Remember the Germans did not start with Aushwitz

[nadinbrzezinski]

They started with vulnerable populations. They made it acceptable to kill retarded children in the medical setting for the good of the Fatherland.

So look at this picture



And think of the last two republican debates.

If this does not make your blood run cold...

And yes, they're FASCISTS. Stop running from it.

[LynneSin]

1. I love how they try to claim that it's democrats that want to setup death panels

when all the time they've been working on them for years! If the GOP ran the SS back during WW2 they would have claimed that the Jewish population wants to be separated from the rest of the Europeon population.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. The Germans made that claim

[LynneSin]

31. Stand correct - but remember it was the SS party of Germany

there were Germans that opposed this action although alot of them were kept in the dark with what the ultimate goal was for the jews.

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. Of course and poles and others.

My dad survived because of a wise polish family.

[LynneSin]

35. oh my

:wow:

[nadinbrzezinski]

43. We met them twenty years ago

He passed three years ago. My husband and I send money and a Christmas card every year.

It's not much...that is a debt none could ever pay.

[AmBlue]

And my in-law's families survived because...

They saw the writing on the wall early and fled to Panama. It is shameful that the U.S. would not accept refugees from Europe during that time. They never again saw most of the family members left behind because they were lost in the camps or worse. They never discovered what happened to many family members. They were simply gone.

*edited to add the last sentence and change the word "emigrated" to "fled," which is more accurate.

[backscatter712]

48. Nitpick: the Nazi party (formally NSDAP), not the SS.

The Nazis were the political party, the SS was a paramilitary organization that conducted acts of violence for the Nazis.

Other than that, you're right on the money.

[COLGATE4]

236. The SS was not a "party" - it was the internal security service of

the Third Reich, encompassing everything from the Secret Police (Gestapo) to a military branch (Waffen SS) and, of course, the infamous 'Death's Head' groups which ran the concentration and extermination camps.

[In Jest]

243. Like the Soviet KGB

[atreides1]

247. " internal security service "

Kind of like Department of Homeland Security?

You see the Republicans with Democratic assistance have already started!

[GSLevel9]

285. there was no SS Party... you mean the NAZI party. nt

[liberation]

119. It's called projection

Just like how they keep harping about the debt, when Republican administrations during the past 4 decades are responsible for the bulk of it.

[TheMadMonk]

145. Actaully the bald statement isn't that far from the truth. Many Jews do want...

...to be separate. So do many Muslim groups and any mumber of the more "interesting" Christian sects.

Isolationism is a not at all uncommon phenomenon of exlusivist ideologies. And it is all too easy for some enormous evils to be hidden behind those walls.

A state which has its own agenda, can just as easily manipulate sentiment and people's sense of otherness to perform great evils. And we are right to fear that the middle of last century is about to repeat itself.

[COLGATE4]

237. On what facts do you base the astonishing statement that "many

Jews do want to be separate"?????? Sounds a tad like antisemitism to me.

[TheMadMonk]

260. Not all Jews, but a significant subset. In particular those who would...

...prefer not to be ruled by the law of the land, but be subject only to Talmudic Law where ever they are.

There are Muslims who want Shaira Law for their own. Often as a precursor to attempting to force it upon others.

There are Christians who wish likewise, right down to the stuffing of Biblical Law down the throats of others.


The one major difference is that the more orthodox and isolationist of Jews strongly cleave to the meme that they are "GOD'S CHOSEN PEOPLE" no other applicants need apply.

Pointing out their own explicitly expressed separatism IS NOT ANTI-SEMITISM.

An official statement to press vis-a-vis the recent expansion of Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem. As best I can recall the exact quote was: "We are god's chosem people. WE DO NOT CARE what the rest of the world thinks."

[nadinbrzezinski]

264. This significant subset in the us

Is...count them. 95 people in upper state New York.

95 out of a few million is hardly significant.

[TheMadMonk]

310. Not exactly sure what 95 Jews in NY have to do with the illegal anexation...

...of land in East Jerusalem. Nor the theological justification of the same.

The working majority which repeatedly elects rightwing hardliners to power in Israel is highly significant. The setlers who attack Palestinians with near impunity are significant. Those same setlers turning on their own goverment when their behaviour becomes so egregious that the State is forced to act against them are significant.

Jews, Muslims and Christians. The extremists of all three demand both the privilege of being SEPARATE from the law of the land where they form a minority AND the right to force their own thinking upon others wherever possible.

[nadinbrzezinski]

312. Extremists are extremeists,

you will have no argument from me... but you are trying to paint a very small group that way. Most of the nuts you are referring to are not in the want of living under mosaic law. In fact, the ones who do deny the right of Israel to exist. They are the ones who on a Friday night stood in front of tanks going to the front lines because, shit, you should not drive on the Sabbath.

Yes, there are radicals, but this particular group you pointed out... is not the group you are looking for.

The group you are looking for has a lot in common with both Al Qaida (in political goals) and the American Right Wing...

It is a marriage made in hell.

But the group you indicated... they are really tiny, even in Israel... and no, they are not part of the religious parties either. As you said, they want to really live outside normal life... and people in Mea Shearim are that isolationists...

The problem we have... and this will be a broad statement to all radicals... is that they are really loud... and have taken over the conversation... using the exact same techniques, involving fear. In fact, I dare say... that all have taken lessons from the Germans and the propaganda masters of WW II.

So if you want to talk about radical rights... well shall we? And they have a lot in common with each other...

[truedelphi]

311. For most who live in Iraq, the "Final Solution" has been happening since Spring 2003.

One million dead, many hundreds of thousands of people wounded. Four million plus people have fled to live in Ghettos in other lands, notably Syria.

The "Constitution" that our politicians brag about enforces the right of American-based corporations to replace Iraqi Corporations. For instance, Motorola has a big impact in their telephone market.

Only Genetically Modified seed can be planted for their crops. And the Americans have effectively argued that every grove of dates or fig or olive trees could be hiding Iraqi terrorists, so the land is stripped of the trees that used to be a valuable source of food.

The depleted uranium that has been released each time such a weapon is fired or each time a tank is incinerated - all that radioactive dust is allowing new types of birth defects to become commonplace. Babies are born without skin, with eyeballs as big as grapefruits, and the cancer rates are sky rocketing.

[99th_Monkey]

152. The real "death panel" is the so-called Super Committee, comin' after our Medicare they are. ~nt

[Enthusiast]

217. You have them pegged......nt

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

293. The Republicans have a habit of accusing others of exactly what they do

like their continuing whining about Democrats engaging in class warfare. Class warfare is the very essence of Republican activism. Same thing with judicial activism: it's the conservative judges who live and breathe it.

[Odin2005]

3. I've read that Hans Asperger helped protect autistic kids in Austria from the Nazis.

This shit really scares me, it really does.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. It should

Why we need to stop running and call this ugly duck what it is. It won't grow into a pretty swan either, but a chimera.

[proverbialwisdom]

249. It shouldn't. We have the benefit of hindsight and insight.

Terrific films, all.

GOOD http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_(film)
DEFIANCE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defiance_(2008_film)
VALKYRIE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valkyrie_(film)

[Poll_Blind]

4. You're right.

As an aside, people can learn more about the Nazi program http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_T4">here. How it started and how it went out of control.

And one chilling bit of propaganda which seems disgustingly familiar (see below is for translation):

"60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from a hereditary disease costs the People's community during his lifetime. Comrade, that is your money too."

"Let him die!" they shout.

PB

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Yup...them echoes are way too strong

I could see that one easy...in English.

[Wind Dancer]

17. Very disturbing!

This hits way too close to home.

[Poll_Blind]

20. Yeah, I was more than a little weirded out reading that translation from German.

Very close to home.

PB

[Brickbat]

22. I would translate Volksgenosse closer to "countryman" myself.

"Volk" implying a fellowship that you don't choose; you're born to it. We choose our comrades, not our Volks.

/pedantic dilettante

[white_wolf]

51. I was about to say. Comrade is a term associate with Marxist movements and the Nazis hated those.

I would assume they would have tried avoiding terms like "Comrade" where possible.

[DFW]

96. They were clever with that

"Genosse" is what the East Germans used for "Comrade." Volksgenosse is sort of a combination of "countryman"
and "comrade." Frank Luntz would have been right at home with these guys. They wrote the book on formulating
hate speech and transforming it into easily swallowed soundbytes.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

231. Not only Marxists use "comrade" ... other socialists do too. n/t

[hedgehog]

26. Check out the photos here:

http://www.eugenicsarchive.org/eugenics/

[Cronus Protagonist]

I can't figure out how to get to them on that site

Simply an awful user interface.

[Cronus Protagonist]

215. dupe

dupe

[tblue]

115. OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!!!

That's giving me chills. I literally FEEL the evil. Oy gevalt!

[MsPithy]

137. I think it is time to end Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies.

The probability that we are on the same trajectory as Germany is to frightening to ignore. That poster is beyond chilling on the day after the "let the uninsured die" Republican rally.

We have to point out things like this at every opportunity, Godwin be damned.

[Enthusiast]

218. Godwin's rule has outlived

its usefulness.

[polly7]

259. It did that a long time ago.

When I learned British soldiers were told to consider the Iraqi people Untermenschen, any outrage based on Godwin's rule just made me laugh a little at the hypocrisy.

[defendandprotect]

148. K/R -- Everyone needs to see/read that Nazi poster -- we've just seen the GOP echo it -- !!!

[joeybee12]

5. Yup...knr

[bobthedrummer]

7. The second German profession in the context of NAZI membership and support was Medicine.

It brought, packaged and promoted genocide as "racial hygiene" and the right policy (the final solution) for the "ubermench" to employ in the ideal of a Thousand Year Reich.

So yes, a lot of "work" preceded the camps-the SS NAZI doctors and "medical professionals" led the way there with the T-4 programs, etc.

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Why I am pointing this out

It was a DOCTOR no less, who led to that...let him die from the audience. And this DOCTOR would not treat a patient without insurance.

Oh and let's not go into the abuses in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantamo.

[benfranklin1776]

121. That bastard should lose his license then.

He does not possess either the moral fitness, humanity or basic competency to be entrusted with patient care. No doubt the soulless sociopath will be checking their bank account before their vital signs.

[Enthusiast]

220. The nation really crossed a

line with Abu Ghraib and Guantamo. Even worse was that the abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantamo were seen as acceptable by millions of Americans.

And this is why I have such anger toward the political establishment when they seek to boost the image of Dubya Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in the eyes of the American people. These people should be deep in the darkest prison.

[nadinbrzezinski]

265. They should be in a docket.

You are correct.

[defendandprotect]

150. RW propaganda and a Goebbels' style press enables the violence ...

Think of the success of the RW propaganda from "Welfare Queens" to Social Security

as a "Ponzi Scheme" -- "Partial birth abortion" -- "Downsizing" --- on and on --

Along the way they tried to turn "liberal" and "welfare" into dirty words --

Affirmative Action as "quotas" --

All seeking an emoitonal response to short circut any real thought --


Keep in mind that BEFORE Hitler/Nazis we had quite a go around with Cruaders/Christians

who specialized in TORTURE -- "Hammer of Witches" -- "Jewish Ghettoes" -- all begun in

the same way -- with propaganda which demonized others.


And that for 100 years after the end of slavery we had Segregation, Inc. in the South

and that it was racist propaganda and violence which kept it in place.


What's it's always about is profit and power for the few --

control over the many.

[Enthusiast]

219. They never did recognize that genetic diversity

was a strength and not a weakness.

[Fumesucker]

10. Got mittens?

That's another characteristic Republicans share with you-know-who that gives me cold chills, the co-opting of religious fervor into a political movement.



Edited to fix link..

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. Translation, God is with Us

And yup...

This ducky is quite ugly.

[rucognizant]

252. Yup1

That duck has fangs!

[kestrel91316]

126. (Gott mit uns)

[TheMadMonk]

146. "Got mittens" was a deliberate slur coined by allied troops. /nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

11. So it's ok that we remember that but not remember nine eleven?

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. A culture of death is part of fascism

Remember 911 is fine by the way...

By the way how many folks died directky at the hands of the tottenhoff wearing SS?

15-17 MILLION people...you go ahead and forget that.

