Similarities between the Anti-Germans and "Maoist"-ThirdWorldists.

[Palingenisis]

For a long time I believed that the MonkeySmashesHeaven was part of the Trotskyite campaign against the Communist movement, however it appears that they are "geniune".

With this in mind I noticed that they have many similarities to the Anti-German current.

Firstly both the Anti-Germans and the Maoist-ThirdWorldists see the world primarily in terms of nations as opposed to classes. Not only that but both divide nations into those essentially good and those that are evil, both taking their own nation to be on the side of darkness and displaying a pathological hatred of it and a mockery of its "ordinary working class member".

Both hail the indriscriminate slaughter of members of their own nation whether in the case of the 9/11 tragedy with the Maoist-ThirdWorldists or the Dresden massacre with the Anti-Germans and go further than that by painting the utterly reactionary bomber Harris and Osama Bin Laden as "progressive" figures (primarily for indriscriminately killing members of their own nation).

Both seem to have their social base among perpetual students, malcontented drop outs and acedemics.

Are we dealing with basically the same thing in both of them differing only because of the different historical circumstances of Germany and the USA?

[Widerstand]

For a long time I believed that the MonkeySmashesHeaven was part of the Trotskyite campaign against the Communist movement, however it appears that they are "geniune".

With this in mind I noticed that they have many similarities to the Anti-German current.

Firstly both the Anti-Germans and the Maoist-ThirdWorldists see the world primarily in terms of nations as opposed to classes. Not only that but both divide nations into those essentially good and those that are evil, both taking their own nation to be on the side of darkness and displaying a pathological hatred of it and a mockery of its "ordinary working class member".

Both hail the indriscriminate slaughter of members of their own nation whether in the case of the 9/11 tragedy with the Maoist-ThirdWorldists or the Dresden massacre with the Anti-Germans and go further than that by painting the utterly reactionary bomber Harris and Osama Bin Laden as "progressive" figures (primarily for indriscriminately killing members of their own nation).

Both seem to have their social base among perpetual students, malcontented drop outs and acedemics.

Are we dealing with basically the same thing in both of them differing only because of the different historical circumstances of Germany and the USA?

No, because fuck you.

The only substantial similarity between Anti-Germans and TWMs is that they both take somewhat legitimate theoretical approaches (Critical Theory; Maoism) to absurd levels, and they usually have a lot of selfhatred.

I don't think they define stuff by nations any more or less than other Marxists. Just that most Marxists analyze nations under different aspects.

[thälmann]

antigermans and twm are both confused reactionaries, but the first ones totally support the enemy, what these third worldistsnot do, or not directly.

ps.: the dresden bombing is not something to party about, but it was not a massacre or crime.

[zimmerwald1915]

ps.: the dresden bombing is not something to party about, but it was not a massacre or crime.
The what now? It was part of a two-front campaign by the Allied bourgoieises. The one front was against the Soviet Union, which under the Yalta Agreements was slated to occupy the region. Dresden was a good-sized industrial city, and the Allies didn't want their soon-to-be competitors to get their hands on it intact. The other front was against the German proletariat. Everyone remembered that the Russian Revolution had emerged during and against the First World War, and wanted to prevent a repeat of that in Germany and Italy. Since the Allies at the time had large sections of those countries outside their direct political control, they resorted to their war machines to attack the working class in the Axis countries. The bombing of "industrial districts" always involved the "collateral" destruction of workers' homes as well as their means of survival.

[Palingenisis]

ps.: the dresden bombing is not something to party about, but it was not a massacre or crime.

How is the deliberate mass incinceration of civilians not a massacre or a war crime?

[human strike]

I think you're making a gross over-simplification, comrade.

At the risk of taking the thread off topic, the Dresden bombing was not a war crime in the same way US anti-sub warfare against Japan was not a war crime - it was the Allies who defined what were and were not war crimes according to what they had and had not done themselves during the war.

[Volcanicity]

I think you're making a gross over-simplification, comrade.

At the risk of taking the thread off topic, the Dresden bombing was not a war crime in the same way US anti-sub warfare against Japan was not a war crime - it was the Allies who defined what were and were not war crimes according to what they had and had not done themselves during the war.
So going by this logic I suppose the Invasion's of Iraq and Afghanistan are not considered war crimes,and Bush and Blair are not war criminal's?Well I for one beg to differ.

