Do you think a Holocaust could happen in the United States?

[ecstatic]

Poll question: Do you think a Holocaust could happen in the United States?

I've seen many comparisons of * to Hitler.

People smugly say that a Holocaust could never happen again here or anywhere else. Yet, Bush has set the stage for a collapsed U.S. economy. At the polls, rigged or not, millions of people actually voted for Bush despite this fact. I'm just wondering what group the Bushes will pin the blame on, in '08, if our economy is in complete shambles. It is not farfetched to think that a broke and fearful American public would be all to glad to want to pick a minority group to blame it on.

Do you think Americans would be willing participants and/or observers in a Holocaust (aimed at wiping out blacks, gays, Jews, and maybe even known Democrats)?

[izzie]

1. It did with the American Indian

---

[WoodrowFan]

2. Not on the same scale and int he same short time

What was done to native Americans was done to smaller groups of their populations over a longer period of time. I think the questioner was refering to a holocaust involving entire populations in a very compressed time frame.



BTW, I voted "I don't know". A few years ago I would have laughed at the question.

[ridgerunner]

38. I disagree

Millions of Indians have been murdered over the past 500 years. If they had gas ovens in the 1500's I'm sure they would have used them.
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/usgenocide/IndianPeoples.html

[RedCloud]

47. More than 100,000,000 killed!

As a direct result of European intolerance over the past millennium. Same is true from Africa. Imagine all those people allowed to live and proliferate and their votes gathered and accurately counted. Why, they would be the majority and no chance for "W" EVER!

[WoodrowFan]

52. 100 million??

That number is total fantasy. According to Native AMerican.com there were 10 million people living in the Americas when the Europeans arrived. The millions killed are alreayd bad enough, why discretid that with fantasy numbers....

http://www.nativeamericans.com/

[ridgerunner]

57. Okay let's break this down

First off you claim that this was done "to smaller groups of their populations over a longer period of time." That's just not correct. Nearly 98% of the North American Indians were murdered by Europeans and their descendents. The fact that it took them longer than it did Hitler has more to do with technology, not desire.

As far as discounting the 100 million numbered, well you did say "According to Native AMerican.com there were 10 million people living in the Americas when the Europeans arrived." Once again that is wrong. There may have been around 10 million Indians in the present day United States, but when you include the Northern and Southern American hemispheres together, yes, that number, 100,000,000 is probably pretty close.

Plus, let's keep in mind that Hitler was looking forward to a thousand year reich so the numbers could have been comparable to what has happened in our hemisphere. Comparing how long genocide took does not make sense. Does it matter if someone murders 100 people in one day or rather over a period of 50 years?

[ecstatic]

54. I heard numbers as high as 800 million

For the number of Africans killed during the slave trade.

[barb162]

56. In 1800 there were about 900 million people in the world, most being

Asia so I doubt if this figure is correct. ABout 600 million world population estimated in 1700AD.

[WoodrowFan]

51. as I said

In the same compressed time frame, not only 500 years.

[ilovenicepeople]

61. "It can't happen here."

Is why it probably will happen here.Is it true that if you deny that the concentration camps are real they won't send you there?

[Crunchy Frog]

3. Holocausts already have happened in our nations past.

They are part of the spectrum of human behavior. If it can happen in one part of the world, or one period of our own history, it's certainly capable of happening again.

I don't put anything past the extreme right, and they are definitely creating a climate where large numbers of Americans are viewed as subhuman, and where an irrational and violent hatred is being encouraged. The elements are being put in place. It remains to be seen how it will play out.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. It wouldn't be the same.

The element of novelty and surprise when the Third Reich did is lacking here. We've been tipped off.

I doubt that the targeted demographic would go willingly or dejectedly into railroad boxcars. There would be resistance.

Because of the republicans' fanatical (patriotic to them) love of guns, the targeted demographics will have had time to purchase their own firearms to make it interesting if they refuse to go.

Until the borders are closed, people will flee rather than wait for the government or bounty hunters to come and get them.

However, take one more day of "terra", add instant martial law, and my theory goes to hell, doesn't it?

[ecstatic]

7. I wonder which side the evangelicals would be on nt

[Indiana_Dem]

11. I don't know. It would depend on how the media spins it. nt

[sam sarrha]

19. The ovens would be shaped like a church..with bible quote over the oven

doors

[bunkerbuster1]

16. I suspect American guns won't make such a difference.

I'd love to believe that a targeted group could put up a sufficient armed resistance to ensure that 2004 US isn't roughly equivalent to 1934 Germany. I often clinged to that notion.

