“Naturally the common people don't want war;

[ohiosmith]

neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Hermann Goering quote at the Nuremberg trials.

[originalpckelly]

1. Wow!

Sounds like that came out of Rove's mouth!

[Virginia Dare]

2. Or Cheney's....n/t

[dchill]

6. Or Bar' Bush's... n/t

:puke:

[nickinSTL]

3. nice to see that the neo-cons

have studied up on their Goering.

[JohnyCanuck]

4. It's also been confirmed as accurate by snopes.com

Which is good, because it almost has the ring of one of those "urban legend" stories. But it's not.

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

edited to add -

Another timely quote in the vein of the apocryphal Julius Caesar warning about political leaders who can all too easily send the citizenry marching eagerly off to war by manufacturing crises that purportedly threaten national security and making popular appeals to patriotism. In this case the sentiment expressed is even more disturbing because it comes not from a venerated figure of antiquity, but supposedly from a reviled twentieth-century figure associated with the most chilling example of genocide in human history: Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarshall and Luftwaffe-Chief. We may be made somewhat uneasy by the idea that the head of a classic Swastika civilization recognized 2,000 years ago that the populace could be manipulated into sacrificing themselves in wars at the whims of their leaders, but we're outraged (and maybe even scared) at the thought of a fat Nazi fascist flunky's recognizing and telling us the same thing.

The notable difference here is that although the Caesar quote is a latter-day fabrication, the words attributed to Hermann Goering are real. Goering was one of the highest-ranking Nazis who survived to be captured and put on trial for war crimes in the city of Nuremberg by the Allies after the end of World War II. He was found guilty on charges of "war crimes," "crimes against peace," and "crimes against humanity" by the Nuremberg tribunal and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence could not be carried out, however, because Goering committed suicide with smuggled cyanide capsules hours before his execution, scheduled for 15 October 1946.

The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary. The quote offered above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess:

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

[ohiosmith]

5. Thanks

[Fridays Child]

7. This should be shoved under the nose of every freepturd out there.

k/r

[ohiosmith]

8. They wouldn't/couldn't get it.

[Fridays Child]

9. I wonder if rising gas prices will fire up their synapses.

Here's a graph that shows a nearly perfect correlation between increasing gas prices and decreasing approval of Bush. (original thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2579372#2579385)

[AnarchoFreeThinker]

10. I've had it on my office door for months.

[MikeNearMcChord]

11. In the book, "All Quiet On The Western Front"

One of the characters proposes that in the future, that next time war is fought, let the Kings, Emperors, PM's Generals and Presidents, go into a ring with clubs and let the best nation win.

[ohiosmith]

12. That's the way the last two Presidential elections should have been

decided.

[Martin Eden]

15. In their underwear

in a field is how I remember the bout being imagined.

[DemoTex]

16. One of the most sentient sections from "All Quiet on the Western Front":

The wisest were just the poor and simple people. They knew the war to be a misfortune, whereas those who were better off, and should have been able to see more clearly what the consequences would be, were beside themselves with joy (my emphasis).

Katczinsky said that was a result of their upbringing. It made them stupid. And what Kat said, he had thought about... (skip ahead).

While they continued to write and talk, we saw the wounded and the dying. While they taught that duty to one's country is the greatest thing, we already knew that death-throes are stronger. But for all that we were no mutineers, no deserters, no cowards -- they were very free with all these expressions. We loved our country as much as they; we went courageously into every action; but also we distinguished the false from the true, we had suddenly learned to see. And we saw that there was nothing of their world left. We were all at once terribly alone; and alone we must see it through.

"All Quiet on the Western Front," Erich Maria Remarque, excerpts from pages 15,16,& 17.

" ..those who were better off .. were beside themselves with joy". Sounds like some folks I know. It sounds like some folks I know who claim to follow Christ. It sounds like some folks nowadays who thank their God and their Jesus for George W. Bu$h and his holy war. But max-nix. It was those at the front suffering in this WWI classic. It was those at the front that Wilfred Owen described in his poem, Dulce et Decorum Est:

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen

DULCE ET DECORUM EST - the first words of a Latin saying (taken from an ode by Horace). The words were widely understood and often quoted at the start of the First World War. They mean "It is sweet and right." The full saying ends the poem: Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori - it is sweet and right to die for your country.

[Supersedeas]

13. the same mantra of Right wing television and radio

[Canuckistanian]

14. I've seen this many times before

But it gets more relevant every day.

K&R