THERE WAS NOTHING SOCIALIST ABOUT THE NAZIS IN POWER

There was almost nothing socialist about Nazis, once in power

Apr 11, 2012 12:00 am

To the editor,

Do I have to do this again? Last week another conservative played the Nazi card. This week, Rep. Bob Kingsbury joined. He writes, "I came into adult status as a First Scout for a Rifle Squad, (to defend the well-being of the people); fighting socialism (The German Nazi’s and “Nazi” stands for “National Socialist Party”).."

The claim he was fighting socialism is from another planet. The "National Socialist Worker's Party" was socialist in name only. Everyone but right wingers knows this. The Nazis were founded by extreme right reactionaries such as the racist Völkisch German nationalist movement and the anti-Communist Freikorps militia culture. Drexler, Feder and Eckart were the main founders of the "German Worker's Party" of 1919 that became the Nazis. Thinking it was another socialist party to watch carefully, Hitler was sent in as a spy but then found he supported the party's ideas. There was almost nothing socialist about Nazi actions when in power. The Nazis even sought to repeal Germany's Healthcare Act of 1871 but Hess convinced them not to on the eve of war.

Nazis despised both socialists and democrats; liberals of any stripe. They were represented by Germany's largest party, the Social Democrat Party. To the Nazis, these socialists and democrats, along with communists and Jews were why Germany lost the War. Hitler outlawed the Social Democrat Party as soon as the Enabling Act passed in 1933. Then the German Communist Party was banned, too. The Social Democrat Party was an ally of the west, Mr Kingsbury! The fascists were not. You fought no German socialists during WW2. Here is who you fought.

Not only were Nazis racists who saw Blacks and Jews as inferiors, Nazis saw women through the neolithic lenses of biological purpose. The 1933 Law for the Encouragement of Marriage paid young women to get married. In 1934 came the Ten Commandments for Choosing a Mate. After four years in the Hitler Youth, every girl at 14 entered the German Ladies League. There they learned how to be a good wife and mother and that their place was in the home. Women were forbidden to wear make-up and long hair had to be put in a bun or braid. Hitler and Mussolini had valuable prizes for women who had four or more kids. Medals, too.

On Hitler's rise to power, Women were removed from the blue collar labor force. Then the professional women were dismissed. 100,000 women teachers found themselves without a job or a union. With Abortion and contraception outlawed; careers destroyed and rights violated, this WAR ON WOMEN caused large numbers of women to flock to liberal political organizations.

On his rise to power, Hitler also sent thousands of brownshirts to arrest homosexuals and close their businesses. 700 were jailed on the first day. A police force (IIS) for tracking homosexuals evolved to become the Reich Office for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion. Created by Himmler and Hitler in 1936, it was Germany's bureaucracy for policing the nation's sexual and reproductive lives. By 1939, 100,000 gay men had been arrested in their WAR ON GAYS.

WAR ON IMMIGRANTS! The Nazi's 25 Point Plan (1920) was vehemently anti-immigrant. They attacked those not speaking German in Germany. They attacked cultural diversity by attacking all non-German culture, art, and music as enemies of German purity. The 25 Points wanted the government to shut down all foreign cultural and artistic expressions. WAR ON MULTICULTURALISM!

True socialism nationalizes its industries but when the Nazis came to power they privatized industries instead. Fascism believes in private property and private enterprise — socialism doesn't. Germany's Social Democrats supported workers' rights but the Nazis outlawed unions because they were democratic and socialist. WAR ON UNIONS! To get a job after unions were crushed, workers had to join the party's National Labor Front. Socialism is when the people, through government, control production and distribution while Fascism is a merger of corporate power with state power — CITIZENS UNITED ON CRACK!. Supported by industrial giants, Mussolini's Blackshirts operated similarly, crushing unions and forcing popular socialist mayors to resign. Tens of thousands of liberals, democrats, socialists and communists were murdered by the fascists in Germany, Italy, and Spain. All this before the war!

All the traits of the Nazis listed above are anything but socialist. They are typical right wing themes: wars against women, workers, unions, immigrants, multiculturalism and homosexuals. You will find them everywhere you find right wingers in power.

SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE SOLUTIONS ONLY WORK IN CARTOONS

http://www.laconiadailysun.com/node/130442/18663

Social conservative solutions are nonsense, only work in cartoons

Apr 05, 2012 12:00 am

To the editor,

Thomas LeMay states in his March 30 letter that I veered away from discussing abortion in our debate over contraception. Not true. In the beginning, I state,

"For a bunch of tea bags who are concerned with abortion and welfare, they sure haven't thought this one out in the slightest. If one wants fewer abortions and less welfare families, family planning, sexual healthcare, sex education, and contraception education are the only answers. Making contraception unavailable and abortion illegal is about as intelligent a solution as the drug war is for drug use or banning guns is to end violent crime."

Like right wing economics, the social conservative solutions in the culture war are nonsense that only work in cartoons. In the letter published right after the one Mr. Lemay addressed March 30, I took on the subject of abortion statistics precisely because Mr. Lemay was so animated by it. In it I showed that pro-life strategies utterly fail statistically at actually being pro-life. The latest WHO/Guttmacher study reveals that overall, the highest abortion rates are where it is illegal and where contraception availability is low. The nations with the most liberal laws and the best family planning services had the lowest rates. Belgium had one-third our rate because they don't have a million right wing restrictions to reproductive autonomy. No matter where one comes down on the rights issue, the best way to reduce abortion is with liberal family planning laws and the numbers back that up. Hindering family planning and outlawing abortion doesn't work in the real world.

Mr. Lemay's proposed reach for religious exemptions is extreme while the laws enacted by many states are sensible. Like "Obamacare", they exempt places of worship but not any businesses churches may buy and operate in the market sector. They lose their special rights when they become an employer of the general public.

In 2002, Republican Governor George Pataki signed the "New York Women's Health and Wellness Act". The NY law stated if an insurance plan covered prescriptions, they had to include contraception prescriptions, too. In 2004, ten religiously affiliated social service groups sued. A NY trial court upheld the law as constitutional, noting that "a broader exemption would frustrate the law's goals of promoting women's health and ending gender discrimination".

Then Catholic Charities appealed to the New York State Appellate Division. They lost again. Then the case went to the NY Court of Appeals which found that its "object to increase women's access to health care does not target religious practices." Then the case was off to another New York State Court of Appeals. It upheld the trial court's original ruling and found that the law was neutral. The religious group then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court for review. The court denied their petition. Law stands.

In California, much the same happened. The Women's Contraception Equity Act became law in 2000. Catholic Charities filed suit. They lost the first round in the appeals court. In the end, the California Supreme Court upheld the law, holding "that it does not impermissibly impair the religious rights of Catholic Charities by requiring that they include prescription contraceptives in their health benefit program". In October of 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court turned down a request by the Catholic Charities for a review. Law stands.

The EEOC's ruling in 2000 on the California law ruled just as the highest courts later did in both New York and California. "The Commission concludes that Respondents' exclusion of prescription contraceptives violates Title VII, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, whether the contraceptives are used for birth control or for other medical purposes."

The rulings by the top courts and the EEOC do not agree with any of the religious liberty exemption claims made by those like Mr. Lemay on the conservative side. These laws and rulings were made years before the Affordable Health Care Act was crafted. In fact, New York and California are said to be the models for the prescription plan part. They already saw how the courts came down on this.

OF SOCIAL CONSERVATIVES, THE TALIBAN, AND FASCISTS

http://www.laconiadailysun.com/node/130442/18663

Fascism is merger of power of corporations with that of the state 

Mar 31, 2012 12:00 am

To the editor,

In response to Terry Stewart's letter about Leo Sandy, Professor Sandy is correct, our social conservatives are our very own Taliban. I have been calling the religious right the American Taliban for 15 years and it has in recent times become very popular to use the phrase. Here is why. They attack the dignity and liberties of gays and lesbians by trying to make them second class citizens. Although not armed (most of the time) our Talibaners are just as obsessive compulsive about sexual matters as the Taliban is. Right wingers freak out over other people's sex lives as if they have a say!

The American Talibaners are those responsible for attacking women's "health equality" primarily using the pathetic excuse of religious liberty. Women's health care must be complete, not partial as the American Taliban wants. These people will go to untold lengths to make a woman's womb a barrier to her equal rights and liberty. The latest is the squealing about contraception midst their continual attacks on Planned Parenthood. With the social conservative, its their religion that gives them license to attack the rights of gays and women. After all, the social conservatives looks to their Bible to find reasons for these discriminatory ideas.

