Who are the Fascists?

 

Much of the criticism of the Woke movement and Critical Race Theory centers around their Marxist underpinnings.   And while that is certainly true, I believe it is an incomplete view.  As we begin to observe more of Wokeism and how it behaves, I am coming to the realization that the movement is more of a hybrid between Communism and Nazism.   It has as many characteristics of Nazism as it does Maoism or Bolshevism.

Luke Holland’s documentary, Final Account opened last weekend and provoked questions in my mind about the similarities between National Socialism and Wokeness.  Holland interviewed elderly Germans that had some role in the Third Reich.  The film opens with camp survivor Primo Levi’s quote, “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous.  More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.” 

I have long been fascinated by the question of how an otherwise civilized nation could find itself in the grips of such a totalitarian, toxic regime.   Holland’s film helped me fill in some of the gaps.  Some of the interviewees denied that they knew exactly what was going on.  Some admitted their complicity.  Some were swept up in the collective fervor, the camaraderie of summer camps and such.  Some exhibited no guilt at all.  One unashamedly and flatly said, “I don’t blame Hitler.”   I was struck by the lack of emotion of many of the interviewees, confirming in my mind Hannah Arendt’s claim of the banality of evil.  Probably the most interesting was Hans Werk, who, in a roundtable with younger Germans implores them, “don’t let yourself be blinded.”

The film delves into the normalization of Jew hatred—the inculcation of antisemitism in schools and the gradual exclusion of Jews from economic and social life in Germany.   In several scenes depicting photographs, signs can be seen in the background with the admonition, “Jews Not Welcome Here.”  The normalization of Jew hatred in Germany began at an early age with nursery rhymes talking about “sharpening the knife to stick in the Jew’s belly.”

Final Account gave me some insight into how ordinary people signed on to the heinous Nazi ideology.  Coupled with reading Richard Evans’s voluminous three volume history of the Third Reich,  I am arriving at some insights into the Woke movement as it spreads its tentacles across the United States.   As I contemplate the evolution of  Wokeness, and in particular, the Critical Race Theory aspect of it, it is clear to me that it is borrowing as much from the Third Reich as it does from the Communist revolutions in Russia and China.

First, Wokeness has its own brownshirts.  In fact, it has three branches—Antifa, BLM and pro-Palestinian thugs.   Each has evidenced no inhibitions about harassing, hurting, and even killing people.   Antifa is still laying siege to Portland with very limited response from the authorities.  BLM harasses and assaults people in restaurants. loots, throws bricks and frozen water bottles at cops and their chants express a desire to do much more.  We saw pro-Palestinian mobs harass and assaulting Jews out in the open last week.   Last week, a mob of BLM supporters closed down a block of retail stores because they were open and “disrespecting Malcolm X’s birthday.”

Second is the indoctrination of its ideology through the school systems. In many states, including Illinois, CRT is now mandated.  And it is happening at all levels of the education system, including higher ed.  This parallels the indoctrination of national socialism in schools and camps throughout Germany.

“The dumbing-down of university education and professional training, with its emphasis on ideological indoctrination and military preparedness rather than on the traditional acquisition of knowledge and skills, added to this regimentation of professional activities to produce a palpable demoralization amongst many professionals.”

-R. Evans, The Third Reich in Power p.444

And again,

“Thus state and Party were both undermining the socializing and educating functions of the family.  Baldur von Shirach [head of Hitler Youth] was aware of this criticism and sought to counter it with the allegation that many poor and working-class children did not have a proper family life anyway.”

-R. Evans, The Third Reich in Power p. 279

We are seeing CRT indoctrination implemented as early as kindergarten, all the way through higher education, without any questioning whether or not it is even a discipline worthy of study.  My own alma mater, The University of Chicago is now contemplating gracing it with an entire department.  And the dumbing-down is rampant.  As I write this, Princeton has announced that it will eliminate Greek or Latin requirements for Classics majors in pursuit of “inclusiveness.”

Third, and most pernicious, is the normalization antisemitism that is embedded within Wokeness and CRT.  About 4 or 5 years ago, I guest lectured at a business class at the University of Illinois-Chicago. While I was waiting, I spied on a bulletin board that had a flyer posted on it, out in the open, that stated conspicuously and in bold letters, “White Privilege Starts with Jewish Privilege.”   I removed the flyer, snapped a photo of it to document it, and, horrified, crumpled it and threw it in the trash.  I felt like I was in 1930’s Germany.

That flyer was my first clue to where this was all headed.  We see signs of it everywhere.  From the treatment of Orthodox Jews by DeBlasio in New York during the pandemic, and attacks on Jews by street thugs, to the open antisemitism of Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib in Congress (which Democratic leaders refuse to condemn) to the open physical attacks on Jews after the missile attacks on Israel by Hamas.  

The hatred, resentment and intolerance fostered by the Woke movement is broader than Jews, but they are at the epicenter.  That flyer told you what the Woke movement is thinking.

