Patterico states I was over the line condemning Malkin’s post, and he is right. So:
1.) I apologize to you all and Michelle for the tone and tenor, as well as the language.
2.) I want it made clear that I in no way think the racist crap that is heaped upon Malkin is in any way fair, or justified, or deserved. I said I can understand why she gets it, but that in no way excuses the fact that people say those things. Really, some of the stuff that has been said in the comments of that thread sounds like something spewed by Stormfront or other white supremacist groups. Long story short- what I said was unfair to Michelle and stupid.
I still disagree about the relevance of Sheehan’s marital status and record, but there will be a time for that later, and I don’t want this turning into a typical Washington non-apology apology.
Bill from INDC
You are shrill.
(Payback is a bitch, Cole!)
Steve
A better title for this apology would have been “Blog: Errata, Etc.” Inside joke!
Pb
Zero points to Patterico for stealing (heh) my phrase (“John Cole Defends the Indefensible”) — that’s what I said about your defense of Erick, too.
Of course, the difference this time being, you quickly caved in favor of Malkin (of all people) when another conservative took exception to it. Color me not surprised.
BinkyBoy
Wow, and you people thought the lefties were intellectually elite. Thats a bunch of assholes calling other people assholes. How much time do they waste blogging on bloggers and the comments?
Malkin is a twit. She’s a horrible right wing harpy screeching for the crowd and hoping another piece of meat comes her way. And now that haughty SOB wants to attack you about it?
You had nothing to apologize about.
Defense Guy
Mistakes were made. I still think it is wrong to include what are personal family matters into this debate. I agree with those who say that this divorce is none of our damn business. I didn’t think it was right in Illinois either.
Steve
It’s not that John caved, it’s that he calmed down. The statement that Malkin brings “even the nastiest” comments on herself was obviously over the top, and a great many of the anti-Malkin commenters demonstrated why. The underlying point that Malkin did not raise the divorce issue as a neutral, dispassionate observer, and that she is disingenuous for claiming otherwise, still remains.
Mike S
Interesting.
So Patterico finds a man with a small blog “the worst our politics has to offer.” I look forward to his condemnation of Ann Coulter for her many writen comments about the way libs look. I also am sure he hates Limbaugh for comments like calling Chelsey Clinton a dog.
Malkin spews bile. She also reacts with glee when her readers get a man fired for sending an assholish letter. There is no room for racism but she is a dispicable woman who condones racism, just ask any internee still living. I have no sympathy for her.
Another Jeff
This needs to be broken down into a couple separate issues.
First off, I don’t think you were right to say the part about her bringing the nasty, idiotic, and racist comments, like the ones from tbogg and commenters. I mean, i think Oliver Willis is one of the most repugnant people in the blogsphere, but it doesn’t excuse the people that call him the “N-word”.
That being said, you have absolutely no reason to apologize for the language. Malking acts like she can say whatever she wants, no matter how bad, but it’s okay as long as she doesn’t say “fuck” or “shit” or some variation of those.
I’m the same age as her and she just strikes me as way too uptight and prudish for someone that age. I’ll bet she only likes doing it missionary.
Otto Man
Agreed. The racist comments sent Malkin’s way are indefensible.
Not only is it morally wrong for her critics to stoop to that level, but it’s a strategic error since there are so, so many other ways to tear her down.
Make fun of her for channeling Casey Sheehan’s thoughts like John Edwards, or flip-flopping on what is and isn’t out of bounds, or for her general lapdog approach to the administration, or for the shoddy scholarship in that ridiculous pro-internment book of hers. Her race has nothing to do with her stupidity, which stands on its own.
Geek, Esq.
You were right the first time.
And considering that Malkin openly collaborates with WHITE SUPREMACISTS and advocates making racism an official part of state policy, I find it amazing that her fellow travelers on the right have the temerity to criticize only the racism that comes at her instead of from her.
Simply put, people who embrace Michelle Malkin have no crediblity on the issue of racism.
BinkyBoy
John,
what you wrote was in no way an attack on an Asian, it was an attack on a pundit that has used her looks and her shrillness to get attention and sell books encouraging racism. Attacking a bad pundit because of their complete insensitivity and their never ending lies isn’t something to apologize for. If you were angry, you can be damn sure there were many that were angrier. Its your blog, if you want to rant, rant. You were even generous enough to include a fair warning at the top of the entry. What more do faux-intellectuals like Patternity-suit-in-waiting want? Blogs are not journamalism, they are a mixture of emotion and opinion with an attempt by mostly-amatures to act like journalists.
Patterico
Very classy, John. I’ll do an update to reflect this.
Mike S.,
You don’t have any clue about me. You go look for my praise of Coulter and Limbaugh, and get back to us on that. I have criticized Coulter many times and don’t remember praising her once. Limbaugh — not a big fan of his either.
I didn’t say TBogg *was* the worst of what our politics has to offer — just that he *represents* it. Nasty, vicious, personal attacks are his specialty, as far as I can tell.
gratefulcub
Well Done.
You were wrong to condone and link to someone that not only makes fun of her appearance, but he does so with racial undertones. Many people on the left, that’s my wing, make the same racial slurs. They are discreet and nuanced in a way that allows us to say we aren’t being racist. I abhor the practice and it embarrasses me. You had the perfect defense of: I was really angry because MM is truly a twit and she really pissed me off and I lost my cool for a second. It would have been justifiable. But, you didn’t take that road. Well done. Malkin deserves to be lambasted for what she says and what she writes, not for being brown. Sheehan deserves to be judged on what she has to say and the legitamacy of her cause, not on her marital status.
Mike S
Yet you defend Malkin who also represents the same thing.
Geek, Esq.
IOIYAR.
John Cole
I am not apologizing for anything you guys think Malkin has done wrong, and I stil disagree about the divorce records.
I am apologizing for my behavior towards Michelle, which is the only thing I should be held responsible for. I was out of line and wrong, and I am sorry.
gratefulcub
Geek,
It doesn’t matter is Malkin is a race baiting racist.
The terrorist torture, we don’t because we are better than that.
Malkin uses racism, we don’t because WE are better than that.
Geek, Esq.
I’ve seen liberals denounce racism hurled at Malkin. I don’t see Republicans and conservatives denouncing Malkin’s overtly racist agenda and history.
As I said, IOIYAR.
gratefulcub
Sorry, I don’t know what IOIYAR means. It may explain everything.
That’s why liberals are better than the conservative pundits and activists. Let’s stay that way.
Geek, Esq.
It’s
Okay
If
You’re
A
Republican.
It’s okay for Michelle Malkin to openly endorse racism and collaborate with noxious white supremacists because, well, she’s a Republican!
John Cole
Geek- Enough. I think we know your opinion by now.
chadwig
You’ve proven yourself spineless. Sad day when someone has to back down from pointing out an obvious truth. Go comiserate with Dick Durban.
Geek, Esq.
Your house, and I’ll respect da rules.
gratefulcub
It’s okay to point out that she is a racist hack that writes books defending locking up americans with brown skin, that she is an intellectual lightweight, that she lies, that she is evil incarnate……….
But it is not okay to say she is asian and her eyes don’t match.
John Cole
I haven’t ‘caved’ or become ‘spineless.’ I still think she is wrong about the divorce records, and said so.
I think I was wrong in how I went about saying that. You don;t point out that it is fundamentally indecent to pry into someone’s marital history by being, well, fundamentally indecent to them.
Rick
John,
Very well done, and stated. Sigh…you’re my hero.
For the next few minutes, at least.
Cordially…
von
I thought your original post a bit over the top, but your criticism is dead on.
It’s also good to remember that Ms. Malkin made her public name by defending the right to intern folks indefinitely solely because of their race. Not merely to engage in racial profiling. Not merely to take race into account in making national security decisions. Not merely to hold foreign nationals. No, Ms. Malkin endorsed defining individuals based solely on the color of their skin and shape of their eyes — to the exclusion of the content of their character — and then locking them up.
In the very short list of things that prima facie UnAmerican, that’s at the top of the list. So, because I’m a patriot, I must confess: Michelle Malkin is not on my side.
Blue Neponset
I am kind of surprised you are backing away from your comments.
If you did mean it is ok to hurl racial slurs at Michelle Malkin then you have something to apologize for. If, as I suspect, you didn’t mean that type of reaction to Ms. Malkin is OK you shouldn’t be apologizing.
It is quite possible to come to the conclusion that Michelle Malkin is a vile, hate-filed bitch without bringing race into it.
Defense Guy
I am sorry John, your failure to absolutely indict the hated Malkin deviates from the accepted party line. You will now be branded a racist. You may seek conciliation by agreeing to kiss Howard Deans ring. A man, you may remember, who really knows racism. At least he isn’t a, shudder, republican.
That is all.
Don Surber
After the Smoking Gun report on that Jackass who drove over the crosses at Camp Cindy, screw it. Both sides have jumped teh shark. It ain’t worth the aggravation. Drudge reported the Smoking Gun thing. Those too lazy to go there the link is:
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0816051texas1.html
Geek, Esq.
For the record, I’m not suggesting that racism and misogyny are appropriate or even acceptable responses to Malkin’s screeds.
BumperStickerist
Geek – get a grip.
Better yet, go look at VDARE’s site and the Malkin-related material.
Apparently, VDare buys Malkin’s columns for its publications through the syndicator, Creator’s Syndicate.
