposition. CLASSIC TOTALITARIAN RANT.
“Hitler had a genius for exploiting the resentment of the German people for their condition. More than 80% of the Nazi party's members were unemployed.”
Hitler exploited the German people’s resentment by appealing to their self-interest--not though conformity mesmerising myth and mythology of Aryan purity and superiority or cult of personality. Instead, by just following the money--it is clear that what drove the “stabbed in the back” lie for Nazis and those they were seeking to appeal to was the plain old self-interest of confiscating valuable Jewish property and bank accounts.
Hitler merely provided the rationale for this greed. He embodied not only the Germans' resentment but focused German eyes on his/their latent self-righteous indignation and rage. In so doing, greed became acceptable—if not good.
And Hitler could do this because for years the Germany he was operating in at the time existed in a moral vacuum. Not unlike the moral vacuum that the United States has existed in for the last 50 or so years--and more so in the last 30 years--and in the last eight years in particular.
In fact there are a number of similarities between Hitler's era and his use of self-interest to manipulate Germans and our culture today with it's "free" market and the similar manipulation of selt-interest by both political parties.
But to read Freeman's essay you would think only the Republicans were guilty of such practices. It's as if to Freeman, the Democrats never heard of, promoted or legislated for an unfettered market.
That's because what Freeman is proposing is to countervail the (Republican only!) appeal to self-interest with "cooperation and contribution from every American"--which come to think of it actually sounds more kaiserish than democratic--you know, sacrifice to the fatherland and all along with: ve haf vays of making you cooperate.
And I suppose for Freeman, accusing the Democrats of imitating Republicans wouldn't be too... contributive or cooperative.
But does cooperation and contribution even stand a chance to countervail the manipulative use--by either party--of self-interest?
If it all sounds unlikely, it's mostly because it is.
What Freeman is actually doing is expanding the mentioned moral vacuum. After all, what does "cooperation and contribution" have to do with demanding our rights(be protected)? Nothing if Freeman's essay is any indication.
Further, what Freeman's overall argument seems to imply is that if the Democrats do not countervail Republicans' manipulation of self-interest with cooperation and contribution from every American, then America will share the the same fate as the Weimar Republic.
Revealingly, and with regard to that argument, the focus of this essay is NOT on the core convictions—if any—held by those very people of the mentioned Weimar Republic. Those convictions central to that republic are left out of this essay. In fact the Weimar Republic sans its founding principles serves in this essay as mainly and merely as a backdrop to Nazi manipulation of self-interested Germans.
With a similar focus, Freeman also leaves out the core convictions—if any--of today’s Democrats with regard to our republic. Like the Weimar Germans, Freeman leaves the Democrats to serve merely as a backdrop to Republican manipulations.
And that is the tragedy that makes this essay so intriguing.
That is, what Freeman describes here is a continuation of the pattern of a degenerate state—where people desperately look outside themselves--for someone or something to conform to and follow.
It is the philosophy of dependence and not independence. It is the mentality of the victim be they German or American. It is this "countervailing" force to self-interest that has pretty much been what the Republicans and Democrats have been practicing for the last 50 years. And it’s the bipartisan focus that has led to our current catastrophe.
That is where things stand today. The Democrats have been reduced to imitating Republicans and... and um, Nazis. And although imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it’s not a sign of independence or strength. At least not the strength of your own convictions.
As Emerson wrote:
“In right state he is Man Thinking. In the degenerate state, where the victim of society, he tends to become a mere thinker, or still worse, the parrot of other men’s thinking.”
So what would the philosophy of independence entail?
The critical countervailing force to self-interest is not more dedication to self-interest or to party or to a charismatic individual--but to principle.
And that is precisely what Freeman leaves out of this essay. And yet by it’s exclusion, couldn’t this omission of principle serve as the essay’s deeper dire warning? That is, with regard to the Germans of the Weimar Republic and today's Democrats, could the Achilles heel and the "Weimar Moment" be the LACK of attachment to the core convictions of their respective republics?
This is Robert Freeman, the author of the article under discussion. The above post by Gregsdiary, is a thoughtful and articulate contribution. Thank you.
You have hit the nail obliquely on the head by writing that Hitler appealed to the self-interest of the German people—follow the money. That is precisely what I have inveighed against in my discussion about the failing of the free market model: “…the unrestrained behavior of self-interested individuals clearly, manifestly, does not "coalesce as if by an Invisible Hand to the greatest good for the greatest number."
