
George Orwell's review of Mein Kampf (1940) - adamnemecek
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzmBhYakPbYtT3k5cDd4Sm1SRUE/edit
======
michaelsbradley
In 1937, Pope Pius XI published a kind of "review" of the ideas in Mein Kampf
and the actions of the Nazi Party. _Mit Brennender Sorge_ ("With Burning
Anxiety") remains the only papal encyclical ever principally published in a
language other than Latin. That is, the official edition was published in
German and other translations were derived from the German rather than a Latin
original. Apparently, the Pope's harsh critique enraged Hitler.

[http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/docume...](http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-
xi_enc_14031937_mit-brennender-sorge_en.html)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mit_brennender_Sorge)

~~~
DCKing
"Fascism" and "Catholic right-wing" were synonymous at the time. Hitler had
signed a treaty with the Holy See to basically allow them to control schools
in Germany in exchange for a thumbs up for the regime, and this meant the
Vatican was backtracking. Hitler thought they were allies; and the Vatican was
important for Nazi power, so yeah, that move pissed him off.

~~~
waps
Given that they clearly did not have the church on their side, isn't that a
massive conflict ?

Also the wikipedia page states that because of the German (pre-nazi) agreement
with the vatican that was seen as lending legitimacy to the nazi government,
this rebuke by the pope was seen as a great step forward for German catholics,
lending legitimacy to an already existing opposition amonst catholics which
was then publicly and violently suppressed ...

I'd be interested in hearing more.

~~~
DCKing
The timespan between the original Reichskonkordat and this letter was six
years. It appeared the Nazi regime did not respect the Vatican, and it became
apparent soon that their agreement wasn't going to be upheld as expected by
the Nazis. In addition, the differences between Nazism and contemporary
fascism (which the Church _was_ mostly supportive of) became more apparent
over time and drew some criticism as well.

------
mikeyouse
From a timing perspective, this was published in March, 1940. Some other
noteworthy events with their dates:

* Germany invades Poland (September, 1939)

* Britain, France, Canada, Australia and New Zealand declare war on Germany (September, 1939)

* Soviets invade Poland, which is later split (October, 1939)

* Nazis begin euthanasia of ill and disabled in Germany (October, 1939)

* Soviets attack Finland (November, 1939)

So by the time Orwell published his review, it was clear Germany and the
Soviets were mobilizing for war, but it was entirely unclear what would happen
next.

In the next six months, Germany would invade Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and the Netherlands while beginning their blitz on Great Britain.
The Soviets would take Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. Mussolini would meet
Hitler in Munich, declare war on France and Britain and Italian forces would
take Greece and enter Egypt. The Tripartite Pact would be signed by Germany,
Italy, and Japan to formalize their alliance.

It's amazing to me how fast things moved during that time.

~~~
adventured
It's amazing to me that, in all likelihood, had Hitler decided to call it
quits earlier, the world would have sat back and allowed him to keep some of
his conquests (eg Denmark, Norway or Belgium). Today it would be unthinkable
to allow a large nation to invade Belgium with no counter international
military response.

~~~
andrewfong
Perhaps not Belgium, but consider eastern Ukraine.

~~~
increment_i
OK so any large nation that isn't Russia, China, Great Britain or the United
States.

~~~
meric
Just FYI Germany was providing training and equipment to the Chinese
nationalists to fight at first against regional warlords and then the Japanese
until 1941 when the tripartite pact was signed.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-
German_cooperation_until_1...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-
German_cooperation_until_1941)

------
Htsthbjig
With what we know today we could see Orwell picture of Germany was incomplete.

People did not want struggling at the time. After the Great depression created
by the banks bubble and having everything they could produce taken by
countries like France as payment for WWI GERMANS WERE ALREADY STRUGGLING.

Germans were dying in winter because the coal was sent to France as payment.
And this is not like winter in Morocco. In Germany you have no energy in
winter, with 30 Celsius degrees under zero you die.

Not only they were struggling, but having all what they could make confiscated
to pay debts created a very dangerous situation, there was NO HOPE.

They had become slaves. Romans already measured that a slave worked way less
than half what a free man did.

So Hitler brought hope. He stopped paying the debt(default), the military
occupied the coal areas back for Germany and brought hope.

Is not that he promised suffering, but that he promised that suffering will
end.

He also made suffering more tolerable making it social. Hitler created social
programs for workers that let them travel and meet other people.

It is probably hard to understand for Westerns, but there are millions of
people in Africa or India that are happier than people from the West, even
while being very poor, because money is not everything, there are friends, for
example, that people from Africa have more than isolated westerns.

Today the world is in Great Depression number II. Countries are over indebted,
and we have the same problem they had: economies had stop to a halt and will
be there until bad debts are cleaned, and defaults are issued.