Oddly enough, it was a pro-gun rights site that disavowed me of this notion. It's just one opinion piece, but worth reading.

http://guncite.com/gun_control_gcnazimyth.html

money quote:


<...> Jews had seen pogroms before and had survived them, though not without suffering. They would expect that this one would, as had the past ones, eventually subside and permit a return to normalcy. Many considered themselves "patriotic Germans" for their service in the first World War. These simply were not people prepared to stage violent resistance. Nor were they alone in this mode of appeasement. The defiance of "never again" is not so much a warning to potential oppressors as it is a challenge to Jews to reject the passive response to pogrom. Third, it hardly seems conceivable that armed resistance by Jews (or any other target group) would have led to any weakening of Nazi rule, let alone a full scale popular rebellion; on the contrary, it seems more likely it would have strengthened the support the Nazis already had. Their foul lies about Jewish perfidy would have been given a grain of substance. To project backward and speculate thus is to fail to learn the lesson history has so painfully provided.

[RedCloud]

48. Do we know passive dry branches vs. Zionist stats?

How is it that so many passive dry branch Jewish people unfortunately wound up in the concentration camps? How many Zionists? Was there a trade off? Some alliance from Hell? How did many Nazi supplies wind up in the early days of Israel?

Apparently we don't know the whole story.

Just as we don't know that 56,000,000 people died in the USSR confronting Hitler. (Too much potential sympathy for those non reactionary people, I guess.)

And Hitler's grand scheme was to use Poland for the death camps and then blame in on the USSR as a pretext to invade them!

Do we even know that grandpappy Prescott Bush helped out his Nazi buddies at Auschwitz?

[Laughing Mirror]

5. Shock & Awe is not a holocaust?

Many would consider a the hundreds of thousands (in the millions?) of Iraqis that the US has slaughtered over the past decades and is slaughtering today to be a holocaust.

[ecstatic]

6. True

But that is kind of typical of the United States. I guess what I'm referring to is a situation where the public goes along with the genocide of other Americans.

[Laughing Mirror]

9. Oh, you mean "our own people"

I doubt if it would be a problem with a lot of people in US, unless we do everything we can to stop it, as we are not doing in Iraq.

[radwriter0555]

34. The Iraqi Holocaust it taking place right now... Iran is next, perhaps...

but we're on the short list too, we liberals, intellectuals, dissenters.

[SheilaT]

8. I voted don't know.

I think something very similar to the Holocaust, but not quite on that scale, could occur here. And like what happened in Germany it will be gradual -- it's already happened with the disappearance of certain citizens. They start by taking people on the fringes of society, then marginalize more people and go after them.

My husband and I have already set up a time and place to meet after we get out of the camps, if it comes to that. First of the month outside our county court house. That way the time and place of meeting keeps on occurring, and would be useful into the indefinite future. I have an agreement with a friend in Pennsylvania that we could rendezvous at his county court house on the 15th of the month.

As to Americans as willing participants, that's easy. Look at how readily police services went after protesters in Seattle, Miami, NYC, and so on.

[Mika]

41. How would you get past the checkpoints?

You would need the right papers to travel.

[Kingshakabobo]

53. You might want to pick a different place.

The kooks will be in front of the county court houses praying over the new 5 ton "Ten Commandment" stones.

[Indiana_Dem]

10. It happened it Rwanda in the last ten years and probably other

places we don't even hear about. And maybe the Japanese in concentration camps wasn't a holocaust, it was a terrible thing to have happened here. Look at all the violence against blacks during slavery and on after, too.

On conspiracy theory websites I've read, I hear of there being concentration camps prepared right here in America in the event of certain situations. I've read where FEMA has a huge disaster plan with martial law and everything. I've also heard on conspiracy theory websites where some huge airport in Colorado (Denver National Airport?) has some huge place underground??? I've also heard that some of the military bases that had been closed have actually been set up as future concentration camps. I've also read about many executive orders that have been passed in the event of martial law. They say the presidents never usually carry them out but they are in place for catastrophe. Some of the orders can cause you to lose your home and all your posessions and lose your rights and you can't even store food in large quantities or the government will confiscate it in a time of emergency. This is all internet stuff I've read but if any of it is true, we are in big trouble if something catastrophic ever occurs. A holocaust would be possible under this type of authoritarianism if they wanted.

