Americans Are Not "Better" Than Germans

OH, the discussions we've had in the past few days. The NAZI reference always raises hackles. And what are we REALLY arguing about?

America and Germany are joined at the hip. 30% of Americans can trace their ancestry to this land, which was only incorporated in 1870. We share many linguistic references, traditions and blood ties. Our connexions are very complex; the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

It is important for all of us, who consider ourselves "Planetary Citizens" to thoroughly understand our collective histories. The Third Reich was the apex of human depravity. What sets it apart is the INDUSTRIALIZATION, the corporatization of human death. We ALL agree, NEVER AGAIN.

How do we go about ensuring that? Methinks it involves a CLEAR understanding of how the Holocaust in Germany happened. FROM THE BEGINNING.

I read the excerpted post below and nearly went ballistic. It took my friend in Hamburg almost an hour to talk me down to clarity.

"Also, here is another reason why I do not believe that America is 1933 Germany. We're just not. Most Americans don't have that same kind of thinking, don't possess that level of inhumanity and won't allow it. Call it naive, hopeful or whatever...but, I do not think America is anywhere near what Germany was whether it was 1933 or 1942.

Similarities...yes, I agree they are there and we shouldn't ignore them. I've never argued that point with anyone. Majority of Americans don't support bush, his war or his policies. That's a major reason why America is not a repeat of the Third Reich. In Germany, Hitler was very popular with his people majority of the time he was in power unlike today.

The United States is not Germany and no matter the idiocy of those in power I do not believe for one second that the majority of Americans would sit by and watch millions exterminated like they were in Germany. I do not for one second believe they would stand by and watch the horrors that the Third Reich committed in front of them. And a lot was committed right in front of the Germans. Kristalnacht is one example where they witnessed and did nothing. That is not the United States.

You're of the opinion we are like them and I'm of the opinion we are not."

It is my opinion that as human beings NONE OF US are immune, as those who can convince you to believe absurdities can also convince you to commit atrocities. WE'RE GOOD, THEY'RE BAD doesn't cut it.

N.B. America today is as susceptible to supporting atrocities as the Germans of the 1930s were.

k/r

... still hovering above, or around, 33%. When will he declare Marshall Law?

How long was it that the German people learned who was behind the Reichstag fire? How long will it take before the real story behind JFK's assassination will be taught in schools?

oh wait. No, wrong thread.

never mind.

and Weinerschnitzel. Or was that the Austrians? ;-)

The difference is one of degree, not of kind.

As a matter of fact, given the "proper" motivations, I'd say a fairly sizable majority would have no problem with mass civilian casualties.

Moreover, a good many people would be unrepentant about it.

It won't surprise me in the slightest if the US launches a nuclear attack, for example, in response to some act of terrorism or some perceived threat to their "way of life."

And possibly in the world.

For example, Germans were more accepting of Jews than France or England. Jews were an integral part of society and lived among everyone else. As in the US today, roughly 50% of Jews married outside their religion.

Then Hitler came, and just a few years later the death camps.

I have studied the rise of the Nazis and am convinced that it can absolutely happen here, or anywhere. All humans are equally frail in the right circumstances.

I agree 100%

Indeed, it's exactly the kind of "thinking" that such a fundamental difference exists that leads to such atrocities.

I spent enough time in Germany to see that they are really just people like you or me. They were badly misled...and yes it can happen again if we let it.

and today two generations later, GUILTY, GUILTY, GUILTY. HOWEVER, Germany is one of a mere TWO nations on this planet that has owned up to its past and taken steps to EDUCATE its populace.

>>For example, Germans were more accepting of Jews than France or England.>>

... if memory serves; Germany... except where Napolean forced them to emancipate their Jews... didn't pass comparable legislation til the late 1800s.

Point: you night get an argument re. the above.

But Germany would.

I did a term paper about Berlin in the 1920's and Germany at that time was very progressive.

And I love my dog. (He's a Weimaraner!)

brewed antisemitism almost de novo
sorry, but who was that?

