perfidy

Buckethead: Dingdingdingding! Right answer! You're right, I am a diehard Federalist, which is funny, because our federal government is, apparently, no longer federalist. This is especially ironic since we have a Republican president. 

Wow... if the Democrats are drifting rudderless after accepting the leadership of Cap'n Clinton, the Republicans are no better off. They no longer even pay lip service to 'limited' federal government. 

Hence the paradox that frosts my flakes. Issues like education, which, with a Republican prez, should see more responsibility, latitude(, and yes, funding), devolving upon the states, are instead being swallowed by the bureaucratic beast in Washington. 

But whatever. I'm not exactly a whiz on education reform, gun control, or any other major policy issue. What the hell do I know? 

My cat's breath smells like catfood. 
 

Well, so far, TV coverage of the Iraq war has been tactless, banal, near-pornographic, and hysterical, as if the war is really the first season of Survivor.

"In Um Qasr today, the Mogogo tribe bested the Wolodok tribe 4 to 3 in the giant obstacle course race, but the greater number of athletic teammates should help the Mogogos in tomorrow's feats of agility. Both teams say they are hungry, and have not yet figured out how to fashion local vines and twigs into fishing tackle. According to George, de facto leader of the Wolodoks, a coalition is forming to vote Mogogo member Saddam off the island next. Stay tuned for more!"

Yesterday, several coalition soldiers were killed, and others were taken hostage, and the TV press spun themselves into a frenzy of babble and pie charts. May I point out that the number of soldiers shot by Iraqis is still just about countable on fingers and toes? After all, there is a war on. Yet the press treats every show of resistance by Iraqi soldiers as a horrendous deviation from plan. What do you imagine would happen if the fight were to become truly bloody, like Verdun, Normandy, Iwo Jima? God forbid that happens, but if the American press ramps up to report individual casualties, what will they do if the war turns into a War?
Just one frivolous reason to ardently wish for a speedy end to the conflict.

Gulf War II: The Clone Wars

Did anyone else notice how young and fit Saddam is looking now that the war's on? Bombings and mortal terror seem to be just the thing to put some color back in his complexion! Just last week he looked so old, tired, gray, and-dare I say-wizened. But somehow, in the last week, in between the bombings, the fires, and the regime change, he has found the time to get a facelift, a chintuck, slap some Grecian Formula into the hair and 'stache, and hit the treadmill. Lookin' good, Saddam! Kudos to you and your stylist!

Flogging

Mike... thank you for the lengthy analysis. I'm signing off on the empire debate. Your kung fu is the best.

If the term hegemony is more acceptable than empire, I'll let it go at that. The United States has a hegemony rather than informal imperialism. But I'll make my final statement on this that American hegemony looks an awful lot like British informal imperialism. 

I have previously conceded that some parts of the world voluntarily adopt aspects of American culture. I was not insisting that western European nations have had McDonald's forced on them. I hope I've made that clear. 

Communism and the Origins of Fascism and Nazism 

Steve, you can read this when you get back from the shower. I'm sure you'll survive. I'm going to get fairly specific with this, so here it is. This is going to be quite extensive, but I'll ask you to please read it in its entirety when you have the time. I might suggest printing it out in lieu of reading it onscreen. 

According to strict Marxist letter of the law, the Bolsheviks in Russia could not be socialist because they had not yet experienced the bourgeois overthrow of the feudal aristocrats and the institution of a market economy. Lenin realized this, and instituted the New Economic Policy, which was essentially a market economy. It was still in place when Lenin suffered his stroke, thus he never instituted a socialist economy. Stalin later abandoned Marxist doctrine whole hog when he declared the legitimacy of socialism in one state. According to Marx, the worker's revolution that achieved the final stage of the dialectic had to be global. Anything less was not Communism. Since the global worker's revolution never happened, Communism never happened. Leaders who referred to themselves as Communist were liars. 

