Mick Hall looks back in time and finds a dangerous parallel from 1933.  Mick Hall is a Marxist blogger @ Organized Rage.
 

I'm part of the generation which was born just after the end of WW2, it's hardly surprising that war dominated our parents outlook and also influenced our own. Given it was in all probability the only war this nation has fought, before or since, which could be honestly described as a necessary and just war.


One of the major stumbling blocks my parents generation came up against was understanding how the German people could have allowed Hitler's Nazi party to take power, why did they sleep walk into dictatorship. They didn't wake up one morning to find tanks on their streets after a military coup. Millions of ordinary German's voted in democratic elections this monstrous regime into office in 1933.

We now know the main reason the Nazi party came to power was because electorally it successfully appealed to the class prejudices, fears and the base instincts of the German middle classes, whether middle, lower or upper. As a class they supported Hitler's commitments to suspend the rights of trade unions to organise, an extension of law and order which would include a clamp down on the left, the tearing up of international treaty agreements, and support for family values. They could also not have been unaware of the party's rabid antisemitism which eventually led to the Holocaust and the decimation of whole families.

So much for the claim often made by today's 'liberals' that education is the way to stop people acting in an anti-social way. In 1933 the German middle classes were some of the best educated people in the world.

I'm not suggesting working class people didn't vote for Hitler, they did, but not like the middle classes in great numbers. Even amongst the mainly working class unemployed who made up 30% of the population, and who may have been attracted to his policy of full employment, only approximately 13% voted for the Nazi Party. Indeed most of Germany's large cities where the working classes were dominant became bastions of anti-fascism during the rise of the Nazis.

Thus far from sleep walking into dictatorship millions of middle class German's either supported or acquiesced in his rise to power. True, I'm certain most couldn't have foreseen the depths of depravity in which their nation descended into nor would they have wished it. But that is not the point I am making, how they got there is what I am getting at.

What is my point.

In May of this year millions of British citizens voted in a government whose manifesto commitment included withdrawing from the European Human Rights Convention an an international treaty. It was designed to protect our human rights and fundamental freedoms and has served the people of Europe well since 1950. For David Cameron to claim this was necessary so the UK can deport a small number of foreign criminal is to insult people's intelligence. For people to vote for a government which proposes this without knowing the fine detail of what they would replace the current HRC with is a betrayal of democracy itself.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

Another Tory manifesto commitment was the tightening of the UK's already harsh anti-trade union laws. Sajid Javid, the Tory Minister responsible for implimenting this, recently confirmed this commitment is now government policy:
We've never hidden away the changes we want to make. I think it's essential to make these changes. A strike affecting health, transport, fire services or schools will need to be backed by 40% of eligible union members. There will also need to be a minimum 50% turnout in strike ballots.
This from a member of a government which came to office with only 37.7% of the popular vote. If the 40% test is applied to the 330 Tory MPs, 274 failed to win the support of at least 40% of their electorates. Half of the MPs in Cameron's Cabinet would not have been elected, including the wretched Business Secretary Sajid Javid.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

Food-banks, benefit cuts, no welfare at all for the young, low wages, zero hours or else, military intervention over seas, socialism for the most wealthy, legal aid cut, privatisation of NHS, no senior bankers held to account for the 2008 crash, public inquiry reports on Iraq war suppressed, a military which swears allegence to an unelected head of state.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

So what were the demographics of those who voted Tory in May of this year. ABC, the class demographics which make up the three sections which are regarded as middle class, jointly made up approximately 85% of the Tory vote. The Tory vote since 2010 actually increased within these groups, whereas amongst the working classes it fell.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

People will say this is nonsense, it couldn't happen here!

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

Be ever vigilant, question everything to doubt, a so called democratic dictatorship is the neoliberal game plan.

David Cameron's War On The British People: Can You Hear The Echoes Of 1933 In The Wind?

Mick Hall looks back in time and finds a dangerous parallel from 1933.  Mick Hall is a Marxist blogger @ Organized Rage.
 

I'm part of the generation which was born just after the end of WW2, it's hardly surprising that war dominated our parents outlook and also influenced our own. Given it was in all probability the only war this nation has fought, before or since, which could be honestly described as a necessary and just war.


One of the major stumbling blocks my parents generation came up against was understanding how the German people could have allowed Hitler's Nazi party to take power, why did they sleep walk into dictatorship. They didn't wake up one morning to find tanks on their streets after a military coup. Millions of ordinary German's voted in democratic elections this monstrous regime into office in 1933.

