This is why using the word 'Nazi' will lose an argument...

[cynatnite]

This is only one of the images people see when the think of Nazism. This is why any attempt to compare the bush administration to Nazism will have many rolling their eyes at you. This is why the argument is lost.

You can raise as many similarities as you like, but the fact is this image is one of many that are ingrained in people's minds and IMO, making these comparisons denigrates the millions that died. It minimizes the horror and the tragedy, IMO.

ON EDIT: This is not a denial of what the US has done in Bush's war. That is not the point of this post. The point of this post is to show why I believe using the word 'Nazi' to describe or compare the bush administration will have people rolling their eyes at you or walking away when you want to highlight why they are so horrible.

[mmonk]

1. One can still allude to similarities in a rise to power or a foreign policy

without it being an allusion to the Holocaust.

[cynatnite]

4. Yes, but those images will remain...

Calling someone a Nazi doesn't change what the Nazis are forever assocaited with. You can't wipe out the horror in someone's mind of 6 million lives lost when you're attempting to highlight the similarities.

They will say 'oh, but Hilter killed millions' and bush hasn't. You can't say 'bush might' and still have them taking your argument seriously, IMO.

[seemslikeadream]

8. Let's give bush as much time as Hitler had

although U S companies have kept up with Hitler pretty well

[cynatnite]

17. So you support calling bush a Nazi based on what he might do?

That's one reason why this argument will not be taken seriously.

[seemslikeadream]

23. No what he has done, what his father has done what his grandfather has done

and what their friends have done.

I'm saying he just might exceed Hitler all on his own with no help from his relatives and friends

[cynatnite]

29. His father wasn't a Nazi and didn't murder six million people...

His grandfather profited off the Third Reich. But that's no reason to believe that bush jr. will.

My grandfather was a nazi. He murdered men, women and children. Will I do that?

[gordianot]

216. Grandfather and maybe also Father had connections according to Otto Skorenzy.

As far as Otto he maintained some very interesting claims about the Bush family. See link: http://www.proliberty.com/observer/20070405.htm

Who really knows the truth concerning a family with a century of covert activities?

[Heidi]

44. How's that "Nazi" rather than mafia?

Do you honestly believe there are any ideals, however evil or misguided, behind the Bush administration? Do you honestly believe they give half a crap about their extremist Christian base? I would submit that they care a helluva a lot more about one another and lining their pockets than about anything else. The _very_ reason they loathe us (the left/progressives) is because we threaten their power base/pocketbooks. They don't give a rat's ass about what we "believe," who we worship or who we sleep with. They're not the moral and patriotic giants that they'd have their base believe and, in fact, I don't believe most Republicans would _really_ want to get into an "us vs. them" morality or ethics pissin' match with us, as their own hypocrisy would be their defeat. These Nazi anaologies give them more power than they've earned, and I for one refuse to feed the fear machine. :rantoff:

Respectfully submitted,

Heidi,
who refuses to help the Bush administration profit through fear

[mmonk]

16. I'm never too cautious to compromise something that rings true.

Special emergency dictatorial powers.
Forgeries as a causus belli for war.
Shock and awe.
Hidden prisons.
Detention without due process or charge.
Censorship.
Pre-emptive or pre-ventive war.

[Joe Chi Minh]

177. Torture.

[dollie300]

169. Some images that are not shown from Iraq and Dafur are like these.

You will never see them because no one is supposed to believe that this kind of evil still exists.

[treestar]

247. Bingo. The American people need to face up to it, too.

But the media is not going to go all out to make sure we see what is happening, just as the Germans often say they had no idea what was going on.

[tblue37]

185. Ten million were murdered in the camps. Six million were Jews.

The Jews suffered disproportionately--and specifically because they were Jews--but the total death camp body count is 10,000,000.

[seemslikeadream]

241. bush and his buddies HAVE killed millions

[bvar22]

253. Yes, Bush* is just a wannabe Hitler.

Bush* could NEVER compete with the REAL Hitler.

*The REAL Hitler could read & write...even wrote a book that is still in publication Worldwide.
George Bush's greatest literary endeavor was the reading of My Pet Goat while the USA was under attack.


*The REAL Hitler murdered MILLIONS. Add 20+ Million Eastern Europeans and Russians to the 6 Million Jews murdered in the camps.
Bush has managed to murder a humble. 600,000 or so Iraqis.
Still, those numbers are beginning to add up especially if Bush1 (300,000+) and Clinton (500,000+) Death Totals of Iraqis are added on.

The USA is responsible for the deaths of 1-1/2Million - 2 Million Iraqis. While not in Stalin's or Hitler's league, these figures are approaching the 2nd Tier Greatest Mass Murders in History....the Pol Pot/Genghis Kahn neighborhood.

[pepperbear]

160. You can't allude to anything if your audience doesn't know what "allude" means. n/t

[mmonk]

197. Nobody should be cowered into not mentioning the similarities

because the Holocaust was history's more or most barbaric moments. Anything that is true is worth speaking.

[seemslikeadream]

2. Do you really want to go there?

[Hubert Flottz]

3. If you think that's bad look what the bushies have been doing...

http://www.aztlan.net/du_deformed_iraqi_babies.htm

Edit...Right to LIFE?

[cynatnite]

6. No one is denying our responsibility here...

that's not the point I'm trying to make.

[Hubert Flottz]

12. More and more people are seeing through your argument every day.

Thank Heaven.

Edit...The fact is, lately I've had far more people in face to face conversations, agree with me about how much the neocons are like Nazis, than I've had disagree with me. How do you square that? Five years ago, you may have been correct in your assumption, but today the public has far more evidence to the contrary, to base their opinions on.

[Hubert Flottz]

63. Another thing...

"our responsibility"

Not my responsibility, I have been against everything the GOP has done...right down the line! I never voted for any of the murdering lying bastards...if you did, I can see where you would think it was YOUR responsibility...

I feel zero responsibility for anything Bush has done!

[Pachamama]

307. What is your point then?

You state that your Grandfather was a Nazi....did you ever talk to him about what made him join the Nazi party? What were his feelings then? What were they later after WWII? What did he think of what Hitler and the Nazi's did?

