The President does have enough power to totally sink us IF they're volatile enough. Simple incompetence in a president doesn't sink us. However, that can cost lives. 1,833 people died officially from Katrina, although obviously not that many were directly from the utter incompetence of the Bush administration. 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq during the invasion and subsequent occupation. These things don't "sink" the US completely, but they're VERY consequential.

But Trump is incompetent AND volatile. Bringing both of those qualities to the table as president, and you've got much much bigger issues.

Finally, I absolutely do not get the charges of personal corruption against Hillary Clinton, especially when compared to Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton, so far as I can tell, is an agent who is operating within a system that has been corrupted, and not personally by her. The system needs to be reformed. She's done things to win within the system that you'd ideally not do. But I don't get how she is personally corrupt.

But you speak as if Clinton is the competent but corrupt one, and Trump is the incompetent but non-corrupt one, which blows my mind. How is the only way you can be corrupt is through accepting campaign contributions? How is Trump University not an indictment of how corrupt Trump personally is? How is it not corrupt to appeal to white supremacists? How is it not corrupt to name call, incite your supporters to violence, and dismiss women because they must be on their periods? How is it not corrupt to have your daughter make a speech at the RNC and then tweet how to buy the dress she was wearing, so she could make some coin?

Because one of those forms of corruption is being potentially corrupted by a corrupt system, but they're at least trying to reform that system. Hillary Clinton is the one against Citizens United, officially calling for a constitutional amendment to get rid of it. Has Donald Trump?

I don't think HRC will be a great president. I don't particularly like her much. However, she is qualified to be President. She's done nothing illegal, which is the hallmark of whether someone is corrupt.

And don't kid yourself about our government's ability containing a fascist. The Weimar Republic's government had structures in place to prevent the rise of Hitler, too. They had separation of powers. The government was one of the most democratic governments in the world. Fat lot of good that did.

I'm not saying necessarily that Trump is the next Hitler. But I am saying that there are enough similarities that I can't vote for him, and the mere fact he got a major party's nomination is scary beyond all reason. And voting for someone like that proves out their blueprint for future candidates across the board for offices in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches at all levels of government.

As much as I don't like HRC, Trump is easily the worse major party's nominee in a very very very long time.

Well, cheers for sticking with it anyway, I really appreciate it.

It's a one hour talk on the deficit in particular, and most of what she says is based on MMT principles that would add another 5 hours to her talk if she were to explain them. With neoclassical economics, you can sort of jump right in, given how they are taught at schools and regurgitated by talking heads and politicians, day in and day out. MMT runs contrary to many pieces of "common sense" and since you can't really give 10 hour talks everytime, this is what you end up with – bits and pieces that require previous knowledge.

I'd offer talks by other MMT proponents such as William Mitchell (UNSW), Randy Wray (UMKC) or Michael Hudson (UMKC), but they are even less comprehensible. Sorry. Eric Tymoigne provided a wonderful primer on banking over at NEP, but it's long and dry.

Since I'm significantly worse at explaining the basics of MMT, I'm not even going to try to "weave a narrative" and instead I'll just work my way through it, point by point.

@notarobot

"Let's address inequality by taking on debt to increase spending to help transfer money to large private corporations."

You don't have to take on debt. The US as the sole legal issuer of the Dollar can always "print more". That's what the short Greenspan clip was all about. Of course, you don't actually print Federal Reserve Notes to pay for federal expenses. It's the digital age, after all.

If the federal government were to acquire, say, ten more KC-46 from Boeing, some minion at the Treasury would give some minion at the Fed a call and say "We need $2 billion, could you arrange the transfer?" The Fed minion then proceeds to debit $2B from the Treasury's account at the Fed (Treasury General Account, TGA) and credits $2B to Boeing's account at Bank X. Plain accounting.

If TGA runs negative, there are two options. The Treasury could sell bonds, take on new debt. Or it could monetise debt by selling those bonds straight to the Fed – think Overt Monetary Financing.

The second option is the interesting one: a swap of public debt for account credits. Any interest on this debt would be transfered straight back in the TGA. It's all left pocket, right pocket, really. Both the Fed and the Treasury are part of the consolidated government.

However, running a deficit amounts to a new injection of reserves. This puts a downward pressure on the overnight interest rate (Fed Funds Rate in the US, FFR) unless it is offset by an increase in outstanding debt by the Treasury (or a draw-down of the TT&Ls, but that's minor in this case). So the sale of t-bonds is not a neccessity, it's how the Treasury supports the Fed's monetary policy by raising the FFR. If the target FFR is 0%, there's no need for the Treasury to drain reserves by selling bonds.

Additionally, you might want to sell t-bonds to provide the private sector with the ability to earn interest on a safe asset (pension funds, etc). Treasury bonds are as solid as it gets, unlike municipal bonds of Detroit or stocks of Deutsche Bank.

To quote Randy Wray: "And, indeed, treasury securities really are nothing more than a saving account at the Fed that pay more interest than do reserve deposits (bank “checking accounts”) at the Fed."

Point is: for a government that uses its own sovereign, free-floating currency, it is a political decision to take on debt to finance its deficit, not an economic neccessity.

"Weimar Republic"

I'm rather glad that you went with Weimar Germany and not Zimbabwe, because I know a lot more about the former than the latter. The very, very short version: the economy of 1920's Germany was in ruins and its vastly reduced supply capacity couldn't match the increase in nominal spending. In an economy at maximum capacity, spending increases are a bad idea, especially if meant to pay reparations.

Let's try a longer version. Your point, I assume, is that an increase in the money supply leads to (hyper-)inflation. That's Quantity Theory of Monetary 101, MV=PY. Amount of money in circulation times velocity of circulation equals average prices times real output. However, QTM works on two assumptions that are quite... questionable.

First, it assumes full employment (max output, Y is constant). Or in other terms, an economy running at full capacity. Does anyone know any economy today that is running at full capacity? I don't. In fact, I was born in '83 and in my lifetime, we haven't had full employment in any major country. Some people refer to 3% unemployment as "full employment", even though 3% unemployment in the '60s would have been referred to as "mass unemployment".

Second, it assumes a constant velocity of circulation (V is constant). That's how many times a Dollar has been "used" over a year. However, velocity was proven to be rather volatile by countless studies.