Germany was still the Holy Roman Empire when France and England were developing democratic institutions.

In 1933, Germany had a short history of democracy and a long history of rule by princes. The slide to Nazi dictatorship was a reversion to a tradition of autocracy.

It's likely that this crop of fascists, though, figured that they don't really need all of the brutality, just against the foreigners. Against those of us who disagree with them are deployed the media to distract and obfuscate, and to set the accepted tone, the "conventional wisdom".

We're just lucky that Bushco are as completely incompetent as they are, and that the truth surfaced in spite of their media and corporate backers.

Why can't we just deal with the current situation without trying to compare it with the past. How is that helpful or constructive. Okay, it's just like Nazi Germany. So what.

And I still reckon that it's impossible to say such things unless you lived through that time. Some here have family members who did, and I can see their objections to those who think they know what those times were like well enough to compare it to our current situation.

For example, Hitler was only able to grab absolute power because his predecessor started making laws, without the legislature, using special emergency decrees. The legislature didn't fight it.

When Hitler came to power, he also started making law through emergency decrees. The legislature tried to stop him, but the courts ruled that it was too late - because they hadn't fought his predecessor on this, there was precedent and they could not take back that power.

Any of this sound familiar? Might it be useful for, say, some Congressional Democrats to know about this?

Then there is the "enhanced interrogation", and all of the other awful parallels. People should be pushed to confront the incredibly evil and awful path that some people are trying to take us down.

Oh, those tenses!!! :evilgrin:

Many old Germans freaking out about what is happening in the US right now.

to Germany after all these years (now an American citizen since those days). He said he was seeing the same things happening here. I guess from his experiences, he wasn't about to take chances.

I recall reading an account by a woman survivor and writer on Smirking Chimp some time ago that put EVERYTHING into perspective. What's doubly frightening is if the U.S. succumbs, Germany may not be much refuge...

30% German influence seems a bit high. And the German language sucks IMHO.

I think it is a very effective, useful and expressive language. Luther's hymns for instance.

You know, don't you, that English is more closely related to German than any other language? There are thousands of shared words in our vocabularies. Our grammatical structures are not extremely dissimilar - much closer than the Romantic languages that have equally influenced English. In fact, English is derived from the language of the Angels who, like the Saxons after them, were a Germanic people.

It is a very ugly sounding language. all gutteral and growls.

French is a quite elegant sounding language, between the two it wins hands down.

The mutual lack of cases seems to be better fitting wheras German still has a few (granted a few less than pure Latin or some Slavic languages...

The only "Ugly language" I've ever hear (unpleasant to my ear personally) is Thai.

Then again any language sounds nice when spoken by attractive people with big smiles...even Thai.

... of the German poets who'd disagree ... along with literate people all over the world.

Such an inane stance would do dishonor to a high school sophomore. :puke:

The German language is an awful language, the French language kicks its ass.

"The Awful German Language." But you can't even begin to "get it" unless you're bilingual. 120 years later and it's some of the FUNNIEST SHIT I've ever read.

Deutsch ist GEIL. Deine Meinung ist ignorant DUNNSCHISS!

To say the number "ninety nine" in French is "quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" which, if i am not mistaken, is literally "Four twenty's and ten and nine"

To say Ninety nine in German it is "neunundneunzig" which is literally "Nine and Ninety"

Seems the Germans have it on efficiency

I love our language, and I love the languages that have made it what it is. English is a Germanic language, but we have so many Romance languages and others that contribute to it as well.

until french on the page corresponds to spoken french, german will kick french's ass

"until french on the page corresponds to spoken french"

WIsh I'd see the day when English on the page corresponds to spoken English.

and while English is annoying in that we handle the same phonemes in different manners at different times, it is still relatively good on the most letters written actually get pronounced in some way rather than left unsaid front.

"most letters written actually get pronounced in some way rather than left unsaid front."

It is a very logical language.

Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but they are in the minority. You can tell how something is pronounced by how it is spelled- and vice versa.