You say its wrong to make the comparison of Bush and his cronies and what they are doing to the Nazi's. I have to strongly disagree with you. My grandparents, unlike your Grandfather were not Nazi's. They resisted them and eventually to save their lives escaped Nazi Germany. They were academics in the law and medicine and while they were Catholic living in Bavaria, they saw the rise of the Nazi's, saw what they were doing and the dangers and then when they saw what was being done to the Jews following Kristallnacht, decided it was time to leave Germany. They up and left with the clothes on their back and because they had money outside of the country, were able to get out, pay off who they needed for safe passage and to start anew. They eventually came to the US with my Grandfather helping the War effort against Germany. My grandparents are dead, but I spent a lot of time talking to them about how they left, why they left and how it all came to be. I grew up in my childhood in Germany till I was a teenager and then later on as an adult moved back for several years working for a US company in Munich. As a child, I lived about 15 miles south of Dachau a concentration camp and when I worked in Germany as an adult in the Munich offices of my US based company, I would pass the town of Dachau daily on my way to work. I asked the hard questions about "how did it happen". The one consistent answer I got from my grandparents was that over the course of a decade period, the Nazi's slowly (or quickly, depending on your interpretation) gained power and influence. Slowly they chiseled away the laws and rights that the German citizens took for granted. They controlled with fear and economically, because most of Germany was hurting and Germans were just trying to make ends meet day to day, they didn't have the time to be paying attention to the what the Nazi's were doing behind the scenes. It is that way that they rose to power and by the time most German's were awake to what was going on, it was too late. My grandparents always warned me that we must NEVER FORGET or it will HAPPEN AGAIN. That doesn't just mean remembering the horror of the image that you posted above of the Holocaust, but of HOW THE NAZIS ROSE TO POWER IN THE FIRST PLACE. My grandparents, like many on the DU read alot, were academics and they immediately saw the threats early on. Many of their family members and friends thought they were crazy as they would warn about the dangers. (Just as I am sure so many of us have experienced over the years, especially early on when we have talked of the dangers of the Bush Administration or spoke out against the War and Invasion of Iraq). My grandparents said that if people don't pay attention early and speak out, then its too late. That is precisely why people like myself speak out on a daily basis in our lifes and why I will not ever hesitate to make the Nazi comparison because the comparison is not of "the Holocaust itself" it is of the manner in which the Nazi's (and Bush Administration) came to power and rose in power, what they are doing with the powers and the imminent threat that they posed and then committed (or could commit).

I think that Hitler and the Nazi's did unthinkable and horrific crimes, of which there has been since never as horrific crimes in that magnitude. But why do people think that it could never happen again or be done as horrific (or worse)? That I think is the biggest mistake right there. It can happen again and the only way to ever prevent something like that is to remember how it happened before and to take action. Can you imagine if Hitler and the Nazi's as they decided to invade the various neighboring countries and as they used the technology and tools available to them had the technologies and tools available to Bush? (ie. surveillance technology, database technology, arms technology etc)

That is what actually opens the potential to an administration like the Bush Administration that claims "unitary executive powers" and allows for torture, rendition flights, enemy combatants who can be "disappeared", ending of habeas corpus, ending of posse comitatus, warrantless wiretapping, domestic spying and data mining etc. etc. - to be possibly more dangerous than the Nazi's ever were. Doesn't mean he will be, but the point is to be AVOIDING that possibility, and that can only come in making people aware of the dangers and stopping them from growing.

Hitler was once a little boy and then he grew up. The Nazis and the Brownshirts etc. were at one time just groups of thugs, gangs meeting locally in the local Biergarten or Bierstube. My grandmother used to laugh them off as nothing more than a bunch of crazy losers and she and others referred to Hitler as "der Verueckte (the crazy one)" not too unlike how many Bavarians (still to this day) would refer to "Crazy King Ludwig of Bavaria". But the reality is that little Adolph grew up and so did those thugs that were meeting in the Bierhalls and they started getting more and more people believing their propaganda and having others who might not have "joined them" atleast not stop them or interfere with them and ultimately to fear them. Thank the Universe and whatever divine entity that Hitler never did have the technology that exists now. But that brings me to Bush and his "rule". Here is a man who has that power and that technology. You and I and every person better pray this man is stable, that he isn't crazy and that he won't ever use that power and technology for harm. And meanwhile, it is every and each and every one of us responsibility that we point out where the dangers are and hope to avoid something bad from every happening again. That is why the Nazi argument is not a losing argument. It's why I will never stop speaking out and will never refrain from using the comparison.

It's in my DNA.

[seemslikeadream]

5. Just give me a few minutes and I will give you some examples of U S atrocities

I will be back

[cynatnite]

7. I'm not denying the atrocities of our own making....

that's not the point of my OP.

[seemslikeadream]

9. Then explain your point please?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1452986&mesg_id=1453171

[cynatnite]

13. I did...it's in my OP n/t

[seemslikeadream]

19. Well I not understanding then

The U S government and it's complicity with U S companies have kept up with Hitler quite well even surpasing him, and then there also the complicity of U S companies WITH Hitler

[cynatnite]

26. I'm not denying any of that...

I'll say again...

Most people see images of the Holocaust when the word Nazi is used no matter who uses it. Most won't believe that bush is anywhere in the same catagory as Hilter because of those images in their minds.

[seemslikeadream]

28. Then WE must show them the truth and keep comparing him to Hitler because it is true

[cynatnite]

33. It is not true and you will not be taken seriously by most people...

we're better off, IMO, concentrating on the crimes that bush is committing now, rather than using these horrible images in an attempt to show how bad bush is.

[datasuspect]

35. who are these "Most People?"

[cynatnite]

39. General public, population at large and so on...

I have plenty of friends who hate bush for the same reasons I do, but they and I both know he is no Nazi. That belongs squarely on the shoulders of the Nazis and those that consider themselves Hitler followers.

[datasuspect]

52. i think it is a message that needs to be manipulated and managed

to the point of marketing.

the more people think of hitler and nazis when they think of bush (and the republican party), the better off this country will be.

[cynatnite]

Considering that the majority are against them already...

I don't think it needs done.

Like I said in my OP, the argument is lost because of that imagery.

[datasuspect]

58. why?

why give these fascists any breathing room?

[puebloknot]

199. The argument is lost on *you*! You are taking it upon yourself...

... to project your views on the public at large.

Frankly, we all need to risk having someone roll their eyes at us while we make the very cogent point that we are in Condition Orange, or Red, or whatever the fuck the Homeland (that's a Nazi term) Security folks like to call it, in terms of the devolution of our democracy. The parallels between the fall of Germany to Nazism and our current crisis are too flagrant to ignore.