Creator’s Syndicate is a cabal, representing the following givers of opinion. The Faces of Evil
I just knew Molly Ivins was in league with Malkin. Mark Shields, too.
MediaMatters provides some more heat in quest for some light:
So – this column, which she writes – is picked up by 200 papers and served by various websites which pay to seek visitors. And, somehow, VDARE is *proof* of Malkin’s longterm association with racist, et cetera, et cetera &cetera?
Ummmm, no Geek – it’s not.
Good mea culpa, John.
Franky
If any boundaries of decency remain, Malkin crossed it. Yet she ends the day being apologised to?
Stevo
Apology accepted by me. Now tell Michelle.
Now you should get some rest before you hallucinate some one else prowling around in your dumpster.
Richard Bennett
I thought you were wrong to citicize Malkin until I read her response to you. She plays “guilt by association” lumping you with somebody that was truly obnoxious, and then she says you said Bad Words.
Malkin was truly pathetic to do that to you, and she owes you an apology. She’s whiney crybaby who wants to have it both ways.
Don
It’s nice of you to apologize for being pissed, but I wonder if it’s not too much apology for the offense; you were pissed off enough by her behavior to momentarily feel some kinship with people who are, apparently, that pissed off at her all the time. The people making that big a deal over it strike me as looking to direct attention away form her jerkyness by trying to focus attention on the reactions it inspires.
Geek, Esq.
Uh, Bumperstickerist:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B (see bottom of blogroll)
BinkyBoy
Congrats! I’m sure this will make your future sleep all the more pleasant.
Geek, Esq.
I forgot Exhibit C.
Defense Guy
Geek, Esq
I did a search of the SPLC site on vdare.com and it came up with no results. I also searhced tolerance.org. What am I missing?
Geek, Esq.
Here ya go.
SeesThroughIt
Nobody, including Michelle Malkin, deserves to be the subject of racist and/or misogynist attacks. However, Michelle Malkin certainly deserves scorn and derision for her ridiculous views–including her deplorable racial outlook. Let her support racist shit like internment camps, and then bludgeon her with her own words.
KC
I just noticed someone in the comments section–alice–at Drum’s place said that Cindy Sheehan blamed 911 on Isreal when she was on Hardball? It sounds a little crazy to me, but does anyone know if this is true? I watched a clip of her on Hardball at Crooks and Liars but didn’t hear anything like this.
Brad R.
Long story short- what I said was unfair to Michelle and stupid.
No it wasn’t.
Pb
KC,
If this is complete, then she said no such thing; tell Alice she sounds a little crazy. :)
Darrell
Actually, from what I read, she made quite a case in her book, as there * really were * quite a number of Japanese sympathizers in the US during WWII. She also was quite open to criticism with open debates with critics. I detected nothing racist about her attitude regarding this issue. Furthermore, as a Filipina American, given the brutal savagery of the Japanese against her people in the Phillipines during that time (I believe she had relatives who fought the Japanese), a certain level of resentment towards the Japanese during WWII seems understandable.
Geek’s links, however, are more troubling. I didn’t look into it too deeply, but scanning a couple of vdare.com articles, I don’t know if I’d call them “hate”, but they were uncomfortably close to race obsessed kook. I’d like to hear from Malkin her explanation.. because at first glance, her association with them doesn’t look good
Defense Guy
Geek, esq.
Thanks. I’ll be checking this out. I really can’t abide by actual racists.
Brad R.
Malkin was truly pathetic to do that to you, and she owes you an apology. She’s whiney crybaby who wants to have it both ways.
I agree. Malkin should accept herself for what she is: a nasty polemicist. The difference is, most nasty polemicists don’t have the audacity to whine every time someone calls them a name (I should note that this relates solely to John’s original post, and not whatever stupid racism was posted in the comments. That type of shit is wholly unjustified and should be roundly condemned. And besides, I don’t think Phillipinos need to have their good name sullied by being associated with Michelle Malkin). You don’t hear The Rude Pundit or Ann Coulter crying that someone called them a four-letter word, do you? No, and that’s because they know it comes with the territory. When your entire schtick is designed specifically to create controversy, people are going to be pissed off. Suck it up and deal, Michelle.
Otto Man
I’ve seen her posts over at Drum’s place. Trust me, she’s been called crazy plenty of times, and with good reason.
von
Actually, from what I read, she made quite a case in her book, as there * really were * quite a number of Japanese sympathizers in the US during WWII.
Not to intrude into another’s debate, but:
1. Her support for this proposition was pretty whack (to use the technical term). See Muller’s and Robinson’s comprehensive defenses, and note that, although Ms. Malkin offers responses, they frequently elide the point or repeat the same (discredited) arguments without addressing the discrediting.
2. More to the point, “so what?” Assume Ms. Malkin is correct (and the evidence suggests she wasn’t) and that a substantial number of Japanese-Americans (both noncitizens and citizens) were sympathetic enough to Japan to pose a security threat to the United States.
3. If Ms. Malkin was correct, one could rationally say that race (or, more properly in this case, national origin) might be a signal that person X or so is worth further attention from the authorities. Perhaps, it might even justify a reasonable argument in favor of racial profiling.
4. It does not justify, however, the wholesale internment of virtually every Japanese person on the West Coast. In other words, even if you buy that “race” is evidence on which you can make a judgment about the content of another’s character on this narrow point, it does not support the proposition that race should trump the content of another’s character.
5. Unless, that is, you are Ms. Malkin and wish to not merely explain why and how the Japanese internment occurred, but to praise the Japanese internment as good and necessary and prudent.
Brad R.
Actually, from what I read, she made quite a case in her book, as there * really were * quite a number of Japanese sympathizers in the US during WWII. She also was quite open to criticism with open debates with critics. I detected nothing racist about her attitude regarding this issue.
Oh come on. Did you actually read the criticisms that people like Muller made? You can find the whole thing here: they’re exhaustive and incredibly damning.
Here’s the paragraph that sums it up best:
Chadster
Apology accepted. I’ll be watching for improvement, though.
Brad R.
Heh. You beat me to it, Von. Of course, *I* was the one who provided the actual link to Muller’s criticisms ;-)
KC
Thanks Pb for that link. That interview looks different than the one I saw. I guess she didn’t blame Isreal for anything, but I do disagree with her following statements:
I’m not sure how we would have gone after al Queda without invading Afghanistan. Getting rid of the Taliban and the elements that attacked our country, to me at least, was definitely worth it. I realize we didn’t finish the job, OBL is still out there, but I think the invasion was necessary nevertheless. At any rate, she clearly didn’t blame 911 on Isreal in this clip either so unless I see something different, I’ll assume alice is misguided or willfully ignorant.
MI
I am apologizing for my behavior towards Michelle, which is the only thing I should be held responsible for. I was out of line and wrong, and I am sorry.
haha, are you pulling a fast one on us?
Steve
I think the wingnut logic goes something like this:
1) Cindy said, roughly paraphrased, that if we get out of Iraq and Israel gets out of Palestine then terrorism will stop.
2) Thus, Cindy blames terrorism in part on Israel’s presence in Palestine.
3) Thus, Cindy claims Israel is responsible in part for terrorist acts like 9/11.
I might be giving her too much credit.
Otto Man
Before the war started, the government had Lt. Com. Kenneth Ringle investigate the loyalty of Japanese-Americans in the states, both citizens and non-citizens. It was an extensive investigation, which culminated with a break-in at the Japanese consulate in Los Angeles, where Ringle found internal documents from the Japanese officials which reported their opinion that 90% of the Japanese here were “cultural traitors” who would side with the U.S. in case of war.
When the war broke out, loyal groups of Japanese Americans — largely led by the assimilationist Nisei of the Japanese American Citizens League (JACL) — turned over suspect people in their communities for questioning by the FBI, and the government rounded up virtually all the questionable folk.
Internment wasn’t done to cope with a real threat, then, but to address the public paranoia over supposed Japanese saboteurs on the West Coast, a paranoia stirred up by the Hearst papers and flamed by politicians of both parties. (Including CA’s Attorney General Earl Warren.) The government knew it had virtually all the real threats, but went ahead with the curfew, exclusion and internment orders starting in February 1942 just to quiet things down.
If you’d like to read some actual history on the issue, as opposed to Malkin’s clumsy amateurish stab at it, check out the work of Muller or, better yet, the imminently readable books by Roger Daniels.
MI
*props if you’re not goofing, by the way. It’s unusual to see anyone apologize for anything these days. If you honestly think you were wrong, then good for you.
Otto Man
Agreed. While I support Sheehan’s protest, I definitely disagree with her attitude to the war in Afghanistan. One of my main objections to the Iraq debacle is that it diverted our resources and attention from the true enemy there.
Doc Rampage
I thought the non-Washington-style apology was classy. Sorry so many of your allies disagreed.
And a note for von: It is an outright lie to say that “Ms. Malkin made her public name by defending the right to intern folks indefinitely solely because of their race. Not merely to engage in racial profiling. Not merely to take race into account in making national security decisions. Not merely to hold foreign nationals. No, Ms. Malkin endorsed defining individuals based solely on the color of their skin and shape of their eyes—to the exclusion of the content of their character—and then locking them up.”
I’ve read the book and she does exactly the opposite. Her entire argument is that the WWII internment was not about race. She argues that (1) it is reasonable and accepted practice to take strong security measures with nationals of an enemy country in time of war, (2) there was good reason to suspect the loyalties of many Japanese at the time of WWII, and (3) there was no other practical way to handle the problem.
