MORE SOCIALIST PROPAGANDA FROM THE 1930s

Below is a picture of an original Nazi propaganda poster ("Flaggenspruch" or "flag motto") that was often publicly displayed during World War 2. An original copy is presently being advertised for sale on eBay. Its basic message is that help for the poor is not charity but something which the poor have a right to -- which is of course a common Leftist claim to this day.



The heading ("Opferwilligkeit") translates as: "Willingness for self-sacrifice" and the rest translates as: "Social works deserve no gratitude because they are not graciousness but the restoration of rights". The source of the quotation is blacked out in accordance with the rather ludicrous eBay rules but it is a quotation from Mein Kampf (around page 23 or 24 in most editions). I give the full context for the quote below (from the Manheim translation). I also give the full German original of the sentence from which the quote is taken as I think the Manheim translation is a bit clumsy. Hitler spoke a very colloquial "people's German" which it is very hard to translate so as to give exactly the same impact as the original.

"I do not know which is more terrible: inattention to social misery such as we see every day among the majority of those who have been favored by fortune or who have risen by their own efforts, or else the snobbish, or at times tactless and obtrusive, condescension of certain women of fashion in skirts or in trousers, who ' feel for the people.' In any event, these gentry sin far more than their minds, devoid of all instinct, are capable of realizing. Consequently, and much to their own amazement, the result of their social 'efforts' is always nil, frequently, in fact, an indignant rebuff, though this, of course, is passed off as a proof of the people's ingratitude.

Such minds are most reluctant to realize that social endeavor has nothing in common with this sort of thing; that above all it can raise no claim to gratitude, since its function is not to distribute favors but to restore rights. [In German: "Dass eine soziale Taetigkeit damit gar nichts zu tun hat, vor allem auf Dank ueberhaupt keinen Anspruch erheben darf, da sie ja nicht Gnaden verteilen, sondern Rechte herstellen soll, leuchtet einer solchen Art von Koepfen nur ungern ein"]."

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ELSEWHERE

I probably should make a brief comment on the latest furore about male/female differences in IQ. I have not read either the original Irwing & Lynn paper nor the attack on it by Blinkhorn but Blinkhorn seems mightily confused from what I see reported. He seems to think that the undoubted fact mentioned by Irwing & Lynn to the effect that there are far more very bright men than women means that women ON AVERAGE are less bright. That is nonsense. There are also lots more very dumb men than there are very dumb women so the male/female average is the same. For a fuller explanation, see my previous posts on the matter here and here

Conor Friedersdorf argues that France has failed to assimilate its Muslim immigrants because the French Welfare State gives them no incentive to assimilate.

Decent Italians: "Ten to 15 thousand epople took to the streets of Rome last night to demonstrate against Iran's open threat to exterminate Israel. While not a massive number, it is 10 to 15 thousand more people than have taken to the streets of Paris or London in the same cause."

A good comment here on the lies that Wal-Mart haters resort to. One excerpt: "In the closing minutes of the new documentary "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price," triumphant activists proudly point to vacant lots in their various communities. Their message: They were going to build a Wal-Mart here, but we stopped it. Vacant lots. What a victory. And what a perfect symbol of what's wrong not just with the anti-Wal-Mart ideologues, but the whole anti-development, anti-globalization, anti-everything left. "High Cost," which opens today in New York City and Los Angeles, is only a documentary in the most generous sense. It's more propaganda"

Banagor looks at the strange selectivity Leftists show in what causes they agitate for and conclodes that it is only really stupid people that they side with.

Global capitalism: Curing oppression and poverty: "Although leftist agitators continue to protest global capitalism, they overlook the key points in the debate. Capitalism has been instituted on three continents -- in western Europe, North America, and Asia. These nations -- England, France, the United States, Japan, Hong Kong, and the others -- are among the world's wealthiest countries with per capita incomes in the range of at least $20,000-$30,000 annually. Additionally, even the prosperity of a so-called 'socialist' country like Sweden is based on significant elements of capitalism, including Volvo, Saab, and Ericsson, as well as countless private small shops."

The futility of non-stop relief: "No one can accept the idea of trying to fill a bottomless hole -- that people in these parts of the world will forever need to be taken care of, that they simply will never cope on their own. And this is quite rational -- if someone requires emergency support, to be helped back on his or her feet, after which a productive life will be resumed, helping makes sense. But if help simply goes to be consumed, after which more help is required, on and on and on, this is intolerable. At some point, no matter how much is given, it will reach an end and, once again, thousands will perish."

Ivar Berg long ago showed statistically that most education is pretty useless and not worth the money people spend on it. It looks like nothing has changed. This report ranks American States according to how well-educated their kids are -- with Vermont at the top and Arizona at the bottom. Yet, as Harry Hutton points out, Arizona is economically dynamic -- last year their economy grew by 7.1%, the second highest in the nation.

For more postings, see EDUCATION WATCH, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE. Mirror sites here, here, here, here and here. And on Social Security see Dick McDonald

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Practically all policies advocated by the Left create poverty. Leftists get the government to waste vast slabs of the country's labour-force on bureaucracy and paperwork and so load the burden of providing most useful goods and services onto fewer and fewer people. So fewer useful goods and services are produced to go around. That is no accident. The Left love the poor. The Left need the poor so that they can feel good by patronizing and "helping" them. So they do their best to create as many poor people as possible.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialistisch)

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