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         For those who know the UK establishment for what it is, are well aware that it was never really against Nazism. It quite liked the idea of a subjugated population that salutes the flag and follows the leader. Nazi Germany was showing them the way, and they tried to follow.
        The following article reveals the connection between the high-end schools in UK and the Nazi youth moulding schools of Nazi Germany. 

The following from The Conversation: 

 

 Image courtesy of Conversation.

 
        In spring 1936, teenage schoolboy – and later war hero – Dick Hargreaves was given the chance to go on an all-expenses-paid exchange trip to Germany. But this was no ordinary school exchange – Hargreaves’ destination was Oranienstein, one of a system of new elite boarding schools known as National Political Education Institutes (“Napolas” for short).
        These Nazi colleges were explicitly modelled on an amalgam of the British public schools, the Prussian cadet corps, and the harsh educational practices of ancient Sparta. The schools educated boys from the age of ten upwards, training them as future leaders of the Third Reich. By taking part in the exchange, Hargreaves and his ten companions from Dauntsey’s School in Wiltshire, England, would soon be exposed to the Napolas’ “total” programme of education, indoctrination and National Socialist propaganda.
        Hargreaves’ initial impressions, recorded in his diary at the time, are overwhelmingly favourable. The school, situated in the town of Diez an der Lahn, near Koblenz, is described as “a damn good place … a huge castle, done up modern and very posh – armchairs, super labs, stables … school bicycles and heaven [knows] what!” According to the diary, everyone is “extraordinarily decent”, and the boys’ Nazi uniforms are “very smart indeed – light khaki corduroy breeches, black riding boots, khaki coat, red arm band with swastika, brown coat lapels, blue shoulder straps and a dagger thing”.

Image courtesy of Conversation.

 

         ‘Very smart indeed’: young German schoolboys reading a Nazi newspaper at NPEA Rügen, 1943. Dietrich Schulz
        Most interesting, though, is Dick’s dispassionate observation of the Nazi Mayday celebrations in the neighbouring town of Diez. On April 30, 1936, his diary records a trip “with our Kameraden” to watch the Maypole being hoisted and folk dances by the Hitler Youth. The boys heard speeches by some of the “big bugs of the town”. There was also community singing in which they all took part.
    There was a good bit of ‘Heiling’ which we also did because we were in a huge crowd. It was a magnificent scene – the old castle towering above the market place in which were thousands of enthusiastic peasants lit by torch and candle light…
       The following Friday, May 1, which was the spring festival or “Frühlingsfest”, Hargreaves’ diary records that the boys had to get up at six o’clock to salute the flag and parade. They then marched to Diez where they assembled with the local Hitler Youth to listen to a 90-minute speech by Hitler being broadcast on the radio.
       The same afternoon, the boys returned to Diez to hear another lengthy speech by “der Führer”. Hargreaves noted:
    He worked himself into such a frenzy and was able to move the crowd so tremendously that we saw three people faint. Not from fatigue or crush but just by his amazing oratory powers. Then after Hitler had been ‘Heiled’ off the earth Goering spoke for ½ hour!
      Here, the way in which foreign observers could easily be swept up in the fervour of “heiling” and Hitlerism around them is made poignantly clear – although the interminable speeches by Hitler and his henchmen seem to have palled soon enough.
        My decade-long research project on the history of the Napolas – just published as the book The Third Reich’s Elite Schools: A History of the Napolas – has shown that, during the 1930s, hundreds of pupils took part in this programme of exchanges and sporting tournaments.
          Just to take one example, between 1935 and 1938, Napola Oranienstein took part in exchanges with British private schools, including Westminster, St Paul’s, Tonbridge School, Dauntsey’s and Bingley School in Yorkshire. The school also entertained headmasters and exchange teachers from Shrewsbury School, Dauntsey’s and Bolton School, and was also involved in sports tournaments with Eton, Harrow, Westminster, Winchester, Shrewsbury, Bradfield and Bryanston.

Read the full article HERE: 

Visit ann arky's home at https://spiritofrevolt.info     

Slowly, Slowly.

 

       If you observe the way our society is drifting it is difficult not to mention the word fascism. We would do well to remember Hitler and fascism in Germany didn't arrive with two guns blazing. It was little increments at a time, slowly, slowly, that people didn't pay too much attention to all those little changes. Only with hindsight can we see the monumental change that took place over time in Germany.

     In Haffner’s telling, the collapse of freedom and the rule of law occurred in increments, some of which seemed to be relatively small and insignificant. In 1933, when Nazi officers stood menacingly outside Jewish shops, Jews were merely “offended. Not worried or anxious. Just offended.” But Haffner insists that Hitler’s brutality and the ongoing politicization of everyday life were clear from the outset. In the early days of the regime, a self-styled republican advised him to avoid skeptical comments, which would be of no use: “I think I know the fascists better than you. We republicans must howl with the wolves.”

