Tag Archives: Hitler

Chavistas: They Think They Are Free

One of the best books about the Third Reich, Hitler’s Nazi Germany, is “They Thought They Were Free – the Germans 1933-45” by Milton Mayer (1955). Using some enlightening excerpts I will compare Nazi Germany to Bolivarian Venezuela; the political strategy of Adolf Hitler to that of Hugo Chávez.

A philologist who lived through Nazi Germany recollects in the book: “You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote.” These are things that the citizenry of Bolivarian Venezuela are all too familiar with. Chávez constantly repeats that it is democratic socialism, popular democracy. And voting, yes, they can vote. If they vote wrong he will let them vote again until they vote right. And if that is not possible, as in the last parliamentary elections, he uses a crisis as an excuse to create an enabling act so he doesn’t depend on the parliament. Just like Hitler.

The book continues: “What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security.” Chávez has for long governed by surprise, taken decisions himself (God knows how), and presented them on live TV, to the surprise not only of the citizenry, but also of his own cabinet.

Further: “And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.” Replace Hitler with Chávez and it is equally applicable.

The excerpt continues: “This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.” It’s chilling reading if you have followed the recent events in Venezuela.

Jumping a bit now: “The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway.” Hitler did not have TV, so he couldn’t have done what Chávez is doing: An hour-long political entertainment TV shows every Sunday, Aló Presidente. In it, the president is diverting the audience with political rhetoric of the populist kind, giving them a feeling that they are part of the government process. It is all about diverting, of course. In reality they are further and further from it, just like the Germans.

The following longer excerpt is worth reading slowly, over and over again, especially for all Venezuelans:

To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.

Resist the beginning. Consider the end. Venezuela, it is not too late! But in a week it may be…

Chávez has confiscated businesses, industries, farms, without any uprising. But the past weekend something went wrong. At the farm El Peonío the workers threw out the military and the action failed. That gave time for a popular resistance to form. Since Chávez was at the same time attacking on many fronts (to hurry up and finish his consolidation of power in the lame duck session), too many Venezuelans were angered at the same time. This is a decisive moment. This is an historic opportunity to throw out the golpista Hugo Chávez.

However, out of respect for democracy and the rule of law, it has to be done constitutionally correct. Just like Manuel Zelaya, ex president of Honduras, was deposed in a constitutional way last year, for doing much the same things as Zelaya has done in Venezuela.

So is there a constitutional way to depose Hugo? I’m not a legal scholar, but I can read, and it seems to me that a case can be made.

What would be the strategy?

Step 1 is for people to take to the streets, do the cacerolazo at night, paint slogans on cars, and similar actions. The purpose of this is not to make Chávez change his mind; he won’t. The purpose is to show those having the power to depose Chávez that they have popular support. This step is crucial! If you want Hugo gone, you MUST show up in overwhelming force on the streets!

Step 2 is to surround the government with unarmed, peaceful civil disobedience, demanding Chávez’ resignation. He won’t resign, but that’s not the point. You will win if you just don’t give up – ever. Keep this principle in mind and you will win:

Things aren’t always what they seem to be.
You just have to keep doing the right thing,
and the circumstances will change before your eyes.

Chávez’s “Ragnarök” may be approaching

The countdown to the final destiny of Venezuela’s de facto dictator Hugo Chávez may well have begun in the high halls of heaven. His grand plan was interrupted prematurely by the totally unscripted heroic deed of Honduras, where the Attorney General, the Supreme Court, the National Congress, and the Military Forces, in an unexpected feat did their duty to perfection (and a little bit beyond, in the latter case).

In a similar way, Adolf Hitler’s grand plan was interrupted prematurely when Britain honored their promise to Poland, and declared war after Nazi Germany invaded the Slavic nation (that coincidentally had financed much of Germany’s “economical miracle” with loans). Hitler’s armament plans were incomplete. He would not have his high seas navy ready until in 1942. The premature start of the war, from his point of view, may have been what caused him to loose it.