[bobthedrummer]

18. Precisely n/t

[tblue]

116. 9/11, when abused, is in one sense like the Reichstag fire:

An excuse to attack civil liberties and minorities, create scapegoats, go to war.

[TheMadMonk]

147. It might even be a little more than "a lot like".

It might well be that parties on both sides got far more than they bargained for when they brought down The Towers. However, there is just too much now known, or hinted at, about what every one knew, or could reasonably be expected to have known in the months leading up to the attack.

There is strong evidence that intelligence was deliberately witheld, ignored and interfered with. That several US intelligence agencies were operating at cross purposes. There is evidence that at least one allied nation had full foreknowledge of the attack, and crews in place to record the events.

[Raster]

151. 9/11 WAS our Reichstag fire....

...it gave the corporate fascists everything they needed.

[defendandprotect]

157. Russians immediatedly pointed to it -- "Reichstag Fire in NYC" ...

And they knew perhaps better than anyone -- they had been warning the US --

the White House -- our intelligence services -- and been met with an "Operation

Ignore" which made them wonder if they were up to be the patsy.

Russians went to United Nations Security Council with their info --

In AUGUST just before 9/11, the United Nations Security Council sent their own

representatives to the White House and our various intelligence services to warn

them of the information the Russians had which included the names of the hijackers.

As we all know, Operation Ignore continued --



They wanted a war with Iraq -- see Susan Lindauer on that -- *

Part of US government/CIA were close to settlements lifting the SANCTIONS on Iraq which

were creating such a huge loss of life -- Sadaam and the Iraqi government were desperate

to have the sanctions lifted. Everything was on the table -- anything that we wanted.

And there was a long list of what we wanted -- everything CIA could think of --


Saddam/Iraq make every concession on inspections -- and offered huge opportunities for

our businesses -- from 1 million American cars to be taken in every year -- to

communications, etal. Would have been a tremendous boost to the US economy --


The only LOSER was the MIC --



Additionally, the sanctions were being threatened as well by other nations for HUMANITARIAN

REASONS -- they were working together to violate the "No fly zone" we had set up --

and flying in food and aid to Iraq.

The CIA was "furious" -- !!

They were anxious to regain control.



* http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x321024#321175

Susan Lindauer is a CIA asset -- whistleblowing -- she was under indictment for

5 years -- and spent one year in a military prison. As the plan to make her seem

incompetent failed, they threatened her with psychotic drugs which would have been

the equivalent of a lobotomy.

[hobbit709]

238. The Patriot Act was our version of the Enabling Act.

The formal name of the Enabling Act was Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (English: "Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich").
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933
Anyone who can't see the similarities in the provisions is in denial.

[AmBlue]

244. And remember PNAC's document suggesting the need for a "catalyzing event"...

From p. 63 of Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, September 2000:

"Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a
new Pearl Harbor."

[gateley]

28. It's not either/or -- we remember both. What an odd

post, IMO - don't know where that came from.

[Shagbark Hickory]

45. Are you a "weekday only" DUer?

This post - one of many - from this weekend advocating forgetting 9/11.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1922354&mesg_id=1922354

You may see that I voiced my disapproval in my own way in there somewhere.

[nadinbrzezinski]

50. Odd... A few people respond to 911 in a way you obviously find offensive

And you bring the broad brush?

To be honest the way the remembrance was done gave me chills, but not for reasons you will comprehend. And we were DIRECTLY affected by the events of 9.11 by the way.

So if you do not mind, while we remember, we did not participate and mostly turned the tv off from specific channels. I hope that does not bother you too much.

[Shagbark Hickory]

100. You jump to conclusions too often...

and frankly it's hard to have a conversation with you.

My disapproval is with how 9/11 was made into yet another us vs them subject and I don't think it should be. That post was very harsh and even though I personally am not a fan of making 9/11 a holiday or a media spectacle, I don't think it should be forgotten either.

[nadinbrzezinski]

106. Alas never did I say or mention 911 in the op

And I took you at your post. Blame the dang medium if you want...but this was a poor thread hijack attempt from where I sit. You brought 911 in, I did not.

[Shagbark Hickory]

112. No you did not.

You did not.

[gateley]

52. No, I'm a "too many days a week" DUer, but there are LOTS

of posts I don't see, and those I do seem to get mushed together in my tiny brain.

Did I misunderstand the post I responded to? If so, I apologize.

[Shagbark Hickory]

101. You said my reply was odd. I was just offering an explanation.

There were numerous threads started over the past few days that I think were insensitive. I don't fault you for not seeing them or seeing them but not reading them because they didn't have many recs.

[CreekDog]

250. you questioned the OP as if she were the author of one of those threads

she wasn't.

you just communicated this completely badly and instead of making your point you've just managed to get yourself into arguments over why you're incorrectly singling out the OP.

good work! :think:

[TheMadMonk]

154. If its only ever going to be remembered as a reason to go to war;...

...to foster division; to lay claim to resources that properly belong to others, then yes, it should be forgotten and the sooner the better.

The names of 3000 odd dead people were read out. And yup, their condition remains unchanged. Still dead.


What of the thousands exposed to the ash cloud? The first responders, and those told in the face of tests and documentation to the contrary that it was safe to return to their workplaces and homes.

What of their names? The only place their names seems to be seen, is overstamped in red with "refused" or "denied" and subsequently in the obituaries.


The "let him die" brigade over at the teabagger debate are also screaming that those first responders should die alongside that irresponsible, healthy 30 year old exemplar. AND they've been getting their way for decades.

[defendandprotect]

161. The criticism is based on the blood-thirstyness -- on the commercialism -- on false heros --

and much more --

9/11 should remain in our thoughts always as another example of US RW

warmongering and "false flag" operations --

Keep "Operation Northwoods" in mind -- for one --


"Terrorism" is the pitiful answer of the RW to the Cold War they couldn't resurrect!

We lose more people in traffic accidents every year than to terrorism!

9/11 as it's being enshrined is simply another day for the madness of RW propaganda/myth!

[fascisthunter]

83. Distraction

she never stated that. Does her post about fascists bother you that much?

[Shagbark Hickory]

102. Well now that you mention it...

I'm not a fan of likening everything to the nazis or the holocaust.

I see this post really rallied the troops. So I'll just leave it alone.

[fascisthunter]

104. "everything"... you just did it again

[nadinbrzezinski]

107. Because we should place it in a jar

I could have likened it to the ARMENIAN holocaust, maybe the even LESS KNOWN Maya one.

I am sure you'd miss the reference. And to be honest so would oh 99% of posters...not your fault, they have very poor press.

[Name removed]

114. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kestrel91316]

129. Not sure who you are trying to protect here: teabaggers or nazis.......

[Shagbark Hickory]

239. I'm trying to protect thoughtful discussion.

[defendandprotect]

164. Unfortunately, many of the same families and corporations are now in control ....

the same people who gave us Hitler -- supported him --

Those who were a threat to FDR with a planend coup --

and those who took not only our president on 11/22/63, but our people's government as well.

These are the same families who control our corporate-media today ---

and who control our Congress --


as Al Gore just confirmed in his Rolling Stone article --

"Congress is conrolled by the oil and coal industries" --

[Shagbark Hickory]

240. I do personally believe that's a bit of a stretch but I've already bowed out of this thread.

[rhett o rick]

125. Are you insinuating that someone here doesnt want to remember 9/11?

Do you have any evidence or just causing trouble?

[Shagbark Hickory]

242. evidence per your request...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1922354&mesg_id=1922354

[rhett o rick]

261. Yes I see 3 or 4 that want to forget 9/11.None were the author of this OP. And besides there were

a number of people that disagreed with those that wanted to forget. Good grief Charlie Brown.

[Shagbark Hickory]

269. I never accused the OP of saying that. And even if I did, maybe it wasn't a criticism.

That was a highly recc'd post.

[CreekDog]

143. Next time, don't embarass yourself --next time accuse the right person

you know, someone who said and posted in a thread you seem to be so angry about.

of course, the OP did not, but you've posted as if they did.

[Shagbark Hickory]

241. Maybe it wasn't me who mis-wrote it. Maybe it was you who misinterpreted it.

Yeah. That's gotta be it.

[Taverner]

303. Wow...you really missed the point

I mean really missed it

[tblue]

12. Never follow ANY politician or party unquestioningly!

The Nazis took power legally, then bit by bit they descended into total depravity. Always question authority. I don't care if it's Rick Perry or Ron Paul or Obama or the love of my life, Alan Grayson. Always keep your eyes open and hold them accountable and address the small stuff before it snowballs into big stuff.

Just like Jim Jones, leaders can start out winning hearts. They never start out ugly, and some end up there even when they never intended to.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Yup

[Wind Dancer]

21. Exactly!

I agree completely.

[gateley]

29. Well said. nt

[hifiguy]

42. Lotsa truth there!

:thumbsup:

[Enthusiast]

221. Excellent post.

This is something that everyone must remember.

[Denninmi]

16. I absolutely believe that the next few years have the potential to be incredibly ugly here

as well as abroad.

I'm not exactly what form this could take, but all of the ingredients are present. Today is very much like the 1930s in my opinion.

[nadinbrzezinski]

19. Two periods indeed

The 1850s and the 1930 's.

[defendandprotect]

166. It is even further complicated ....

by the immense threat of Global Warming -- also put in place by capitalism's

exploitation of nature, natural resources, animal life, humans --

which gives fascist leaders new opportunities for control of the public --

[nomb]

23. Be really careful here. Seriously.

Eugenics in the USA before the 1930's was a popular cause with, almost exclusively, liberals. Yes, it is a skeleton in our closet, a path explored in furtherance of a progressive ideal.

History is not a Hollywood Western where the good guys wear only white hats and never make mistakes.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Euthanasia_programs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Sanger

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. Oh I am aware of that

It was also big in the UK.

But this is not the echo we are talking about, but the other echo...that is the blood lust and death. The Thanatos and the fear...

[nomb]

30. Wir Stehen Nicht Allein

"Wir stehen nicht allein: "We do not stand alone".

The woman is holding a baby and the man is holding a shield inscribed with the title of Nazi Germany's 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring (their compulsory sterilization law). The couple is in front of a map of Germany, surrounded by the flags of nations which had enacted (to the left) or were considering (bottom and to the right) similar legislation.

The countries which had enacted compulsory sterilization laws (and the date shown) were:

United States (date illegible; Indiana enacted first laws in 1907)
Denmark (1929)
Norway (1934)
Sweden (1935)
Finland (1935?)

The countries where sterilization laws were being considered were:

Hungary
United Kingdom
Switzerland
Poland
Japan
Latvia
Estonia

Scan taken from Robert Proctor, Racial Hygiene: Medicine under the Nazis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), page 96. "


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States#Influence_on_Nazi_Germany

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. As I said I am aware

But last time I checked our baser instincts did not lead to ovens. That said the nazi party of the US, and the Nazi party of the UK were fairly strong. They are back.

[Fokker Trip]

266. That distinction is very fine IMO.

And may come down to just good timing or luck. If the businessman's coup had come to fruition then things would have been radically different for the US.

There were a lot of German's opposed to the rise of the Nazis. The marches held against them were very big. They rose despite this and then proceeded to eliminate those who had marched(to start with).

The quote that always hits me is "When fascism come to America, it will come wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross" (Sinclair Lewis?).

Hitler admired what the Americans were doing and had done in Industrial production (he really liked Ford) and in the field of Eugenics.

Currently the baser instincts within the US have led to the largest prison population of the world, many of whom work at slave wages for US corporations. Making all sorts of things including all of the US military uniforms. Much like the slave labour camps in Germany.

Baser instincts also lead to audiences who cheer the death of inmates at the hands of the states.

[nadinbrzezinski]

276. Exactly

And we will continue to resist but at some point, we'll have to become witnesses or leave.

[demigoddess]

158. I like that you pointed this out. I think a lot of it comes down

to "other people have done this , we ought to jump on the bandwagon'. much like the Uk did after Reagan got elected and so forth. Sometimes people don;t think they just copy. PS as I say frequently Rush Limbaugh has been an agent of propaganda since the beginning and at least since 1990. Things like 'it is good to be poor' and 'liberals just want to take your guns away'. and 'labor unions will cost you your job'. a lot of that was spread by Rush years ago. Ergo, now we have the tea party.