If both Y and V are constant, any increase in the money supply M would mean an increase in prices P. The only way for an economy at full capacity to compensate for increased spending would be a rationing of said spending through higher prices. Inflation goes up when demand outpaces supply, right?

But like I said, neither Y nor V are constant, so the application of this theory in this form is misleading to say the least. There's a lot of slack in every economy in the world, especially the US economy. Any increase in purchases will be met by corporations with excess capacity. They will, generally speaking, increase their market share rather than hike prices. Monopolies might not, but that's a different issue altogether.

Again, the short version: additional spending leads to increased inflation only if it cannot be met with unused capacity. Only in an economy at or near full capacity will it lead to significant inflation. And even then, excess private demand can easily be curbed: taxation.

As for the Angry Birds analogy: yeah, I'm not a fan either. But all the other talks on this topic are even worse, unfortunatly. There's only a handful of MMT economists doing these kinds of public talks and I haven't yet spotted a Neil deGrasse Tyson among them, if you know what I mean.

Who is this woman and why did I give her an hour of my time?

I listened to the whole thing.

I don't disagree with everything she said. She's right that supply side tricklenomics doesn't really work that well, and she does a good job outlining problems. But the narrative she weaves is all over the place when she starts talking about solutions. "Let's address inequality by taking on debt to increase spending to help transfer money to large private corporations." (I'm paraphrasing.) Increasing debt transfers power to the lender. Will they borrow from big banks? The Rothschilds? China? What's that quote? "Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws."

And "lets pay our debts by just printing more money." What kind of solution is that? The Weimar Republic called. They'd like to have a word with you about hyper-inflation.

And her "angry birds" analogy was insufferable.

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

What a buffoon.

I love his line at 8:25
The Weimar republic was a gay heaven and look what came after it ---HITLER.

@Asmo
i get what you are saying but i think you are missing the insidious implications that this new system of indoctrination represents.

i think @ChaosEngine's term 'stealth totalitarianism" is rather clever..and apt.

i agree with you on the points of peer pressure and how people can easily be manipulated.we are all,to varying degrees,subjected to a plethora of propaganda and targeted rhetoric,all meant to mold and shape our opinions in order to sustain the status quo while giving the impression that somehow our conclusions are an organic and natural response,when in reality we have been duped.

on that point we agree that this is not actually something new or novel but an old,tried and true method of social control.

what is new about this 'gaming" system,is that it is not taking the more subtle and passive approach of what current and supposedly "free" societies now implement to control public opinions and attitudes in order to either remain in power,sway the public into policies against their own interest,or create an atmosphere of fear to foment opposition.

this new system is actually aggressive.
this system will actively use its own population to do the oppressing,manipulating and controlling FOR them.

it is brilliant in it's simplicity.
it will use very human attributes we all possess in order to enact a better system of control,all the while having the appearance of being a harmless and innocuous social media competition.

but it is anything but harmless.
nor innocuous.
it will and can affect every facet of someones life.from their job to where they will be able to live,to even HOW they live.

think back to the times of east germany and the stasi,or the weimar republic,or even the soviet union of the 80's.

all used elements this new gaming system is representing,but those systems of control,while relying on the public to do much of its surveilling,all had one thing in common that they ALL relied heavily on:fear.

fear of reprisal.
fear of exposure.
fear and suspicion were the driving forces that kept those systems in power and the people in a perpetual state of paranoia.

the dread of the midnight knock.
of jackboots and black bags.

but those systems of control were fragile and once even a little resistance was exerted those systems crumbled incredibly fast.

this new system is far more subtle and devious in my opinion,because it removes the spectre of an imposing and oppressive government that will respond with violence and replaces it with the citizen to do the work for them.

the government does not have to do anything.
your neighbor will,and not because of some fear-based reason but rather for points to propel their own ambitions.their own selfish desires.

the wholesale implications are absolutely terrifying if you really think about it.

i would speculate that within a very short amount of time dissent and criticism of the chinese government will all but have vanished.replaced by a obedient and compliant population.

not because they are afraid of reprisal from the government but rather fueled by their own selfish desires for a better job,better living quarters,more privileges etc etc.

so a seemingly benign system utilizing social media will become of a self-propelled system,where those who do not tow the party line soon face joblessness,homelessness and ostracization.

not because the government strong armed them into submission,but rather their own neighbors.

so you are right.
there is nothing new here,but this system has taken the old forms of social control and brilliantly utilized one of humanities greatest weaknesses:selfishness.

it is the simplicity that makes this so brilliant and yet so horrifying at the same time.

"As I see it, there is a finite amount of money"

This is only true if cryptocurrencies like BitCoin have their way. According to the Fed, by contrast, an infinite amount of money is but just one click away...

Cronyism aside, this is not true at all:
"When one minimally productive person gets 50% of the capital in a project, it's impossible for anyone else to be compensated fairly."

No minimally productive person would get 50% in a free market. And "minimally productive" according to whom? Are you going by the Labor Theory of value? Because the Subjective Theory of Value posits otherwise. It shows that this could not happen (providing an absence of cronyism which, at the moment, is baked into the system). In other words, no one would voluntarily pay 50% of anything to someone they consider to be minimally productive. Would you?

Money is just a medium of exchange whose value is determined by the market. There are some scarce resources (as well as some non-scarce ones). Having limited money/medium of exchange makes prices go down. Wouldn't you want to pay less for gas, food, etc.? When the central banks inflate the currency (i.e., increase the money supply), there is potentially "unlimited" money to buy scarce goods. The market then makes prices rise as a result, making people effectively poorer.

"To say "much of the world is coming out of poverty" ignores reality. Perhaps the ruling class of much of the world is coming out of poverty"

Flat wrong: Look at the statistics. Millions in India, China, Southeast Asia, and other places throughout the world have come out of poverty in the last couple of decades. This is a fact.

The ruling class is never among the poor so I don't know what you mean by, "perhaps the ruling class of much of the world is coming out of poverty." What?

"This is usually not in spite of governments, but rather because of them."

