DENVER (AP) — A teenager suspected in a shooting attack at a suburban Denver high school that left two students in critical condition appeared fascinated with previous mass shootings including Columbine and expressed neo-Nazi views online, according to experts.
Since December, Desmond Holly, 16, had been active on an online forum where users watch videos of killings and violence, mixed in with content on white supremacism and antisemitism, the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism said in a report.
Holly shot himself following Wednesday’s shooting at Evergreen High School in Jefferson County. He died of his injuries. It is still unclear how he selected his victims. The county was also the scene of the 1999 Columbine High School massacre that killed 14 people.
Holly’s TikTok accounts contained white supremacist symbols, the ADL said, and the name of his most recent account included a reference to a popular white supremacist slogan. The account was unavailable Friday. TikTok said accounts associated with Holly had been banned.
Holly’s family could not be reached. The Associated Press left a message at a telephone number associated with the house that police searched after the shooting.
Yes … the national socialist party were socialists. They implemented a great deal of social welfare programs and seized the means to production in various industries during their reign. They were very vocal about being anti-capitalist and anti-communist, both of which they viewed as Jewish systems and sought a third way that was clearly a spin off of socialism. This has been well documented from various speeches, articles, and books that were produced by the Nazis at the time; and, most importantly, their actions. Hitler was even in a Russian backed communist group at one point.
The easiest way to think of the Nazi ideology is to take communism, drop the class warfare and insert racial warfare and ethno supremacy(and add in a bunch of ancient Norse, German, and Greek/Roman mythology).
Where did you get the impression that they weren’t socialists?
Nazis did not have an ideology. They were a grievance movement that utilized a common folk scapegoat (Jewish and Roma migrants) to unify the fractured German political landscape in the Weimar Republic era.
It was a populist demogogue movement that cynically and callously used terminology that was common and popular among poor working class people in order to trick them into believing that their movement was about anything other than hatred, extermination, and pilfering public coffers. The ‘Socialist’ part of their name was a cynical play to attract those who were active in Communist organizing in the early 1900s.
There was no collective ownership in Nazi Germany. The government owned much of everything, and the only parties that benefited from that ownership were the individual cronies that Hitler personally feted. Nazi Germany was socialist in the way that Vladimir Putin’s Russian Federation is a Communist state — IN NAME ONLY.
I don’t know a lot about Putin or his claims. Does he go around stating that modern day Russia is communist?
I would disagree whole heatedly that the Nazis didn’t have an ideology and of course it was a grievance movement. Every political movement is a grievance movement. The ideology got laid out cleanly In 1925’s Mein Kampf. I’ve heard the ‘in name only’ argument 100 times. It just doesn’t make sense though.
The Nazis railed against capatism for destroying the German economy, they created large scale public works programs, created the “Strength Through Joy” (KdF) program for state provided vacations and leisure activities, created the “National Labor Service” (RAD) for state run labor, nationalized the labor unions, price and wage controls, rent controls, etc etc etc
Perhaps we have different definitions for what socialism is, but this sure seems like a lot of the Nazi state seizing the means of production to me.
we studied history
Yeah, I did too. I believe you came away with a perverted understanding of it. When you studied the words and actions of the National Socialists, what gave you the impression that they weren’t socialists?
Found one in the wild. Very cool.
Yeah, I’m here. Please engage with the points I made earlier. Evidence and motives are important to get right when looking back at history so that we don’t keep making the same mistakes again and again, especially the ones with truly dire consequences.
I’m defining socialism as the state controlling the means of production. In what way did the National Socialists not represent socialism?
Oh boy, I’ll leave you with this https://www.britannica.com/story/were-the-nazis-socialists
I appreciate the link to the article, but that article did not mention any of the stated motives that came directly from the mouths of the Nazi leadership, misrepresented what happened to the unions, and completely ignored the various socialist programs that were enacted once the Nazis got power. Again, the Nazis stated that they wanted to seize the means of production and then seized the means of production once in power. What evidence do you have to say otherwise?
You believe the motives from the mouths of the nazi leaders? Reputable source of what happened to the unions? Socialist programs for who the nazis stole businesses from Jewish folks. I’ve show you evidence but you don’t care for it.
Listening to what someone says is the first step in understanding their motives. That’s not to say that you should just believe them off hand, but it is a useful data point. Disregarding that information would be an incredible disservice to your understanding of what was going on.
The unions got rolled up into the state. Many will say the unions got dissolved, which is kind of true, but misses the part where the state took control of them. The Decree of the Reich Government (May 19, 1933) makes this evident, the “Act on the Order of National Labor” (January 20, 1934) as well, the newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter, ran headlines on May 2 and 3, 1933, announcing the “coordination of the trade unions” and their incorporation into the new Nazi-led structure, and Richard J. Evans “The Coming of the Third Reich” takes about all this in depth.
You’re right, I don’t care for your evidence. The provided article was lazy and inaccurate.
