Fascists in Palermo

[orwellian]

No, it's not difficult to categorize them as innocent as you obviously have to differentiate between a government and their people. Innocent people were killed by the a-bombs, period.

 

[ElQueso]

Well, regarding the topic of this post, there is no "fascism" in the way of band of racists beating up blacks, jews, or anything similar.

Fascists aren't necessarily racists. Nazis were racists, but Nazis were only a kind of fascism. In fact, the Italians for the most part were very squeamish related to what their Nazi counterparts were doing to the Jews, the gypsies and so on.

Regarding fascism in Argentina - fascism doesn't have to be violent if everyone agrees that the state should control everything, but that doesn't happen very often.

I was trying to remember that guy's name that is often on the news related to political issues, who curses, talks about hating these people, hating those people, shows up at rallies and gets physical with people who disagree with him - and has been photographed on stage with la Presidente Kirchner at political rallies. This guy and his goons remind me of Hitler's Brownshirts and Mussolini's Blackshirts...

 

[ReemsterCARP]

Gee, guys. Still no fascism. It does not surprise me that in the most cosmopolitan part of town you would find few racist remarks.

VAMOS RIVER. QUE LOS DE BOCA SE MUERAN! RACING PUTO, INDEP PUTO. SANLO, PUTO.

Now that's some football graffiti.

 

[gouchobob]

Not only that, they simply refused to stop fighting. One of the thoughts at the time was that it would cost hundreds of thousands of more Allied lives (a goodly percentage American) if we tried to invade the islands. The fighting was particularly gory against the Japanese. It was expected that every man, woman and child in the Japanese islands would fight.

But the Argentines wouldn't know much about all that, perhaps. Their future leader Peron, who was a fan of Mussolini (remember the fascist leader in Italy who was also Hitler's buddy?), was at the time involved in the military overthrow of the previously very corrupt civilian government.

That somewhat explains why Argentina didn't get around to declaring war against the Axis until March 1945 (when Germany was all that was left in Europe, fighting between the pincers of the Allies and Russia and about to collapse), but was that the whole reason? After all, Argentina was one of the world's leading havens for Nazi war criminals after the war, under explicit protection from Peron.

Maybe it's like Malbec thinks and Argentina didn't like the thought of going to war at all, and wanted to help whoever needed to escape because they love all mankind?

But then there's those pesky Malvinas...did the peoples of the Malvinas really want to be "rescued" by the Argentines?

BTW - Argentina in the 1860s was one of three countries that destroyed a small country, who admittedly started the fight, and helped kill as much as 90% (the exact number is unknowable) of the male population in the War of the Triple Alliance. I'm sure the Paraguayans (some of whom still "remember" the lack of men - tales handed down through their families - and continues to this day to affect their society) didn't care that it wasn't an atomic bomb that killed those men. Nor the other indigenes and black slaves that were slaughtered over the years at the hands of the Argentines.

My point here is not to say that Argentina is evil and horrible, but just to point out that we are all humans and every freaking country in the world has its problems. Some acknowledge it and others deny it.

You have got to stop posting these rational explanations for what has happened in the past. Argentina is no better or worse than most other countries even if they continue to deny it. One could view the country's harboring of Nazi war criminals after WWII as an embarrassment but I doubt most Argentinians would see it this way. Many seem to have the capacity to rewrite history in their own minds.

 

[gouchobob]

Fascists aren't necessarily racists. Nazis were racists, but Nazis were only a kind of fascism. In fact, the Italians for the most part were very squeamish related to what their Nazi counterparts were doing to the Jews, the gypsies and so on.

Regarding fascism in Argentina - fascism doesn't have to be violent if everyone agrees that the state should control everything, but that doesn't happen very often.

I was trying to remember that guy's name that is often on the news related to political issues, who curses, talks about hating these people, hating those people, shows up at rallies and gets physical with people who disagree with him - and has been photographed on stage with la Presidente Kirchner at political rallies. This guy and his goons remind me of Hitler's Brownshirts and Mussolini's Blackshirts...

