Spitfire List

FTR #1020 Baba Ramdev, Hindutva Fascism and Geopolitics

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ August 14, 2018 ⋅ 2 comments

The primary “jumping off point” of this program and the foundation of the previous two broadcasts is the political and commercial career of Baba Ramdev. A major supporter of Narendra Modi, his BJP and the Hindutva fascist RSS, for which the BJP is a political front, Ramdev runs a highly successful business career centered on the teaching of yoga and the marketing of “ayurvedic” foods, cosmetics and medicines. In turn, his business interests are inextricably linked with Modi, the BJP and the RSS.

(In FTR #‘s 795, 988 and 989, 990, 991, 992, and 1015, we detailed the Hindutva fascism of Narendra Modi, his BJP Party and supportive elements, tracing the evolution of Hindutva fascism through the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to the present time.)

With Modi and the BJP running India, Ramdev’s Patanjali food business has also dovetailed directly with India’s military development and potential strategic interests. A thought-provoking and possibly valid comparison might be seen between Ramdev’s operations and the operations of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. In FTR #970, among other programs, we examined the Moon operation as an extension around the world and down the decades of the Patriotic and Ultranationalist Societies of Japan. A religious, commercial and fascist political entity, the Unification Church bears many striking ideological and operational similarities to the Ramdev organization.

Beginning with review of ideological and operational links between RSS Hindutva fascists and the followers of Hitler and Mussolini, we highlight key features of what may seem to many to be a classic case of political “strange bedfellows.” Key considerations in the Hitler/Mussolini/Hindutva fascist affinity include:

1.–Opposition to the British Empire (as constituted), admiration for the domestic agendas of the Fuehrer and Il Duce, as well as the military prowess shown by the European Axis nations: “. . . . In the decades prior to that momentous event, senior RSS members had direct links to both Benito Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany. Part of the RSS’ fascination with these totalitarian regimes was their shared opposition to the British Empire — however, it went far beyond that. The RSS (as well as multitudes of other Hindu nationalists) admired the way Mussolini and Hitler reorganized their respective nations so quickly from the wreckage of war to build a powerful economy and military under the banner of patriotism and nationalism. . . .”
2.–The studied nature of the Hindutva/Hitler/Mussolini affinity: ” . . . . Marzia Casolari, an Italian scholar who studied Indian politics, once wrote of RSS’ connections with European fascism: The existence of direct contacts between the representatives of the [Italian] Fascist regime, including Mussolini, and Hindu nationalists demonstrates that Hindu nationalism had much more than an abstract interest in the ideology and practice of fascism. The interest of Indian Hindu nationalists in fascism and Mussolini must not be considered as dictated by an occasional curiosity, confined to a few individuals; rather, it should be considered as the culminating result of the attention that Hindu nationalists… focused on Italian dictatorship and its leader. To them, fascism appeared to be an example of conservative revolution. . . .”
3.–Belief in the common, mythological “Aryan” origins of India and Germany: ” . . . . Much of Nazi ideology and imagery came from the symbols and history of ancient India – indeed, the infamous Nazi swastika was based on a Hindu symbol of strength and good fortune.
Moreover, the legendary history (some would say, myth) of the invasion of prehistoric India by the mysterious ‘Aryan’ tribes would (centuries later) provide Hitler with his notion of a ‘super master race’ that was destined to dominate the world. . . .”
4.–The enthusiastic embrace of Hitler and Mussolini by V.D. Savarkar, the ideological founder of Hindutva fascism and the primary architect of Gandhi’s assassination: ” . . . . Perhaps there was no greater admirer of Hitler and Mussolini in India than Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, another leading member of RSS. In a speech delivered in 1940 (after the Second World War had commenced), Savarkar said: ‘There is no reason to suppose that Hitler must be a human monster because he passes off as a Nazi or Churchill is a demigod because he calls himself a Democrat. Nazism proved undeniably the savior of Germany under the set of circumstances Germany was placed in.’ . . .”
5.–The Hindu Mahasabha’s support for a Hitler/RSS conjunction: ” . . . . Indeed, many Hindu nationalists also derided Gandhi for opposing Nazism and fascism. In 1939, a spokesman for the Hindu Mahasabha (Hindu Party) intimately connected Germany with Indian culture and people. ‘Germany’s solemn idea of the revival of the Aryan culture, the glorification of the Swastika, her patronage of Vedic learning and the ardent championship of the tradition of Indo-Germanic civilization are welcomed by the religious and sensible Hindus of India with a jubilant hope,’ the spokesman blustered. ‘Only a few Socialists headed by… Nehru have created a bubble of resentment against the present government of Germany, but their activities are far from having any significance in India.’ He added: ‘Germany’s crusade against the enemies of Aryan culture will bring all the Aryan nations of the world to their senses and awaken the Indian Hindus for the restoration of their lost glory. . . .’ ”
6.–Other RSS leaders saw useful similarities in the ethnic chauvinist philosophy of both Hitler and Hindutva fascism. ” . . . . Another senior RSS member, Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, also praised Nazism and believed the ideology should be applied to India. ‘German race pride has now become the topic of the day,’ he wrote. ‘To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races — the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan [India] to learn and profit by.’ Golwalkar enthusiastically advocated for an India dominated by Hindus. ‘There are only two courses open to the foreign elements, either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture, or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race,’ he wrote. . . . ”
7.–The ethnic ideological paradigm of Hindutva fascism and Nazism meld well: ” . . . . If one were to replace ‘Hindu’ with ‘German,’ Golwalkar’s words would match Hitler’s rhetoric almost exactly. . . .”
8.–Savarkar also saw Nazi and RSS ethnic theory and policy as converging: ” . . . . Savarkar also spelled out why Hindus should rule India and others should either be expelled or merged into the Hindu majority. ‘The Aryans who settled in India at the dawn of history already formed a nation, now embodied in the Hindus,’ he wrote. ‘Hindus are bound together not only by the love they bear to a common fatherland and by the common blood that courses through their veins and keeps our hearts throbbing and our affection warm but also by the of the common homage we pay to our great civilization, our Hindu culture. . . .”