We now know the main reason the Nazi party came to power was because electorally it successfully appealed to the class prejudices, fears and the base instincts of the German middle classes, whether middle, lower or upper. As a class they supported Hitler's commitments to suspend the rights of trade unions to organise, an extension of law and order which would include a clamp down on the left, the tearing up of international treaty agreements, and support for family values. They could also not have been unaware of the party's rabid antisemitism which eventually led to the Holocaust and the decimation of whole families.

So much for the claim often made by today's 'liberals' that education is the way to stop people acting in an anti-social way. In 1933 the German middle classes were some of the best educated people in the world.

I'm not suggesting working class people didn't vote for Hitler, they did, but not like the middle classes in great numbers. Even amongst the mainly working class unemployed who made up 30% of the population, and who may have been attracted to his policy of full employment, only approximately 13% voted for the Nazi Party. Indeed most of Germany's large cities where the working classes were dominant became bastions of anti-fascism during the rise of the Nazis.

Thus far from sleep walking into dictatorship millions of middle class German's either supported or acquiesced in his rise to power. True, I'm certain most couldn't have foreseen the depths of depravity in which their nation descended into nor would they have wished it. But that is not the point I am making, how they got there is what I am getting at.

What is my point.

In May of this year millions of British citizens voted in a government whose manifesto commitment included withdrawing from the European Human Rights Convention an an international treaty. It was designed to protect our human rights and fundamental freedoms and has served the people of Europe well since 1950. For David Cameron to claim this was necessary so the UK can deport a small number of foreign criminal is to insult people's intelligence. For people to vote for a government which proposes this without knowing the fine detail of what they would replace the current HRC with is a betrayal of democracy itself.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

Another Tory manifesto commitment was the tightening of the UK's already harsh anti-trade union laws. Sajid Javid, the Tory Minister responsible for implimenting this, recently confirmed this commitment is now government policy:
We've never hidden away the changes we want to make. I think it's essential to make these changes. A strike affecting health, transport, fire services or schools will need to be backed by 40% of eligible union members. There will also need to be a minimum 50% turnout in strike ballots.
This from a member of a government which came to office with only 37.7% of the popular vote. If the 40% test is applied to the 330 Tory MPs, 274 failed to win the support of at least 40% of their electorates. Half of the MPs in Cameron's Cabinet would not have been elected, including the wretched Business Secretary Sajid Javid.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

Food-banks, benefit cuts, no welfare at all for the young, low wages, zero hours or else, military intervention over seas, socialism for the most wealthy, legal aid cut, privatisation of NHS, no senior bankers held to account for the 2008 crash, public inquiry reports on Iraq war suppressed, a military which swears allegence to an unelected head of state.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

So what were the demographics of those who voted Tory in May of this year. ABC, the class demographics which make up the three sections which are regarded as middle class, jointly made up approximately 85% of the Tory vote. The Tory vote since 2010 actually increased within these groups, whereas amongst the working classes it fell.

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

People will say this is nonsense, it couldn't happen here!

Can you hear the echoes of 1933 in the wind?

Be ever vigilant, question everything to doubt, a so called democratic dictatorship is the neoliberal game plan.

6 comments:

  1. The wind listener warns of follow through.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is not nonsense, it has happened. A while ago I came across an article from a secular humanist group - Free Inquiry, which gave a list of 14 traits that previous and existing fascist governments had in common. At least 11 of these apply to the present Tory government;

    1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

    2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights

    3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause

    4. Supremacy of the Military

    5. Rampant Sexism

    6. Controlled Mass Media

    7. Obsession with National Security

    8. Religion and Government are Intertwined

    9. Corporate Power is Protected

    10. Labour Power is Suppressed

    12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment

    13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption

    14. Fraudulent Elections

    ReplyDelete
  3. There is a woman on Facebook, Naoimi Wolf, who deals with a lot of this in a US context. A brilliant analyst and tireless champion of freedom, she talks about 'closing societies'. Wolf identifies the signs of a closing society through an analysis of how fascism came to assume the constitutional functions of Weimar Germany. In her opinion that process is replicating today and the result could very well be a police state along the lines of the Third Reich. In fact it would be even more sinister as fascism has since learned control without the appalling violence is preferable, and more workable, than rule by fear alone. We are witnessing a severe row-back on democratic norms in the name of anti-terror and austerity and no-one is batting an eye. First they cam for the communists...

    ReplyDelete
  4. If anyone has the time to watch this movie it's a brilliant analysis of the subject matter in question and gives a timely warning, a warning from history:

    Naomi Wolf - End of America
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xJ76iAZmiA

    ReplyDelete
  5. Taken in tandem with the looming cuts to Legal Aid and the subsequent denial of access to Justice to working class people, these are indeed frightening times.

    ReplyDelete
  6. There is a hell of a lot truth in this article, thats for sure!

    ReplyDelete