For those who want to do something, what is the 2025 version of Indivisible?
There are protests planned for today (Wednesday) across the US
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
61–70 of 536 posts
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fascism took over Germany not by foreign attack, not by domestic civil war, not by subversion or trickery. Fascism came with a whoop and a holler. It was what most Germans wanted, or came to want under pressure from both reality and illusion. They wanted it, they got it, and they liked it.
No, that's a gross simplification, and leaves out all the violence and constant deception. This is a good primer on just how far off the pop culture understanding of the Nazis is: https://archive.org/details/TheOriginsOfTotalitarianism/ "Without subversion or trickery" is flat out wrong. And it's also wrong for the US today.
I really have no clue about history, and what you say sounds very reasonable. I guess it is true.
But I think any person who wants to live in a democracy needs a bare minimum ability to detect trickery. Because there has not yet been invented a system where none of the politicians lie, and you can make good decisions based on taking them all at their word.
Now, maybe the level of subversion and trickery in pre-WW2 Germany and/or in the US now is beyond reasonable. I don't know. But in general, if "people were lied to" is a good reason for people to choose bad politicians, I don't think there is any hope for a good outcome, ever. The world just does not work that way.
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#63[flagged]
Okay let's take another reference. You're applauding an emperor that has no clothes.
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t see the call to action. It describes perfectly the feeling of hopelessness I’ve had for years now. The election was the last chance and everyone blew it.
There is still a lot we can do. Every demagogue and authoritarian regime collapses eventually, often quickly- and they haven't even succeeded in seizing total control yet. As long as we are alive, we can resist. Moreover, even under the worst possible situations, individuals can find meaning and purpose. Viktor Frankl's book "Man's Search for Meaning" on surviving concentration camps as well as James Stockdale's book…
It is ironic that the most useful thing Musk and Trump will do is wake people up to the fact their house is on fire...
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re being gaslit. Democrats did not subvert the checks and balances of our system - they faced opposition in all their initiatives in the judiciary, house, and senate. What Musk is doing now amongst a silent government is unprecedented. His youth group is marching into federal offices walking past security and taking everything because people are afraid. They’re afraid of being fired. They’re afraid of reprisals.…
Musk is a traitor per US legal definition and his actions highly resemble a hostile foreign national takeover, he deserves nothing less than the maxumim punishment under current US law...
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Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…
I see what you're saying, but listening to partisan rhetoric on both sides here does not really get you any closer to the truth here. If you were you were to look back at the political discourse in 1920s and 1930s Germany, you'd find extremely scathing critiques from the Nazis lobbied against the Social Democratic party. Did this mean that the two were equally bad? While it's true that Biden's actions during his rece…
And of course January 6, a literal coup attempt, was perpetrated by the Rs. Nothing remotely like that on the D side.
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
Edit: thanks for all of the replies, I’m questioning my framing here now due to some smart people’s thoughts.. I suggest reading the full thread, as there are some interesting comments. I see the obvious parallels to Trump, and I agree completely (and hate that it is happening). But I feel like I also see a lot of parallels to the democrats. Deciding Kamala would be the candidate without any public vote, for example.…
You’re being gaslit. Democrats did not subvert the checks and balances of our system - they faced opposition in all their initiatives in the judiciary, house, and senate. What Musk is doing now amongst a silent government is unprecedented. His youth group is marching into federal offices walking past security and taking everything because people are afraid. They’re afraid of being fired. They’re afraid of reprisals.…
Your comment comes off as alarmist, but then I realized the content of the article, and think that you may be right.
I still stand by my point that most of our politicians have done this to us, on all sides of the political spectrum. And that we would be better off empathizing with our neighbors rather than any politician.
But the scale of the jump from previous actions to this one is enormous and shouldn’t be dismissed at all.
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#68[flagged]
I hear you.
And the reason is "drumroll", people like Musk. How exactly, is it that billionaires have continued to do so well for so long while the working class hasn't experienced a pay increase since the 70s?
You know pays those salaries, right? Big companies and the billionaires who chair them.
Of course, good job f'ing yourself over further, that safety net you might have had? Gone under Musk.
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#69This part is interesting:
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security."
That has already happened here in the Netherlands. Except it was organised crime. It's so difficult to fight we can't just convict them in court anymore, we need to fight them extrajudicially". So the RIEC was formed "Regional information expertise centrum". And extra judicial actions called "interventions" do happen and they do commit crimes to innocent civilians not related to organised crime in anyway. And they get away with it. And the Dutch population is by and large blissfully unware of what has happened. Most have no idea what that organisation is, but that organisation controls the police, the council, the tax department and about 13 sub-parts of government and gives them orders to carry out as part of their "interventions".
The general population would not even know the name RIEC. All they know are recent advertisements on TV encouraging people to report any suspicious behaviour happening in their neighbourhoods. These people are stupid. They could report something they misinterpreted and unwittingly destroy some innocent persons lives with the extra-judicial interventions that followed.
But yeah, as someone below has said, what's now happening is on a whole other level.
Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)
#70HackerNews is suddenly getting political content at the very top, right after PG slams the "woke" agenda. Is the HN crowd finally waking up to what a danger to the US the "most successful startup entrepreneur of all time" is?
…and the YC CEO defending the hostile takeover of government agencies by (smart, I give you that, but still) teenagers.