23-May-16 World View -- Austria deeply split between far-right and left-liberal candidates

[John]

23-May-16 World View -- Austria deeply split between far-right and left-liberal candidates

Austria's election part of a world-wide move to the right with deep polarization

** 23-May-16 World View -- Austria deeply split between far-right and left-liberal candidates
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e160523



Contents:
Austria deeply split between far-right and left-liberal candidates
Austria's election part of a world-wide move to the right with deep polarization


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Austria, Norbert Hofer, Freedom Party,
Alexander van der Bellen, Green Party, People's Party, Social Democratic Party,
South Africa, Zimbabwe, Switzerland, Socialism, Communism

[WorldMan]

I understand you think that the Holocaust would have happened without Hitler, but wouldn't it be possible that it would have been far less destructive of a program. I mean Hitler, even when the war was going south, wanted to continue to pursue the "Final Solution". It doesn't seem like the people cared that much at that point but he went about the mass extermination anyway. I would hazard a guess and say another leader would have potentially had better priorities for the country. There still would be the persecution, the book burning, etc in the 1930s to get the people riled against the "enemy" but once focus shifted I doubt the same level of killing would have seen to be necessary by a different leader. For example if the Communist Party had taken over Germany instead of the Nazi Party which would have led to mass killings of a different sort as we saw in the USSR.

[John]

> I understand you think that the Holocaust would have happened
> without Hitler, but wouldn't it be possible that it would have
> been far less destructive of a program. I mean Hitler, even when
> the war was going south, wanted to continue to pursue the "Final
> Solution". It doesn't seem like the people cared that much at that
> point but he went about the mass extermination anyway. I would
> hazard a guess and say another leader would have potentially had
> better priorities for the country. There still would be the
> persecution, the book burning, etc in the 1930s to get the people
> riled against the "enemy" but once focus shifted I doubt the same
> level of killing would have seen to be necessary by a different
> leader. For example if the Communist Party had taken over Germany
> instead of the Nazi Party which would have led to mass killings of
> a different sort as we saw in the USSR.

It's hard to know what might have happened if Hitler hadn't existed,
but we do a have a "modern day Holocaust in the making" to provide
a comparison.

The attacks by Buddhists against Muslims in 2013 were very
much like the attacks by Christians against Jews in 1930s Germany.

Here's something that I wrote in 2013:

> On Tuesday, a mob of hundreds of Buddhists descended on a Muslim
> community in Okkan, Burma, hurled bricks and set hundreds of homes
> and mosques on fire. Terrified Muslims fled to fields to escape
> the attack, and came back to find that they'd lost all they had,
> with their homes in piles of rubble. Violent attacks of this sort
> began last year in Rakhine state in southwestern Burma, and have
> been spreading to other villages, with the worst happening about a
> month ago in central Burma. Tuesday's attack brings the violence
> very close to Rangoon (Yangon), Burma's largest commercial city.
> It's hard to see how this spreading violence can continue much
> longer without spiraling into a major war between Buddhists and
> Muslims that will spread beyond Burma.

Here are some of the articles that I wrote in 2013:

** 5-Apr-13 World View -- Meiktila, Burma, violence has echoes of Kristallnacht
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e130405

** 2-May-13 World View -- Buddhist on Muslim violence continues to spread in Burma (Myanmar)
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e130502

** 3-Oct-13 World View -- Buddhist violence against Muslims in Burma/Myanmar continues to spread
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e131003

** 24-May-15 World View -- Burma (Myanmar) approves birth control law targeting Rohingya Muslims
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e150524

I believe that the situation in 1930s Germany is very similar to the
situation today in Burma.

It's really quite possible that the Holocaust wasn't even Hitler's
idea. An idea that radical would have had to have widespread support
in the upper Nazi echelons, and Hitler simply adopted the ideas put
forth by others. So it's my opinion that the Holocaust would have
happened with or without Hitler, and that Burma is on the road to a
similar Holocaust.

[WorldMan]

Oh definitely there would have been persecution of Jews. The Nazis and others advocated for it before and after Hitler. It just seems it would take a special kind of person to bring it to the levels that it was carried out. In Burma the violence will most likely escalate and increase but it would take an individual to organize the level of death produced by Hitler's regime. Worst case scenario without a leader it would look like Rwandan genocide than the Holocaust.

[John]

> Oh definitely there would have been persecution of Jews. The Nazis
> and others advocated for it before and after Hitler. It just seems
> it would take a special kind of person to bring it to the levels
> that it was carried out. In Burma the violence will most likely
> escalate and increase but it would take an individual to organize
> the level of death produced by Hitler's regime. Worst case
> scenario without a leader it would look like Rwandan genocide than
> the Holocaust.