We must never forget how popular Hitler was in the 1930’s. It wasn’t until he took Czechoslovakia by betrayal in 1938 that his superstar status started to fade.

In a similar way, Hugo Chávez has gained a superstar status in European press. The warning signs have been ignored or dismissed. When Chávez tried to take over Honduras through his point man Zelaya, and the democratic institutions stopped it, the world sided with Chávez even though he threatened with military force both before and after the deposing of Zelaya. However, the event did offer an indication to Europe that Chávez was not the person they had thought.

Another warning came a month later, when it was discovered (and first reported in Sweden on this blog) that Swedish-made shoulder-fired anti-tank missiles, AT-4, that had been delivered to Venezuela almost 20 years ago had ended up in the hands of the leftist narco-guerilla FARC in Colombia. Within hours, Sweden stopped all weapons exports to Venezuela.

Further alarm was raised when Chávez made a tour to countries such as Syria and Russia, in a bid to acquire tanks, jet fighter planes, medium range missiles, and nuclear technology (from Iran). It became obvious that he was setting the stage for an axis against the usual allies, the U.S., the U.K., and other western democracies; no longer just a Latin American axis from Cuba to Tierra del Fuego, but a global axis that seems to have as only rule that “an enemy of my enemy is my friend”.

Hugo Chávez seems to have a propaganda ministry that is more ambitious and effective than that of Josef Göring himself. His talking points can be read in blogs in virtually all western countries, in many languages. He has to his disposal an international TV news network, Telesur, which is now cooperating with Al Jazeera.

This brings me to the last sign of the impending downfall. These news outlets and their appendages in the blogosphere are peddling totally ludicrous accusations against the U.S. in relation to Haiti. When it came to Honduras they accused the U.S. for the “military coup”, even though (1) the U.S. had informed ahead of time that they would not recognize whoever became president if Zelaya was deposed, and (2) it was no coup since the democratic institutions acted within the constitution in deposing Zelaya. Still, at least the accusation was plausible on its face.

But when it comes to Haiti, they accuse the U.S. of occupying the country militarily, and – and this is the tin-foil hat part – of having caused the earthquake in the first place.

If anybody reading this believes that it could be possible, I can assure you, as a geoscientist, that it is not. You might as well accuse them of having taken down the moon. It is as out-of-this-world lunatic as those who suggest the Antarctic was Atlantis “when it was ice free there 13,000 years ago”. Scientific evidence shows that it has been completely ice covered for 5 million years. Get my point?

So why does Chávez’s ministry of propaganda go out with something so outlandish? I can only think of one explanation: Desperation. The opportunity is starting to slip through his fingers, so he becomes desperate, just like Hitler did.

Yesterday’s demonstration against Chávez in Venezuela illustrates that his days may be counted. The danger is though, that he does something dramatic to hold on to it. This is not the time to let down the guard for that golpista.

Stalin värre än Hitler

Stalin var värre än Hitler. Den som säger nåt annat är okunnig. Och Gudarna skall veta att det finns många okunniga i världen.

Tänk er Tyskland fyllt med statyer och hyllingsdikter för Hitler på allmänna platser. Så är det med Stalin i dagens Ryssland.

I kalla siffror hade Stalin livet av långt fler oskyldiga än Hitler hade. Han utrotade alla självägande bönder.

Min farfar, Knut “Attarparn” Nilsson, besökte Sovjetunionen vårvintern 1933 på inbjudan av Stalin, tillsammans med ett flertal utländska gäster. De förevisades bland annat en kolchos, en storbruksfarm, i Ukraina. Där fanns moderna maskiner, traktorer och plogar. De flesta gästerna var kommunister med arbetarbakgrund. Men min farfar var en småbrukare från Halland, så han förstod att de som använde maskinerna inte visste något om jordbruk: De hade inte ställt in plogen utan släpade den ovanpå jorden. Han gick fram och ställde in den så att den började plöja. Då erbjöd de honom att stanna kvar och jobba där. Han tackade för erbjudandet och sa att om han bara fick en liten täppa att själv odla grönsaker och så på, så kunde han väl bo där. Men se det gick inte för sig.