~~~
tim333
I imagine Orwell knew much of that stuff which was to a large extent predicted
as inevitable by Keynes both in his 1919 book The Economic Consequences of the
Peace and before. It often surprises me how much suffering could be avoided if
people just understood Keynes stuff and used it. WW2 and much of the recent
depression could probably be avoided and with pretty much no downside. It's
kind of mass unnecessary suffering through wilful ignorance or something like
that - dunno. I guess some of the ideas are hard to understand and most people
couldn't explain the concept of insufficient aggregate demand leading to lower
jobs and investment and hence lower demand still in a feedback loop unless it
gets broken some how. But it's not that hard I would like to think. Though I
have not heard that concept repeated and dealt with by many of our current
leaders. Maybe human brains are not built to grok that stuff even though you
can pretty much put it on one sentence?

------
lisper
This sent chills down my spine:

"He [Hitler] had crushed the German labor movement and for that the property-
owning classes were willing to forgive him almost anything. Both left and
right concurred ... that National Socialism was merely a version of
Conservatism.

Plus ca change...

~~~
confluence
... plus c'est la même chose.

The funny thing is that many conservatives think National Socialism was
"socialism", when in fact it was just their very own hard right conservatism.
Tea Party and Republican candidates are where the Hitlers of the future will
probably arise from.

> _Down with immigration! Up with capital! Be a real American!_

Welcome to the past.

Edit: I see the fascists have discovered my comment. Down vote away. It
doesn't change history.

~~~
anigbrowl
I'm continually astonished at the ultraconservative meme that Hitler was left-
wing (which seems to originate with a book called 'Liberal Fascism' by Jonah
Goldberg, although it has doubtless been floating around for much longer).
Point out that one of the very first things that Hitler did on attaining power
was have all the trade unionists arrested, and you might as well be talking to
the air.

~~~
judk
It's almost as though "left" and "right" are meaningless terms that are just
use to split the people into two camps for battle against each other.

~~~
anigbrowl
I think they are good signifiers for significantly different
economic/political beliefs. However, fanatacism in politics ends up looking
pretty similar regardless of starting point.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I think that they are actively hurtful, they shut down rational thinking.
Ideas that actually make sense tend not to cluster well along left/right axis,
but are scattered all over the spectrum.

------
ehmorris
If you guys know a lot about the period, I just transcribed it on Genius and
I'd appreciate some help annotating it: [http://history.genius.com/George-
orwell-review-of-mein-kampf...](http://history.genius.com/George-orwell-
review-of-mein-kampf-annotated)

(full disclosure I work at Genius.)

~~~
scrollaway
Unrelated to the matter but since you work at genius, can you talk to the
geniuses (sic) who thought that hijacking text highlight was a good idea? A
lot of us speed readers use text highlight to read along. It is easier on the
eyes and the brain.

So please don't hijack it.

~~~
ehmorris
For technical reasons: we want to allow users to annotate arbitrary segments
of text, so what better (or other) way is there than adding an annotate button
to highlighted text?

For philosophical reasons: genius is about annotating text, and as a result,
about close reading. We'd rather optimize for a close read than a speed read.

~~~
scrollaway
The annotate button covers the highlighted text. And I don't just highlight
text when I speed read, I do it _all the time_ because it is easier on the
eyes - it is just a habit common to speed readers as that's where most people
pick it up.

Moreover you actually break selection pretty badly along with it. There are
other ways to annotate than to pop crap up every time a user highlights text.

I'm in no mood of solving UX problems for a website that has gotten me so
disgusted within seconds of opening it. And no, this is not an exaggeration.
Imagine if, while reading the newspaper, every few seconds some _really
annoying guy_ moved it out of the way and yelled "DID YOU SEE THE SPORTS
SECTION?" or similar crap you don't care about. This is the most direct
analogy I can find to explain the situation to someone who doesn't highlight-
read.