Finally, there is the rank corruption within the movement, from entitled politicians to the leaders of BLM,

“Aryanization was only one part of a vast and rapidly growing system of plunder, expropriation and embezzlement under the Third Reich.”

-R. Evans, The Third Reich in Power, p. 400

Replace “Aryanization” with “Black Lives Matter” and the sudden real estate holdings of Black Lives Matter founder Patrisse Cullors immediately jumps to mind.  So do the recipients of the “reparations” in Evanston, and the government largesse bestowed on black farmers and citizens of Oakland, as well as the six figure salaried “diversity officers” and “consultants,”  preaching CRT within various school systems.  Black Lives Matter received hundreds of millions of dollars in donations in the wake of George Floyd’s death,  yet there isn’t a single program, institution, building, or the like that anyone can identify that the organization sponsored or built that actually improved the lives of black people.  The Illinois Senate just passed a Black Wall Street measure, aimed at providing loans and other financial assistance to black owned businesses in majority black communities.  Whites and Asians are not eligible.

To be sure, the parallels with National Socialism are not identical.  The Wokeness movement is not nationalistic, but rather international in scope.  It has yet to fully militarize (although the erection of razor wire and deployment of the national guard at the Capitol were disquieting).   It does not yet have a single, charismatic leader, but rather a cadre of high priests and priestesses.  Yet, Wokeness and Critical Race Theory share more than a few similarities with Germany’s National Socialist movement, and I am beginning to see Wokeness as a hybrid of Communism and Nazism.  Many Republicans claim to be “fiscally conservative,” yet “socially liberal.”   Perhaps the adherents to Wokeism are most appropriately described as “fiscally Marxist,” yet “socially Nazi.”

Conspiracy Theories

 The recent exchange between Rand Paul and Anthony Fauci was instructive, and gave us insight into the origins of COVID19.   As Senator Paul began to probe Fauci’s role in funding the Wuhan Laboratory and the hypothesis that the NIH, directed by Fauci, had been funding “gain of function” coronavirus research at that lab.  Fauci, of course, got touchy and vehemently denied his involvement.  When the former director,  Robert Redfield, opined that COVID19 likely originated in the Wuhan Lab, Fauci, with no mention of evidence, summarily dismissed him.  “That’s his opinion,” he stated, as if Redfield were just a layperson at the end of the bar.    When Tucker Carlson challenged Fauci over the effectiveness of vaccines, Fauci responded by writing it off as “conspiracy theories.”

Early in the outbreak, evolutionary biologists Bret Weinsten and Heather Heying raised the hypothesis that COVID19 had escaped from the lab and were immediately savaged by the press as “conspiracy theorists,” and “right wingers,” and “loons.”

“Conspiracy theorist” has now become the reflexive charge flung at someone that proposes a plausible alternative hypothesis.  Its use has become especially prevalent when a skeptic is on to something, when someone has either distorted or actively hidden relevant facts and data that are contrary to an espoused narrative.   Like its sister term, “racist” or “systemic racism,” it is employed to stop the discussion and stop further inquiry.   In 4^th grade schoolyard terms, it’s telling you to “just shut up.”

But in addition to the COVID19 outbreak, over the past year, we have had several events that defy the government and media narrative about them.

The Capitol Insurrection and the death of officer Sicknick

The Capitol “Insurrection” on January 6 has been used to justify fortifying the Capitol with national guard troops and encase it in barbed wire, hold protesters in solitary confinement for months when their actual only offense was trespassing, hiring outside firms and the USPS to spy on social media accounts, and halt military operations to root out “extremists.”

Yet, strange, incongruous facts are emerging.  Film clips show officers ushering protesters into the building, however.  AOC flat out lied about her whereabouts and her “fear for her life.”  And the media pushed the narrative that five people had died in the protest, and advanced the claim that Officer Sicknick had died from being struck in the head with a fire extinguisher.  None of this was true.

Most troubling was the death of Ashley Babbit, the unarmed woman that appeared to be attempting to crawl through a broken window.  Film of her shooting showed that armed capitol guards were directly behind her.   She was given no warning.   A gun appeared and put her down.   The identity of the person that shot her was not revealed by the government and no charges were brought against the officer, even though it was highly questionable whether deadly force was justified.

All of these issues raise real questions over the “insurrection,” and make a “Reichstag fire” alternative narrative something to think about.

The Christmas Bombing

Early in the wee hours of Christmas morning while sugar plums were still dancing in our heads, a bomb ripped through downtown Nashville, near the AT&T communications center.  Oddly, the bomber(s) picked a time when it was almost certain that no one would be around.  The truck announced a warning to evacuate before the bomb went off.   That’s not how terrorists usually operate.