[hifiguy]

283. Thatcher was elected in 1979, iirc.

And I don't think the root causes of Thatcher's and Raygun's elections were that similar. The Iran hostage crisis was something of a singularity and greatly benefited Raygun. There was considerable economic distress in both countries, but that's about all.

[defendandprotect]

168. We exported the idea -- AND we IMPORTED the NAZI RESEARCH after the war -- !!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1930928&mesg_id=1935395


And that information is readily available elsewhere --

[hifiguy]

286. On a lighter but apt note, I present Tom Lehrer's

"Wernher von Braun"

Gather round while I sing you of Wernher von Braun,
A man whose allegiance
Is ruled by expedience.
Call him a Nazi, he won't even frown.
"Ha, Nazi Schmazi," says Wernher von Braun.

Don't say that he's hypocritical,
Say rather that he's apolitical.

"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

Some have harsh words for this man of renown,
But some think our attitude
Should be one of gratitude,
Like the widows and cripples in old London town
Who owe their large pensions to Wernher von Braun.

You too may be a big hero,
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
"In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun.

Operation Paperclip flooded this country with high-level Nazis and it was the idea of - wait for it -the OSS, which is the immediate predecessor of today's CIA.

[gateley]

36. I'd only heard references to it before, but I followed your

links and am horrified.

What is with us, the human animal? Is it an innate drive to be sure our tribe survives and isn't threatened?

I don't understand it, I don't understand how arguably sane, rational people would think this was good.

[nomb]

37. It's the sincere innate desire to do good. Much of human misery comes from good sincere people.

It's the tragedy of the human condition. We're flawed and imperfect beings.

[gateley]

38. That we are, and you're more generous in your assessment

than I.

I think it's fear, and little good comes from fear.

If they wanted to do GOOD, they would have been like Mother Teresa. We all would.

[nomb]

39. removed

I found the Wiki snippet to be such poorly translated garbage on the subject that I withdrew it - and I'm too lazy to write my own overview on this at this time.


sorry for any disruption.

[defendandprotect]

171. It's about a belief in absolute control over others --

We can improve the human condition with care and love --

but as we all well know the treatment of the mentally ill has never been

careful nor loving!


See: "Murder On the Couch"

And we've just come through a period of time when medical professionals working

with the military/CIA on TORTURE prgrams "softened up" prisoners for them!


And we should also keep in mind Mendel's work with PEAS -- which gave us insights into

heredity --

http://www.livescience.com/7537-monk-peas-changed-world.html

[laundry_queen]

79. No, it's the innate drive to 'fit in'

And a few people with genetic defects that turn them into psychopaths to lead people down the wrong path - which they will then follow to 'fit in'.

Funny how this business stuff ties in - I'm taking a business admin degree right now and one of our recent classes was centered on employee/employer relations and behavior. There was a whole bunch of material dedicated to corruption and why and how people succumb to corrupt bosses and enable them. Between that and the material I've read recently on psychopaths, it seems to me to be very clear (and the Milgram experiments also explain this). People always want to belong. When humans were just 'starting' out, we weren't stronger than the other animals, we didn't have sharper claws, or teeth, we weren't covered in poisonous slime or spikes or quills, and we weren't especially fast. The one thing that set us apart - our intelligence - was not enough to protect us in the wild. Our survival depended on being in a group that cared for us and would protect us. It's innate within us to want to belong, make people care for us, do things to please others. When we perceive others as being superior to us in anyway, or we perceive them as able to 'protect' us, we tend to defer to their wishes. We want them to like and care for us in order to facilitate our survival. Until recently, sociopaths and psychopaths didn't do well in that scenario and that is probably why they are only 2-4% of the population (although that may be rising as we can to survive without having to actually have a group to belong to and love and be loved to ensure our protection). But for the rest of us who want to belong, we will cave to those 'higher ups' because it is in our DNA to follow. It has ensured our survival thus far. Not an easy thing to overcome for most people.

For most people, over 65% of us will do everything an evil psychopath wants so long as he/she is in a position of power. Even more of us will do at least a part of what he/she wants. That is your answer to why sane, rational people will do insane things. Our need to belong to our own 'tribe' will be the death of us all, ironically.

[Number23]

113. Excellent post and points

Thank you for that.

[kestrel91316]

131. You aren't seriously trying to link progressivism today with the eugenics movement

of days gone by, are you???????

[TheMadMonk]

165. Interesting. Rockerfeller foundation openly promoted eugenics.

However, it maintained anonymity when donating to "issues of sufferage".

[defendandprotect]

167. And US took in all of the NAZI RESEARCH ......

we've been rather ashamed to find out in the last decades -- !!

Even Mengele's research --

As the US/Project Paperclip also took in Nazis themselves -- tens of thousands

of them -- immediately after the war. An effort led by Allen Dulles --


These Nazis were used to found the CIA - many of them were funneled into the FBI --

and other government agencies --

Werner Von Braun headed up NASA!!

Evidently, JFK wasn't too pleased with that and perhaps was discovering Project Paperclip?

But certainly JFK was opposed to Von Braun's ideas on using nuclear fuel in space --

[kenfrequed]

169. Err...

Actually politics was all over the board on this one. Attempting to simplify the situation and cast the term 'progressive' over a broad category of leftists as it is used now would be historically inaccurate. The eugenecists came from many places politically and socially and only modern propagandists seem to be obsessing with putting eugenics squarely on the shoulders of the construct we have come to accept as 'progressives.'


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

This list doesn't have that many actual progressives of the time period on it.

[Blue_Tires]

24. Actually, the Germans started with Pearl Harbor

:silly:

(someone had to say it)
:hide:

[taterguy]

98. It was the Japanese that bombed Pearl Harbor

Happy now?

[fast lane]

196. Forget it...he's rolling

:P

[Stuckinthebush]

253. Ha!

Great movie.

[Bucky]

27. You make an oddly compelling case for gradualism in reform.

PS, I don't think you know what fascism is.

[nadinbrzezinski]

32. I am betting I do...quite well thank you

Denial is not just a river in Egypt by the way.

[Capitalocracy]

162. Enlighten us. nt

[closeupready]

33. Very frightening, and I will civilly disobey, if necessary.

If it helps thwart their disgusting agenda. K&R

[ChillbertKChesterton]

40. Fascism is what happens when the Left fails

When the left is unable to articulate the problems of society to people who are suffering (namely, working class people), then the only group that remains is right-wing fundamentalists and fascists.

Look at what happened in Kansas. 100 years ago Kansas was a hotbed for leftist radicals, with an active socialist movement and a widely circulated socialist newspaper. As the left has evolved into a party of multi-culturalism and political correctness, abandoning it's working class populist roots, the far-right has swept in to appeal to the working class masses.

Mainstream centrist liberalism will never be enough to overcome fascism. The left needs to find it's backbone again, rearticulate what the big issues are today, and form a hard kernal of unwavering leftism to work from.

This is why the Obama presidency has been so lackluster. The president and the Democrats lack this hard leftist backbone, they start out with centrist liberalism, and are forced to compromise from that position, ending up with conservative solutions over and over.

The Right Wing has swept into the void and formed a hard, unwavering, fascist backbone (the Tea Party), from which they make their impossible demands. They make demands and hold onto them, and in the end if they end up compromising a little the result is still a conservative position.

Today's struggle on the left requires thinking and finding new spaces of thought, if the left-wing of this country continues to aim for the center, or refuses to re-think the basics, then both parties and the country as a whole are going to swing far to the right, very quickly.

[socialist_n_TN]

55. Depends on what you consider "left"

If these squishy "centrists" and "moderates" are considered "left" then you're right. Personally, don't consider everyone who CLAIMS to be a "leftist" a leftist. In most cases it's all part of that relativistic definition of the term.

I'm a commie, so I consider the old school definition of left. The fartherest to the center and right that goes is maybe, the Mensheviks or Left Social Revolutionaries. Or their modern day equivalents.

Just because you CALL yourself a "leftist" don't make it so.

[kestrel91316]

133. Oh so now we blame the left for the harm the right does and plans to do??????

[coalition_unwilling]

173. You have a peculiarly parochial definition of 'the left' that I think

is ahistorical and relies on over-generalizations. The left HAS NOT "evolved into a party of multi-culturalism and political correctness" and I'm not even sure exactly what you're getting at there.

So maybe you need to define your terms a little more carefully.

I do agree that fascism (the subsumption of class identity with racial appeals to a non-class 'volk' and the concomitant marriage of state with private enterprise) is one possible outcome when the left fails but it is not the only possible outcome.

[ChillbertKChesterton]

289. the Left has eroded significantly.

In the minds of most people, in the arena of mainstream public discourse, "the left" is what you'll find on MSNBC. This is the problem.

For most left-leaning people who vote for the Democratic Party, they define the horizon of the struggle for left-wing politics as supporting gay rights, multiculturalism, and to a lesser degree health care and the welfare state.


I understand that "Leftist" means something else than standard 'liberalism', but Leftism has no voice in the United States. Of the 435 members of the House, and 50 Senators, how many of these people would you consider "Leftist"? 2? 3?

The right-wing and the Republican party have a loud, hard, vocal movement of people who identify themselves as "Tea Party". Yes, the tea party has had corporate funding and support since it was invented, but they serve a function for the right and they do it beautifully well.

What is the Left in this country all about? What does the left stand for?

There are crowds of working class people showing up at protests and demonstrations showing their support for wealthy oligarchs, rallying for lower taxes for corporations, screaming demands to repeal the health care bill, mass calling their representatives to bust unions across the country.

Where are the crowds of leftists calling for increases in public community news organizations? Where have the anti-war crowds gone? Maybe this is just my ignorance but I haven't heard of any major demonstrations against our multiple wars since Obama entered the white house. Where are groups of people organizing and discussing alternatives to our corporatist economic system?

Working-class republican voters are not the enemy, if the left-wing cannot appeal to working-class people, there is no hope. The Democratic Party has just as much corporate money and wallstreet strings attached to it as the Republicans, so unless the left gains the support of the working class, there is no way to win this battle.

[defendandprotect]

174. No -- RW rises on violence -- it's the only way the can rise -- that's fascism ... !!

Same with Hitler --

Same with the RCC/Crusades --

and same today --


In fact the same families and corporations supporting and pushing this new fascist era --

The Rise of the Fourth Reich --

They control our coporate-media --

Our US Congress "is controlled by the oil and coal industries" --


These are the same people who organized the coup on FDR --

See: Brig. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butlere


And who took not only our president on 11/22/63, but our people's government --


The left does not "fail" -- fascism rises in the only way possible for it -- BY VIOLENCE!

[defendandprotect]

175. RW propaganda works to create violence ... see "Hammer of Witches" and

the RCC's propaganda against the Jews -- which, btw, went on even 100 years more after

the Jews were released from the Papal Ghettoes -- !!


RW propaganda is intended to create intolerance for and violence against various groups --

Thousands of years, as well, of preaching from Catholic pulpits that homosexuals were an

"Obamination" purposefully created hatred for homosexuals for the benefit of the RCC.


The Nixon White House, btw, was studying Nazi propaganda -- not so unusual that we saw

its rise here -- and that it's expressed so clearly in our Goebbels' style corporate media!

[hifiguy]

41. The first concentration camps were for the Communists and

Social Democrats and were set up not long after the Reichstag fire. Then the "genetic defectives" and mentally ill were added to the list. For several years the NSDAP government actually wanted to drive the Jews out of Europe but once Himmler and Heydrich got into the planning, that was scrapped in favor of the Holocaust.

[nadinbrzezinski]

44. Yup, but the T-4 was a medical issue

Ron Paul made my blood run cold.

I cannot think of him as a libertarian any longer.

[backscatter712]

47. Damned right!

The teabagging right is openly cheering death - Perry's 234 executions, and allowing people who can't afford medical care to die.

Openly. Cheering. Death.

That is absolutely justification to go Godwin on the Republicans. We're absolutely right to be sticking a swastika on the GOP elephant. They earned it.

[area51]

88. +1

I don't call them republinazis lightly.

[blkmusclmachine]

49. Death Panels:

GOP projection.