She gives a lot of evidence for the last two points. In particular, Japanese were not interned if they lived in non-sensitive areas of the country, and many, many people of European ancestry were interned who did live in sensitive areas of the country.
Darrell
Oh come on. Did you actually read the responses to Muller here? Don’t pretend that she doesn’t score a lot of points..in many instances with Muller acting like a juvenile.
Muller:
Malkin:
Ouch. Look, without going into details, Michelle seems to make a cogent argument, whereas much of Muller’s bluster amounts to “well, you’re not a PhD historian like I am so there”. You may not agree with her, but she was not “racist” on this internment book as has been alleged here
John Cole
Who the F*** do you think you are?
How does that work?
Heh.
(and for the humor impaired, that was a joke)
tyree
John..
Thanks for showing the politicians and media how a real apology reads.
Brad R.
In particular, Japanese were not interned if they lived in non-sensitive areas of the country, and many, many people of European ancestry were interned who did live in sensitive areas of the country.
Ah yes, but not Germans/Italians who were American citizens. The majority of Japanese who were interned were, in fact, American citizens.
ppGaz
Oh dear, we’re all shocked at the punditry of personality. We live in the age of total Politics of Personality, where citizenship, if you’re a citizen, or leadership, if you are a leader, is just an expression of the cult of personality.
Let us now have the Blogosphere of Personality, merging seamlessly with the Bathosphere of Personality.
We all know that personality is far more important than any real issues. Let us then christen the blog All Personality, All the Time. Let us become Personality Eternal.
BumperStickerist
Geek –
I read through the SPLC piece. It makes the case against VDARE which is different from simply citing Malkin’s work appearing on VDARE’s website as proof of Malkin’s racist tendencies.
As to the two other cites:
Sure, VDARE appearing on Malkin’s blogroll indicates approval. And, per the other cite, Malkin said that she liked VDARE. Given her specific interest in immigration/border control that makes sense.
fwiw – I think you can read and recommend a site as being of interest without buying into every last premise of the founder of the site. Also, VDARE stops *way* short of Stormfront. Stormfront requires the Kiddie Porn defense “Umm, I don’t like this stuff, I was just doing research” whereas there is a legitimate reason to read VDARE if you’re interested in border control issues.
Because unrestricted, unmonitored access through our borders makes it kinda tough to catch the bad guys.
If Malkin comes out with a strong positive statement “I support everything VDARE stands for – White Power!” I’ll buy the ‘she’s a racist in cahoots with racists’ argument. Till then, I don’t.
Otto Man
Is that the attitude you take with your doctor? “Just because you have that MD and ‘training’ and ‘experience,’ what makes you think you’re more qualified than me?”
Historians have been poring over those documents for six decades and come up with the now standard version of events Malkin seeks to refute. Malkin came in with no professional training, whizzed through some but not all of the archives, and banged out her book in a grand total of sixteen months. Most academic books take about five times as long as that, not because academics are slow, but because they’re thorough.
The book has been uniformly rejected by professional historians, which you can take as either a fair judgment of its worth or a vast left-wing conspiracy. Take your pick.
Brad R.
And Muller responded:
And the archive’s introduction bares this out:
I’ll admit that I’m no historian, and am unqualified to critique Michelle’s book indepth. But I’m very familiar with her M.O., which is always dishonest and nasty (see her column about New York building a “blame America first” monument at Ground Zero, which, if you bother to actually read about their plans, couldn’t be further from the truth).
Brad R.
What OttoMan said. I should also add that people like Von aren’t lunatic lefties, either. In fact, some of the most biting criticism of Malkin’s book came from Cathy Young, editor of that well-known Marxist rag Reason.
Darrell
Not to nit-pick, but after his juvenile attack on Malkin, Muller references in his rebuttal just ONE(?) particular archive, when Malkin had cited a multitude of other sources.. this sort of ‘rebuttal’ makes Muller look even more disingenuous:
Again, Malkin’s original comment:
Otto man wrote:
Smells like bullshit to me. Prove it. Or at least provide a shred of evidence that her book was “uniformly rejected” by professional historians. Again, Malkin openly debates her critics and makes a number of solid points. Cite for me which parts of her book are “racist”, as was alleged earlier in this thread?
Darrell
No argument from me on that. I never suggested that only ‘lunatic lefties’ were critical of her book. Muller is certainly no lunatic lefty.
At least 2 posters on this thread did say, however, that her book on Japanese internment in WWII demonstrates that she is “racist”. That is my beef.
SeesThroughIt
I dunno…maybe the parts where she forwards the idea that rounding up Americans and putting them in internment camps solely on the basis of race was a neato-keen idea back in WWII and it’s high time we started doing it again? Oh, right, that would be the entire book.
Darrell
SeesThroughIt Says:
Case in point example
capelza
Michelle Malkin spews out awful things in an oh so prim way and when people react nastily then she whines. She sets the fire and then cries when she gets burned. I think she plays the “poor little girl and those big bullies are being mean to me” card way too much. Especially when she’s said something especially egregious and doesn’t like the response.
It was decent of you to apologise, but she really didn’t deserve it.
Mike S
Anybody that doesn’t think internment was inherently racist is an idiot, which appears to be the rule with so many in the new republican Party. Here is a nice debunking
that I am sure the idiots that defend Malkin and her racist book will find wholly unconvincing. I hate to have Godwin’s law invoked but it looks a bit like like the Hitler youth has taken over in these people with the “nips” takeing the place of the Jews.
Otto Man
Well, most scholarly historical journals take a year and a half between a book’s publication and their own reviews, so we still have a bit to wait there. (It may be a long wait. Professional journals like the American Historical Review and the Journal of American History tend to take a dim view of material published from ideologically-driven publishing houses like Regnery.)
But History News Network — the main internet outlet for historians — has posted a number of reviews. The only positive one came from Daniel Pipes. Check out this for the general attitude of the rest:
http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/7253.html
And, of course, there is the lengthy rebuttal by Muller and Robinson, which has obviated the need for other historians to waste their time on her too.
I’m sure that won’t be enough for you, Darrell, so please feel free to prove that professional historians really do think highly of the book.
Steve
Justice Scalia has said that Korematsu, the Supreme Court case upholding internment, stands right next to the Dred Scott decision in the Supreme Court’s halls of shame.
It is no exaggeration to say that defending the practice of internment is equivalent to defending the institution of slavery. If someone wrote a book called “In Defense of Slavery,” would we wait for the professional historians to weigh in before forming an opinion?
Darrell
Bullshit dishonest analogy. We were in a war with Japan in which many thought we wouldn’t prevail. There really were Japanese americans sympathetic to Japan in that war. Again, bullshit analogy
M. Scott Eiland
It is no exaggeration to say that defending the practice of internment is equivalent to defending the institution of slavery.
True enough–though it’s interesting how the American Left has managed to excuse away the rather thorough involvement of two of their icons–FDR and Earl Warren–in the internment of the Japanese-Americans. Not to mention Black and Douglas signing onto the majority opinion in Korematsu.
Mike S
Give me a friggin break. Unlike the new Republicans, who excuse torture, rape and murder because of the administration, we call it out when we see it.
Show me one respectable person on the left that has ever excused those people involved.
capelza
Not all the American Left has excused those horrible mistakes. The Japanese Internment was a monstrous black eye on the legacy of FDR and anyone who encouraged, enabled, defended or implemented it.
Steve
And you believe these facts justify the internment of Americans who had Japanese ancestry? Hoo boy. No wonder Darrell gets his own flame threads.
StupidityRules
For some reason the most Italian Americans didn’t get interned (they did imprision 250 of them). 10,000 of them got relocated and 600,000 were required to carry special ID cards. But I’m guessing the Japanese Americans were not as loyal…
W.B. Reeves
I’ll take this slowly so that certain wee minds might be able to wrap themselves around the idea without exploding.
I am a white male southerner. My ancestors rebelled against the U.S. Government in the bloodiest conflict the nation has ever experienced. Following that war, many southerners of my color carried on a guerrilla war against Union occupation forces and their supporters. In 1876 the threat of renewed rebellion over a disputed Presidential election led to the withdrawal of the U.S. military from my home region resulting in a wave of terrorism and suppression against resident Unionists. During the Civil Rights movement many white southerners supported or actively took up violent resistance to the authority of the Federal Government.
In the present day, there is a small but significant movement of white southerners once again agitating for the separation of the southern states from the Federal Union. Some of these adherents are none too tightly wrapped. It is possible to concieve of the next McVeigh or Rudolph arising from their ranks.
Suppose, for a moment, that the next Oklahoma City style slaughter occurs in the name of “Southern Independence”. Would the Federal Government be justified in interning every white southern male along with their wives and children? If not, why not?
There is one fundamental difference between the scenario above and the historical reality of the WWII internment. White southerners have a long history of violent mass resistance and sedition towards the U.S. Government whereas the Nisei had none.
Geek, Esq.
We defend FDR and Warren’s actions? I’ll have to pay better attention in the future, because this has slipped by me unnoticed every single time.
I believe the lesson is that war tempts even liberals to act like ultra-rightwingers.
Geek, Esq.
Malkin’s recently deceased colleague at Vdare.com, Samuel Francis, did defend slavery.
