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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)

#231

Post by hoppyhoppy2 »

drewm1980 wrote: post #165
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did you read the article? The section about "alarmists" and "troublemakers" is directly relevant to your take on the use of the word "Nazi". Some people have been calling Musk a Nazi for what, a decade? They sounded like alarmists a decade ago, but now he's literally doing Nazi salutes on TV, acting like it's normal.

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#232

Post by mandmandam »

9dev wrote: post #209
aa-jv wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

Genocide denial is a really, really bad look.

If you care to educate yourself on this, here are some resources:

https://www.academia.edu/112967602/Bearing_Witness_to_the_Is... (paper by an Israeli academic with over a thousand sources)

https://x.com/AgnesCallamard/status/1871157783069929592 (A long list of links to declarations by human rights orgs, UN sources, ICJ submissions etc)

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240516-israel-committing... (from a coalition of prestigious universities)

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

#233

Post by nouripenny »

aisenik wrote: post #146
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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…

Well, I think so. Because many didn't understand they were fascists too.

The fascism was always in the vast majority of us, if we wanted to look at it. Just look at the structure of our workplaces, which accounts for half our waking lives. There's no free speech in them. With few exceptions, they're intensely hierarchical, people passing orders downward. Those "unlucky" enough to make it inside one of them, often sleep in the nearby alley.

The bizarreness of this form of organization isn't lost on those on top of the hierarchy. They're used to battalions of people doing what they want, and they seek out philosophers who apply this vision to other aspects of life. It wasn't hard; for example, the US had a 4 year king anyway. Usually a warmonger callous to the vast majority of his population.

One problem is "calling out." Name-calling. The current administration is showing direct action, which impresses many who find their lives increasingly intolerable. Many didn't like him, but rather rationally rolled the dice with the change candidate, even if it was probably going to end up as bad change. Like hitting the computer.

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

#234

Post by maeln »

sfn42 wrote: post #226
aa-jv wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Gaza has a population of over 2 million people, and according to Wikipedia the civilian death toll has been under 50,000. I'm not saying that's not terrible, of course it is. But I'm pretty sure that if Israel wanted to commit genocide there would be a lot more.

Except the Israeli/Palestinian conflict started way before the current Gaza event. For years Israel has forced the mass displacement of Palestinian (ask a Lebanese), blockaded Gaza, destroyed many of the civilian infrastructure, continue its colonization of the west bank (and further displacing population without any regard for international laws). The fact that they did not decide to straight up murder the whole population in one go doesn't make this less of a genocide. They have just been committed to it for years.

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

#235

Post by archagon »

twixfel wrote: post #163
michaelhoney wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's happening in the US is in a whole other league of fucked

Yes the US is uniquely fucked, really. At least the previous global hegemon fought two world wars to lose its place. The US is basically committing geopolitical suicide at the top of its powers because of gender neutral toilets and the price of eggs. A rather pathetic country and people, sadly.

We’re getting fascism installed because a bunch of chuds want to be able to say “retard” again.

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

#236

Post by rsynnott »

pwatsonwailes wrote: post #74
LandoCalrissian wrote: post #46

President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.

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.

I mean, see, say, South Korea. Or, for a less spectacular example, see Boris Johnson's defeat in his attempts at a bit of tinpot dictatorship of his own: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_(Miller)_v_The_Prime_Ministe...

Really, in democratic societies there are three levels; those where the offending politician is actually deposed, those where their unconstitutional action is blocked by the courts or by another arm of government (as with Boris), and those where _they never do the thing in the first place because they realise they can't get away with it, and there'll be unpleasant consequences for them_ (this is by far the most common, particularly in parliamentary democracies, where Dear Leader can be fired at a moment's notice). If none of these happen, then typically the democracy ends.

The US is probably unusually vulnerable to this sort of thing; it has an unusually powerful executive, and a highly politicised Supreme Court, in particular. Though, it kind of remains to be seen how far the Supreme Court will be pushed. Some or all of Trump's appointees may take the view that they got into the job to screw over minorities and aid business, but not necessarily to actually end democracy in the US. They are likely not all that beholden to him.

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

#237

Post by helpfulContrib »

sfn42 wrote: post #226
aa-jv wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Gaza has a population of over 2 million people, and according to Wikipedia the civilian death toll has been under 50,000. I'm not saying that's not terrible, of course it is. But I'm pretty sure that if Israel wanted to commit genocide there would be a lot more.

The requirement for all members of the target group to die in order for it to be called genocide is fallacious and not historically acccurate.

Was it genocide of the Native Americans, since 'they survived'? Was it genocide in Australia when white europeans took the land from the prior caretakers?

The answer: yes of course it was. Genocide doesn't mean total eradication - it means, attempted total eradication. In Gaza today, the lifestyles of the Palestinian peoples have been completely eradicated, and it will be years before they recover.

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

#238

Post by girvo »

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…

The right wing party will take power in Australia shortly too, for similar idiotic reasons.

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

#239

Post by mmustapic »

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…

I think you are terribly mistaken and, if I may, you are the one who seems to refuse to be educated (I don't say this as an insult). It is very easy to say "they are brutes" instead of looking at what exactly is going on and why democrats lost the elections.

As a non-US, I see very little difference between democrats and republicans, except maybe Trump. Democrats are the typical neoliberals: free markets, global capitalism, corporate rule, worldwide patents, etc. There is the famous chart that shows that since around the 80s the productivity went up while wages stagnate. Workers in the US right now are not in a much better position than 20 years ago.

Did the democrats campaign for improvements, raising the wages, improving healthcare, education? No, it was business as usual, "please don't vote Trump so we can keep things like now". Thus, many people said "fine, I'll vote for the other, he says things will be like before, literally".

So it's the Democratic Party who has baked into its DNA that things should not change, no matter what. I would say they could've won easily with some concessions, but those concessions go against their core beliefs.

Unfortunately, and because of this, Trump, a liar and conman, won. If they wanted to win they should've lied better, like Trump did.

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

#240

Post by acomjean »

labster wrote: post #105
whatever1 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody really remembers, hence, the same mistakes will be made.

Some people remember. I have a neighbor who was a child living in Berlin in ‘45. Looks like the story of her life will have literary bookends.

My mom was born in late 1930s Germany. She remembers being bombed out of her appartment. She came to US and is not happy with the way things are going here.
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