We review of a missing and very possibly important chapter in Ramdev’s personal history: missing years in his young adulthood, raising the question of where he was and what was he doing? We wonder, in that same context, who put up the venture capital to launch Ramdev’s yoga and ayurvedic products businesses: ” . . . . He was born to a poor farm family in north-central India, probably in 1965 (he has always been vague about his age) and given the name Ram Kisan Yadav. . . . As a teenager, he left home for a gurukul. The years that followed are curiously blank; Ramdev has said very little about them, sometimes claiming he doesn’t remember. What is clear is that in 1995 he became a monk and assumed his current name after a revelation . . . .”

In addition to promoting Yoga’s well-documented fitness benefits, Ramdev presents Yoga as a vehicle for reconnecting Indians with their mythic past. In fact, the discipline is rooted in more recent and European-imported culture: “. . . . This narrative about yoga’s ancient roots has become a sacrament for Hindu nationalists, and it is echoed in the West. But it is mostly myth, an idealized origin story of the kind so many would-be nation-builders, from ancient Rome to the Zionists, have fostered about themselves. The oldest Hindu scriptures contain almost no mention of physical postures. Even the Yoga Sutras, the so-called bible of yoga, include only a few short verses suggesting comfortable postures for sitting. Many of the postures practiced in yoga today appear to have emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. . . .”

In fact, a significant contribution to contemporary Yoga discipline was made by a Danish Nazi sympathizer named Niels Bukh. ” . . . . Dozens of modern ashtanga yoga postures are similar or identical to those found in a gymnastic routine introduced to India by the British in the first decades of the 20th century and originally developed by a Danish fitness instructor named Niels Bukh, who later became notorious for his pro-Nazi sympathies. . . .”

More about Niels Bukh: ” . . . . His system of exercise became highly popular in Germany, and in 1933 Bukh publicly expressed his allegiance to the National Socialist cause and its aim of improving the health of the Aryan race through gymnastics. . . .”

Yoga’s popularity in Weimar Germany translated into an affinity for the discipline expressed by Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who also saw the physical regimen as an extension of the ancient “Aryan” past of India. That mythical Aryan past also became part of SS and Nazi atavistic occult ideology. ” . . . yoga was recommended to death camp guards in Nazi Germany. But that’s exactly what historian and yoga expert Mathias Tietke found as he researched his new book, ‘Yoga In National Socialism’. . . .”

More about the SS/Yoga connection: ” . . . . It was seized on by race experts in the party as being the pursuit of ‘Ayran’ people. Jakob Wilhelm Hauer, an S.S. captain and yoga expert, who influenced his chief Himmler and convinced him that ‘yoga can internally arm us and prepare us for the forthcoming battles.’ . . . . Himmler, obsessed as he was with hocus-pocus race theories and mysticism relating to his S.S. ‘supermen,’ carried around a German copy of the Bhagavad Gita with him wherever he went. He regarded the ancient Sanskrit epic as being a blueprint for cruelty and terror, using it, said Tietke, to ultimately justify the Holocaust. He wrote; ‘He identified himself and the SS with the old Indian Kshatriya caste and its publicized attitude of unscrupulous killing for one’s ‘higher purpose.’ . . . . ”

This dovetails with the SS mythology/ideology, which saw the SS as the embodiment and fulfillment of the “Aryan” race.

Next, we review of the sweetheart land deals given to the Moritomo Gakuen school in Japan by the Abe government and comparisons between that arrangement and the bargain-basement land purchases afforded the Ramdev operation by the Modi government.

We then “dolly out,” so to speak, and begin to examine the Modi/RSS/Ramdev axis in a broader political and geopolitical context.

We review the strong links between “Team Trump” and the Modi/BJP/RSS axis. There are also strong links between Tulsi Gabbard, the left-cover Hindutva fascist who nominated Bernie Sanders for President in 2016 and The Modi/BJP/RSS axis., as well as connections between “Team Trump” and Gabbard.

We also review Pierre Omidyar’s significant role in both India and Ukraine:

Omidyar’s work in both Ukraine and India–operating as an apparent asset of U.S. intelligence and (perhaps) the Underground Reich–are best viewed in the context of the Earth Island and a flanking maneuver on Russia and China.

Stretching from the Straits of Gibraltar, all across Europe, most of the Middle East, Eurasia, Russia, China and India, that stretch of land: comprises most of the world’s land mass; contains most of the world’s population and most of the world’s natural resources (including oil and natural gas.) Geopoliticians have long seen controlling that land mass as the key to world domination.

With the OUN/B successor organization fascists in power via the Maidan coup and a parliamentary coalition government with Petro Poroshenko, pressure is being put directly on Russia’s flank. With the Hindutva fascists of Narendra Modi/BJP/RSS in power in India, pressure is being put on China’s flank: “U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis announced a momentous shift in American global strategic policy in a little noticed statement on May 30. From now on, he decreed, the U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM), which oversees all U.S. military forces in Asia, will be called the Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM). The name change, Mattis explained, reflects “the increasing connectivity between the Indian and Pacific Oceans,” as well as Washington’s determination to remain the dominant power in both. Such a name change may not sound like much, but someday you may look back and realize that it couldn’t have been more consequential or ominous. Think of it as a signal that the U.S. military is already setting the stage for eventual confrontation with China. . . .On June 8th, for example, the DoD launched Malabar 2018, a joint Pacific Ocean naval exercise involving forces from India, Japan, and the United States. Incorporating once neutral India into America’s anti-Chinese “Pacific” alliance system in this and other ways has, in fact, become a major twenty-first-century goal of the Pentagon, posing a significant new threat to China. . . .”

