Lets see this week you have posted about the SC guy and letting poor people starve (Albeit Macht Frei sound familiar)
Then you got the basketball player who claims that Haiti got what they deserved...
History does repeat its self and right now we are about at 1923 in regards to repeating the events and recreating the environment that led to the holocaust...
TAO: "History does repeat its self and right now we are about at 1923 in regards to repeating the events and recreating the environment that led to the holocaust..."
You're so right. Maybe this is what's been in the back of mind the whole time. It's all just so horrifying, to me anyway.
Agreed, conditions now, are equivalent to the 1920s, but we have what they did not, a great, non-government run (not yet) communications network, if we lose net neutrality, it doesn't bear thinking about.
Read or view: The Nazi's A Warning From History which basically:
"Arguably one of the most important documentary series ever made, 1997's The Nazis: A Warning from History sets out to show that, far from being a uniquely German aberration, Nazism fed upon and was fostered by the prejudices and lemming-like inclinations of ordinary people. Although culminating with the atrocities of the Holocaust, these programmes are equally good on the motives of otherwise perfectly normal people, who needed only the tacit encouragement of the regime to perpetrate horrors against their enemies, their neighbours, or their own family. When confronted with evidence of their Nazi past, elderly former party members are often unable to find any other justification for their actions than simply that they could get away with it. Far from being a monolithic dictatorship which compelled the citizenry to act in rigidly prescribed ways, the Nazi state just allowed people to give their worst inclinations free reign. Hitler, it turns out, was a profoundly lazy man who rarely got out of bed before midday, and preferred to leave affairs of state to sort themselves out. He subscribed fervently to the doctrine of survival of the fittest as applied to all social and political matters, and actively encouraged in-fighting among his subordinates. The result was an organisational vacuum at the centre of state, which super-ambitious acolytes were only too eager to fill, often acting on nothing more than the Fuhrer's off-the-cuff remarks. One small example is revealing: after reading a letter from the father of a disabled child, Hitler agreed that it would be best for the boy to die. From this single statement arose a nationwide policy of euthanasia for all disabled children, carried out willingly and without compulsion by the doctors and "carers" themselves. It needed nothing more than the Fuhrer's nod. The message is clear and shocking: it happened in Germany, it could happen anywhere."
TAO: From all I've read about this period, and it's quite an extensive list, I don't think I totally agree with this assessment. It's almost an apology for Hitler, which I have a very, very hard time accepting. In all my readings, I've never heard that he was lazy or didn't get out of bed, not that any of these things had to do with his diabolical evilness.
Everyone wants to believe that Hitler was some evil genius who manipulated the German people and orchestrated everything that the Nazi's became.
They want to claim that 'they were only following orders..." but the reality was totally different. There were very few orders given by Hitler and most of the crimes committed were done by individuals attempting to prove that they were more Nazi than somebody else.
All Hitler did was create an environment where common everyday people could do some pretty appalling things, on their own.
Read the book...its an easy book to read with lots of pictures....
It will give you a totally different perspective especially on the question of 'could it happen here...'
Just like blaming the Jews for the loss of WW1 and the economic problems that followed...
Jews made up less than 1% of the German population in 1920...they were also very well integrated into the German population....
But they came to be blamed for everything that was wrong with Germany....
Its kind of like how Fox News uses the word "liberals" to blame for everything that is wrong with our country....conservatives have even gone on to claim that GWB was a liberal....
Its a bogeyman....just like the concept of "Jews" in Germany....
My grandfather came over to the US after WWI on the boat from Germany. At first, he sided with the Germans, my great uncle said to him, "You're an American now. You side with the Americans." Pop-pop told that story a 100 times. After the war, Pop-pop said that Uncle George was right; look what horrible things they did in our names.
TAO: I didn't miss the point - I just don't agree with the part about Hitler. But I will read the book. Absolutely the Jews became the scapegoat for all that was wrong but I can't accept that Hitler payed no role in giving the orders and making the demands.