[Dimentio]

I think you're making a gross over-simplification, comrade.

At the risk of taking the thread off topic, the Dresden bombing was not a war crime in the same way US anti-sub warfare against Japan was not a war crime - it was the Allies who defined what were and were not war crimes according to what they had and had not done themselves during the war.

Only US chauvinists or resentful German nazis are upholding a definition like this, the first group to apologise, the second to relativise.

[Edelweiss]

Please, leave the wining about Dresden to the Nazis.... :rolleyes:

And to compare Bomber Harris to Osama Bin Laden is really nothing than utterly absurd and ignorant.

There is really not much that both tendencies have in common, they are ideologically quiet diametrical. Paradoxically, many anti-Germans nowadays are supporting the German occupation of Afghanistan, so they don't even are that "anti-German" anymore when it comes to struggle against the imperial ambition of Germany. Unlike the TWM for whom "their" imperial America is the source of all evil in the world.

However, it's true that both tendencies have in common to divide the world into "good" and "bad" nations. But that is the case really not only for TWM's but for the whole anti-imp tendency.

[Achara]

http://jameswagner.com/mt_archives/Dresden-pile-of-bodies.jpg

Quit your whining you sensitive Nazi pricks!

[Edelweiss]

You don't understand. Nazis here in Germany are constantly wining about Dresden and are holding their annual marches here to manifest their whinings.

Obviously the aim of this is to turn Nazi-Germany from a culprit into a victim. This really isn't something which any leftist should support. Many of you naively do though.

[Achara]

Most communists tend to recognize that it was an imperialist war, so your bullshit talk about the baaaaad guys and goooood guys doesn't mean much to people who (unlike yourself) hold a class basis and opposition to the war.

But anyway, the only good krout is a dead krout! I'm glad those 20 odd thousand card-carrying Nazi scum workers were slaughtered. All Germans are complicit!

[Edelweiss]

Yeah, Nazis, Americans, Soviets, all the same! I wish the allies did wait for the revolution to come in Germany instead of getting involved this evil, imperial war. I wish they would never have liberated Germany, and I could sit here now writing this in a still existing Nazi Germany and be glad that we are all "holding a class basis". :rolleyes:.

[Achara]

Actually, I think that there was very little that communists could have done in such a situation; they were already a defeated force and most were tied to supporting the various imperialist anti-fascist fronts. But hey, at least they didn't defend massacres of workers like yourself, or ignored the massacre of Jews like those anti-fascist Allies did.

[Edelweiss]

I never said I defend the "massacre". Weather Dresden and the mass bombings of German civilians where necessary to defeat Nazi Germany or not, is a quiet complex topic, and since we will never know, there really can't be any final solution for this.

All I'm saying that's it's helping nobody but today's neo-Nazis to whine about Dresden.

[Martin Blank]

there really can't be any final solution for this.

Wow, I'm hoping this was either a slip of the tongue or meant to be sarcastic. Either way, it's still a really poor choice of words in the context of a discussion about Nazi Germany.

[hatzel]

...and to think I was about to make a joke about that! Seems I'm too slow...

[Edelweiss]

sorry, it certainly wasn't meant like that. My bad, and yes, poor choice of words. What I meant is that it's hard to find the truth here, since we will never know what would have happened if they weren't be the bombings. It's pure historical speculation.

[hatzel]

(By the way...was Achara being sarcastic, or what s/he actually saying there are no good guys and bad guys but it's still good to kill all the Germans, irrespective of class, because they're complicit in being the bad guys? Somebody clear this up for me...)

[Martin Blank]

sorry, it certainly wasn't meant like that. My bad, and yes, poor choice of words. What I meant is that it's hard to find the truth here, since we will never know what would have happened if they weren't be the bombings. It's pure historical speculation.

Well, I do think there is some evidence about how the bombing of Dresden was more aimed at the USSR (similar to the use of the atomic bomb on Japan) and had no military value. The memoirs of Churchill and Eisenhower, as well as those written by members of FDR's war cabinet, have shown that Dresden had no discernible military value for the Allies. In fact, Churchill seemed to consider the firebombing as payback for the Nazis' firebombing of London during the 1940 "Blitz". Eisenhower himself admitted that, if the Allies had lost, Dresden would surely have been considered a "war crime", and those who ordered it would have stood trial for it.

