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They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#191

Post by pjc50 »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109
noduerme wrote: post #73

"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…

I remember I once stumbled upon pictures of the daily life of ordinary nazis. They looked so normal, having fun, teasing each other, drinking and playing instruments. There is even a video where hitler is shying away from his love companion. This was a shock to me as a kid: evil doesn't look like the caricature of "the very bad guy", it emerges in every day people. I think we failed to communicate that. It was too te…

You can find similar images from apartheit South Africa and apartheit southern US states before 1970. And in those cases they believe they are happy because of the protective wall of state violence against other humans.

There was always what you might call a "particle" of fascism throughout the War on Terror (maintained by both parties! because it was popular with the public!) Things like the unaccountable secret prisons in Gunatanamo or Abu Gharib, or the US sniper who amused himself by randomly murdering hundreds of civilians (eventually convicted .. then pardoned). And then in the war on Gaza everyone (bipartisan) was falling over themselves to say that it was children's own fault for being in the same school as Hamas and that the Israeli government was right to bomb them.

Back at home in BLM, everyone stood up for the right of the police to unaccountably murder citizens. Because that power would only be used against bad people, right?

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#192

Post by aisenik »

Dalewyn wrote: post #170
aisenik wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worse, on the other side, outraged people abused the term nazi to call out anybody that had a bad behavior. But there is a huge difference between being an asshole and being ready to commit genocide. > Eventually it means the word nazi lost all of its meaning. And all of its usefulness to defend ourselves. Do I understand that while the United States is undergoing a radical neonazi revolution lead by the tech indus…

No, what you should takeaway is that misoverusing the term Nazi as an insult patently no longer works precisely because noone cares about being called a Nazi anymore due to its misoveruse. In a different timeline, Trump being called a Nazi or any of the vicinity terms should have been an immediate termination of his campaign chances. What actually happened is Trump ignored it (as he should) and the American people sh…

Trump is a neonazi, openly aligned with American white supremacist militias, attempted a violent coup in 2021, and "the American people" who shrugged "OK" are neonazis. It is the inescapable reality of our present moment, and it has been visible for a very long time.

Godwin himself openly endorsed calling Trump a Nazi.

My takeaway is exactly the opposite, that not only were people right to call out radical fascist elements and influences in our society, they (we) were wrong to be cowed.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#193

Post by littlestymaar »

throw310822 wrote: post #80
littlestymaar wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In France at least, Brexit made the idea of leaving the EU obsolete in political discourse, both on the left and far right. But at the same time French media just repeated the “it's a clumsy handwave from an autistic dude” narrative after Musk's Nazi salute so I'm not sure it will work this time.

Notice that this benevolence and protection by the media is granted to Musk (and Trump) by their complete subservience to Israel's demands and wants. Trump just proposed ethnic cleansing the Gaza Strip and cleaning up the rubble with American money and work so it can be handed over to Israel in a nice shape.

As much as I hate the Nazis at the top of Israel's government and Western complicity in the ethnic cleansing occurring in Gaza (and more recently the West Bank too), I find your statement disturbing.

Not everything is related to Israel, and there's no good reason to believe that this has anything to do with Israel. French media were pretty critical of Joe Bidden being too old for the job, despite Bidden giving Netanyahu all he wanted.

Edit: OK given that other response of yours in this thread[1], it's quite clear now that you're confusing the fight for the freedom of Palestinians and the hatred of Jews.

