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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)

#391

Post by derangedHorse »

zyx321 wrote: post #352
BytesAndGears wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 dismis…

It seems alarmist until you consider that Musk is a Nazi. He did the Hitler salute, live on national television. His followers tried to downplay it, but his own answer to the question "Are you a Nazi?" was "I bet you did Nazi that coming!" People joke that he went from being the Henry Ford of our generation to being the Henry Ford of our generation. I don't know whether I would say that Trump is a Nazi*, but the fact…

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

#392

Post by nirui »

imacomputertoo wrote: post #248
nirui wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 right wing of the US is not driven by white supremacy. It's driven by a belief in a variety of mostly false grievances, about immigration, the economy, the wealth gap, etc. Those bogus beliefs are held by white and non white people. Consider that Trump won almost 50% of Latino male voters. As a percentage of the vote, Trump did better with racial minorities and women in 2024 than 2020, and much better compared to…

Well, I would like to clarify that I was not criticizing any country. To me, all of those examples are just nations learning and exploring what's good and what's bad again under this new age. The world will adjust and slowly but surely get better. See? This time, so far no body is getting burned for claiming that the Earth is not the center of the universe.

And for all the other points, only time will tell.

BTW, I don't hate Mr. Trump either. When he was elected, I brought in some financial products anticipating his unconventional method (and most importantly, I did not buy in some other products). Now I seeing ~5% return in just half a month. I thank that man for his straightforward.

So if I'd say, fearmongering is useless and opportunity for goodness is still reachable.

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

#393

Post by eigart »

mandmandam wrote: post #373
eigart wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This could have cost many seats in congress. I acknowledge you might be completely right, but they were never gonna get the campaign and all of D congress to…

> they were never gonna get the campaign and all of D congress to that position in the first place in a high stakes election. If true, that would be just one of many reasons why they don't deserve our support. The Democrats have repeatedly proven to be unable and unwilling to give anything more than token support to the existential crises of our time; be it forever wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing, free speech, surve…

In this specific case the greater evil was clearly “the same or worse”, but with the opportunity for an irreparable, fatal outcome for Gaza.

I think lesser evils are present in every election. By your logic, total surrender is the only outcome.

I appreciate you engaging, but agree to disagree I guess.

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

#394

Post by ruszki »

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…

If this had been true, Musk and other far right people wouldn’t have tried to defend Musk’s nazi salute. But they did.

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

#395

Post by jajko »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #50

HackerNews 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?

How can anybody here like or admire musk (yeah, very small m) these days is beyond me. I would be properly ashamed to drive tesla, and have 0 sympathies to numerous keyed owners, its not like he became fascist overnight if you actually listened to him. I would stop giving any money to company doing any work with his companies.

Heck, there may soon be some new badges 'musk-free' as some sort of moral badge for businesses to attract and retain young customers.

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

#396

Post by voisin »

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…

If you haven’t seen it, the 2023 film “The Zone of Interest” is an excellent movie that shows the banality of daily life in the Nazi regime.

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

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

#397

Post by yubblegum »

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.

The British Empire was not inflitrated and was not pursuing policies that prioritized another entity's interests.

> powers because of gender neutral toilets and the price of eggs. A rather pathetic country and people, sadly.

What is sad imo is thinking that the above the actual reason for the shenanigans. US has been unlike itself since 9/11. Everything changed.

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

#398

Post by rsynnott »

dbspin wrote: post #331
graemep wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gove was right. The problem is that experts no longer have to explain or justify themselves or explain the level of evidence behind their opinions. Expertise has also been politicised. Experts are picked who give the prior decided opinions, and those who have the wrong opinion are got rid of (e.g. Professor David Nutt). Finally Gove was speaking in the context of Brexit, and arguing that it ultimately a question of n…

Not to politicise this discussion, but the country is called 'The Republic of Ireland'. The phrase 'the Irish Republic' references the 1916 Easter proclamation, and has specific political and even colonial implications in Ireland. It's frequently used on BBC news, but never in Ireland where it would have a similar connotation to 'the free state' or other radical republican delegitimisations of the Irish state.

So, to confuse the issue, the country is officially called Ireland (it's in the constitution!), and that is the name normally used in Ireland and in Europe. The UK government officially referred to Ireland as the Republic of Ireland until 1998 (it now calls it Ireland) and as a result people in the UK often call it the Republic of Ireland.

People calling it the Irish Republic usually have an agenda in doing so, yeah.

ED: > Not to politicise this discussion

I mean, this is on a thread about the Nazis; I think you don't need to worry too much about further politicising it :)

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

#399

Post by rsynnott »

jajko wrote: post #315
MrVandemar wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there's a deep strain of anti-expert feeling throughout Probably because the experts are telling them that if they want a future, everyone is going to have to compromise their current lifestyle. Not a popular message. People will always be sceptical and hostile towards people who say "you can't have X". People are always happy to believe people who say "Vote for me and you have as much X as you want!"

> "you can't have X" More like 'you can't have X anymore' or 'only rich can have X' that brings another level of resentment and emotional kneejerk reactions. The problem is, if 'less smart' need to be baby-sitted through every single unpopular but necessary decision, this is a failure of democracy. Sure normal democracy self-corrects over time, but not when its pushed into some form of dictatorship where the only cor…

> That's why all researchers into immortality should be all locked up permanently in prison or to be sure shot in the head right now

... I mean, you could just ban that sort of research; slightly less extreme. Though, frankly, I wouldn't bother; it appears highly unlikely to get anywhere anytime soon.

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

#400

Post by red019 »

Ste_Tokyo wrote: post #327
helpfulContrib wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone who had hope that Trump would avert the catastrophe was clearly ignorant of the facts of his subservience to the greater Israel plan. Meanwhile, while Palestinians are eating cats, we are free to refer to Monty Python all we like. Just don't mention the war .

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