Of significance for us in the context of anti-China/Earth Island geopoliticals are the anti-communist utility of the BJP/RSS/Ramdev nexus and the dovetailing of a Ramdev/Patanjali installation in Assam with the needs of the Indian Air Force for a base in that area:

1.–Ramdev and the B.J.P. appear to have utility as vehicles to eradicate Communist influence in parts of India: ” . . . . The RSS has become more visible since Modi’s 2014 victory. The group and its affiliates have built hundreds of schools and job-training centers in Assam and other northeastern states in recent years. I visited several and saw unmistakable signs of the RSS ideological program. . . . All this hard indoctrination work has paid off. In 2016, the B.J.P. won control of Assam’s state government in legislative elections. And in March of this year, the party won stunning electoral upsets in two adjacent northeastern states, where leftist parties had dominated for decades. There was talk of a ‘saffron wave’ that might spread to the south Indian regions, including Communist-dominated Kerala, that have long resisted the advance of Hindu nationalism. Many Indian political analysts said the RSS’s grass-roots work was essential to the recent electoral victories. But one RSS volunteer in Assam, a construction contractor, told me Ramdev’s presence and his yoga promotion had been very influential, too. . . .”
2.–Also of significance is the dovetailing of Modi/B.J.P. assisted Patanjali operations with the Indian military–specifically, the Indian Air Force: “. . . . After admiring the cookie plant and its 300-foot oven, we drove across a deliciously smooth, median-free stretch of pavement that resembled a runway. In fact, it is a runway, built in consultation with the Indian Air Force so that jet fighters can take off and land on it, Singh told me. ‘We will dedicate this to the nation in case there is need for an extra airstrip,’ he said, and then added with a knowing look, ‘We are near China.’ Patanjali seems almost to view itself as an extension of the state — or rather, an illustration of what has become a ‘state-temple-corporate complex,’ in the apt phrase of the Indian author Meera Nanda. . . .”

We conclude the program with review of a Hindutva chant used by Baba Ramdev and Narendra Modi.

In our previous programs, we have spoken of Ramdev’s use of a Modi/BJP/RSS invocation, highlighting Ramdev’s working of the “fascis”–the “bundle” of accolytes–in Fuhrer/Duce-like fashion: ” . . . . Ramdev took the microphone and introduced the phalanx of several hundred Hindu religious students, known as brahmacharis, sitting in neat rows on the field. Everyone repeat after me: ‘Bharat mata ki jai!’ he shouted. The crowd raised their arms and pumped their fists as they chanted the words — ‘India my motherland is great’ — that have become a defining slogan of the Hindu nationalist movement. . . .”

Narendra Modi echoed this in his September 2015 speech at the SAP Center in San Jose. (As mentioned above, Tulsi Gabbard helped arrange Modi’s tour.) An audio excerpt concludes this program. For convenience, we have included a portion of text from Modi’s speech.

“Complete Text and Video of Narendra Modi’s Speech at SAP Center: Watch;” India West Online; 9/29/2015.

. . . . Please repeat after me “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.” Say it loudly; I want the voice to boom all the way to India, Bharat Mata Ki Jai, (audience repeats), Bharat Mata Ki Jai, (audience repeats) . . . .

FTR #‘s 1018, 1019 Baba Ramdev and Hindutva Fascism, Parts 1 and 2

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ August 7, 2018 ⋅ One comment

The primary focal point of these two programs and supplemental discussion in the program to follow is the political and commercial career of Baba Ramdev. A major supporter of Narendra Modi, his BJP and the Hindutva fascist RSS, for which the BJP is a political front, Ramdev runs a highly successful business career centered on the teaching of yoga and the marketing of “ayurvedic” foods, cosmetics and medicines. In turn, his business interests are inextricably linked with Modi, the BJP and the RSS.

(In FTR #‘s 795, 988 and 989, 990, 991, 992, and 1015, we detailed the Hindutva fascism of Narendra Modi, his BJP Party and supportive elements, tracing the evolution of Hindutva fascism through the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to the present time.)

With Modi and the BJP running India, Ramdev’s Patanjali food business has also dovetailed directly with India’s military development and potential strategic interests. A thought-provoking and possibly valid comparison might be seen between Ramdev’s operations and the operations of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. In FTR #970, among other programs, we examined the Moon operation as an extension around the world and down the decades of the Patriotic and Ultranationalist Societies of Japan. A religious, commercial and fascist political entity, the Unification Church bears many striking ideological and operational similarities to the Ramdev organization.

This will be discussed at greater length in FTR #1020.

Key points of discussion and analysis of Ramdev and his political and commercial undertakings include:

1.–Ramdev’s ideological resonance with the Hindutva fascist invocation of an idealized mystical past: ” . . . . [BJP head and murder suspect] Amit Shah told the crowd that the B.J.P. wanted Ramdev to join them in reforming the Indian educational system. One of the party’s new priorities is an ambitious effort to rewrite Indian school textbooks to assert Hindu primacy. Mahesh Sharma, India’s culture minister and an avowed follower of the RSS, has said he hopes to rewrite the conventional narrative about India as a multicultural tapestry, and to inculcate the belief that the ancient Hindu scriptures are historical facts, not legends. ‘There is a lot of work to be done in education,’ Shah said on the stadium floor, just after the premiere of Ramdev’s biopic. ‘Because of our saints and our heroes — all this needs to be brought into our educational system.’ . . . Ramdev walked to the lectern, smiling graciously at the gaggle of B.J.P. luminaries onstage. He pledged his support to Modi and Shah, and their efforts to transform India. . . . ‘I dedicate my time and energy to the cultural and spiritual education of the country, to bring our country the great knowledge of the Vedas.’ . . . ‘We will see an Indian education policy in this country . . . Before stepping down, he pumped his fist once again in a chant of ‘India my motherland is great.’ The crowd roared. . . .”
2.–Ramdev’s frequent invoking of the “fascis”–the “bundle” of accolytes and his working of the crowd in Fuhrer/Duce-like fashion: ” . . . . Ramdev took the microphone and introduced the phalanx of several hundred Hindu religious students, known as brahmacharis, sitting in neat rows on the field. Everyone repeat after me: ‘Bharat mata ki jai!’ he shouted. The crowd raised their arms and pumped their fists as they chanted the words — ‘India my motherland is great’ — that have become a defining slogan of the Hindu nationalist movement. . . .”
3.–The fusing of Ramdev’s political endeavors on behalf of Modi and the RSS with his commercial activities: ” . . . . Ramdev has been a prominent voice on the Hindu right, and his tacit endorsement during the landmark 2014 campaign helped bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi to power. He appeared alongside Modi on several occasions, singing the leader’s praises and urging Indians to turn out for him. Ramdev has called Modi ‘a close friend,’ and the prime minister publicly lauds Patanjali’s array of ayurvedic products — medicines, cosmetics and foodstuffs. . . . ”
4.–The favored treatment afforded Ramdev and his Patanjali business by the Modi regime: ” . . . . One thing is certain: Ramdev has received extraordinary favors from the Indian government since Modi was elected. Soon after the 2014 election, B.J.P.-led state governments across India began facilitating steep discounts on land purchases for Patanjali. . . . In the largest of these deals, Patanjali was given a 1,200-acre parcel of land in the eastern state of Assam at no cost. According to state legislature documents I was shown by a local academic, the deal was made by an agency controlled by the Bodoland People’s Front, a party aligned with the B.J.P. Last year a Reuters investigation documented several discounted land sales and leases in three other Indian states that saved the company a total of $46 million. . . .”
5.–Ramdev, the B.J.P. as vehicles to eradicate Communist influence in parts of India: The RSS has become more visible since Modi’s 2014 victory. The group and its affiliates have built hundreds of schools and job-training centers in Assam and other northeastern states in recent years. I visited several and saw unmistakable signs of the RSS ideological program. . . . All this hard indoctrination work has paid off. In 2016, the B.J.P. won control of Assam’s state government in legislative elections. And in March of this year, the party won stunning electoral upsets in two adjacent northeastern states, where leftist parties had dominated for decades. There was talk of a ‘saffron wave’ that might spread to the south Indian regions, including Communist-dominated Kerala, that have long resisted the advance of Hindu nationalism. Many Indian political analysts said the RSS’s grass-roots work was essential to the recent electoral victories. But one RSS volunteer in Assam, a construction contractor, told me Ramdev’s presence and his yoga promotion had been very influential, too. . . .”
6.–The dovetailing of Modi/B.J.P. assisted Patanjali operations with the Indian military–specifically, the Indian Air Force: “. . . . After admiring the cookie plant and its 300-foot oven, we drove across a deliciously smooth, median-free stretch of pavement that resembled a runway. In fact, it is a runway, built in consultation with the Indian Air Force so that jet fighters can take off and land on it, Singh told me. ‘We will dedicate this to the nation in case there is need for an extra airstrip,’ he said, and then added with a knowing look, ‘We are near China.’ Patanjali seems almost to view itself as an extension of the state — or rather, an illustration of what has become a ‘state-temple-corporate complex,’ in the apt phrase of the Indian author Meera Nanda. . . .”
7.–Evident similarities between Ramdev’s “swadeshi”–“economic nationalism”–with Mussolini’s concept of the Corporate State and Hitler’s National Socialism: ” . . . . Ramdev has led vastly popular campaigns against corruption, donning the mantle of swadeshi, or Indian economic nationalism, to cast foreign companies as neocolonial villains. In a sense, Ramdev has changed Hinduism itself. . . .”
8.–Evident similarities between the “economic xenophobia” propelling Donald Trump’s tariffs and trade wars and the swadeshi/economic nationalism of Ramdev and company: ” . . . . When it comes to marketing against foreign competitors, they wield their holiness like a club. One Patanjali ad runs: ‘As East India Company plundered our country for 200 years likewise these multinationals are exploiting our country by selling their harmful and dangerous chemical products. Beware!’ . . . .”
9.–Ramdev’s seamless melding with the anti-Muslim ideology of the RSS, manifesting the strategic and tactical demonization of the “malevolent other” that characterizes so many iterations of fascism: ” . . . . Ramdev has changed Hinduism itself. His blend of patriotic fervor, health and religious piety flows seamlessly into the harder versions of Hindu nationalism, which are often openly hostile to India’s 172 million Muslims. Although Ramdev prefers to speak of Indian solidarity, his B.J.P. allies routinely invoke an Islamic threat and rally crowds with vows to build temples on the sites of medieval mosques. . . . .”
10.–Ramdev’s atavistic preoccupation with the mythically idealized past anti-Muslim fervor at times borders on incitement to violence: ” . . . . And the nation, in Ramdev’s telling, is subtly twinned with a history and culture that is distinctly Hindu: yoga, ayurvedic medicine and the ancient Vedic scriptures from which they are said to have emerged. Sometimes the hints are not so subtle. Two years ago, when a Muslim politician refused to chant a nationalist slogan, Ramdev laid into him at a right-wing rally, saying that were it not for his respect for the law, “we would behead hundreds of thousands” of such people. A court later issued a warrant for Ramdev’s arrest, though the matter appears to have been dropped. . . .”
11.–Similarities between Ramdev and Trump: ” . . . . In his own way, Ramdev is India’s answer to Donald Trump, and there is much speculation that he may run for prime minister himself. Like Trump, he heads a multibillion-dollar empire. And like Trump, he is a bombastic TV personality whose relationship with truth is elastic; he cannot resist a branding opportunity — his name and face are everywhere in India. . . .”
12.–Ramdev’s manipulation of the actual history of Yoga to fit into his “Ancient Vedic” theological politics: ” . . . . This narrative about yoga’s ancient roots has become a sacrament for Hindu nationalists, and it is echoed in the West. But it is mostly myth, an idealized origin story of the kind so many would-be nation-builders. . . . The oldest Hindu scriptures contain almost no mention of physical postures. Even the Yoga Sutras, the so-called bible of yoga, include only a few short verses suggesting comfortable postures for sitting. Many of the postures practiced in yoga today appear to have emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Dozens of modern ashtanga yoga postures are similar or identical to those found in a gymnastic routine introduced to India by the British in the first decades of the 20th century and originally developed by a Danish fitness instructor named Niels Bukh, who later became notorious for his pro-Nazi sympathies. [The association between Nazism and yoga will be highlighted later on in the discussion–D.E.] . . .”
13.–A missing and very possibly important chapter in Ramdev’s personal history: missing years in his young adulthood, raising the question of where he was and what was he doing? We wonder, in that same context, who put up the venture capital to launch Ramdev’s yoga and ayurvedic products businesses: ” . . . . He was born to a poor farm family in north-central India, probably in 1965 (he has always been vague about his age) and given the name Ram Kisan Yadav. . . . As a teenager, he left home for a gurukul. The years that followed are curiously blank; Ramdev has said very little about them, sometimes claiming he doesn’t remember. What is clear is that in 1995 he became a monk and assumed his current name after a revelation . . . .”
14.–Ramdev has been accused of some dark acts, including foul play: ” . . . . One former high-level executive at Patanjali, who worked at the company for several years, spoke to me on condition of anonymity, saying he feared retaliation. When I asked him why he left, he said of Ramdev: ‘Because he’s a crook. Because he’s a hypocrite.’ He rattled off a sheaf of shocking claims about fraud and employee abuse. . . . . One story involved Ramdev’s brother, Ram Bharat, who was arrested in 2013 and accused of kidnapping and imprisoning a worker suspected of theft (the charges were later dropped). Another former Patanjali executive told me similar stories and added that he began receiving threatening phone calls after he refused to facilitate what he saw as kickback schemes. He complained to Balkrishna, he said, but the calls continued and — feeling his life might be in danger — he resigned. . . .”
15.–Ramdev’s gravitas has spawned fear in critics: ” . . . . One Assamese university professor, who asked not to be named because he feared for his safety, told me that Ramdev had abetted the RSS’s efforts to ‘question all other religions here, anything non-Hindu.’ He also said Patanjali — emboldened by its ties to the Modi government — had run roughshod over laws regulating the harvest of medicinal plants. . . .”
16.–Ramdev has been suspected of foul play: ” . . . . In 2007, Ramdev’s own guru, a man named Shankar Dev, disappeared without a trace after falling into poverty and illness, and questions were raised about Ramdev’s neglect of him. (Because Dev initiated Ramdev into monkhood, Ramdev would have been expected to treat him like a parent.) In 2010, Rajeev Dixit, one of Ramdev’s closest advisers, who taught him about swadeshi economics and helped make Patanjali a national brand, died suddenly. Some of his friends believe that Ramdev resented Dixit’s own rising celebrity, and they publicly speculated about foul play. . . .”
17.–Similarities between the RSS/Ramdev political agenda and ideology and Hitler’s hailing of National Socialism as creating a “new man.” ” . . . . Patanjali ran more than 380 workshops for prospective employees, where it taught a ‘value system.’ Assam’s people, he explained, had ‘bad habits,’ including eating nonvegetarian food and a lack of proper respect for the nation. ‘They’ve been listening to corrupt politics from corrupt people for too long,’ he said. ‘We take what our sages said thousands of years ago and put it to use. We didn’t invent it. We took what’s available in our scriptures and put it in a modern format.’ In other words, they inculcate Hindutva. . . .”