Please show me a properly peer reviewed journal from historians who agree with you
I don’t subscribe to any peer reviewed history journals and I could talk at length about the corruption endemic to the peer review process, but if you are interested in well regarded historians that also make the case that the Nazis both stated and enacted state control of the means of production:
Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) is a great souce and Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (1956) is another.
If you’d rather just look at the inarguable timeline of events regarding the unions and come to your own conclusion: May 2, 1933 - Nazi forces (SA and SS) occupy the offices of all free trade unions across Germany. Union leaders are arrested, beaten, and sent to concentration camps. Their funds and properties are confiscated.
Mid-May 1933 - The remaining, now Nazi-controlled, union structure is merged into the German Labor Front (DAF).
By Law (1934): The DAF is made the only legal organization representing workers and employers.
If you want to say that a misrepresentation of socialism or there are other key events that I’m overlooking, I’m more than willing to listen.
see your problem there
And how do you define socialism?
Socialism is 1:1 Capitalism, simply with democracy extended to the workplace.
Nothing the Nazis did follows this, they did fascism, corporatism.
Co-opting the popular aesthetics of socialism, they did fake populism like every other far-right group in history.
Tell me, do you believe the DPRK is democratic?
I don’t think I’ve ever heard that definition of socialism before. I gave the American Heritage definition of socialism earlier in the thread, which was ‘the state controlling the means of production and distribution’. Does that mesh well with your understanding of socialism? Corporatism is the public ownership of a business. It’s in the name, corpo, body, the people, the state…the state controlling the means of production.
Not trying to be difficult by asking this, but how are you defining fascism? And how are you defining ‘far-right’?
I ask, because both these terms are kind of floaty, especially in modern parlance, and have changed over the years. The Nazi and Fascist (the fascism being promoted by Giovanni Gentile and adopted by Mussolini) ideologies were a bit at odds with each other, hence why so many Jews fled Germany and Eastern Europe and were safe in Fascist Italy and why Mr. Fascist himself, Mussolini, had a Jewish mistress for some 20+ years. It should be noted, Mussolini did start vocalizing some racist shit a few years after allying with the Nazis, but it was very much not in line with what he was saying through the rest of his political career and completely flew in the face of what Gentile was promoting. There was some amount cross over in the ideologies (namely the state controlling the means of production bit), but the Nazis were not Fascists and the Fascists were not Nazis. Just to reiterate, I’m talking about the historical definition of fascism that was being used by the fascists at the time, not whatever that word has morphed into over the years.
The left/right thing has always been an overly simplistic way to classify policies and political movements to me. The Nazis did align themselves with a powerful conservative party during their rise to power and disallowed the socialist and communist parties from participating in the government, but they also implemented a great deal of social welfare programs, unemployment programs, brought woman into positions of power within the government, allowed woman the right to vote as well, and had state funded vacations for citizens. I don’t know if you can classify all of that as right wing or not, maybe you can, I don’t know 🤷♀️
No, I do not believe the DPRK is democratic. Why do you ask?
No, that definition is inherently incongruent with my understanding - that is Communism as I understand. In Socialism, the means of production is controlled by the workers, businesses are similar to co-operatives.
There can be structural hierarchies within, but workers have democratic input on the direction of the means of production. By definition today, the U.S. (while implementing social policy) is not Socialist, the Capitalist structure ensures the worker is subjugated. The worker has no bearing on the direction of the company, and thus democratic voice in the work place.
Most countries adopted the ideals of popular framework of socialism (the classic Marxian sense) to some degree after WW2, they put the worker at the heart and center of the society. Through unions, workers were the central organizing unit of society - they demanded political reforms, and thus society was geared towards making the lives of the middle class/working class better. There was excellent public healthcare, great public schools, cheap universities in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So… although Socialism didn’t win and was stomped out, it was only by adopting the frameworks (by having unions that fought for the rights of the workers) would the public accept this, as their lives would improve.
That is, until the 80s, with ‘The Revolt of the Elite’, and the rise of Neoliberalism. Here is where the worker was slipped away, and the Consumer became the organizing unit of society. The mentality of the consumer, infected the minds of the masses, and it’s consequences have fundamentally changed our society. Today unions have no significant power, society is catered to the elite, while the middle class and especially the working class are left to ROT.
Corporatism was one of the main tenets of Mussolini’s Fascism. I mangled my neurons, because ‘Italian Fascism’ is fascism in the as is ‘National Socialism’ modern sense.
As to why Corporatism was present in Mussolini’s Italy but not Hitler’s Germany, this was because of two main things:
Either way, what is happening in the US right now is more similarly Corporatocracy, which is what I actually meant the Nazis were engaged in when I made my comment. They essentially pioneered authoritarian capitalism.
Fascism as in the Cambridge definition:
While some people escaped Germany and lived fine in Italy, that does not indicate any specific traits of those countries, as the person who escaped Germany could have just been Italian… They were at odds with each other because they are/were unique nations with differing material conditions to bring forth different outcomes. A-la how Corporatism was present in one, but never came to fruition in the other.
Fascism is a ‘far-right’, authoritarian and ultranationalist political ideology.