Many historians are now comparing America to the Roman Empire. Think we should worry that someone will roll their eyes if we say that we are behaving like a tyrannial empire, just like Rome did?

Yours is a "sticks and stones" argument.

[populistdriven]

209. I hope Swamp Rat is right and "the" photo has yet to be released that shows Bush's atrocities

check out this

Images that changed the world...

Ok, so unfortunately, there hasn't been enough change - but still...

http://pinguy.infogami.com/blog/vwm6

The vulture stalking the child in Sudan... :(

[cynatnite]

56. n/t

[Cleita]

143. We have a winner!

My point exactly.

[Annces]

45. Ditto

The OP speaks for themselves. I myself already can see more of a similarity of Bush and Hitler because of the recent posts.

[seemslikeadream]

129. Yes it is true

[robinlynne]

168. We will have the same sort of images to show after the war is over. While Hitler was

rising, noone believed he would do what he did either. The parallel is spot on.

[EST]

271. What I see when the subject is not quite as you propose.

I see sieg heil salutes and goose-stepping, uniformed hordes. I see mealy-mouthed speeches that could in no way influence anybody, yet they helped induce millions into an absolute paroxysm of patriotic fervor and helped convince them of their own essential "rightness" that they sent their consciences on permanent vacation and condoned the killing of innocents, babies, mothers, children, students, showing all and sundry that it doesn't pay to piss around with the big boys.

I see lying to the people about all you're doing for them while robbing them blind, seizing assets, condoning a culture of murderous corruption that is perfectly ok if you're among the "inner circle" of rich, powerful, and connected. I see a system where the word of der fuhrer outweighs that of the courts or the legislative body.

Am I talking about the "National Socialists" of mid twentieth century or the calculated creeping fascism of the early republican twenty first? Looks pretty similar to me.

[AntiFascist]

304. Consider Evangelicals...

they are not spouting hatred of Jews, but they do believe that they need to come to accept Christ even if it may require a "baptism by fire." Suppose that Israel gets bombed back to Kingdom Come because they were motivated by an Evangelical president to pick a fight with Iran? I suppose that death by bombing may be a bit more antiseptic and acceptable than seeing a pile of dead bodies.

[Cleita]

10. So we haven't seen the images, other than Abu Ghraib,

from our worldwide detainment and POW camps yet.Rumor has it that they are just as horrible. Is it because the victims are non-white and non-Jewish that they don't count as being victims of Nazi-like horror?

I think people should bring that image up in their minds everytime someone compares our present illigitimate administration to Nazis. It should horrify them. I for one will not water down the truth of the situation and I will use the appropriate words in those contexts. To not do so gives them legitimacy and that I refuse to do.

[cynatnite]

14. No, each tragedy stands on their own and belong to those respective leaders n/t

[Cleita]

24. Yes, but we need a word to describe those behind the atrocities

and Nazi fits nicely. Even the most apolitically minded and ignorant among us knows what a Nazi is. Fifties years from now, similar government groups will probably be known as Bushites and that term will be applied to them, however, the term isn't salient yet as it is part of our presently developing history. Stop playing nanny to the fiends.

[cynatnite]

36. Murderers is usually a pretty apt description n/t

[Cleita]

43. No, murders are what you see on TV cop shows and the

local evening news. What you are seeing going on here is the murder of a nation and it's constitution by the very same almost identical methods used by the Nazis to end the Weimar Republic. To not point that out with the appropriate word is criminal.

[cynatnite]

53. So am I going to jail for not using it?

:shrug:

Weird.

[Cleita]

69. Ha! Ha! Funneeeee!

You go to jail for breaking the law. It doesn't mean that many criminal actions aren't on the books. For instance it's quite legal to refuse a woman birth control in some states these days, a criminal act IMHO, but you won't go to jail for it.

[zonmoy]

59. fascist murderers is much better.

[Cleita]

79. Really, that has such a punch to it, *yawn*.

btw Nazis are fascist murderers. Fascists are business types who like totalitarianism because they can make more money keeping the masses afraid and working for peanuts. When you ratchet it up to racism, torture and murder then you are a Nazi.

[Swamp Rat]

112. exacto!

Pinochet era un Nazi también.

:hi: ¿Qué tal?

[Cleita]

122. Si, por este razon yo disputa tanto este topico.

:hi:

[Swamp Rat]

127. Yo también.

Mira abajo. :D

[Joe Chi Minh]

183. WRONG. The details are incidental. The degree, scale and sheer blindness of the malice

perpetrated is ALL.

It's what distinguished Nazism from Stalinism. Stalin operated within a framework - however misconceived and however much he distorted it through his own vicious, paranoid psychopatholgy. Even the viciousness of the British Empire was tempered by some deference to Christian values in its subsequent administration of its plundered territories.

Fascists are always malign, narcissistic half-wits, "legends in their own lunch-time". Period. Until the boom is lowered on them as it always is.

[Az]

11. The problem of the word Nazi is it is divorced from its actual meaning

A person does not mean to call someone a member of the National Socialists party. What they mean to convey is that they wish to share all the rage and disgust we culturally have for the Nazi's with the particular system they are criticizing. It is a pure emotional attack. It is an ad hominem attack.

[Cleita]

15. So I guess we could call them Romans, same animal, different

era, but would people get it? And since when is speaking the truth about a government group that didn't gain power legitimately an ad hominem attack?

[Az]

You would be better served by describing them accurately and explaining the problems they present

Calling them Nazis ends all discussion. Those who are sympathetic to your target will ignore you and those who are sympathetic to you will simply agree and share your hatred. In the end it only serves to pad your position within your own community. Which is what an ad hom attack is designed to do. It does not speak to the issue but instead insults the individual attempting to show fault with the issue by associations with a negative trait assigned to the one delivering it.

[Cleita]

113. We don't have an accurate description yet. Anything else isn't

accurate either like calling them oh let's say mafioso, fascists, neo-cons and all the other adjectives and nouns used to describe them. Nazi fits the best. I'm sorry but until history comes up with an adequate, accurate and factual description, we are stuck with that one that fits the best. I would have even opted for Stalinist at one time, but our Bushites are closer to the Nazis than the Soviet Union because they are trying to privatize government to be run by businesses. The Stalinists did the opposite and tried to nationalize everything. So it's not a good fit.