Now that they've rewritten our laws post-9/11, who's to say they won't use said post-9/11 laws to go after their enemies, both foreign and DOMESTIC ?? Domestically, I'm putting my money on them going after GLBT people first. Then posters on DU, DailyKos, and other Liberal sites after that.

[white_wolf]

53. The conditions we are in right now are perfect for Fascism.

We are in economic crisis, mainstream politics are failing us and people are looking for answers. The Left isn't give any, but the Right is. Someone above said that "Fascism is what happens when the Left fails" and the are correct and not too far off from what Leon Trotsky wrote in his "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it." He said(when discussing Nazism in Germany) Full text here: http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm

"The last election revealed – and this is its principal symptomatic significances – a shift in the opposite direction. Under the impact of the crisis, the petty bourgeoisie swung, not in the direction of the proletarian revolution, but in the direction of the most extreme imperialist reaction, pulling behind it considerable sections of the proletariat. The gigantic growth of National Socialism is an expression of two factors: a deep social crisis, throwing the petty-bourgeois masses off balance, and the lack of a revolutionary party that would today be regarded by the popular masses as the acknowledged revolutionary leader. If the Communist Party is the party of revolutionary hope, then fascism, as a mass movement, is the party of counter-revolutionary despair. When revolutionary hope embraces the whole proletarian mass, it inevitably pulls behind it on the road of revolution considerable and growing sections of the petty bourgeoisie. Precisely in this sphere, the election revealed the opposite picture: counterrevolutionary despair embraced the petty-bourgeois mass with such force that it drew behind it many sections of the proletariat."

[socialist_n_TN]

56. Good find wolf.........

Duetcher didn't call him a "prophet" for nothing. :)

[defendandprotect]

178. Fascism is a concept which has long been with us -- in enslavement of others --

in the Crusades --

In the Papal Ghettoes where Jews were confined and isolated --

in Feudalism --

in Genocide vs the Native American --

In the Papal Bulls vs the Native American -- "enslave them or murder them" --

Same with Papal Bulls re the African enslaved here --



Further, neither the DEPRESSION of the 1930's nor this DEPRESSION are accidental --

this is purposeful economic destruction and something that everyone should recognize -- !!

[raccoon]

54. K&R. nt

[socialist_n_TN]

57. Nadin, you and I have been trumpeting this idea

for a while now. I wonder when the "They're NOT Nazis!" brigade will show up? :)

They might not be Nazis yet, but they're DEFINITELY proto fascists.

[white_wolf]

58. They are missing one characteristic. Fascism always has a charismatic strongman.

I'm not sure who that is right now, though I could see that fool Perry taking that role. We may call him an idoit and say he is nuts(both true), but most people probably thought Hitler and Mussolini were insane. I don't know why, but he worries more than the other candidates. More than Bachman and even more than Ron "let him die" Paul.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. Oh that leader is probably not in the radar screen yet.

[Horse with no Name]

110. "Charismatic strongman"

I am not going to say anything else, but think really hard at what we have seen and the changes we have seen.

[MilesColtrane]

229. Obama=Hitler?

laughable

I don't know why you post at this site if you believe that.

[nadinbrzezinski]

262. You know not everything is about Obama

Just saying. But that charismatic leader is already showing itself. Free huge clue...he is, and it is a he, not at the white house. Oh and me add, IMHO not one of the seven dwarfs wither.

[MilesColtrane]

287. My post was addressed to Horse, who was unable to type the name...

of this man we should all be afraid of.

The only good reason I could think of for him not revealing this charismatic leader who has been making changes is that he would get his post deleted.

You somehow seem to know who he was referring to. (PM? ESP?)

Why are you playing games?

[nadinbrzezinski]

291. Not playing games. (Warning graphic image)

But not all is about Obama.

Will give you a hint though

[MilesColtrane]

294. Romney and Perry are beating Ron Paul by double digits in the polls.

Hell, Sarah Palin is beating Ron Paul in the polls.

And, I have no idea how anyone could ascribe the word charisma to his public persona.

[nadinbrzezinski]

296. Missed it by a mile

Not Ron, rand.

[MilesColtrane]

297. This is what I mean by playing games.

Why didn't you simply say this to begin with?

This is really a waste of time.

[nadinbrzezinski]

300. I said it's not one of the seven dwarfs.

But whatever.

Suffice it to say NOT EVERYTHING revolves around the President.

[MilesColtrane]

307. *facepalm*

:banghead:

[Enthusiast]

222. Today their charismatic strongman

is manifold. It is Cheney, Limbaugh, Colter, Beck, Billo, Hannity and unnumbered others.

To those relying on the far right media it must appear that their daily proclamations are a national consensus.

[Prophet 451]

233. Perry is a possibility

But I think he's too obvious. I think the GOP is going to make a token effort this time around but are mainly going to be content to use the next four or five years to hype up anti-Obama fever, pushing as close to sedition as they can possibly get. Then, once that's done and we're into the 2016 race, they'll nominate that charismatic strongman (I'm thinking Jeb). He'll run on the old Reagan line that government is inherently bad, thus justifying handing over the functions of governance to corpoations. And then you have corporatism which, Mussolini told us, was a more accurate term for fascism.

[nadinbrzezinski]

63. Take the word proto out

They ARE fascists.

They won't be nazis, since the form is very much American.

[hifiguy]

70. Yep, it's wrapped in the flag and

carrying a cross. Our fascism will be very much America's own in its outer trappings, though fascism (Mussolini, the Austrian corporal, Franco, Pinochet, the Argentine junta) always delivers exactly the same results.

edit for typo.

[defendandprotect]

179. Fascism has a long history - -which we should recognize ....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1930928&mesg_id=1935512

[themadstork]

59. Must everything be compared to Nazi Germany?

Humans have been cheering the murder of other humans for all of history. The constant Nazi comparisons make it seem like you're more interested in cheaply shocking the reader than saying anything thoughtful.

[nadinbrzezinski]

60. Must history be forgotten?

History has echoes, it does rhyme. And nazi Germany was just one version of fascism. American fascism has it's own characteristics, but it is here. What you heard are the volunteers for the shock troops.

Sorry if the words NEVER AGAIN have some very personal and real meaning.

Google 14 points of fascism. You are in for a surprise.

[defendandprotect]

181. We should also note 1930's Depression and today's were purposefully created -- !!

[backscatter712]

65. Must the Nazi reign of terror be forever isolated from the possibility of human acts?

The Germans weren't different from the rest of humanity in susceptibility to tyranny and atrocity, Hitler wasn't particularly unique as a dictator, and the U.S. is not immune from the same forces that drove Germany to madness.

[kestrel91316]

134. Defending the teabaggers against a highly legitimate comparison to

the bloodthirsty Nazis??? I do believe you'd be much happier over at Rimjob's place......

[defendandprotect]

180. Only when the same families and corporations are involved in our corporate-media ..!!

And only when the same families and corporations are involved in control over

our Congress -- !!!

See Al Gore -- Rolling Stone ...

"Congress is controlled by the oil and coal industries" -- !!

[Enthusiast]

223. Your post is a perfect illustration

as to why the rest of us must continue to point out the dangers of today's fascism.

[Obamanaut]

62. Auschwitz nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

64. Spelling nanny nt

[Obamanaut]

66. The 'check spelling' feature can be your friend. nt

[nadinbrzezinski]

67. Thanks nanny eom

[truebrit71]

68. Actually it's Osweicim

....:evilgrin:

How many pedantic points do I get for that then? ;-)

[nadinbrzezinski]

69. A few

I could get more and point out it was not a single camp.

:hi:

[hifiguy]

71. The full German name of the camp

was Auschwitz-Birkenau. And there were, IIRC, six camps under that ghastly umbrella.

[nadinbrzezinski]

75. Yup.

One was a pow camp iirc. Divided between Russians and British.

[SlimJimmy]

91. Correct, with the main *connective* camp, Birkenau, being a few miles away

from Auschwitz proper. I would think most historians would know that.

[Obamanaut]

73. And the spelling in the OP would still be incorrect.

"After all we are not even talking of Richard V and his invasion of Normandy..."

[truebrit71]

78. Dang it that was my next point...

... ;-)

[justabob]

94. .

bwahahaha :spank: :evilgrin:

[defendandprotect]

185. First Nazis camps were set up in Poland because of their intolerance for Jews --

meaning that there would be little resistanc to mistreatment of Jews there --

This was the result of RCC teachings --

[nadinbrzezinski]

190. Bergen Belsen was the first demonstration camp

And it was in the heart of Germany.

[defendandprotect]

204. True -- but it was a POW camp -- no Jews until 1943 --

Details below --

But what I was trying to stress is how Europe/Papal States had been seeped in anti-

Jewish fervor by two thousands years of RCC teachings --

Post-WWII the Roman Catholic Church was called upon to "Confess to their guilt and

co-responsibility for the Jewish Holocaust in Germany" --


here's the info on Bergen, Belsen --


Bergen-Belsen (or Belsen) was a Nazi concentration camp in Lower Saxony in northwestern Germany, southwest of the town of Bergen near Celle. Originally established as the prisoner of war camp Stalag XI-C, in 1943 it became a concentration camp on the orders of Heinrich Himmler, where Jewish hostages were held with the intention of exchanging them for German prisoners of war held overseas.<1> Later still the name was applied to the displaced persons camp established nearby, but it is most commonly associated with the concentration camp it became as conditions deteriorated between 1943-1945. During this time an estimated 50,000 Russian prisoners of war and a further 50,000 inmates died there,<2> up to 35,000 of them dying of typhus in the first few months of 1945.<3>

Operation
A barrack block at BelsenIn September 1939 a prisoner of war camp was established at Fallingbostel, and the nearby Bergen-Belsen site became a Häftlingslager, or "prison camp", initially housing around 500 prisoners who were used as construction workers for the Fallingbostel project.<6><7> In June 1940 it became a prisoner of war camp for around 600 French and Belgian soldiers, under the authority of the Wehrmacht, and in May 1941 it was designated prisoner of war camp Stalag XI-C, (Stalag XI-C/311 for the Belgian and French POW's). Conditions in the camp were very basic, with inadequate food and little shelter. Around 20,000 Soviet prisoners of war were sent to the camp between July 1941 and the spring of 1942, of whom about 18,000 died of hunger, cold and disease.<8>

In 1942, Bergen-Belsen became a concentration camp, and part of it was placed under SS command in April 1943. Having initially been designated Zivilinterniertenlager ("civilian internment camp"), in June 1943 it was redesignated Aufenthaltslager ("holding camp"), since the Geneva Conventions stipulated that the former type of facility must be open to inspection by international committees.<6> This was the "Star Camp" (so called because the inmates were made to wear the yellow star badge that designated them Jews). The Star Camp held several thousand Jews, mainly Dutch Jews, who were intended to be exchanged for German civilians interned in other countries. Star Camp inmates were made to work, many of them in the "shoe commando" which salvaged usable pieces of leather from shoes collected and brought to the camp from all over Germany and Occupied Europe. Families were permitted to meet during the day,<7> and in general the Star Camp prisoners were treated less harshly than some other classes of Bergen-Belsen prisoner until fairly late in the war, due to their perceived potential exchange value. From September 1943 Italian military internees were also held at Bergen-Belsen.<6> In March 1944, part of the camp was redesignated as an Erholungslager ("recovery camp"),<9> where prisoners too sick to work were brought from other camps. In August 1944, a shipment of approximately 8,000 female prisoners of various nationalities arrived from Auschwitz, most of whom were sent to Arbeitskommandos to work in factories, and from October 1944 captured Polish Home Army soldiers also began arriving at the camp.<6> In all there were eight separate sections to the camp with different groups, treated differently according to their status.<10>

December 1944 saw the completion of the change-over of Bergen-Belsen into a concentration camp
...... MORE ....


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bergen-Belsen_concentration_camp

[nadinbrzezinski]

205. It was established in the 1930s as a political reeducation camp

1934 iirc. Wiki is ignoring that. And why does it matter? The gradual closing of the society.

Oh and there Jews early on, as in labor leaders and communists.

[defendandprotect]

207. Good to get any info you have on it out --

Wiki does say 1939 -- construction workers --

I didn't read all of the Wiki link --

but if you've read my other post, what I was trying to make clear was that there

wasn't going to be a hell of a lot of resistance to mistreatment of Jews from Poland!

