The unified state and the common enemy

When I read the excerpts from various ideological works, I try and read with an open mind and to understand what the author's aim is. Obviously, this is difficult when reading something written that with such vehement hatred for a group of people.

So while my own morals and beliefs will prevent me from ever understanding Adolf Hitler's hatred for the Jews, I can understand it on a political and propagandist standpoint. Certainly, Hitler had an all-consuming hatred for anyone who wasn't Aryan, but so much of his rhetoric is clearly aimed at trying to unify the German people against a common enemy. It makes sense, of course. By 1933, the Germany economy and state had been completely ravaged, and the nation was at risk of falling to pieces. A once proud culture was being reduced to nothing. Hitler aimed to unify and strengthen the people by finding a common enemy to fight against. It would have been more logical to place blame on the Western European community that had forced Germany to pay harsh reparations for the First World War, but it also would have been impossible to take on such a powerful group of nations.

With an already ingrained hatred for the Jewish culture, Hitler instead built a powerful propaganda machine against the Jews, a group that throughout history has been consistently subjugated and terrorized. The reason for Hitler's vilification of the Jews and his claims that they had built their religion to allow their race to pass unnoticed allowed the Aryan people to disassociate themselves from any positive ties they might have with the Jewish community. Hitler simply used the Jews as a platform to rebuild his adopted nation. 

The days of old are new again

The thing that struck me most about the documentary "This is What Deomcracy Looks Like" is how many people were involved in the Battle of Seattle. Upwards of 30,000 men, women, and children coming together to fight for something they believe in, esepcially something that is a radical stance for this country.

I feel like the US has gotten increasingly less political over the years, particularly in the 90s and early 2000s. After the rough 60s and 70s that were spent fighting for equal rights, people seem to have lost touch with what was important. We no longer were willing to work for what we deserved but were happy to sit by and be spoon-fed by media conglomerates and slowly, subtly oppressed by our "democratic" government.

I wish I had paid more attention to news as a kid, but I really didn't get started until after 9/11 (like so many of my own and my parents' generation). I vaguely remember talk of the WTO protest, but I never really knew anything about it. I am so impressed by the turnout they had and the willingness of the protesters to contend with physical injury and imprisonment in exchange for spreading their message. I frequently hear about people in other countries staging protests and riots, but until about 2006 that hadn't really happened in the US during my lifetime. I think people are finally starting to behave more like those WTO protesters and actually standing up and fighting for what they believe in.

At least, I hope they are.

The Anarchist's Fakebook?

While reading Emma Goldman's essay on the nature of anarchism, I tried to understand anarchism from its own ideological perspective and not from my own pro-government stance. I found this incredibly difficult, perhaps because so many of the principles of anarchism seem unnatural to me.

I understand the anarchist distaste for government, because most governments are poorly formed, and all governments will eventually fail the people they serve. It seems so illogical, however, to completely disregard any form of government. Certainly, man needs freedom in order to flourish. But as we discussed at the beginning of the semester in the early writings of liberalism, nature is not a free state. In nature, humans are pitted against each other, too focused on survival to engage in the development of their minds. 

It seems particularly unlikely that humanity would be able to overcome its struggle for survival given the vehement opposition of anarchists to punishment for crime, and, indeed, to the very notion of crime. their argument that crime is a result of the imposition of society and government makes no sense at all to me. As long as humans desire to better their lives, they will take from others in order to achieve that goal.