No country believes in this religion or that religion; it is an individual choice of the members of that country as to what religion they should believe in (or not).
The lunatic fringe of the far right want to push the notion that the UK (and the USA) is a christian country because they want to use that as an excuse to punish anyone who isn’t. Oh, it’ll start with Muslims and Hindus and end with anyone who doesn’t follow their brand of Christianity.
As of 2021, the UK was 46.5% Christian; that’s the single largest religious group. But it isn’t the majority; there’s plenty of other religious groups and the non-religious. Of course the christofascists will point out that in the past, the UK was nearly 100% Christian, glossing over the fact that this was forced on us – either explicitly or more subtly.
The past is the past – whilst we may have a christian tradition we also have a pre-christian tradition (or a pagan tradition). Christianity is a foreign religion – it’s an immigrant from the middle-east.
Just recently my Twitter feed has seen any number of photographs of the past pretending to show how much better things were in the past.
It is all very well, but the past sucked. You can take historical photos that show how grand things were but like today we didn’t take photos of the bad things; and even if we did, we wouldn’t show them today. At least not in the posts claiming how great the past was.
For example. Bill Brandt amongst other things made images of really grim Durham miners slums – houses with no windows and built so shodily that they were horrendously damp. The great public housing boom of the 1950s and 1960s wasn’t just about repairing the damage of war but also making decent homes for the working class replacing swathes of slums.
And things we take for granted today – central heating, running water, inside lavatories and bathrooms, all of which were rare or non-existent not so long ago. And some places shared outside lavs.
We take health for granted these days. From the visit to the doctor or the visit to A&E which cost nothing, to vaccinations which prevent many of childhood’s terrorists – Polio, Measle, Rubella, Smallpox, Whooping Cough, … the number of folk who remember such an era where school friends would disappear dragged to an early grave by one of those lurgies is getting smaller.
And you don’t see a man coughing his lungs out in those smiling photos of the past; yet they were present. Coal miners with black lung, builders with asbestosis, those who worked with radium and phosphorus losing their jaws. Or crippled by dangerous machinery.
And so on.
You can’t have the good bits of the past without the bad bits. And there were plenty of those – this just touches the surface.
So some nutter has killed Charlie Kirk, the well known right-winger. This is obviously bad (and I’m a left-winger), but the reaction to his killing is interesting to say the least …
“He’s Not Right-Wing”
And in come the denials as if “right-wing” is something to be ashamed of – now I think it’s something to be ashamed of, but his fellow right-wingers would presumably think it’s fine. But they’re denying it. So let’s have a look at the signs :-
“Charlie Kirk addressed and acknowledged the Great Replacement.“. The “Great Replacement” is a white supremacist theory that there is some conspiracy to “replace” white folk. Charlie once claimed “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified,” – plainly racist. Normally racist is a sign of a right-winger at least amongst reasonable folk.
Raging misogynist: “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.”. Again most reasonable folk classify hatred of women as right-wing.
Kirk on vaccine mandates: “a form of medical apartheid.”. Now this is isn’t right-wing; it’s just nuts. And evil nuts at that.
Most ironically: “I think it’s worth having a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,”.
Does this make him right-wing? Well yes, but more so – he was a toxic extremist holding views that effectively regarded “others” (women, black folk, homosexuals, etc) as sub-human with fewer rights than the classic rich white men.
Opposing such extremists is something folk should be celebrated for doing. But killing? No that’s just wrong.
The Left Killed Him
As we don’t currently know the motives of the killer, claiming that the left killed him is a bit premature.
One of the related strands is the strange notion that the left is violent whilst the right is peaceful. However a US government survey of political violence shows something very different :-
So the 59% of all political violence is right-wingers – exceeding both left-wing and islamists.
Surprised? No wonder – the right-wing is very good at lying.
They (the right) were very quick to start blaming the left even claiming Democrats were effectively urging the murder of Kirk. Well, for a start, the Democrats aren’t leftist – they’re far too right wing for this leftist.