FTR #1003 School Shootings and Fascist Groups, Part 2

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ March 28, 2018 ⋅ 24 comments

Public schools and public education are, and for many years have been, the focal point of right-wing activity. From dissatisfaction over mandated school desegregation to opposition to the judicial ban on prayer in public schools to the present-day draconian slashing of public education budges, the right has attacked public education. At the same time, the right has promoted the use of public funds for parochial schools and home schooling as alternatives to public education.

The formative experience of public school attendance might well be viewed as fundamental to young peoples’ socialization process–learning to share, acquiring tolerance for those of different backgrounds and learning the basics of civic life in America.

Public schools have also come under attack–quite literally–from armed fascists.

This is the second program dealing with school shootings and the role fascist groups play in the development of such incidents. The broadcast begins with a brief summary and recap of key points of discussion from FTR #1002. They include:

1.-Patrick Purdy’s apparent links to Aryan Nations.
2.-Purdy’s anti-Asian xenophobia, deeming that Americans were being edged out in their own homeland.
3.-The Order’s attempts at developing mind control techniques.
4.-Purdy’s involvement with the Unification Church.
5.-The profound effect of school shootings on both parents and students of affected institutions. School shootings fundamentally undermine peoples’ sense of comfort and create an anxiety conducive to the implementation of totalitarianism.
6.-The provision of Oliver North’s martial law contingency plans to use paramilitary right-wingers as federal deputies.