Did you have a mean German teacher in high school? :)

gutteral and growling. the French language is so much more elegant.

I've always modeled Katharina's speech patterns. The melody of her voice is just so beautiful, soft, lyric and poetic.

growling" is because the only experience they have ever had of hearing it spoken has been old Nazi propaganda films, Hitler speeches and Hogan's Heroes. I am being slightly facetious, but very few non-German speaking people really know what German sounds like in everyday speech.

There are various dialects and some of them aren't guttural at all. There are people who sound harsh and grating in every language. Try to be a little more open minded. I lived in Austria for a while and I personally grew to like the sound of the language.

:silly:

"According to the 2005 U.S. census <1>, 50 million Americans have German ancestry. German Americans represent 18% of the total U.S. population and 26% of the non-Hispanic white population. Only 1.5 million Americans speak German.

Of the four major U.S. regions, German was the most-reported ancestry in the Midwest, second in the West, and third in both the Northeast and the South. German was the top reported ancestry in 23 states, and it was one of the top five reported ancestries in every state except Maine and Rhode Island."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_American

But 50 million sounds low to me. Do they mean Americans who have 'primarily (over 50%)' German ancestry or those who have 'any' German ancestry. I consider myself primarily Deutsch, mainly because of my surname, but I think I am only 30% Deutsch, unless you include the German-speaking Swiss as also being Deutsch.

The statictic I stated has been in my head for longer than I realized and is obviously dated. :blush:

"I Will Bear Witness" by Victor Klemperer

A German Jew who was married to an Aryan. A WWI vet, very patriotic. a professor of French Literature, a "moderate" politically, non-practicing Jew. He kept a daily diary from 1933-1945.

How did it happen that a cultured, literate, people like the Germans fall for Hitler? Read his diaries and find out. If, after reading them, you think it "can't happen here", I would question your reading skills.

It is the best book (actually 2 volumes) that I have ever read on the rise and fall of the 3rd Reich, and I have read most every well-known book published.

And, it is very readable, and chilling.

No death camps, no torture, no grand heroics. Just the daily experiences of a man, and a society, that either thought Hitler was a genius or dismissed him as a flash-in-pan lunatic.

By Hans Gisevius? He was an early member of the Nazi party who quickly turned against Hitler. His testimony was very important in the Nuremberg Trials. Its narrative is the same type of thing as you're describing - things happen day by day, and before you know, Hell on Earth has appeared.

I'll have to read "I Bear Witness" when I get some time.

and lots of other people would have no difficulty believing that the US could be the next Nazi Germany. Attrocities are committed in our name daily, and Americans look the other way with the assumption that somehow America is the best and most noble country on earth.

Look at what we did to Central and South America even inrecent history. Look at what we did in the Philipines more than a century ago. Look at how we treated Japanese Americans during WWII. Our entire history has been one of brutality against entire populations, hidden by voluntary blindness. We could easily take that next step into total genocide. We've come very close to doing exactly that a number of times.
x(

seeing where the U.S. is headed. It's EXTREMELY painful when a senior citizen asks "Did they learn NOTHING from our suffering?"

The big surprise was that Americans and others were every bit as inclined as Germans to blindly follow authority figures.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Prisoner 345 It's a number, just a number


http://www.prisoner345.net /





They took Carl von Ossietsky And broke his body - but not his mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tn0fdKsQWg



Prisoner 562

Half a thousand, half a hundred
Six times two, pick up your pen
Child, my child, count it up now
That's the number that I mean

It's a number, just a number
One of hundreds, a sign of shame
Each man's jacket had a number
Men had numbers, none had names

Hitler's system took their freedom
Took them prisoner, one by one
For the courage of their convictions
They were tortured, gassed and burned

They took communist, they took pacifist
They took social democrat
Jew and Christian all were prisoner
In the concentration camp

To the camp of Esterwegen
Listen child and understand
They took Carl von Ossietsky
And broke his body - but not his mind