[Joe Chi Minh]

196. We're not talking about a subtle discussion here, but actions of a type of

mis-Government that go beyond the furthest reaches of outrage. What is so difficult to understand about that?

[Joe Chi Minh]

192. And invariably, how well-merited such ad hominem attacks!

[Mrs. Overall]

18. I think there is a difference between the result of Nazism (mass extermination of people)

vs. an exploration of how Nazism (or any radical political ideology) can take hold in a seemingly logical, reasonable nation.

Personally, I am interested in how propaganda and fear can be used to market such absolutely divisive, hateful, and profit/power driven ideas by media and government to the public.

I think it is not denigrating to look at the roots of such horrific movements and to speculate whether or not our country is witnessing the beginning of something ominous. It is perhaps more accurate to compare our current warning signs with Fascism rather than Nazism, since Fascism is concerned with corporate control.

[cynatnite]

42. There is a difference...but most people can't get beyond those images...

when the term 'Nazi' is used, IMO.

[me b zola]

47. Exactly n/t

[Heidi]

20. I agree. The "Nazi anaology" is an uninformed appeal to emotion without much evidence to back it up.

In my opinion, the Bush administration is much more akin to mafia as it has been experienced here in Europe (the part where I live, anyway): subtle fear-mongering, one-hand-greases-the-other, protection rackets, doing business together at the exclusion (and peril) of "outsiders," and power-building through incestuous means.

[Cleita]

37. Excuse me but there is a lot of evidence to back up the Bush

years as being Nazi-like. Read up on the invasion of Poland and compare it to the invasion of Iraq. If it doesn't send deja vu chills up and down your spine then you didn't read enough. Also, the German Nazis have been described by those who lived through that era and in Germany as criminals and thugs who gained power. So yes it's a criminal element that has gone political.

When you call a Bushite a Nazi people recognize what you are saying. It's a shortcut way of pointing something out not emotion. Do not apologize for these people because the more we who see what is going on can explain this to those who don't, the sooner we will be rid of this element or would you rather a mushroom cloud to end it all? Because that is the direction we are heading in, not to mention the inflation and depression that will precede it.

[cynatnite]

49. There may be a lot of evidence to highlight the similarities...

but it doesn't change the fact that bush isn't a Nazi. And I find it odd when it's used because of what bush might do.

[Cleita]

66. Five years ago those of us who saw with alarm what was going

tried to educate the rest of you about this, and we could have been said to describe what Bush might have done. But sweetie unless you have been in a cave all this time with no communications whatsoever, I hate to be the messenger to tell you that he's done it and in some areas faster than Hitler. There is no "what he might have done" anymore. Read up on the invasion of Poland. That tells you all. However, if you really want comparisons just read "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". It's like the Bush years here are a replay of this book. The last chapter, "Twilight of the Gods" hasn't happend yet here in this time frame, but if we don't stop this train wreck you know what you can look forward to in the future. If it looks like a Nazi, walks like a Nazi, and talks like a Nazi, then it's a Nazi.

[cynatnite]

74. So you think bush will exterminate men, women and children like Hitler did? n/t

[Cleita]

96. He already has. There is the whole country of Iraq on his head

with the brutalization and murder of civilians of all sexes and ages happening as I type this. When the full fury of this immigrant hating comes to a head here in this country, I think you will see a lot of it, if this guy and his henchmen aren't stopped. It's already started in some communities. The first way you create hatred in a community is to pass laws that makes them illegal in various capacities. Hitler did this in Germany by passing laws against Jews and other underclasses being able to gain employment, live and even shop in various places, essentially criminalizing them so they could be arrested. We are doing this with the aliens.

Also, like in Nazi Germany, Germans didn't know really what was going on until after the war and the full horror of what was happening became known. We too don't know the extent of what is going on except from leaks and some rumors that have yet to be investigated and proven.

[cynatnite]

115. It's still not the Holocaust, Cleita... n/t

[Cleita]

126. There is only one Holocaust. The word comes from

sacrifice and if the Jews see it that way, it's theirs to keep and deservedly so. But atrocities committed in the name of the American people are very seriously, morally wrong and the people who are perpetrating them in our name are no different in ideology and method than those who committed the Holocaust and so must be identified as such. The blood of a six year old dead Iraqi child is no less precious to God than the blood of a six year old dead Jewish child from WWII. Both are innocents destroyed by evil people.

[cynatnite]

133. I'm not saying that a death means less because it didn't happen during the Holocaust...

and I'm not denying there are simililarities at all. I never have.

I'm not arguing in favor of bush by any stretch of the imagination. IMO, the word Nazi is deserved on those who were a part of the killing machine responsible for the exterminiation of millions and those who continue to support Hilter's ideology. That's where it belongs, IMO.

It's my belief that using the word Nazi, when it brings about horrific imagery of mass exterminations and death camps, doesn't help anyone when it's applied to bush. It's also my belief that it does minimize what the Holocaust was.

[Karenina]

166. Read your own post...

CONTINUE TO SUPPORT HITLER'S IDEOLOGY.

NOTHING can minimize the Holocaust, Cynatnite. NOTHING. However, when those today REFUSE to examine its roots and how it came to pass they make a mockery out of "Never Again." Make no mistake, IT IS HAPPENING AGAIN.
What's WORSE is that we today HAVE the history as a guide, the ability to communicate, the scholarship and KNOW who was involved AND IT'S STILL HAPPENING AGAIN as you cling to the sanctity of your forebears' "baddest of the bad." I've had to disabuse many of that notion in order that they might see TODAY more clearly. It's not an easy task. Let me just say that when German octogenarians begin to use the term to describe your misadministration, it's WAY PAST TIME to sit up and pay attention.

[cynatnite]

191. The repukes do not support Hilter's ideology...

and this isn't about the roots of Nazism. I started this thread to explain why I believe it's not a good comparison. I even said that doing so DOES minimize the horror of the Holocaust.

There are no bush gas chambers, no bush death camps, no bush death marches and so on. Bush is not exterminating millions in every way conceivable as Hitler did. No one can prove it. And to save you the typing by asking me 'prove he is not doing it' is like asking me to prove that gawd doesn't exist.

I agree there are many similarities and if you attempt to convince someone how much alike they are, in many people's minds they will usually see those Holocaust images similar to what I posted in my OP. Considering that Hitler exterminated millions you'll be hard pressed to convince them that bush is just as bad, IMO.