And that's why these first camps were built there --


This goes back to two thousands years of RCC history --

Jews held in Jewish Ghettoes for 1,100 years -- forced to wear YELLOW STARS --

isolated from society -- barred from education, careers, employment.


Even after the French and then the Italians closed down the Pope's Jewish Ghettoes --

the RCC embarked on another 100 years of vicious propaganda against the Jews.


We also know the role the RCC church played in the genocide vs the Native American --

and in the enslavement of Africans here --

See the Papal Bulls on that --

and they still haven't been withdrawn, afaik -- though UN has raised the subject from

time to time!



:hi: -- Terrific OP -- !!! Keep on tellin' it !!

[nadinbrzezinski]

211. Extermination camps yes, they were first built in Poland

And built is not the right term. The first massacres were as early as 1941 (Polish POWs) and that was dig trench, machine gun. Soon it was Jews and other undesirables. As in within weeks.

[Diclotican]

245. nadinbrzezinski

nadinbrzezinski

Not really, One of the first KZ camps, was set up in Orianburg outside Berlin, where in makeshift shelters, and building, barberd wirers and watch towers was erected, not long after Hitler was sworn in as Chanclor in Germany in 1933. Then the Reichtag fire made it posible to put as many as posible of "Political enemies" in this type of new prisoners.. And it was not SS who was in sharge of Oranienburg KZ, it was SA, who was not excactly less brutal and pruden to use excessive violence against "state enemies" either.. Rather they was worse than SS, who at least, (in regulary terms) should use profesional violence, but not as SA was used to do it.. In the first time, guards of SS, could even face trials, if they used excessive violence, and killed prisoners..

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

And it existed a lot of KZ camps, some short lived, some for more than 12 year, in the heart of Europe.. And Bergen-Belsen also was making it to one of the worst KZ camps that ever was, with ten of thousands deads every day, in the last couple of years.. Most of Bergen-Belsen was destroyed after the war - becouse of the area was absolutely contaimented with illness and was more or less hopeless to even try to repair or to conservere for the future.. But some few buildings are still standing, and the mass graves where so many totaly inocent sivilians was murdered is still there.. And wort a trip, to rembember what happened


Diclotican

[nadinbrzezinski]

263. Yeah but bg was not just permament

But as you said...infamous.

Thanks.

People really should know this shit.

[Diclotican]

281. nadinbrzezinski

nadinbrzezinski

Most pepole, at least who I know about, either dosen't care, or dosen't know about what happened 70 year ago. its "ancient history" for many, even tho it have recoiled true Europe for 3 generations. And still have the posibility to recoil for many years to come. Becouse everything connects to the past in some way or another..

And many of the stories who have coming out here on DU lately, looks like Germany in the between years of world war one and two. Even tho US are not in the shape germany was.. Some of the general ideas about poor, disabled, or people who are in some way or another not 100 percent able should drop dead, is somthing that really worry me.. Im disabled myself, and I would more than posible be one of them, who was rounded up, and put into a KZ camp to be gassed to death in the 1930s.. It both scare me, and worry me, that this type of idelogy is on the rise again.. I hoped that this type of idelogy was out the windows, when the truth about T4, and the other programs, the nazis used to get "rid of unwanted people" who "poluted" the raze..

The video, where many in the oudience was more or less telling that they wanted the fictional figure to die, instead of geting treatment, and live out his life in a natural fasion, is a shilling rembembring of Dr Gobbels speatches, where he one by one was demonizing everyone who was not 100 percent ableminded, and able to produce 100 percent all the time..

Its like looking back 70 year, and se many of the same puzzles, even tho it is posibility that it wil never go as far as in Germany, it can get really nasty in the US, if you are not "perfect"...

Diclotican

[nadinbrzezinski]

292. Yup

Before my dad passed he told me about the war...and how a few Murican pols reminding him of hitler.

What really freaked him...this image reached Mexico.



That's is when he finally admitted things were quickly going down the rabit hole.

[Diclotican]

308. nadinbrzezinski

nadinbrzezinski

So true.. Some of the americans, who is elected into office, state or national vice, could easy be the next Hitler. Your former President GWB, even hinted that it would be so mutch easier to govern US, if he had been a dictator.. And then sept 11 came, and in few weeks, you have The Patriot Act, who more or less destroyed 200 year worth of progress in less than 10.000 words.. And to be honest, I was really afraid of what could happend, before the elections in 2008, when many feared, problery with right, that CIA could make a false flag operation - and then US could end up in a dictatorship, with either Bush jr, or Cheney as the leader.. Maybe Bush jr as the puppet, but where the power was been controlled behind the throne..

Thankfully you was able to dogde the bullet for that one. Even tho the extreme right, have going over themselfs the last couple of years, to targed everyone who thing different than them - and their outright hatered for Obama is scaring enough for any decent men and woman I would say.. They hate with a passion, we have never seen before. And I would not doubt that some of them, are willing to try to murder Obama in one way or another before the first term is up..

Its similar to what happened in Germany between the wars, where the nazist, and conservatives alike, was using their tools, to destroy the whole democracy who was put into Germany after world war 1.. In Germany they managed to destroy it, even if it took many years, and in the end, the nazist, also destroyed the "old order" as they was willing to do a lot of harm, even to the groups who supported them before Hitler got into power. And by the way, it was just by a sheap shoot by the little "state" Mechlenburg, that Hitler was elected CHanslor in 1933. From 1914, to 1930, he was not even an german sitizen, or an autstrian as he had denounsed his sitisienship in Austria before the war, specially when he in 1912, offically should have going true the compulsive military service in the Austrian Empire.. He refused, and had to flee for Germany, where he first was arrested, but for some reason or another, was able to leave as a free man.. I doubt the austrian military was that seriousy interesting in a man like Hitler anyway.. And then he turing a 180, and going into the German Imperiam Army, where by all means did a fair job, in fact shown an lot of bravery, and was given the Iron cross, twice. Something that was VERRY seldom given to an enlisted man in that time and age.. What happend after world war one, and when Hitler got into Office in 1933, we know in some deatails or another so I don't need to tell it, It could be a long story then!

Auzhwitz and the KZ camps, never happened in vacum, and if the Nazis had tried to make the "endelousung" in the early 1933s, most of the germans would have repulsed the nazis as a regime who should be fighted on all cost.. Privatly many germans was disgusted with the new regime, it was secrets plot to kill Hitler, all the way up to the end in 1945.. Even from high ranking german officers - the last one known happend 20 of july 1944. But even Albert Speer, a confidant fo Hitler, was ploting against his master, in the end-game of the war. Something that shock a lot of the accused criminals in Nurnberg in 1945-46..
The Auzwitz, and the other KZ and Death camps, was a plan, made posible by doing it step vice. Demonize one group of pepole, then other group, and then another group who the public was told that should be eliminated to make room for better "lifestock" and "better bloodlines".. First they came for the inferm, the homosexuals, social democrats and its like. Then the took all the other on the large long list, over "lower humans" and marginalized them, and then was able to kill millions of them, how many who really died from the nazi-ideology are never known. But if you look about how many who never was able to came home, after the KZ camps was liberated, it would have been in the ten of millions.. I doubt even the Gulag Camps in the time of Stalin was able to murder so many on a scale that the germans did, and was able to do, just between 1939 and 1945.. And Stalin had 30 year to do his crimes.. Hitler, and his master minders was able to kill of so many pepole, that even the surviving records, show how difficult it was for them, to really document for the higher leaders, who good they where to do their job..

And the fact is, that even when they was able to burn a lot of the documents, full arcives of documents survived, and was taken by the allied forces, the russian arcives from that time, are finaly been opened for sientic resharch, and have given all of us a lot of new documents, not know before, or just by fragments.. When all the documents are translated either back to german, or english from russian, many sides of the world war history have to be re-written I geuss.. And not at least, how the germans planed and make it posible to murder so many totaly inocent sivilians, who had not doing they any harm at all..

I hope at least, we can learn something from it all. Even tho I fear we are on the brink on another time in history, where extremis is one the rise and where the "god guys" are not the most powerfull..

Diclotican

[Inuca]

72. This is offensive, sorry

I was disgusted by 95% of what I heard at the two recent debates (though I confess that I dozed off for a good part of yesterday's festivities), but this is wrong. And dyes, I know about the edath penalty applause last week and about the even worse reaction last night, the people that shouted yes are beyomd despicable, but you cannot take some isolated idiotic reactions and make this kind of genralization. It's just WRONG, as wrong as the name calling on the other side addressed to Obama and to lefties in general.

[pintobean]

74. Very well put.

:applause:

[nadinbrzezinski]

76. Yes I can. You think the SA was even a small minority in 1923

Those who forget history. What you are seeing is a change in the zeitgeist that makes this acceptable.

[Inuca]

80. I do not forget history

And incidentaly, not that it matters much, I am Jewish.

[nadinbrzezinski]

84. Incidentally, not that it matters much

I am Jewish and the daughter of a survivor.

Before dad passed he was one of the more than a few survivors who spoke of the parallels and how this was dang scary.

[SlimJimmy]

92. In that I case, I find it curious that you would *ever* mis-spell the name of the camp. (nt)

[nadinbrzezinski]

95. Another SPELL NANNY

If I wrote Oswieczym you'd had no clue by the way.

You are questioning that 50 of my kin died at Treblynka or came from Knyshyn a small shtetl near Byalistok?

Sick to say the least...very sick.

[SlimJimmy]

111. rzeczywiscie

I used the wrong form. My Polish is very rusty.

[truebrit71]

82. That is precisely the point...it didn't happen overnight...it was a gradual process...

...whereby what would be unthinkable if proposed as one massive change, became the natural progression of smaller, slightly less offensive changes over a period of time...it's the frog on a boiler-plate analogy...what happened in Germany didn't happen suddenly overnight, but over a period of many years...

Here we are now 10 years past the most recent electoral coup and things are being done today that would have been thought un-imaginable prior to that event...wire-tapping, warrantless searches, indefinite detentions, torture...

You can choose to ignore the warning signs, or you can heed them and be prepared, but rather like global warming, whether you personally accept it or not, it doesn't really matter, because it is already in motion...

[nadinbrzezinski]

85. Yup, I know.

[defendandprotect]

188. Same families who supported Hitler are active here today --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1930928&mesg_id=1935512



We should also recognize that the original NAZI party was pro-labor, women's rights, unions,

medial care -- until taken over by Hitler and turned upside down!


FURTHER, we should not the engineering of the 1930's Depression -- much like what was

engineered here in the financial coup over the last years! Certainly we have a depression

on our hands here!

RW violence of course is the only way the can rise -- stolen elections, needless to say!

RW propaganda which demonizes others and creates hatred and intolerance for some is very

strong today in our Goebbels' style corporate press.


Agree also re Global Warming which will create new opportunities -- as war does -- to

control the public.



:hi:

[Enthusiast]

225. PLUS ONE!.......nt

[SlimJimmy]

93. +1

[emilyg]

117. Thank you.

[Occulus]

144. Hmmm. No,

current Republican behavior and causes really is how the Nazis started.

Fail. Badly.

[Enthusiast]

226. It is precisely how it started.

Exactly.

The insane level of militarism in this nation should alarm anyone with half a brain.

Just consider the size and scope of the nation's military. In the face of huge debts we still seek to expand U.S. influence. Anyone suggesting we preserve the social safety net by cutting back on the size of the military's mission is quickly shouted down. No, we are "there".

[defendandprotect]

187. This is the result of decades of RW propaganda -- it's not at all isolated ....

look around the world --

Fascism is nothing new in the world -- it's been with us since the beginning of

humankind -- various forms of slavery being one example --

Feudalism -- I'd venture to say that the end result of capitalism is fascism --

And, we should also recognize that the 1930's depression was engineered -- just as

todays depression was engineered --

See: Catherine Austin Fitts on the financial coup --

among others


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1930928&mesg_id=1935512

[Enthusiast]

224. You say this when the Tea Party/Republicans are already

essentially characterizing the elderly, the disabled and the poor "useless eaters"?

[NYC_SKP]

77. I agree. Others might not.

Some might think that the comparison diminishes what happened in Europe.

I say that among the primary reasons we must NEVER forget is in order to prevent it from happening again.