~~~
azernik
So perhaps the more specific ask here is "don't have your pop-up on
highlighted text cover other text."

Would this bother you as much if the "Annotate" pop-up was off in the margin?

------
paul_f
This is a great reminder that at one time Hitler was not the caricature of
pure evil that he is now. He was real and nobody knew what the future held.
Amazing snapshot into that time.

~~~
krick
Bearing in mind that this "caricature of pure evil" image is basically result
of propaganda of the winning side of WW2 it's only natural that it wasn't the
case before he lost his war. Far more interesting about this article is the
fact _how much it was known_ about what the future held. Sure, Orwell might be
somewhat above average in questions of history and politics, but still I'd say
it is pretty surprising that he is giving attention precisely that parts of
Mein Kampf and Hitler personality which are interesting now, 70 years after.
Especially that part about Hitler seeing himself as "Christ crucified". "Hero
who fights single-handed against impossible odds". Indeed, wasn't it pretty
clear back then, that whatever war he started — he couldn't win? What must had
happened in order to make victory possible? Yet his popularity was amazing,
and Orwell describes perfectly _why_. I'm not sure I understood the reason so
well before I read this.

~~~
chatmasta
> "Bearing in mind that this "caricature of pure evil" image is basically
> result of propaganda of the winning side of WW2"

I'm not sure that any propaganda is necessary to convince 99.9% of people that
the instigator of the largest genocide in human history is, in fact, a
"caricature of pure evil."

~~~
Russell91
Stalin's genocide was larger.

~~~
declan
>Stalin's genocide was larger.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll)
Mao Zedong is believed to be responsible for 34,300,000–63,784,000 deaths and
Joseph Stalin for 23,000,000–60,000,000.

~~~
Russell91
Yea, Mao Ze Dong wasn't the same thing though. It's estimated as many as 60
million people died in China from hunger. Many others died from the civil war
(Cultural Revolution). There may have been some genocide but the term doesn't
apply as well as in Germany/Russia.

~~~
andr3w321
Yes but people were dying from hunger as a direct result of the policies that
Mao implemented
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine)
He is largely responsible for these deaths even if he didn't personally
exterminate them.

~~~
Bootvis
But presumably there was a different intent behind Mao's actions. It seems to
me that the goal of central planning was prosperity, not death.

~~~
lutusp
Yes, true, but in politics the outcome is all that matters, not the intent. As
has often been said, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

~~~
drjesusphd
So are you saying that when climate change happens, if it's as bad as many
scientists fear, then modern US conservatives will take up the mantle of
"largest genocide in history"?

~~~
lutusp
I doubt they'll volunteer for that label. Maybe they'll be viewed as the
Catholic Church is now viewed with respect to the trial of Galileo in 1633.

------
Theodores
Has anyone here actually read Mein Kampf? Doing so is probably banned in
Germany and I am not sure what there is other than kiddie porn or some al-
qaeda training manual that you totally would not want in your browsing
history. There could come a time when no living person has read Mein Kampf and
nobody would know first hand why it is wrong.

~~~
maaku
Yes, I have (yay protection of free speech!) and it is dreadfully boring.

It is amazing though how it pretty much spells out exactly what he would end
up doing once he took power, in all the horrid detail, and yet some
politicians of the time believed that simple appeasement would work...

As someone else here said, the lesson is that crazy people sometimes mean what
they say, even when it sounds totally crazy.

~~~
waps
But that is true of all such literature. The little Red Book, The Communist
manifesto, Mein Kampf, the Quran, all of these books are boring to the point
that despite their historical influence, and the massacres ascribed to them,
it is a real struggle to get through them.

Well, at least most of them are really short.

~~~
bjourne
The Communist Manifesto is a pamphlet and it contains a lot of great quotable
passages. The Little Red Book contains contains quotes and proverbs from Mao.
The Quran.. you can hardly say that it is boring. Your book comparison is just
wrong. If you want to compare Mein Kampf to something, then Josef Stalin
wrotes some tomes which are dreadful.