[Karenina]

263. Cynatnite, your stance

makes a COMPLETE MOCKERY of NEVER AGAIN. You are free to hold up the END of the Nazi regime as a sacrosanct event that can never be paralleled. You are free to disregard the 25 MILLION Iraqis who have been issued a long, slow and painful death sentence due to the FOREVER poisonous ordnance your *MIC has strewn across their land, among other things. You are free to ignore the GLOBAL death and destruction perpetuated by your country's "American exceptionalism" and "inherent right" to destroy anyone or anything that would dare seek to put the brakes on your rapacious corporations and your conspicuous consumption of other people's property. You are free to ignore all the well-documented connexions between Germany and America and the mignons of card-carrying Nazis who were given safe haven in the OSS, NASA and in the highest ranks of your government. You are FREE to REFUSE to connect the dots and understand what needs to be done to prevent another Holocaust.

You are also free to sit behind your keyboard complaining that "They hate us for our freedom."

[cynatnite]

270. Because it can't be paralleled...not in that degree...

Stalin exterminated millions, but the Holocaust will always stand above that because of the imagery that horrified the world and because of the inconceivable way in which he exterminated men, women and children. I don't know why you say I make a mockery of it. That makes no sense since I've acknowledged the horror of it repeatedly throughout this thread.

The point of my post...which you and others seem to completely miss...is that comparing bush to the Nazis or calling him a Nazi is not correct, IMO. Bush is a pathetic excuse of a human being with no empathy who is disconnected from reality, IMO. That's what I think of him and that's what I think of most of his administration. I don't think they are Nazis even though there are some parallels. It doesn't make it fact, IMO.

Somehow you translated what I've said into meaning I don't care about the rest of the world or other innocents who die.

You can continue with your 'outrage' rhetoric behind your keyboard all you like.

[Karenina]

293. The industrialization of human death

is the true lesson of the Holocaust. That industrialization is the MARKER of the depths of human depravity AND what makes the persecution unique. HUMAN BODIES were USED as a "resource" for production. THIS is the depth that we are CAPABLE of falling to. SOYLENT GREEN.

That said, when one DENIES the path we are going down, by holding up the result of the worst occurrence to date and repeating, "It can't happen here, we're NOT like THEM" one does no less than give cover to those who would welcome a repeat performance. Minimizing *dauphin's "antics" as "pathetic" ignores the fact that he and his handlers could destroy the planet 10 times over. Hitler did NOT possess that technological capacity.

I'm not "outraged." I'm an old lady who has seen a lot, is becoming weary of the same shit on a different day and is just saddened by your fossilized refusal to GET IT.

[cynatnite]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Karenina]

322. That is not the United States. (We're GOOD, THEY ARE BAD.)

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

30% of the American population can trace their roots to Germany. The two countries are JOINED AT THE HIP. FOR CENTURIES. We ARE "them." You are NOT "better" than Germans or Japanese or Africans or Russians or Mexicans or ANYBODY.

Too many Americans have IGNORED the devastation of Haiti and New Orleans, the shredding of the Constitution, Jose Padilla, Enron, M$M consolidation, high crimes against the American people, the UNFORGIVEABLE ATROCITY against Iraq AND YOU'RE STILL EQUIVOCATING about whether or not the criminals holding the reins of your gubmint should be held to account for their CRIMES against ALL that comprises the "common good." You, as "We the People" have collectively stood by like an abused spouse while the assaults continue, handwringing notwithstanding.

Yet you feel perfectly justified in holding up "dead fetus" posters in making your case. THOSE DEAD JEWS ARE A WARNING!!! HEED IT!!!

Cynatnite, I understand it is an unconscious reflex for you, but in essence it is no different than that of a white supremacist who attributes all good things to himself and condemns the exact same behaviour in someone else, ascribing an innate inferiority to the latter.

I read our exchange to a friend up north (yes, she speaks FLUENT English) who urged me to be circumspect in replying to you as SHE understood how YOU don't yet get it. She really talked me down in her compassion for thoes who have not experienced ANYTHING EVEN NEAR what happened here and the aftermath. I hope you will read what I've written with an open heart . I have no desire to set your butt alight. I'm just struggling to find the right words and references that you may step outside your comfort zone and view things from another perspective. :hug:

[LittleClarkie]

323. My god that's patronizing.

Condescending, even.

Don't know if you were trying for that tone, but it's sure coming out that way. Someone can disagree with you and that doesn't mean there's something wrong with them and their perspective.

[Karenina]

326. There is nothing wrong with the mindset

that Americans are NOT subject to the foibles and failures of the rest of the population on this planet?

It is not my intent to flame Cynatnite. I apologize if it reads that way, I must admit I was hopping mad when I posted. American exceptionalism always affects me that way. "We're not like THEM." I beg to differ.

[LittleClarkie]

327. I think the point is that we don't have to compare eras. I'm not even sure it's exceptionalism

We're not like them. But they are not like us. We can be just as bad in our way without being JUST LIKE THEM.

We invent our own horrors. No need to play comparison games. We are not the Nazis. We suck in our own special way.

[Karenina]

328. I'm looking at the similarities

rather than the differences. I've found that to be the best tack in making contact with others. What do we have in common? How are we alike? Those answers break down barriers. I have no need to be "special."

[LittleClarkie]

324. I love it when people think that because someone disagrees with them they don't "get it"

She doesn't have to "get it." She's perfectly welcome to have a different opinion than yours.

[puebloknot]

207. The term "Holocaust," while first and foremost applied to Hitler's...

... mass extermination of the Jews, is not exclusive to them. I've heard the term "Armenian Holocaust" used often, and that term is now being applied to the genesis of this nation with regard to the navtive peoples who were slaughtered en masse. There is a book entitled "American Holocaust," which I read several years ago. So the term is being used generically.

I do agree that the first image that arises for me, and probably for most people, when I hear "Holocaust" is the mass action against the Jews in WWII.

[cynatnite]

116. It's still not the Holocaust, Cleita... n/t

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

277. What do we have to do, wait for another Holocaust? Hitler didn't have as much blood on his hands

as Bush has today in the same amount of time. Hitler came into power in 1933.

Speak to the families of the over 600,000 dead innocent Iraqis that were taken from their lives because of his premeditated illegal war. Talk to those who have been rendered to other countries to be tortured. Talk to those whose torture was sanctioned by Bush at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo. Talk to American citizens who on the eve of 9/11 were thrown into jails without due process.

