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Source: (consider it) Thread: British Royal Family and Nazism
mr cheesy
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Again, I think it is about the inherent properties of fascism, as a political ideology, versus communinism.

At root, fascism is about the strong taking more power. At root, communism is about the masses of workers taking power.

Clearly communinism can be corrupted and dangerous, but fascism doesn't need to be corrupted to be a danger - it just is.

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Kaplan Corday
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
At root, communism is about the masses of workers taking power.

At root?

You mean in the most rarefied and utopian theory.

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Again, I think it is about the inherent properties of fascism, as a political ideology, versus communinism.

At root, fascism is about the strong taking more power. At root, communism is about the masses of workers taking power.

Clearly communinism can be corrupted and dangerous, but fascism doesn't need to be corrupted to be a danger - it just is.

But I don't think that that distinction actually holds in real life (it might in a text book, but then no one has ever implemented either by working through Marx or Gramsci page by page).

Equally, you could characterise Communism as the "masses of workers taking power" because together they've got the most strength... If you're not in with the in crowd either way I don't like your chances. Marxist theory doesn't call it the dictatorship of the proletariat for fun.

It's already been noted on this thread that Hitler operated against the existing structures (except insofar as some were able to reach an accommodation with him). Apart from that Germany was a subverted meritocracy being run by an ex corporal in the name of the people. How is that different from Soviet Russia to the average man in the fields? Don't play the game, look at the wrong person in the wrong way, or have the wrong relatives/ethnic background and you're finished either way.

When it came down to it both systems managed to produce a tier of the chosen, who merrily looted their way through life and took anything they fancied - one regime just because they could and the other "in the name of the people."

On the other hand, Tito's Yugoslavia was (while not by any chalk a paradise) qualitatively different to the Soviet Union. As was Salazar's Portugal to Hitler's Germany.

The other notable point is that all of them fell when the strong man at the top did, left or right, Communist or Fascist. Even, to a very great extent, the USSR - once it became clear that the cabal of ageing heroes of the Great Patriotic War could no longer keep a grip on things.


The only possible get out to this is as I suggested if we wriggle a bit such that Spain and Portugal can be not counted as "proper" fascist countries. Otherwise we've got a broad spectrum of "fascist" regimes sharing some principles and deviating wildly on others, in exactly the same way as we've got on the left.

But both systems claim to be doing what they're doing for the good of the people. You just either get a pirate like Hitler or Stalin, or you don't.

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Albertus
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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:

On the other hand, Tito's Yugoslavia was (while not by any chalk a paradise) qualitatively different to the Soviet Union. As was Salazar's Portugal to Hitler's Germany.


And, actually, Mussolini's Italy to Hitler's Germany. Admittedly there were lots of reasons why you might not want to live there and if you were Abyssinian you'd have particular reason to dislike it but if you can be bothered to draw a distinction between the two, Mussolini gets the benefit of them. After all, where's the German- or Soviet- equivalent of Carlo Levi's
Christ stopped at Eboli? Hitler and Stalin would have thought that sending an opponent for a year's exile in a poverty-stricken arse end of nowhere (and letting them come back to 'civilisation' for a funeral during the year) was a joke. Gramsci, sure, had a rotten and neglected time in prison but AIUI he got out after eight years on health grounds and died in a normal hospital.

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Augustine the Aleut
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quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It could be worse. Prince Bernhard, espouse of Dutch queen Juliana, was a member of the Nazi party and joined the mounted SS. Prince Claus was a member of the Hitler Youth.

And a few years later Bernhard was a bomber pilot dropping high explosives on Nazis. As far as the Hitler Youth was concerned, pretty well any German adolescent was enrolled-- Mulroney's cabinet held a former member of the Hitler Youth and I remember the Canadian Jewish Congress' statement that this was irrelevant as it was not really voluntary-- Mr Oberle's personal conduct had been unexceptionable (IIRC the phrasing correctly).
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LeRoc

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quote:
Augustine the Aleut: And a few years later Bernhard was a bomber pilot dropping high explosives on Nazis. As far as the Hitler Youth was concerned, pretty well any German adolescent was enrolled
Exactly; I know. In fact, I have a strong personal admiration for Prince Claus. His involvement in and knowledge about development cooperation was impressive.

