With all that's been going on since the "Selection," I can't help but think that we Democrats in the US are being targeted the way "subversive " or non-German ethnics were in the early days of Hitler's rise in Germany.
The latest "incident" is the incidious press stories warning the "Anti-Iraq Invasion" protestors that they are being corrupted with people who support terrorism all over the world. There have been at least three major stories about this in the media in the last couple of weeks, which says it's the Repugs latest attack against anyone who thought going into Iraq with the new foreign policy initiative of "Pre-emptive Strike" is a Saddam/Osama supporter.
I did some "Googling" just to refresh my mind about how the Jews and others could have been so naive as to think that Hitler wasn't dedicated to extermination of anyone who wasn't in support of him and his policies, because I wondered who were the ones who caught on and left Germany before the "Holocaust" begun and who were those who stayed thinking it would change or get better, or wasn't really happening and wouldn't affect them in the end.
I have some links of just short book reviews. But, I think the Repugs plan is to make Democrats villified and hopefully exterminated just as the Nazi's did in Germany.
I think this is what their next step is. When we are called "DemoRATS," what's after that? Look at what the House Repugs did to the "DemoRATS" in the Medicare Vote this week. Look at all the other stuff that's gone on since the "Selection." Why Not? Why wouldn't this be the next step for the "PNAC" crowd?
Here are some snips:
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Synopsis: Between Dignity and Despair: Jewish Life in Nazi Germany
by Marion Kaplan
As the old saying goes, hindsight is always 20-20; people looking back on the Holocaust and the events leading up to it often wonder why the Jews didn't flee Nazi Germany or why they put up with the prejudice and degradation inflicted upon them by the Nazis. From our perspective, 50 years later, it seems almost incredible that the victims of genocide didn't see it coming and made little effort to escape. But as Marion Kaplan makes clear in her powerful book, Between Dignity and Despair, the choices were much murkier at the time. The Jews didn't leave because Germany was their home and had been for centuries; like everyone else, they had responsibilities and commitments to family, jobs and communities that kept them there. Nor, in the early days of Hitler's regime, could the Jews of Nazi Germany have foreseen the terrible humiliations they would suffer or imagined the horror of the Final Solution.
Kaplan's sensitive narrative, supported by a host of letters, memoirs, and interviews, aims to give a balanced account of German Jewry under the Nazi regime. She convincingly shows how it was German society (indoctrinated by Nazi propaganda) that dealt the first crippling moral blow to the Jewish psyche, before any laws dictated their actions. The Jews succumbed to daily humiliations, ranging from little boys being maliciously teased for being circumcised to older Jews being treated like social pariah's by one-time friends who fell easily into the mindset of racial enmity. Hatred breeds hatred; slowly the German populace strangled the pride of the Jews, creating resentment, distrust and disharmony. Kaplan conveys a poignant, yet subtle message: the fundamental de-facto abandonment of decency and moral civility by the gentile Germans was the catalyst which allowed Nazi leadership to proceed with more aggressive policies that ultimately led to the Holocaust.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0195130928-0---------------------------------------------------------------------
Backing Hitler: Consent and Coercion in Nazi Germany
by Robert Gellately
Debate still rages over how much ordinary Germans knew about the concentration camps and the Gestapo's activities during Hitler's reign. Now, in this well-documented and provocative volume, historian Robert Gellately argues that the majority of German citizens had quite a clear picture of the extent of Nazi atrocities, and continued to support the Reich to the bitter end. Culling chilling evidence from primary news sources and citing dozens of case studies, Gellately shows how media reports and press stories were an essential dimension of Hitler's popular dictatorship. Indeed, a vast array of material on the concentration camps, the violent campaigns against social outsiders, and the Nazis' radical approaches to "law and order" was published in the media of the day, and was widely read by a highly literate population of Germans. Hitler, Gellately reveals, did not try to hide the existence of the Gestapo or of concentration camps. Nor did the Nazis try to cow the people into submission. Instead they set out to win converts by building on popular images, cherished ideals, and long-held phobias. And their efforts succeeded, Gellately concludes, for the Gestapo's monstrous success was due, in large part, to ordinary German citizens who singled out suspected "enemies" in their midst, reporting their suspicions and allegations freely and in a spirit of cooperation and patriotism. Extensively documented, highly readable and illustrated with never-before-published photographs, BACKING HITLER convincingly debunks the myth that Nazi atrocities were carried out in secret. From the rise of the Third Reich well into the final, desperate months of the war, the destruction of innocent lives was inextricably linked to the will of the German people*
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0198205600-11-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Defying Hitler: A Memoir
by Sebastian Haffner
Synopses & Reviews
Publisher Comments:
A unique and compelling eyewitness account of Germany between the wars. A huge bestseller in Germany, Defying Hitler is a memoir about the rise of Nazism in Germany and the lives of ordinary German citizens between the wars. This fresh and astute account offers a unique perspective on this era of twentieth-century history. Covering the years from 1907 to 1933, Haffner's personal memories form the basis for questioning, analyzing, and interpreting much of Germany's history. His eyewitness account of groups such as the First Free Corps -- the right-wing voluntary military force set up to suppress communism during the revolution of 1918 -- which would provide training for many of the later Nazi storm troopers; the Hitler Youth movement, which swept the nation; the apocalyptic year of 1923 when inflation crippled the country; the peaceful Stresemann years; and Hitler's coming to power all contribute to the portrait of a country in a constant state of flux. Sebastian Haffner elucidates how the educated average German grappled with a rapidly changing society, while chronicling day-to-day changes in attitudes, beliefs, politics, and prejudices. Available for the first time in English, this highly illuminating work is a unique portrait of a time, a place, and a people.
http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=1-0374161577-3
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