Saturday, May 28, 2005

History's Recurring "Liberal" Threat

from Foreign Affairs (May/June 2005)
In the late 1920's, a group of [German] intellectuals known as conservative revolutionaries demanded a new volkish authoritarianism, a third Reich. Richly financed by corporate interests, they denounced liberalism as the greatest, most invidious threat and attacked it for its tolerance, rationality, and cosmopolitan culture.... [T]he Nazis vilified liberalism as a Marxist-Jewish conspiracy, and, with Germany in the midst of unprecedented depression and impoverishment, they promised a national rebirth.

...In his first radio address to the German people, 24 hours after coming to power, Hitler declared, "The national government will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built up. They regard Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life." German elites proved susceptible to this mystical brew of pseudoreligion and disguised interest. Churchmen, especially Protestant clergy, shared this hostility toward the liberal-secular state and its defenders; they were also filled with anti-Semetic beliefs, although with some heroic exceptions.

5 comments:

Sheryl said...

Ryan, are you still using the G-Mail address you gave me a month or so ago? I have not received any replies to the last 2 or 3 messages I sent.

I am starting to wonder about the G-Mail in general because Paul uses that too and I have also not been receiving replies from him lately, whereas he has been very good about visiting and commenting in my blog. I think if he were ignoring my email he would not be posting in my blog though. I should probably ask him if he received my last few emails too.

Better to ask you than presume. You might just not want to talk or want to be aloof, but I have bad habit of assuming too much about people.

1138 said...

Be direct, it causes far less trouble.

1138 said...

Ryan,

I've been trying to point this up since 2000.
I suggest you look to the connection to the minutemen border project and similar activities on the German borders in the 20's.
This country is only steps away from squandering any hope of being 'that beacon in the night', and becoming a burning torch from hades.

Sheryl said...

Paul,

I thought my comments were direct enough. I wanted to know if Ryan was ignoring me for some reason or whether it was a communication breakdown. He didn't seem to be talking to me anymore.

He's still not talking even though I switched the medium. That's really all I needed to know.

I didn't think you were snubbing me, nor did I say as much here. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't the G-Mail because sometimes technology does lead you to think that someone isn't communicating with you when really it's just getting lost in Cyberspace.

Sheryl said...

And Paul, thanks for the email asking. I appreciate your allowing me to clarify.