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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)

#301

Post by taurknaut »

rsynnott wrote: post #228
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…

> 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…

I see this as very different from "i'm eating ivermectin because bigpharma wants me to buy their vaccines" or whatever it is people say. There are certainly fascism experts out there, but the one thing that I've noticed again and again is that they emphasize how effective fascism is at changing forms and tactics. Today, most of the countries we refer to as authoritarian or fascist are formally liberal democracies (by which I mean republics). And critically, many of the core symptoms—militarization of police, violent suppression of protests, demonization of outgroups (muslims, immigrants), worship of the military, disenfranchisement of voting rights—long predate Trump's political rise. Hell, we were an apartheid state in living memory, and the anticommunist propaganda here truly does rival that of fascist countries (albeit mostly an aspect of the past at thus point in terms of overt propaganda). To many Americans, fascism might seem natural and might feel like home, so an expert saying "this is fascism now" is going to get a very very wide range of reactions.

And even to educated, well-meaning americans, we have a really nasty habit of sweeping our evil deeds under the rug and forgetting what we are capable of. If Trump were to move forward with mass deportations, it wouldn't be the first time, or the second time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Wetback is one particularly nastily named example. Many "experts" on tv don't read history and are oblivious to how close to fascism we already are.

It's also worth remembering that Hitler was a huge fan of America. Liebensraum was inspired by manifest destiny. We built this country on extreme violence, arguably to a unique degree (along with other anglo colonies). That muscle doesn't just go away. We've really only been a "liberal democracy" for about sixty years now.

So yea, I don't think you can write this off as anti-intellectualism or anti-expert, this is just who we are as a people.

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

#302

Post by wewxjfq »

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 can only recommend Dietrich Bonhoeffer's essay "Von der Dummheit" (On Stupidity), which he wrote while being imprisoned by Nazi Germany. It's a short read and a terribly accurate description of what's happening.

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

#303

Post by tmvphil »

randallsquared wrote: post #254
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.

He’d have a long way to go to get down to the number of federal agencies that existed in 1900, let alone the number in 1800, yet the US had its constitution, then, too.

Since 1800 congress has used its constitutional power to establish agencies. It is congress who has the constitutional power to shut them down, not the president. The president executes the laws passed by Congress.

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

#304

Post by ceejayoz »

pessimizer wrote: post #43

[flagged]

> The big difference between Germany of the 30s and the US today is that the Germans had suffered.

This is why Fox News etc. exist. To create the perception of suffering and persecution amongst their viewers, by trans athletes, welfare queens, Satanic cults, etc.

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

#305

Post by Hikikomori »

sfn42 wrote: post #276
Hikikomori wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely a lot more as nobody's been counting for almost a year. Their genocide has been a slow burn since 48.

I find that hard to believe, but I don't really know anything so I can't dispute you.

The only numbers Israel used were from Hamas government health ministry, which ceased to operate about a year ago.

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

#306

Post by maeln »

sfn42 wrote: post #280
maeln wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pop…

I haven't followed the conflict closely and I'm not in any way trying to say Israel is blameless. However your claims here seem very one-sided. For example I've read about how Israel has been trying to provide aid to Gaza but most of the resources have been controlled by Hamas who have been constructing elaborate tunnel systems, militias and weapons rather than improving the lives of civilians. From my understanding…

The Hamas only exists since the first intifada in 1987. The Nakba, which displaced many Palestinian goes way back to 1948.

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

#307

Post by __egb__ »

throw0101a wrote: post #292
rsynnott wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I’m a huge fan of Asimov. Years ago I bought a back issue of the Newsweek that this was originally published in, framed it, and still have it hanging in my office: https://aphelis.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ASIMOV_1980_C...

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

#308

Post by taurknaut »

pjc50 wrote: post #279
taurknaut wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watching Gaza get razed has pretty much ended any sense I had that liberal society is capable of learning lessons or improving itself. I grew up a good liberal, but as an adult I realize that so much of peoples' attraction to liberalism is simply inability to resolve conflict, center values in society, or establish a shared culture. There are better ideals to structure society around, like material rights. Fwiw i als…

If you hate liberalism, wait until you find out about illiberalism.

What makes you think I hate liberalism? I was just pointing out it's not sufficient for a functional society, contrary to the tenets of our civic religion. If it was, our country wouldn't be such a dysfunctional shithole our citizens log on to China's instagram to talk about how much of a dysfunctional shithole this country is. Hilarious and hugely embarrassing.

Granted, I do abhor the part of liberalism that makes people think their voice has any inherent value and that political action begins and ends with voting. I'd like to remind readers that Hitler was voted into office, but the civil rights act was legislated out of fear of cities burning down, and it took a literal civil war to end slavery in this country (outside of prisons anyway). Most of the few labor rights we have in part because the labor movement was bombing buildings and shutting down entire cities. We live in an arguably progressive society in spite of liberalism, not because of it.

Am I naive for thinking americans are capable of making a government we can ACTUALLY not be embarrassed by? That can actually prioritize its own citizens over its GDP and bombing places that never did us wrong? Whose flag isn't seen by many groups of people as a hate symbol? With a culture not based on being proudly ignorant? Probably. But we all need hope. Liberalism certainly ain't gonna get us there by itself—at some point we need actual values to orient around aside from greed and the right to be an asshole in public.

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

#309

Post by rsynnott »

pjc50 wrote: post #282
rsynnott wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

R v Miller was important but ultimately overtaken by events - while Parliament did want to discuss Brexit, they were unable to find a viable solution and we still got no-deal Brexit where vital things like the status of Northern Ireland had to be patched up later. For whatever insane reason, the demand to eject us from the Single Market was just too strong.

To be clear, there wasn't a no-deal Brexit in the end. There was what was originally called a hard Brexit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_withdrawal_agreement), but a no-deal Brexit would have been far worse.

R (Miller) v The Prime Minister (not to be confused with R v Miller, or R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (the solution here is clearly to just stop naming people 'Miller', to avoid further confusion)) was probably ultimately more important in its precedent than its concrete outcomes, though, yeah.

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