Jim Caputo
Bloggers blogging on bloggers who’ve blogged about bloggers that have blogged on bloggers is quite boring. Can we talk about something important please?
Mike
“Another Jeff Says:
I’m the same age as her and she just strikes me as way too uptight and prudish for someone that age. I’ll bet she only likes doing it missionary.”
She strikes me as a babe.
Does she talk?
Whenever she’s on Fox I never notice…
Mike S
Maybe you should read up on it instead of “guessing.” Or does your name describe you as you are?
RG
And did you actually read Malkin’s book, or is Muller your savior because he’s one of the few people who tried to take Malkin down a peg?
FTR, I’ve not paid attention to the debate, but I find it amusing that you’re criticizing Malkin’s book based on what someone said and not what you yourself discovered in reading it.
Aakash
This is perhaps the best apology I’ve seen in the Blogosphere… No excuse-making, no ifs, ands, or buts… Thank you for posting this.
George Turner
I would, but they were too busy excusing Stalin to deal with such trivial matters.
StupidityRules
Mike S, I think you might have misunderstood my comment. Probably shouldn’t have written it as I did.
No I don’t think the Japanese Americans were less loyal. And I think that if the Japanese Americans were going to be interned than the Italian Americans should have been interned too. 11,000 German Americans got interned, nowhere near the Japanese American numbers. Obviously the internment was not due to them being a threat.
One of the most decorated American units ever was the 442nd Regimental Combat Team that served in Europe during WWII. It was composed of Japanese Americans.
Bob
A few months after Pearl Harbor there was a song that came out in America, called “We’re Gonna Find A Fellow Who’s Yellow And Beat Him Read, White And Blue.” No kidding. I read about it in the stacks of old Time Magazines.
I am reminded of the Chinese guy in Detroit who was beaten to death because the fellow with the baseball bat thought he was Japanese. You know, Toyota and all.
StupidityRules
George Turner, then name one respectable person on the left that has excused Stalin.
Steve
The guys with the baseball bat got probation, too. Not a day of jail time. Go figure.
George Turner
Ed Asner, StupidityRules. Or do you want a list of serious leftists, like all the Stalinists who founded Pacifica Radio, before they were tossed out by the Maoists, or even all the leftists at places like marxists.org?
Marc
Ed Asner? That’s the best you can do, George? Really?
I doubt anyone here on the left gives a rat’s ass what the last surviving Stalinists, Maoists, Marxists, Trotskyites, Menscheviks, Bolsheviks, or whatever think. They’re the far fringe, and have nothing to do with what the mainstream left thinks, anymore than the Klan, the Neo-Nazis, or Fred Phelps has anything to do with what the mainstream right thinks.
Seriously, if those people are your idea of representative voices on the left, you really need to widen your circle of reading.
StupidityRules
George Turner, really don’t think that you can use marxists and communists as respectable leftists, unless you belive that nazis and facists can be used as respectable rightists…
George Turner
Stupidity indeed rules.
Not a bit. What part of National Socialist Workers Party did you misunderstand? As for Fascism, Mussolini’s only jobs prior to founding the party were as a communist agitator/propagandist, labor organizer, and editor of a string of socialist party magazines like “Avanti!” and “Popolo d’Italia”. He went Fascist after the socialist party stiffed him for their leadership role, and engaged in a war of pique against them, sitting on the right side of the Italian parliament to be as far away from them as possible.
Marc
Good Lord, you’re not one of those people who thinks the Nazis were socialists, are you? Yes, those words were in the name of the party. But what about Hitler’s rule — close association with business leaders and the aristocracy — makes you think he was actually a socialist? Do you think they created communes or something?
Just because a word is used in the name of a political party or country doesn’t mean that’s an accurate description. Do you also think the Democratic Republic of Korea and the Democratic Republic of Germany represented bastions of democracy and republican thinking because they had those words in their names, too? Because I always thought North Korea and East Germany were communist dictatorships.
Heh. Indeed.
ppGaz
Oh great, next you’re going to tell us that the Know-Nothings actually knew something?
That the Greens are actually flesh-colored?
Yeah, right.
George Turner
Marc,
Have you actually read anything by Hitler or the Nazis? They viewed joining with capitalism as a necessary but temporary measure on the road to true socialism, where everything would be owned by the people.
The Nazis required worker representation in all companies, a minimum wage, worker’s rights, etc. Do you honestly think that a popular revolution in Germany wasn’t based on the worker??? Do you think all those German workers and German soldiers were fighting for a legacy as footwear fetishists on the History Channel 24/7, then suddenly returned to being run-of-the-mill Christian socialists after the war thingy didn’t work out?
Take a stroll through the German Propaganda Archives.
Here is a bit on the history of fascism, and here’s a bit on the National Socialists.
The Nazis and fascists were a revision to Marxism, required by the fact that European workers weren’t “rising up” to throw off their chains, as theory required. WW-I made it obvious that the people would fight for national causes, so the revolution would have to draw on nationalist and militarist themes and mythology to lead the people into throwing off their chains. It didn’t quite work out…
Otto Man
The Bull Moose Party? Nothing but bulls and moose.
jg
The NAZIS were socialists?
Now that is funny. I don’t care what side of the political aisle you hang out on.
carpeicthus
Yes, internment is a huge black eye on FDR’s legacy.
The main issue here is that Michelle basically thinks internment was the only good “domestic” policy FDR ever oversaw, which is … wow.
George Turner
Again JG, what part of “National Socialist Workers Party is giving you trouble? Did you ever read their domestic and economic policies, their condemnations of Anglo-American capitalism, etc? They were for redistribution of income, seizure of war profits, profit-sharing in industry, old-age pensions, and free education. They had to be for these things, otherwise they didn’t have a prayer of getting anyone elected.
Mike S
In other words, you can’t name any. Funny how you bring up Stalinists though. Someone I’m sure you adore, David Horowitz, was and still is one. Only now he writes “enemies lists” for the right instead of the left.
Thanks for playing Hal.
jg
I’d have to say its the part where you think just because it says socialist that means they were socialists. If you think the name says it all take a trip to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.
The Nazis were fascists. Every functioning government must be a little socialist in order to keep uprisings at bay, doesn’t mean they were looking to create Sweden.
jg
Or they had to talk about these things in order to get elected. Sounds a lot like politicians playing to wedge issues that can’t be solved politically in order to get and stay in power but never actually carrying through on the promise.
Orion
I still think you’re a disgusting, racist, ignorant twit (If you had any idea who *I* was you’d probably feel the same way about me), but that apology had class and style.
Well done, Mr. Cole.
Orion
George Turner
Mike S says,
This after I named one. Are you at all familiar with the history of the Communist Party USA in the 1930’s, 1940’s, and 1950’s? The far left was scandalized by Krushchev’s revelations about Stalin, as they’d been supporting him the whole time. But thank you for expressing your complete ignorance of history.
jg says,
Oh, so non-socialists commonly call themselves “socialists”. Funny that. In the aftermath of WW-II the remaining flavors of European socialism renounced socialism by force, thinking that the socialist proclivity for shooting people in the back of the head was the problem.
The reason socialists shoot people back in the head is that counter-revolutionary elements (aka people who don’t like to surrender their property) are party of their silly, juvenile conspiracy theory made up by Marx, a man who never held a job and sucked money off Engels. You’d think someone writing on the plight of the worker would at least try a couple days of it, instead of sitting in his basement writing dreck so dense that Engels had to translate it into language.
You also add
Wow. What a breathtaking display of ignorance. That’s like saying, “The Democrats were Tories.” Fascists were Italian. Nazis were German. Fascists supported the king of Italy. Fascists were led by a buffoon who professional buffoons thought cheapened the word. Mussolini had a string of Jewish girlfriends, was anti-racist, and was the first to recast Marxism into a struggle between oppressed worker-states like Italy and Anglo-American exploiter nations, since a country where everyone works in the family business can’t exactly revolt without killing their parents and uncles. Mussolini regarded Hitler as an upstart moron. He was also a psychopathic flake who flitted between anarchism, socialism, communism, fascism, and every variety in between. As an editor, he delighted in denouncing his previous week’s political philosophy, just to keep his readers riled up and his subscriptions high. Indimedia is the breeding ground of baby Mussolini’s, filled with anarcho communists who think that their newly dreamed up form of communism will work next time.
Trying to find a form of communism that would work is how the whole fascist/Nazi period was born. Marx’s theory is badly flawed, but nationalism or “worker nations” vs. “oppressor nations” doesn’t fix it. As has been historically observed, socialism only works to the extent it’s not implemented.
von
Darrell et al.:
Regarding whether “In Defense of Internment” defends “racism” (more properly, discrimination based upon national origin):
If you’re going to answer my argument, it’s not sufficient to say that Michelle Malkin’s revisionist history of internment is not racist because it seeks to defend internment on nonracial grounds. Else, virtually every revisionist history of the Holocaust that purports to “explain” why the Nazis had good reason to view the Jews as potential traitors to the German State would be A-OK in your book.* That’s not the rule that we apply in these circumstances. (Put another way, your argument proves too much.)
The fact of the matter is that there were nearly sixty years of research done on the Japanese Internment before Malkin came along with her revisionist history; virtually all of Malkin’s purportedly “new” evidence and arguments had previously been considered and rejected (in the 70’s — see Greg Robinson’s responses to Malkin); and there was a consensus view on internment — just like there is a consensus view on the Holocaust: Internment resulted from wartime histeria, fed by racism.