Sure, it is mostly because of governments that such poverty takes so long to be eradicated. Corruption and stupid ideas like the "war on poverty," along with cronyism, currency inflation, commercial regulations, taxes, "intellectual property" laws, and more all contribute to this stupidity which keeps people poor. Throughout the history of civilization, only innovation and free commerce has brought people out of poverty on a larger scale.

I won't argue, however, against the idea that governments are always corrupt, since I completely agree. Nothing good comes out of government that could not come to us, more efficiently, more cheaply, and more effectively from private free commerce.

"Praxeology only shows what human behavior is like"

More or less, it shows the logic and the logical consequences of the fact that humans act.

"it is not an accurate predictor of behavior in an environmental hypothesis."

It depends on what you mean to predict. It is not prediction. It deals in apodictic certainties. Humans act and employ chosen means to achieve desired goals. These are certainties, not predictions. Other things are unknowns, like time preference, the means chosen, the goals desired, etc. and those you need to either predict (thymology) or wait and see (history).

"History is better, and when wealth inequality becomes so outrageous that the populace can't survive on what's left for them, they revolt."

So far yes, history would indicate this is a likely outcome or consequence, although you may need to look more closely at which sector of "the populace" has historically revolted or instigated revolt.

"I hope that this asshat (even if he's just pretending to be an asshat) is among the first ones hung, quartered, and force fed to his own family (like they did in France)"

What has he done to deserve being tortured and murdered? I am unclear about that. The revolution in France, of course, was a disaster that amounted to little good for all involved. But things like that have happened before, and could certainly happen again. Same with the Russian Revolution. Or the Nazi takeover of bankrupt Weimar Republic.

Human behavior cannot be predicted mathematically. Only econometricians seem to think so. Certainly not praxeologists! In fact, that's the basis of Misean praxeology: that you cannot predict human behavior and so economics differs from the natural sciences and requires a different method of analysis.

"that placates the Right Wing, right?"

I have no idea what would "placate the Right wing" or not. Let's not conflate right-wing statists with anarchists. Two completely different things. I also don't care what would "placate" the right wing.


If you really care about inequality, do what you can to oppose government policy, especially warmongering and central banking. They are the biggest contributors to the class divide, regardless of how you parse the data. (Of course, you may find that you can do very little.)

If you think you should be paid as much as the CEO of Apple, then by all means you should try applying to that job. I am not saying you are not worth it, but it's not me you have to convince...

Yeah, feel free to slap that video in the face of anyone who ever says Peter Schiff is awesome and/or infallible.

The Krugman predictions of stagnation and disinflation were right, crackpot predictions of Weimar/Zimbabwe-style hyperinflation were dead wrong.

I'm a bit curious how Schiff spins his utter fail.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
Peter Schiff *Failboat.com.org

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
Definitely one to mark down:

Schiff says we'll have a crash of our economy driven by hyperinflation by the end of the year, or maybe in 2010.

Krugman (who unlike Schiff is a Nobel prize winning economist) also predicted the problem we're having now, and says if we don't do something even bigger than an $800bn stimulus, we're in for a deflationary problem, just like the Great Depression.

Clearly, someone will be proven right, even if disaster ensues.

Flim-flam artists like Schiff should know better, if the problem now is because Greenspan made the interest rate too low in 2002 then the real problem is that our current 0% interest rate will cause a new asset bubble that will collapse, so he should allow for a much longer period of time for it to gestate, like say Obama's second term, 2014 or so.

But that wouldn't get him on the TeeVee machine to throw bricks at Democrats as often.

He's speaking a half truth, but I don't think he's calling the Tea Party people who believe in the extermination of people based on race or anything like that. He's trying to point out that the Tea Party, similar to the Nazi party, is an anti-establishment movement that has been born out of a troubled economy. That he's right about. He's also correct in observing that there doesn't seem to be any charismatic leader within the Tea Party. He's also correct in stating that there's a higher risk of radical parties coming to power during times of socio-economic upheavals.

He loses me in stating that the Tea Party is only about fear and hate, and have no proposed solutions. They are proposing a radical change in the federal budget, including massive cuts that adhere to radical conservative political philosophies, including massive cuts typically in social programs instead of defense. I vehemently disagree with that, but that's still a stated solution. I just wish politics were more about discussing rationally the pros and cons of an idea instead of loose associations with clearly horrible groups from history. You could make the case that the American progressive movement was a reaction to poor political and social environments, but that doesn't make the Progressive Movement bad.

He also is oversimplifying the Nazi rise to power. When you think about it, he contradicts himself. If Hitler simply rose to power because of exploiting popular discontent with the economy, then why did he never get the support of the majority of Germans in a free and fair election? Hitler did in fact exploit fear and malcontent in the German population caused by the Great Depression, but he never would have come to power had the conservative parties not attempted to co-op the Nazis to fight off the political left Social Democratic party and the Communist Party in Germany.

The rise of an extreme party in the US in the same way Nazis took control of Germany is very highly unlikely. While there are obvious negatives to the US two party political system, one strength is it does a very good job of preventing extremists from taking over. In Germany, the Nazi party exploited the fact there were numerous parties - the Conservative party, the Catholic Party, the Social Democratic party, the Communist party, and of course the Nazis to name some. Sure the US has other parties than the Democratic and Republican parties, but they're virtually insignificant in numbers and support. That simply wasn't the case in Weimar Germany, and in order to get a coalition government to get anything done, parties had to compromise and work together. Unfortunately, the conservative parties decided to work with the Nazis, making Hitler Chancellor, even though the Nazis were clearly anti-democratic, because they politically disagreed with the Social Democratic party. You can call the Tea Party whatever you want, but they certainly are in favor of Democracy.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'noam chomsky, weimar republic, populism, scape goating, powers that be' to 'noam chomsky, weimar republic, populism, scapegoating, powers that be' - edited by thinker247

Myth: Hitler was a leftist.

Fact: Nearly all of Hitler's beliefs placed him on the far right.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-hitler.htm

Summary

Many conservatives accuse Hitler of being a leftist, on the grounds that his party was named "National Socialist." But socialism requires worker ownership and control of the means of production. In Nazi Germany, private capitalist individuals owned the means of production, and they in turn were frequently controlled by the Nazi party and state. True socialism does not advocate such economic dictatorship -- it can only be democratic. Hitler's other political beliefs place him almost always on the far right. He advocated racism over racial tolerance, eugenics over freedom of reproduction, merit over equality, competition over cooperation, power politics and militarism over pacifism, dictatorship over democracy, capitalism over Marxism, realism over idealism, nationalism over internationalism, exclusiveness over inclusiveness, common sense over theory or science, pragmatism over principle, and even held friendly relations with the Church, even though he was an atheist.