(I didn't know it was time again for another fascism vs. communism comparison as a proxy for a left-wing / right-wing pissing contest. I thought the last one was only a couple of weeks ago.)

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Gee D
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Following on from Betjemaniac, we must remember that by 1935 there were dictatorships in every country east of the Rhine, with the exception of Czechoslovakia. Germany was its own variation upon fascism, the USSR was communist, the others were basically right-wing dictatorships. In western Europe by 1939, Italy was fascist, Spain was Franco's own blend of fascism and an authoritarian right wing dictatorship; Portugal the latter*. In the European democracies, there were fascist and communist movements, sometimes on their own, sometimes in popular fronts, sometimes in uneasy alliances with the old parties of the extreme right.

It's not surprising that people like Edward VIII (by the way Banner Lady he was called David in the Royal Family, not Teddy) none too bright, with a bit of a social conscience tucked in, should look favourably upon what they thought was happening in Germany. After all, there was little doubt that under Hitler the horrible unemployment in the last days of the Weimar Republic had gone, the autobahns were being built, high-speed trains were showing a path to the future, and the country seemed to have come back from the edge of anarchy. People in this category knew nothing of the concentration camps being set up, had not read, or even heard of Mein Kampf, and thought that the anti-semitism they'd heard of was much the same as their own. So while Edward may well have thought highly of Hitler, he did not know what he really was extolling. The same can be said of those on the left who praise everything in the USSR and the later satellites until well into the 1980's, and could not see the gulags.

To go back to Mr Cheesy's comments at the top of this page, both fascism and communism are at root corrupt and dangerous; the difference is little more than the communist régimes started by targeting the previous ruling class, then by moving in on everyone else, while the fascists worked in reverse. The dichotomy is no greater than that.

* Those who want to follow up should read Robert Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism, a magisterial and scholarly work from which this is a bare summary.

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Albertus
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May we draw a distinction between (Italian) Fascism and Nazism? The former seems to me to have had a more rounded vision of social relations- the corporate state and so on. I have the impression that Nazism, on the other hand, was rather more gimcrack and made up on the hoof. Accurate or not?

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Albertus
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quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
It could be worse. Prince Bernhard, espouse of Dutch queen Juliana, was a member of the Nazi party and joined the mounted SS. Prince Claus was a member of the Hitler Youth.

And a few years later Bernhard was a bomber pilot dropping high explosives on Nazis. As far as the Hitler Youth was concerned, pretty well any German adolescent was enrolled-- Mulroney's cabinet held a former member of the Hitler Youth and I remember the Canadian Jewish Congress' statement that this was irrelevant as it was not really voluntary-- Mr Oberle's personal conduct had been unexceptionable (IIRC the phrasing correctly).
And IIRC the Mounted SS was the only bit of the SS that the Nuremburg Tribunal did not categorise as a criminal organisation, it amounting to not much more than a club for posh people who liked riding horses and wearing snazzy uniforms.

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Penny S
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One of the rags this morning is bringing forward a soon-to-be-broadcasted piece about Prince Philip's sisters marrying Nazis. As if his own wartime behaviour was in any way invalidated by theirs. As if his mother's behaviour could be ignored because of theirs. It's getting like that segregationist stuff about one drop of coloured blood makes the whitest of people actually black. Nazi cooties.
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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
May we draw a distinction between (Italian) Fascism and Nazism? The former seems to me to have had a more rounded vision of social relations- the corporate state and so on. I have the impression that Nazism, on the other hand, was rather more gimcrack and made up on the hoof. Accurate or not?

Dangerous road, because you go into "he wasn't all bad - he made the trains run on time" territory, but pretty much.

To be honest you could make the same distinction between pretty well all fascism and Nazism. Franco in particular spent a couple of decades as essentially a figurehead, whilst really quite talented technocrats ran the country and massive industrialised/reindustrialised it, and raised the Spanish standard of living immeasurably. It wasn't a democracy, but it wasn't German style make-it-up-as-you-go-along kleptocracy either.