And even if the left in general (and Democrats) criticise Kirk for some of his positions, that isn’t encouraging political violence.
But ultimately we don’t know what motivated the killing of Charlie Kirk. There’s just as many hints that he was right-wing as hints that he was left-wing. But let’s stop pointing fingers until we know.
There’s a popular meme around to categorise the Nazis as socialists because they want to paint all socialists with the colour of murderous dictators. You do have to wonder why given that Stalin existed.
But It’s In The Name!
To be picky it’s not the word “socialist” that exists in the name of the party but the German word sozialistische. The full party name was: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.
At least it was after the renaming of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; a far right party dedicated to fighting the communists (which were quite popular in Germany after the first world war). The renaming (which Hitler initially opposed) to include the word “sozialistische” was ‘intended to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with “Socialist” and “Workers'” appealing to the left, and “National” and “German” appealing to the right.’
How About Their Policies?
If you look at some of the policies of the early Nazi party, they do appear to be influenced by the left: anti-capitalist, anti-big-business, etc. These policies later disappeared as the Nazis grew closer to power and they started to need the support of industrialists.
Another way of looking at it was the association with the militant far-right – the Freicorps (both a generic term and a term applying to a specific group of far-right paramilitary thugs). The Nazis were quite happy to associate in their early days with the Freicorps thugs until they became inconvenient and were “disassociated” during the Night of the Long Knives.
Dachau
The first concentration camp (Dachau) was created for Hitler to punish his political opponents – chiefly communists, socialists, or trade unionists. Some will point at Lenin’s suppression of his political opponents to illustrate that this is not an indication that Hitler wasn’t a socialist.
Only Lenin didn’t suppress leftists initially – for example Emma Goldman was free to visit the Soviet Union, observe, and then return to criticise the revolution. Probably necessarily too – Lenin’s Bolcheviks were probably a minority of leftists in Russia at the time.
Authoritarian
Sometimes those who say “Nazis were socialists” are really grasping for the word “authoritarian” working on the basis that some socialist regimes have been authoritarian. Well “socialist” is the wrong word then – there have been plenty of socialist regimes that were not authoritarian – the UK Labour government of 1945 onwards is a good example.
Fin
Labelling Nazis as socialists is a right-wing deception to hide the fact that the far right come down to evil policies, and to blacken the name of socialism.
Don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty to criticise about socialism but the whole “Look how many folk socialists have killed” thing is really a criticism of authoritarian regimes. Many of which (frequently overlooked by the right) were right-wing regimes: Franco’s Spain, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, …
You’ll find some will say “but Stalin killed far more”. Which is true enough, but although Stalin killed an astounding number deliberately, incompetence was also a factor especially when it comes to the famines (and yes there’s a debate to be had about how much was incompetence and how much was maliciousness).
But the key thing is that no serious political historian will classify the Nazis as left-wing. You have to go a lot further than pointing at the name without the audience laughing.
Quoting a university poster from many years ago written by the Jewish (student) society. Which is not quite what this is about but close enough.
In recent weeks it has become the trend to accuse those who criticise Israel’s policies in Gaza, as antisemitic. It is possible of course – the dumber out there are genuinely antisemitic. But there’s a whole other bunch of reasons :-
They’re anti-zionist and anything that Israel does can be condemned.
They’re anti-certain kinds of government policies and Israel uses those policies.
Always accusing critics of Israel of antisemitism is essentially saying that Israel cannot be criticised no matter what they do. Is that right?
Sure Israel has to defend itself from Hamas terrorist attacks, but it has to be done right without breaking international law. And even if you think Israel’s response is “reasonable”, you can’t reasonable silence criticisms of Israel by using the antisemitism label – it’s dishonest.
Ultimately what Israel wants is to be in a privileged position where none dare criticise them because any criticism will be seen as antisemitic. It’s equivalent to the British claiming that anti criticism of the British Empire is just anti-British.
I use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. I do this to improve browsing experience and to show (non-) personalised ads. Consenting to these technologies will allow me to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