Within 48 hours, the F.B.I. had claimed that they had identified the bomber through his DNA and announced that he was a “lone wolf.”  So the F.B.I. really wants us to believe that it is so efficient that it was able to identify the culprit, interview his family, neighbors and coworkers, access his computer and phone and look through his correspondence and social media accounts, all in 48 hours.  Hmmm.

AP and Hamas

Before destroying the building that housed the Associated Press and Hamas, the IDF gave ample warning to evacuate.  The AP complained and asserted that it did not know that the building also housed Hamas.

Right.

The Election
Much has been written about the midnight ballot drops, statistical anomalies and odd behavior of officials in key swing states, so I won’t regurgitate assertions here.  But these anomalies and the fact that the Biden campaign drew little enthusiasm raises serious questions about the outcome.

 

Because we no longer have an independent inquiring press that acts as a watchdog on government, we have learned to be very skeptical of narratives.  Time and time again, we have seen the press either withhold information (as it did with Hunter Biden), distort facts (as it did with the Covington kids) or outright lie (as it did with officer Sicknick).  When we cannot count on independent journalists to dispassionately dig out the truth, we create our own possible narratives.

And when we do, we are dismissed as conspiracy theorists.

Except, sometimes they turn out to be the most accurate interpretation of facts.

The Last Million

 

David Nasaw has written a marvelous book that deeply resonated with me.   The Last Million: Europe’s Displaced Persons from World War to Cold War is a meticulously researched book dealing with the human aftermath of WWII.  The convulsions and destruction of the war were so vast and the administration of the countries devastated by the war, the immediate onset of the Cold War, and lingering antisemitism and fears of displaced Jews and survivors of the camps together created difficulties for the Allies for years.

These were people with no place to go—Lithuanians, Poles, Ukrainians, along with European Jews that were liberated from Hitler’s camps.    Their homes had been destroyed, their livelihoods taken from them.   They were caught between the West and the Soviet partitioning of Europe, with a Soviet Union that sought to gobble up parts of war-torn Europe. 

The Displaced Persons (DP) camps presented a terrible sorting problem for the U.S. and U.K.    As post-war labor shortages loomed, Western nations were also facing pressure from the Soviets to repatriate peoples from the territories over which they had dominion and control.  Most of the Lithuanians, Poles and Ukrainians were fiercely anti-Communists and did not wish to return to their Soviet dominated homeland.

The most difficult and wrenching issue were the Jews, who were so horribly abused by the Third Reich.  Nasaw notes that there were no Jewish children or elderly in the DP camps—they had been killed by the Nazi regime.  The Brits actively blocked them from being resettled in Palestine out of the concern that it would trigger bloodshed with the Arabs.  They often couldn’t go back to their homes and the Americans didn’t give them priority either, and many foundered for years in these camps.  Jared Kushner’s grandmother spent 3 ½ years in a DP camp.  “Nobody wanted us,” she said.

The book clarified a great deal with me.  I grew up among these people in the 60’s and early 70’s in Chicago.  While my family fortunately was here before the war (my grandfather slipped out of Austria in 1929), the parents of many of my friends either escaped the Stalin deportations from Lithuania or were Poles from the DP camps.   Indeed, two parishes—one Lithuanian and one Polish were adjacent to each other a few blocks away (they have since been combined and to this day the parish says Masses in Lithuanian and Polish). 

Many of these people were reluctant to speak about their wartime and post-wartime experiences, although all were virulently anti-Communist. I still recall some of the antisemitism that permeated the community.  “He’s only crying because he can’t keep the money,” I recall one Lithuanian saying as he watched Jerry Lewis break down at the end of one of his telethons.  There were a few more insidious characters as well.  One of my friends disclosed that he had seen his father’s Waffen-SS uniform in a box in the attic.  One saloon keeper actually fought for the Wehrmacht and would sometimes show his scars to patrons.   I recall an instance in which young children were gathered round a two-flat chanting “Nazi. Nazi” where a middle aged man lived alone in an attic apartment and didn’t interact with his neighbors.  Nonetheless, there were a few Jews that lived peaceably in the community—mostly small shopkeepers.

Nasam’s book gripped me in many respects.  Growing up, I was oblivious to what these people experienced and endured during the war and its immediate aftermath.   He reminded me of the trials that they endured, and yet, torn from their community, transported to a place where they didn’t know the language, they were able to piece their lives back together, raise families and live together in peace—sometimes along side people they had fought against a few years earlier. 

The problems of sorting and vetting immigrants are still with us, decades later.  The advent of the Cold War and the absence of documentation prevented us from doing a robust job of screening out Nazi collaborators and war criminals and bringing them to justice decades ago.   We are similarly today locked in a political battle  to prevent human traffickers, MS-13 members and drug dealers from slipping across our border.   We had a tremendous problem vetting refugees from war torn Syria and the travel ban imposed by Trump on terrorist hotbeds caused great controversy. 

Somehow, we generally do seem to muddle through and incorporate these peoples into our country.