OTOH he got lucky to an extent because Spain wasn't in any condition to join the Axis in WW2 (despite Hitler's urging) and post-war he was a reliable "bastion against communism." Couple that to the fact that he wasn't running full-on mass gulags (although there were certainly labour camps for high profile dissidents) or exterminating the Jews and you can see why most of the world was content to leave him and Dr Salazar to get on with it. No real difference when it came down to it between what they were up to and post-British Singapore, or Taiwan under the early Kuomintang.

Again, to be absolutely clear, I'm not defending the regimes and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to live under one, but I do think Spain/Portugal show that it didn't have to be full-on genocidal lunacy - in just the same way as the various cited Communist non-aligned countries gave the lie to Stalinism.

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
One of the rags this morning is bringing forward a soon-to-be-broadcasted piece about Prince Philip's sisters marrying Nazis. As if his own wartime behaviour was in any way invalidated by theirs. As if his mother's behaviour could be ignored because of theirs. It's getting like that segregationist stuff about one drop of coloured blood makes the whitest of people actually black. Nazi cooties.

ISTR Prince Philip had a pretty rotten childhood/adolescence one way and another. I certainly wouldn't want to swap with him.

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LeRoc

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quote:
Albertus: it amounting to not much more than a club for posh people who liked riding horses and wearing snazzy uniforms.
That describes Prince Bernhard very well [Smile]

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BroJames
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quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
<snip>It's a big disappointing that the Palace's response is along the lines of "someone has publicised a private home movie" rather than it's the family having a game.<snip>

I've found myself wondering whether the Queen actually remembers the occasion, so as to say with any certainty what was happening in the film.

I'm in my mid fifties now, so three decades younger than the queen, but I have had the experience of being told about, or seeing photographs of incidents in my childhood, which I am quite prepared to believe are true, but of which I have no memory whatever.

Given the media climate over all this a statement which went along the lines of "We were not encouraged to admire or emulate the Nazi party, but I've no memory of what was happening on this occasion." would simply fall into the category of "They would say that, wouldn't they?"

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Gee D
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quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
May we draw a distinction between (Italian) Fascism and Nazism? The former seems to me to have had a more rounded vision of social relations- the corporate state and so on. I have the impression that Nazism, on the other hand, was rather more gimcrack and made up on the hoof. Accurate or not?

There are major distinctions between the two. Remember that both sprang from socialist movements, to which Mussolini added the futurism of Marinetti and his followers, Hitler the revanchism and ultra-nationalism of the Freikorps. Roehm embodied this uneasy marriage, but he stressed the socialist side. In Hitler's case, the Night of the Long Knives was the working out of the tensions within the Nazi Party; for Mussolini, it was his assumption of power in Christmas 1925. That saw some people gaoled, rather more sent into internal exile, and a couple of years down the track the assassination of a very small number. Overall, the level of violence in Spain after Franco's success was not there is Italy, let alone that shown by the concentration camps in Germany. Portugal was even less murderous.

The vision you talk of was certainly there is Italian fascism, but little was put into practice. The south remained dismally poor, as did the majority of the rural population in the north. Those employed in industry did better, but that's relative. Corporatism was only partially introduced, and largely remained window dressing.

I'm not aware of any evidence that Nazism was made up on the hoof. Indeed, I gather that those who have seriously studied Mein Kampf say that it's all in there by 1924. Again, my authority is Paxton.

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Gamaliel
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I think we need to separate out a few issues here.

Nobody - as far as I can see - is trying to 'smokescreen' anything. All they're trying to do is put things in context.

The issue of whether we agree with having monarchy as an institution is a different one - and I don't see how the current Queen's behaviour or that of her ancestors - which we can't go back in a time-machine and change - has anything to do with that.

There's a discussion to be had as to whether monarchies are good, bad or indifferent. The behaviour of individual monarchs is a separate issue. It'd be like having a discussion about the role of a Prime Minister in a Parliamentary democracy and introducing some PM or other's bad personal habits into the equation as if that bears any relation to the office or institution itself.

The US has had some pretty crap Presidents. Does that mean that they should scrap the Presidential system and adopt another form of government? If so, which?