Discussion proceeds to the Florida high school shooting. Mort Sahl’s observation decades ago that “A liberal’s idea of courage is eating at a restaurant that hasn’t been reviewed yet” is exemplified by journalists’ retraction of the story of Parkland, Florida shooter Nikolas Cruz being affiliated with the ROF because of what might be termed “reverse trolling.” A post on a chat group about the Cruz/ROF link was deemed to be false. Jordan Jereb told journalists that Cruz was a member of his group, but that he hadn’t seen him in a long time. He has been said to be “walking that back.” Just HOW does one “walk that back?” ” . . . . The ADL said ROF leader Jordan Jereb told them Cruz was associated with his group. Jereb, who is based in Tallahassee, said Cruz was brought into the group by another member and had participated in one or more ROF training exercises in the Tallahassee area, the ADL said. . . . Jereb told the ADL that ROF had not ordered Cruz to take any such action. He told ABC News he has not spoken to Cruz in ‘some time’ but said ‘he knew he would getting this call.’ . . . .” Jereb told the ADL that ROF had not ordered Cruz to take any such action. He told ABC News he has not spoken to Cruz in “some time” but said “he knew he would getting this call.”

Whether or not Nikolas Cruz was formally networking with the Republic of Florida or other neo-Nazi groups, he was indeed a neo-Nazi in spirit: It turns out that Cruz had swastikas etched onto his ammunition magazines used during the attack. This reminds us of the jottings Patrick Edward Purdy had on his weapons and clothing.

Cruz didn’t just suddenly adopt a neo-Nazi worldview. He’s been stewing in these juices for years, and clearly had additional mental health issues.

Several factors greatly exacerbate the school shooting phenomenon.

The Steam gaming app, a major distributor for very popular video games, has a neo-Nazi problem–neo-Nazis are using its chat room and voice-over-IP options to promote their ideology. Both the Daily Stormer and Andrew Auernheimer have Steam chat rooms, as does AtomWaffen.

On these forums, there are 173 different groups championing school shooters, lauding them as heroes and setting the stage for future incidents. ” . . . . A leading gaming app that is popular with adherents of the neo-Nazi wing of the alt-right movement has at least 173 groups dedicated to the glorification of school shootings, according to a report published last week by Reveal News. . . .”

In addition, Nazi groups are actively recruiting depressed people! ” . . . . For years, members of the alt-right have taken advantage of the internet’s most vulnerable, turning their fear and self-loathing into vitriolic extremism, and thanks to the movement’s recent galvanization, they’re only growing stronger. . . . According to Christian Picciolini, a former neo-nazi who co-founded the peace advocacy organization, Life After Hate, these sort of recruiting tactics aren’t just common, but systematically enforced. ‘[The recruiters] are actively looking for these kind of broken individuals who they can promise acceptance, who they can promise identity to,’ Picciolini said in an interview with Sam Seder. . . .”

Although not included in the audio portion of the program due to the limitations of time, we note that, in our opinion, the presence of lethal, military-style firearms are not, by themselves, the primary factor in the epidemic of school shootings and other mass casualty firearms attacks. A would-be school shooter can always purchase a pump-action, 12-gauge shotgun, saw it off and precipitate considerable mayhem.

Many of the school shootings have been performed by fascists of one stripe or another, manifesting the type of actions advocated by the likes of Michael Moyniahan, James Mason and their fellow travelers. Mason and his role model Charles Manson are now viewed favorably by a segment of the Nazi movement. The role of nihilist/fascist ideology in motivating some of the school shooters should be factored into the discussion.

The role of the media in conditioning young people to kill is a major focal point of the book On Killing by Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman, who taught psychology at West Point. From Amazon’s promotional text for Grossman’s book: “The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army’s conditioning techniques, and, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman’s thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder among the young. Upon its initial publication, ON KILLING was hailed as a landmark study of the techniques the military uses to overcome the powerful reluctance to kill, of how killing affects soldiers, and of the societal implications of escalating violence. Now, Grossman has updated this classic work to include information on 21st-century military conflicts, recent trends in crime, suicide bombings, school shootings, and more. The result is a work certain to be relevant and important for decades to come.”

Our high body-count movies and TV programs, as well as point-and-shoot video games, according to Grossman, replicate to a considerable degree the audio-visual desensitization techniques used by contemporary armies to help recruits overcame their inhibitions about killing. We suggest Grossman’s thesis as a factor in the school massacres.

Program Highlights Include:

1.-The paramilitary right-wing Oath Keepers deployment of heavily armed cadre outside of schools.
2.-Discussion of how the likes of Stewart Rhodes and his Oath Keepers are the type of paramilitary right-wingers who would be deputized in the event of an activation of martial law contingency plans.
3.-The online disparagement of Parkland high school students by the “Alt-Right.”
4.-The use of the C14 militias in Ukraine to enforce public order in Kiev (the capital) and 21 other cities. The organization takes its name from the 14 words of David Lane, a member of the Order. One of that group’s founders was highlighted at the beginning of FTR #1002, noting his quest to obtain sophisticated weaponry and to develop mind-control techniques.

FTR #1002 School Shootings and Fascist Groups, Part 1: Purdy’s Last Stand Redux

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ March 27, 2018 ⋅ 2 comments

Public schools and public education are, and for many years have been, the focal point of right-wing activity. From dissatisfaction over mandated school desegregation to opposition to the judicial ban on prayer in public schools to the present-day draconian slashing of public education budges, the right has attacked public education. At the same time, the right has promoted the use of public funds for parochial schools and home schooling as alternatives to public education.

The formative experience of public school attendance might well be viewed as fundamental to young peoples’ socialization process–learning to share, acquiring tolerance for those of different backgrounds and learning the basics of civic life in America.

Public schools have also come under attack–quite literally–from armed fascists.

The first of a two-part series, this program consists almost entirely of a recap of material from Miscellaneous Archive Show M55: Purdy’s Last Stand: The Stockton (CA) Schoolyard Massacre of 1989.