I think you are talking about D'Elia a particularly nasty individual which also reminds me of the Brownshirts. Another is the labor leader closely associated with the K's Moyano, kind of a Jimmy Hoffa figure, except the mafia and the union have merged and become part of the government.

 

[ElQueso]

Gee, guys. Still no fascism. It does not surprise me that in the most cosmopolitan part of town you would find few racist remarks.

The Kirchners make no bones of the fact that they are Peronists. Peron's hero was Mussonlini, an Italian facist and was himself a fascist. Hitler was a fascist with a racial, German master race complex. They all employed people behind the scenes to threaten both physically and mentally the people who didn't do what they wanted done. K has her own little version of those stormtroopers and supports them publicly, though quietly.

The Kirchners try to control everything they can and try to dictate how business is done, and so on, but are constrained by a shell of a democracy - one which they weren't really all that far from cracking at one point, although I think much of Argentina is starting to realize that Peronism, at least the Kirchner's brand, isn't getting Argentina anywhere.

What, no fascism? Maybe not whole-heartedly, but there is a big element, at least in this city, that have fascist ideals.

I personally would opine that Argentina under the Kirchners is closer to fascism than the States under Obama is (or would be if he could pass many of his and his "progressive" congress folk's pet projects) to socialism.

If you truly think there is not a fascist element in this city, you are not looking with open eyes, I think.

And thanks GouchoBob - D'Elia was exactly who I was thinking of.

 

[orwellian]

The Kirchners make no bones of the fact that they are Peronists. Peron's hero was Mussonlini, an Italian facist and was himself a fascist. Hitler was a fascist with a racial, German master race complex. They all employed people behind the scenes to threaten both physically and mentally the people who didn't do what they wanted done. K has her own little version of those stormtroopers and supports them publicly, though quietly.

The Kirchners try to control everything they can and try to dictate how business is done, and so on, but are constrained by a shell of a democracy - one which they weren't really all that far from cracking at one point, although I think much of Argentina is starting to realize that Peronism, at least the Kirchner's brand, isn't getting Argentina anywhere.

What, no fascism? Maybe not whole-heartedly, but there is a big element, at least in this city, that have fascist ideals.

I personally would opine that Argentina under the Kirchners is closer to fascism than the States under Obama is (or would be if he could pass many of his and his "progressive" congress folk's pet projects) to socialism.

If you truly think there is not a fascist element in this city, you are not looking with open eyes, I think.

And thanks GouchoBob - D'Elia was exactly who I was thinking of.

Sorry to point out your black and white thinking. But Mussolini was originally a socialist. That is probably why Peron admired him. And the whole Peron thing is a complicated issue. The Peronist party includes left and right factions. The current Argentine government is hardly fascist. Fascism implies dictatorship, the opposite of democracy. In the United States it is also complicated as you have free elections (not counting the election fraud) but all the choices you have are puppets working for the same people. That is not the case in the rest of the world, e.g Argentina. Thus IMO you can argue that Argentina is more democratic than the Unites States. Also the argument that Obama is socialist is also not correct as Obama is working for the very same people who control the United States. And that has hardly anything to do with socialism. How can anyone argue that a person is socialist when he is a puppet of the ruling class, i.e follows orders from rich capitalists?

 

[malbec]

One could view the country's harboring of Nazi war criminals after WWII as an embarrassment

I find this subject very annoying. It is not only Argentina which harboured nazis after the war. The US didn't give a sh*t about all the people who died due to Werner von Braun, for example. He was wellcomed in the US and is still today a NATIONAL HERO. He belonged together with many other "scientists" to the SS and was responsible for the death of thousands of POWs and jews from the concentration camps. Indeed, his factories were concentration camps and he was the boss there.
Demjanjuk, as a more recent example, was given the US citizenship.
The USSR and even Israel also did similar when the nazis were usefull to their purposes.
I am antiperonista, but I reckon Perón tried to get german "scientists" too. It is not proven that there was a systematic plan to hide war criminals. Eichmann et al were here, the question is if the Argentine state knew who they were, which most doubt. In those years it was way too easy to get into the country (well...it still is, look at the number of illegal inmigrants in this forum ).