Hans slutsats av detta besök var att det inte fanns några bönder kvar i Ukraina. Om det inte fanns en enda kompetent bonde ens på den finaste mönsterfarm, och de inte tillåter något privat jordbruk, ja då måste ju bönderna vara ur livet. Först sextio år senare erkände Sovjetunionen, vid sitt sönderfall, att alla bönder hade mördats. Det var långt fler än de som dog i förintelsen.

Attarparn höll ihop med en annan av de utländska gästerna. Vid ett tillfälle anmälde de båda att de var sjuka, och ämnade stanna på hotellet istället för att åka på dagens utflykt. Farfar knöt ihop lakan och klättrade ut genom fönstret, för att se sig om på egen hand. Då såg han att allt de förevisats var kulisser, vilka han kallade Potemkinkulisser med referens till den ryska historien.

Kvällen före hemresan bjöds alla gästerna på en middag i Kreml, med Stalin. Attarparn hade fått en avskild bordsplacering, men hans vän satt nära politruckerna. Eftersom Attarparn kunde lite ryska (från då han bodde i rysktalande delen av Alaska), beslöt de att byta plats, i hopp om att farfar skulle kunna höra vad de pratade om. Mitt i middagen blev det stor uppståndelse hos hans vän. Ryssarna hade tydligen förstått att det var fel person, och de tog honom till sjukhus och magpumpade honom.

Den slutsats de drog av detta var att maten hade varit förgiftad. Som bekant försvann både den danska och den bulgariska kommunistpartiledaren spårlöst vid besök hos Stalin i Moskva.

Väl hemkommen köpte Attarparn en T-Ford (en bilmodell han tidigare kört som taxi i Los Angeles) och började köra land och rike runt för att hålla föredrag om “Sanningen om Sovjetunionen”. Det var inte populärt hos kommunisterna, och han utsattes för ett flertal mordförsök innan han bytte ämne och började prata om miljövård och varnade för att valarna höll på att utrotas (han hade jobbat som valfångare i Sydatlanten direkt efter Första Världskriget).

Nu, efter Sovjetunionens sönderfall, så har farfars misstankar besannats att ordern att döda honom kom från Moskva. De försökte slå ihjäl honom, men han hoppade ut genom ett stängt fönster och lyckades värja sig med en rörtång medan bilen rullade igång (den hade ju vevstart). De flyttade bilen så att den stod framför ett stup, i hopp om att han skulle rulla igång den utan att märka något. De sköt mot honom då han körde, men kulan flög igenom kupén utan att träffa honom.

Vid det förstnämnda mordförsöket fick han igång bilen och kunde köra ifrån kommunisterna. Han körde hela natten och kom på morgonen hem till Falkenberg. Där stannade han vid sin vanliga kiosk för att köpa dagens tidning. “L..l..lever du?”, stammade kioskägaren. “Det står i tidningen att du är ihjälslagen!” Så berättade han i alla fall för mig att det gick till, om jag inte missminner mig.

I relativ nutid finns det en svensk kulturpersonlighet som har påstått att Attarparn var nazist. Det var dock inte något som någon i hans familj hade märkt något av. Det hade ju också varit omöjligt för honom att få en inbjudan av Stalin om det hade varit sant, så påståenden är helt absurt. Han var lika mycket mot all auktoritetstro. Kanske hade han tagit intryck av anarkosyndikalisterna i San Diego på det tidiga 20-talet, det internationella fackförbund som hade sin största styrka i tid och rum just där och då. Han var i alla fall skeptisk mot alla organisationer, även partier. Fast det finns ju anledning. Som han brukade säga, “Har du en dollar och femton cent, kan du muta både guvernör och president.”

