Belief of Magic, Magik, Majic, Majik?

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There was too much to answer in the last post from me to make it easy to respond, I'll agree. So, I'm going to limit my responses to your answer to one segment per post, and (selfish me) I'm going to start with the one that's easiest for me first.

To start with, exactly how much do you know about Leninism and Marxism? These two economic systems formed the basic outline for the USSR and 1930s Germany, respectively, and are not particularly compatible. Lenin started out as a Marxist, but soon realized that the great revolution necessary to overthrow the Russian monarchy was impossible, given the forward-thinking changes instituted by Emperor Alexander II in freeing the serfs and allowing them to own land. Nicholas II furthered these reforms by lifting bans on social conventions and on business ownership, which permitted the serfs an economic freedom they had never before been allowed. The way to potential prosperity was now open to them. (Please note that I said "potential" prosperity--they were still not educated, and so unlikely to attain it.) Lenin now had to reconsider his tactics if he wished to see Russia become a classless society. He determined that the uneducated serfs were unable to perceive their need for further freedom and that they needed to be led by intelligent and educated "professional revolutionaries" -- trained by him, of course. These revolutionaries dispersed throughout Russia to start the first Soviets, which ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy during WWI and the establishment of the USSR. All capital in a Leninist state is owned by the state and is dispensed at the will of the state.

Germany had long ago dispensed with the peasant class and had an impoverished, educated, and industrial working class. Marxism encouraged the rising of this working class to the purpose of overthrowing the upper class government and the establishment of a "government of equals." Marxist government assumes that all capital is owned by the people and is dispensed for the good of the people. Most of us would recognize it as a "socialist" state, but would not realize that Great Britain is among the socialist states we regularly interact with.

Now that we've dealt with economic systems, let's cover political systems for both countries during the 1930s and 1940s, which seems to be the time period in question. The USSR was a communist state. All people were "owned" by the state and worked for the good of the state. Children were educated according to what the state assigned them to do. If they had a particular talent, the government would ensure that they got the education to further it--provided that the talent furthered the needs of the state. All things were to work for the good of the state. The state was inclusivist. It absorbed other cultures and assimilated them into the state, where they could form part of the working force. Race and gender became virtually unimportant. Anything that could become divisive, including religion, was to be abolished. To a great degree, individuality was discouraged as a threat to the unity of the state, thus contact with cultures that encouraged individuality (such as the US) was to be avoided at all costs.

With the rise of Hitler, Germany embraced Fascism, s social system in which one particular race or sub-race of people is singled out as "superior" to all others. The others are either severely reduced in social status and economic prospects (as in Italy during the same time period) or exterminated, as Hitler was attempting to do in Germany. It is elitist and exclusivist, and when taken to extremes results in genocide with depressing regularity.

Now consider that, despite the fact that Stalin began as a paranoid leader of a country that attempted to "protect" itself from individualistic nations, he still reached out to the Allied nations during WWII and became one of the major players in the defeat of Germany, it seems rather odd to me that he and Hitler were such good friends. Especially considering that there is no evidence that I can find that they ever met. As for comparing notes on concentration camps, the camps in the USSR predated Stalin by many years. He merely enlarged them and allowed the jailers to refine techniques. Hitler's concentration camps did not exist until after the USSR had entered the war AGAINST Germany. The likelihood of Stalin sharing techniques on anything with the enemy is highly unlikely, particularly considering that most citizens of the USSR remembered WWI and how many of their own had died to German artillery. Germany was HATED by the Allied powers at that time.

I'll address another part of that post later. There were several segments that needed response, but I don't want to overload the thread.

Judith,

Please overload this thread! You've rekindled my interest in History, and I admire your ability to explain it accurately in ordinary and easily understandable terms in ways that far exceed the skills of anyone else here. Thank you for taking the time to make the effort to enlighten even the least of us.

-Fnord

Most of my research comes from "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" by William Shirer. (Yes I read all 1486 pages of it.)

Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler met many times. They had a lot in common. They were both socialists. Their top-down control of the their populations were very similar. "Communist" socialism effectively had the government owning everything and employing everyone. National Socialism had large corporations that were a buffer between the government and the people.

Did you see how easily Communist China transitioned from the "Communist" model to the National Socialist model? There's a large number of government controlled corporations furthering their objectives. For instance Whampoa corporation is owned by the Chinese Army and has the service contract on the Panama Canal and other strategic interests.

