Re: Christofascists, check out some of the stuff in the 1944 book "The Nazis Go Underground"

ftr23532

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Sat Feb-10-07 12:36 AM
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Re: Christofascists, check out some of the stuff in the 1944 book "The Nazis Go Underground"

Edited on Sat Feb-10-07 01:03 AM by ftr23532

I've just started looking through this fascinating out of print book, and there's quite a bit in there on the pro-Hitler far-Right Christian groups that were operating in this country at the time. It's pretty interesting. Here's the link to a pdf version of the http://www.spitfirelist.com/Books/undergrnd.pdf">The Nazis Go Underground but Curt Riess, which is one of http://spitfirelist.com/Books/books.html">many old out of print books on the history of fascism available on the site of anti-fascist researcher Dave Emory. Take a look.

There's a fair amount on groups related to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin#Antisemitism">Father Charles Coughlin and related pro-fascist Catholic groups (check out Chapter 8), but there's also some interesting info on how some Protestant Fundamentalists. And as Russ Bellant showed in both of his critical books http://www.amazon.com/Coors-Connection-Philanthopy-Undermines-Democratic/dp/0896084167/ref=ed_oe_p/002-7142825-1263265">The Coors Connection: How Coors Family Philanthropy Undermines Democratic Pluralism and http://www.amazon.com/Old-Nazis-Right-Republican-Party/dp/0896084183/ref=pd_sim_b_3/002-7142825-1263265">Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party: Domestic fascist networks and their effect on U.S. cold war politics, the far-Right religious groups that comprised a key social component of the rise of the New Right in this country had deep ties historical ties to the larger menagerie of fascistic right-wing groups that supported Hitler and other fascists (BTW, both of those books by Bellant you can search through for free on Amazon, so be sure to use that feature!).

I thought this section (starting on p 118) from The Nazis Go Underground is quite telling about the cunning, and enduring, nature of the threat the modern world continues to face from extremist authoritarians:

...
Shortly after Japan attacked us, between five and six hundred organizations with pro-Fascist leanings all over America went out of existence. That, at least, is what the record says. But a great number of new organizations came into existence. Not immediately after Pearl Harbor, of course, but pretty soon after, everything considered. They assumed different names. Judging from these names they had been founded to promote many completely different things. Their names would seem to indicate that the members were in the main businessmen who had become worried about the value of the American dollar; or mothers who were anxious that their sons soled have a fair break in the war and after the war; citizens whose one wish was to preserve the Constitution of the United States and safeguard the rights which it gives to all American citizens; clergymen who wanted nothing but to bring a sinful nation back into the fold of the Church.

But what's in a name?

The leaders of these new organizations and the men and women who are running them are, without a single exception, the leaders of the organizations which disbanded after Pearl Harbor. But why, then, did they dissolve their organizations? Wasn't it because it occurred to them that now, when America is a party to this war, the activities of their organizations, the very fact of their existence even, are illegal? This is, indeed, the only possible explanation. But if these organizations are illegal, how can it be anything but a fraud to revive them even though under another name?

Of course there are certain differences between the old organizations and the new ones. For instance, the members of no longer "Heil Hitler"--at the meetings, that is. But they are quite open in their isolationism, their anti-Semitism, their contempt for democracy. They fight racial equality and any form of world coopation. they say that Roosevelt is responsible for World War II, they want no part of the Four Freedoms. They don't want to feed the world after the war, but they are perfectly willing to feed Germany. And above all they are afraid of the "Communist danger." They think that President Roosevelt's re-election must be prevented at all costs, and that we should negotiation a peace with Hitler now, no matter what becomes of our Allies.

No, they don't "Heil Hitler openly. They are "American Nationalists." Before Hitler came to power in Germany there were a great number of "German Nationalists." In fact, the men in key positions who were influential in getting Hitler into power were not Nazis. They were just "German Nationalists."

The Nazis learned in 1933 that "Nationalists" are their best allies. They learned it again in Spain, where the "Nationalist Franco" was their friend; and again in Norway, where the "Nationalist Quisling" worked for them; and again in France, where the "Nationalist P�tain" collaborated with them.

What, from the point of view of a Nazi, is wrong with an American Nationalist?
...

If only they taught this stuff in high-school....