Not only that, they simply refused to stop fighting. One of the thoughts at the time was that it would cost hundreds of thousands of more Allied lives (a goodly percentage American) if we tried to invade the islands. The fighting was particularly gory against the Japanese. It was expected that every man, woman and child in the Japanese islands would fight.

Well swallowed propaganda. The bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tests, they wanted to test the effects of a nuclear bomb. The bomb on Hiroshima fell directly on the city rather than on the harbour and killed mostly civilians. That should be a war criminal act too, but as we say in castellano "la historia la escriben los que ganan".

Argentina is surely no "unguilty" state, not trying to say that, but trying to justify all the disasters and atrocities done by the US government is just pointless.

 

[ElQueso]

Malbec, you are at least partially right about the German scientists. What can I say? But of course, that was part of my point - no country is lilly-white. Everyone talks about how evil the US is, and everyone knows that the US imported Nazi scientists to help advance technologically.

Of course, the US lost an unbelievable number of humans fighting against those bastards. You could at least make a case that the US and other countries who fought that war against those evil shits deserved to benefit in some manner. Most of the people who were granted asylum in the US were not behind the mass murders of millions of human beings.

But of course, you gloss (as does Orwellian) completely over the fact that the brave and concerned Argentines didn't declare war on Germany until the war was over. They didn't fight against the evil that was attempting to spread across Europe. In fact, they were quite friendly with both Italy and Germany during the war.

So Peron, who took power after WWII, was a great admirer of Mussolini, ensured that Argentina gave refuge to far more FUGITIVE ex-nazis than any other country in the world.

BTW - Werner Von Braum was not "responsible" for the deaths of thousands of POWs and jews in concentration camps. In fact, there are many eyewitness accounts of Von Braum's disgust at what was being done, while there are only a very few that said he was an accomplice. He, like most scientists, was forced to work for the State. In fact, he was arrested at one point because he made comments about wanting to build a space ship as opposed to building war rockets.

In Hitler's own words (taken form his diary on May 13, 1944):

"In the matter concerning B. I will guarantee you that he will be exempt from persecution as long as he is indispensable for you, in spite of the difficult general consequences this will have."

Yeah, that sounds like Von Braum was behind the Nazis 100%.

Some would say people in situations like that should have just refused to cooperate and taken death. I say that one never knows how one would act in these situations until one is actually in them. I don't know that I could just calmly accept death for myself, even if it meant the death of others at someone else's hands. I would hope that I would have the courage not to pull the trigger myself.

But even taking into account that Argentina was looking to profit from the end of a war that it sat out, being friendly with those who started the war to begin with, somehow more than scientists were imported into Argentina - en masse. Including some pretty notorious war criminals like Eichmann and Mengele. We're talking many hundreds or even thousands of ex-Nazis, many of whom were the people who had ordered much of the really bad crap that went down during the war.

So Malbec, again, no comments on the attrocities committed by Argentina? My stated point below was not to say that the US was better than anyone else, but that everyone else is about the same, in different ways.

And Orwelian, sorry, I don't accept your arguments. Mussolini was fascist. He may have belonged to a socialist party at some point, but he was fascist. And of course, Peron, having come up through the military and participated in the coup against the civilian government, himself took power and everything was peaches and roses. He never once tried to control industry and bully people into doing what he wanted done.

Also, I never said that Argentina was fascist, I said there were fascist elements. Considering that the Kirchners literally buy the votes of the poor and WOULD be dictators if they could manage it, try to bully farmers and industry and banks into doing what they want, saying that Argentina is more democratic than the US is a typical statement from you. Considering that they employ elements like D'Elia to intimidate and get their way quite openly, they have many of the trappings of fascists - they just aren't as successful as Peron was. IMO, your defense of the Kirchners is not very well based in fact at all. Of course, how can it be anyway, when you see the world through conspiracy blinders.

 

[abril]

El Queso, Argentina didn't declare war until de war was almost over because there were economical benefits... Argentina was selling crops to Europe (Italy and Germany but also England). Argentina was taking advantage of the situation, there weren't any political reasons, really.