As I said, Stalin was totally surprised to be attacked by his friend. He disbelieved the initial reports of attacks. He had felt free to kill off any military officer that might try to start a coupe. When the war started he didn't have enough generals left to fight the war.

The American Marxists suddenly shifted from being Nazi sympathizers to Nazi haters. FDR engineered an attack on Pearl Harbor so he could get into the war to defend comrade Stalin.

So the Second World war started with Humanists attacking Humanists because of a difference in objectives. I know many out here will consider this as blasphemy, but take a look at it anyway.

I belive in magick and god/higher power. Witches are often call themselves white withes or wiccans, they belive in healing, and stuff and as far as I know they belive in a higher power. What about Gypsies, they use magic, but are pretty far from being satanic, supposidly Hitler was cursed by gypsies for the evil he had done, and that may have contributed. I have a deck of terot cards, they seem magical but are not for the forces of evil. To trust one force and that everything that draws energy from a place other then that force is foolish.

Both statements are quite inaccurate. Many in the US left opposed fascism in Europe - consider the volunteers of the "Lincoln Brigade" that went to Spain to fight Franco (who was backed by Hitler) long before the US government got involved. Some (not all) members of the Lincoln Brigade were Marxist and toned down their criticism of Hitler when the Soviets signed a pact with Germany, but the American left was not generally supportive of fascism.

FDR did not engineer the attack on Pearl Harbor - the Japanese did.

FDR did want to help Britain, and he was actually providing support to them (material, protection for ship convoys). It was the Republicans who limited support to Britain and blocked entry into WWII until Pearl Harbor.

Many of the Republicans in 1940 and 1941 were openly pro-Hitler. William Randolph Hearst (who controlled many of the newspapers and magazines) liked him, as did Henry Ford and most of the captains of industry.




(Incident at Guernica as depicted by Picasso)

Last edited by monty on 06 Aug 2008, 11:31 am, edited 4 times in total.

Bigotry can not flourish without ignorance, and vice-versa.

if Bigotry cannot flourish without ignorance, how is it that ignorance cannot flourish without bigotry, if the latter have to exist before the former?



I agree, I like her posts in this thread very much, which has made this thread interesting.

They are co-dependents - obligate symbionts? I would say ignorance comes first, and could exist without bigotry, but bigotry requires ignorance.

People who are prejudiced against learning and "them uppiddy perfesser types" tend to want to remain ignorant, and to promote ignorance in their offspring.

Of course, I'm basing this entire assertion on my childhood experiences while living in a small Michigan town full of auto workers.

FDR loathed the American military as much as the next leftist. He sent a cruiser between the islands of Japan, hoping they would blow it up and provide the excuse for war. They knew what he was up to, so they allowed their sovereignty to be violated.

When that didn't work, FDR interdicted the oil tankers from Indonesia to Japan. This was an act of war with no declaration. The Japanese had to do something to break America's blockade. The obvious targets were Hawaii and Guam. We knew it would be Hawaii because we had broken their code.

FDR sent the Admiral and the General in charge daily warnings that Hawaii might come under attack. FDR sent the aircraft carriers out to sea, to the west with no objective. The Admiral wanted to send a picket ship out to the sea mount to the north and FDR refused to allow that. Two airplanes were due to come to Pearl Harbor from the west. When the radar men saw a wave of planes coming from the north, they shut down the radar and didn't tell anyone. However, there was a man with a color 35 mm camera on a tripod on the fantail of a hospital ship. He was cranking away when the first wave of Japanese planes came over the trees. That's the source of the video you see about the Pearl Harbor attack. "A day that will live in infamy," indeed!

[quote="TimT]Most of my research comes from "The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich" by William Shirer. (Yes I read all 1486 pages of it.)

Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler met many times. They had a lot in common. They were both socialists. Their top-down control of the their populations were very similar. "Communist" socialism effectively had the government owning everything and employing everyone. National Socialism had large corporations that were a buffer between the government and the people.

Did you see how easily Communist China transitioned from the "Communist" model to the National Socialist model? There's a large number of government controlled corporations furthering their objectives. For instance Whampoa corporation is owned by the Chinese Army and has the service contract on the Panama Canal and other strategic interests.

As I said, Stalin was totally surprised to be attacked by his friend. He disbelieved the initial reports of attacks. He had felt free to kill off any military officer that might try to start a coupe. When the war started he didn't have enough generals left to fight the war.