Well, the Rwandan genocide killed 800,000 people in three months.
Arguably, that was worse than the Nazi Holocaust. So I'm not going to
disagree with you about that, but if your argument is that the Rwandan
genocide was just "persecution," not as bad as the Nazi Holocaust,
then I would question that conclusion.

[gerald]

John I am a little confused -- you say

"There's another side to this, however, that we haven't really yet seen yet, but certainly will -- something corresponding to the 1930s rise of the radical left -- Socialism and Communism -- as a countervailing force to the rise of the radical right."

Wasn't the Nazi party -- The National Socialist German Workers' Party? I have read that people would jump from the Communist party to the Nazi party and the other way around and several times, trying to decide which side to join. What was the radical right?

Or is Right vs. Left just a game of words, depending, on definitions.

[John]

> John I am a little confused -- you say

> "There's another side to this, however, that we haven't really yet
> seen yet, but certainly will -- something corresponding to the
> 1930s rise of the radical left -- Socialism and Communism -- as a
> countervailing force to the rise of the radical right."

> Wasn't the Nazi party -- The National Socialist German Workers'
> Party? I have read that people would jump from the Communist party
> to the Nazi party and the other way around and several times,
> trying to decide which side to join. What was the radical right?

> Or is Right vs. Left just a game of words, depending, on
> definitions.

Well, if you imagine all the real numbers on a line (the x-axis of a
graph), positive numbers to the right, negative numbers to the left,
and then imagine that line on a sphere, then +infinity and -infinity
are the same point. But you can get to that point by two completely
different routes.

[Ringside seat]

The radical left-winger won the election in Austria. He supports EU membership and mass migration. I found it hard to believe the election in Austria was not rigged. It strains credulity to believe that Austrians would vote for a Green Party radical in the face of all the misery being inflicted on the Austrians.

Martin Armstrong thinks the Scotland vote could have been rigged along with other elections in the EU.

https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/unca ... democracy/

Do you think it is possible that the vote was rigged? (This is a sincere question.)

[John]

> The radical left-winger won the election in Austria. He supports
> EU membership and mass migration. I found it hard to believe the
> election in Austria was not rigged. It strains credulity to
> believe that Austrians would vote for a Green Party radical in the
> face of all the misery being inflicted on the Austrians.

> Martin Armstrong thinks the Scotland vote could have been rigged
> along with other elections in the EU.

> https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/unca ... democracy/

> Do you think it is possible that the vote was rigged? (This is a
> sincere question.)

If the Scotland vote had been rigged, it would have required
complicity by a lot of people, and whistleblowers would have appeared
by this time. So I consider it unlikely that the Scotland vote was
rigged.

The Austrian vote was decided by counting 700,000 postal votes. It's
possible that the count was rigged, but we'll have to wait and see if
anything comes out about that. But so far, there's no reason
to believe that the count was rigged.

Your basic premise is wrong. It doesn't strain credulity at all that
van der Bellen won. As I wrote in my article, Austrians are deeply
split about the migrant issue. You're on one side of the issue, but
your reference to "all the misery inflicted on the Austrians" is based
on hype by pro-Hofer political activists. As in other countries, most
Austrians, even those who favored Hofer, have welcomed and befriended
the migrants, and even invited them into their homes. People who
support someone like Hofer are usually not anti-migrant altogether,
and are willing to welcome refugees from a war zone, but want to see
the number of refugees limited in some way. That's a lot different
than what we hear from the pro-xenophobia activists.

[WorldMan]

> Oh definitely there would have been persecution of Jews. The Nazis
> and others advocated for it before and after Hitler. It just seems
> it would take a special kind of person to bring it to the levels
> that it was carried out. In Burma the violence will most likely
> escalate and increase but it would take an individual to organize
> the level of death produced by Hitler's regime. Worst case
> scenario without a leader it would look like Rwandan genocide than
> the Holocaust.

Well, the Rwandan genocide killed 800,000 people in three months.
Arguably, that was worse than the Nazi Holocaust. So I'm not going to
disagree with you about that, but if your argument is that the Rwandan
genocide was just "persecution," not as bad as the Nazi Holocaust,
then I would question that conclusion.

It could be worse but it was more chaotic and less industrious with neighbors with axes and machetes killing their neighbors. That looks like Burma potential swing without the government setting up a industrial style execution system.

No, my Rwanda comment was directed at the Burma situation. Separately I was agreeing that Germany would have persecuted Jews with or without Hitler. I just wonder, and as you said it can be hard to guess, how far the violence and killing would have gone in Germany without the Hitler government.