There's also a kind of unbalanced idealisation going on. Wouldn't everything be wonderful come the revolution? Wouldn't it be marvellous is 'the workers' gained control?

As that in and of itself would ensure moral rectitude and probity within 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'.

[Roll Eyes]

There's also something unpleasantly judgemental and almost gleefully spiteful going on here I think. I'd hate to think what would happen to anyone in mr cheesy's church or circle of influence and friendship if they stepped out of line according to his oh so high standards ...

I'd hate to put a foot wrong if I was in mr cheesy's church. I'd never live it down.

Are the Duke of Edinburgh's gaffes and often un-PC comments reprehensible? Yes, they are. And he should be 'called' on it - same as anyone else.

For my money, Prince Harry's unfunny stunt in a Nazi uniform is far more reprehensible than anything in the footage The Sun has unearthed. At least the Princess Elizabeth and her family were larking about prior to the event ... with the benefit of hindsight Hal shouldn't have even thought of doing what he did - even if he were doing it as a wind-up or even to be 'post-modern' in some kind of ironic way ...

As for who all these 'modern aristocrats' who allegedly support Fascism. Who are they? Some of the Mitfords did - but then, Jessica Mitford was a Communist. Some of the old aristocratic families did have some sympathy with fascism - but then, so did the working-class guys who turned up to support Moseley and his rallies.

Are we going to write-off the entire working-class because certain working-class people were drawn to Moseley in the '30s - or to the BNP and NF in the 1970s and '80s?

[Confused]

This is a whole load of snorting and snuffling about nothing. Everyone knows Edward VIII as almost was had some pretty duff views - although he was always popular in my native South Wales for his 'something must be done' comment during a visit there where he went off route and saw the level of poverty and deprivation for himself.

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Gee D
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
The Duke of Edinburgh's mother was wealthy and privileged. She put herself at risk by hiding Jewish people in her Greek mansion.

Not quite right. Princess Alice of Battenberg had had a very difficult life, including long bouts of schizophrenia in the 1930's. She and Prince Andrew separated and after a period of hospitalisation, she spent much of her time in charitable work. There was a period before separation when she and her family were exiled from Greece, but somehow she got back in, remaining there during WW II. It was during that period that she at her own peril sheltered many Jewish people. She did so not in a mansion, but in a modest house and certainly not as a wealthy, privileged woman. From all accounts, by the Greek liberation, she was living in the same dire circumstances as most other Athenians. You might like to look at the relevant volume of Harold Macmillan's autobiography. He was asked to call upon here, and found her with no money, and little food in badly run down accommodation.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:

There's also something unpleasantly judgemental and almost gleefully spiteful going on here I think. I'd hate to think what would happen to anyone in mr cheesy's church or circle of influence and friendship if they stepped out of line according to his oh so high standards ...

I'd hate to put a foot wrong if I was in mr cheesy's church. I'd never live it down.


First if you have a problem with me, refer it to the hell thread not the middle of your scree here.

Second, we're talking about a monarch not me so kindly stick to the top of standards for people in the highest positions of power rather than your faulty perception of what I may or may not be like at church.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:


To go back to Mr Cheesy's comments at the top of this page, both fascism and communism are at root corrupt and dangerous; the difference is little more than the communist régimes started by targeting the previous ruling class, then by moving in on everyone else, while the fascists worked in reverse. The dichotomy is no greater than that.


Well, only if you believe democratic and elected mandate of the multitude is the same as unelected and autocratic of the aristocracy.

I agree, Commmunism has too frequently turned into the mirror image of fascism, but there is a fundamental difference there - which means that it is actually possible to have a communism that responds to democracy.

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betjemaniac
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quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:


Are we going to write-off the entire working-class because certain working-class people were drawn to Moseley


Great rugby club (I've got a season ticket), but not really a working class area even in the 1930s [Biased]

The ones who were drawn to Mosley, OTOH - football fans, the lot of them.

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Moo

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quote:
Originally posted by Augustine the Aleut:
As far as the Hitler Youth was concerned, pretty well any German adolescent was enrolled-- .