All the signs are here. The taking of our civil liberties. The propaganda of fear mongering. The propagandization of our fourth estate. The upcoming national ID card which will eventually have biometretics. The executive orders to create a unitary executive. His unitary executive.

Just like you, the Good German People didn't see what Hitler was doing until it was too late. There were many German Jews who didn't leave because they felt they were Germans first, and thought, this couldn't happen to us?

Bush learned well on his Grandfather's knee......

[treestar]

Very true, and the movement to not allow citizenship to those born

in the U.S. of illegally present parents will only make that underclass larger.

Undocumented aliens are being scapegoated for everything as it is. Halliburton's big contracts to build detention centers are out and out for them with the approval of Joe Average.

Though Bush himself was for the temporary worker visas, so that may be more the work of the Cheney, PNAC type mentality. 911 sure helped for the demonization of foreigners.

[datasuspect]

217. he gets his rocks off killing people

[Heidi]

50. Don't call me a Bush apologist

until you've had family members who lived through a Holocaust.

That is all.

[Cleita]

71. I had relatives and friends who lived through Pinnochet's

reign of terror in Chile or doesn't that count because we aren't as special as the rest of you? Many of the same people who were behind the assassination of President Salvadore Allende and the subsequent intallation of the Pinnochet government are now in this government right now and have ties all the way back to the German Nazis. This is one reason I have no problem calling them Nazis.

[cynatnite]

76. I have ties to the Nazis.

My grandfather was one and he murdered men, women and children. Am I a Nazi?

[Cleita]

82. I don't know, but you seem to not like the word to be used

against the Bushes. What and whom are you protecting? I hope you just haven't learned to accept the word and it's true meaning in our history.

[cynatnite]

95. Using it to describe the bushies minimizes the Holocaust, IMO n/t

[Cleita]

104. The holocaust was horrible to be sure, but to minimize all

other similar occurrences because they are removed from us in time and proximity isn't morally right IMHO.

[seemslikeadream]

131. That is all you are worried about!

That's too bad

[Lint Head]

176. If you believe what your Grandfather did was evil you are not a Nazi.

[puebloknot]

212. If you embrace what your grandfather did, and play it out in your own life...

... then we can call you a Nazi, philosophically, metaphorically.

As others have pointed out, when people use the term "Nazi" today, they aren't suggesting you belong to a defunct political party. They are asserting that the actions being taken are in parallel with those taken in a prior age.

[Heidi]

106. Well, that settles it then, doesn't it?

You're right, and those of us who'd disagree with you and your "shortcuts" are wrong. End of discussion.

[Cleita]

135. Apparently anyone who disagrees with you shouldn't.

Did I get that right?

[Heidi]

139. No, you didn't get that right.

You're welcome to disagree with me or anyone else here, as far as I know. :hi:

[TomClash]

142. Don't even bother

You will never convince these people that other atrocities exist in the world and - both subjectively and often objectively - those horrors are just as bad as what their grandmother experienced at Treblinka. Nothing will ever compare - not Stalin, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Rwanda, Darfur - with the Holocaust. It has become the Alpha and the Omega, the be-all and end-all, the Great Event to be used and abused at all costs. It justifies the oppression of the Palestinians, allows one to be a victim and oppressor at the same time - often without even knowing it. It minimizes your experience and - nothing could ever be as bad as what happened to their ancestors, even if it happened to YOU - the experiences of the other millions who died in the same War at the hands of similar people in similar camps.

[Cleita]

151. You are so right.

I'm amazed at the people who don't see the similarities and actually yell at you for the comparison as if their blood was more precious than anyone elses. It's like we don't hurt as much.

[goodgd_yall]

186. "These people"

Do you mean those posting here that agree with the OP? I don't think anyone has written that the Holocause is the worst thing that ever happened to the human race and nothing else compares. There is so much documented about the Nazi years in Germany that the experience is used more than others. It's familiar ground, so it is used to make connections and comparisons. I do agree with you that the Holocause has been used to justify oppression of others in Palestine. But I think it wrong to assume those agreeing with the OP are of the mindset you describe.

[TomClash]

210. Some of the posts against Cleita reflect this mentality

But you are right that they do not explicitly say that the Holocaust was a greater tragedy than Pol Pot, Stalin et al.

[goodgd_yall]

237. Edit

I meant "Holocaust."

[Joe Chi Minh]

200. Pols Pot's genocide of millions was considered so off the scale of

wickedness by our Western leaders, that for reasons that have never been explained, they allowed him to die in his bed - a free man, moreover.

Don't bother to even TRY to look for a heart in American or British Governments in these post Reagan/Thatcher years. Our governments were furious that the Chinese leaders wouldn't turn China quickly enough into a wasteland like Russia, to be plundered at will by oligarchs.

Now, today, there are reports of disabled children as young as five, being sold by their parents to beg in the streets. They quoted from a letter written by one child pleading to be rescued from the "bitter life" he was being forced to lead. I don't know who it was addressed to, or details of it, as I try not to listen to outrages once I've learnt the gist.

[mmonk]

119. Quite the contrary. Saying one cannot discuss legitimate similarities

in the rise of power, foreign policy similarities, and our own violations of the findings at Nuremberg because of the Holocaust is an appeal on emotion.

[Heidi]

120. Please list the legitimate similarities, then. Thank you. (nt)

[mmonk]

141. Certainly.

Keep in mind I speak as someone who is an offspring of someone who fought Nazi Germany and not as someone who is an offspring of Nazi Germany's victims, so the perspectives may differ.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1460657&mesg_id=1460708

That is just a starter. I'll post more when I come back as I have to leave for something and thanks for the opportunity.

[mmonk]

Here:

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=opedne_scott_o__070718_bush_and_the_nazis.htm

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2004_06_06_digbysblog_archive.html#108664786593461032

http://librarianwoes.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/similarities-bush-administration-and-nazi-germany/

http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/4/3201

http://www.globelaw.com/Iraq/Preventive_war_after_iraq.htm#_ftn6

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-beinhart/judgment-at-nuremberg-wa_b_11365.html

http://www.oneplanetonenation.com/cgi-bin/news/newsscript.pl?record=21

[baldguy]

21. Nazis were still Nazis in 1933

But they hadn't murdered 12 million people yet.

