Smith on Poverty & Politics

Dear friends,

The current presidential candidates have referred to the "middle class" in abundance. Actually, so have earlier campaigners, from Truman to Clinton. You see, that is exactly to whom the Nazi movement appealed - that is, middle-class Germans. Moreover, it was they who were at the heart of Nazism - not Adolph Hitler...

Webster's Dictionary and American classrooms - from grade schools to colleges - brim with the word "Nazi" as representing a political party. It was not. Rather, it was a movement of ordinary people - the middle class. Today, politicians manipulate this body, in order to pass fascistic legislation like The Patriot Act. As has been said by others long before me, "The seeds of fascism are well-planted in America's soil.".

In his classic work The Mass Psychology Of Fascism, Wilheim Reich, the renowned scientist and thinker, insisted: "My character-analytical experiences have convinced me that there is not a single individual who does not bear the elements of fascist feeling and thinking in his (or her) structure. As a political movement fascism differs from other reactionary parties inasmuch as it is borne and championed by masses of people...Since fascism, whenever and wherever it makes its appearance, is a movement borne by masses of people, it betrays all the characteristics and contradictions present in the character structure of the mass individual. It is not, as is commonly believed, a purely reactionary movement- it represents an amalgam between rebellious emotions and reactionary social ideas." (see Preface to the Third edition)

The middle class consists of those who "go along to get along". Moreover, they make up "the herd" that allows individuals to hide in that group and spew forth hatred and imjustice, without fear of reprisal, because, as part of the herd, each member of the group becomes anonymous. Moreover, it was millions of ordinary "middle-class" people who aided in the killing of 40 million of their fellow Europeans (22 million Russians alone). Hitler and his cohorts understood the significance of recruiting this group, in carrying out their (the former's) dastardly plan. So, they appealed to that group. Every single American presidential candidate has followed their example, ever since.

At any rate, on the link below, in his typically original thoughtfulness, Elm Smith, of the Philadelphia Daily News, awakens us to the group that is almost never mentioned. Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20080930_Elmer_Smith__Candidates_don_t_show_much_interest_in_the_poor.html