In Berlin upon the 4th of May
19 hundred and 38
The Gestapo with its treatment
Signed his death certificate

Five-six-two his prison number
Listen, child, I beg you please
Keep in mind, always remember,
He got the Nobel Prize for Peace

In the struggle against injustice
He fought hard and he fought long
Child - remember Ossietsky
Peace won't come by words alone


Words and music: Oswald Andrae
Song Lyric as sung by Dick Gaughan


Song of Choice


Early every year the seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before their leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Shut your mouth then how can you know ?
For seeds you cannot hear may not be there
Seeds you cannot see may never grow

In January you've still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow high they'll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

Every day another vulture takes flight
There's another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can't recognise a warning?

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there's millions going hungry you needn't disengage
For it's them, not you, that's fallen in the hole

It's alright for you if you run with the pack
It's alright if you agree with all they do



If fascism is slowly climbing back



It's not here yet so what's it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they're growing
It'll soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and never dare
And if it happens here they'll never come for you
Because they'll know you really didn't care

Peggy Seeger

SO MANY WARNINGS...

I still can't stand sauerkraut, though....

Especially in borooks. (I have no idea how it's really spelled, my Grandmother learned how to make them from a German neighbor). Fried hamburger, onions, salt, pepper, sauerkraut wrapped in dough and baked, with butter on top. YUM! Only now I have to do soy burger and soy butter instead of meat and butter. Still YUM.

Anyone who has read Shirer's "The Rise and Fall..." knows that any people are capable of this.

--IMM

http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/focus/antisemitism/voices/transcript/index.php?content=20061221

And another interesting parallel to Bush. Here Browning points out that Hitler created an environment where underlings would "sense" what he wanted. This is the way Rumsfeld handled Abu Gharib I believe. He did not actually tell them to terrorize the prisoners, but it was encouraged in unspoken ways.


""Even Browning's researches have not turned up the fatal Hitler order. Probably none existed. That was not his way. Hitler preferred 'the best man, who bothers him least', henchmen who read his mind but took their own initiative. He filled the air with fearsome innuendo, but left it to junior figures to put into practice what they sensed he wanted - and what they wanted too. Afterward, he would exult and take the credit.""

http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/history/0,6121,1222639,00.html

to the US in 1840.

But there were NAZI sympathyizers in the US in 1933 with the last name of Bush and many more.

from a small village near Darmstadt. The family didn't stop speaking German until forced to during WWI. I have a degree minor in German.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x21683

Then there's that guy British clerical (IIRC) NAZI guy CURRENTLY "advising" the *dauphin. Maybe someone else can provide the link.

In some dank & depressingly horrible far away land.

12 million people were systematical murdered on an industrial scale by one of the most civilized & technically advanced nations on earth at the heart of Western Civilization.

In an otherwise admirable country, the majority of generally fine upstanding German citizens - patriotic, hard working, church-going folk - engaged in some of the worst crimes of the 20th century.

The majority were cowed, frightened, threatened and just trying to SURVIVE something they could not believe was really happening in front of their eyes. There are SO MANY unsung "heroes" here. Those who hid Jewish children, claimed them as their own, made sure they were listed in church records to prevent their deaths... most are dead but I've had intimate contact with the children, now of advanced age, who were saved and have spent their entire lives in Deutschland.

So would my own family history.

Would you like all Americans to be judged by what goes down in Texas and Florida?

Are you willing to condemn those who did what they deemed feasible and righteous because of those who did not?

Supposedly civilized nations of Europe have a long, bloody and genocidal history even excluding Hitler's Germany. The only difference is that these horrors were usually visited upon black and brown people in distant colonies far out of sight of the average European citizen. If Hitler had committed genocide against people in Asia or Africa, I don't think Western nations would have cared very much.