I've tried to look up some of these Public Laws that have been passed but I've had a hard time actually finding them. Hope it's not true because then a holocaust would be possible.:scared:

[SweetLeftFoot]

15. Most nations

have the proecedures for martial law ready to be used. they need to be in the event of a major disaster.

However, having concentration camps ready to go is another matter. I have read much of the same conspiracy material and find it interesting, but not yet convicning.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. Shoot Me...

I wish we could bookmark this post with all the apocalyptic predictions which didn't come true...

[Laughing Mirror]

26. Let us do everything we can so that they don't.

On the home front, we can start by reducing (and I don't mean killing) the prison population, now about 2.2 million behind bar, more than 100,000 of them women.

[tngledwebb]

13. They are trying this again ( see below * ) , as we speak

though on a smaller more cost-effective scale. Have you not seen the the news about Iraq and Gitmo? And it's not over. Here in the homeland they are doing it by attrition and neglect of the population as a whole, and more specifically to African-American and other minorities through the police and prison systems. Though nothing is quite as overt as gas and ovens, the end result will be the same.

( *Previously almost successful with native American and black slave populations.)

[DemocratSinceBirth]

14. The "Holocaust " Was Intended To Elimiate A People

The last thing slave owners wanted to do was eliminate blacks....

[Indiana_Dem]

18. Yes I kind of think along the same lines.

If you would deprive a majority of the masses of advanced healthcare or bankrupt them with the cost of it, or some powerful bug comes our way in which they can't find a "vaccine" for, I would look at that as a "soft" holocaust. Take AIDs or SARS, for instance. Sometimes I wonder if TPTB are trying to reduce population by these means. Even take the threat of MAD cow disease, Alzheimer's, super TB, antibiotic resistant bacteria, etc. I sooner think a "soft" holocaust could happen this way through sheer witholding of cures and breakthroughs. Also, the utilization of war seems to be a "legitimate" way to eliminate some. None of these things would affect the "elite wealthy" as much as it would the masses. The techonology is here now. I would think they will try this way first and if it doesn't do enough then it could get even worse.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. hmmm

Why would "elite wealthy" people want to kill off poor folks...


Who would buy their crap and do their work...

[Indiana_Dem]

24. Well, to me a major catastrophe might kill alot of people but

there would more than likely still be enough left for a feudal society. The "correction" could be a vehicle in order to adjust to the government to their liking. They already would have enough wealth to live on for generations, especially at the rate they are accumulating it.

[ecstatic]

21. But who is this "soft holocaust" targetting?

Or is it just aimed at population reduction?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. I Don't See How You Can

introduce a virus into a heterogeneous society such as ours intending to create a pandemic to eliminate a certain group of people and not have it turn into a epidemic..

[Indiana_Dem]

27. Maybe it's not just to eliminate a certain group of people.

Like Truth said (I think), maybe it's for population reduction.:shrug:

I've also read during this SARS outbreak, that if someone was in a lab concocting such a thing that there might be a possibility where a virus can be produced that only targets certain genes traits that are specific to a race. Pretty scary stuff. You know, all the biological warfare information that seeps out supposedly from the military and defense. But then again, I don't take everything at face value and I am not a firm believer. I just read alot. Anything could be a possiblity.

I do know there was certain testing done on a certain group in Alaska regarding hepatitis B when they were trying to make the Hep B vaccine. It had to do with some study on AIDs, too, I believe. Uninformed testing was also done on African Americans in the South for some vaccine years ago, I believe. These cases I read about were facts that came out later from valid sources I remember. It shocked the heck out of me.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

28. You Are Getting Into Science That Is Beyond My Understanding....

I have faith that in four years we will be rid of Bush and our nightmare will be over...

I do know one thing about Pugs... They like commerce and holocausts are not good for commererce...

[Indiana_Dem]

30. I hope you're right.

Then again their reasoning isn't like ours. That's what scares me. I'm just always trying to figure out why things are so f'd up. I mean EVERYBODY wants the cures to these things. I think it all comes down to greed. I'm so sick of it. I just can't understand why we just can't go for our desires to rid the world of injustice, poverty, and sickness. It seems like it would be so easy with our technology and our strength in the world. We can't even seem to do it. Why wouldn't our government want to commit to ending these things for us, our country and the rest of the world? Why wouldn't they rather want to control population by birth control means--which is a helluvalot nicer than permitting viruses, disease, war and famine to get us. I don't know. It just really makes me frustrated, like many others, I know.