If it turns out to be too much concern, then fine.

Too much concern is FAR better than there being too little concern.

I'm recommending this post.

:patriot:

[fascisthunter]

86. I love your running emoticon...

[fascisthunter]

81. Well Said Nadine... the Nazis are an ideology

as were the Fascists, not just a historical cult... it is still alive and well especially in the right wing.

[Brigid]

87. Some people think this is an exaggeration.

I am not one of them.

[white_wolf]

89. Damn it Nadin. Don't you know it's rude to call people Fascist?

You're not allowed to do that until they have us sent to the camps, because otherwise it's disrespectful. :sarcasm: At least that's the mindset of some here.

[malaise]

90. K & R

Agreed

[Drew Richards]

97. Evil in any form...the New American Republicanism

Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed about 11 million people, including about 6 million Jews,in concentration camps, ghettos, and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died of starvation and disease while working as slave laborers. Along with Jews, non-Jewish Poles (over 3 million of whom died), alleged communists, political opposition, members of resistance groups, resisting Roman Catholics and Protestants, homosexuals, Roma, the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet prisoners of war, Jehovah's Witnesses, anti-Nazi clergy, trade unionists, and psychiatric patients were killed. This industrial-scale genocide in Europe is referred to as the Holocaust.

In the United States they call it Republican Family Values.

[in_cog_ni_to]

99. Couldn't agree more, Nadin. K&R!

[CJvR]

103. Racial hygene...

...was hardly a German invention.

Racist ideas were to some extent to norm rather than the exception before WWII, the nazis just pushed it further and with the far nastier tools available to a totalitarian regime.

[nadinbrzezinski]

105. Discussed above

In the thread

But what happened last night and last week should scare your pants off

But for histrical precision...eugenics is a British invention.

[coalition_unwilling]

176. And, truth to tell, the Brits get the honor of first devising the

concentration camp, during the Boer Wars in South Africa. That was back when the sun never set on the British Empire :)

[nadinbrzezinski]

183. The earlier candidate was the reservation.

Lovely thoughts here.

:hi:

[0rganism]

108. Milton Mayer - "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45"

Mayer went back to Germany after the war to interview some of the people who lived through the rise and fall of the 3rd Reich. Their conception of what was happening to their society over the years contains some eerie parallels to our own situation.
(excerpts)
"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it."
...
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780226511924-1

[coalition_unwilling]

177. Mayer's work has to some extent been refuted by

Daniel Goldhagen's magisterial "Hitler's Willing Executioners" which pretty much demolishes once and for all the myth that the average German was not aware of what was happening while it was happening. Goldhagen's title pretty much says it all. I understand that Goldhagen's work has come in for some scrutiny but his main thrust, as I understand it, i.e., that the Germans knew full well what was going on and enthusiastically approved of it, stands as valid.

[nadinbrzezinski]

182. For those not in the know

Mayer deals with police units that were sent to the East.

As concise a summary as possible.

But obey partially. I could still see folks having a case of disonance and denial. Human psychology is weird that way.

But there was far more approval than they thought they were free.

Even at this hour we still see that denial...cognitive dissonance most likely.

[defendandprotect]

192. Think we have to understand the CONTROL over German population which grew and grew ...

until it became impossible to speak up or stand up against them --

This is why Americans have to wake up to the threat of a MIC and the "national

security state" --

They are built on the presumption that they are to be used against "them" --

but too often they end up being used against "us" --

Nazi Germany used violence and TORTURE to control their populuation --

to disagree with them was death --



I would have least of all ever thought of making an excuse for the German people --

of course they knew -- maybe not all of the specifics -- but they knew.

Just as many of us have known the horrors of Reaganism and what it did to the disabled

among us -- many suicides -- and what the horrors of Bush/Obama have done to many

among us impoverished elderly, etal suffering now. The 50 million without health care

suffering!

What have we been doing to STOP it?

Is a thousand years and more of the RCC preaching intolerance for homosexuals any less

fascist than any other oppression we can point to?

What of genocide vs the Native American -- encouraged by the Papal Bulls -- which also

encouraged the enslavement of Africans here?


Fascism is a very old concept -- and we are note immune in trying to ignore it!!

[coalition_unwilling]

298. It was not impossible to stand up to the Nazis, as evidenced in the examples

of the White Rose or of Klaus von Stauffenberg's plot to assassinate Hitler and stage a coup against the Nazi regime.

[Horse with no Name]

109. Mind numbing...is what it is.

The erosion of protections over the last few years has opened the gates for this to happen.

The dehumanization of certain subgroups.

We are being beaten down...not by clubs...but by unemployment, soaring prices, falling wages, lack of healthcare...

There is a reason this is being done. And those that refuse to acknowledge the reasons for this are the problem.

[Riley18]

118. The teabaggers are practically following the Nazi playbook.

The teabagger governors who marginalize and treat certain people as criminals (poor and/or immigrants) for instance, teachers, all unions just to name a few. Not to mention the way our rights have been steadily taken away.

I went to a teacher rally a few months ago with a sign that said "Hitler went after unions" and an older woman told me how she had escaped Hitler as a child. She said that is exactly what happened. It is chilling to think our country is now in such terrible danger. Those teabaggers need to be called out as fascists. Boehner is not even trying to pretend to do the right thing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

120. It is a FASCIST playbook

Not just nazi. And them birdies are comming home to roost.

[Riley18]

123. True, I saw that I wrote "practically" after I posted.

I always said we would be worse off once they stopped pretending. It looks like we are about there.

[Enthusiast]

228. Someone had something to say about that.

"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater."
— Frank Zappa

[coalition_unwilling]

186. I do sense though that the teabaggers are loud-mouthed cowards, by

contrast with the SturmAbteilung (the SA), who would actually get in running street fights with the German Communists and trade unionists.

If we still had an organized left in this country after 50 years of relentless attacks by liberals and the right -- JFK was buddies with Joseph McCarthy back in the 50s -- the teabaggers would not even be a footnote on the current scene. If the Longshoremen in Washington state can be brought out to battle the Teabaggers, they'll vanish in a puff of smoke like the cowards they are.

[nadinbrzezinski]

191. We might get to that point

And personally I don't want to test that theory.

[defendandprotect]

195. T-baggers are FUNDED by Koch Bros ... to create a more aggressive and violent political arena ...imo

Many of the same families who supported Hitler and the same corporations are still

in play now --

they have control over our coporate-media --

"Congress is controlled by the oil and coal industries" -- Al Gore/Rolling Stone

[Enthusiast]

227. Boehner and the rest don't recognize

the danger. They never hear a word outside a steady stream of right wing misinformation.

[steve2470]

122. People gloss over the fact that the NSDAP had its origins in 1918

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

The party grew out of smaller political groups with a nationalist orientation that formed in the last years of World War I. In the early months of 1918, a party called the Freier Ausschuss für einen deutschen Arbeiterfrieden ("Free Committee for a German Workers' Peace") was created in Bremen, Germany. On 7 March 1918, Anton Drexler, an avid German nationalist, formed a branch of this league in Munich called the Committee of Independent Workmen.<13>

*end of excerpt*



You can go even further back, to 1917, to Deutsche Vaterlandspartei (German Fatherland Party). Note that this party was pro-war. Sound familiar ?

1917 to 1933 is 16 years in a super-heated chaotic, politically violent, economically depressed Germany. If you turn down the "heat" somewhat, take away the mass political violence in the streets and improve economic conditions somewhat, it takes longer time to very gradually mutate.

I fear for my country.

[nadinbrzezinski]

124. Yup, or that hitler was sent as a spy

[DeSwiss]

127. K&R

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about and kept us so busy with continuous changes and "crises" and so fascinated by the machinations of the "national enemies," without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.

Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. Each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone, you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.

That's the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father could never have imagined."

~Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

- What is the point of history if we do not heed its lessons???

[donheld]

128. This is exactly why I fear for this country.

[Gregorian]

130. I always respect vigilance.

I am grateful that I've been able to benefit from this forum. Finding people with the same sense of vigilance has been more than appreciated.

I'm hoping we can find ways to stop the disease from progressing further than it already has.

[applegrove]

132. The German's first genocide was in Namibia in 1904-1907. They destroyed the Herero people.

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

[kestrel91316]

135. I am going to keep saying it until people get it through their thick, naive skulls:

They. Want. Us. All. Dead.

It has been obvious to me for years, and plenty right here on DU laugh and mock the idea of such a thing.

Go ahead. Laugh all the way to your early graves.

[999998th word]

141. *

[999998th word]

142. The new "F' word is ...

FASCISM. It is to the point now, they have even managed to demonize the use of the word. When you do your observation is

immediately dismissed, credibility lost. We are quietly robbed of the most appropriate terms to effectively describe what is happening in this country.

People NEED to know this stuff before it's really too late.

[Jim_Shorts]

136. Oligarchy, Plutocracy, Fascism, " Corporate State" Any of these work for me

I think we are moving very fast to a hybrid of fascist Germany. Our government isn't representing our people, but big money interests.

What woke me up was when our only paper wrote a story about a local company. The headline was something like "Area's Largest Employer has Outstanding Year", the article listed the reasons as higher than ever profits and dividends for shareholders. The paper quoted the CEO, saying that his ONLY concern is getting good returns for the shareholders. Almost as an after thought, given one paragraph in a long article, the writer said that eighteen hundred people had been laid of in the last year.

We are only one more Reichstag fire away from Hitler - who knows, maybe its Rick Perry.

[Deep13]

138. Well, once we get rid of the Mexicans, Muslims, gays, ...

... lazy goof-offs, mouthy intellectuals, dissidents, sick people and unions we will have time to deal with the fascists.

What?

[Mnemosyne]

139. Several years ago threads like this were being disappeared. I tried to post on war crimes,

and they kept being deleted.

I posted regarding the US ignoring Nuremberg Principles and the Geneva Conventions. I lost a job offer at a local newspaper after the editor said I could write whatever I wanted...

I am so glad there are you, and others here, speaking out now and not being deleted. You do good, Nadin. :hug:

[sce56]

140. Wehret den Anfängen! The OP reminded me of a post back in 2006! You might want to look at it.

A friend of mine, who is German, told me that saying once. It translates to “resist the beginnings.” Ever since Nazism and the holocaust, this is a very common saying in Germany, and is taught to everyone out there, and is treated as an extremely important matter. It’s about resisting and standing up against the rise of fascism, so that it never returns to them in their lifetimes again. A saying that we would better relate to in our language would most likely be “nip it in the bud.”

To see so many Americans just sit back and accept what is happening right now in our history, sickens me to no end. When a country passes a law as heinous as this, even when it is clear that it not only goes against the most basic of all basic human rights, it also goes against internationally binding treaties like the Geneva Convention, it can never end well for that country in the eyes of the rest of the world.

Basic human morality, and thousands of years of written history have tried to tell us two things; you should never make exceptions in which torture is allowed, and you should never exculpate your soldiers for "just following orders." It is the beginning of a very slippery slope for any society when the passage of laws that only apply to "good" citizens, and can be suspended for any others, start creeping in.

There was also another term, in the same vein, that my German friend told me as well; “Mitläufer.” It means “runners-with” and is a term that is commonly used to describe people that sort of just go with the flow. My point is, that the people that refuse to get outraged, and even SUPPORT this insane legislation, are not all freepers and neo-cons. Just like in the 30’s, there was a majority of people that didn’t have a burning fanaticism about fascism, or Hitler, or the Nazi party. Neither did they hate Jews or Gays. They merely got swept up in the current of the times and went with it. Much in the same way we hear friends and neighbors say things today, such as “why would I care about the Government tapping my phone? I have nothing to hide.” The new laws didn't apply to them back then, did they now? So why protest? Why be scared? Why worry about anything that does not affect me?

So here we are 5 years later and we still have not gotten the message out to the majority of honest citizens in this country to realize how fast we are sliding down that slippery slope!

The following movie is I hope the correct one that I saw a few years ago I have not had a time to watch it.


In Our Hands 1950 Open source movie from the 1950's describes how Americans could be fooled into voting for "the Master Plan" where full employment and security is promised by the government. However they realize big government is not the answer and it the death of Liberty. This movie parallels the present-day incremental retraction of our freedoms so the goverment can take care of us....