Argument

To most people, Hitler's beliefs belong to the extreme far right. For example, most conservatives believe in patriotism and a strong military; carry these beliefs far enough, and you arrive at Hitler's warring nationalism. This association has long been something of an embarrassment to the far right. To deflect such criticism, conservatives have recently launched a counter-attack, claiming that Hitler was a socialist, and therefore belongs to the political left, not the right.

The primary basis for this claim is that Hitler was a National Socialist. The word "National" evokes the state, and the word "Socialist" openly identifies itself as such.

However, there is no academic controversy over the status of this term: it was a misnomer. Misnomers are quite common in the history of political labels. Examples include the German Democratic Republic (which was neither) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's "Liberal Democrat" party (which was also neither). The true question is not whether Hitler called his party "socialist," but whether or not it actually was.

In fact, socialism has never been tried at the national level anywhere in the world. This may surprise some people -- after all, wasn't the Soviet Union socialist? The answer is no. Many nations and political parties have called themselves "socialist," but none have actually tried socialism. To understand why, we should revisit a few basic political terms.

Perhaps the primary concern of any political ideology is who gets to own and control the means the production. This includes factories, farmlands, machinery, etc. Generally there have been three approaches to this question. The first was aristocracy, in which a ruling elite owned the land and productive wealth, and peasants and serfs had to obey their orders in return for their livelihood. The second is capitalism, which has disbanded the ruling elite and allows a much broader range of private individuals to own the means of production. However, this ownership is limited to those who can afford to buy productive wealth; nearly all workers are excluded. The third (and untried) approach is socialism, where everyone owns and controls the means of production, by means of the vote. As you can see, there is a spectrum here, ranging from a few people owning productive wealth at one end, to everyone owning it at the other.

Socialism has been proposed in many forms. The most common is social democracy, where workers vote for their supervisors, as well as their industry representatives to regional or national congresses. Another proposed form is anarcho-socialism, where workers own companies that would operate on a free market, without any central government at all. As you can see, a central planning committee is hardly a necessary feature of socialism. The primary feature is worker ownership of production.

The Soviet Union failed to qualify as socialist because it was a dictatorship over workers -- that is, a type of aristocracy, with a ruling elite in Moscow calling all the shots. Workers cannot own or control anything under a totalitarian government. In variants of socialism that call for a central government, that government is always a strong or even direct democracy… never a dictatorship. It doesn't matter if the dictator claims to be carrying out the will of the people, or calls himself a "socialist" or a "democrat." If the people themselves are not in control, then the system is, by definition, non-democratic and non-socialist.

And what of Nazi Germany? The idea that workers controlled the means of production in Nazi Germany is a bitter joke. It was actually a combination of aristocracy and capitalism. Technically, private businessmen owned and controlled the means of production. The Nazi "Charter of Labor" gave employers complete power over their workers. It established the employer as the "leader of the enterprise," and read: "The leader of the enterprise makes the decisions for the employees and laborers in all matters concerning the enterprise." (1)

The employer, however, was subject to the frequent orders of the ruling Nazi elite. After the Nazis took power in 1933, they quickly established a highly controlled war economy under the direction of Dr. Hjalmar Schacht. Like all war economies, it boomed, making Germany the second nation to recover fully from the Great Depression, in 1936. (The first nation was Sweden, in 1934. Following Keynesian-like policies, the Swedish government spent its way out of the Depression, proving that state economic policies can be successful without resorting to dictatorship or war.)

Prior to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, worker protests had spread all across Germany in response to the Great Depression. During his drive to power, Hitler exploited this social unrest by promising workers to strengthen their labor unions and increase their standard of living. But these were empty promises; privately, he was reassuring wealthy German businessmen that he would crack down on labor once he achieved power. Historian William Shirer describes the Nazi's dual strategy:

"The party had to play both sides of the tracks. It had to allow [Nazi officials] Strasser, Goebbels and the crank Feder to beguile the masses with the cry that the National Socialists were truly 'socialists' and against the money barons. On the other hand, money to keep the party going had to be wheedled out of those who had an ample supply of it." (2)

Once in power, Hitler showed his true colors by promptly breaking all his promises to workers. The Nazis abolished trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike. An organization called the "Labor Front" replaced the old trade unions, but it was an instrument of the Nazi party and did not represent workers. According to the law that created it, "Its task is to see that every individual should be able… to perform the maximum of work." Workers would indeed greatly boost their productivity under Nazi rule. But they also became exploited. Between 1932 and 1936, workers wages fell, from 20.4 to 19.5 cents an hour for skilled labor, and from 16.1 to 13 cents an hour for unskilled labor. (3) Yet workers did not protest. This was partly because the Nazis had restored order to the economy, but an even bigger reason was that the Nazis would have cracked down on any protest.

There was no part of Nazism, therefore, that even remotely resembled socialism. But what about the political nature of Nazism in general? Did it belong to the left, or to the right? Let's take a closer look:

The politics of Nazism

The political right is popularly associated with the following principles. Of course, it goes without saying that these are generalizations, and not every person on the far right believes in every principle, or disbelieves its opposite. Most people's political beliefs are complex, and cannot be neatly pigeonholed. This is as true of Hitler as anyone. But since the far right is trying peg Hitler as a leftist, it's worth reviewing the tenets popularly associated with the right. These include:

* Individualism over collectivism.
* Racism or racial segregation over racial tolerance.
* Eugenics over freedom of reproduction.
* Merit over equality.
* Competition over cooperation.
* Power politics and militarism over pacifism.
* One-person rule or self-rule over democracy.
* Capitalism over Marxism.
* Realism over idealism.
* Nationalism over internationalism.
* Exclusiveness over inclusiveness.
* Meat-eating over vegetarianism.
* Gun ownership over gun control
* Common sense over theory or science.
* Pragmatism over principle.
* Religion over secularism.