The American Marxists suddenly shifted from being Nazi sympathizers to Nazi haters. FDR engineered an attack on Pearl Harbor so he could get into the war to defend comrade Stalin.

So the Second World war started with Humanists attacking Humanists because of a difference in objectives. I know many out here will consider this as blasphemy, but take a look at it anyway.[/quote]

Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was first published in 1959. Most of its research was completed by 1950. There's been a LOT of water under the bridge since then. Shirer did a great work. And, yes, I've read the whole thing, too. More than once. I reread a lot. But a considerable amount of it is now considered by historians to be incorrect, considering information that has since been brought to light. I would suggest catching up your reading. I would like to note, however, that a rapid review of the book (which is among the ones in my library) showed no incidencces of meetings between Hitler and Stalin, nor did any of my other reviews of my references in my collection.

The USSR was not surprised when Germany attacked. Germany and the Soviets had had a trade and nonaggression pact prior to the war because the USSR quite realistically noted that, due to its size and population, most of the burden of war would lie with it. France and Britain would likely be able to put only a small percentage of the manpower and materiel necessary to prosecute the war, in comparison. The USSR would bear the brunt. Up to this time, the Germans and the Soviets HAD been etremely inimical to one another. Germany wished to avoid another front while absorbing as much territory as possible, and the USSR was potentially its most dangerous enemy.

BUT when the Soviet government realized that Germany suddenly held all its south-central border, negotiations with France and Britain suddenly took up again. The Soviets ramped up for war and were NOT surprised. Actually, the Germans were rather upset that the Soviets had broken the non-agression pact. I strongly recommend the book "A History of Modern Germany." I'll get you the author later. It's still packed away from my last move. It gives a good description of the German response to the Soviet double-play, and is much more recent than "Rise and Fall."

Of course Stalin didn't have enough generals. Nicholas II had that problem, too. Main problem was that the culture was "showy" in it's demonstration of military prowess. Stalin took that as a threat in virtually every instance. BUT he did have a decent learning curve on the idea that he needed field commanders, and talent showed up over time. The geography and climate of the Soviet Union played in his favor there, just as it did in favor of the Russians during Napoleon's invasion. Give land slowly, absorb the invaders, kill them off and let their supply lines get so long that they can't manage to keep them up.

FDR didn't "let" the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. That's a common conspiracy myth. Please tell me you aren't that credulous. We didn't have the ability to crack the Japanese code. They had gotten an Enigma machine. The Allies weren't able to crack Enigma codes until we had stolen one of the machines, ourselves. Curiosity question, though. If Stalin and Hitler were such good buddies that Stalin was shocked that Hitler attacked, how did Stalin wind up being such great friends with known adversary FDR?!

I also hate to have to tell you that many US Marxists aren't anti-Nazi. There is a very active neo-Nazi party in our fair country. They do deny that the Holocaust occurred. They believe that the US should be "cleansed" of all non-whites, Catholics, non-Christians (including certain Christian sects that don't measure up), and other groups. I'd rather deal with the KKK than with them. I can at least communicate with the KKK on a level that gets the point across. (I'll have to tell you THAT story some time. My husband thinks it's hilarious.)

And now for China...Easy transition? Wow, you must have forgotten Mao and the Great Cultural Revolution. They're still trying to get over that! It's just now that they're showing real progress.

Let's consider something here. You were an engineer, right? What kind of engineer were you? Mechanical? Structural? Electrical? Something else? Think about this. Would you take texts written 60 years ago and assume that the data in them was completely correct, and that no new research had been done? Or that no new information could have come to light? As a historian, I can with some confidence say that war never comes out of the blue. Chaos is never waiting just around the corner to grab a nation or a region. Cause and effect works. Natural law is a tested and proved process. Regardles of who put it in place. (I bleieve I know, but religion is not a topic that can be proven by science. That's the point of faith.) Nations don't go to war for idealistic reasons. They go to war for economic reasons, then SAY they have idealistic reasons to put a pretty face on it. Follow the money trail. Humanism had nothing to do with WWII. Real estate and finance had everything to do with it. You have the power to control the space, you have the control of what it produces. Give it an idealistic veneer, you suddenly have a lovely image to color it and drag in the idiots to die for your cause.

Witches, "Wiccans" and Shamans believe in the power of nature like the Buddhists. They will call upon an animal spirit to be a guide for them. I have a clean up page for anyone coming out of that religion to Jesus. They command these spirits to leave them and their properties by the authority of Jesus Christ. The spirits immediately leave.