Although Mr. Emory would have engaged in a more nuanced discussion of school shootings and their political and psycho-social implications had the program been recorded today, there are some essential elements to be considered in connection with the event.

The synoptic written description for the program reads as follows:

“Advances the working hypothesis that the Stockton schoolyard massacre of January 1989 may have been deliberately precipitated by elements of the U.S. national security establishment acting in combination with elements of the ultra-right. Patrick Edward Purdy murdered five Asian-American schoolchildren and then committed suicide, spurring legislation for gun control and creating public fear and sentiment for police state tactics. Purdy had associations with Aryan Nations and the Moon organization, and may have been a covert intelligence community patsy and victim of mind control. The broadcast analyzes a possible intelligence community connection to the gun control movement within the larger background of the martial law contingency plans developed by the Reagan and Bush administrations.”

Again, Mr. Emory would have presented a more nuanced analysis of this event had it occurred today–almost 30 years later–critical elements of the dissection of Purdy’s last stand bear repeating and more intense scrutiny:

1.-Purdy’s xenophobic view of Asian-Americans and “immigrants”–a point of view that is held by a large portion of the Trump constituency, the so-called “Alt-Right” in this country and abroad, as well. Exacerbated greatly by economic deprivation stemming from globalization and the financial collapse of 2008 and austerity economics instituted in the EU at the instigation of Germany and the U.S. by the obstructionist GOP Congressional majority that took power after the 2010 mid-term elections, the fear of immigrants is a major aspect of fascist ideology.
2.-The galvanizing effect on both parents and their children of the school shootings is vital to consider. Terrorized by these events, a populace is far more willing to accept police-state tactics–creeping martial law, if you will.
3.-The martial law contingency plans formalized by Oliver North and company and outed during the Iran-Contra scandal involved the federal deputization of paramilitary right-wing groups such as the Oath Keepers and Nazi and fascist elements. Ironically, much of the so-called “Alt-Right” now incorporate anti-gun control ideology and martial law plans into their world view. In Lecture M3, we highlighted how elements of what are now called “Alt-Right” are playing into the various scenarios they inveigh against.
4.-It is ironic that much of the so-called “Alt-Right” cite gun control as a step toward martial law. Although they are correct, up to a point, they fail to realize that they, themselves, will be both instigators of, and in some cases, the enforcers for, that very same martial law!
5.-Public education has long been a target of the far-right, which attacked school integration in the 1950’s, 60’s and ’70s, the banning of prayer in public schools and, in later years attempts at introducing programs like sex education and programs promoting a more tolerant attitude toward others. In calendar year 2018, we should note that public schools are under attack from the far right, and not just in the person of school shooters. Betsy De Vos, Trump’s Secretary of Education, is pushing for federal funding of parochial schools, enabling of for-profit colleges. The GOP and far right are pushing home schooling as an alternative to public education and the further slashing of federal and state budgets, which inevitably harms public education. We note that public schools are a major font of social awareness. Students–ideally–encounter and develop a greater understanding and tolerance for others in public schools. Public education is a major feature of social cohesion, and its dissolution a major step toward the implementation of fascism.

Florida High School Shooting: Assist, Greenwald

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ February 16, 2018 ⋅ 9 comments

Accused Florida High School shooter Nikolas Cruz belonged to, and took paramilitary training with the Republic of Florida: ” . . . a white supremacist group . . . .” Of particular interest in analysis of the Florida shooting is the advocacy on the part of ROF leader Jordan Jereb for the “lone wolf/leaderless resistance” strategy: ” . . . . A training video the group posted online shows members practicing military maneuvers in camouflage clothing and saluting each other, along with music with the lyric: ‘They call me Nazi / and I’m proud of it.’ In the weeks before the attack, on Gab, a social media network sometimes used by white nationalists, Jereb had recently praised Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik as a ‘hero.’ He also posted a diagrammed strategy for using the Republic of Florida militia to create ‘lone wolf activists.’ . . . .” In FTR #888 we noted Glenn Greenwald’s signature efforts as a lawyer for Nazi groups, neutralizing their liability for civil suits. Without Citizen Greenwald’s efforts, victims and the families of victims might have been able to exact civil liability from Republic of Florida for their suffering. Good job Glenn! Good job Greenwald apologists! All of the contents of this website as of 12/19/2014–Dave Emory’s 37+ years of research and broadcasting–as well as hours of videotaped lectures are available on a 32GB flash drive. Dave offers his programs and articles for free–your support is very much appreciated. iated.

FTR #980 Nazism, Anti-Gay Propaganda and Reproductive Rights

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ October 17, 2017 ⋅ Post a comment

With the Trump administration moving against gay rights and reproductive rights, and with the public attention largely focused on yet another mass murder in Las Vegas, we delve back into the archives for the benefit of newer and younger listeners.

On 2/28/1988, we recorded Miscellaneous Archive Show M13: Gay Rights, Reproductive Rights and the Third Reich, highlighting how the nascent, vigorous gay rights movement in Weimar Germany was a focal point for Nazi propaganda and political action.

Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld was the lynchpin of the strong gay liberation movement in Weimar Germany and, as a result, was a focal point of Nazi Party propaganda, fueled with the additional fodder of the fact that Hirschfeld was Jewish.

(We note, in passing, that the gay rights movement in Weimar Germany received considerable support from a segment of the country’s feminist community grouped around Dr. Helena Stoecker.)

Historically, German attitudes toward homosexuality were mixed, with some regions manifesting a relatively liberal attitude and enforcement posture and others, an extremely reactionary position in both respects. Paragraph 175 was the official German statute making sex between adults of the same gender illegal. Again, the enforcement of Paragraph 175 was highly selective from a regional standpoint.)