~~~
waps
Mein campf is ... well, it's rambling. Think one of those internet "we didn't
land on the moon, climate is bad, boo immigrants" texts rambling. The quran is
rambling too, but of a different kind. "you must do X, you can't do Y, he must
do Z, if you do A, B and C you'll be rewarded". It'd be fine, but it's 50
freaking pages of that. Why are you claiming "boring" is an unfair assessment
of this ?

I'm unsure what the definition of pamphlet is, but the communist manifesto
definitely exceeds what I'd consider length limits for pamphlets.

~~~
bjourne
Trying to make some kind of comparison between Mein Kampf and the Quran (and
by extension, the Torah and the Bible since they contain much the same
content) is beyond idiotic. Have you really read either of the Quran and/or
Mein Kampf?

The definition of a pamphlet is an unbound booklet, which is how the Manifesto
was originally printed. It's length was 23 pages.

------
jokoon
I wonder if hitler is studied in political sciences.

Especially his speeches, rhetorics and strategies, and why they worked out how
they did.

I hate to feel that hitler is somehow still a little controversial today. I
don't really want to watch his speeches or read what he was saying because
it's a little depressing and painful to think about, but understanding how he
politically convinced people, and the underlying causes.

We're safe from that today, but I'd still like to understand how we protected
ourselves from that happening again.

~~~
sytelus
Hitler used very simple formula that had been often repeated: You have a
nation of people defeated and stripped of wealth and pride. A leader comes up
with a extremely strongly held view that these people are the greatest thing
on the Earth and they will rise from the ashes. He quickly gains followers,
boldly breaks rules and obtains initial victories that fuels his next moves in
self-feeding way.

Mein Kampf actually does not have any plans or even hints for the atrocities
that Hitler's regime performed later on. There are few words of Hitler's
dislike for jews here and there where he basically complains that they are not
as sophisticated as Germans, they smell, have unusual rituals, they look
different etc. He then complains about they controlling major outlets of
newspapers and art. Finally he discloses his real reason for dislike: He
believed that jews supported socialist party that Hitler hated truly bottom of
his heart, perhelps far more than jews.

One should not underestimate frustration of German people in those days. After
WW-I, the peace treaty essentially put Germany in the dumpter. They can't have
their army, Austria was broken apart, country needed to pay huge sums as part
of the treaty and entire nation was under extreme financial depression. It was
difficult to get a loaf of bread during that time for an average person.
German people though their nation was sold off to winners of World War by
their monarch. They thought they had been forever relegated as defeated people
from who winners of the war stole everything. This was quite opposite to their
belief of Germany as the greatest nation before the WW-I started.

Hitler promised to make bold moves including breaking the post WW-I treaty and
payments all together. He promised to throw away monarch and socialist party
which were favoring the status-quo. It was little surprise that he won hands
down in elections.

The interesting part of Mein Kamf is that Hitler was rather regular guy
without any political connections and even desires during the early years. He
had bad experiences with members of socialist party which combined with his
belief that nation was being sold by them and monarchs, lead him to rebel
without caring about consequences including going to prison. This gave him
publicity and outlet to write articles in newspapers as well as his
autobiography. This in turn earned him strong supporters and even more
exposure. Rest is the history.

~~~
jokoon
I still wonder if the more a country is in a financial depression, the more
it's vulnerable to extremism, and how do you measure it, and do you avoid it.

I wonder how much anyone care about not going in to war, deep in one's heart,
to not let crazy type be in control, especially nowadays politicians.

I believe democracy and moderate, boring, slobbish politics are still the key
in having a peaceful civilization. If the CIA is conspiring to assassinate
potential war-mongerers, I would feel fine about it. Conspiracists have a
point that peaceful and consented exploitation is a sad situation to be in,
but it's far better than the many past horrors of conflict.

The more WW2 gets old, the more people don't realize what war really is. Short
conflicts in the middle east or vietnam are not the same than when a conflict
comes at your doorstep.

------
PythonicAlpha
"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." George
Santayana

Somebody asked, why this document is so high up-voted. I would say, we can't
up-vote it enough, when we have the chance to learn from history and
especially from the dark sides of history and from people like George Orwell.

Chance is very big, that a new era of darkness could fall on humanity, if we
don't stop it at the right time (and nobody knows, when the chance is over).