You write, “And Hitler could do this because he was operating in a moral vacuum, not unlike the moral vacuum that has existed in the United States for the last 50 years—or more so in the last 30 years [since Reagan]—and in the last eight years [Bush II] in particular." My points exactly.
I say “obliquely” however, because I have not, as you suggest, engaged in any moral relativism or exculpation for the Democrats. My position on the Democrats has been made very clear in my earlier CommonDreams articles, including, especially, “Gelded Donkeys: Why the Democrats are Worse Than Useless.” It is here: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0329-22.htm
The problems are two fold. One, there is only so much an author can put into a single article without destroying its narrative drive. The purpose of this article was not to make a statement of principles for left-leaning activists. It was to call attention to a very real danger that confronts the nation today: that right-wingers are doing everything they can to destroy the current moderately left government and that if they are successful, we will lose our country.
Two, we must be careful about making the perfect the enemy of the good. Ideal models notwithstanding, Obama is the only guy we have right now. He won by the biggest electoral margin since Johnson beat Goldwater in 1964. Doubtless, he has many, many flaws and shortcomings. But if he is not successful, we can kiss goodbye any hope for a liberal revival for generations, if ever.
I would urge Gregsdiary to write the article he wishes I had written, the one on core principles that must animate any meaningful leftist revival. And the same for all the rest of you reading this comment. We need you as activists and as catalysts, not simply as talkers and judges. There is so much work to be done.
Sioux Rose
ROBERT F: Thank you for taking the time to respond in the forum. It's been some time that I photocopied an article to share with others. Yours qualifies. It raises important points I plan to share with my boyfriend's father, a Republican born again Christian. I'd like to see his responses to it, but I will also duck and cover as needed.
Hello Robert Freeman and thankyou for responding to my comment! I do agree with you that we may in fact be experiencing a "Weimar Moment" of our own.
But my primary point with regard to your essay was not that you were trying to exculpate the Democrats--although your essay seems to have more than a bit of that--but that you are trying to countervail self-interest--a powerful fundamental force rooted in human nature--with something that is in no way as powerful or oppositional.
I suspect the Democrats might prefer to take on "resentment" and champion the virtues of contribution and cooperation rather than the manipulation of self-interest. They--we--have become adept and adapted to avoidance.
If you agree that the primary problem regards human nature--and it seems that you do--then the corresponding force to that problem has to be countervailing.
This is the basis on which our democracy was founded.
It is not about seeking "perfection" or "ideal models." I would argue that this is a misunderstanding of the principles and ideals of democracy.
It is not "a statement of principles for left-leaning activists." The fact that you seem to see it as such--along with many other people--is possibly what leads you to look outside yourself--in fear at the Republicans or to follow Obama--instead of relying your individual conscience.
It may also be what prevented the Germans of the Weimar Republic from relying on their own obedience to the principles and ideals of their democracy.
With regard to the application of those principles and ideals, shucks, I do happen to have a diary entry on that--especially with regard to Weimar and Obama:
http://gregsdiary.livejournal.com/15570.html
We need a balanced budget, balanced trade, peaceful relations with all foreign states, and a consistently applied rule of law. We have none of these. Neither the dems nor the repubs support any of these.
What is progressive about personal attacks aimed at other writers. The Common Dreams "About" section contains the following description of who are invited to participate.
We are united by our common dreams of peace and security, equal opportunity, and meaningful participation in our society.
214 comments is one of the largest number for CD posts. Last November Jeanmarie Simpson wrote "Like It Or Not Change Is Coming". It attracted 280 or more comments. Some of them were similar in mentality to a few that were posted here in response to Robert Freeman's Hitler Redux prophecy.
Who are these people? Their comments identify them as people who do not share Craig's description. Peace. Peace.
How can you claim to want peace when using such attacks?
Just a thought
I read many comparisons of the situation in the Weimar republic and that of America. I've written some of them. But not usually on American sites.
There are some huge differences. There is basically no left wing movement in America, unlike the Weimar republic in Germany there is no Marxist alternative to terrify the Christians. The differences between Democrats and Republicans may seem very clear in America, but out here in a world with proportionally represented and multi-party governments it looks like the two party American system has converged as one would expect. The need to adopt a centrist approach in order to attract enough swing voters has left America with no alternatives. The face of government may have changed, but not the government itself. The Republicans are only a little more intellectually bankrupt than the Democrats, but frankly they were always the same anyway.
Unlike Germany, America cannot become bankrupt. No one, not even China, can allow America to default. This will certainly be China's century - but not yet. China is facing a far more acute crisis than America, and is likely to have to spend all of its US Treasury bonds just to keep civil unrest - already starting - at bay.