BTW, I don’t claim (and didn’t mean to claim) that Malkin is “racist.” My point is that her book “In Defense of Internment” is racist (loosely defined; see the caveat above), in that it seeks to obscure, excuse, and give comfort to a racist policy. Whether as a result of ignorance or malice, I honestly have no idea.
von
*Godwin’s law in action.
Darrell
von wrote:
One of the things Michelle puts to rest in her book is the description of Japanese internment facilites as “concentration camps” analogous to the treatment of Jews under Hitler. As she points out, and as the historians she debated conceded, this really is a BS comparison, as the facilities the Japanese were housed in were later used by our own GI’s, hardly comparable to the treatment of Jews under Nazi Germany.
Talk to your grandfather, grandmother, or anyone else you can find who actually lived through that time. What you will hear is that at that time in our history there were real, serious doubts among our populace that the US would prevail in WWII. Early on against the Japanese, the US suffered serious defeats. There was a real possibility the US would lose. So given that climate of literally “will-we-survive-this-as-a-nation” type of legitimate worry fighting against a ruthless enemy, and combine it with facts like this:
“28 percent (of draft age Japanese-American evacuees) refused to swear allegiance to their country or forswear allegiance to the emperor of Japan” and when given the opportunity, 5,620 Japanese-Americans chose to abandon their U.S. citizenship.
28 percent is an incredibly large number to worry about in a time in which we were in a death-clinch struggle, especially when a well timed sabotouge could have changed the outcome of the war. FDR agreed. I do not believe historians had pointed out that important 28 percent detail or the 5,600 number of Japanese renouncing their citizenship when given the opportunity, in making their conclusions about the internment..
I think Malkin makes a good, non-racist case for interment during WWII. She has made some solid points not brought into the debate before.. other points have had holes shot through them by historians like Muller. I strongly disagree that her work was ‘racist’.
Otto Man
No reputable historian has ever claimed they were akin to the concentration camps. Yes, the term was used during the war by many officials (before we realized what the Germans had done with that phrase) but there’s no historian out there who claims that Tule Lake was somehow like Auschwitz. That’s a strawman.
Just because some people are scared, that doesn’t mean other people lose their citizenship. And I’ve never been convinced by the argument that since the country might be in danger, we should destroy our Constitution before the enemy can.
True, but the questionnaire presented to Japanese Americans was horrbily phrased. It asked if they renounced all former allegiance to the Emperor of Japan. Many of the internees believed this was a trick question, something to get them to admit that they had once been loyal to the Emperor when they hadn’t, and thus large numbers in several of the camps refused to answer the question. Their refusal was taken by the WRA as a sign of their disloyalty.
Yes, they have. Time and time again.
Since you’ll likely dismiss this as “bullshit” again, Darrell, I’d recommend you to do some reading of your own on the subject. You seem convinced that Malkin has subverted the dominant historical narrative, but you’ve apparently never read any of it yourself. Try works by Roger Daniels, Alice Yang Murray, Ronald Takaki, John Dower, and Peter Irons.
Mike S
Georgie. Here is the original comment.
Now my question.
And now your comment.
So, exactly where is that name you claim to have given? Or do you think the idiotic use of the favorite pat answer, and non-sequiter, “commies” is sufficient.
Thatnks for playing Hal.
Marc
I’m still trying to get my head around George’s claim that the Nazis were somehow socialists.
So many questions. If the Nazis were socialists, then why were socialists and communists rounded up and put into the camps? Why did the supposedly socialist Nazis declare war against the Soviet Union? Why did the socialist Nazis align themselves with an aristocrat like Hindenburg? Why did they wrap their early rhetoric in Christian terms if they were godless socialists? Why did they work closely with industrialists if they were leading some socialist revolution?
Could you produce a single historian for us to support your claim that the Nazis were really socialists? Because every single thing I’ve read takes exactly the opposite view.
W.B. Reeves
This whole post is full of so many howlers it’s hard to know where to begin. Suggesting that that Fascism/Nazism were attempts “to find a form of communism that would work” won’t withstand even cursory scrutiny.
From their inception both of these ideologies sold themselves as a means of defeating Bolshevism/Communism. To that end they sought to split working class and lower middle class opinion by promoting National/Racial identity against Class/Economic identity. For reasons of expediency both Fascist and Nazi propagandists appropriated elements of the rhetoric of the left in order raid the mass constituencies of both the Socialists and the Communists. Since both Fascism and Communism are totalitarian, statist doctrines this was relatively easy to do.
However, there is a fundamental difference between organizing a society on the principle of National/Racial identity as opposed to the principle of a “classless” society. In the former case there is no requirement that industry be collectivized or that private property be abolished, nor even that Monarchy be done away with. In the latter, these things are essential.
Neither Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany collectivized their economies or abolished private property. Which is why the Right supported both Mussolini and Hitler. Niether of these despots was put into power by the Left. They were put in place by Rightwing coalitions containing both Conservatives and Monarchists. The King appointed Mussolini and Hindenberg appointed Hitler. Having achieved power with the support of the Right, the two Dictators immediately set about the political extermination of the Left. These are historical facts and they don’t support the simple minded and self serving notion that Fascism/Nazism were “Leftwing”.
Yes, once upon a time Mussolini was a Socialist (he was never a Communist). He broke with the Italian Socialist Party over its opposition to Italian entry into WWI, which Mussolini supported. He originated Fascism in opposition to his former party. If he was out to build a “Communist Society”, you’ll have to explain why he received the enthusiastic support of anti-Communists throughout Italy in addition to his subsequent failure to take the most elementary steps toward such a goal.
All dictatorships are not politically identical. Neither are all Totalitarian regimes. Pretending that they are is a recipe for endlessly repeating the disasters of the past. If you care to educate yourself about the actual character of Fascism/Nazism, you might start with Ernst Nolte’s “The Three Faces of Fascism” and go on from there. Or you can continue to paddle about in the kiddie pool of partisan dogma.
Darrell
Otto man wrote:
Speaking of straw men, in my previous post I readily acknowledge that a number of Michelle’s points had holes shot through them. She also makes some solid points. For example, right off the bat after Pearl harbor she points out that there was a Japanese pilot returning after the bombing who crash landed on Niihau, a privately owned Hawaiian island. Two American born citizens of Japanese descent on Niihau immediately collaborated with the pilot and took over the island until a wounded Hawaiian killed the pilot. Those actions, combined with the enormous percentage of Japanese unwilling to swear allegiance to the US paints a different picture to what most Americans have been told previously
Is there an on-line copy of that questionaire? Have you seen a copy? Because in time of war against Japan, it seems entirely reasonable to ask if they were willing to renounce all former allegiance to the Emperor who at that time was trying to kill and destroy us.
How many Americans do you think were aware of this 28% number of Japanese unwilling to swear allegiance to the US or forswear allegiance to their emperor before Michelle’s book? Damn few, that’s how many. Certainly wasn’t in my university history book. Show us Otto the citations in history books which justify your “time and time again” comment.
Well, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, jailed dissidents, and shut down newspapers and our constitution still stands tall. In certain cases, such as survival of the nation, extreme measures may be called for. That is the basis of Michelle’s book. Fortunately, such actions in our history have been few and far between.
Michelle’s case takes a realistic look at what was known then, and what was not known then, and concludes (with reason) that the internment was justified at that time. Hardly “racist”.. but hey, smearing is easier than debating
Otto Man
Wow, an article published in the Pacific Ship and Shore Historical Society Newsletter says it? Then it must be true.
I’d like to hold you to your standards of evidence, Darrell. Please produce written affadavits from the two men in question, notarized and with a photo of the downed pilot.
I can’t find an online copy, but I have seen a reproduction of it. Still, you can read about it here. And here. And here. And here.
you’re right, most Americans assumed it was 100%, not 28%. And since you seem to be using the loyalty questionnaire — which, again, has been written about to death, no matter how firmly you stick your fingers in your ears — you might want to remember that it was issued in 1943, and internment began in February 1942. It’s hard to say the questionnaire justified internment.
Are you retarded? Seriously. Are you? I’ve bent over backwards to recommend authors for you to do some reading on this. They’re listed up above. Pry yourself out of your mom’s basement and go to a fucking library. I’m not going to spoonfeed this to you anymore.
This from a man who replied to reasoned explanations of the standard historical narrative with “smells like bullshit” and “that’s a bullshit analogy.” Right.
I’m done with this, Darrell. You seem willfully inclined to stupidity, so have fun with it. At least the Nazis-were-socialists guy got creative with his craziness. You’ve just repeated nah-nah, can’t hear you, over and over again. I’m done trying.
W.B. Reeves
Translation: “I’ve neither read nor examined the opposing arguments so I’m going to ignore the question. Further, a single instance of Japanese American collaboration with the enemy justifies wholesale internment of the west coast Nisei whereas similar instances of disloyalty by Italian Americans and German Americans does not. Making such a distinction between Nisei and Europeans isn’t racist because I say so. Likewise, refusing to answer a question on questionaire that presumes previously disloyalty is the same as refusing to swear allegiance to the U.S. Government. Anyway you haven’t actually seen the questionaire. Neither have I but that’s beside the point.”
