“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
―
Tocqueville wrote these words in mid 1800s. but these words would apply like a prophecy in future.
The word Nazi is being used these days to describe people we do not like and has lost all the context. But in the context of Nazi Germany and WW2, it had more concrete meaning. National Socialism was rooted in nationalism and socialism.
The key feature of Nazi Germany was to look at everything as statistics. A person was not an individual with their own desire but an instrument of state to attain some nationalist goal for which he was supposed to make sacrifices.
The propaganda often talked about “protecting workers”, “helping children” but often had nothing to do with those groups. People were asked to make sacrifices in the name of achieving those objectives that were never achieved.
“Our people need a generation of girls that are healthy in body and mind, sure and decisive, proudly and confidently going forward… Such girls will then, by necessity, carry the values of National Socialism into the next generation as the mental bulwark of our people.”
Trude Mohr, BDM leader, 1935
Note how a woman is viewed as a mere womb whose job is to produce more babies to take the Nazi ideology forward. It denies woman agency. What is true for woman here is true for everyone else. There are similar quotes about children, boys, girls, employees and even animals from Nazi era.
“We begin with the child when he is three years old. As soon as he begins to think, he gets a little flag put into his hand. Then he follows the school, the Hitler Youth, the SA and military training. We don’t let him go. And then when adolescence is passed, then comes the Arbeitsfront, which takes him again and does not let him go until he dies, whether he likes it or not.”
Robert Ley, Nazi labour chief, 1938
Nazi ideology in that sense was a collectivist ideology based on “national glory”. It was rooted in this idea that the national greatness is to be achieved by putting the citizens to work under the leadership of the great Furher.
This is to be achieved using grand government plans and looking at citizens as mere resources that follow the process. This invariably means denying individual citizens their own desires, their own aspirations and basic freedoms.
How do you console the victims of your misplaced policies ? You create enemies and redirect the people’s anger towards those enemies. In case of Nazis they were Jews. The Nazis made allegations that Jews were taking away job, money and what not. Grand conspiracy theories were floated to demonize Jews.
This demonization of jews was used to do things the government could not have done otherwise. While Jews were being killed and harassed, the german citizens were made to pay a big price too. It was not just jews but also the handicapped, homosexuals, old who were eventually sacrificed on the alter of nationalism.
American Nativists are Nazis for all practical purposes and non white immigrants are the Jews.
American nativists are engaging in the similar pipe dreams of a fictitious “America First” glory which will be achieved when their Furher comes to power. If he can not win elections they will claim the election was stolen and threaten violence.
WHY JAN 6 IS SOOO DANGEROUS
Hezbollah is classified by the U.S. as a terror outfit. They, w/allies lost in the last elections in Lebanon.
Unlike Trump, they did not contest the results.
Why? If you start contesting results, someone will in the future will contest yours.— Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) May 27, 2022
The alleged glory will come when the Furher teaches a lesson to American businesses who do not align with him.
Devin Nunes: Break-Up of Big Tech With Truth Social #Truth #trumphttps://t.co/0dF1q0kEVx
— Amelia Williams For Congress (@Amelia4congress) May 23, 2022
The nativists will age war on anyone and everything that does not give them a platform or calls out their lies. In fact they will also go after those who stays neutral.
Note how the nativists are trying to somehow implicate Raja Krishnamoorthi as “Nazi” because ? Because they asked him a question about some other nation and their internal organizations and he did not have an answer.
This is the power of propaganda Hitler alluded to.
The constant demonization of the specific groups is part of that propaganda. In that propaganda the Nazis make all sort of bedfellows including Islamic shadow organizations, Russian agents or just plain dumb people like Greenwald guy.
But there are positive slogans about “Workers first”, “Children first”, “Putting Families first” which all basically boil down to policies that actually make life difficult for all those very people they are supposed to help.
That's nice. @MoBrooks is still a better choice. https://t.co/rbLwRqeBon
— Ken Cuccinelli (@KenCuccinelli) May 24, 2022
When Trump wants to put “workers first” it basically means by shrinking the very industry limiting both jobs and capital flows into those industries. The nativists want to protect jobs like “coal workers” which any ways will go away in few years while demonizing foreign doctors.
The American nativist violence is coming.
Indians in USA are often tha target of hate by nativists. It is not new. But many of us think that it is unlikely that we might be subject to the same kind of violence that the Jews had to endure in Germany. We might be right about that but using law to harass is still violence and what USCIS and Department of State is doing to Indian immigrants through delays and red tape is nothing short of violence too.
But more serious hate is still coming towards Indians in USA. Folks like Tucker Carlsen continue to spread deep hate towards non white people in USA.
This has already resulted into some violence across united states. Now, Tucker is merely spreading the ideas and the violence is probably done by gullible nativist bumpkins. But that does not matter to the victim.
More over and covert attacks will be coming. They will always first come up with claims of theft, harm, illegalities and such.
$2 trillion.
That’s how much H-1Bs have stolen from American workers. https://t.co/pZlQ7CFp2Z
— White-Collar Workers of America (@WCWOA) April 2, 2022
Indian community is not helpless.
The brighter side is that Indian-American community is not helpless. Over last few years Indian-Americans have extensively invested in getting visibility to our issues and embedding ourselves very deeply into US economy that any harm to Indians in USA would basically lead to mutually assured economic destruction.
Indian community needs to work harder within ambits of law and peace and pursue ethical paths to embed itself more into American politics, policy and economy to make it harder for nativists to attack us one way or another. This will ensure that that nativists won’t have much weapons against us.
This is already at display in tech industry where the community has built strong roots and critics of Indians are often seen as bunch of racists. This trend should continue into other key industries as well such as finance, healthcare and public policy.