[nadinbrzezinski]

149. Funny, no, not funny...I just opened my journal from 2004

Things have only gotten much worst. Spent a while updating it.

Framing is now a no-no subject.

[sce56]

155. You lost me with the funny part?

[nadinbrzezinski]

156. Sorry for my lack of clarity

Not funny...

Things are that much worst.

Things I wrote then are not even actionable any more. We are deep down the rabit hole.

[sce56]

255. I'm still confused

Saying your journal, was your handle different before Obama? Since I was talking about another post and the German saying that they teach in schools to resist a second coming of the Third Reich.

[nadinbrzezinski]

267. No, my paper journal

As in pen and paper.

[defendandprotect]

198. Humanity has never figured out what to do about the few VIOLENT among us ...

Violence always wins -- so far!!

And we see this aggression and violence potential in the Koch Bros. funded T-baggers

who I think have been sent in to create a more aggressive and violent political arena!!

[TheMadMonk]

203. Not sure if it was what you wanted, but certainly worth a look.

Just remember the missing element. The unions.

[Claudia Jones]

153. the lesson from Europe

The lesson from 1930's Europe is that weak-kneed liberal political parties "working within the system" are no match for the right wing. The liberal parties were complicit in brutally suppressing the left and in lulling people into thinking that partisan political elections were the only form of political action necessary. That opened the door for fascism.

[defendandprotect]

199. +1 --

[Claudia Jones]

279. ironically...

Strangely enough on this thread the specter of the dreaded "fascism" and the speculation about "is it here?" is being placed into the service of herding people into partisan electoral politics - the very thing that enabled fascism. Besides, what is happening now is probably far worse than fascism.

[Safetykitten]

159. So we are in the Weimar/Obama period of the US? Interesting thought.

[nadinbrzezinski]

160. History has echoes

It will not happen precisely the same way.

But being aware...we MIGHT be able to stop it. Every day that passes less likely. But that death cult is fascism. It's one of the major wickets.

[Safetykitten]

163. I agree. But you have to say it the right way here, messy business this everyday life.

[Safetykitten]

170. So I have you correct, and being as sensible and tasteful as possible...of course...

There was a movement that started in Germany that politicians did not take seriously? And just another thoughtfull question, all in good taste of course, this movement was very bad, but the people that could of said something did not say anything?

[nadinbrzezinski]

172. Yup...and later on

After the killing and the dying, Eric Hoffer wrote a brilliant book on the nature of mass movements. It used to be college readying. While old, highly recommended.

[Safetykitten]

184. So in a very respectfull way, with taste as my goal, there were actually people...

in power at the time that thought this movement was not dangerous, and they had the power of being elected to a position where they could with their voices show people how dangerous they were? Why did they stay silent, when they had power to say something, did not?

Did they think that they could work with this bad group?

[nadinbrzezinski]

189. Yup. Hitler was appointed

To try to keep things from going down the rabit hole even further. The rise of adolph hitker was very legal and peaceful. Elections were involved Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich remains the best popular history. Again, highly recommended.

But the German establishment thought hitler could be controlled.

[Safetykitten]

194. Oh dear! Do you think that this tea party thing could of been handled better?

Do you think that these people would not be such a force if people in our party said things at the begining when they started with the HCR protests?

So you think this was a movement that could of been stopped or slowed if certain people took it seriously?

It would be dreadfull I must say if we looked back and saw that if our leaders said something we would be in a better situation?

Oh dear!

[nadinbrzezinski]

197. Yes, they should have been challenged

From the word go.

Like Germany we have a few reporters sounding the alarm...Rachel Maddow and olberman come to mind. But our media has mostly given them legitimacy.

Unlike the nazs, they are still an AstroTurf movement... But they are quickly morphing into a real mass movement. Crowds are smaller, bright side, but out of that core we may see a real movement.

Why they need to be confronted and not cuddled.

I highly recommend Shirer's book.

[Safetykitten]

200. This is most distressing. How could such a thing not be seen now?

Did the people in Germany, the bad group that came to power...did the government at the time not take them seriously and actually try to work with them? Did they think these bad people were rational? How did they think that these people wanted the best for the country?

Did the government underestimate how bad the economy was in Germany at the time, and how angry the people were? Angry to the point of believing the bad people? Then trusting them?

[nadinbrzezinski]

201. That is one of the arguments historians make about germany

That the economy led to the need for a strong leader to channel the populist anger. Realize nazi ideology is very much populist in the beginning.

It promised a better economy and bread in every household. And they very much so delivered, by 1936 Germany was out of the depression and the last election was in 1933.

How they delivered included things like preference in bread lines to party members, so joining was important, and laying blame for all the ills on the other. In that case immigrants and Jews.

Realize we could have gone that way ourselves. The nazi party was strong in the us of the 1930s, as well as the UK. Oh hell Charles Lindberg was enthralled with them and remained such until December 7th, 1941.

The depression was part of the witches brew

But that is why the echoes are so damn familiar.

[Safetykitten]

206. This is fascinating! To think that this all happened. Do our political leaders know this?

Do you think that they see how angry people are about the economy? I absolutely could not imagine the thought of our knowledgeable leaders underestimating the public's anger about the economy, AND working with the very people that want to destroy all the things we have worked for, the good things, in the country!

Gee willikers!

[nadinbrzezinski]

208. In theory they should

I mean this should be basic 20th century history. American Exceptionalism could be blinding them. And, they are not alone.

So many people think it could never happen here.

But obama had to take western civ in college. It should have been covered.

[Safetykitten]

212. Geez whiz! They teach this, and still think there is no way something like this could happen?

Not to be a downer, I am all about positives now, but I am thinking (silly me, like I can keep up with the our Democratic hipsters with all that knowledge), is anyone telling our President the danger of trying to work with people that seem to hate the country? I am so sorry to use that word, hate, but it seems they do, and our President works with them while they seem to try to destroy the country! Are his advisors college educated? I mean do Art History majors and such have to know this or take that class?

I hope they did and are telling him about it!

[nadinbrzezinski]

257. He has a degree in political science

Most people in dc went to college...many programs require a survey course in us and european history. His particular program, only the fancy pansy university was different...required it.

I took a major in history and a minor in poli sci.

Ok my major was specific but my state school, about the same time as Obama. Require those two surveys for political science majors.

But American Exceptionalism is a strong drug.

I highly recommend though you read the rise and fall though.

[hifiguy]

288. The "traditional conservatives" of Germany at the time

were the Junkers (hereditary landowners, largely Prussian) and the industrial barons (the Krupp family being the most prominent and known example) and they collectively agreed to have President von Hindenburg appoint Hitler Reich Chancellor (the equivalent of the British PM). They believed they could get from Hitler what they wanted (end to unions, keep the rabble in their place, get rid of the lefties, have an unregulated business environment) and, famously, "control" Hitler's excesses.

Within a handful of months of Hitler's appointment, von Hindenburg (who was a very old man) died, the Reichstag fire occurred, the causes of which were never discovered, and Hitler became supreme leader, or Fuhrer. The rest, as they say, is history.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

309. The True Believer, by Eric Hoffer.

[Fokker Trip]

274. There was a lot of protest to the rise of Nazism.

But it was still only a small percentage of the country's population. Germany had a very strong history of revering the military(kinda like the US now...) and that militarism had the effect of creating a population that did what it was told. It was also the case that a lot of folk wanted to see their country regain its world stature after the humiliation of the WWI armistice and subsequent hyper-inflation.

I think most folk just went about their days enjoying a strong hand on the rudder and never thinking that the very worst could happen there.

Once the SS wa well established, those who would have spoken out surely would have been terified to just be disappeared. Now who has been disappearing people to "black" sites recently? hmmm.

[hifiguy]

290. The military could have stood up to Hitler early on

but the tradition of the officer corps, going all the way back to Frederick the Great, was one of unquestioned obedience to the highest authority.

Germany, one must remember, was the last major European state to fully unify, in the 1860s-70s. The head of state was the Kaiser, Wilhelm I, and the head of government during the crucial period of unification was the mildly authoritarian but very far-sighted Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck built a modern administrative state (including universal health care!), died, and Wilhelm I was eventually succeeded by Wilhelm II, a petty, insecure little man and close relative of what is now the UK's House of Windsor. He was, IIRC, a nephew of Queen Victoria.

The military tradition of absolute obedience by the German General Staff to the Kaiser remained in place throughout WW I, at the end of which Wilhelm II abdicated. Most of the general officers on the General Staff of the Hitler era served in WW I and were products of the rigid Prussian system. It never occurred to them, for reasons of history and discipline, to stand up to Hitler early on.

[defendandprotect]

210. It's been building for more than 50 years here -- long period of RW political violence here ...!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1930928&mesg_id=1935638

[Rex]

193. The fact that they agreed a person should die for being poor

would make Jesus cry blood.

[girl_interrupted]

202. K&R

[defendandprotect]

209. We've had more than 50 years of RW political violence in America --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=4992347&mesg_id=4992497


And STOLEN ELECTIONS -- perhaps since the computers began coming in during the

late 1960's --

I'd question every election back to Nixon/Humphrey -- !!


That's something else we have in common with Nazi Germany --

political violence and stolen elections --

[chillspike]

213. They actually started with immigrants

But good point.

[harun]

214. There are red flags going up all over the place.

[Enthusiast]

216. The Republican meme that charities could

be relied on to fill in for the loss of the social safety net is akin to endorsing euthanasia -or worse. Actually euthanasia would be a kindness compared to slowly starving or dying from exposure to the winter elements.

And all because they don't want to honor the debt to the social security trust fund.

The German Jews of the early 1930s knew full well they were being persecuted. But as bad as it was they didn't expect to be rounded up one day and systematically exterminated.

The American people ignore these warning signs at their peril.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

230. Of course they are fascists ...

They masquerade as libertarians, but they're definitely fascists to the core.

[Prophet 451]

232. They started with healthcare, didn't they?

Yes, I'm kidding but also making a point. You have a terrifyingly large segment of your population which believes whatever the right tells them and the right have been fighting very hard to re-cast the Nazis as lefties and socialism as essentially the same as fascism. Before he was booted off Fox, Beck had been saying that for over a year and this segment of the population not only will not listen when you correct them, they will fight and resent you for trying. Last year, I had a friend of many years abuse and then "un-friend" me (on FaceBook admittedly but I'm largely housebound these days) simply because I would not accept her insistence that the Nazis were socialist. These people do not want to hear your facts, they have their facts from Fox and the others (the right having near-TOTAL media control now), their facts are "common knowledge" and it is you who are the idiot for arguing.

[nadinbrzezinski]

268. Alas that is another echo

The Germans took control of the media as well

Trivia, recasting the nazis as left wing started in the UK with a fringe political scientists...with an agenda.

[Prophet 451]

280. True but...

... We pretty much just laughed at him. That's possibly the main problem with the USA. You're such a populous country that, even if you have the same percentage of idiots as any other nation, there's enough of them to constitute a viable voting block.

[nadinbrzezinski]

282. Most of us laughed too

That's the problem...we need to pound on them,not laugh. Our problem is a powerful media that's created a different set of facts.

[no_hypocrisy]

234. Sorry, IMO it started HERE.

The Third Reich copied the programs around the United States which first sterilized those individuals deemed to be "feebleminded" by courts. It was later they decided to exterminate the same group of people.

Henry Ford endorsed eugenics as did a number of notable scientists. The programs to sterilize anyone who was mentally slow or deficient to just poor white trash continued until the Seventies in this country. The Lynchburg Training School in Jerry Falwell's city remained open for business into the Seventies; nobody talks about it anymore, that's all.

Read about the Supreme Court case that originated in Amherst, VA, 14 miles from Lynchburg: Buck v. Bell. The great jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes signed off on these programs, saying "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

The Third Reich was impressed with our program of dealing with "useless people", adopted our program, "refined" it, and look where it led.

Our country has recognized its past eugenics program in passing. You won't see it cited in history textbooks.

[nadinbrzezinski]

270. If you want to be technical on eugenics

It started in the UK in the 1880s. Alas this is not the point of the op. Miles and wide come to mind.

[no_hypocrisy]

278. Points taken.

[w0nderer]

235. k&r for reading later n/t

[Manifestor_of_Light]

246. My parents were young adults during the Depression.

I was watching a PBS show about Huey P. Long.
Old people were saying that Huey Long had to be stopped.