Sure.
jg
Thats classic. Nazis can’t be fascists, they were german. lol
Darrell
Translation: “I don’t have to show any evidence whatsoever of similar instances of German american or Italian American disloyalty which equates to the American born Japanese aiding the enemy or their refusing to renounce allegiance to the Emperor of Japan, because, well, because I believe it and that’s all there is to it. So I’ll just pretend that I’m so above it all and avoid any discussion of facts or evidence”
Darrell
Otto man wrote:
Fucking liar. I was not replying to your “reasoned explanations of historical narrative” when I said ‘smells like bullshit’. I was replying to your sweeping claim (without evidence) that the “book has been uniformly rejected by professional historians”
lincoln
First,I read both you and Patterico and enjoy both of your viewpoints.They make me think and ocasionally change my mind.
Secondly,do not be drawn into the position of defending your defenders only bvecause of their relationship to you.I find the screechers of the Democrat left to be the spiritual descendants of the Birchers.There are too many conspiracies,too many haters and I feel too many of them avoided serious fields of study which required thought (rather than regurgitation) in school.The Democratic party has a proud tradition(internationalism,civil rights,free enquiry) which is being debased.We need people who can discuss ideas.Thank you.
George Turner
W.B.
You might in turn try reading a biography of Mussolini. He’d spent his life denouncing the king until it became expedient to support him. Mussolini also denounced religion and bourgeois society. He grew up in a communist household, and spent his early years preaching Marx. His first editorial job was at the socialist weekly La Lotta di Classe – The Class Struggle, where he called Marx and Darwin the greatest thinkers of the previous century. Even during his later fascist period he said all thinkers should pass through the school of Marx and Machiavelli.
He despised the Church and called priests ‘servants of capitalism, persecutors of Jews, and black microbes’. He said Socialists who believed in Christianity should be expelled from the party. He called the army a criminal organization designed to protect capitalism and bourgeois society, and started denouncing socialists who believed in reform and elections instead of violent revolution and armed insurrection against the bourgeois.
During the Italian war in Libya he was anti-militarist and anti-war, but changed his stance in WW-I – breaking with the socialists, because he thought only by bleeding Europe white would cause enough pain to ignite the great class revolution – saying that only blood makes the wheels of history turn.
Once the fascists were rolling along he made a pact with the socialists, one he later denounced, but it was all part of his plan to appeal to “aristocrats and democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists”. In August of 1921 he established a school of fascist culture, and said the extreme leftist program of 1919 would be discarded.
Some of the original fascists left during this period, saying the movement had become corrupt, authoritarian, and moved to far away from its earlier left-wing idealism.
Now, after all that background, how on earth is fascism not an aberrant form of socialism? Sure, the fascists and Nazi hated socialists, yet the had no trouble calling communists “crypto-fascists” and paid tribute to Stalin, before the nasty little split, of course.
During Mussolini’s reign the fascists went through the libraries destroying all the back issues of socialist newspapers that Mussolini had edited, to hide the fact that he had been a proud socialist leader. After the war the socialists went through the libraries making sure the fascists didn’t miss any issues, as Mussolini was an embarrassment to everyone.
And of course the leftists spent the post-war period seeing to it that nobody connected fascism and Nazism to socialism, despite the patently obvious.
George Turner
jg, you do realize that the fascists were an Italian political party, don’t you? Or is it just something about fancy Italian boots? Mussolini took power in 1922. Do you ever wonder what their domestic policies were during the subsequent 20+ years? If the Nazis were fascists, how come people don’t reflexively shudder when they contemplate life in 1920’s Italy?
Darrell
Otto man wrote:
Thanks for giving us a good look at your self proclaimed
“reasoned explanations of historical narrative”. Your ignorance of the Niihau collaboration story says it all
SeesThroughIt
The Nazis were actually pinko commie bastards, and Michelle Malkin is a reasoned writer with oodles of support for her (non-racist) claims. Wow. I have officially tumbled into Bizarro World.
jg
Fascism is an ideaology not a political party. You can be a fascist and be american or a german or even a canadian. It has nothing to do with nationality.
George Turner
Wow jg.
If fascism is a political ideology then which ideology is it, or did you once again confuse fascism with a movement based on wearing fancy shoes? Mussolini changed the fascist party line almost continuously.
The early fascist party members, under Mussolini’s leadership, were largely made up of futurists who were against tyranny, against the king, and for judicial independence. They were anti-clerical and wanted to confiscate Church property. Mussolini said he’d do everything to preserve free speech and free thought and prevent censorship. He said that these libertarian ideals seperated fascism from socialism, yet in common with his previous socialist beliefs, he supported giving land to the peasants and worker representation in industry. He was stridently anti-racist, supported a progressive tax on capital, greater inheritence taxes, seizure of war profits, a guaranteed minimum wage, and women’s suffrage. In this period, the fascists opposed the idea of parliament, which they said was just an institution to keep the aging ruling class in power.
The fascist corporative system, the name of which is probably why you somehow think it’s a “right-wing” ideology, was based on worker input into all the corporations, which were actually trade unions that included both the employer and employee. This was supposed to minimize strife and harmonize production for the good of the people. Mussolini even imagined that corporative assemblies, where each member represented a particular trade, would replace parliamentary rule on economic matters. In all these matters his system was supposed to obsolete liberalism, socialism, and exploitive Anglo-Saxon capitalism.
Yet these positions were always subject to change, and Mussolini described fascism as a “super-relativist movement” with no fixed philosophical principles. When it suited him, he jettisoned libertarian ideals, allied himself with king and church, and used thugs to enforce his dictates. Now if Mussolini himself, the man who invented fascism and headed the fascist party, saw no fixed principles in fascism, then which “political ideology” do you think the word “fascism” refers to? The fascist party line of 1919, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1926, or later? The fascist party line, under the leadership of the founder of fascism, was startlingly different between all those years, so how do you choose which year represents the real fascist ideology? Or do you just have a cheap caricature you heard from puppets and a giant paper-mache head at an anti-Bush, anti-fascist protest march?
jg
Are you actually trying to tell me that there are no fascists outside of WWII Italy?
Fascism is an ideology, just like conservatism and liberalism. Its not stuck in any one party or nationality. Just because it started in Italy doesn’t mean its only found in Itlay.
Marc
A claim that he then supported, it seems.
Can you find a single professional historian who accepts the book? Lots of people here have pointed out those who criticized it, found fault with it, either in whole or in part. You keep demanding that they answer your every question with chapter and verse.
Show us a single professional historian who accepts the book or who’s written a positive review of it. Just one. If not, enough with the tantrum.
jg
When did I do that? Are you drunk? You’re just making shit up now to sound funny?
George Turner
Jg,
Ok Jg, if fascism is a “political ideology” then please provide us some fascist “beliefs” other than wearing cool Italian shoes, denouncing Anglo-Saxon capitalism, or ones that aren’t flatly contradicted by fascist political literature. I wish you good luck, because Mussolini could make the Guinness Book of Records for “flakiness”.
You probably assume that fascism must represent something, otherwise what would be the point running around calling everyone a “fascist”? Well, calling people “Jacobites” was getting old, so empty headed people needed a new insult.
Marc,
Here, from Daniel Pipes, PhD, history, Harvard.
“Goalposts, FORWARD – MARCH!!!”
Marc
Sorry, I asked for a professional historian. One whose profession is the teaching and writing of history. Someone who publishes in the journals of the profession and someone who’s employed at an actual university as a professor in the profession.
Pipes is a nutcase who’s been roundly dismissed by the profession. He was, I think, already mentioned my someone else in this thread as a Malkin supporter.
Try again. There must be tens of thousands of historians who meet the above criteria. If the profession isn’t overwhelmingly against the Malkin book, one of them has to like it.
TR
Isn’t Pipes the guy from Campus Watch, that right-wing watchdog group? Sure sounds like an impartial observer to me.
Why not just trot out David Horowitz?
Darrell
PhD History and author doesn’t qualify as “professional historian”? my, my.. look at the left move the goalposts. How honest of you. Actually, I wasn’t the one claiming that “The book has been uniformly rejected by professional historians”. That would, you know, put the burden of proof on the one making that claim dumbass
Marc
Great. I’ll start the door-to-door canvassing tonight. Would that make you happy?
SeesThroughIt
This “George Turner” character is fucking great. His strange shoe fetish is a particularly nice twist on run-of-the-mill dumbassery.
jg
Again with the shoes. Please point out where I said anything about shoes.
You’re the one who thinks fascism is only found in Italy during Mussolini’s time. You go look it up. I don’t have time to prove you wrong. Check the internets. I bet you’ll find it started in Italy but isn’t confined to the boot shaped place.
George Turner
My comment about shoes is just to point out that most people who spend their days denouncing Republicans as Nazis and fascists have no idea what the political and economic beliefs of Nazis and fascists actually were. Instead they tend to babble something about jack boots – thus the recurring footwear theme. Hitler and Mussolini relied on populism in two countries that were filled with liberals, socialists, and labor unions, and still are.
Maybe you should consult the Wikipedia.
George Turner
Marc,
You mean someone high up in the history establishment, such as those who awarded the prestigious Bancroft prize to Michael Bellesiles, then later retracting it when all the non-historians proved Bellesiles made up all his data?
Mike S
Daniel Pipes? IIRC, isn’t he the neo con who got oh so much right in Iraq?
I swear to God I am in the wrong party. No matter how bad you fuck up everything you touch, you are still praised by the people in the GOP.