Let's review these spectrums one by one, and see where Hitler stood in his own words. Ultimately, Hitler's views are not monolithically conservative -- on a few issues, his views are complex and difficult to label. But as you will see, the vast majority of them belong on the far right:

Individualism over collectivism.

Many conservatives argue that Hitler was a leftist because he subjugated the individual to the state. However, this characterization is wrong, for several reasons.

The first error is in assuming that this is exclusively a liberal trait. Actually, U.S. conservatives take considerable pride in being patriotic Americans, and they deeply honor those who have sacrificed their lives for their country. The Marine Corps is a classic example: as every Marine knows, all sense of individuality is obliterated in the Marines Corps, and one is subject first, foremost and always to the group.

The second error is forgetting that all human beings subscribe to individualism and collectivism. If you believe that you are personally responsible for taking care of yourself, you are an individualist. If you freely belong and contribute to any group -- say, an employing business, church, club, family, nation, or cause -- then you are a collectivist as well. Neither of these traits makes a person inherently "liberal" or "conservative," and to claim that you are an "evil socialist" because you champion a particular group is not a serious argument.

Political scientists therefore do not label people "liberal" or "conservative" on the basis of their individualism or collectivism. Much more important is how they approach their individualism and collectivism. What groups does a person belong to? How is power distributed in the group? Does it practice one-person rule, minority rule, majority rule, or self-rule? Liberals believe in majority rule. Hitler practiced one-person rule. Thus, there is no comparison.

And on that score, conservatives might feel that they are off the hook, too, because they claim to prefer self-rule to one-person rule. But their actions say otherwise. Many of the institutions that conservatives favor are really quite dictatorial: the military, the church, the patriarchal family, the business firm.

Hitler himself downplayed all groups except for the state, which he raised to supreme significance in his writings. However, he did not identify the state as most people do, as a random collection of people in artificially drawn borders. Instead, he identified the German state as its racially pure stock of German or Aryan blood. In Mein Kampf, Hitler freely and interchangeably used the terms "Aryan race," "German culture" and "folkish state." To him they were synonyms, as the quotes below show. There were citizens inside Germany (like Jews) who were not part of Hitler's state, while there were Germans outside Germany (for example, in Austria) who were. But the main point is that Hitler's political philosophy was not really based on "statism" as we know it today. It was actually based on racism -- again, a subject that hits uncomfortably closer to home for conservatives, not liberals.

As Hitler himself wrote:

"The main plank in the Nationalist Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood." (4)

"The state is a means to an end. Its end lies in the preservation and advancement of a community of physically and psychically homogenous creatures. This preservation itself comprises first of all existence as a race… Thus, the highest purpose of a folkish state is concern for the preservation of those original racial elements which bestow culture and create the beauty and dignity of a higher mankind. We, as Aryans, can conceive of the state only as the living organism of a nationality which… assures the preservation of this nationality…" (5)

"The German Reich as a state must embrace all Germans and has the task, not only of assembling and preserving the most valuable stocks of basic racial elements in this people, but slowly and surely of raising them to a dominant position." (6)

And it was in the service of this racial state that Hitler encourage individuals to sacrifice themselves:

"In [the Aryan], the instinct for self-preservation has reached its noblest form, since he willingly subordinates his own ego to the life of the community and, if the hour demands it, even sacrifices it." (7)

"This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture." (8)

Racism or racial segregation over racial tolerance.

"All the human culture, all the results of art, science, and technology that we see before us today, are almost exclusively the creative product of the Aryan." (9)

"Aryan races -- often absurdly small numerically -- subject foreign peoples, and then… develop the intellectual and organizational capacities dormant within them." (10)

"If beginning today all further Aryan influence on Japan should stop… Japan's present rise in science and technology might continue for a short time; but even in a few years the well would dry up… the present culture would freeze and sink back into the slumber from which it awakened seven decades ago by the wave of Aryan culture." (11)

"Every racial crossing leads inevitably sooner or later to the decline of the hybrid product…" (12)

"It is the function above all of the Germanic states first and foremost to call a fundamental halt to any further bastardization." (13)

"What we must fight for is to safeguard the existence and reproduction of our race and our people, the sustenance of our children and the purity of our blood…" (14)

Eugenics over freedom of reproduction

"The folkish philosophy of life must succeed in bringing about that nobler age in which men no longer are concerned with breeding dogs, horses, and cats, but in elevating man himself…" (15)

"The folkish state must make up for what everyone else today has neglected in this field. It must set race in the center of all life. It must take care to keep it pure… It must see to it that only the healthy beget children; that there is only one disgrace: despite one's own sickness and deficiencies, to bring children into the world, and one highest honor: to renounce doing so. And conversely it must be considered reprehensible: to withhold healthy children from the nation. Here the state… must put the most modern medical means in the service of this knowledge. It must declare unfit for propagation all who are in any way visibly sick or who have inherited a disease and therefore pass it on…" (16)

Merit over equality.

"The best state constitution and state form is that which, with the most unquestioned certainty, raises the best minds in the national community to leading position and leading influence. But as in economic life, the able men cannot be appointed from above, but must struggle through for themselves…" (17)

"It must not be lamented if so many men set out on the road to arrive at the same goal: the most powerful and swiftest will in this way be recognized, and will be the victor." (p. 512.)

Competition over cooperation.

"Those who want to live, let them fight, and those who do not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live." (18)

"It must never be forgotten that nothing that is really great in this world has ever been achieved by coalitions, but that it has always been the success of a single victor. Coalition successes bear by the very nature of their origin the germ of future crumbling, in fact of the loss of what has already been achieved. Great, truly world-shaking revolutions of a spiritual nature are not even conceivable and realizable except as the titanic struggles of individual formations, never as enterprises of coalitions." (19)

"The idea of struggle is old as life itself, for life is only preserved because other living things perish through struggle… In this struggle, the stronger, the more able, win, while the less able, the weak, lose. Struggle is the father of all things… It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself in the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle… If you do not fight for life, then life will never be won." (20)

Power politics and militarism over pacifism.

