From: cortez@milton.u.washington.edu (Tom Warner)
Subject: Re: Kulturkampf
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 13:34:05 GMT

Unix-impaired flounderer that I am, I made a post that did no more than quote
some of the lines of the post I'm responding too now. Sorry, I'll try again.

In article <3526@key.COM> rburns@key.COM (Randy Burns) writes:
>
>I find it easy to believe that Buchanan has some strongly facist tendencies.
>I do think that comparing him to Hitler misses the mark. He's much closer
>in his orientation to someone like General Franco of Spain. Franco was the
>kind of Catholic who was more conservative than 90% of the college of 
>Cardinals. Hitler had a much stranger appeal, the Nazi party included 
>folks very sympatheic to the communist economic platform and some 
>large industrial backers.

Excellent points. Also, Hitler wasn't just violently nationalist/imperialist,
he was a eugenicist.

>Now I do think that many of the conditions that
>might give rise to a Hitler do exist in the United States. Chief among
>these is an extreme polarization of the political spectrum and a breakdown
>in dialogue between opposing political sides.

Huh? When have our political parties been less polarized? When has American been
more open to communication between the two parties' constituencies? And what
does this have to do with giving rise to Hitleresque figures? I don't get it.

>We've seen a tendency 
>towards extremism in this country on _both_ sides of the political spectrum.

"We" have? I've seen a sharp trend toward centrism within the American left
for over a decade.

>On one hand we have folks like Jesse Jackson defending the rather calloused
>rhetoric of Sister Soulja, on the other hand we have folks like David
>Duke and Buchanan rising in prominence.

Comparing Jesse Jackson to Pat Buchanan is a slur not worthy of response.
Equating the admittedly callous statements of a militant black power agitator
to the dogma of Duke and the neo-Nazi movement in general is also a horribly
misleading misrepresentation.

>IMHO these two groups feed off
>from each other(hell, if I was on a GOP dirty tricks squad, I couldn't have
>paid enough to get Sister S to spout of like she did). The real issue to 
>examine is the symbiosis between these two phenomena.

Bullshit. America's black leaders are not to blame for the rise of Buchanan
and Duke. What are you saying, that if people like Jesse Jackson and Sister
Soulja just pretended to be less pissed off about racism, that it would go
away? If they were more conciliatory and content with their lot, that there
would be no need for the Klan? Or just less socialistic? What are you saying?

>The culture that
>created Hitler, was a culture in which consensus and dialogue seemed 
>unattainable. What Hitler did was to bring together some seemingly
>contradictory tendencies in a bizarre coalition.
> 

Good point. I just don't see how the black power movement has done this. Sure,
their has been a great deal of general denouncement of the entire American
political system, Democrat and Republican, with good reason. Sure, there have
even been black supremacist movements, but they have never been anything more
than a curiosity of the American political spectrum, and a wellspring for
apologies for racism. Racist terror groups have been part of the American
political spectrum for over a century. Buchanan pulled over 30 percent in the
Republican primaries.

As far as ability to bring together seemingly contradictory tendencies in a
bizarre coalition, Perot supplies the modern-day parallel. I don't think Perot
was racist or even as fascist as Reagan. But he demonstrated voters' willingness
to embrace the new type of candidate just for being a new type of candidate, and
the media's power to determine legitimacy of non-Demo/Repub candidates. If and
when an American Hitler runs for president, his primary issues will not be
racism, and the American media will love him like a son.