Too f”in funny.
Mike S
Georgie. Even Dennis Praeger has said that the logical far right extencion to the GOP is Fascism just as the logical far left extencion of the Dem’s is communsim.
But then again I’m not sure he was aware that they were only a political party in Italy.
jg
I didn’t say anything about shoes though and you used it against me. Idiot.
When people say the current administration is like the Nazis you guys seem to not hear the word ‘LIKE’. As in similar.
Example:
“Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and
it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
-Hermann Goering 4/18/46
‘All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.’
Similiar. ‘Like’ the Nazis.
W.B. Reeves
Re: George Turner
Your entire nonresponse to my earlier post proves nothing except that Mussolini was an unprincipled opportunist. Not exactly news.
You haven’t refuted a single point I raised. Indeed you haven’t addressed even one of them. The truth remains that Fascism/Nazism were put in power by the Right not the Left. The fact is that neither Mussolini or Hitler ever implemented a Socialist, much less Communist, social or economic policy. Squalling about Mussolini’s early career as a Socialist doesn’t alter these realities. It does suggest that you know very little about European politics of the period.
If you actually care about the subject I suggest you do more than read a biography of Mussolini. I further suggest that you shake off the absurd notion that an individual who begins on the Left remains a Leftist regardless of their later political evolution. Were this so, the examples of Whitaker Chambers, Sidney Hook and David Horowitz, among others, would lead us to conclude that the GOP is a Communist front.
George Turner
W.B.
Sorry for skipping most of your comment, but it was way up there. Here’s my reply.
Perhaps you should then give it some cursory scrutiny, because that’s what many serious historians are saying. The consensus is that it’s hard to tell whether these flaky philosophies drew more from the right or the left, but as America lacks a landed aristocracy or a history of rule by political fiat, there’s nothing in their conception of “right” that would match up with Thomas Jefferson or George Washington.
And they did this by disparaging the communists as Judeo-Bolshevik, while pushing massive socialist economic programs which appealed to the working class.
The Fascists didn’t care a fig about racial identity until 1938, and only then under pressure from Nazi Germany. The seeds of both movements trace back to the turn of the century, in attempts to rectify Marxist theories with observation. One of the leading fascist theoreticians was Roberto Michels, a German Marxist who became a revolutionary syndicalist. Back then, syndicalists were the hard left branch of revolutionary Marxism. In their re-examinations of Marxism, they grabbed on to anti-rationalism, and decided myth was more important than fact in motivating the masses. Other influences were from Enrico Corradini’s nationalism, which emphasized accelerated industrialization. Corradini called himself a socialist. All the undercurrents of fascism started out as revisions to Marxist thought, which kept getting revised till the result no longer looked Marxist, and indeed was a refutation of much of Marxist theory. Unfortunately the starting point was a bizarre conspiracy theory dreamed up by a guy who bummed all his money off Engles, so it’s not surprise that to people outside of the hip little circles, the whole dispute sounds like a bunch of nerds debating whether Romulan, Klingon, or Ferengi economic systems are superior. To them it may be of vital importance, a matter of deep philosophy and of life and death, but to me their debate is just cheap entertainment at a Star Trek convention.
The Fascist and Nazi propagandists were from the left. They only later made accomodations with the established aristocratic classes.
Incorrect. Both Mussolini and Hitler were building “classless societies”, but without Marx’s “class struggle”. In Italy it made no sense to throw off your chains and kill your boss, since your boss was almost invariably your grandfather, father, or uncle.
And they explicitly said that abolishing private property was a distant, long term goal, and that the realities of production precluded its immediate implementation, pointing to the wreck of Russian communism as an outstanding example of rushing things. Both, however, moved to pull all property under the control and direction of either the state or those acting with the state.
Yet they were the left, in American parlance. Class-leveling, welfare-state work programs and big retirement benefits for everyone. Worker representation in all industrial decisions, agrarian reform, and an end to those exploitive capitalist money lenders.
King Vittorio Emanuele wanted to avoid the civil war threatened by the fascists, and threatened to abdicate if one occured. The liberal leaders had no answer to anarchy and political stalemate, while Mussolini said, “Either we are allowed to govern, or we will seize power by marching on Rome.” Like other politicians, the king thought giving power to Mussolini was the best way to resolve the impasse. The fascist insurrection began on October 22, 1922, so the king imposed martial law and sent the army to crush the fascists, who collapsed where opposed. But later that morning the king was incorrectly informed that the army couldn’t hold against the fascists, so he relented. Prime minister Facta resigned and the king asked Salandra to become PM. Salandra asked Mussolini to join his new administration, but Mussolini refused, so Salandra withdrew from the nomination and suggested that Mussolini be given the post, lest Giolitti, a tax and spender – though a liberal like Salandra, get it. The whole thing was wrapped up by October 29, a week later. In truth, Mussolini’s “army” of fascists was held up by only 400 Italian police, and the whole revolution was a comic farce.
Salandra and Giolitti, the leading liberals, approved, and the socialists reacted positively, thinking that the collapse of the old liberal order was a necessary precondition to their future success. There was no communist threat.
Similarly, Hindenburg, the elected President of Germany, appointed Hitler as Chancelllor because nobody else’s party was in position to form an effective ruling coalition. He only did this after firing Papen and appointing Kurt von Schleicher as Chancellor, saying the National Socialists were too immature to run things. However Schleicher failed at forming a ruling coalition, and resigned, and Hitler could form a coalition, so Hindenburg had to appoint Hitler.
That’s how the German government STILL works. If the Bundestag doesn’t elect the Presidential nominee for Chancellor, they have two weeks to elect their own nominee. If that fails but the person with the most votes has a majority, the president must appoint him Chancellor. If the highest vote getter doesn’t have a majority, the President can still appoint him Chancellor. The current President of Germany is Horst Kohler, who you’ve probably never heard of, since you can’t blame him for appointing Hitler.
If the two dictators were on the right, they wouldn’t need to secure the support of the right, now would they… What the offered the right was an antidote to all the crazy strikes, saying that they would unite the workers in harmonious and efficient production by forming a partnership with owners. The trade unions were subsumed into the party because the party represented the unions’ interests. Similarly, independent unions disappeared under communism, because the communists, in theory, were the union.
He was raised communist, and in 1903 was calling himself an “authoritarian communist”. He even claimed he met Lenin in Switzerland. He stayed communist till 1914, though at times also claimed to be an anarchist or an anarcho-syndicalist. Two of his collaborative writers at his journal Utopia went on to found the Italian and German communist parties. Most of the organizers of the fascist movement were revolutionary syndicalists and former Marxists, along with a sprinkling of nationalists and futurists. Most of the early rank and file were returning soldiers who had no political experience.
He thought that the war would cause enough pain to bring about the violent revolution of the proletariat, and thought he’d bring the Socialist Party along with him, since he was in a prominent leadership position as editor of their paper. He was a bit too abrupt, and in a confrontation with the rest of the socialist party, he resigned. However, he continued his efforts, and thought that neutrality was doing nothing to advance the revolutionary socialist cause. Once he’d come out in favor of war, Italian industrialists and the Italian government supported him.
By the time he got involved in fascism, after the war, he’d rethought his philosophy, something he was always doing, and no longer believed in the “class struggle” theory of history. Instead he’d taken ideas from syndicalists, corporatists (not to be confused with our term for corporations, it would translate as neo-feudalists who wanted all aspects of society to work together) futurists, and others, and no longer supported the Marxist interpretation of history. History was, he decided, a struggle between weak working nations like Italy and rich capitalist exploiter nations like England and America. He advanced fascism as a third path, avoiding the pitfalls and failures of socialism, communism, and capitalism. Here’s the complete text of his 1932 Doctrine of Fascism.
You do know that Nolte was a student of Martin Heidegger, the chief philosopher of the Nazi party, don’t you? That Nolte was condemned by all historians for justifying the Holocaust? Why don’t I just read a good revisionist book of Holocaust denial by David Duke or Stormfront?
Sorry, but it’s you who are playing in the kiddie pool. After the war the left took great pains to make sure nobody connected the National Socialists and Fascists with the left. They almost succeeded, despite the patent absurdity of having a bunch of socialist revolutionaries running amok.
lyndi
jg,
Thanks for the laugh. “When people say the current administration is like the Nazis you guys seem to not hear the word ‘LIKE’. As in similar.”
I wasn’t an English major, but how is being a Nazi different than being LIKE a Nazi? You hold the hateful beliefs but don’t wear the uniform? Or maybe you don’t actually live in Germany?
Your comment implies that being like a Nazi is not as bad as being an actual Nazi. So would it rank only 2 on a scale of 10? (With 10 being a total anti-Semetic, anti-gay, anti-intellectual, mass-murdering, master race-seeking bad guy.)
I linked to this thread from another site and the comments here have been eye opening. Many here call others racists, but even while doing so comment on the sexual positions of Michelle Malkin. Classy.
It is easy to judge the Founding Fathers for owning slaves and FDR for interring Japanese during the war, and there are many other questionable judgments throughout time. FDR was fighting a war and there was intelligence about some Japanese Americans spying. Do I like the idea of any citizen being interred? Absolutely not. But I wasn’t the person who made the decision at the time with the information they had.
