Someone just called Venezuelan populist dictator Hugo Chavez a CommuNazi. I am sure Sean Penn would like to have that person jailed. Penn's "model democrat" was just granted power to make law by decree...
CommuNazi. Good word.
Australian blogger John Ray points out that the Big Lie of the 20th century was that National Socialism was rightwing. (And rightwing means conservative, so conservative means Nazi.) He points out that it was only a bit to the right of Stalin's Communism, but very much in the socialist camp of the time.
And the more important point for me is that both of these forms of ideology are ruthlessly totalitarian. That's their heart and their meaning. Nazis focussed mostly on Jews as the enemy (but had a larger list at hand, of course, which it was also working on). Communists first focussed on the well-off and the intellectuals, but eventually it seems to me that everyone became an enemy of the State. What communism hates above all, as befits its totalitarian power drive, is the individual soul
and its freedom.
One of the continuing puzzles of leftism is that while it is supposedly a collectivist movement "for the people", it almost always winds up enthroning a single Tyrant and worshipping him. The supposedly most radically egalitarian politics usually creates what amounts to a tyrannical monarchy. North Korea is a logical result. Ironies of enantiodromia abound.
It amused me this past year to hear your standard-issue liberals call the conservative Tea Party "fascist." Because they want...less government.
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All mapped out in 1945 in Sir Karl Popper's "The Open Society and its Enemies" volume two.
George Soros claims Popper as an inspiration an Siros named his organization after Popper's book. I insist Popper be judged on his own merits, not on Soros'.
- Trevor
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