I would consider the neo-Nazis' use of Dresden to be similar to how certain Islamist groups use the issue of the right of return for Palestinians. A lot of it is context and perspective. That is, in the context of the broader viewpoint, the argument can be seen as either democratic/progressive/antiwar or reactionary/fascistic/militarist.

[Martin Blank]

(By the way...was Achara being sarcastic, or what s/he actually saying there are no good guys and bad guys but it's still good to kill all the Germans, irrespective of class, because they're complicit in being the bad guys? Somebody clear this up for me...)

I considered that sarcasm.

[hatzel]

I considered that sarcasm.

Great! Tough to know, s/he's been throwing around a lot of pretty emotive stuff (and insults at people :scared:) since popping up on the board. Not saying anybody's trolling, of course not, it's just...tough to read through the occasional spasms of outright bravado...

[Martin Blank]

Great! Tough to know, s/he's been throwing around a lot of pretty emotive stuff (and insults at people :scared:) since popping up on the board. Not saying anybody's trolling, of course not, it's just...tough to read through the occasional spasms of outright bravado...

Achara's ... eccentricities ... have already been noticed.

[Palingenisis]

You don't understand. Nazis here in Germany are constantly wining about Dresden and are holding their annual marches here to manifest their whinings.

Obviously the aim of this is to turn Nazi-Germany from a culprit into a victim. This really isn't something which any leftist should support. Many of you naively do though.

This reminds me of Irish Republicans here who say you shouldnt talk about anti-protestant sectarianism in the 26 counties because it plays into reactionary Unionist hands. Its a real shame that you dont see how your attitude plays directly into the hands of the autonomous nationalists, etc.

[Edelweiss]

No, I'm not. Me as a a German, I would never ever whine about Dresden, because that is actually playing into AN hands.

Maybe that doesn't make sens to you. But for me it is a difference if a German is crying about Dresden, or if a leftist from the US or UK does. For you it's coming to terms with the past. For a German it's nearly always trying to relativize Nazi crimes by pointing fingers to others.

[Widerstand]

Paradoxically, many anti-Germans nowadays are supporting the German occupation of Afghanistan, so they don't even are that "anti-German" anymore when it comes to struggle against the imperial ambition of Germany.

I find this quite interesting. Because it is true, sadly. Anti-German thought has redefined itself in such a way, that the pro-Israel attitude they once developed out of a critique of Anti-Semitism and German nationalism, which used to be one aspect of the movement but not their focus, has no become the center of Anti-German ideology, to the extent were former criticism of Germany is discarded in favor of supposedly pro-Israel, anti-Muslim attitudes, manifesting in the support of USA driven wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.


However, it's true that both tendencies have in common to divide the world into "good" and "bad" nations. But that is the case really not only for TWM's but for the whole anti-imp tendency.

Yup, and this is annoying. There are no outright bad nations, as little as there are outright good nations. Yet these classifications are made. It's also the reason why Anti-Imps and Anti-Ds clash so frequently: They both use the same faulty system, but come to different results.

[Luís Henrique]

"Anti-Germanism" would only make sence if Germany was at war against Israel (or if at least they were actually enemies). As it is, "anti-Germanism" is nothing but a fantasy; and as Israel and Germany are good strategic partners (or, being more precise, both are US strategic partners), it becomes impossible to "support Israel" without, to some extent, "supporting Germany" too.

Luís Henrique

[Demogorgon]

I believed [...] part of the Trotskyite campaign against the Communist movement
Well there is your problem right there. Madness like this takes Sectarianism to entirely new levels.

Anyway to weigh in on the Dresden matter, I am perfectly aware that Neo-Nazis bring it up (as well as the treatment of Germans in Eastern Europe) at every opportunity in order to try and minimise their own crimes. Shifting attention to the other side to conceal your own behaviour is one of the oldest tricks in the book, but that is no excuse for trying to ignore the past.

As soon as we refuse to talk about what happened, we start to implicitly state that it doesn't matter much and from there the temptation can start to be to say that individual Germans were deserving of death simply for being German.

We on the left have come to terms with treatment of Japan, we know what Japan did during the war but we understand that the use of Atomic Bombs was a horrific crime, why can we not have the maturity to look at Germany the same way we look at Japan? It isn't as if Japan lacks a far-right movement who try to use American crimes to play down (and outright deny) Japanese ones. Indeed the contemporary Japanese far-right is considerably stronger than the German one.