[tngledwebb]

35. Commerce? Like the free market for Halliburton in Iraq?

No, this particular fascist gov't doesn't care that much for commerce, but they sure seem to like the idea of Armageddon ASAP. The key is: they are absolutely insane- or may as well be. They do NOT care about people, human life, the future of America, or the rest of the world. They will gladly get rid of everybody below the million dollar income level and still have all their needs supplied cheaply by Third world child labor while driving their Hummers through whatever's left of our national parks with gay abandon.
Or does it really seem as if these bastards give a shit about the welfare of the general public? Please post your evidence if so.
No, it's a kinder gentler holocaust they're after, one not so immediately apparent to the eyes of the world, especially 'Old Europe' which has had some previous experience in the matter.

And true, the earlier American version of genocide and/or holocaust was not as systematic and swift as the Nazi version, but the results were similar. Talk to a black person or a Native American.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

43. Really

"Commerce? Like the free market for Halliburton in Iraq?"
Posted by tngledwebb

"They will gladly get rid of everybody below the million dollar income level and still have all their needs supplied cheaply "


How will they have their needs supplied cheaply if they eliminate everybody who does the work?



"Please post your evidence if so"

[tngledwebb]

49. You missed the point,

They can use Third world child labor etc for most things. It's all the damn American voters and their families, especially those who can still read, think, ask questions, believe in Democratic government, want to keep their Social Security, health care, public education, unemployment benefits, minimum wage, etc. Those are kind of people these bastards can easily live without, and they are doing their best to get rid of them ASAP. Sorry, get rid of US, ASAP. Do you not agree? Any DU'ers not agree?

[Indiana_Dem]

25. I have the same questions.

I am just trying to figure out the "why", too.

[xchrom]

17. why not?

we aren't a ''special people'' above all the aberations of human behavior.
we've done it once already -- so why not again?

[hobbit709]

22. I know

several hardcore RW thumpers who said they'd be quite willing to help me get to hell sooner than I intend.

[Stinky The Clown]

29. It could happen, and I'm not sure which side might start it

Where the right has been radicalized, so has the left. How many here feel visceral hate?

I know I do, and it scares me, because I know what I feel inside myself. At the end of the day, I know I'm totally incapable of acting on it, but I suspect there are others who feel it even more deeply than me.

In a way, this radicalization is good thing. I can actually imagine how the right felt during the Clinton years. It isn't pretty. It isn't right. It isn't rational. But its there. I don't know where the tipping point is.

[Indiana_Dem]

31. Sometimes I think that's what somebody wants us to feel.

I think we should go against the grain and not give them what they want us to do--divide and hate. It might well be playing into someone's hands, soas it appears. Remember that saying a divided house cannot stand. We should find things we agree on and come together on them. There are many things we all want.

I've felt that way, too, this past year ever since this godforsaken war built on lies. It stirs up the worst in you. Must be what somebody wants. They want a fight because they are angry unhappy people. Most of us on here are generally not that way or we wouldn't be here. Somehow, these dividers on the right have stirred up anger and conflict. With a bully, you mustn't give him what he is itching for. Think Ghandi, MLK, or Mother Teresa. A bully doesn't recognize or know how to react to no gut reaction/response. We just need to start from the ground up and emphasize our good qualities and people will naturally be drawn to us instead of them. Remember, nobody really likes the bullying-type. We need to let them show their true colors. Sit back and watch them self-destruct. We can, in the meantime, work on grassroots and provide slow monetary support over the next 2-4 years. And remain positive. You're not alone.

[ecstatic]

37. I can't see the left going along with genocide

I think our side would sacrifice our own lives to protest something like that. I could be wrong though.

[gollygee]

32. The truly frightening thing is that it could happen anywhere

if the circumstances were right.

[mopinko]

33. we can pick nits about words

and what is a holocaust. but i know that these guys are gonna leave a mountain of dead bodies in their wake. and they will be those of people that they feel are inferior to them, mostly with the excuse of them not believing in the same god. and like the nazi's, they will pick the corpses clean.

[SmokingJacket]

36. Thinking "It can't happen here" is what allows things to get so bad

that it does happen.

The way we prevent it is by admitting that it could happen, and not letting ourselves go down that road.

Or anywhere NEAR that road.