Adolescents were very strongly coerced to join the Hitler Youth. The Party was determined to shape the thinking of the younger generation.

Here is a story I heard from a friend of mine. His father was a school teacher and a very devout Catholic. He believed that it was his job, rather than the job of the state, to shape the minds of his sons. He refused to allow them to join the Hitler Youth. He lost his job, and could not get another one. After almost a year, he caved and allowed his sons to join the Hitler Youth.

Moo

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Moo

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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I agree, Commmunism has too frequently turned into the mirror image of fascism, but there is a fundamental difference there - which means that it is actually possible to have a communism that responds to democracy.

Can you cite any examples of a communism that responds to democracy?

Moo

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mr cheesy
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Of course, the comparison is ridiculous anyway. The aristocracy is far smaller than the working class, so if a significant proportion were taken with fascism this would have a much bigger effect than a small number of workers who joined Mosley.

And anyway, the British Union of Fascists was an organisation heavily influenced by the upper classes, including Mosley himself, funding from Lord Rothermere and various other members of the ruling classes.

Saying it was primarily a working-class movement misunderstands the basis upon which it was built.

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LeRoc

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quote:
Moo: Can you cite any examples of a communism that responds to democracy?
My country has had a Communist Party for decades, working within the democratic system. The same is true for a number of other countries.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Can you cite any examples of a communism that responds to democracy?

Moo

Several Indian states have Communists who are elected in and out of power.

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Erroneous Monk
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Top trolling from the Duke of Edinburgh. How do people manage not to laugh in his face?

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LeRoc

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quote:
mr cheesy: Several Indian states have Communists who are elected in and out of power.
One Brazilian state is governed by a communist, as well as several large cities (including the one I live in).

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L'organist
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Re: the British Royal Family, Nazism, Prince Philip, etc.

1. The late Queen Mother's hatred of all things German is well-documented - it went back to the death of her favourite brother Fergus in WWI.

2. The raised arms may in fact be what was called the Bellamy salute: since the 1890s this had been performed in most schools in the United States while the children recited the pledge of allegiance.

The Bellamy salute remained in use until December 1942 - there are pictures of children with their arms raised in the middle of 1942, by which time the USA had declared war on Nazi Germany.

3. As raised up-thread, Prince Philip had a miserable childhood: his mother spent 6 months in a psychiatric clinic with depression when he was only 7 (just after she'd become a member of the Greek Orthodox Church), and then just before his ninth birthday she was snatched off the street while he was with her and incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital against her will, first in Germany and then in Switzerland. Since his father had taken up residence with his mistress on the riviera Philip was sent to boarding school in England just before he was 7 and in the holidays was either with his grandmother in Kensington Palace or with his Battenberg relatives. After 1930 he never lived with either of his parents again.

4. Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice, is commemorated at Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for her activities in Athens during WWII.

This is all a mare's nest manufactured by Rupert Murdoch's gutter press, who have managed not to inform their readers about Mr Murdoch's choosing to study in the UK meaning he escaped the national service he should have done had he remained in Australia.

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dyfrig
Blue Scarfed Menace
# 15

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The Italian Communist Party was a reputable part of the political scene for several decades after WWII, and managed to locate themselves within Western European democratic structures. IIRC (though I'm probably not) there was clear blue water between them and the USSR quite a hwile before the Secret Speech. Don Camillo's nemesis, the mayor, is as much a part of Italian life as the parish priest.

History's full of ironies like that - like the Guardian supporting the Boers, which I suppose makes it complicit in Apartheid, or the real threat one feels when standing near a group of vocal anti-Fascist demonstrators, or all those articles and reports by Fabians and Bloomsbury-ites on how marvellous Mr Stalin was, just after he'd solved his Ukrainian problem.

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Tubbs

Miss Congeniality
# 440

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It’s some blurry soundless footage of a family larking about in the 1930’s. They could, like many at the time, thought Hitler was great and found out the hard way he wasn’t. Or they could be taking the piss, like thousands did at the time.

The only reason it’s interesting is that it’s the Royal family doing the larking around. That and because some members of the Royal family and the upper class were pro-Nazi. Maybe if they hadn’t been so secretive about it all and were more willing to give historians proper access to the Royal archives, then it would be less of an issue. Unfortunately, the leak is likely to make them more secretive rather than less.