[seemslikeadream]

34. YET - He is just not finished YET

so very true


http://www.ericblumrich.com/pax.html

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

278. I just posted about that Bush has more blood on his hands in 6 years than Hitler did in

the same amount of time, as Hitler came into power in 1933.

[TahitiNut]

62. Yes, but it's "against the rules" to warn about such regimes ahead of time.

Got it? According to the "rules," we must not engage in name-calling until at least 12 million are killed and we have photographs. Considering the larger world population, perhaps we should wait for at least 20 million murders.

[seemslikeadream]

91. Yes Yes we must wait till there are at least 6 million dead OR

We can say we smell the stench of burning flesh now

[KurtNYC]

22. how does not comparing the next Hitler to the orignal Hitler denigrate the victims

shouldn't those photos serve as a warning of the what not opposing Nazism soon enough can lead to?

I couldn't agree less with your argument.

[bobthedrummer]

25. A thread was started in the Wisconsin Forum related to this-positive participation is encouraged.

"Escape to Wisconsin-like Nazis, neocons, organized crime and black ops did" (started 7-27-2007)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x21683

[Bicoastal]

27. Hey, I agree.

No one can convince me that Bush's America is doing anything that approaches the level of Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele, or the Zyklon-B gas chamber. Not at all. People who try and make the comparison either know nothing of history or have no sensitivity to the victims of one of the greatest acts of mass cruelty in the 20th century.

But in any case, calling someone a Nazi or Hitler is just a dumb way to try and win an argument. At the very least, it's terribly unimaginative.

[seemslikeadream]

30. Do you know who Hitler's enablers were?

[Bicoastal]

38. What does that have to do with anything I just said?

Surely, you're not about to call me an enabler of fascism....are you?

[seemslikeadream]

117. No one will be able to convince you unless you do some READING

Bicoastal wrote

No one can convince me that Bush's America is doing anything that approaches the level of Auschwitz, Dr. Mengele, or the Zyklon-B gas chamber



Yes you are an enabler of Fascism if you do not recognize it and DEAL with it

[Bicoastal]

178. Hooray! It's "Insult Strangers Who Disagree With You" Day on DU!

Get a life, please. I'm not the enemy. And you're drowning in your own hyperbole on this thread.

[Joe Chi Minh]

204. It's only an insult if it's not merited.

[Bicoastal]

221. Excuse me?

You're an American citizen too. How are YOU not a "Nazi enabler" like me? Weren't the Germans?

Remember, I didn't vote for the guy or his Republican toadies. I have marched in protest against him. I have donated money to those who would try to expose him for the Constitution-defacing disgrace he is. I read about his admininstration's crimes on a daily basis, and I pass them on to family and friends to educate them. Maybe I could be doing more, but so could you. So could we all.

But because I think it's folly to label Bush as Hitler, suddenly I'm an enabler of Fascism?! Gee, who was it who said "If you're not with us, you're against us" in the FIRST PLACE?!

[Joe Chi Minh]

274. No. I'm a citizen of the UK. You're last sentence precisely makes your critics' case.

The words, "If you're not with us, you're against us" cut both ways, and leave no leeway for conciliation, still less, compromise. I think that was a feature of the Nazi Party, don't you?

Remember their policy has been to completely marginalise even their Republican associates in the legislature in favour of their own little clique. In other words, they were not simply not bipartisan with the Democrats in the Congress and the Senate, they were actually infra partisan within their own party! As one of them put it, "Bipartisanship is akin to date rape" - and seemingly that further applied with regard to their "sharing with" their party-political colleagues," since they evidently considered it would have left them open to the most brutal and heinous violation...

So although a statement may be fraught with insulting overtones, merely the factual statement of the case makes that inevitable. It's in the nature of wrongful positions or actions that the perpetrator virtually cloak himself in derision and insult - all the more so, of course, where value judgements concerning what the critical party considers as mind-boggling outrages are the subject of the dispute.

The only case where criticism is redundant is, or it seems from your posts, ought to be - comment, say, on concentration camps being cruel. How would you respond if someone said to you, "Do you think concentration camps are cruel?" You'd think he was taking the rise, wouldn't you? Yet Abu Ghraib and the rendition of Iraqi freedom-fighters to countries where they might be boiled alive or tortured in any kind of way doesn't strike you as self-evidently "the pits", or identical thereto...

I don't see how it would be possible to respond to your posts, in the light of that, without such responses being construable as terrible slurs. And it's not even anything personal, because I know enough about the DU and boards, generally, not to rush into too swift a judgment about the 'exotic' positions taken by individuals in different matters, pretty much innocently. I know you could be a troll, but there are enough bare-faced humdingers around for me to prefer to believe you're just muddled, and unable to take on board what appear to most of us as very unambiguous warning signs.

[Bicoastal]

285. HEY, KCabotDullesMarxIII and seemslikeadream--you made my first "Ignore" ever!!

Congrats! I can only assume that by talking down to people who are essentially on your side, you're sure to win many more converts over to your cause.

As for me, perhaps I shall remain a "fascist enabler" and a "muddled troll" on these boards, but at least I will still be polite...at least, until provoked.

:hi: Bye, creeps.

[mmonk]

31. No but one cannot ignore similarities in their playbooks.

[cynatnite]

64. A person can highlight all the similarities they'd like...

but there is no wiping away the images most people have of the Holocaust when they think of Nazis. IMO, these attempts to link Bush and his party to Nazism do more harm than good. It hurts us and it minimizes the horror of the Holocaust.

[seemslikeadream]

128. Is that all you're worried about?

Minimizing the horrors of the Holocaust? What if what bush and his friends are doing is worse than the Holocaust?

[cynatnite]

138. Are they committing acts worse than the Holocaust?

Are they sticking children in gas chambers? Are they forcing people on death marches? Are they doing mass exterminations of men, women, and children?

[seemslikeadream]

144. yes

[goodgd_yall]

148. Prove it n/t

[seemslikeadream]

149. Just start reading some of my posts here

It's all there, all the proof you need

[puebloknot]

227. When I hear the term "Nazis," here's an image that comes to my mind!

A young German woman who worked as a housekeeper for us when my father was stationed in Mainz, ten years after the war. Her body was covered in round scars from some Nazi torturer's having used a cigarette to place burns all over her body. She was not Jewish.

There are many, many images of horror which can leap to the mind when the general term Nazi is used. The image that comes to *your* mind is the one in the picture you've posted. It is, indeed, one of the most horrific.