Allan Bullock, probably the world's greatest Hitler historian, sums up Hitler's political method in one sentence:

"Stripped of their romantic trimmings, all Hitler's ideas can be reduced to a simple claim for power which recognizes only one relationship, that of domination, and only one argument, that of force." (21)

The following quotes by Hitler portray his rather stunning contempt for pacifism:

"If the German people in its historic development had possessed that herd unity [defined here by Hitler as racial solidarity] which other peoples enjoyed, the German Reich today would doubtless be mistress of the globe. World history would have taken a different course, and no one can distinguish whether in this way we would not have obtained what so many blinded pacifists today hope to gain by begging, whining and whimpering: a peace, supported not by the palm branches of tearful, pacifist female mourners, but based on the victorious sword of a master people, putting the world into the service of a higher culture." (22)

"We must clearly recognize the fact that the recovery of the lost territories is not won through solemn appeals to the Lord or through pious hopes in a League of Nations, but only by force of arms." (23)

"In actual fact the pacifistic-humane idea is perfectly all right perhaps when the highest type of man has previously conquered and subjected the world to an extent that makes him the sole ruler of this earth… Therefore, first struggle and then perhaps pacifism." (24)

One-person rule or self-rule over democracy.

"The young [Nazi] movement is in its nature and inner organization anti-parliamentarian; that is, it rejects… a principle of majority rule in which the leader is degraded to the level of mere executant of other people's wills and opinion." (25)

"The [Nazi party] should not become a constable of public opinion, but must dominate it. It must not become a servant of the masses, but their master!" (26)

"By rejecting the authority of the individual and replacing it by the numbers of some momentary mob, the parliamentary principle of majority rule sins against the basic aristocratic principle of Nature…" (27)

"For there is one thing we must never forget… the majority can never replace the man. And no more than a hundred empty heads make one wise man will an heroic decision arise from a hundred cowards." (28)

"There must be no majority decisions, but only responsible persons, and the word 'council' must be restored to its original meaning. Surely every man will have advisers by his side, but the decision will be made by one man." (29)

"When I recognized the Jew as the leader of the Social Democracy, the scales dropped from my eyes." (30)

"The Western democracy of today is the forerunner of Marxism…" (31)

"Only a knowledge of the Jews provides the key with which to comprehend the inner, and consequently real, aims of Social Democracy." (32)

Capitalism over Marxism.

Bullock writes of Hitler's views on Marxism:

"While Hitler's attitude towards liberalism was one of contempt, towards Marxism he showed an implacable hostility… Ignoring the profound differences between Communism and Social Democracy in practice and the bitter hostility between the rival working class parties, he saw in their common ideology the embodiment of all that he detested -- mass democracy and a leveling egalitarianism as opposed to the authoritarian state and the rule of an elite; equality and friendship among peoples as opposed to racial inequality and the domination of the strong; class solidarity versus national unity; internationalism versus nationalism." (33)

As Hitler himself would write:

"The German state is gravely attacked by Marxism." (34)

"In the years 1913 and 1914, I… expressed the conviction that the question of the future of the German nation was the question of destroying Marxism." (35)

"In the economic sphere Communism is analogous to democracy in the political sphere." (36)

"The Marxists will march with democracy until they succeed in indirectly obtaining for their criminal aims the support of even the national intellectual world, destined by them for extinction." (37)

"Marxism itself systematically plans to hand the world over to the Jews." (38)

"The Jewish doctrine of Marxism rejects the aristocratic principle of Nature and replaces the eternal privilege of power and strength by the mass of numbers and their dead weight." (39)

Realism over idealism.

Hitler was hardly an "idealist" in the sense that political scientists use the term. The standard definition of an idealist is someone who believes that cooperation and peaceful coexistence can occur among peoples. A realist, however, is someone who sees the world as an unstable and dangerous place, and prepares for war, if not to deter it, then to survive it. It goes without saying that Hitler was one of the greatest realists of all time. Nonetheless, Hitler had his own twisted utopia, which he described:

"We are not simple enough, either, to believe that it could ever be possible to bring about a perfect era. But this relieves no one of the obligation to combat recognized errors, to overcome weaknesses, and strive for the ideal. Harsh reality of its own accord will create only too many limitations. For that very reason, however, man must try to serve the ultimate goal, and failures must not deter him, any more than he can abandon a system of justice merely because mistakes creep into it…" (40)

"The same boy who feels like throwing up when he hears the tirades of a pacifist 'idealist' is ready to give up his life for the ideal of his nationality." (41)

Nationalism over internationalism.

"The nationalization of our masses will succeed only when… their international poisoners are exterminated." (42)

"The severest obstacle to the present-day worker's approach to the national community lies not in the defense of his class interests, but in his international leadership and attitude which are hostile to the people and the fatherland." (43)

"Thus, the reservoir from which the young [Nazi] movement must gather its supporters will primarily be the masses of our workers. Its work will be to tear these away from the international delusion… and lead them to the national community…" (44)

Exclusiveness over inclusiveness.

"Thus men without exception wander about in the garden of Nature; they imagine that they know practically everything and yet with few exceptions pass blindly by one of the most patent principles of Nature: the inner segregation of the species of all living beings on earth." (45)

"The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others." (46)

Meat-eating over vegetarianism.

It may seem ridiculous to include this issue in a review of Hitler's politics, but, believe it or not, conservatives on the Internet frequently equate Hitler's vegetarianism with the vegetarianism practised by liberals concerned about the environment and the ethical treatment of animals.

Hitler's vegetarianism had nothing to do with his political beliefs. He became a vegetarian shortly after the death of his girlfriend and half-niece, Geli Raubal. Their relationship was a stormy one, and it ended in her apparent suicide. There were rumors that Hitler had arranged her murder, but Hitler would remain deeply distraught over her loss for the rest of his life. As one historian writes:

"Curiously, shortly after her death, Hitler looked with disdain on a piece of ham being served during breakfast and refused to eat it, saying it was like eating a corpse. From that moment on, he refused to eat meat." (47)

Hitler's vegetarianism, then, was no more than a phobia, triggered by an association with his niece's death.