If Terry wants to play the Nazi card, so be it. Unknown to nuts like Glen Beck and Matt Barber, Nazis were right wingers. Fascism by definition is a right wing ideology. I wrote a letter months ago on how similar the fascist regimes were to America's right wing. Let me summarize. In Germany, Fasicts were fiercely ant-immigrant and demonized all who did not use German language. German fascists were out to protect German language, German culture, German womanhood, and German moral purity. Sound familiar? Diversity would destroy Germany's soul they claimed. In the party platform, immigrants, foreign language and foreign arts and culture are attacked as if they were poison. Sounds like Pam Geller!

When Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco got into power one of their first targets was THE UNIONS. Socialist mayors were forced to resign or face brutality. They crushed unions and their leadership out of existence. Fascist governments attacked, jailed and murdered thousands of socialists. Fascists hated communism and like our right wingers, saw it in everthing dangerous to the nation. The fascists of Germany, Italy and Spain eliminated FAMILY PLANNING services. Women were men's business. These regimes also frowned upon women in the workplace. Both Hitler and Mussolini awarded prizes, including money, to those who had the most kids for the nation. CONTRACEPTION was so hard to find even condoms were outlawed unless you could prove you had a disease. Mussolini aligned himself with the Church in these social matters. German fascists went nuts against the flourishing GAY RIGHTS movement in Germany. After the German Reichstag approved Hitler's dictatorial powers in the 1930s, Brownshirts attacked every pub, theater, or business that was owned or frequented by gays. All gay businesses were closed and 700 were thrown into jail the first day. The reich's IIS police force collected dossiers ("pink lists") on every homosexual they could.

In 1936, Hitler & Himmler created THE REICH CENTRAL OFFICE FOR THE COMBATING OF HOMOSEXUALITY AND ABORTION. That's right, a bureacracy to investigate, arrest, and jail gay men and women regarding homosexuality and abortion. By 1938, 100,000 gay men had been arrested and jailed. Records that survived show that at least 15,000 gays were gassed in the death camps. In two of the camps a Danish Dr. Vuarnet attempted to "cure" gays with all types of experiments, even hormone implants. This sounds like the Christian Fundamentalist organization called NARTH who preaches that being gay is a sickness that can be cured. How Nazi! The situation was similar in the other fascist countries. Murdering gays was also a product of the Post WW2 fascist regimes and their paramilitary militias found in Latin America, especially Chile (Pinochet) and Argentina (Peron).

Mussolini, who was the father of fascism, defined fascism in his speech before the Italian Parliament in 1932 this way, "Fascism should rightly be called CORPORATISM because it is a merger of the power of the state with THAT of corporations". The United States, especially its middle class and safety net, is in big trouble because our own corporate fascism is running rampant. Stagnant wages for 30 years yet hundreds of percent in gains for the top earners. Our right wingers ADORE corporatism!

THE SMALL GOVERNMENT' CROWD'S FUZZY LOGIC

http://www.concordmonitor.com/article/321122/small-government-crowds-fuzzy-logic?SESS7d8a916c27d4bfd07d357cb0d461cabe=google

To the Editor,

I saw the light about the so-called small government people back in the mid-1990s.  I read plenty of CATO books, too. I have always investigated other's ideas. It didn't take long for me to realize it was all delusional pie-in-the-sky nonsense that couldn't work in the real world. These folk actually think charity and  "personal responsibility" can take up the slack to replace a social safety net. That is just the tip of the iceberg to this fuzzy logic. When you put all the pieces together, there is no coherent picture. 

So here comes Speaker Bill O'Brien with more lofty sounding small government nonsense. Under O'Brien's leadership the NH legislature has attacked access to family planning in every way they can think of. At the same time, O'Brien proposed in House Bill 1658 that after a family is approved for Welfare assistance, benefits would be frozen regardless of any changes in the family's circumstances. Here is another grand idea from the outer limits that makes no sense. Half of all American pregnancies are unplanned yet the Clan O'Brien thinks it is aiming at mothers who have children to increase benefits. 

What is wrong with this picture? NH is making it harder for poor families to prevent unwanted pregnancies and then O'Brien seeks to deny them any benefits for the increased costs of raising an unplanned child. That is just so responsible and reasonable! Luckily, some legislators have seen the light and wish to have such language removed from the bill but this only means the Clan O'Brien will just seek another avenue to attack families. The right wing agenda cares not about people; it unquestioningly worships an ideology as if its a deity. They put party platform & principle before people even if it harms people. Right wing ideology combines the worst of Hayek economics and religious fundamentalism. 

James Veverka

Tilton