       Whatever the reason, lately we have seen some dramatic changes in the way we are legislated to live. As time goes by, lots of these changes will be absorbed into the "new" way of living, and there will be controls in place to see that you adhere to these "new" rules. Your freedoms and choices will become more limited than they are at present. The direction is always the same, more legislation, more rules to be obeyed, less freedom of choice. How far down that road will we go willingly, and how far before we rebel and reverse that ever tightening control. Shall we wait until that fascism is so blatantly obvious and its vicious grip too tight? 

        Under such circumstances as we are living with its ever increasing lurch towards more control over our lives, the only real answer is to turn our direction the other way, to be a rebel, to be aware of the link by link that is being created to tie you down and refuse to accept the drift to an ever tighter state controlled environment.  

The Rebel

Rebel rebel break the rule,

What does it matter that a “wise” man sees a fool.

Not for you the herd’s dull beat

Making tomorrow, yesterday’s repeat,

Living out the life of a clone

Marching with the crowd but always alone.

Shaping your life from some dusty tome

Playing it safe, staying at home.

Rebel rebel break the rule

Swim in the sea, never the pool.

Live your emotions, feel the surge

Follow your dreams, chase the urge.

Make life though short, an exciting game

Not a mad march for fortune or fame.

Capture the moment, live it now

Being alive your only vow.

Rebel rebel break the rule

In the end, you’re humanity’s jewel.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk

"The Final Solution"?

     Is the Israeli state taking a leaf out of the Nazi regime of WW2 Germany and applying its planned "final solution"?

This from Dissident Voice:

Yet another massive assault on Palestine is underway, where, of course, according to the Balfour Declaration, the Jewish population are guests not occupiers since: “ …the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of (this) it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine …”
Overnight (July 8th/9th), however, one hundred and sixty targets were initially hit, including the European Gaza Hospital (a war crime without a war.) Twenty-eight people were killed and over two hundred injured, adding to the unending onslaught on Palestine from the day the Zionist cuckoo took over the Palestinian nest — homes, gardens, history, culture, ancient sites, cemeteries, olive and apricot groves on May 14th, 1948 ignoring, jack booting and bulldozing entirely the “civil and religious rights” of the population, accompanied by subsequent decades of mass murder and demolitions.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

A Cull Of The Working Class.

 This from "brickburner":

The Cull of the working class.

        As we all know by now, the dreaded Bedroom Tax has arrived. This of course is the latest of a long list of attacks on working class people. We must be careful not to view these attacks in isolation – they constitute a coordinated assault on working class people particularly the most vulnerable members of society; the sick and disabled. It has been estimated that eight in ten people affected by the Bedroom Tax are disabled. Many of those have already been through a work capability assessment conducted by the French firm Atos, on behalf of the Department of Works and Pensions, which has resulted in them losing their benefits.

      Michael Meacher M.P. led a commons debate on the 17th. January this year in which he criticised almost every aspect of Atos’s operations including the thousands of people who have died after being declared fit for work. You can see his speech on You Tube. Atos has been widely and repeatedly criticised by the British Medical Association, and is subject to constant lobbying by disabled groups throughout the country. This callous treatment of the sick and disabled goes hand in hand with the emergence of a new and sinister trend of political thought has developed over the term of the present Government, which sees welfare benefit claimants and those at the very bottom of society as lazy, dishonest stupid scroungers who are less than human.

       The Government’s sustained attacks on the weakest in society are reminiscent of the Nazis treatment of some of their own citizens prior to the beginning of the Second World War when they “assessed” the sick and disabled to see if they were physically and mentally fit to live. Those human beings whom they termed Lebensunwertes Leban-“life unworthy of life”, and “useless eaters” were callously exterminated. The German authorities managed to persuade the population at large through written and pictorial propaganda, that this extermination was morally acceptable and that the sick and disabled were a drain on the economy. They managed to do this by “dehumanising” people.

      An article in The Guardian on 11May 2013, reported on research carried out at the University of Louvain by Jacque-Philippe Leyens which suggests that low status groups including the poor, homeless people, drug addicts and welfare claimants are seen by others as less than “fully human”. Leyens has coined the term “infrahumanisation”- the infra for “below”, as in below or less than fully human to describe this development of everyday dehumanisation. As Robert de Vries in the Guardian article puts it, “The Government’s cuts to welfare benefits are causing real harm to a lot of innocent people, nevertheless, remarkable numbers seem to be willing to support them”, and, “People struggling to get by in their own lives will find it hard to sympathise with those they feel are getting a free ride”.

     The Government propaganda about “shirkers” and “strivers not skivers” seems therefore to be working. Unfortunately, on programmes such as “Question Time”, these phrases have been enthusiastically adopted by many members of the audience. This of course is a classic example of the “Divide and Conquer” strategy being employed against the working class.

      Another ruse used by the Government to justify their unremitting attacks on the working class is the mythology that cuts are necessary, and “that we are all in this together”. The idea that those at the top of society will suffer just as much as those at the bottom would be laughable if it were not so insulting and contemptible; the very people who decided to cut the living standards of working class people are in the process of voting themselves a pay rise of between £10 to £20 thousand pounds a year. Most of us would be delighted to live on just the pay rise, but in fact MP’s will now get more than £75,000 a year-some of them want £100,000, - yet they have the nerve to say that we all have to share the pain! And of course the Bankers still get their bonuses and Multi-nationals manage to dodge paying tax.

