Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Inbox blitzkrieg
How much the times have changed - and how typically. Over sixty years ago, Germany had released onto an unsuspecting world a virus called Nazism.exe which quickly spread through all of Europe and adjoining land and sea areas, causing untold misery and destruction. Todays German virus doesnt even do any nasty things to your hard drive, merely politely suggests you read one of the articles linked to in an email, some such articles coming from respected publications like "Der Spiegel". The general tenor is certainly revisionist and quasi-fascist: Germany was hard done by and crimes were committed against her too (such as bombing of Dresden), Turks are bad (they committed genocide on the Armenians in 1915), and multiculturalism is also definitely a problem.
So, contra Marxs dictum that history repeats itself, first time as tragedy and the second time as a farce, the second time is more like a nuisance.
National socialism has limited appeal throughout the West, mostly among brainless skinheads and sections of the intelligencia, who while always ready to decry it at home (in fact they tend to see its manifestations everywhere), support its violent expressions throughout the Middle East, under the guise of romanticizing the brave and righteous resistance to American imperialism. Im afraid the virus of anti-Americanism is now far more pervasive than ramblings of Hitlerian nostalgists, and it doesnt need a computer nasty to keep spreading its message.
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So, contra Marxs dictum that history repeats itself, first time as tragedy and the second time as a farce, the second time is more like a nuisance.
National socialism has limited appeal throughout the West, mostly among brainless skinheads and sections of the intelligencia, who while always ready to decry it at home (in fact they tend to see its manifestations everywhere), support its violent expressions throughout the Middle East, under the guise of romanticizing the brave and righteous resistance to American imperialism. Im afraid the virus of anti-Americanism is now far more pervasive than ramblings of Hitlerian nostalgists, and it doesnt need a computer nasty to keep spreading its message.
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