TALL TALES AND OTHER WHOPPERS FROM THE TATTLER

Well feed me sauerkraut and dance the Laendler, the Tattler has whipped up a true German culinary delight sure to scoop up this week's Iron Chef award. But the Tattler's piece de resistance ended in utter disaster as he spoiled the evening repast with some mendacious prattle about Hitler’s political affiliations and ruminations of a new and improved “lighter” image of the German dictator’s motives - topped off by some revisionist rot that Hitler's penchant for murder and the extermination of 6 million Jews was in reality an altruistic gesture on behalf of his beleaguered nation, and had absolutely nothing to do with Nazi propaganda purporting Aryan superiority, glorification of a greater German state, and his inveterate anti-Semitism. The soire ended with the Tattler making a feeble attempt to recoup his credibility by blandly stating what the rest of the world has known for 73 years - “Hitler is arguably the greatest monster of all time.” What the Tattler wants you to believe; however, is Hitler was a "liberal monster," and nothing could be more asinine!

What IS crystal clear is that the Tattler’s ersatz sous chef cum historian appears to lack formal training in political theory, not to mention logic. The gist of the Tattler’s argument -

All Liberals are Socialists (A = B)
Hitler was a Socialist (C = B)
Therefore Hitler was a Liberal (C = A)

- is so convoluted as to be reprehensible. What the Tattler fails to convey to his docious devotees is that both premises in his argument are patently FALSE. So, let's jump in the Way-Back Machine and fasten our seat belts, and we'll revisit the Tattler's tawdry tale of Teutonic twaddle.

All liberals are Socialists. This is pure grade-A tautological neocon poop. The Tattler wants it’s adherents to believe that because American Liberals support social programs such as Social Security and Medicare, they’re Marxists ergo Socialists. The Tattler wants its readers to believe that because American Liberals vehemently oppose George Bush’s indiscriminate dismantling of American democracy, we’re Socialists. He wants you to believe that because American Liberals oppose the illegal invasion of a sovereign nation that posed no threat to the United States, that we’re Socialists. And anyone with a functioning brain cell would know that nothing could be further from the truth…except trying to clap Adolph Hitler a Liberal via some neoteric magical transitive property of Socialism. Although it is certainly true that Some A = B, Der Tattler failed to identify that logical possibility in his argument, so we'll have to complete the Tattler's reasoning for him for the sake of covering all the bases. But, the Tattler's premise that A = B is a false premise: A≠B.

Hitler was a Socialist. You’ve got to be off your right wingnut rocker to believe that one, Mr. Tattler. On its face, Fascism is an irrational, palpably conservative political philosophy. It’s an ideology grounded in the capitalization of fear – in Mussolini’s case, the fear of Communism and the fear of the socio-economic turmoil that would be and was the Great Depression. Mussolini promised the Italian people that Fascism would return Italy to the glory days of the Roman Empire, and they swallowed the lie hook, line, and sinker. Hitler didn’t have the rich history that allowed Mussolini to keep Fascism relatively pure in Italy. German Fascism would require a little more ingenuity and a great deal more effort. Enter Nazism - the ideology of fearmongering.

Nazism held firm to the Fascist tenet that the state was the highest achievement of mankind and the efforts of all citizens should be focused on its glorification and sustainment. Hitler needed a convincing battle cry around which to rally the German people, and found a friend in the Eugenics movement that was gaining popularity with the wealthy around the world - but with a twist. Hitler’s assertion that the Aryan race was the “Master Race” and was genetically superior to all other races struck a chord with the bankrupt and demoralized German majority. Conversely, Hitler declared non-Aryans – Semites, Slavs, and social undesirables (homosexuals, gypsies, socialists, communists, liberals, clergy, the disabled, and the infirmed) to be impure, and unworthy of life in a utopian German state, and eventually authorize the savage murders of these groups. Hitler found his Rome, and fearmongering was its superstructure.

I can only conjecture where the Tattler derived the notion that Hitler was a Socialist. His assertion that because Hitler was a Socialist before his rise to power and was therefore a Socialist the day he died is disingenuous at best and belies logic in that the conclusion is a non-sequitur. It is well documented that Nazi dogma, unlike Italian Fascism, proposed to eradicate socio-economic stratification in Germany - a goal shared with Marxist-Leninists; however, for a wholly different reason than the Marxist-Leninists. Nazism viewed class struggle as an unacceptable diversion from glorification of the German state; not an impediment to the advent of a proletarian dictatorship. Nazism supported capitalism (indeed Italian Fascism espoused the concept of the Meritocracy whereby achievement was rewarded over longevity and cronyism) so long as that capitalism served to further the glorification of the state. Lest we forget, Tattler, ol' boy, died-in-the-wool capitalist Grandpappy Prescott Bush served Hitler well and prospered (until the US Congress stopped him) – one must wonder if Gramps Bush donned his old SS uniform to spin a war yarn or two while he bounced little Georgy Boy on is head...I mean ass.

The Tattler's supposition that Hitler was a Socialist flies in the face of settled and accepted historical analysis; empirical evidence suggests the Tattler is plain wrong, and just might have an ulterior motive in proffering such a spurious claim. We call it a false premise: C≠B.

So, in reality, the Tattler’s attempt to debunk JC's very articulate and very convincing argument in “Don’t Know Much about History” [The Rattler dated 4 Mar 06] should look something like this:

No Liberals are Socialists (A ≠ B)
Hitler was not a Socialist (C ≠ B)
Therefore Hitler was a Liberal (C = A)

Or

Some Liberals are Socialists (Some A = B)
Hitler was not a Socialist (C ≠ B)
Therefore Hitler was a Liberal (C = A)

Your conclusion, in both of these cases Monsieur Tattler, is nothing more than a perfunctory attempt to link American Liberals with Hitler – there is not one modicum of logic, not one scrap of truth to your specious argument that Hitler was a Socialist or a Liberal; your deplorable paucity of evidence suggests you really don’t know what you're talking about. You try to hype-up a syllogistic fallacy and pass it off as the truth. The Tattler's argument is disjunctive: Hitler was not the “Liberal” monster you falsely accuse him of being (if anything, Hitler growled and howled in choice neoconese), and American Liberals certainly don't espouse Fascism, Nazism, or Communism.

vacreeper2003