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

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291–300 of 536 posts

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

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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The US has transcended “both sides are bad” sorry mate. Elon is evil, full stop.

Yes. That is a common narrative from democrat leaning people. The same ones who called me a terrorist sympathesizer for not wanting to invade libya. The same ones that now think Trump/Musk are more evil than Bush who illegally invaded Iraq because that's what the narrative tells them.

Forgive me if I laugh at your "full stops" and other absolutist statements.

Cried wolf/nazi/evil too many times.

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

#292

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…

> 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 I'm sceptical of that. I tend to suspect that Michael Gove's "the people have had enough of experts" thing was _kind_ of correct; there's a deep strain of anti-expert feeling throughout, at least, the West at the moment. (I don't think this is quite the same as traditiona…

> there's a deep strain of anti-expert feeling throughout, at least, the West at the moment.

Anti-intellectualism in the US goes back decades (if not centuries):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism_in_Americ...

The first two US colonies were Jamestown (looking for El Dorado North; gold; riches) and Plymouth (religious society):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasyland:_How_America_Went_...

* https://www.kurtandersen.com/fantasyland

The magical thinking of those two are the seeds of US society today and all the fruits (good and bad) can probably be linked to the ideas of one of the two.

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

#293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 capi…

yeah i concede i don't know everything, but honestly if you're not from or living in the US i would also re-examine your view of things. you have a different objective view but miss a lot of the context. it's easy to intellectualize the whole situation and come up with these solutions. this kind of reasoning is what i've gone through already trying to make excuses for people and it sounds nice on paper but it doesn't…

This idolisation can also happen for the left (not democrats, I mean real left), but I think it's the minority. Unfortunately, people choose something new and potentially bad vs the same as usual. Not because of education, but because of limited choices.

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

#294
post #64
post #17

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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...

I very much doubt they'll wake up anti-woke people.

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

#295

"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…

> They looked so normal, having fun, teasing each other, drinking and playing instruments.

You may wish to watch this movie on the banality of the life of those who ran the concentration camps and who lived next to them:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zone_of_Interest_(film)

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

#296
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Seeing your posts hours after Trump launched a plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza is quite the sight. Biden provided the bombs and the diplomatic cover that allowed Israel to decimate Gaza's population, permanently damaging entire generations, reducing the most densely populated areas on Earth to smoking rubble, and explicitly supported Netanyahu's ethnic cleansing plans. He basically alley-ooped this scenario to Trum…

It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What about all the voters you lose by dropping support for Israel? Democrats were powerless to stop the genocide. Gaza voters weakened them further.

> It was damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What about all the voters you lose by dropping support for Israel?

Nonsense. As can be plainly seen in the posted links, far fewer Democrat votes would have been lost by support for an arms embargo.

What would have been lost was the support of many Democrat funders - fossil fuel companies, weapons manufacturers, Zionist billionaires, and a vast swathe of complicit corporate media. As in, the people perverting the party against the interests of their base.

> Democrats were powerless to stop the genocide.

Again, utter nonsense. Democrats voted against ceasefire four times at the UN; and made a mockery of domestic and international law by providing billions in arms to a regime that was likely to commit genocide.

And so it needs to be said: lack of money for Harris' campaign was not the issue. She outspent Trump, ffs.

> Gaza voters weakened them further.

That was a choice! Gaza voters would have strengthened them, if they had simply decided to stop arming a genocidal apartheid regime. That's what the polls I posted showed beyond doubt; and Dem elites knew all this months before the election.

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

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 capi…

On one hand, you're partially right: It's a pretty sad state of affairs that our only choices in the previous election were "maybe let's not elect a fascist" and a fascist. I can totally agree with you that I would have loved an option that was "let's make life better ". On the other hand, what does it say about our society that given those two options, we picked the Fascist? It's not like the messaging from the Repu…

I don't think people who voted for Harris thought "yeah, let's keep healthcare pro corporate and screw the poor", they voted for other stuff. And I think people who voted for Trump didn't vote specifically against LGBTQ+ policies necessarily.

Of course, media and social media had a heavy influence, but on everybody.

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

#298

there are certainly some parallels with what's happening today but analogies are always difficult. i could be wrong but i really don't think of this administration as murderous in the way that Nazi Germany was. Of course, the biggest asterisk beside the analogy is the lack of warmongering. Like, kind of the most important part, and Trump is acting more like Woodrow Wilson in that respect. Didn't Woodrow Wilson once s…

Annexing Gaza is likely to be a murderous undertaking, if it develops beyond yesterday’s public fever dream.

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

#299
post #286

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…

Once you see how stupid and useful this group is, it's hard to unsee the deliberate attempts to make this group larger and dumber.

Thought I should expand to explain the group gets larger as the economy suffers and people are too poor busy and hopeless for anything other than a hopeful narrative.

And the group gets dumber when skipping school is glorified, education gets funding cuts, and people mass consume media.

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

#300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's missing the point. What hotels, casinos and apartments were promised to the Biden administration to flood Israel with money and weapons to flatten the Gaza strip into rubble and kill and maim hundreds of thousands? It's not important what leverage Israel has used to make yet another US president do exactly what they want, contrary to any idea of justice, international law, basic humanity and common sense.…

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