Economic planning in the Third Reich was not exactly centrally planned. Having worked as a Teaching Assistant on the second half of western civilization courses (C. 1700-present) twice, and having taught the course myself as an adjunct once, not to mention the slew of European, German, and Russian history courses I've taken as a college student and graduate student, this is what I've found. Adolf Hitler followed Benito Mussolini's economic strategy, known as Corporatism. Corporatism organized similar branches of industry into cartels, hence there was a steel cartel, an automobile cartel, a railway cartel, etc. Under Corporatism, the Fascists and Nazis maintained private ownership of the means of production, which flies in the face of Marxist doctrine. According to Marx, ownership of the means of production is transferred to the workers after the global revolution. Stalin and his ilk were fake communists because they transferred the means of production to the state, not the workers. "All power to the Soviets [worker's councils]" was a mantra of the Russian Revolution, upon which the Bolsheviks and later Stalin never made good. Corporatism also maintained that goods produced by cartels were dictated by the Party and thus the national leadership, whereas Marx asserted that the workers would have complete control over the means of production, including what goods were produced. This is as centrally planned as the Fascist/Nazi economies ever got. 

As to the comparisons you have drawn between Nazis and Communists, who I deem fake Communists, I must respectfully point out that they are partially on and partially off the mark. Nazis hated Jews not only because they were not German, but also because Nazis were crazy. I’m sure you accept this and even implied it. But fake Communists claimed that they hated Jews because Jews engaged in bourgeois nationalism that was antithetical to the spirit of internationalism required by socialism and Marxist doctrine. This is a case of fake Communists paying lip service to Marxist doctrine, when in fact they hated Jews, like the Nazis, because they were crazy and as a holdover of Tsarist era Russian/Georgian/Belorussian, etc. anti-semitism There were actual Communists who remained committed to global revolution, such as Leon Trotsky, however, who were opposed to Jewish identity because it represented bourgeois nationalism. Trotsky, whose mother named him Lev Davidovitch Bronstein (I'm sure you can do the math), epitomized this position. In 1903, when questioned by Vladimir Medem, "You consider yourself either a Russian or a Jew?" Trotsky responded, "No, you are wrong. I am a Social Democrat and only that." (Nora Levin, The Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917, volume 1, 10). 

Fake Communists believed that everyone should become Communist then die. I prefer the Soviet uniforms because the Nazi culture of death emblazoned on their SS uniforms creeps me out. 

I must respectfully disagree with your father, who is certainly a most eminent historian who I was honored to meet, on the subject of Fascism/Nazism as an evolution from the left. I'm sure you'll understand that even upstart historians such as myself often disagree with established, eminent historians such your father. In this case, it is not done from vitriol or malice but purely professional. 

Fascism and Nazism grew out of several factors. They include but are not necessarily limited to disaffected populations who lost faith in humanity, those who were disgusted by the hedonism of inter-war popular culture, the collective shell-shock of Europe following the trauma of World War I, the economic dislocation of the inter-war years, the yearning for stability among Italian and German people, and the weakness of the Italian monarchy and Weimar republic. To say that Fascism and Nazism are a result of socialism, I respectfully submit, is monocausal. I have yet to hear a monocausal explanation that I deem valid, and that includes the Marxist interpretation of history. Perhaps it was not intended as a monocausal explanation, but it is certainly an oversimplification. 

Perhaps your father's position stems from the fact that many argue Mussolini was a Socialist. I must respectfully disagree. He was a member of the party, but did not believe in what the Socialists believed. Mussolini was a Syndicalist, not a Socialist. He was dismissed from his position as editor of Avanti!, a Socialist newspaper, in 1914, and dismissed because he supported an international war, specifically the Great War, of course. As Marx argued, war between nations is illegitimate; it does not advance the proletariat in their struggle to achieve control. International war benefits only the bourgeois masters of the Proletariat. Thus, class war is the only just war. I submit, Mussolini was a nationalist Syndicalist, not an international socialist. 

Hitler was no Socialist. I reiterate, the presence of the word Socialist in the National Socialist German Worker's Party was due to its founding members, the Strasser brothers, who were left of center. When Hitler seized control of the party he left the word Socialist in the title, but eventually expelled all left of center members of the party. He also molded the party according to his own vision, which consisted of a Corporatist, not Socialist economic strategy. I reiterate again, as Socialism is international, the title National Socialist is mutually exclusive. 

It is actually easier to describe Fascism and Nazism as what they were not, rather than what they were. Fascism was anti-Socialist, anti-Communist, anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-international free trade capitalism and banking.So, how could Fascism and Nazism have been Socialist/Communist anti-Socialists and anti-Communists? Nazis battled Socialists and Communists in the streets of Weimar Berlin. Mussolini ordered his Squadristi to attack Socialists and Communists, and destroy their offices, newspapers, and homes. 