~~~
mtdewcmu
I actually don't foresee another Hitler rising, because the first Hitler
ruined it for all future Hitlers. I think what was most damning was the manner
in which Germany lost the war. If I thought it was mainly Hitler's values and
racism, I would not feel as safe. Hitler bet big on war and he lost in
spectacular fashion. I think he forever associated that style of leadership
with catastrophe.

~~~
gaius
If Hitler had managed to fight England and Russia separately, he could easily
have won. That's the true lesson here.

~~~
rangibaby
If Hitler had just left Stalin alone the latter would have been happy to let
the capitalists destroy each other, and Germany could have conquered all of
western Europe.

The USSR was initially part of an anti-fascist pact but made amends with
Germany after the western allies' betrayal of Czechoslovakia.

~~~
mtdewcmu
It's interesting to speculate on what would have happened if Hitler hadn't
betrayed Stalin. Hitler had reasons for doing so (I can't remember what they
were), and they probably had some validity -- but the Soviets were certainly
uneasy allies with the US and Britain, so perhaps the Soviets could have been
kept out of the war, at least for a while. If Germany was weakened, though,
Stalin might have seen an opportunity and attacked Germany on his own.

~~~
rangibaby
Hitler's reasons for invading the USSR were batshit insane. He wanted to wipe
the Slavs out, and thought he could do it before winter set in.

If Germany hadn't broken their agreement with the USSR the Soviets probably
would have stayed out of the war - remember that they had just been humiliated
by the Finns.

~~~
mtdewcmu
I took another look at the wikipedia entry [1], and it's inconclusive. Hitler
had tipped his hand in Mein Kampf by describing war with the Soviets, and the
Germans needed the oilfields at Baku, so completely avoiding war might have
appeared impossible to Hitler. If one accepts that war was inevitable, then it
probably was better sooner than later from the German standpoint: the Soviets
began upgrading their tactics in response to Germany's from the first German
action in the war, so the Soviets were becoming stronger adversaries. On the
other hand, German observers with cooler heads could see that the odds of
success were low and the action was foolhardy. But then, why pick on one
aspect when the entire war was foolhardy?

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa)

------
ekianjo
The comparison with Naopoleon in the text is inappropriate and anachronistic.
Napoleon WAS fighting against destiny. France was then attacked on all fronts
by foreign kingdoms who wanted to crush the republic and restore the monarchy.
Napoleon was the one to rise to defend the nation against foreign powers. It
had nothing to do with Hitler agressing other countries around.for the sole
purpose of establishing a larger German land and destroying its enemies.

EDIT: I can only attribute this silly parrallel between Hitler and Napoleon to
Orwell's origins. Being a British writer, he was probably educated throughout
his life to loathe Napoleon, presented as the ultimate Evil causing trouble in
Europe.

~~~
sexmonad
I don't see the parallel as intended to put Napoleon down, but instead to
attribute the same force of personality to Hitler. As someone who never met
either man (perhaps that's obvious :), I'm not sure the connection works with
me.

~~~
Zuider
The German philosopher, Hegel had quite the man-crush on Bonaparte.

"I saw the Emperor -this soul of the world- go out from the city to survey his
reign; it is a truly wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who,
concentrating on one point while seated on a horse, stretches over the world
and dominates it."

Similarly, Hitler saw himself as being the concrete expression of the soul of
the German people. He may not have been aware of the quote, but the ideas it
expressed were strong themes in the German romantic movement.

