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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#171

Post by throaway5445454 »

ArnoVW wrote: post #123
roenxi wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is largely irrelevant, they weren't in control of their own destiny at that point. What we learned in the 50s/60s was that the US leadership in the 40s/50s had a really good idea of how to build a country up and score diplomatic wins. They did amazing things in Japan and Germany. Unfortunately, those people appear to all be dead. Now we have whatever Afghanistan and Iraq was meant to be.

As much as I lament the quality of leadership at the moment (and not just in the US) I am not sure that we can equate Afghanistan with Germany. It is one thing to denazify a "modern western country" that shares most of your values, culture and religion, and that has had institutions for some time. It is another thing altogether to pull off the deal in a country that has never had a working civil society, civil instit…

The US totally blew it in Afghanistan and its well-documented how most of the initiatives there failed due to corruption and mismanagement.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#172

Post by kangs »

moomin wrote: post #105

I’ve read the book. It’s genuinely interesting. It’s very interesting to see how people misremember the post-war years. It also contains a) passages that are very much quoted out of context and b) an awful lot of stuff about “national character” that is… questionable. I highly recommend actually reading it and understanding what it is and isn’t. Mostly I learned that there’s no simple answers, but also that people an…

a lot of the western world learns only speaks about ww2 (let alone ww1, americans civil war, etc.).

there has been countless western and non western wars with slightly different patterns and a taste of "winner writes history".

one i find interesting is the french revolution. its also fairly recent, but not as tampered with as ww2 history. for example, there still are records of how terrible and cruel the revolutionaries were, how everyone was a royalist that needed to die and how the populace started to be ready to revolt - again - right after the change of power. thankfully, things eventually calmed down - as they were cruel, but not dumb.

either way I'd basically recommend expending the reading curriculum a bit.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#173

Post by leobg »

adriand wrote: post #14

If you’re interested in this topic, I really recommend reading How Fascism Works, by Jason Stanley. [1] It’s a remarkable book - slim, easy to read, and enlightening. What was most astonishing to me was that there is a playbook: ever wonder why these regimes always target LGTBQ people, for example? It’s explained here, along with everything else you need to know about the mechanics of prosaic, predictable type of gov…

To save some people a click:

> According to a New York Times review, Stanley's book—a "slim volume"—"breezes across decades and continents" and says that Donald Trump "resembles other purveyors of authoritarian ultranationalism."

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#175

Post by nroets »

Schnitz wrote: post #140
brightball wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the sane alternative has long been modeled by the US Constitution. The real test is how any model handles corruption and expunges it because no matter the ideology, people are in charge and people are corruptible. The only real model that can work is one that minimizes the power of those in charge.

The US constitution is outdated and vulnerable. Modern constitutions like Germany’s basic law are a lot more resilient. We are watching the US constitution fail right now, it didn’t even take smart men to start dismantling it. I hope I’ll be proven wrong, but what indications do you see right now that the US constitution is performing as intended?

1. When Trump lost to Biden, many Republicans including Mike Pence certified Biden's win as prescribed by the constitution.

2. Trump knows the military will not participate in a coup.

3. Trump will not run for a third term. If he does, he will loose because Americans knows it's unconstitutional.

So Americans know that all the dirty laundry will come out when the next president takes office.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#176

Post by braabe »

ethical_source wrote: post #101
tobias3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a German outside observer I can tell you there is only one side going down the facist path. The "other side" isn't great either. Would be great to have a sane alternative, I guess.

[flagged]

The AfD candidates were in their late-50s to late 70s, some apparently with serious preexisting conditions, all ruled natural deaths (and one suicide). I have no idea how to substantially proof the absence of a conspiracy but I see no evidence to the contrary. I would, however, be extremly interested in seeing the math from the people claiming this to be "statistically extremely unlikely". It lacked rigor in the past. The thing with unlikely events is, that they tend to happen if your sample size is large enough. :D

Nitpick: Second most popular (looking at the federal elections from this year). And I think they have no realistic chance to govern any time soon, as no one from the other parties (the other 75% of the vote!) wants to form a government with them. There is this joke, about the left splitting their vote share over too many small splinter parties: The biggest enemy of a rightist (?) is the leftist - the biggest enemy of the leftist is another leftist who holds 98% of the same beliefs!

I am confident, that I could call our current chancellor every insult under the sun and not be prosecuted for it. (I am aware of the incident with Andy Grote, which has since been ruled unlawful and unreasonable. I would assess this more as a case of improper use of influence / corruption than systemic prosecution). Conversly, were I to call for his murder, I think prosecution would very much be reasonable. Escalation to violence has, in my opionion, no place in the political process. You are welcome to disagree.

I (honestly!) hope your institutions are up to the task of defending that first amendment. I increasingly get the feeling, that a constitution is of little use, if no one in power is willing to stand up for it.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#178

Post by IshKebab »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #160
heresie-dabord wrote: post #25

> They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer, published by the University of Chicago Press. ©1955, 1966, 2017 by the University of Chicago. Such books will no longer be published if universities are not free. And if freedom begins to disappear, even those who believe themselves safely conformist are not safe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_They_Came

Universities will not be safe from government meddling until they comprehensively stop taking money from the government first . Until such a point, they run the real risk of censorship and becoming the agents of the very thing that they are warning about.

I don't know why you think financial independence would free them from government meddling. That happens to be an easy tool that Trump has used, but it isn't the only one available. Ultimately the government can simply pass laws to make Universities do whatever they want.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#180

Post by JoBrad »

scandox wrote: post #115
nkrisc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "gender ideology" what we're now calling the idea that a tiny minority of people want to live their lives a little differently that the rest of us without harming anyone and mostly be left alone?

I think the reality of what has gone on has several faces which are all worth thinking about: 1. A group of people that want to be different without harming anyone and be left alone 2. A group of people demanding certain specific and new legal rights with respect to how they are different 3. A group of people advocating for new social and linguistic norms around said difference 3. A group of people socially shaming p…

Given the overall rancor around topics like this, I feel it’s necessary to say I’m approaching this as a discussion, and am open to evidence that I’m wrong.

In my opinion your item 2 is mostly a conflation of “people want to enjoy the same rights that others have enjoyed” and a recognition that “separate but equal” doesn’t actually work. A prime example is gay marriage, where we went from “don’t ask don’t tell” to a brief national discussion of “civil marriages” to simply recognizing that a marriage is a marriage, and anyone who is married should get access to the same rights as others who are married.

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