The "United" States of America does have an identity problem. This is not new. The end of the cold war, when America was largely united by knowing who you were against, has not gone well. Other than the usual flag waving it has hard to know what you are actually for. Nation building hasn't gone that well. Consumerism is doomed in a world that is running out of resources. To paraphrase your finest Secretary of State, "America has lost an enemy, and not yet found a role". The diversion of 9/11 is just that, a diversion. You can't possibly be afraid of a few deluded young men, can you? Now that the money has run out, you will have to decide on something other than shopping that defines you.
Comparisons between the collapse of the old political order in Germany and the situation in America really does not work. You have exactly the same structures as before, albeit with greatly reduced public confidence. There is no untested constitution to go badly wrong. The environment which allowed the Nazi's to blame foreigners for all of Germany's problems simply does not exist. Just drive cars that use less fuel for f***'s sake. You have lost no territory, hardly any dignity and your children are mostly fed.
The crisis is simply one of needing new ideas, and since most ideas that have influenced the world in the last hundred years have come from America my guess is we won't have to wait long. Of course it's humiliating that a barbarian like Rush Limbaugh has a few moment centre stage. The celebritisation of vulgar racism is an idea we could have perhaps done without, but the glass is still half full and America will figure it out.
I did not intend in any way to attack the author of tha article, only the content. I sympathize with his comment in an earlier reply regarding the time and effort it takes to compose with thoroughness, thoughtfulness and without haste. I feel the "Left-Right" labels that are widely used today are ill-defined and confine much commentary to a limited or vague range of concepts greatly diminishing their value. I'd like to propose a more inclusive and useful polital spectrum. You may arbitrarily decide which end to call left or right. At one extreme is anarchy-no govrnment whatsoever, at the other total absolute government. Interestingly conditions at both ends are dominated by only the use of brute physical force. A........L........C........R.D.......T Let A be Anarchy, T is Totalitarian, C-centrist L-Libertarian R&D being where I fancy the current US Republicans and Democrats to be. Other than Libertarian most of these party names and indeed their very dictionary meanings are different in different countries and in the same country at different times. They have supported or opposed together or against each other both sides of various issues. Where do your opinions fall, especially regarding specific issues? How about your favorite parties? Many may find a wide range of placement which perhaps is reason to reassess one's principles and positions. I agree with the last writer that the US "duopoly" is a virtual momopoly with only minor "moral" or popular issue differences to keep up the sham. I do believe proportional representation is a far more democratic system than US winner takes all. I personally lean toward libertarian beliefs which is rather like classic liberalism before all the confusion with socialism, in that it places individual rights and liberty above a coercive state but recognizes limited government and law as the means to insure those against sheer force. I'm new here but I think this is a very good forum. I liked Greg's posts too!
almost seems like a trillion years ago...
"By means of those operations the princes and sovereign states which performed them were enabled, in appearance, to pay their debts and to fulfil their engagements with a smaller quantity of silver than would otherwise have been requisite. It was indeed in appearance only; for the creditors were really defrauded of a part of what was due to them. All other debtors in the state were allowed the same privilege, and might pay with the same nominal sum of the new and debased coin whatever they had borrowed in the old. Such operations, therefore, have always proved favorable to the debtor, and ruinous to the creditor, and have sometimes produced a greater and more universal revolution in the fortunes of private persons, than could have been occasioned by a very great public calamity."
Adam Smith
The Wealth of Nations
Ah, yeah... best not cancel the F-22 just yet.
After reading your thought provoking article I browsed some of the comments. I myself have made the same connections with Hitler and the current Right wing oligarchy in the U.S.
Among the comments there seems to be some that fail to see a clear connection between the NAZI party and the Neocon Republicans and their coalition with the radical Christian Right. I think they have missed your central point and have become hung up on the seeming differences in terminology and some of the historical differences in circumstances.
To be sure at each stage in history no set of circumstances are identical and terminology shifts, which makes for some confusion when trying to apply universal labels.
However, the thing that has remained constant throughout human history is human nature and motives. There has always been a class that sees themselves as kings born to rule. They usually have preyed on the working class—and have enriched themselves at their expense. Americas original raison d'être was to throw off the yoke of that ruling class. A very socialistic idea at the time. Unfortunately the idea of class never really died in America and the wealthy and powerful determined the future course of the country. And with the exception of a few rare moments, they have been in control ever since and are fighting to retain that power.
Slight differences in tactics, strategic maneuvering and terminology aside nothing has changed in that struggle.
I just read this article-
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