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They Thought They Were Free (1955)

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Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#381

Post by lukan »

tobias3 wrote: post #311
lukan wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mein Kampf was published 1924 and distributed broadly. There was not much hidden, the goal of making a big war in the east to conquer new land for the Aryans was there in big letters in the open. His views towards jews likewise. So they knew. Maybe largely did not wanted to know. And they did celebrate the victories of the german army as their own. They only stopped celebrating after the victories stopped happening a…

You had to take him seriously but not literally.

Nah, better not literally:

" Each animal mates only with one of its own species. The titmouse cohabits only with the titmouse, the finch with the finch, the stork with the stork, the field-mouse with the field-mouse, the house-mouse with the house-mouse, the wolf with the she-wolf, etc."

(from Mein Kampf, Chapter 11)

But if no one would have taken him serious, there would not have been a problem. But people did take him serious, they seriously believed he was some kind of messias send from god to save his troubled great country.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#382

Post by SquibblesRedux »

The challenge with long form texts is that they are so often picked apart, each piece quoted and analyzed on its own, without regard for how that small piece fits into the whole, often veering from a far more nuanced argument or portrait of life.

Something I very much like about poetry, is that so much wisdom can be condensed into such succinct language. We fill the gaps with our own experiences, not relying on the author to lead us step by step. And I see poetry proliferating in modern times in song. (How else is a poet to earn a living?)

There frequently are reminders of who we are, where we come from, and whence we always return. Life is a wheel. From Black Sabbath:

   They say that life's a carousel
   Spinning fast, you gotta ride it well
   The world is full of Kings and Queens
   Who blind your eyes and steal your dreams
   It's Heaven and Hell, oh well
   And they'll tell you black is really white
   The moon is just the sun at night
   And when you walk in golden halls
   You get to keep the gold that falls
   It's Heaven and Hell

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#383

Post by hnlmorg »

rixed wrote: post #294
bboygravity wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It doesn't matter if Trump is Hitler or not (what does that even mean?) Stop paying that much attention to people, they mostly do not matter. Think instead about the circumstances. What matter is that the USA in 2025 is not Germany of 100 years ago, today economics is not the same as the great depression, there is no threatening civil unrest due to a massive neighboring country which just went through a social revolu…

That’s what makes this scarier. If a political party can drum up this much social unrest when the world was largely prospering, then that shows just how much people have forgotten about the real hardships our parents and grandparents suffered, and how quickly we could end up back there through greed.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#384

Post by giardini »

hollerith wrote: post #89
_9ptr wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. They didn't "invest", they took everything that wasn't bolted to the ground, and then they took that too. A third of the country was taken away and millions of Germans displaced.

My father worked as a mechanical engineer in West Germany after the war. He told me the French removed all the machines from the factories and took them to France, then the Americans installed much better new machines in their place. The Marshall Plan was a real thing. My father also told me that before the Americans decided on the Marshall Plan, they considered other plans (also named for American generals IIRC) one…

hollerith says >My father worked as a mechanical engineer in West Germany after the war. He told me the French removed all the machines from the factories and took them to France, then the Americans installed much better new machines in their place.

The Marshall Plan was a real thing.

So damned funny!!8-)) The phrase "Grasping defeat from the jaws of victory!" comes to mind.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#385

Post by analog8374 »

immibis wrote: post #370
analog8374 wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first criticism is the unity of popular opinion. (Ironic, yes). I see this majority, holding the exact same opinion, offering the exact same arguments in support of that opinion, implementing that opinion in exactly the same way. In lockstep. There's a definite lack of natural chaos. That's fishy. That reeks of a finely crafted propaganda campaign.

I don't. I see lots of arguments. You're engaging in one right now. COVID arguing was Reddit's most popular subreddit, back before Reddit was an AI slopfest. Is it possible that the majority opinion is the correct one and the majority arguments are the reasons why it's correct? I mean, that's how it works with the blue sky, round earth, and fiber optic internet narratives.

Irrc, dissent from the official narrative about covid on reddit got culled with extreme prejudice. And the protofascistic multitudes were overjoyed to play along.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#386

Post by exoverito »

goldfish3 wrote: post #350
mrangle wrote: post #342

[flagged]

You are delusional. Please seek help.

I'm curious what you believe is the point of your comment. For one, it's remarkably lazy compared to the previous poster's efforts in illustrating the inverted scenario. Two, do you believe he or anyone else is going to be convinced or 'seek help'?

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#387

Post by 9dev »

Nasrudith wrote: post #267
AfterHIA wrote: post #259

There really needs to be a Second American Revolution. It should be bloodless and as simple as 90% of the country showing up to take back the wealth that was stolen from the middle classes during the neoliberal assault. The popular momentum exists for this project in both the MAGA camp and lefties that support Sanders. It seems like the only alternative is liberal authoritarianism which we're seeing from Vance and Pe…

Ah yes, the syllogism of thieves strikes again. - You have it. I want it. Therefore you must have stolen it from me and I am justified in taking it "back". Have you read history at all? "Revolutions" by entitled thieves who feel that every transaction they agreed to is somehow retroactively unfair because somebody else has more money is the surest way to kill an economy. Nobody wants to do trade with cannibals.

You’re on a very slippery slope yourself there. Did the native Americans "agree" to the transactions that took their land away, land they never considered something you could own in the first place? Did the African tribes converted to Christianity by colonists agree to give up their way of life? Did the peasants in feudal times agree to being servants of the aristocracy? Did the tribes in early Europe agree to submit to the Romans?

Throughout history, people have been coerced into a subordinate position by the stronger party, without much choice over their fate other than to give in to pressure. Until that pressure grew too strong under the greed of the privileged, as it always does eventually, giving way to revolution.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#388

Post by senordevnyc »

bborud wrote: post #323

The shocking thing isn't that fascism would come back. The shocking thing is that the people I thought were smart would allow it to normalize so fast and give up without a fight. And that even some people I know are apparently fascists at heart - they just needed "permission" to show themselves. For most of my teens I wondered what side I would have been on in 1930s Germany. If I would have had the courage to stand u…

If almost everyone has disappointed you, then perhaps the issue lies with your expectations. Just like the boiling frog, perhaps our evolution has not prepared us to take courageous action in situations like this.

Re: They Thought They Were Free (1955)

#390

Post by exoverito »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #262
chillingeffect wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In their defense, there is an inexhaustable supply of "take over w my ideology material." This is a confluence of many conditions. Some long-focused efforts, some architecting and annealing of interests, some individual greed, some long-lasting effects of trauma, and some massive ignorance. One of the only good points is that the American people are stubbornly allergic to authoritarianism. Yes there are exceptions, b…

I like a lot of what you are saying. But sadly I think it is an older view. Maybe this was true in 80's before social media. "American people are stubbornly allergic to authoritarianism" Literally 40%+ of Americans have voted for Authoritarianism. It's viewed as being 'tough'.

There is no anti-authoritarian party. Are lockdowns not authoritarian? Do mandates to take an experimental vaccine not violate bodily autonomy? How quickly everyone forgets the widescale censorship and lawfare. Snowden had to flee the country and Chelsea Manning was imprisoned during the Obama presidency.

On a more pragmatic level, take the one-party state of California, and the absurd burden of its regulations. These largely prevent the construction of anything new, as seen in the infamous high speed rail project, and the restricted supply of new housing, pricing many young people out of ever owning a home. Perhaps you don't think regulations are authoritarian, yet they're enforced with the power of the state, which wields the monopoly on violence.

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