Lisa: Very, very touching story. I've heard some pretty hair-raising stories from my Jewish friends as well as my German friends. And, of course, I've been reading about it since high school.
TAO: I'm ordering the book from the library as I would definitely like to read it. Of course the liberals are being made scapegoats for everything that's wrong in our country. That is why I'm so concerned.
BTW, I can read books without pictures. : ) Actually I had to sell my books - all 100 boxes of them - last year and not one of them was by Danielle Steele. Lot's of history though.
tn: yes, n the over use of the comparison. I've seen this too often from the Right lately, and it is bad there as it is from the Left. The overuse of Hitler analogies even has its own name, in Godwin's Law discussions.
The implication that Fox News is targeting liberals for the same treatment that Germany did to the Jews is part of it.
The argument that conservatives are like Nazis for demonizing their foes short-circuits itself when you realize that demonizing conservatives as Nazis is an example of "demonizing foes" also.
The Nazi discussion and comparisons should be reserved for places where they actually apply, such as conservative columnist Pat Buchahan, who has championed Hitler as the heroic victims of WW2, and has written numerous columns bashing Jews and praising even low-level Nazi war criminals.
--------
The quote from Tao "conservatives have even gone on to claim that GWB was a liberal" is so much like liberals claiming Obama is conservative. And there are those who do this, too.
Also, Tao, thanks for pointing out Hitler's policy on the disabled. Not many remember this.
Echoes of this (attempts to re-instate this specific policy) crop up now and then, such as this "doctor" who wanted to kill kids in order to "help families".
This is far closer to the Nazis than any Fox News histrionics.
dmarks: You're right that Hitler went after the mentally and physically disabled. He went after gypsies, Poles, political prisoners and anyone who disagreed with him as well.
And I think you have a point to a certain degree that liberals and conservatives are both guilty of likening the other side to the Nazis. But I don't think I've seen liberals, with this president or any other president, carrying signs that say "Death to the President." Or, carrying a sign that showed a pile of bodies and victims of the holocaust in Nazi Germany. Above this gruesome reminder of humanity's capacity for evil were the words:
NATIONAL SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE - DACHAU, GERMANY, 1945
From one of my previous blogs.
I'm getting ready to post a comment that will say something to the affect that all presidents are targets of criticism and jokes -some of them harsh - but what is going on now is beyond the pale.
And I'm sorry dmark, while Democrats make verbal comparisons between the Tea Buggers and the Nazi's, I honestly feel that they have not crossed that thin line into the arena of hate and racism that is so prevalent on the right.
Thanks for a reasoned response. I've noticed lines being crossed on the left of actual violence. There were incidents last summer of pro-Obama activists actually assaulting anti-Obama activists (at town-hall related events). Thankfully, they were few, and appeared to have died down. But it shows that carrying things too far is a danger on that side also.
I'd also point out that carrying signs is no where equivalent to what the Nazis did. Even though I deplore such messages on signs, and personally documented and condemned some myself. But bad signs do not a Holocaust make.
The right-wing blogs have lists of reasons why Obama's politics take us closer to Nazism. I think that's as completely out of line also.
We have been subjected to "liberal media" "liberal judges" "liberal poltiicans" it seems that everything that is wrong with this country has been labelled "liberal"
Conservatives even now claim that Bush, while in office as a conservative was actually 'a liberal'
Everything that is wrong with this country can be blamed on 'THE LIBERALS'
Fox News points at something and says "LIBERALS" and off go a bunch their viewers just like Pavlov's dogs....
It rained today...blame "the Liberals"
That is no different than what occurred in Germany for 20 years BEFORE Hitler took power....
International Holocaust Rememberance....
ReplyDeleteLets see this week you have posted about the SC guy and letting poor people starve (Albeit Macht Frei sound familiar)
Then you got the basketball player who claims that Haiti got what they deserved...
History does repeat its self and right now we are about at 1923 in regards to repeating the events and recreating the environment that led to the holocaust...