In a manner directly foreshadowing U.S. right-wing propaganda in recent decades, the Nazi Party denounced Hirschfeld and homophile sexual activity as a product of, and a contributor to, the moral decay of the Weimar Republic and democracy in general.

Beginning with review of the suppression of gay rights groups and advocates in the immediate aftermath of Hitler’s ascension, the program notes how the Nazi tactic of tarring their political opponents with the taint of “homosexuality” developed into a political/legal gambit of specifically targeting specific individuals within the Nazi party and German armed forces.

One of the victims of this dynamic was Ernst Roehm, head of the SA and one of Hitler’s earliest and most significant associates. A “doctrinaire” homosexual who felt that men who had sex with women were inferior to those who had sex with other men, Roehm’s removal from power removed a potential obstacle to Hitler’s command of the army.

Furthermore, the purge of Roehm and his SA on the premise of homosexuality institutionalized the device of outright murder as a defensible vehicle of the German state and ready option of Hitler’s political will.

It was the “Night of the Long Knives,” as the purge became known, that established murder as a defensible and ongoing tool of state.

The Nazi anti-gay and anti-pornography ideology was instrumental in the successful removal of key general staff officers who viewed with disfavor by Hitler.

General Werner Von Blomberg married a woman who posed for pictures some viewed as pornographic. This material was obtained by the Gestapo and used to leverage Von Blomberg’s resignation.

Another key general staff officer who was an opponent of Hitler and Goering was general Von Fritsch, who was framed for being “homosexual,” jailed and relieved of his general staff position.

The latter part of the program relates how both homosexuality and abortion were ideologically and propagandistically conceptualized by the Nazis as twin opponents of the successful breeding of suitable numbers of young German men to fight the country’s wars–a theme that U.S. right wingers have borrowed to argue against gay and abortion rights in this country.

Program Highlights Include:

1.-The SS implementation of the Lebensborn program to support out-of-wedlock children sired by SS officers.
2.-The portrayal of homsexuality as an “epidemic.”
3.-The similarity between Nazi [alleged] chronicling of the gay sexual liaisons of Haso Engel–a German gay man and the propaganda gambit of “Patient Zero.” An alleged “lone nut” Scandinavian flight attendant, Gaeton Dugas–“Patient Zero”–was the supposed origin of the AIDS epidemic. We have discussed AIDS as the application of genetic engineering to biological warfare in past programs.

FTR #979 Nazism, Anti-Gay and Anti-Feminist Propaganda and the Fritz Haarmann Incident

Posted by Dave Emory ⋅ October 16, 2017 ⋅ One comment

With the Trump administration moving against gay rights and reproductive rights, and with the public attention largely focused on yet another mass murder in Las Vegas, we delve back into the archives for the benefit of newer and younger listeners.

On 2/28/1988, we recorded Miscellaneous Archive Show M13: Gay Rights, Reproductive Rights and the Third Reich, highlighting how the nascent, vigorous gay rights movement in Weimar Germany was a focal point for Nazi propaganda and political action. Furthermore, a mass killing by homosexual Fritz Haarmann terrorized Weimar Germany, fueled Nazi anti-gay propaganda and reinforced the public perception in the German populace that the situation was “out of control.”

Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld was the lynchpin of the strong gay liberation movement in Weimar Germany and, as a result, was a focal point of Nazi Party propaganda, fueled with the additional fodder of the fact that Hirschfeld was Jewish.

(We note, in passing, that the gay rights movement in Weimar Germany received considerable support from a segment of the country’s feminist community grouped around Dr. Helena Stoecker.)

Historically, German attitudes toward homosexuality were mixed, with some regions manifesting a relatively liberal attitude and enforcement posture and others, an extremely reactionary position in both respects. Paragraph 175 was the official German statute making sex between adults of the same gender illegal. Again, the enforcement of Paragraph 175 was highly selective from a regional standpoint.)

In a manner directly foreshadowing U.S. right-wing propaganda in recent decades, the Nazi Party denounced Hirschfeld and homophile sexual activity as a product of, and a contributor to, the moral decay of the Weimar Republic and democracy in general.

A major contributing factor to the impact of this Nazi propaganda was the Fritz Haarman incident.

In the city of Cologne, Germany, a mass murderer/serial killer named Fritz Haarmann terrorized the city with a gruesome series of killings in which youngsters were lured to his dwelling, killed and their corpses butchered, packaged and sold as “horse meat.” The fact that Haarmann was homosexual contributed to the outrage of many citizens. The gruesome kilings and lurid headlines they generated helped fuel the perception that “something was wrong with society.” (Although there appear to have been many differences, we wonder about the Las Vegas shooting and its effect on the American populace in the context of the Haarmann incident.)

This reinforced the Nazi anti-gay propaganda.

Adding another dimension to the case were the facts that:

1.-Haarmann was an informant for the Cologne police department.
2.-Haarmann carried a Cologne p.d. badge.
3.-The head of the Cologne police department was Gustav Noske, who, as the defense minister of the fledgling Weimar Republic, had formed the military formations that crushed the socialist uprisings that occurred in Germany after the First World War. Those formations, the Freikorps, the Einwohnerwehren and the Zeit Freiwilligen Verbande crushed the uprisings and laid the foundation for what became known as “The Black Reichswehr.” Those “underground” military formations assassinated key political figures in Germany (such as Walther Rathenau), laying the groundwork for the rise of the Nazis.

The Nazi anti-gay propaganda fused with the party’s anti-abortion stance, as gays, advocates for gay rights, women seeking abortions and abortion-rights advocates were tarred with the same ideological brush as being “anti-German” by virtue of the ideological concept that more births of “German stock” strengthened the German nation.

Furthermore, pro-gay rights and pro-abortion positions were lumped into a larger, negative ideological stance grouping both viewpoints in with “Jewish” and “communist” ‘enemies of the state.”