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Old 06-10-2004, 05:40 PM   #9
DanaC
We have to go back, Kate!
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Yorkshire
Posts: 25,964
Quote:
The irony of using Hitler and other dictatorial racists as a defense for censoring certain speech is that their populism fomented exactly because they outlawed certain kinds of speech
Hitler's populism was fomented by the political zeitgeist. With massive economic and social problems, a sense of defeat and unfair punishment ( versailles, the total warguilt clause) the shambolic Weimar government looked devoid of answers. A running war began to be fought by two sides. Communism and fascism. That war was fought at street level with fists and boots and raucous humour and posters and books and music and violent confrontation......In the end though, capital which held its decision in abeyance for as long as it could then decided and swung it's support behind the fascists as being the less devastating force than the communists

The war that was fought on the streets of Germany and in the barracks of bavaria was one of intimidation and the spreading of an idea, any idea in a very dark time for a defeated and demoralised people. Hitler offered them a golden. jewel encrusted dream of the true destiny of their nation but before he ever got to offer that to them on a national level he first had to win various smaller victories. In order to place himself in such a place as to take advantage of the political situation he first had to manouvre his way through various military and political organisations and he used the tactics one might expect him to have used.
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