The base of support for both Fascism and Nazism, in addition, did not come from Socialist or Communist sympathizing urban proletariat, rural agricultural laboring classes, or even left-wing intellegentsia, but from people who feared and hated Socialism and Communism. Fascism and Nazism were supported by traditionally right-wing people who weren't reactionary monarchists, such as violent war veterans, disaffected members of the middle classes and highly skilled laborers, wealthy people who feared Socialism and Communism as threats to their wealth, and yeoman farmers. Thus, the base of support for Fascism and Nazism came not from Socialists but from traditionally conservative (as opposed to reactionary monarchist) elements of the German and Italian populaces. 

But the Nazis and Fascists were not really right-wing, or even just conservative either. All this is prologue to the argument of another established historian, Robert O. Paxton. In his work, Europe in the Twentieth Century, Paxton argued that Fascism, while erroneously considered a right-wing political and economic practice. Paxton wrote that, Fascism was not simply the far right. The terms right and left were first applied to politics during the French Revolution. They belong to the political vocabulary of nineteenth-century struggles over popular sovereignty, individual liberties, and property. With fascist movements, we find ourselves in a strange landscape where familiar signposts like right and left do not give very precise directions (232). 

I therefore refute the thesis that Fascism was an outgrowth of Socialism. That is not the case. I will follow this post with a brief bibliography of sources I have consulted. While many of them are convenient surveys, they are nonetheless quite reliable. The Otto Friedrich is a bit dodgy on some things, but fairly reliable as to the Nazis, and I have corroborated what he wrote with other sources. I will add that my last 10 years in dogged efforts to learn this information has assisted immeasurably. Many thanks to historians Glenn Sharfman, PhD, Hiram College; Bernard Weiss, PhD, Duquesne University, and Steven Vardy, PhD, Duquesne University. 

Bibliography 

De Jonge, Alex. Weimar Chronicle: Prelude to Hitler. New York: New American Library, 1978. 

Flood, Charles Bracelen. Hitler: The Path to Power. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Press, 1989. 

Friedrich, Otto. Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s. New York: Perennial, 1995 (reprint). 

Levin, Nora. Paradox of Survival: The Jews in the Soviet Union Since 1917, Volume 1. New York: New York University Press, 1988. 

Paxton, Robert O. Europe in the Twentieth Century. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1997. 

Stromberg, Roland N. Europe in the Twentieth Century. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1992. 

Suny, Ronald Grigor. The Soviet Experiment: Russia, the USSR, and the Successor States. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.

I am driving out to Ohio, for tomorrow I must endure...

...A baby shower.

Johno endorses Federalism.

The Bolsheviks crushed the trade unions in Russia, too, and they didn't stop being socialist. Economic planning in the Third Reich was still centrally controlled, was it not? Sadly, I know too little about the early years of the Nazis. But my dad (blatant appeal to authority: eminent Russian historian) says that Fascism grew out of the left; and if I remember correctly, in Europe the right was all the wacky ancien regime monarchist reactionary types.

Saying that workers and farmers in both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia lived under feudal conditions is unkind to serfs. From my vantage point in 21st century America, I can only discern three critical differences between the Nazis and the Commies.

1) Nazis hate Jews because they're not German, Commies hate Jews because they're rich.
2) Nazis believed that everyone who is not German must die, to make room for Germans. Commies believed that everyone should become commie, then die.
3) Nazis had far cooler uniforms.

Well, Johno and I seem to agree that there is a distinct difference between Empire and Hegemony. Although I have issues with the term "American Global Hegemony," it is largely due to the people who usually use the phrase. Mike has chimed in with a scenario where other cultures borrow from and become derivative of another culture, without that culture engaging in imperialism. 

Why don't we, for our own convenience, establish some terms, so that we can argue more effectively? If an Empire is political and military ownership of other nations/territories/cultures, and acts that further expand an empire are Imperialism, we can distinguish this behavior from Cultural Hegemony, which is the economic, cultural and technological dominance of one nation over others. 

Now, wars can be fought without imperialistic aims. A war of defense, for example would not have imperialistic aims. WWII was not a war of Empire for the United States. Imperialism could be considered naturally aggressive, though the effects of imperial rule would range from sadistic to benign. But one key factor in an Empire is that subject territories always remain subject territories, used for the benefit of the nation at the center of the Empire. 