~~~
ekianjo
Do you have a source for that quote from Hegel ? I'd like to check the actual
german version of it :)

~~~
mtdewcmu
I found some references, including this one[1]:

"As far as the philosophy of history is concerned, what is the first trait of
the Hegelian vision of the Napoleonic hero ? A famous passage is often quoted.
It is an extract from the letter Hegel addressed from Iena to his friend
Niethammer, October 13th, 1806, when he had just finished writing The
Phenomenology of Mind : " I saw the Emperor -this soul of the world- go out
from the city to survey his reign; it is a truly wonderful sensation to see
such an individual, who, concentrating on one point while seated on a horse,
stretches over the world and dominates it. " (Correspondance, T. I, p.114)."

"Napoleon soul of the world" makes a pretty good search phrase[2].

[1]
[http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/articles/files/napol...](http://www.napoleon.org/en/reading_room/articles/files/napoleon_hegelian_hero.asp)
[2]
[https://www.google.com/#q=emperor+napoleon+this+soul+of+the+...](https://www.google.com/#q=emperor+napoleon+this+soul+of+the+world)

------
BugBrother
I assume this is posted and up voted now because of the similarities to Putin?

Anyway, let me recommend "Down and out in Paris and London". It taught me more
about the human condition, and why you want to stamp out poverty and let
everyone to be able to have a humane life, than most any book I ever read.

Also, imho after learning a bit about Eastern Europe after 1945, I put "Animal
farm" along "1984". It is a master piece.

Edit: 'adventured', I really hope you are correct. The problem with your
argument is that we see Hitler with hindsight now; he was a joke in the
beginning too.

~~~
adventured
Putin is almost entirely lacking the cult of personality, the movement, around
him that Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Lenin, Fidel, etc. all had. He wasn't a
revolutionary, he's primarily a gangster, and historically those are
relatively short-lived and weak political types. Putin has more in common with
Capone than Hitler, he leads a cult of money and theft.

Even Putin's attempts at nationalistic projection have been remarkably
pathetic by historical comparison. Putin's dominance of Russia won't leave the
mark / impact that other far more dangerous people throughout history have.
Stalin would eat Putin for lunch.

I expect Putin to be forced out of office, rather than die in office. If
Putin's inner circle wanted him gone, he'd be gone tomorrow. Eventually
they'll tire of him.

~~~
spikels
I thought of Putin too when I first saw this posted a day ago for the reason
that Putin has indicated many time that he would like to reestablish the USSR.
If he ends up invading Ukraine and other former Soviet states (he already took
a test drive through Georgia), we were all forewarned and did nothing to
prevent it - much as Hitler's clear statements were ignored. I hope Putin has
more foresight as this could be an enourmous disaster.

"The breakup of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the
20th century." \- Putin 2005

~~~
hayksaakian
In theory, the break up was good. But for the human beings directly affected,
it was a mixed bag.

------
conistonwater
"However they may be as economic theories, Fascism and Nazism are
psychologically far sounder than any hedonistic conception of life."

This seems wrong (with hindsight, I suppose). My mental image of Orwell is
that he was quite sharp. How did he manage to get this bit wrong so badly?
Does anyone know the reason?

~~~
adamnemecek
Why does it seem wrong to you? I'm not sure if it is right or wrong but it
does not seem outright wrong.

~~~
conistonwater
It sounds completely wrong to me (my opinion). It's a very utilitarian view of
people where, as Orwell describes it here, you get to define some "great"
goal, and convince people to fight for it, getting them to sacrifice things of
their own in the process. It's all very subservient, manipulative, and a bit
inhuman.

Given how prosperous and successful such societies have turned out to be in
the past (they all failed), I would have expected someone to just reject it
outright in favour of all the other ideas like individuality and freedom, as
they are clearly better. I mean, you can't say some ideology is
"psychologically sound" and have all its adoptees crash and burn everywhere
causing untold amounts of damage. That's not sound at all.

So I was wondering if he meant it, or he was just depressed from how the war
was going in 1940. Plus, and maybe I'm just ignorant, I always thought he was
against totalitarianism.

~~~
adamnemecek
I mean you don't have to go too far to find similar themes in say the US. The
whole "War on Terror" sure has a very similar feel to it. Not as extreme as in
Fascist countries but the general components are still there.

~~~
philwelch
The entire "war on X" formulation is a Fascist concept. Though the war on
terror involved literal military action, the "War on Drugs", "War on Poverty",
and so forth are reminiscent of Mussolini's series of initiatives such as the
"Battle for Grain", "Battle for Land", "Battle for the Lira", and "Battle for
Births".

