Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site psc70.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!dartvax!psc70!tos
From: tos@psc70.UUCP (Dr.Schlesinger)
Newsgroups: net.religion,net.politics
Subject: Re: Ignoring Fascist Hate Groups
Message-ID: <134@psc70.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 31-May-85 06:01:43 EDT
Article-I.D.: psc70.134
Posted: Fri May 31 06:01:43 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 1-Jun-85 23:25:08 EDT
References: <397@cmu-cs-k.ARPA>
Organization: Plymouth State College, Plymouth, NH
Lines: 39
Xref: watmath net.religion:6999 net.politics:9180


     No, we shouldn't simply ignore ultra-right wing activity. But,
yes, the concern expressed in the original article is somewhat
overstated. And, yes, this country is fundamentally and absolutely
different from Germany in such significant ways, that to express the
concern in terms of an analogy with Nazi Germany comes off mostly as
lack of historical perspective and hysteria.
     If by complacency one means an "it can't happen here" attitude,
then I agree with the article. It could happen here in some degree:
the Alien and Sedition laws, the post-WWI Palmer raids which created
the FBI, and finally of course McCarthyism, are the obvious cases in
point.
     But none of that has very much in common with the Germany of the
1920's that my parents experienced (I was born in Berlin in 1925), and
that which I lived through in Europe until 1940, there and in Italy.
Rather than being the leading power in the world, Germany and Italy
and Japan were revisionist upstarts, trying to challenge the leading
powers, seeing themselves getting a raw deal from these... for example
having been pretty much out of the game of cutting up Africa, and
having both the British and us take the attitude that while it was OK
for "responsible" Americans and Englishmen to run big navies around
the world, German and Italian navies had to be sharply limited.
     Introduce the soup and bread lines and the despair of totally
runaway inflation (almost all little people -- but ONLY them!) losing
their savings!) and of depression and total unemployment into
countries in that sort of mentality, and you have people ready to go
for a savior whi promises to exterminate the vermin-traitors lurking
in the bushes and make their countries great again.
     Sooooooo.... my long-winded point is: NO, don't worry so much
about the hate groups and right-wing nuts, but do insist that the
authorities hold such groups strictly to First Amendment protected
activity (expression), not permit wild exceptions to gun and tax laws and
other behaviors. AND, most of all DO WORRY VERY MUCH about keeping our
economic system on an even keel... don't let the
banking-house-of-cards collapse... a world-wide economic slump and
serious collapse of growth and employment could bring back fascist
rule very quickly and all the right wing groups wouldn't matter very
much in that either way... for or against it. It would be like a tidal
wave, utterly unstoppable.