Hitler got things done

[Neilk]

That's right, he got things done and totalitarianism sure beats democracy!

Surprised no one brought this up, but that's what Bernie Ecclestone recently proclaimed in an interview with the Times of London. When is he going to be forced out? He should really keep his mouth shut.

Here is a link to the original article.




Hitler got things done, says Ecclestone


LONDON (AFP) - Formula One commercial rights holder, Bernie Ecclestone, on Saturday stoked up controversy by praising Adolf Hitler for being a man who "was able to get things done".

In an interview with 'The Times' newspaper, Ecclestone praised strong leadership and said that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies.

Ecclestone said: "In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose, but apart from the fact that Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not, he was in the way that he could command a lot of people, able to get things done.

"In the end he got lost, so he wasn't a very good dictator because either he had all these things and knew what was going on and insisted, or he just went along with it ... so either way he wasn't a dictator."

Saying he liked "strong leaders" like Margaret Thatcher, Ecclestone suggested that FIA president Max Mosley would make a good Prime Minister.

"I don't think his background would be a problem," said Ecclestone of Mosley, the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists.

He added: "I prefer strong leaders. Margaret Thatcher made decisions on the run and got the job done. She was the one who built this country up slowly. We've let it go down again. All these guys, Gordon (Brown) and Tony (Blair) are trying to please everybody all the time ... Max would do a super job, he's a good leader."

"Politicians are too worried about elections. We did a terrible thing when we supported the idea of getting rid of Saddam Hussein, he was the only one who could control the country. It was the same (with the Taliban.)," added Ecclestone, who in 1997 donated 1million pounds to the Labour Government

A spokesman for the board of Deputies of British Jews said: "Mr Ecclestone's comments regarding Hitler, female, black and Jewish racing drivers are quite bizarre. He says 'Politics are not for me' and we are inclined to agree."

Ecclestone previously stirred controversy when he suggested in 2008 that racist comments on a website about British driver Lewis Hamilton had "started as just a joke".

[techweenie]

Originally Posted by Neilk

...Ecclestone said: "In a lot of ways, terrible to say this I suppose,

Ya think?

Maybe that's why he let Mosley's Nazi B&D scandal slide.

[herr_oberst]

Yeah, Mosley would make a terrific PM. (The opposition would love a chance to campaign against this Nazi)

Bernie Ecclestone, professional douchenozzle.

[Neilk]

One last thing... when he noticed that people where shocked at his words, he trotted out the "but my best friends are...."

"It was never my intention to hurt the feelings of any community," Bernie replied. "Many people in my closest circle of friends are Jewish.

[techweenie]

I wonder if 'many of his closest friends' might think some of the things Hitler got done were less than laudable?

[BlueSkyJaunte]

Damn, I was expecting this thread to be something that escaped from PARF.

[onewhippedpuppy]

Gee, I wasn't aware that "Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not". So poor Hitler was just misunderstood and taken advantage of?

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

Gee, I wasn't aware that "Hitler got taken away and persuaded to do things that I have no idea whether he wanted to do or not". So poor Hitler was just misunderstood and taken advantage of?

The same way Spanky Mosley was taken away and forced to goose-step naked in front of those prostitutes. He never would have done that on his own.

[mistertate]

Originally Posted by Neilk

One last thing... when he noticed that people where shocked at his words, he trotted out the "but my best friends are...."

[/B]

I always say, "some of my best friends are ashsoles!"

[tchanson]

Originally Posted by herr_oberst

The same way Spanky Mosley was taken away and forced to goose-step naked in front of those prostitutes. He never would have done that on his own.

Of course not. You can't really blame Herr Spankmeister too much. Its largely a hereditary fault for him...




His lovely mother Diana, on the right, entertaining the SS in 1937:








...and dear old dad Oswald approving his Blackshirt posse:






Bernie, however, despite his immense wealth and power, remains the East End used car dealer he has always been at heart.








Tim

[Jim Richards]

Spanky and his apologist, Bernie, have brought the sport into disrepute, and they should goose-step merrily into obscurity.

[MRM]

Actually Hitler didn't get things done. Speer talks about it in his book and any reasonably well read political scientist wannabe knows that the myth of efficiency under a dictator is just a myth. The trouble is that when you have a dictator in charge, no one challenges the dictator, or even raises his head, because drawing attention to yourself is dangerous. Dictators (and all leaders to some extent) are surrounded by people who say what they think the big man wants to hear, so he never gets the straight scoop, and can't fix the problems that no one tells him about.

Speer in his book and Stephen Ambrose in Band of Brothers had remarkably similar passages discussing the war effort under a democracy versus a dictatorship. Both commented that the entire American versus Nazi way of life were pitted against each other, not just their militaries, because the war would be won in large part based on which society could outproduce the other in terms of men and materiel, and that the system that could do it more efficiently would prevail.

Speer complained that under the Nazi system of mandating orders from the top down resulted in every good soldier and factory worker doing exactly what he was told - nothing more and nothing less - regardless of whether what they were told was a good idea or not. As a result, Speer had to deal with getting stuff produced that was unusable, not what he needed, or just bad quality and men who couldn't think for themselves.

He wrote that he envied the American system where independent thought was encouraged and rewarded, where any person in the chain of comand or factory worker on the line could complain or make suggestions, and where a Private First Class could be made an NCO, any NCO could be made an officer and any officer could be promoted to staff or combat comand as needed, and the unit would be stronger for it. He deliberately "Americanized" and "Deomocratized" his industrial plants to take advatage of our system, inserting some chaos to the Nazi order, and seeing a tremendous increase in production. Speer joked that their spies told them that the US was busy imposing order on its chaotic industrial plant, making its production system more "German" at the same time as the Germans were making their system more American.

And as Ambrose dryly points out, history shows which system was superior, as measured by quality and quantity of materiel, men, and results.

Jim says it well. Spanky and the apologist Bernie should be goose-stepped into obscurity. They are unapologetic neo-Nazis and should not be allowed in motor sports, let alone polite society. European-style racing will fade into obscurity with them at the helm and they're doing a good job of it.

[herr_oberst]

Originally Posted by tchanson

Of course not. You can't really blame Herr Spankmeister too much. Its largely a hereditary fault for him...


His lovely mother Diana, on the right, entertaining the SS in 1937:

...and dear old dad Oswald approving his Blackshirt posse:

Tim

Nice pictures. These need to be sent to everyone who gets to vote for the new FIA director.