The may be an own goal for Murdoch. Everyone I’ve spoken too, including some die-hard anti-Royalists, think it’s a shameful attempt by him to point score.

As others have pointed out, the thirties footage is just typical of the time. People didn’t know any better. Prince Harry’s fancy dress costume was stupid. If you can’t work out, even without the benefit of media training, that footage of you in a Nazi uniform would break the Internet if it ever leaked, then you deserve the Darwin Award I’m handing you!

Tubbs

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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am

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Eirenist
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# 13343

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I suppose I must be naive. I had assumed that Prince Philip's 'Who are you sponging off?' remark was an attempted send-up (no doubt unwise) of the gutter press's centuries-old insistence that all immigrant communities are spongers.

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'I think I think, therefore I think I am'

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LeRoc

Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216

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quote:
dyfrig:Don Camillo's nemesis, the mayor, is as much a part of Italian life as the parish priest.
Lovely books.

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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)

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Ricardus
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# 8757

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quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
I suppose I must be naive. I had assumed that Prince Philip's 'Who are you sponging off?' remark was an attempted send-up (no doubt unwise) of the gutter press's centuries-old insistence that all immigrant communities are spongers.

It does seem that the community group itself took it as a joke.

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Then the dog ran before, and coming as if he had brought the news, shewed his joy by his fawning and wagging his tail. -- Tobit 11:9 (Douai-Rheims)

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Tubbs

Miss Congeniality
# 440

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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
I suppose I must be naive. I had assumed that Prince Philip's 'Who are you sponging off?' remark was an attempted send-up (no doubt unwise) of the gutter press's centuries-old insistence that all immigrant communities are spongers.

It does seem that the community group itself took it as a joke.
That's what I thought too, but obviously that must be completely wrong.

Tubbs

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"It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it up and remove all doubt" - Dennis Thatcher. My blog. Decide for yourself which I am

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Saul the Apostle
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# 13808

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Not everyone likes Max Hastings, but to be fair to him he makes some good points in this piece....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3167622/MAX-HASTINGS-Queen-blameless-aristocrats-DID-support-Nazis-Second-World-War.h tml

Personally, there were and maybe still are some very right wing aristocrats. Hastings paints a good historical picture here in this piece.

The context was 1914 - 18 and very few wanted another war. Hitler was seen, prior to 1939 - 45, as a continental bufoon who kept the communists in check. It was pre holocaust and no one predicted the horror of World War 2.

Having said all that Edward (who abdidcated) did have fascist sympathies and it was Churchill who insisted he be kept out of the picture by being sent to Bermuda, as he might have been an ideal King in waiting had Hitler invaded Britain in 1940 and needed a convenient puppet.

Saul

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"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

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mr cheesy
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# 3330

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quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Re: the British Royal Family, Nazism, Prince Philip, etc.

1. The late Queen Mother's hatred of all things German is well-documented - it went back to the death of her favourite brother Fergus in WWI.

Elisabeth the QM by some accounts was a very unpleasant person.

There are many strange stories of that generation of the Windsor family, including that of institutionalised and unvisited cousins, support for apartheid and so on.

quote:
2. The raised arms may in fact be what was called the Bellamy salute: since the 1890s this had been performed in most schools in the United States while the children recited the pledge of allegiance.
It might have been, but of course nobody has made any counter-claim of this kind. I don't think any of the royals in the video had been educated in the USA, so this seems pretty unlikely.


quote:
3. As raised up-thread, Prince Philip had a miserable childhood: his mother spent 6 months in a psychiatric clinic with depression when he was only 7 (just after she'd become a member of the Greek Orthodox Church), and then just before his ninth birthday she was snatched off the street while he was with her and incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital against her will.
As noted above, mental illness was a frequent feature of European royalty, possibly related to the fact that the gene pool was so small and everyone married their cousin.


quote:
This is all a mare's nest manufactured by Rupert Murdoch's gutter press, who have managed not to inform their readers about Mr Murdoch's choosing to study in the UK meaning he escaped the national service he should have done had he remained in Australia.
None of the above proves this. But Murdoch is also an arse, so I can well believe he is trying to run some angle.