‘Far-right’ refers to right-wing extremism. A range of ideologies marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, radical anticommunism and nativism. It distinguishes itself from more mainstream right-wing ideology by its opposition to liberal democratic norms and emphasis on exclusivist views.
While it is, yes, an overly simplistic division tactic, it’s ubiquity throughout society means it is unavoidable. People have tried to improve on it (with the 2-axis political spectrum), but it is insufficient, has created worse problems, and probably was an even further division tactic.
The Nazis could align with the conservative party, because their politics are most alike. Because they both exist on the right side of the political spectrum. Disallowing political opposition as you describe, banning the opposite side of the spectrum, socialists and communists, is pure fascism.
Implementing social welfare programs and unemployment programs, is not inherently Socialist. Just because something benefits a subset of the population does not mean it it socialist. Furthermore, the reason for these benefits is not least to provide the necessary national myth of unity to hold the remaining society together.
When these benefits come off the backs off of an ethnic cleansing campaign, they can no longer be considered Socialist. Socialism would have required Nazi Germany to NOT have built an ethno-state to serve with those benefits, rather serving the entire existing community as democratically would benefit them the most.
Providing those benefits is also not inherently against a far-right ideology either, and thus isn’t evidence against them being on the right. Since every one of those benefits was only provided in an ultranationalist, anticommunist and nativist sense.
Welfare chauvinism is a common tenet of far-right ideology.
I asked because I figured you were on the opposite side of the informed spectrum, like the majority who say the Nazis were socialist, saying they are simply because they have it in their name. I.E. the Democratic People’s Republics of Korea must be Democratic. However you are quite informed, with a curious perspective. So that gotcha fell flat 🤣
Wow, thanks for the awesome write up and keeping it super respectful and even complimentary! Yeah, we were using a few of the same words a bit differently. Once I shifted my thinking to your definitions, we might not have a whole lot of daylight between us.
I don’t have time for a full response at the moment, but I can see the argument you’re making for the Nazis practicing authoritarian capitalism and find it somewhat compelling. The amount that they spoke out against ‘the jewish money system’ of capitalism does give me pause though, perhaps it was more rhetoric than policy. I’ll have to dig into when I have a bit more time tomorrow night.
We might have some differences on what counts as left/right policies, but I think that’s mostly on me struggling to define what is left/right. We’re also probably in massive agreement on the travesty of the unions losing relevance in the US and the harm that it’s done.
Democracy is a funny word. At some point the world decided that the word democracy means good and we should slap that label on anything we want to be perceived as good. Plato is rolling in his grave. Thanks again for the feedback friend.
Just because you found an easy way to explain Nazis to yourself, doesn’t mean it’s correct.
What is the correct way to define the Nazi ideology?
It’s Fascism. Everything else is just fluff.
I can’t read most of the small text in the ‘early warning signs’, but I think it mentions the Nazis, Mussolini, Spain, and Portugal and the rest is too blurry to make out. I’m guessing whoever made this ‘early warning signs’ was looking for similarities across all those regimes and lumping them all under the term ‘Fascism’? Which…feels weird to me, Mussolini was the only one to actually call themselves Fascist. The others had differing ideologies or were just straight up dictatorships (assuming the small text says Salazar and Franco, but I’m not 100% on that).
And the Keene definition you linked to mentions ‘White replacement theory’ for some reason? Does that mean only white people can be fascist? Maybe they were just using it as an example of a fascist idea?
I appreciate the reply, but I’m not sure either definition helps clear up how the term is used in modernity.
If you want to know what Gentile was talking about when he was promoting Fascism, there’s a decent translation over here (not a quick read) - https://ia601807.us.archive.org/26/items/giovanni-gentile-english-translation/Origins And Doctrine Of Fascism - Giovanni Gentile.pdf
That list was created by Umberto Eco in 1995. If you’re having trouble reading that list you may need to figure out how to zoom on an image or just get glasses.
I did zoom! Everything got blurry. You might be right about the glasses though, my eyes are garbage.
Thanks for the definition of Ur-Fascism from Mr. Eco. I was not familiar with it. Super interesting. He’s on point touching on ‘action’ and ‘eternal struggle’, pulling directly from Marx. Rejection of ‘the age of reason’, pulling from Hagel and/or Marx (depending on who you talk to). The Nazis also borrowed those concepts heavily. Some of this is slightly different from what Gentile wrote about, but it does adhere much closer to it. Creating the national narrative, appeals to emotion, celebrating machismo, nationalism, being one with the state, social darwinism/eugenics, etc etc etc. Very neat.
One glaring difference is the racism part. Gentile made racism impossible within his Fascist ideology, so long as you adhered to the ‘proper thought’ you were in the club. For the Nazis, the racism/ethno-supremacy part was obviously at the core the beliefs they promoted.
I just stumbled on a quote from historian Ian Kershaw that is very relevant, “trying to define ‘fascism’ is like trying to nail jelly to the wall” 😆
Any who, I appreciate your reply and introducing me to Mr. Eco. I’m adding him to my ever growing list of authors to read more of.