     The claim that cuts in public services are necessary at all is a complete lie. As Tony Benn once said, “If you can find money to kill people, you can find money to help people”. According to U.K. Government figures Britain spent at least £9.24 billion in Iraq and £11.1 billion in Afghanistan between April 2001 and March 2010, and that’s not taking into account what has been squandered from 2010 till now. The so-called Ministry of Defence lost £74 million pounds of taxpayers’ money recently on a cancelled order for fighter jets. (Richard Johnstone, Public Finance 10 May 2013). So it would seem that there is plenty of money to wage illegal and pointless wars, but not enough money to create a caring peaceful society.

       There is another war going on at the moment; it is the class war. A war waged by those at the top of society against those at the bottom. We are the victims of this war. For generations working class people have had to endure poor wages, bad and often dangerous working conditions, industrial illnesses and long periods of financial hardship. Working class people are still being killed daily in this war. Literally thousands of people die every year after Atos has passed them fit for work. People have been forced to work for benefit money; before long regular workers will be sacked then they too can work for slave wages and will join the millions of others living below the breadline. Warren Buffett an American billionaire business magnate once said, “There’s class warfare all right, but it’s my class - the rich class that’s making war, and we’re winning!”

      Through these measures, the Government has upped the ante in their war against the disabled and unemployed. If you aren’t in work, or are sick or disabled you don’t deserve to live, - you are a useless eater! In this war against the working class the sick, the disabled and the unemployed are being culled. The Government are killing working class people. If this seems far fetched, you only have to remember this, the entire Nazi extermination programme which culminated in the Holocaust, started in 1939 with the T4 euthanasia program which targeted sick and disabled people. If the German people had resisted at this stage the Second World War may never have happened.

      The only way we can prevent history repeating itself, is for ordinary working class people to organise and fight back. We have to combat the Bedroom Tax and all the other cuts that the Government and their friends in big business are trying to impose on us. We have to rely on ourselves and not on politicians; they are part of the problem not the solution! Above all, we have to overcome the State’s attempts to divide and rule us; we need to show our fellow workers that we have nothing in common with the boss class and that we must build our own organisations and strong communities to unite against them.

Only then can we hope to win the class war.

ann arky's home.

WORKERS KNOW YOUR HISTORY - ERNST TOLLER.

      A day late, but we should always remember our own, even if it is a wee bit late.

Ernst Toller:

     Born December 1st 1893, a German Expressionist involved with other writers in forming an insurrectionary Bavarian "government" during workers revolt, in which anarchists were among the principal activists: Ehrich Mühsam, Gustav Landauer, Ernst Toller, Ret Marut (aka B. Traven), & others, fought for the development of Workers' Councils & self-managed co-operatives. He spent several years in prison and was forced to flee Nazi Germany. Eventually settled in America, and despite success as playwright & poet, Ernst Toller committed suicide in his Manhattan hotel room, on May 22 1939, convinced his plays are passé.

ann arky's home.

NAZI, NEOCON, RELIGIOUS NUTTER, IT'S ALL THE SAME.

       Mitt Romney, front runner for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination is one of those people that the West is always demonizing, and sending drones out to kill, he is a religious fundamentalist. However, his religious fundamentalism is of the type accepted by the Western warmongering nations, he is a Christian fundamentalist rather than a Islamic fundamentalist. In his recent speech he spouted the usual supremacy crap about how God created America different from other countries, it seems he thinks God is a biased creature who prefers white supremacist Americans over all other people. He is also spewing out the usual shit about America having a unique destiny and was never meant to be, “---one of several equally balanced global powers”, another piece of his delusional drivel, "---God did not create this country to be a nation of followers," and if America doesn't lead the world someone else will. Sounds much like the Nazis in Germany around 1939. Of course it is very difficult to separate an American religious fundamentalist neocon for an old German Nazi, they spew out the same arrogant self centred psychotic bile.

       This religious nut also wants to beef up America's military power and is surrounding himself with the other equally fundamentalists from the G. W. Bush, Iraq massacre era, saying that America would work with United Nations “--where appropriate” but also saying ”-- "know this. While America should work with other nations, we always reserve the right to act alone to protect our vital national interests." Another statement proving he is nothing less than another dangerous religious nutter visionary, he believes, “---this is America's moment”. I can't think of anything more frightening than a bigger military America with a religious nutter sitting with his God controlled finger on the nuclear button.

       Reading his speech I couldn't help thinking that, if this guy was speaking anywhere else in the world, it would probably be on a soap box in a park surrounded by a crowd of laughing hecklers. Sadly in America there are millions who will take him seriously and believe his crap, also a lot of big money will get behind him, the arms industry for one, the oil industry for another, and attempt to propel him into that seat of power. The future looks bleak, if it wasn't for, Occupy Wall St. the demonstrations in Athens, Madrid, Rome, Paris, London and other cities across the world. More power to the people of the world.

ann arky's home.