Hitler was heavily into the occult as a source of spiritual power. This power did help him. But just before D-day, the Christian soldiers were praying very earnestly. Hitler went into a fit and was unable to dispatch the Panzer division that would have destroyed the invasion.

The Tarot cards are a means of submitting to advice coming from "somewhere." When the right demon comes along, the cards start to be amazingly accurate. But they don't if a Christian is around, praying.

As for Vampyrism, that is simply a demonic compulsion to drink blood. The proof is that the demon can be cast out by the authority of Jesus Christ.

What else is God, but the Highest Object of Devotion? So, by definition, to a Humanist, Humanity is their god. Having read Torcaso v. Watkins, a better way for the Court to have decided would have been to state that one could be an athiest and still be a conscientious objector. That one's personal philosophy could be as strongly influencing as one's religion in determining one's perspective regarding violence.

As an assistant state geologist during the summers in Tennessee, the official definition of evolution I used was "measurable changes occurring over a period of time which resulted in the adaptation of a species to changes in its environment." When discussing geologic time, using the words "slow" or "fast" is a little absurd, because they have no correlation to the human understanding of time. Frankly, I would be the last person on Earth to say that we know everything. And I'm glad that we don't. That means that there are still worlds of exploration left right here, just waiting for the questions to be asked, the answers to be discovered! Doesn't mean that the questions can't be asked and that the answers are all "No!"

Keep your mind open to all the possibilities of wonder that the world has to offer--but NOT so open that your brains fall out...

Megachurches: I did check out the bretheren. I got lost in the shuffle because only the wealthier people in the church were able to attend anything like retreats or any of the weekday classes (which used books they purchased themselves and were normally rather expensive). If you wanted to talk to the pastor or a pastoral counselor, you had to schedule it around a business meeting. It was worse than depressing. It was more like "God for Sale! Get your God here!" Sickeningly commercial. I'll stay with a smaller church where the pastor can learn everyone's name with a little effort.

ASH and religion: I think Koldune answered that one nicely. Oh, and the Methodists aren't the only ones known for splits. Although, here where I live, they are known as the extreme opposite of megachurches. Some of the UMCs here only have somewhere around 3 members.

That's an interesting question, and one that we should likely be asking ourselves many times each day. How well do we know what Christ would have done in a particular situation? What would Christ have said? How would he have voted? Would he have voted? I know some who say he wouldn't have, and so they don't, either. In today's world, would he be advocating "going green?" Becoming a vegetarian? Female ministers? After all, he DID allow women to sit at his feet to learn from him -- in equality with the men there. The world has changed significantly since the first century, and Christ might have some significant thoughts for us. Rereading the gospels could be good incentive to make us all think.

Paul was writing letters in specific context to specific churches with certain problems and certain strengths. This must be taken into account when reading his epistles. But reading the gospels means seeking the mind of God.

I believe that such oracles are one way to tap into the subconscious mind. If someone is there to discourage, detract and distract, then they probably will interfere. The oracles do not so much see into the future as present a new way of looking at the world (as artists also do). The pronouncements of a good oracle are usually very symbolic and open to multiple interpretations, but require a person to think about a situation in new ways ... "If Croesus crosses the river Halys, he will destroy a great empire" was true - he thought he would destroy his enemy, but he destroyed his own empire. Nothing magic there.

The subconscious mind is no different than the rational mind in the sense it can make good decisions and poor decisions. As far as magic, that has never been proven to occur when subjected to scientific studies, even when true believers are eager to prove it. The abilities of the subconscious mind, on the other hand, can be measured, and they would surprise many people that walk around denying anything outside of the rational sphere.




Most vampirism is psychological attachment to fashion and harmless. When a mentally ill person latches on that fashion (or hundreds of other fashions), they can conceivably hurt people - although they can become irrational and violent in the absence of any external fashion. Most people abandoned the idea that mental illness was caused by demon possession when the dark ages ended and we began to understand the relationship between the brain and the mind.

There may have been isolated cases of a genetic disease (porphyria) among the inbred wealthy that has given rise to people that are very sensitive to the sun and never went out in the day, and who are iron deficient (and crave red meat and blood), along with an inability to metabolize garlic (which is poison to them), and sometimes hair growing on most parts of the face. ... giving rise to legends about vampires and werewolves. And then there was Vlad.

Here's an interesting article that came out recently on how 'magicians' use limitations in the way the brain works to create illusions that the laws of the universe can be suspended.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas ... your_mind/