Gun ownership over gun control

Perhaps one of the pro-gun lobby's favorite arguments is that if German citizens had had the right to keep and bear arms, Hitler would have never been able to tyrannize the country. And to this effect, pro-gun advocates often quote the following:

"1935 will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future." - Adolf Hitler

However, this quote is almost certainly a fraud. There is no reputable record of him ever making it: neither at the Nuremberg rallies, nor in any of his weekly radio addresses. Furthermore, there was no reason for him to even make such a statement; for Germany already had strict gun control as a term of surrender in the Treaty of Versailles. The Allies had wanted to make Germany as impotent as possible, and one of the ways they did that was to disarm its citizenry. Only a handful of local authorities were allowed arms at all, and the few German citizens who did possess weapons were already subject to full gun registration. Seen in this light, the above quote makes no sense whatsoever.

The Firearms Policy Journal (January 1997) writes:

"The Nazi Party did not ride to power confiscating guns. They rode to power on the inability of the Weimar Republic to confiscate their guns. They did not consolidate their power confiscating guns either. There is no historical evidence that Nazis ever went door to door in Germany confiscating guns. The Germans had a fetish about paperwork and documented everything. These searches and confiscations would have been carefully recorded. If the documents are there, let them be presented as evidence."

On April 12, 1928, five years before Hitler seized power, Germany passed the Law on Firearms and Ammunition. This law substantially tightened restrictions on gun ownership in an effort to curb street violence between Nazis and Communists. The law was ineffectual and poorly enforced. It was not until March 18, 1938 -- five years after Hitler came to power -- that the Nazis passed the German Weapons Law, their first known change in the firearm code. And this law actually relaxed restrictions on citizen firearms.

Common sense over theory or science.

Hitler was notorious for his anti-intellectualism:

"The youthful brain should in general not be burdened with things ninety-five percent of which it cannot use and hence forgets again… In many cases, the material to be learned in the various subjects is so swollen that only a fraction of it remains in the head of the individual pupil, and only a fraction of this abundance can find application, while on the other hand it is not adequate for the man working and earning his living in a definite field." (48)

"Knowledge above the average can be crammed into the average man, but it remains dead, and in the last analysis sterile knowledge. The result is a man who may be a living dictionary but nevertheless falls down miserably in all special situations and decisive moments in life." (49)

"The folkish state must not adjust its entire educational work primarily to the inoculation of mere knowledge, but to the breeding of absolutely healthy bodies. The training of mental abilities is only secondary. And here again, first place must be taken by the development of character, especially the promotion of will-power and determination, combined with the training of joy in responsibility, and only in last place comes scientific schooling." (50)

"A people of scholars, if they are physically degenerate, weak-willed and cowardly pacifists, will not storm the heavens, indeed, they will not be able to safeguard their existence on this earth." (51)

Pragmatism over principle.

"The question of the movement's inner organization is one of expediency and not of principle." (52)

Religion over secularism.

Hitler's views on religion were complex. Although ostensibly an atheist, he considered himself a cultural Catholic, and frequently evoked God, the Creator and Providence in his writings. Throughout his life he would remain an envious admirer of the Christian Church and its power over the masses. Here is but one example:

"We can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice… comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas. It has recognized quite correctly that its power of resistance does not lie in its lesser or greater adaptation to the scientific findings of the moment, which in reality are always fluctuating, but rather in rigidly holding to dogmas once established, for it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of faith. And so it stands today more firmly than ever." (53)

Hitler also saw a useful purpose for the Church:

"The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, [religious] faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude… For the political man, the value of a religion must be estimated less by its deficiencies than by the virtue of a visibly better substitute. As long as this appears to be lacking, what is present can be demolished only by fools or criminals." (54)

Hitler thus advocated freedom of religious belief. Although he would later press churches into the service of Nazism, often at the point of a gun, Hitler did not attempt to impose a state religion or mandate the basic philosophical content of German religions. As long as they did not interfere with his program, he allowed them to continue fuctioning. And this policy was foreshadowed in his writings:

"For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else he has no right to be in politics…" (55)

"Political parties have nothing to do with religious problems, as long as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming of political parties." (56)

"Worst of all, however, is the devastation wrought by the misuse of religious conviction for political ends." (57)

"Therefore, let every man be active, each in his own denomination if you please, and let every man take it as his first and most sacred duty to oppose anyone who in his activity by word or deed steps outside the confines of his religious community and tries to butt into the other." (58)

Hitler was raised a Catholic, even going to school for two years at the monastery at Lambauch, Austria. As late as 24 he still called himself a Catholic, but somewhere along the way he became an atheist. It is highly doubtful that this was an intellectual decision, as a reading of his disordered thoughts in Mein Kampf will attest. The decision was most likely a pragmatic one, based on power and personal ambition. Bullock reveals an interesting anecdote showing how these considerations worked on the young Hitler. After five years of eking out a miserable existence in Vienna and four years of war, Hitler walked into his first German Worker's Party meeting:

"'Under the dim light shed by a grimy gas-lamp I could see four people sitting around a table…' As Hitler frankly acknowledges, this very obscurity was an attraction. It was only in a party which, like himself, was beginning at the bottom that he had any prospect of playing a leading part and imposing his ideas. In the established parties there was no room for him, he would be a nobody." (59)

Hitler probably realized that a frustrated artist and pipe-dreamer like himself would have no chance of achieving power in the world-wide, 2000-year old Christian Church. It was most likely for this reason that he rejected Christianity and pursued a political life instead. Yet, curiously enough, he never renounced his membership in the Catholic Church, and the Church never excommunicated him. Nor did the Church place his Mein Kampf on the Index of Prohibited Books, in spite of its knowledge of his atrocities. Later the Church would come under intense criticism for its friendly and cooperative relationship with Hitler. A brief review of this history is instructive.