[H2O Man]

39. Strange question!

Which is good. At first glance, it seemed more rhetorical than serious; I'm glad I took the time to read it carefully. It's a serious question, and I'm glad you raised it in a serious manner.

Because people are people, and we are no different than any of our most savage of ancestors, the answer can only be yes, it is possible.

That said, the question becomes what set of circumstances could reasonably be viewed as creating the foundation for such an event? And while there have been numerous examples of such behavior in human history, the most important for our understanding of the potential is obviously Nazi Germany. And so we would do well to examine what led Germany to become Nazi Germany?

On the thread "Religion and Science," (or is it "Science and Religion"?) we discuss this. I have spoken about Jung's predictions of the "Blond Beast" rising in Germany shortly after WW1, based upon his noting certain archetypal images that were becoming constant in a large percentage of the people he dealt with. Look closely at this issue, and then look closely at the imagery that the republican party uses to promote their death cult activities.

Again, very good question. I think that as we are a global community, that we need to recognize that this type of horror will not recognize borders; it will focus on specific groups identified as "enemies."

[Tinoire]

40. Sadly yes. Not a doubt in my mind n/t

[Laughing Mirror]

44. Happy to see you back, Tinoire

Things just ain't the same without you here.

[datasuspect]

42. they've been doing this with black people

since they were brought here as slaves.

[noamnety]

45. Of course it could happen here

1. We're fine with doing it in Iraq

2. The outcry over detaining US citizens without cause, indefinitely, with torture at Gitmo has been nonexistent.

3. The outcry over the AIDS experimental drugs in NYC was also nonexistent. Poor black kids whose parents were gay (otherwise they wouldn't have AIDS, right?). Who cares if we abuse them a little? Not the majority of Americans.

4. The outcry over corporations poisoning our food and water is nonexistent.

5. People are fine looking at the poor who don't have health insurance and justifying it by saying it's okay if they die for lack of treatment, that's part of capitalism.

We are totally okay with certain segments of the population being wiped out. Just don't show us a woman's breast on tv.

[noonwitch]

46. Yes, under certain circumstances.

I could see if there was another terror attack in the US by a middle-eastern group, that the government would be able to start rounding up arabs without much protest from the public.

The Holocaust didn't happen overnight, there were steps taken here and there. The Nazis wanted to see what they could get away with. , before launching the Final Solution on everybody. First, they killed the mentally ill and developmentally disabled. Then they started arresting some jews, eventually trying to get all of them. They had a public who was willing to look the other way.

There is a scene in "The Hiding Place" in which Corrie ten Boom, the author, describes the march from the transport train to the death camp of Ravensbruck. She said that the adults in the town all looked away when they were marched through, and the kids were the only ones who looked at them, because they didn't really understand what was going on. The parents and adults knew, and wanted to pretend it wasn't happening.

I don't think that the american public at this point would stand by and allow the government to just round people up and ship them to camps. For that to happen, there would have to be some kind of event that triggered panic (ex: al Queda nuke attack), they'd have to start with associating a group of people with that event, then justify moving on to larger groups, such as the people helping the first group by hiding them or getting them out of the country, etc.

We complain about the media having a right wing bias-I don't think that the government/Bush administration has enough of a lock on the media to get away with something as big as the holocaust at this point in time.

[tedzbear]

50. There is already a holocaust happening in Africa right now.

3 million Africans died of AIDS in 2003 (and another 3 million this year) because multinational drug companies have forced the WTO to protect their HIV drug patents in spite of the obvious need for cheap generic versions of these same drugs. Thanks to this millions are dying because developing nations and NGOs can't afford the price of these patent protected drugs.

[UdoKier]

55. Not just yes, but "Of Course"

There was nothing unique about the Germans that made them do what they did. It's the mob mentality run amok. Something that happens here too on a smaller scale all the time.

But that being said, it could happen anywhere. You just need a perfect storm of economic, social and political developments, paired with horrible leadership devoid of conscience.

The administration we live under today would certainly do what Hitler did if it was in their interest and could get away with it. They have shown zero concern for human life and zero conscience.

And the American people are just as silent in the face of it and sheeplike as the Germans were.

[bobthedrummer]

58. Yes, like Margret Atwood suggested in "The Handmaid's Tale".

It would be mostly racial and religious imo.

[DrGonzoLives]

59. You know, I think some of you want this to happen

So that you can be martyrs and say "I told you so" before being shoved into the ovens.

[hobbit709]

60. I might become a martyr

but they'd never get me to the ovens or even the camps alive.