TAO: "History does repeat its self and right now we are about at 1923 in regards to repeating the events and recreating the environment that led to the holocaust..."
ReplyDeleteYou're so right. Maybe this is what's been in the back of mind the whole time. It's all just so horrifying, to me anyway.
Agreed, conditions now, are equivalent to the 1920s, but we have what they did not, a great, non-government run (not yet) communications network, if we lose net neutrality, it doesn't bear thinking about.
ReplyDeleteHolte,
ReplyDeleteRead or view: The Nazi's A Warning From History which basically:
"Arguably one of the most important documentary series ever made, 1997's The Nazis: A Warning from History sets out to show that, far from being a uniquely German aberration, Nazism fed upon and was fostered by the prejudices and lemming-like inclinations of ordinary people. Although culminating with the atrocities of the Holocaust, these programmes are equally good on the motives of otherwise perfectly normal people, who needed only the tacit encouragement of the regime to perpetrate horrors against their enemies, their neighbours, or their own family. When confronted with evidence of their Nazi past, elderly former party members are often unable to find any other justification for their actions than simply that they could get away with it. Far from being a monolithic dictatorship which compelled the citizenry to act in rigidly prescribed ways, the Nazi state just allowed people to give their worst inclinations free reign.
Hitler, it turns out, was a profoundly lazy man who rarely got out of bed before midday, and preferred to leave affairs of state to sort themselves out. He subscribed fervently to the doctrine of survival of the fittest as applied to all social and political matters, and actively encouraged in-fighting among his subordinates. The result was an organisational vacuum at the centre of state, which super-ambitious acolytes were only too eager to fill, often acting on nothing more than the Fuhrer's off-the-cuff remarks. One small example is revealing: after reading a letter from the father of a disabled child, Hitler agreed that it would be best for the boy to die. From this single statement arose a nationwide policy of euthanasia for all disabled children, carried out willingly and without compulsion by the doctors and "carers" themselves. It needed nothing more than the Fuhrer's nod. The message is clear and shocking: it happened in Germany, it could happen anywhere."
Don't worry Holte, that's next on the Supreme Court's agenda.
ReplyDeleteTAO: From all I've read about this period, and it's quite an extensive list, I don't think I totally agree with this assessment. It's almost an apology for Hitler, which I have a very, very hard time accepting. In all my readings, I've never heard that he was lazy or didn't get out of bed, not that any of these things had to do with his diabolical evilness.
ReplyDeleteNo, you missed the point....
ReplyDeleteEveryone wants to believe that Hitler was some evil genius who manipulated the German people and orchestrated everything that the Nazi's became.
They want to claim that 'they were only following orders..." but the reality was totally different. There were very few orders given by Hitler and most of the crimes committed were done by individuals attempting to prove that they were more Nazi than somebody else.
All Hitler did was create an environment where common everyday people could do some pretty appalling things, on their own.
Read the book...its an easy book to read with lots of pictures....
It will give you a totally different perspective especially on the question of 'could it happen here...'
Just like blaming the Jews for the loss of WW1 and the economic problems that followed...
Jews made up less than 1% of the German population in 1920...they were also very well integrated into the German population....
But they came to be blamed for everything that was wrong with Germany....
Its kind of like how Fox News uses the word "liberals" to blame for everything that is wrong with our country....conservatives have even gone on to claim that GWB was a liberal....
Its a bogeyman....just like the concept of "Jews" in Germany....
My grandfather came over to the US after WWI on the boat from Germany. At first, he sided with the Germans, my great uncle said to him, "You're an American now. You side with the Americans." Pop-pop told that story a 100 times. After the war, Pop-pop said that Uncle George was right; look what horrible things they did in our names.
ReplyDeleteTAO: I didn't miss the point - I just don't agree with the part about Hitler. But I will read the book. Absolutely the Jews became the scapegoat for all that was wrong but I can't accept that Hitler payed no role in giving the orders and making the demands.