There is certainly no rule that says that empires are ruled by emperors. Most of the territory eventually ruled by the Roman Empire was conquered by the Roman Republic. Democratic Athens created an Empire. Britain had an empire, but was ruled by a Parliament and Prime Minister. But India never sent ministers to Parliament. America has never exactly been an Empire - conquered territories are either integrated directly into the nation itself, or eventually granted independence. We conquered California from the Mexicans, but in no sense is California a subject territory of a separate United States. 

Now cultural influence - here is where it gets more interesting. Mike cites several examples where cultures have voluntarily borrowed from another civilization. This, he says, is not cultural imperialism, or hegemony. The United States is the most influential part of the most influential civilization on Earth. To what extent are other nations or cultures voluntarily borrowing from our culture? Does cultural hegemony require an analog of the aggressiveness of imperialism? Are we forcing our culture on others, are are they voluntarily adopting Levis, Michael Jordan basketball Jerseys, Rock and Roll and Rap music, McD's hamburgers, watching Hollywood movies and so on? 

I would argue that China's impact on Japan was larger than America's impact on much of non-Western civilization today - maybe just because it operated over a longer period - but if that isn't cultural hegemony or informal empire, then what do we have? We are clearly a daughter culture of England, western Christendom, Rome and Greece. Of those, only England survives, and we are now having more impact on them than they are on us. We have overtaken our parent culture. We influence the whole world, not just because we have more money, and thus more guns. Our technology, freedom and cultural dynamism are what effects everyone. Our military impacts only a small part of the world. We aren't forcing people to buy into our culture. 

If we have an informal empire, a halfway state between empire and not empire, how does it work? Rome in republican times had a dual empire - parts were directly controlled, others were client states who had local autonomy but had no control over external affairs. Various territories often moved from the latter status to the former over time. Is this an informal empire? We have trade agreements, but they are that - agreements. We negotiate them. We do not have client states. 

Our companies, and industry, and so on have subsidiaries in other nations. But they have been nationalized in the past, or lost money and closed, or whatever - we don't force nations to open McD's. The Thais who work for Nike, or for third world employees of just about any American company not run by Kathy Lee Gifford generally make more money than their counterparts in local industries. Sure, they are paid less than an American worker, but the cost of living is vastly lower as well. The South Koreans leveraged participation in the lower rungs of the American and Japanese economies into growing prosperity, and their per capita wages are now higher than much of Europe. Is this a voluntary adoption of a American cultural ideas, and fitting them into their existing culture to make a better life for themselves, or is it rapacious and arrogant US economic imperialism compounded by showing them a vision of heaven while denying them admittance? 

The Japanese and South Koreans were exposed to American culture more than most nations in the last fifty years. American soldiers were the primary vector for this infection. In the first case, our troops remained after WWII for our security interests due to the recent phenomenon of Japanese militarism. South Korean and, later, Japanese bases were maintained to protect those nations (and us) from communist aggression. These two nations have borrowed more from our culture than most. Their cultures do not seem in imminent danger of disappearing. They are also the two richest non-western nations in the world. Are they part of our Hegemony, or our informal empire? 

Or is it only voluntary adoption when ethnically similar cultures borrow from each other? Are we victims of Chinese cultural imperialism because we have Chinese restaurants, manned exclusively by ethnic Chinese waitresses and cooks, and there are Kung Fu schools in every village across the land? American Ecofreaks (sorry, environmentalists) in the US dream longingly of the unspoiled rainforests where earthy people live in harmony with Gaia. Tribesman in Borneo and elsewhere dream of getting to America where they can have a house and a car and big screen TV. Which if these people did American Cultural Hegemony brainwash? 

Well, a final (at last!) point. Johno asked, "Is cultural hegemony like empire? By its own lights, it is not. But, if empire implies achieving dominance via force, and hegemony implies achieving dominance via way of life, what do you call it when we go kick some ass for the sake of asserting (and, arguably, protecting) our way of life?" 

That depends.

Hey guys, 

Many thanks to the Bucketman for opening a debate on the present and discussion of the past viz-a-viz empire. Thanks to Johnny for keeping it going. 