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arse

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ExclamationMark
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# 14715

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quote:
Originally posted by Eirenist:
I suppose I must be naive. I had assumed that Prince Philip's 'Who are you sponging off?' remark was an attempted send-up (no doubt unwise) of the gutter press's centuries-old insistence that all immigrant communities are spongers.

Good old Phil - such post modern irony!
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009  |  IP: Logged
Gamaliel
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# 812

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I have posted in Hell mr cheesy - and no, I don't have an issue with you as a 'person' - but I do have an issue with some of the stuff you post.

You see what I've done there?

I've separated out the personality from the argument. If we're going to have a discussion about the pros and cons of having a monarchy, let's have one. Whether the Queen Mother was a horrible person or some kind of Saint is irrelevant to that.

I don't know you. I've never met you in real life. You could be a splendid person. You could be a horrible one. I have no idea. That's irrelevant to the discussion.

Yes, the Duke of Edinburgh acts like a curmugeonly old git at times (pauses ... waits for the Beefeaters to kick down the door and haul me off to the tower) ... Prince Harry was the prize berk for dressing up in a Nazi uniform as Tubbs has reminded us ...

If Prince Harry were going around emptying bedpans for geriatric old ladies or living in a leper colony would that make the monarchy more acceptable as an institution?

There's a separate discussion here - about communism vs capitalism, whether communism and fascism are equally dire, whether monarchy is a reasonable system to have in the 21st century ...

etc etc ...

How good or bad a person the Queen Mother was or whether the royal family were taking the piss with their Heil Hitlers - if that's what they were doing - is a secondary issue to that.

That's why I've called you on apparent judgementalism and what sounds to me like Pharisaism.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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mr cheesy
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# 3330

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Right. So you're just going to continue with the personal attack then, knowing I cannot reply here. Oookay then.

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arse

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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812

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What personal attack?

I've kept my hellish comments in Hell.

Read my posts properly. I said 'apparent'. I am directing my comments to the content of what you said, not to you as an individual.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330

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I'm sorry, "apparent Phariseeism" is still a personal attack.

[ 20. July 2015, 15:41: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

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arse

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Eutychus
From the edge
# 3081

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hosting/

Purgatory is not here for anyone to engage in personal attacks - or meta-discussions about personal attacks.

I suggest the pair of you stay in Hell until you can take any hint of personal attack out of your posts here, and then triple-read them to ensure they are free of the tiniest whiff thereof.

Having to read them is making me - and possibly the thread - lose the will to live.

/hosting

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Let's remember that we are to build the Kingdom of God, not drive people away - pastor Frank Pomeroy

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american piskie
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# 593

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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
But again, the Nazi sympathies of Edward VIII are already public knowledge.

I am reminded of a late colleague whose military service included being attached as some sort of honorary ADC to the Duke during his journey to exile in the Bahamas: sole duty, to shoot the Duke if there were any possibility of his falling into German hands.
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Gamaliel
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# 812

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That wouldn't surprise me. It's long been asserted that the Nazis would have made Edward VIII King of a puppet-UK had they been able to invade and conquer us in 1940.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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Oscar the Grouch

Adopted Cascadian
# 1916

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quote:
Originally posted by american piskie:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
But again, the Nazi sympathies of Edward VIII are already public knowledge.

I am reminded of a late colleague whose military service included being attached as some sort of honorary ADC to the Duke during his journey to exile in the Bahamas: sole duty, to shoot the Duke if there were any possibility of his falling into German hands.
I can believe it.

I have just finished reading Princes at War by Deborah Cadbury and the Duke & Duchess of Windsor do not come out of it in a good light. I am in little doubt that he was a Nazi sympathizer, but also that he saw a Nazi invasion of Britain as the way he would get back what he felt was his rightful position. Neither he or his wife had any real concern for anyone else - they used people and then tossed them aside.

But just because one member of the family is a complete shit, that doesn't mean the whole family is.