Hitler's Germany shocked us so much because it showed us the consequences of taking imperialism and white supremacy - bedrock articles of faith of all Western nations till then - to their horrifying logical conclusion.

like hitler did to europe. Americans would love and kill for him. Its sad but true.

as part of their job, while not naturally capable of being barbaric or willfully sadistic, that they can be acclimated to it as "doing their job". Therefore, even the most benign bureaucrat is capable of atrocity in certain settings.

if his SALARY depends on his NOT UNDERSTANDING.

What's missing from the OP is the link to which she got the quote from.

Here it is:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1460657&mesg_id=1462851

Not only does the OP completely misrepresent my position, but she also changed the title to reflect what she THOUGHT rather than what the actual disagreement was. The OP also takes a small portion of an entire discussion and presents it in a way that in no way reflects what I was saying.

I never said Americans were better than Germans. I never said that it could never happen again. I never said that mankind was incapable of committing great horror. Here is the post in it's entirety including the title...

Title: I agree...humanity can do some hellish things...we've got the history...

Much of it has repeated and continues on in a variety of ways.

We are much further down the path of self-destruction than we are of committing the atrocities that Hitler did, IMO.

Also, here is another reason why I do not believe that America is 1933 Germany. We're just not. Most Americans don't have that same kind of thinking, don't possess that level of inhumanity and won't allow it. Call it naive, hopeful or whatever...but, I do not think America is anywhere near what Germany was whether it was 1933 or 1942.

Similarities...yes, I agree they are there and we shouldn't ignore them. I've never argued that point with anyone. Majority of Americans don't support bush, his war or his policies. That's a major reason why America is not a repeat of the Third Reich. In Germany, Hitler was very popular with his people majority of the time he was in power unlike today.

The United States is not Germany and no matter the idiocy of those in power I do not believe for one second that the majority of Americans would sit by and watch millions exterminated like they were in Germany. I do not for one second believe they would stand by and watch the horrors that the Third Reich committed in front of them. And a lot was committed right in front of the Germans. Kristalnacht is one example where they witnessed and did nothing. That is not the United States.

You're of the opinion we are like them and I'm of the opinion we are not.

**********

If a person were to read through our discussion perhaps they may come up with a different perspective than the one the OP is trying to paint. The whole thread is very long and entails a lot of discussion. Some of it is quite emotional given that many here feel very personally about the subjects which were the Nazi era, the bush administration and how correct it is to compare or not to compare. Not everyone feels the same and that's fine.

What I take exception with is the manipulation of my position in order for the OP to paint me in the way she views me. I wasn't going to respond, but the more responses, the more I reconsidered. It's not my intention for this thread to degenerate into a war of words and I'm not interested in winning a discussion, an argument or anything.

I repeat...Never did I say that Americans were better. If you're looking for any caveat to this discussion I will say we are capable of anything. We've got history to prove that which I said at the beginning of my post on the other thread. We're capable of horrendous acts, but I continue and will hold to the opinion that we will not see a repeat of Kristalnacht on our city streets, we will not see men, woman and children marched to their deaths into gas chambers and we will not see piles of human remains as we did in the concentration camps scattered about Europe.

This is about setting the record straight and if anyone continues to have doubts feel free to go to the discussion and see for yourself who holds what opinion.

On edit: 'Germany's Willing Executioners' paints a picture of the complicitness of the Germans at that time. It's a good read, IMO.

I can't stand when posters deceitfully twist and spin others premises for sake of their own warped position. You did an awesome job in defending yourself and I hope you know that many, MANY of us here know full well what you're talking about and don't fall for the kind of stuff in the OP.

Hang in there. Ya did good. :)

was whether it was 1933 or 1942."

Fine.

I'll call it naive.

If a nuke were to go off in DC, I promise you we would see huge camps, mass executions and tens of millions of compliant citizens watching millions of muslims being marched to their deaths. Maybe only hundreds of thousands would actively work on it, but tens of millions would stand by and either approve or 'not see' it happening. It would be at least a year before sanity was restored, and by that time we, also, would be gone. You don't think that every person that would post on a site called "Democratic Underground" would not be seen as a traitor?