ReplyDeleteLisa: Very, very touching story. I've heard some pretty hair-raising stories from my Jewish friends as well as my German friends. And, of course, I've been reading about it since high school.
TAO: I'm ordering the book from the library as I would definitely like to read it. Of course the liberals are being made scapegoats for everything that's wrong in our country. That is why I'm so concerned.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I can read books without pictures. : )
Actually I had to sell my books - all 100 boxes of them - last year and not one of them was by Danielle Steele. Lot's of history though.
tn: yes, n the over use of the comparison. I've seen this too often from the Right lately, and it is bad there as it is from the Left. The overuse of Hitler analogies even has its own name, in Godwin's Law discussions.
ReplyDeleteThe implication that Fox News is targeting liberals for the same treatment that Germany did to the Jews is part of it.
The argument that conservatives are like Nazis for demonizing their foes short-circuits itself when you realize that demonizing conservatives as Nazis is an example of "demonizing foes" also.
The Nazi discussion and comparisons should be reserved for places where they actually apply, such as conservative columnist Pat Buchahan, who has championed Hitler as the heroic victims of WW2, and has written numerous columns bashing Jews and praising even low-level Nazi war criminals.
--------
The quote from Tao "conservatives have even gone on to claim that GWB was a liberal" is so much like liberals claiming Obama is conservative. And there are those who do this, too.
Also, Tao, thanks for pointing out Hitler's policy on the disabled. Not many remember this.
ReplyDeleteEchoes of this (attempts to re-instate this specific policy) crop up now and then, such as this "doctor" who wanted to kill kids in order to "help families".
This is far closer to the Nazis than any Fox News histrionics.
dmarks: You're right that Hitler went after the mentally and physically disabled. He went after gypsies, Poles, political prisoners and anyone who disagreed with him as well.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think you have a point to a certain degree that liberals and conservatives are both guilty of likening the other side to the Nazis. But I don't think I've seen liberals, with this president or any other president, carrying signs that say "Death to the President." Or, carrying a sign that showed a pile of bodies and victims of the holocaust in Nazi Germany. Above this gruesome reminder of humanity's capacity for evil were the words:
NATIONAL SOCIALIST HEALTH CARE - DACHAU, GERMANY, 1945
From one of my previous blogs.
I'm getting ready to post a comment that will say something to the affect that all presidents are targets of criticism and jokes -some of them harsh - but what is going on now is beyond the pale.
And I'm sorry dmark, while Democrats make verbal comparisons between the Tea Buggers and the Nazi's, I honestly feel that they have not crossed that thin line into the arena of hate and racism that is so prevalent on the right.
Thanks for a reasoned response. I've noticed lines being crossed on the left of actual violence. There were incidents last summer of pro-Obama activists actually assaulting anti-Obama activists (at town-hall related events). Thankfully, they were few, and appeared to have died down. But it shows that carrying things too far is a danger on that side also.
ReplyDeleteI'd also point out that carrying signs is no where equivalent to what the Nazis did. Even though I deplore such messages on signs, and personally documented and condemned some myself. But bad signs do not a Holocaust make.
The right-wing blogs have lists of reasons why Obama's politics take us closer to Nazism. I think that's as completely out of line also.
Nice try dmarks...
ReplyDeleteWe have been subjected to "liberal media" "liberal judges" "liberal poltiicans" it seems that everything that is wrong with this country has been labelled "liberal"
Conservatives even now claim that Bush, while in office as a conservative was actually 'a liberal'
Everything that is wrong with this country can be blamed on 'THE LIBERALS'
Fox News points at something and says "LIBERALS" and off go a bunch their viewers just like Pavlov's dogs....
It rained today...blame "the Liberals"
That is no different than what occurred in Germany for 20 years BEFORE Hitler took power....
"The Jews, The Jews, The Jews..."
Whatever that is, it's not my try.
ReplyDeleteEspecially "Conservatives even now claim that Bush, while in office as a conservative was actually 'a liberal'" which is nuts.
Off to read about Germany in 1913.