On a slightly wider perspective, this "non-story" in the Sun is merely one of many such stories in the right-wing press in recent times. It seems to me that now that the Leveson Inquiry has been buried, the likes of the Sun, the Mail etc have assumed that they have pretty much free rein to go after anyone that they don't like, which basically means anyone who doesn't agree with their hardline conservative, anti-European, Little Englander biases.

The irony here, of course, is that the "values" that they want to defend are actually not that far off from some of the views of the Nazis...

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Faradiu, dundeibáwa weyu lárigi weyu

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mr cheesy
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# 3330

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This is another interesting article from the BBC about the links between fascism and the British aristocracy.

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arse

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Albertus
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# 13356

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quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:
quote:
Originally posted by Albertus:
May we draw a distinction between (Italian) Fascism and Nazism? The former seems to me to have had a more rounded vision of social relations- the corporate state and so on. I have the impression that Nazism, on the other hand, was rather more gimcrack and made up on the hoof. Accurate or not?

Dangerous road, because you go into "he wasn't all bad - he made the trains run on time" territory, but pretty much.

You may recall that in Andy Hamilton's sublime Old Harry's Game one of Satan's punishments for Mussolini- apart from being made to play 'Can you identify this everyday item of street furniture seen from an unusual angle?'- was to be endlessly run over by extremely punctual trains.
Actually ISTR one of the railway books I used to read as a boy- possibly one by the great OS Nock himself- stating quite firmly that it was nothing to do with Mussolini: apparently just before Mussolini took power Italian Railways had a new general manager and he was the one who deserved the credit!

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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.

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Gamaliel
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# 812

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Sure, mr cheesy, but why single out the aristocracy?

The Nazis made similar overtures to various nationalist groups across Europe - notably in Britanny.

There were equally elements within Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalists which - initially at least - seemed to sympathise with the Nazis.

Saunders Lewis, one of the founding members of Plaid is said to expressed some anti-semitic views and to have entertained some fascist sympathies - although this is contested in recent re-evaluations.

See: http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/plaid-cymru-fascist-links-claims-5676038

I'm not saying that we should ignore or white-wash what sympathies there were for fascism within the British aristocracy - simply that we should acknowledge - in the interests of balance - that there were others who shared similar sympathies - at least until it became more apparent what the Nazis were about.

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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.

http://philthebard.blogspot.com

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mr cheesy
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# 3330

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Why "single them out"? Because they had a lot of power and influence in British society in the inter-war period.

quote:
It is undeniable that appeasement attracted the active support of many British notables, and that some took this a stage further by playing a prominent role in promoting better ‘Anglo-German relations’. The possession of considerable wealth, status, and a strong sense of ‘duty’ meant that politically active aristocrats could, on their own initiative, fly to Germany and receive a warm welcome from leading Nazis. Motivated in part by what they regarded as the National Government’s diplomatic inactivity, these self-appointed emissaries, mainly but not exclusively Conservatives, sought to demonstrate that it was possible, indeed
essential, to parley openly with the Nazi leadership, to address German grievances, and thereby avoid another European conflict. The Nazis encouraged such visits, hoping they might hasten direct contact between leading figures of each country that would pave the way for Germany to exercise a free hand in Eastern Europe.

from Aristocratic appeasement: Lord Londonderry, Nazi Germany, and the promotion of Anglo-German misunderstanding by N.C. Fleming

That is why the attraction of aristocrats to fascism was so important and why it is not relevant to try to water-down their influence by pointing at unrelated other groups who were attracted to fascism.

[ 20. July 2015, 20:59: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]

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arse

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Albertus
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# 13356

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But it didn't bloody work, did it? The Nazis may have thought that if you got the toffs on your side evertyhing would fall into place, but they were wrong. Mr Chamberlain's unfortunate belief that he could trust Hitler had everything to do with (i) desperately not wanting another war and (ii) his simply not being attuned to politics as it was practised in Berlin rather than Birmingham, and sod all to do with Chips Channon (an American and not really a toff anyway: who was it who said to him 'the trouble with you is that you put your adopted class before your adopted country'?) having a simply lovely time at the Berlin Olympics and various rather silly West End hostesses making a fuss of Ribbentrop.

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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.

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