It can happen here. It wouldn't happen like in Germany in the 40s; it would be a purely American expression of terror, all wrapped in the flag and God. And it would make Hitler look like an amateur.

for what they were... WORDS, without any personality attached. By leaving YOU out of it there is no attempt to paint YOU in any colour, misrepresent YOU in any way or manipulate YOUR opinion. Let me just say this: IT'S NOT ALL ABOUT

YOU

OR YOUR SELF-IDENTIFIED NAZI ZAYDE.

And just as an aside, REMEMBER NEW ORLEANS.

and perhaps even link to the original thread. That way people can judge for themselves without editing by YOU. It's not about YOU either, or your opinion of the original poster.

in a "personal" confrontation. My focus is the expression of an acculturated ATTITUDE that I believe in my heart needs to be critically examined. She expressed it very well.

Cynatnite is a terrific poster, on whose threads I frequently click. Quite frankly, in the moment I felt it better to leave her identity OUT of the discussion as my inquiry has NOTHING to do with her personally.

SO SUE ME.

I don't feel that Karenina's post was taken out of context. Her intent was to post what bothered her about this issue, and that's what she did.

You seem to have ambivalence about this. You say that you don't believe that Americans are better than Germans, but in your previous post you said:

"Also, here is another reason why I do not believe that America is 1933 Germany. We're just not. Most Americans don't have that same kind of thinking, don't possess that level of inhumanity and won't allow it."

To me that sounds like you do believe that we are better than the Germans, though I believe you're sincere when you say that you don't believe that.

You may be right that we would not allow what happened in Germany to happen here. I hope you are. Maybe we've learned enough from experience. But what the Bush administration is doing to many (yes, not all) Muslims is reprehensible. Many of them have been tortured to death. Far more, very possibly thousands (it's hard to tell because of the secrecy), have been tortured short of death. Yet there is barely a ripple of protest in this country (our corporate news media barely covers it, so most Americans hardly even know about it.) This is Nazi Germany, but on a much smaller scale -- so far. I hope that more Americans would protest if this got a lot worse, but if they don't protest the smaller things, what reason do we have to believe they'd protest when things get worse? And it's not only inhumanity that leads to holocausts, but ignorance as well.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jaspers02.htm

"All over the world I dread the self-deception which we have experienced - that this could not happen here. It can happen anywhere. It is improbable only where the broad masses of the population are aware of the possible menace and thus will not be lulled into security; where they know the type of totalitarianism and will recognize it in its rudimentary stages and in each of its manifestations - this Proteus who keeps appearing in ever new masks, who slips eel-like out of our grasp, who does the opposite of what he says, who distorts the meaning of words, who speaks not in order to communicate or tell the truth, but in order to numb, to distract, to hypnotize, to intimidate, to dupe - who will exploit and evoke every fear, and will promise security and utterly wreck it at the same time.

Totalitarianism is neither Communism nor fascism nor National Socialism, but it has appeared in all of these forms. It is the universal, terrible threat of the future of mankind in a mass order. It is a phenomenon of our age, detached from all the politics governed by principles of a historic national existence of constitutional legality. Wherever it comes to power, domestic politics gives way to intrigues and acts of force, and foreign policy, the conduct of relations with other states, is shrouded in a semblance of talk and negotiation, but without being tied to any rules of the game, to any community of human interests...

Japsers lived through Hitler's rise, so his words cannot be discredited in that way.

We are no better than the 1930s Germans, and we may soon be shown that fact quite forcefully (which history has a way of doing) by the future that is being brewed by our semi-Hitlers in DC now, with the mostly craven assistance of our semi-German Social Democrats that we elected to stop them.

By the same author:

with so much clarity and the creds to back up his postulations...
Thank you Johnny for providing this.