I asked the parental units, was this true?

They said yes. If Roosevelt had not been elected and enacted all the government programs to get the economy going, such as the WPA we would have had a revolution, and the dictator would have been Huey Long. He promised a chicken in every pot.

My dad's first wife was from Plaquemines Parish, and her brother had been a roommate of Dr. Carl Weiss, the alleged shooter of Huey Long. He had said there was no way in hell a mild-mannered Jewish doctor would have killed Huey Long. Supposedly his bodyguards had a lot of crossfire.

[nadinbrzezinski]

271. Yup, good ol' huey

And the nazis where a strong third party.

[white_wolf]

295. There were fears of revolution, but I don't think Huey played a part.

There was genuine fear of revolution from both the right and the left. You have to remember in these days, not only was the American Bund(Nazi front party) very strong, the socialist left was strong. The CPUSA and Eugene Debb's SPA were agitating the working class and Debbs gained 6% of the vote in 1912. The CPUSA was advocating for working class revolution and Roosevelt greatly feared this. On the other hand you had the Fascist and the infamous "Business Plot" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_plot)

Now as for Huey Long, there was no plans or danger of him becoming a dictator. His plan was to run against FDR as a third party candidate, dived the vote and ensure both lost and then next election he would run again as the leftist candidate and win.

[nadinbrzezinski]

302. Actually more than a few feared Huey.

And he was not missed by such establishment.

He was pushed by the rush of his era...coughlin.

[mckara]

248. By Definition: Fascism is Capitalism's Reaction to Socialism

Socialism and Democracy aspire to similar goals. Capitalism must be tempered with Socialism to make it compatible with Democracy.

[Smilo]

251. But... life is sacred

and then they come out with ....of course there are these exceptions________ fill in the blank.

I don't know who said "there is nothing to fear, but fear itself" and that is what these gits are so good at - making people afraid and blaming those who can not speak up for themselves.

How do we fight back?

[sce56]

254. FDR. President Rosevelt speaking about the depression 1930's

“Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”: FDR’s First Inaugural Address

Franklin D. Roosevelt had campaigned against Herbert Hoover in the 1932 presidential election by saying as little as possible about what he might do if elected. Through even the closest working relationships, none of the president-elect’s most intimate associates felt they knew him well, with the exception perhaps of his wife, Eleanor. The affable, witty Roosevelt used his great personal charm to keep most people at a distance. In campaign speeches, he favored a buoyant, optimistic, gently paternal tone spiced with humor. But his first inaugural address took on an unusually solemn, religious quality. And for good reason—by 1933 the depression had reached its depth. Roosevelt’s first inaugural address outlined in broad terms how he hoped to govern and reminded Americans that the nation’s “common difficulties” concerned “only material things.”

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

In such a spirit on my part and on yours we face our common difficulties. They concern, thank God, only material things. Values have shrunken to fantastic levels; taxes have risen; our ability to pay has fallen; government of all kinds is faced by serious curtailment of income; the means of exchange are frozen in the currents of trade; the withered leaves of industrial enterprise lie on every side; farmers find no markets for their produce; the savings of many years in thousands of families are gone.

More important, a host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

Yet our distress comes from no failure of substance. We are stricken by no plague of locusts. Compared with the perils which our forefathers conquered because they believed and were not afraid, we have still much to be thankful for. Nature still offers her bounty and human efforts have multiplied it. Plenty is at our doorstep, but a generous use of it languishes in the very sight of the supply. Primarily this is because the rulers of the exchange of mankind’s goods have failed, through their own stubbornness and their own incompetence, have admitted their failure, and abdicated. Practices of the unscrupulous money changers stand indicted in the court of public opinion, rejected by the hearts and minds of men.

True they have tried, but their efforts have been cast in the pattern of an outworn tradition. Faced by failure of credit they have proposed only the lending of more money. Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership, they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They know only the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish.

The money changers have fled from their high seats in the temple of our civilization. We may now restore that temple to the ancient truths. The measure of the restoration lies in the extent to which we apply social values more noble than mere monetary profit.

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

Recognition of the falsity of material wealth as the standard of success goes hand in hand with the abandonment of the false belief that public office and high political position are to be valued only by the standards of pride of place and personal profit; and there must be an end to a conduct in banking and in business which too often has given to a sacred trust the likeness of callous and selfish wrongdoing. Small wonder that confidence languishes, for it thrives only on honesty, on honor, on the sacredness of obligations, on faithful protection, on unselfish performance; without them it cannot live.

Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now.

Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the same time, through this employment, accomplishing greatly needed projects to stimulate and reorganize the use of our natural resources.

Hand in hand with this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by definite efforts to raise the values of agricultural products and with this the power to purchase the output of our cities. It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, State, and local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. It can be helped by the unifying of relief activities which today are often scattered, uneconomical, and unequal. It can be helped by national planning for and supervision of all forms of transportation and of communications and other utilities which have a definitely public character. There are many ways in which it can be helped, but it can never be helped merely by talking about it. We must act and act quickly.

Finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people’s money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency.

There are the lines of attack. I shall presently urge upon a new Congress in special session detailed measures for their fulfillment, and I shall seek the immediate assistance of the several States.

Through this program of action we address ourselves to putting our own national house in order and making income balance outgo. Our international trade relations, though vastly important, are in point of time and necessity secondary to the establishment of a sound national economy. I favor as a practical policy the putting of first things first. I shall spare no effort to restore world trade by international economic readjustment, but the emergency at home cannot wait on that accomplishment.

The basic thought that guides these specific means of national recovery is not narrowly nationalistic. It is the insistence, as a first consideration, upon the interdependence of the various elements in all parts of the United States—a recognition of the old and permanently important manifestation of the American spirit of the pioneer. It is the way to recovery. It is the immediate way. It is the strongest assurance that the recovery will endure.

In the field of world policy I would dedicate this Nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others—the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors.

If I read the temper of our people correctly, we now realize as we have never realized before our interdependence on each other; that we can not merely take but we must give as well; that if we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good. This I propose to offer, pledging that the larger purposes will bind upon us all as a sacred obligation with a unity of duty hitherto evoked only in time of armed strife.

With this pledge taken, I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people dedicated to a disciplined attack upon our common problems.

Action in this image and to this end is feasible under the form of government which we have inherited from our ancestors. Our Constitution is so simple and practical that it is possible always to meet extraordinary needs by changes in emphasis and arrangement without loss of essential form. That is why our constitutional system has proved itself the most superbly enduring political mechanism the modern world has produced. It has met every stress of vast expansion of territory, of foreign wars, of bitter internal strife, of world relations.

It is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us. But it may be that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.

I am prepared under my constitutional duty to recommend the measures that a stricken nation in the midst of a stricken world may require. These measures, or such other measures as the Congress may build out of its experience and wisdom, I shall seek, within my constitutional authority, to bring to speedy adoption.

But in the event that the Congress shall fail to take one of these two courses, and in the event that the national emergency is still critical, I shall not evade the clear course of duty that will then confront me. I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis—broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.

For the trust reposed in me I will return the courage and the devotion that befit the time. I can do no less.

We face the arduous days that lie before us in the warm courage of the national unity; with the clear consciousness of seeking old and precious moral values; with the clean satisfaction that comes from the stern performance of duty by old and young alike. We aim at the assurance of a rounded and permanent national life.

We do not distrust the future of essential democracy. The people of the United States have not failed. In their need they have registered a mandate that they want direct, vigorous action. They have asked for discipline and direction under leadership. They have made me the present instrument of their wishes. In the spirit of the gift I take it.

In this dedication of a Nation we humbly ask the blessing of God. May He protect each and every one of us. May He guide me in the days to come.

Source: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, as published in Samuel Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Volume Two: The Year of Crisis, 1933 (New York: Random House, 1938), 11–16.

[Smilo]

258. Thank you and what a wonderful speech...

And isn't it so apropos for today.

The old adage - those who do not learn from history, are doomed to repeat it... is true.

[nadinbrzezinski]

272. FDR the day he was sworn in.

[Vidar]

256. K&R.

[polly7]

273. 'Untermenschen', and no, I won't aplogize for the use of the word.

Is that what they really believe of the elderly, the sick without insurance, the disabled, the unemployed? I can actually see it coming some day, if they manage to do away with social programs protecting these people, picturing how they spell it on their rally signs will be interesting, presuming they ever admit to it publicly.

Thinking in more international terms, I believe that's exactly how they envision the people of Iraq, Afghanistan and anywhere else they're killing civilians intentionally or unintentionally ..... not the majority of armed service people themselves, but the ones who sent them to do the jobs. In my mind, if it's that easy to consider the brown people controlling the oil as sub-human, it's not a stretch to see how close many of those same people supporting these 'wars' are to identifying their own most vulnerable and needy in the same way when the real hurt economically starts hitting close to home.

[nadinbrzezinski]

275. No need to apologize

The health of the Volk is a strong aspect of fascism.

[Fokker Trip]

277. Operation Paperclip.

When the war ended, there was a race by the "winning" powers to gather up as many Nazi scientists and intelligence operators as possible.

The US part of this was called Operation Paperclip. It led to Werner von Braun and the Apollo program. But many more scientists and intelligence people were quietly integrated into the US government and corporate structure. They were really good at what they did and were seen as valuable assets.

This would only have encouraged the already present fascistic tendencies in the US and would have brought into the power structure the kind of thinking that led to the camps, industrial solutions to what were perceived as human problems (such as a massive prison industrial complex)

The Japanese scientists who worked in Unit 733 during the occupation of China were exonerated by the US in exchange for all of the research they had done on the Chinese prisoners(lots of vivisection, disease research, pressure research, etc.). Look it up some time, its truly horrifying and seems less well known about than what the Germans did.

The US power structure(in which the politicians play only a minor part) has never really cared who has suffered, as long as the information obtained is useful in some way.

By the way, great thread nadinbrzezinski.

[GSLevel9]

284. oh you meant to say the Nazi's and not the Germans...

Drawing the comparison is pretty much nuts...

[foo_bar]

299. ironically, crying wolf about fascism might have ushered in the real thing

The party's ideological animus against the Social Democrats doomed it to impotence. Its hostility to the Weimar Republic, based on its extremist condemnation of all its governments, even the 'Grand Coalition' led by Hermann Muller, as 'fascist', blinded it completely to the threat posed by Nazism to the Weimar political system.

http://books.google.com/books?id=CmjBW3lsA84C&pg=PT229&lpg=PT229#v=onepage&q&f=false

While we encourage robust discussion here, and allow principled criticism of the President, implying that the President is a fascist goes somewhat too far

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1931627#1932351

Lots of echoes. Seriously, comparing twobaggers to early NSDAP (aka "the Germans") is a bit more plausible than Glenn Beck's similar attempts at a low-hanging historical analogy, although one thing to note about Hitler is he apparently believed in evolution (and paid lip service to http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichsnaturschutzgesetz&ei=Yx1xTqe0OYiltwfty73_CQ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ7gEwAA&prev=/search%3Fq%3DReichsnaturschutzgesetz%26hl%3Den%26prmd%3Dimvns">environmentalism, animal welfare, and "full employment" (often by killing or dispossessing the freshly unemployed), although he shared the GOP's zeal for privatization and union busting.) Yes, "it" can happen here, whether "it" happens to be the Spanish Inquisition or the Spanish Civil War or Ann Coulter in http://markdery.com/%3Fp%3D43&docid=iEKk688Z-NcaZM&w=640&h=624&ei=UCFxTtjKDMm_tgfkupyFCg&zoom=1">jackboots, but unless you're preaching to the faithful, calling someone or something "fascist" and leaving the rest to the imagination isn't much more persuasive than an Obama=Hitler chain letter.

[nadinbrzezinski]

301. Your second quote

Which the op was not doing, is why any serious discussion on my part will now happen off site.

As to the closing of society as a serious study. You've got to be shitting me. I guess we should cancel the study of history and replace it with ponies and rainbows.

[Taverner]

304. Yep. It scares me.

Really fucking scares me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

305. Me too

I found my paper journal from 2004...things have gotten worst.

[Taverner]

306. Your typo is not a typo

Things have gotten worst