I’m glad we live in a country where people can write books with differing opinions so that we can look at various viewpoints and make up our minds. To those of you who disagree with Malkin, do you think that because you believe interment was wrong that it is the final decision and no other information or opinions should be provided? What does that say about your belief in our freedom of speech?
It is one thing to say someone is wrong. It is quite another thing to bring the person’s looks, nationality, sexual preference and other traits into account.
That is why I liked John Cole’s apology. He maintains Malkin is wrong in her opinions while saying that attacking her ethnicity and appearance is also wrong. Kudos to him. The rest of our could take a lesson from him.
W.B. Reeves
George,
Thank you for responding to my post in full.
Well I see now how you could go so wrong. You’re seemingly laboring under the illusion that the world at large can be understood through the prism of “American parlance”. This is the epitome of a provencial worldview.
The events under discussion are part European history and culture. They cannot be understood if one artificially imposes the parochial presumptions of a separate continent and culture upon them.
Indeed, since I very much doubt that you could cite a single instance where either Jefferson or Washington used the terms “left” and “right”. We do know that Jefferson was an early supporter of the French Revolution whereas Washington was not. Make of that what you will.
How many of these programs were ever actually inaugurated? Again, propaganda doesn’t amount to substance. Obviously you know as well as I that Hitler physically liquidated those who took this bait and switch seriously during the “Night of the Long Knives.” Inconvenient to your argument perhaps but true nevertheless.
This conflicts with your earlier blanket statement about the use of Judeo Bolshevism. I presume you mean’t to specify this as a Nazi tactic. Unfortunately for your argument you didn’t do so. In any case your reliance on “American parlance” betrays you here. Europeans of Mussolini and Hitler’s generation did not view Nationality and Race as mutually exclusive categories. In Europe, unlike the U.S., Nationality equated with ethnicity. It was common to make reference to the “French race”, the “Anglo Saxon race”, the “German Race”, etc. This was a major factor in the appeal that Nazi racial theories held, not only in Germany but throughout Europe. They were, in fact, an elaboration of Mussolini’s own appeals to mystical nationalism.
False. Syndicalists were not and are not Marxists. Syndicalist explicitly reject Marx’s call for a political struggle to seize state power. The rest of your recitation simply shows, as I pointed out above, individuals have been known to travel from one end of the political spectrum to the other. You admit as much yourself in the following passage:
If they refuted Marx they were, by definition, no longer Marxists, if they had in fact ever been. (Your mislabeling of Syndicalism doesn’t inspire confidence.) In which case you can hardly use the ideology they abandoned to typify their later views.
Except according to you these debates led to Revolution, WWII and the Holocaust. In such a context your Trekie comparison is both bizarre and grotesque.
False. The truth is that some were and some were not. Alfred Rosenberg, for example, was no more a product of the Left than was Hitler.
Once more, you have not and cannot present any evidence of such a policy, as opposed to propaganda boiler plate, being carried out. Neither Fascist Italy nor Nazi Germany ever took any concrete steps towards abolishing class distinctions. As for the contention that class struggle in Italy was obviated by kinship, the mass of Italian industrial workers were no more the blood kin of the factory owners than the Italian peasantry were the blood kin of their Padrones. Although there were always those born on the wrong side of the bedsheet.
The only thing of substance here is the portion concerning property being placed under the direction and control of the State. This , of course, is neither a Left or Rightwing principle. It is a power that is inherent in any Statist formation, including our own U.S. Government as the recent SCUS ruling on Eminent Domain amply illustrates. Or are you suggesting that the U.S. Constitution and the institutions that flow from it are also products of the Left?
Yet they were not Americans and they were not operating in an American social/political context. Imposing “American parlance”, presuming we could agree on what the meaning of that pregnant phrase is, constitutes a breathtaking exercise in political and historical myopia.
Despite your construction, public works programs and government guaranteed pensions are not synonymous with “class levelling”. Unless, of course, you wish to induct Otto Von Bismark into the Communists ranks. Presumably, you have already placed FDR, Truman, Ike, Kennedy and Nixon there.
As for worker representation, a single query is sufficient to dispose of this canard. Did the workers choose their representatives, or did such “representatives” owe their positions to the State or Party? “Representation” without accountability is no representation at all. Similarly, how much land was actually redistributed by the so-called agrarian reform? How many financial institutions were nationalized?
It isn’t at all clear what you think you are proving with this. All you have actually done is buttress my point that Mussolini and Hitler were not brought to power by the Left. Would the Right have preferred a different choice? Surely but when push came to shove they preferred a pair of political gangsters and the death of Parliamentary governance to either a “tax and spender” or coalition with the Social Democrats. The latter, it should be remembered, were the authors of the Weimar Republic and its staunchest defenders.
Other than this your recitation is notable for what it elides. Why, for example, was the King misled about the Army’s ability to crush the Fascists? What is the meaning of “reacted positively”? Are you trying to imply that the Socialists supported the Fascist coup? In the case of Germany, you ignore the fact that the Government had been run by executive fiat without recourse to Parliament since the Chancellorship of Breuning. This was done specifically to exclude the Social Democrats from power at the behest of the Right. The German Right, it should be recalled, had never reconciled itself to the Republic and actively sought to replace it with an Authoritarian or even Monarchist regime.
Really, this is sophmoric. As if there were no competition for leadership on the Right. As if Mussolini and Hitler had no rivals in their drive for leadership. Obviously, none of our GOP Presidents could be described as being on the Right since they had to compete for the support of the Right. Likewise, none of our Democratic Presidents could be described as being on the Left since they had to compete for the the support of the Left. What nonsense.
Didn’t you say that there was no question of class struggle in Italy because of family ties? It appears you have contradicted yourself. Again.
Well, if Mussolini said it, it must be true. Whatever meaning the term communist holds in this regard, it cannot be consonant with the Communist Party inaugurated by the Bolsheviks since that did not come into being prior to 1917. The fact remains that Mussolini was never a member of the Communist Party nor a Bolshevik
Which is to say he had abandoned his earlier Socialism in favor of Nationalism, at that time the dominant theory of the European Right.
You do know that Hannah Arendt, the Jewish author of “Eichmann In Jerusalem”, was a student of Heidigger as well as his close personal friend, don’t you? Are you going to compare her to David Duke and Stormfront as well?
I am cognizant of Nolte’s role in the German “Historian’s Debate” of 1986. He has hardly been “condemned by all historians.” He has been roundly criticized but continues to hold a University Professorship, publishes and receives awards. The substance of the dispute was Nolte’s contention that the holocaust was inspired by and a reaction to the slaughters perpetrated in the Soviet Union. In short, he was blaiming the Left for the Nazis. Sound familiar?
Whether this contention amounts to “justifying the holocaust” is subject to debate. What isn’t subject to debate is that it faithfully reflects the excuses and self justifications employed by the Nazis. As a historian of Fascist/Nazi ideology, Nolte knows his subject.
In any case, the book I recommended was published in the U.S in 1963, long before he formulated the above argument. The book’s validity has not been impugned and it in no way figures in the subsequent contraversy. Your comment appears to be the result of googling Wikpedia.
The irony here is that I recommended Nolte’s book because I knew he shared a number of your own assumptions, albeit without the blinders of “American parlance”. Consequently, he does nothing so foolish as attempting peg Fascism/Nazism as being Leftwing, despite his conservative credentials. I’d be cautious with the Nazi-baiting if I were you
I continue to urge that you broaden your reading. Assuming the subject holds more than a partisan interest for you.
jg
Thanks for the laugh in return. You really can’t understand what I’m saying? Is your point that unless the Bush adminstration kills 6 million Jews they can’t be compared to the Nazis? Seriously? You seem to think that by using the word ‘like’ people are ‘equating’ the Bush administration to the Nazis. I don’t agree. People are seeing similarities in how they go about getting popular support for their endeavors. I think the Goering quote above makes my point pretty clearly.
You clearly aren’t an english major. Was it even your first language?
My dad used to tell me when I was a kid that I was like a monkey the way I climbed trees and stuff. Should he not have said that since I’m not covered in brown fur and don’t drag my knuckles when I walk?
Ignorant wretch.
lyndi
JG,
Ignorant Wretch here. Check Roget’s Thesaurus, and oddly enough, “equal” and “equivalent” are synonyms for “like”. Enough said, we’ll never agree. Besides, my post was just in jest anyway.
Being new to this blog, I was taken by the tone and substance of the comments. The hostility was amazing, especially when people didn’t agree on an issue. I wonder if the anonymity of the commenters contributes to the anger and venom being spewed?
Your comments did make me chuckle, but I didn’t call you an idiot or moron. I have no idea who you are. I just picked your comment to comment on because it really made me think, and because so many have made the Bush=Hitler comments before, but not the way you had.
Just wondering, what if English isn’t my “first” language? Are you saying that people who aren’t English speaking natives are stupid? Wouldn’t that make YOU racist? Would it make you feel superior to know that we spoke Polish in my home when I was a child because my parents were immigrants and trying to learn English? That must be rich, you found a dumb Polak. Go ahead, pile on the Polish jokes – I’ve heard them all.
jg
Dzien Dobre (had to look up the spelling) I’ve known many Poles, none were stupid.
You don’t see any difference in these two sentences:
The Bush adminstration is acting like the Nazis.
The people in the Bush administration are Nazis.
In one case there can still be differences, good or bad. Inthe other there are no differences.
Like a nazi
is a nazi
Maybe its just me but those are two different statements.