Glad I'm not taking any long car trips with you.

i'm glad you brought this up, because it is a salient point that needs to be hammered home. IT CAN HAPPEN HERE.

just in the same way we americans aren't wholly special and different from other people in terms of goodness, it also works the other way. the germans of 1930s weren't "extra special bad people." they were people, at the end of it all just like you and me. and therefore we can be just as susceptible to the tricks of psychology and social conditioning that they suffered.

calling a situation analogous doesn't make us AS BAD, or our comparison invalid because those people were SPECIAL BAD. it merely points to a simple truth -- WAKE THE FUCK UP BEFORE IT HAPPENS AGAIN! thank you and good night (morning).

you have a populace that thinks it is better than others...better than it's neighbors, better than its enemies...

You have a populace, well-educated, civilized, with accomplishments in music, literature and the sciences...and they are proud and they think this only makes them better...

So in their hubris, they make attempts to either show others how to be better...or they decide it would be better for them to just take over ...cuz...they are better...

In Germany's case...a defeated nation of folks (they lost WWI) are licking their wounds...disgusted that they...the better people had been defeated...and an evil little man comes along and he feeds them what they want to hear...he tells them they deserve better because they are better...and the masses lap it up...and he takes over so easily...and from there it is history....

The "better" people found out that they weren't better..that in fact...they were capable of dredging up what is the worst in human nature...

There is way too much destructive technology today for the people of this world to safety assume an us vs. them attitude towards other nations and peoples of the world. Unfortunately we are taught in this country from an early age that we as Americans are somehow better than other peoples (and I assume that the peoples of other nations are taught that as well).

I would like to believe that we are less susceptible in America today to suuporting Nazi-like atrocities than the Germans were in the 1930s, if for no other reason than that we have the Nazi example to learn from. But sadly, I do not see much evidence that most Americans have really learned from that. The prime example of that, in my opinion, is the ease with which most Americans seem to accept the way that George Bush treats his prisoners in his self proclaimed "War on Terror". It is a travesty of monumental proportions, and Americans should absolutely not tolerate it.

We still have the opportunity to do better than the Germans did in the 1930s -- IF we can gather the humility to learn from their example.

Thank you for injecting some common sense into the extremely important issue. :thumbsup:

by this administration boggle the mind, yet much of the MSM continue to shill for the man and his PNAC vision, the Congress is so political and venal that no meaningful legislation can be passed over a certain veto, and those controlling all levers of power don't care a whit what the people think. Americans should absolutely not tolerate it as you indicate, but they have and are and the perpetual war continues while the national debt soars, the dollar falls in value, the stock market is in a downward spiral, and the economy and job market are in shambles on so many fronts. That Americans have tolerated a continuing assault on our Constitution for several years is perhaps most disturbing of all.

shake their heads in bewilderment asking, "WHY?" It's quite scary as the U.S. is the 800 lb gorilla. What happens to you affect us ALL. The Third Reich is an example of what CAN HAPPEN. Undoubtedly, due to technological developments THIS run-around-the-same-damned-flagpole will be EXPONENTIALLY WORSE. :SIGH:

of destructive radio hosts gone wild...

:cry:

Reading things like Dallaire's book on Rwanda, or Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell," doesn't help my mood on the issue much. Grr. Posteritatis smash!

if Amis bomb Iran... ;-)

of the photographic documentation ordered released ummm... is is already a YEAR ago? :shrug:

from the truth of their impact on others.

From the quote I excerpted:

"Also, here is another reason why I do not believe that America is 1933 Germany. We're just not. Most Americans don't have that same kind of thinking, don't possess that level of inhumanity and won't allow it."

What do we hear about Haiti? The *MIC dispatched their elected leader, chaos reigns and NOT A WORD of their plight on DU. Posts about the destruction of the Iraqi people fall into the archives with amazing speed.

The INHUMANITY of 6% of the world's population CONSUMING 25% of the resources is NOT a real issue.

The INHUMANITY of the Jose Padilla case has not roused Americans to realize THEY COULD BE NEXT, and with this new Executive Order COULD BE.

What Americans have ALLOWED is the past 6 years is the stuff of a horror movie. And as long as this idea of "WE are BETTER" remains the nation is in grave danger.