From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Jun 15 2002 - 15:11:52 MDT
The first line of attack is usually censorship. A
line is drawn in the sand over what you may or may not
say without fear of reprisal.
In the old South, when I was a little kid there in the
'50's, I used to argue with the crackers about racism.
I had been schooled by my Yankee parents that "Jesus
loves us all the same - red and yellow, black and
white," but I had to work out the details of my
arguments myself as I was continually attacked (both
intellectually and physically (I fought almost every
single day in 1st and 2nd grades)). I got pretty good
at both kinds of defense over time.
One attack, however, which I had trouble dealing with
at the time was one of those ideological package
deals. If all else failed, the racists would say
something like, "what are you, some kind of 'NIGGER
LOVER?!'", followed by cackles of laughter. Similar
to "when did you stop beating your wife," right? You
can't answer either "yes" or "no" without losing
ground.
This kind of intimidation of whoever raises his voice
can be very effective at silencing opposition. As I
pointed out in a prior posting, you don't have to
shoot all the enemy to win a battle; you just have to
convince them that if they stick up their heads they
will die.
I was very lucky in having parents who - despite major
flaws - were committed to intellectual growth. I
consequently had the space as a kid to read a lot of
diverse material, especially science fiction, which
gave me a perspective on my life that most people
lacked.
After "Atlas Shrugged," the book that most influenced
me was Rafael Sabatini's "Scaramouche," which follows
the life of a fictional intellectual provocatour, who,
in revenge for a friend's murder for speaking out
against an outrage by the aristocracy, plants little
intellectual bombs in the French populace that
ultimately explode into the revolution.
Simply speaking the truth the right way and at the
right time can be very effective in demonstrating that
you CAN stick your head up, and thereby defeating the
forces of lies and their censorship. It's important
to choose issues and words that most clearly
demonstrate this - which means those that make the
opposition so angry that they react irrationally.
In Hitler's Germany, however - and prior to his rise
to power - there were other struggles going on that
made it literally deadly to say the right thing. Jan
Valtin's "Out of the Night" is perhaps the most
powerful expose' of how the NAZI's and communists
collaborated to eliminate the center, as well as any
viable ideological alternative. They systematically
trashed centrist political meetings and committed
violence - such as the Reichstag fire - aimed at
evoking a reaction.
Additionally, however, they targeted individuals and
leaders of opposition groups. Valtin describes how
the anarchists had organized the Seaman's Union and
successfully negotiated contracts with the merchant
marine shipowners that guaranteed basic rights to
sailors as well as establishing the seaman's hostiles
in ports worldwide. Virtually all the leadership of
the Seaman's Union was anarchist, but they never made
any great effort to proscelitize, as they were
fundamentally non-political.
Thus, when the Commintern decided to take over the
International Seaman's Union and use it as a political
weapon for Mother Russia, they simply assassinated or
kidnapped and shipped back to Russia all the anarchist
leaders. End of story.
Here in the U.S., the drug laws can and have been used
to take out voices of dissent, dating from the arrests
of blacks in the first half of the 20th Century,
usually for mariuanna offences, and then the use of
alleged drug possession to jail war protestors in the
'60's and '70's, right up to the present, with the
recent scandals in Texas over Hispanics who had drugs
planted on them. It is so easy to plant drugs, and
all it takes is one cop's testimony.
A large part of the problem, however, is that people
are so often slaves to their own ideas. Max Stirner's
"The Ego and His Own," is perhaps the best source on
this. One of Stirner's lines of analysis has to do
with the evolution of empowerment.
To simplify vastly: First, we had to overcome physical
nature. When we were at the mercy of dangerous wild
animals, we made them into Gods to be propitiated.
Later, we made our Gods from storms, wind, mountains,
oceans. Finally, with the Christian ideology, we made
"Ideas" our Gods, and we judged everyone by what Ideas
they held.
But, implicitly, you judge yourself by whatever
standard you apply to humans in general. Thus, you
judge yourself by your ideas. This creates a huge
stumbling block, as Stirner discusses in much detail,
to your being able to rationally challenge your own
beliefs. And, you feel personally attacked when
someone attempts to refute one of "your" ideas.
Stirner said that we each OWN our ideas - not the
other way around, and it is critical to sieze and
explicate this ownership.
Those who are enslaved by their own ideas are easilly
manipulated, and critical thinking was not high on
German educators' priorities. Thus, once they
eliminated the few who had broken free mentally, there
wasn't much serious opposition left - except perhaps
among the Jews - and I'm sure that anyone who tried to
side with them got hit with "Jew Lover."
It is interesting that there also was very little
actual belief in the NAZI ideology as such. According
to Harsh, in his "Pattern of Conflict," he had to
search for years to find anyone in the NAZI regime who
didn't - once they were alone - make fun of the NAZI
beliefs. And the one true believer didn't believe the
racial nonsense; he just liked the economic side.
(Another case of this, reported a few years back,
involved the NAZI diplomatic attache in Nanking, who
rescued or protected many Chinese from the Japanese
during the "Rape of Nanking." He wrote a letter -
which is still on file - back to Berlin protesting the
behavior of the Japanese and the failure of the Reich
to speak out against it, for which he was removed and
sent back to Germany.)
The common man in NAZI Germany not only did not
believe in Nazism, but made jokes about it. Harsh
reports that he was constantly called aside to be told
the latest sarcasm. Eg., "Hitler, Goering and Himler
are together on a plane which crashes. Who was saved?
... The German people." And this was circa 1941,
long before things got bad im Deutschland.
The NAZI's tolerated the jokes, knowing that they did
nothing, except perhaps relieve tension. I understand
that a similar attitude prevails in China. You can
say virtually anything, but try to DO anything....
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