Att han hade läst Mein Kampf är däremot en annan femma. Det betyder ju inte att han var nazist. Tvärtom, han läste Hitlers program – till skillnad från de flesta – och försökte sedan varna folk för Hitler. Det var ju ingen hemlighet att Hitler hatade judar. Det var bara det att folk inte iddes att ta reda på vad han verkligen planerade göra.

Därmed åter till nutid. Hugo Chávez planer och göranden och låtanden är också allmängods, men svenska “kulturpersonligheter” ids inte ta reda på fakta. Därför kan de helhjärtat stödja FN och USA i att kräva att en bona fide diktator med våld sätts in som president i Honduras, och att den konstitutionella demokratin därmed upphör. Det är samma intellektuella lathet som gjorde förintelsen möjlig, och som gör att många fortfarande ser förintelsen som värre än Stalins mord av bönder i Ukraina.

Media: SvD 5 april 2009, Wikipedia: Kulak.

Judefientliga Zelayaanhängare

Nyheten om judefientliga uttalanden i Zelaya-trogna radiokanalen Globo fortsätter att sprida sig som en löpeld runt världen.

Dock har NY Times en propagandistisk formulering kvar, då de skriver “In phone calls to the media, Mr. Zelaya has charged that Israeli mercenaries had attacked the embassy with high-frequency radio waves and toxic gases. The de facto government has been criticized for such attacks, but there is no evidence of any Israeli involvement.”

Den andra meningen är totalt lögnaktig.* De har inte “kritiserats” för sådana attacker, för “kritik” förutsätter att attackerna faktiskt har ägt rum – och det har de inte. De har bara anklagats för sådana attacker, och det är skillnad det. Vidare, att påstå att det inte finns några bevis för israelisk inblandning är att återigen implicera att de ägt rum, för annars kan ju ingen vara inblandad.

Vad är det då för anklagelser? Jo, Patricia Rodas, Zelayas utrikesminister, påstod att Israeliska giftgaser hade använts mot Brasiliens ambassad, i vilken Zelaya befinner sig. Gasen skulle vara blåsyra, samma som i Zyklon B, alltså det som användes i förintelsens gaskammare. Snacka om mental koppling till judeutrotningen. (Undrar vad Freud skulle sagt om det?)

Vad är då sanningen om detta? Vad jag har fått fram är följande: Polisen och militären använde tårgas mot de som i trots mot utegångsförbudet samlats utanför ambassaden. Enligt uppgifter i pressen for två tårgasgranater in på ambassadens område, på insidan av muren. Dessa kan mycket väl ha varit tillverkade i Israel.  Det är också fullt möjligt att firman som importerade tårgasgranaterna ägs av en person med judiska anfäder. Dessa fakta, eller upplevda fakta, kan ha varit den fjäder som gav upphov till konspirationsteorin hos Zelaya med flera att det fanns Mossad-agenter i Honduras.

Oavsett om det är riktigt eller ej, så visar det hur villiga zelayisterna är att underblåsa latent judefientlighet för sin egen politiska vinnings skull. Det handlar om att utnyttja hat, speciellt främlingsfientlighet, för politiska syften. Några av de beröringspunkter till nazism hos Chávez som jag skrev om 2009-09-08 kan nu alltså återfinnas även hos Zelayas anhängare.

De som försvarar Zelaya och Chávez bör läsa på om hur populär den demokratisk valde Adolf Hitler var fram till 1937.

* Uppdatering 13:30: Zelaya-trogna NarcoNews skriver att också den första meningen är falsk, och att Zelaya aldrig har sagt det. Det stod ursprungligen i Miami Herald, enligt “narkotikanyheterna”.