The first question is, does China in the fifteenth century constitute an empire because of its cultural influence elsewhere in Asia? This brings in the matter of derivative civilizations. The way I see it, Korea and Japan constituted derivative civilizations of Chinese civilization in that they were the product of East Asian peoples ethnically related to the Chinese, who voluntarily adopted aspects of their culture. Hence, they are derivative civilizations, not a product of cultural imperialism. The fifteenth century is too soon, tenth at the latest. As I am oriented toward European, British, Irish, American, and American ethnic history, I'll provide the testimony of an expert in support of my argument. I'll offer two quotations. According to Edwin O. Reischauer's Japan: The Story of A Nation, 

Japan nonetheless is culturally a daughter of Chinese civilization, much as the countries of North Europe are the daughters of Mediterranean culture. The story of the spread of Chinese civilization to the peoples of Japan during the first millennium after Christ is much like the story of the spread of Mediterranean civilization to the peoples of North Europe during the same period. But the greater isolation of the Japanese from the home of their civilization and from all other peoples meant that in Japan the borrowed culture had more chance to develop along new and often unique lines (7). 

I'll add that Highland Scottish culture is derived in an even more direct fashion from Irish culture. Highland Scots are the product of migrants from Ireland to Scotland. Even as late as the sixteenth century Gaelic and Gallic were so similar it is roughly analogous to a present-day American conversing with a present-day English person. Currently Ulster Gaelic and Scottish Gallic retain a high degree of similarity. The Irish were not engaging in imperial adventures against the Scottish, but Highland Scots and their culture are derivative of the Irish and their culture. Rome itself was in many ways a Hellenistic culture derived from Greece, and that occurred less through imperialism than voluntary admiration. Athens had colonies in Sicily, but not on the boot. These examples possess similarities with the situation in regards to China and other Asian cultures. 

So back to Japan. As to the origins of the Japanese themselves, Reischauer asserts that, “

the Japanese are closely related to their neighbors in Korea and China; but like all modern peoples, they are the product of extensive racial mixture (9). 

Thus, I take the position that the Japanese voluntarily adopted Chinese culture. You could argue that for the U.S. in many cases as well; Europeans constantly mimic American popular culture while simultaneously criticizing us for being boorish louts with no sense of culture. But in other cases, American cultural imperialism is a product of American economic imperialism. People in Thailand making Nikes for 3 cents a day are presented with a picture of American prosperity that they cannot themselves achieve, but American companies urge them to buy American products. Continuing the Thai example, corporate insensitivity was so much that Pepsi mis-translanted their slogan, "Choice of a new generation," to "Pepsi resurrects your dead ancestors."

I'll help Johnny out a bit with the admittedly opaque statement, if that's alright. Nations can have empires, nations can refrain from imperial exercises, but nations can also engage in imperialistic exercises that exist outside the realm of formal empire through cultural or economic rather than political and military dominance. Rome possessed such an empire, but the world has changed a great deal since the classical period, and definitions must be adjusted to incorporate change over time. Britain possessed an empire both formal and informal. If this assertion is doubted, I will carry out my previous threat to supply a bibliography. America possesses an empire that is more informal in nature than formal. We have thus seen change over time. Anachronistic definitions do not suit the present; the present is different than the past. That is not to say that formal imperialism has vanished, but it is growing increasingly archaic and atavistic. 

Finally gentlemen, thank you for reminding me that I still love history, despite the best efforts of the forces of evil in academia (IE postmodernists) to crush my spirit and swallow my soul.

...It's alllll about the Right Hon. James Traficant. (Courtesy The Smoking Gun.)

...what the hell that last thing was about, I direct your gaze here, and here.

Zig now for great justice!

Hey! Look what I found on slashdot.org!

In A.D. 2003
War was beginning...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A series of large explosions rocked Iraq's capital sending plumes of smoke and fire into the skies over Baghdad as the intense coalition air assault got underway.

Saddam: What happen?
Mechanic: Somebody set up us the bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Saddam: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Saddam: It's You!!
Bush: How are you gentlemen!!
Bush: All your oil are belong to us.
Bush: You are on the way to destruction.
Saddam: What you say!!
Bush: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Bush: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
Saddam: Take off every 'Scud'!!
Operator: You know what you doing.
Saddam: Move 'Scud'.
Saddam: For great justice.