In addition to being disgusting, Antisemitic talks like these are actually counter productive: they help the Israelis as it gives them an excuse to victimize themselves once again.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42945588

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#194

Post by pjc50 »

nirui wrote: post #145
pagutierrezn wrote: post #19

To make matters worse, this is not only "rehappening" in the US. It's global

As I understand it, this wave of US policy change is inspired by a combination of white supremacy and US exceptionalism. But rest of the world is effected by few different things, for example, xenophobia in the case of EU and UK, expansionism in Russia, zionism in Israel, nationalism in China (and Japan, really) etc. It looked the same if you stand far, but they're all different, so I wouldn't call it "global". There…

The fear of foreigners or racial "others" is the common element. And some of the propaganda is common, too.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#195

Post by myrmidon »

labster wrote: post #141
ookblah wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i don't even want to give people that benefit at this point. used to think that it was education, circumstances, outside forces, culture, etc. like "if only" we had XYZ then we can prevent this. at this point i just want to call it "stupidity". not even a left vs right thing. there exists a subset of the population that cannot and will not be educated or have the ability to reason on a certain level to make things wo…

Nah, cynicism is the only rational reaction now. Lots of people died from covid and our poor government response, but Trump got a majority because eggs are too expensive.

> Trump got a majority because eggs are too expensive.

I think this trivializes the outcome in a dangerous way.

From my view as an outside observer, these were all big factors:

- Bad handling of the candidate selection for the democrats (switching to Harris too late)

- Having an impossible platform for a lot of single issue voters (mainly: people that want immigration reduced, but also firearm availability)

- Thoroughly uninspiring middle-east policy (not a personal opinion, but I think that cost a bunch of votes that would have been democrat)

Personally, I also think that some sexism was also a significant factor and that Harris would've had an easier time had she been male. I also believe that the media smear campaign depicting Biden as completely senile was really effective (and a bit ridiculous considering the age of his replacement). Another very effective strategy in riling up their base was the "democrats want to transgenderize all the children" (exaggerated).

If the democrats main takeaway is that they just need to campaign for lower egg prices next election they might well lose again IMO.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#196

Post by dgb23 »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #121
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious if what is happening in the US and what has happened in Britain with Brexit actually ends up slowing some of these marches towards illiberalism in other places. Like when people are upset at the direction of a country or current policies, they may take a "throw the bums out" attitude even if the alternative is far worse. But perhaps they're looking at the complete shit show in the US and how unproductive…

In the UK, the political party (which is a actually a privately owned company) owned by the guy who drove the initial wave of Brexit is apparently topping the polls now. The only policy they talk about is getting rid of all the immigrants because that's what caused all the problems, not decades of right wing government culminating in Brexit. But underdeath that is the usual US-style Turbo capitalism stuff like destro…

Also not surprisingly immigration increased after Brexit. It has always been a wedge issue and a red herring for those in power.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#197

Post by pjc50 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #140
blooalien wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a way to utterly waste the likely last few generations of "civilized" humanity on Earth... :(

[flagged]

> these are hypotheticals for a reason!

Because they have zero connection to reality? Can I have a pony in this hypothetical too? How do we get to any of them while having to climb over the additional hurdle of a far right anti-science government?

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#198

Post by tomohawk »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #155
pwatsonwailes wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You never have one except because everyone decides they do. The moment anyone with a modicum of power decides to say it doesn't exist, it doesn't exist.

> In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camp…

[flagged]

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#199

Post by aa-jv »

noduerme wrote: post #73

"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…

>cowering now of anyone who should oppose a hostile takeover and dismantling of our democracy and our laws, are striking.

That's the least of your concerns.

What you should be opposing is the US' government participation in genocide.

The American publics' scale of tolerance of evil needs serious and earnest re-callibrating.

This can only happen with war crimes prosecutions.

Re: They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (1955)

#200

Post by yodsanklai »

ookblah wrote: post #134
noduerme wrote: post #73

"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's h…

i don't even want to give people that benefit at this point. used to think that it was education, circumstances, outside forces, culture, etc. like "if only" we had XYZ then we can prevent this. at this point i just want to call it "stupidity". not even a left vs right thing. there exists a subset of the population that cannot and will not be educated or have the ability to reason on a certain level to make things wo…

> at this point i just want to call it "stupidity". not even a left vs right thing. there exists a subset of the population that cannot and will not be educated or have the ability to reason on a certain level to make things work.

Yet extremists always want to dismantle education to control the population. For instance, in the US, Trump got the votes from the uneducated. He has no interest in an educated country.

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