Chávez’s Nationalistic Socialism vs. Hitler’s National Socialism

"Fatherland, socialism or death" - the ubiquitous slogan for Chávez's "bolivarian revolution"
"Fatherland, socialism or death" - the ubiquitous slogan for Chávez's "bolivarian revolution"

Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez is leading a “Bolivarian revolution” to introduce “21st century socialism” in Venezuela and the rest of Latin America. Adolf Hitler lead the National Socialist German Worker’s Party (commonly abbreviated as the Nazi Party in English) which had on its agenda to nationalize industry in Germany.

Chávez is actively nationalizing industry in Venezuela, with one wave in 2007 and a new one earlier this year (see this article translated from Spiegel). Hitler, on the other hand, privatized businesses, even though it ran completely contrary to his party ideology (which he himself had written). The explanation offered is that he was in desperate need of financing for his grandiose political plans.

By privatizing banks (that had been nationalized as a result of the Great Depression) and some other businesses, he both raised money (1.37% of the total revenues) and increased his political support among industrialists. To prevent capitalism from causing damage to the interests of the state, as he saw them, he instead heavily regulated what private business could do outside of their own four walls. In other words, the privatization was purely pragmatic, the overarching goals being those of the state. Although the Nazis were socialists, Hitler thus came to employ a fascist policy, contrary to what many in the party advocated.

Since Chávez has oil revenues he does not need to borrow; in fact, he can lend money, and uses that as a tool to expand his influence. So he has no worries about nationalization. Why waste money on compensation? He just steals private companies.

Both men use a nationalistic and militant vocabulary. Unlike many other socialists, they are belligerent. They are not, however, nationalists in the sense of a nation-state. The Nation, or Patria, in their case refers to a certain group, not a certain country. For Hitler it was the Germans, and he spoke of Great Germany (Großdeutchland, often translated Greater Germany for some reason). For Chávez it is the Latinos (especially those of African descent according to this Venezuelan blogger), and he speaks of Great Colombia (Gran Colombia; recall that Colombia originally was the name proposed for the continent discovered by Christopher Columbus, i.e., America).

Furthermore, they both have a dedicated enemy, The Soviet Union, and the United States of America, respectively. While Hitler saw bolshevism as waging a war on the Germans, in a conspiracy with the Jews, Chávez sees the power structure behind Washington as waging a war on Latin America, again with Jews in a prominent role.

A further similarity is that both use local committees, on neighbourhood level, that are loyal to the party rather than to the state. In the case of the Third Reich, workers compensation and social services were moved from public to party responsibility. This helped the appearance of the state finances, but it also gave the party goodwill, and a source of corruption money. In the case of Bolivarian Venezuela (Chávez had the country renamed), funds are also diverted from public to party organizations. Although Chávez calls this local democracy, the system does not seem to be based on the principles of democracy, but rather to be a parallel to Hitler’s system.

Both men have also seen to that old friends who initially helped them ended up in a concentration camp, and in jail, respectively. Furthermore, they both exhibit behaviour consistent with cocaine abuse, it has been claimed.

As for trade unions, both started out working with unions, just to later ban them in favor of their own state-controlled ones. They are both demanding sacrifices to the homeland (Vaterland / Patria). In both instances the auto-declaration as a socialist ideology has been questioned from the left, and Chávez regimen has been called out as Nazism of the XXI century.

Both men have also been given extraordinary powers by the respective parliaments, effectively making them dictators. And just like Hitler had his Josef Göbbels, Chávez has his minister of propaganda in William Lara. This blog cites the head of Instituto de Prensa Internacional (‘International Press Institute’), Johann Fritz, as having said that “The communication policies of Mr Chávez are identical to those used by the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, Josef Göbbels.” This judgment was based on their 2005 annual report.

Here is an analysis in Spanish of fascism / nazism on the one hand, and chavism on the other. It is from 2007. The “progress” since then has been significant. Outside Latin America, however, the awareness seems to be very low, as evidenced by, e.g., these articles in DN and SvD.

PS: A detailed comparison by a Dutch investigative reporter.