In 1933, the Catholic Center Party cast its large and decisive vote in favor of Hitler's Enabling Bill. This bill essentially gave Chancellor Hitler the sweeping dictatorial powers he was seeking. Historian Guenter Lewy describes a meeting between Hitler and the German Catholic authorities shortly afterwards:

"On 26 April 1933 Hitler had a conversation with Bishop Berning and Monsignor Steinmann [the Catholic leadership in Germany]. The subject was the common fight against liberalism, Socialism and Bolshevism, discussed in the friendliest terms. In the course of the conversation Hitler said that he was only doing to the Jews what the church had done to them over the past fifteen hundred years. The prelates did not contradict him." (60)

As anyone familiar with Christian history knows, the Church has always been a primary source of anti-Semitism. Hitler's anti-Semitism therefore found a receptive audience among Catholic authorities. The Church also had an intense fear and hatred of Russian communism, and Hitler's attack on Russia was the best that could have happened. The Jesuit Michael Serafin wrote: "It cannot be denied that [Pope] Pius XII's closest advisors for some time regarded Hitler's armoured divisions as the right hand of God." (61) As Pope Pius himself would say after Germany conquered Poland: "Let us end this war between brothers and unite our forces against the common enemy of atheism" -- Russia. (62)

Once Hitler assumed power, he signed a Concordat, or agreement, with the Catholic Church. Eugenio Pacelli (the man who would eventually become Pope Pius XII) was the Vatican diplomat who drew up the Concordat, and he considered it a triumph. In return for promises which Hitler increasingly broke, the Church dissolved all Catholic organizations in Germany, including the Catholic Center Party. Bishops were to take an oath of loyalty to the Nazi regime. Clergy were to see to the pastoral care of Germany's armed forces (regardless of what those armed forces did). (63)

The Concordat eliminated all Catholic resistance to Hitler; after this, the German bishops gave Hitler their full and unqualified support. A bishops' conference at Fulda, 1933, resulted in agreement with Hitler's case for extending Lebensraum, or German territory. (64) Bishop Bornewasser told a congregation of Catholic young people at Trier: "With our heads high and with firm steps we have entered the new Reich and are ready to serve it body and soul." (65) Vicar-General Steinman greeted each Berlin mass with the shout, "Heil Hitler!" (66)

Hitler, on the other hand, kept up his attack on the Church. Nazi bands stormed into the few remaining Catholic institutions, beat up Catholic youths and arrested Catholic officials. The Vatican was dismayed, but it did not protest. (67) In some instances, it was hard to tell if the Church supported its own persecution. Hitler muzzled the independent Catholic press (about 400 daily papers in 1933) and subordinated it to Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda and Enlightenment. Yet soon the Catholic Press was doing more than what the Nazis required of it -- for example, coordinating their Nazi propaganda to prepare the people for the 1940 offensive against the West. (68) Throughout the war, the Catholic press would remain one of the Third Reich's best disseminators of propaganda.

Pacelli became the new Pope Pius XII in 1939, and he immediately improved relations with Hitler. He broke protocol by personally signing a letter in German to Hitler expressing warm hopes of friendly relations. Shortly afterwards, the Church celebrated Hitler's birthday by ringing bells, flying swastika flags from church towers and holding thanksgiving services for the Fuhrer. (69) Ringing church bells to celebrate and affirm the bishops' allegiance to the Reich would become quite common throughout the war; after the German army conquered France, the church bells rang for an entire week, and swastikas flew over the churches for ten days.

But perhaps the greatest failure of Pope Pius XII was his silence over the Holocaust, even though he knew it was in progress. Although there are many heroic stories of Catholics helping Jews survive the Holocaust, they do not include Pope Pius, the Holy See, or the German Catholic authorities. When a reporter asked Pius why he did not protest the liquidation of the Jews, the Pope answered, "Dear friend, do not forget that millions of Catholics are serving in the German armies. Am I to involve them in a conflict of conscience?" (70) As perhaps the world's greatest moral leader, he was charged with precisely that responsibility.

The history of Hitler and the Church reveals a relationship built on mutual distrust and philosophical rejection, but also shared goals, benefits, admiration, envy, friendliness, and ultimate alliance.

So, a bit of a case study of the dereliction of duty performed daily by Media News Head fucks...Note the smug, editorializing tone, the poorly-written and leaning script ending in snide quips....TYT has obviously taken cues from the worst of what the media has become-A bunch of propaganda monkeys on par with Joe Goebbels' little media machine post-Weimar.

Fcuking national news-A festering lump of necrotic flesh.

Viktoriya Yermolyeva was born in Kiev in 1978. She graduated with honours from Kiev Lysenko Specialized Music High School (1996), piano class of Prof. Iryna Lipatova and National P. Tchaikovsky Music Academy of the Ukraine (2000), piano class of Prof. Igor Ryabov.
She studied in the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Weimar (D), postgraduate course with Prof. Peter Waas and simultaneously in the years 2001-2003, studied in the International Piano Academy “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola (I) with Prof. Lazar Berman.

She won prizes in many piano competitions, among others:
1st Prize at “Filippo Trevisan” International for Piano Interpretation (I).
Winner of The Grachtenfestival 2005 Amsterdam
1st Prize at 35th International Competition “”Vincenzo Bellini”(I)
1st Prize at 20th International Piano Competition “Citta di Marsala” (I)
1st Prize at International Piano Competition “Citta’ Di Trani” (I).
1st Prize at 4th Sigismund Thalberg International Piano Prize (I).
Grand Prix at 9th Pierre Lantier International Music Competition in duet with V.Dmitriev (flute) (Fr).

^I understand your point, but this place thrives on positive feedback, i.e., star points for sifted videos. Now if we make it too easy to get star points then they'll have the approximate value of a Deutsche mark during the Weimar Republic. However, if we make it too hard for the more obscure gems to receive star points, then the majority of videos that people will sift be the ones that have a greater probability of success. Therefore you'll see more TDS, Colbert Report, and cat videos, and fewer small but worthy gems. In other words, this place will become like a Hollywood studio.

Now I like seeing cat videos sometimes, and I also like seeing obscure music videos too. That's why I like this site so much, because you can find virtually every variety of video under the sun here. So a balance needs to be struck, I believe.

I don't think 12 votes will be too high for good small-niche videos to be rewarded, but that is admittedly based on a hunch, because I don't have hard numbers to back my case. But raise the bar too high and like I said, this place will become more like Digg or Reddit. That is not meant as a slam against either site, because I have occasionally posted videos from both. Still, I don't want this place to be a clone of either of them, because why should we even exist if we're nothing more than an RSS feed from both sites? Then that would make VS one of the worst things I can imagine a web site to be: BORING.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a light switch to play with.

Historically when did the US military or any military for that matter want to ever admit defeat, mistakes, difficulty and want to pull out?

I feel a Weimar Republic backstab on the same level as Vietnam coming soon...