(First of a continuing series of recycled but evergreen MaxSpeak classics, in a sad effort to rev up this substack, thanks to the Wayback Machine. Unfortunately my host provider ate my entire blog, so the only source for old posts is the Internet Archive, and now this substack. This one is from Febuary 3, 2003, with contemporary second thoughts in italics and parentheses.)
One of the potted ideas circulating these days is that Nazism and Communism are equal evils, as if evil was a fluid you could measure in a cup. I happened to digress on this point here during the brouhaha about the ANSWER coalition and was slightly surprised by the vehemence of the reaction. Tapped covers some of the same ground today.
I am not a communist. I was a communist some 25+ years ago (now more like 45—MBS). Today I don't mind being branded an anti-communist. I'm agin communism, so anti- is altogether appropriate. At the same time, I oppose depriving communists of their civil liberties, or applying social sanctions to them. I would also oppose depriving someone of his livelihood if he were a Nazi. (Seemed more tenable when there were fewer Nazis running amuck.—MBS) Finally, I think equations of communism and Nazism are a crock.
You may have noticed that I link to political organizations and literary organs that self-identify as communist. I do this not out of some kind of detached ecumenicism, but because I think they are worth checking out, mostly for their approach to bread-and-butter political issues. There are other communist organizations and publications that I would not link to. I would not busy myself linking to tracts apologizing for the negative features of the Soviet system, or apologetics for Soviet foreign policy.
At any rate, as a continuing service, I will be shouldering the duty of periodically explicating the differences between communism and fascism. Commie-phobia means the upholding of unreasonable fears as to association with avowed communists, and of gross misconceptions on the content of diverse communist and Marxist doctrines.
You might look at it this way. Some bears will look at you with one thought in mind -- lunch; others are dangerous but keep their distance; others can be taught to play soccer. All bears are not created equal. By contrast, I'm afraid there are just no good Nazis. I can't find anything positive to say about them. Call me an extremist, but there you have it.
Those who suffer from commie-phobia are handicapped in their ability to intelligently participate in debates about politics, economics, philosophy, and morality. Their plight cries out, and MaxSpeak will do our best to come to the rescue. Help is on the way.