Re: [Leica] Country of origin

[Krechtz@aol.com]

In a message dated 12/5/00 12:34:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
bdcolen@earthlink.net writes:

<< What's particularly chilling is not the straight "political murders," but 
the internal ethnic
 cleansing and the deaths of 10s of millions by starvation as a result of the 
forced
 collectivism.......
 
 Roger wrote:
 
 > Last I heard/read, Joseph Stalin wiped out 20,000,000
 > people. Including anyone else in the Communist party
 > that could be considered competition. Witch hunts were
 > the order of the day. KGB was used to hunt down guys
 > like Trotsky, and lure them back into Russia, all
 > based on Stalin's paranoia that the White Russians and
 > the West were plotting and scheming against him. The
 > KGB were given orders to infiltrate other governments,
 > other spy/intelligence organizations, and recruite
 > sympathesizers from Universities around the world.
 > I've only recently started reading it, but it's a real
 > eye opener. Written by an ex-KGB dude who is a real
 > whistleblower, and he made notes and copies of KGB
 > files going back decades. You can read about it in a
 > fascinating book:
 >
 > 
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465003109/o/qid=975978268/sr=2-1/002-0

890966-9044036
 > >>
                                    <<SNIP>>

    True, but even collectivism was a stated government economic policy 
designed to further both the economic and political ends of the regime.  
Although the validity of the policy and its underlying political philosophy 
are certainly debatable, at least the policy itself arguably rises to the 
level of rationality.  The ends, by Stalin's lights, justified the 
cataclysmic and indefensible means.  
    By way of contrast, Nazi genocide was considered an end in itself, the 
product of a pseudo-scientific, pseudo-historical amalgam of mythology, 
mysticism, proto-religious nonsense and megalomaniacal ethnocentrism rather 
than a considered policy directed toward realization of clearly defined 
economic or political ends.  Inferior races had to be subjugated, enslaved, 
tortured and ultimately eradicated because that was their due, according to 
the tenets of National Socialism.  
    Any other rationale was deemed superfluous, possibly even a dangerous and 
heretical adulteration of the dogma of the state "religion".  The SS were not 
trained by political scientists or economists, but by fanatical idealogues.
    Nazi genocide was therefore essentially gratuitous, as viewed by people 
of normal sensibilities.  Unless, that is, one considers the economic value 
of soap, gold teeth and lampshades.  That is what makes it so pernicious and 
unsettling.  

Joe Sobel