When Jewish survivors of the Holocaust are using their last breath in this life to warn us that we are going down the same path that Hitler led his people down, I think we can use the term "Nazi," comparatively speaking, to describe the actions our government is taking now. Their experience carries at least as much validity as that of a guilt-ridden granddaughter of a Nazi.

[Karenina]

291. Indeed.

The "sacrosanct memory" IMHO is just another form of arrogance. The POINT is to be clear on what we must recognize quickly and bring to a FULL STOP- BEFORE there is a repetition.

[WillyT]

32. Depends On Who You Are Arguing With I Guess, But You Are Correct...

images like those will be forever associated with the word Nazi. And I believe that any current crop of fascists like it that way. They certainly wouldn't want you to be familiar with what it took for a flunky WWI Corporal to rise to a position where such a thing was possible. They would not want you to read William L. Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'. They'd prefer you not be familiar with the ways of effective propaganda, the Reichstag Fire, The Enabling Act, secret prisons, enemies lists, etc.

But to quote\paraphrase George Carlin:

"I have this bad habit. I like to think. And I'll leave symbols, to the symbol-minded."

:shrug:

[mmonk]

222. Good post and great quote to use.

[puebloknot]

231. That quote is the icing on the cake for this whole thread! nt

[seemslikeadream]

40. Genocide by design?

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/56124 /

Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?

By Michael Schwartz
<http://www.afterdowningstreet.org >.
Posted July 6, 2007

300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day sounds like an impossible figure, but a close look at the reported numbers of violent deaths and rate of armed patrols makes it all too likely.

A state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006 issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British medical journal) concluded that -- as of a year ago -- 600,000 Iraqis had died violently due to the war in Iraq. That is, the Iraqi death rate for the first 39 months of the war was just about 15,000 per month.

That wasn't the worst of it, because the death rate was increasing precipitously, and during the first half of 2006 the monthly rate was approximately 30,000 per month, a rate that no doubt has increased further during the ferocious fighting associated with the current American surge.

The U.S. and British governments quickly dismissed these results as "methodologically flawed," even though the researchers used standard procedures for measuring mortality in war and disaster zones. (They visited a random set of homes and asked the residents if anyone in their household had died in the last few years, recording the details, and inspecting death certificates in the vast majority of cases.) The two belligerent governments offered no concrete reasons for rejecting the study's findings, and they ignored the fact that they had sponsored identical studies (conducted by some of the same researchers) in other disaster areas, including Darfur and Kosovo. The reasons for this rejection were, however, clear enough: the results were simply too devastating for the culpable governments to acknowledge. (Secretly the British government later admitted that it was "a tried and tested way to measuring mortality in conflict zones"; but it has never publicly admitted its validity).

Reputable researchers have accepted the Lancet study's results as valid with virtually no dissent. Juan Cole, the most visible American Middle East scholar, summarized it in a particularly vivid comment: "the US misadventure in Iraq is responsible for setting off the killing of twice as many civilians as Saddam managed to polish off in 25 years."

[goodgd_yall]

198. It's called war.

War in itself is a horror, with consequences beyond what most people even think of. Bush is guilty of starting a preemptive war, no grounds for it. And that is his why he is an evil man. And Hitler was agressive and invaded countries. There is the similarity.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

41. You Are Right, Of Course.

I don't think some here realize how much like a fool they look like when they try to directly use the term in comparison. I actually feel quite sorry for them.

[seemslikeadream]

51. I feel sorry for you denial is a strange place

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

55. Yes. You're Right. They're Nazis. I'll Deny It No Longer. How Could I Not Have Seen It.

Thank you oh so much for enlightening me to the ways of irrational and illogical thought processes so that now I too can call them nazis! Oh thank you, THANK YOU!

:eyes:

[seemslikeadream]

65. Is this not the work of Nazis

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

68. No, It Isn't.

But I don't expect you to understand why your argument makes you look so silly.

[seemslikeadream]

87. Well who then is responsible for Bhopal?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

114. Legally, Dow. Should It Be Nazis Instead?

God this is stupid.

[seemslikeadream]

121. An American Company who is NOT taking responsibility

Just like the American companies that helped Hitler out



Too bad you can't come up with a response other than that. I wonder why?

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

132. So That Makes Dow Nazis. Your Logic Is Impeccable.

Just when I thought people's perceptions couldn't get more warped, in you come with this one.

Holy cow.

[seemslikeadream]

137. Union Carbide has not owned up to this

THE WORST DISASTER IN HISTORY


20,000 DEAD

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2aJgLHKoZg


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXSpyZCRIjU

[Joe Chi Minh]

205. I always said his name said it all; gave us a timely warning.

[seemslikeadream]

46. We have so much unfinished business

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZUQI1yTPeI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcxo8BwwURU&mode=related&search=





http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1947980&mesg_id=1948306





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoxfhfHCzb8&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdwfMStlmXI&mode=related&search=

http://www.jefflindsay.com/hmong.shtml

Writing to an American who was confused about the Hmong people, Jack Austin Smith, a Vietnam Veteran and a retired career soldier, wrote the following in 1996 (quoted from his e-mail to me, with permission):

The war in Vietnam was fought on several fronts and I served in two them. The main American battle ground was in the Southern end of South Vietnam. In order for the North Vietnamese forces to fight us there, it was necessary for their supplies and troops to go through Laos and Cambodia on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and Laos was controlled by a Pro-Communist Government at that time. Therefore America was not allowed to have any forces on the ground, although we were allowed to bomb and attack North Vietnamese troops with our aerial forces. About 99% of the combat forces on the ground were Hmong irregulars who were persuaded by Americans to forget about being neutral, and to fight the N. Vietnamese regulars (not relatively poorly trained Viet Cong guerrilla forces). We supplied air cover, but every combat trooper knows aircraft can't take and hold ground. We depended on the Hmongs to do this. Without modern arms, without medical help.
After the fall of Saigon we pulled out of Southeast Asia and left the Hmongs to continue the fight without air support. When we left, the Hmong had to fight both the Laotians and the N. Vietnamese. They could not fight tanks, heavy artillery and aircraft with rifles. A great many Hmongs were slaughtered in their villages. Many were slaughtered at airfields where they waited for evacuation planes that never came. A few were able to fight every foot of the way across Laos and cross the Mekong River into refugee camps in Thailand where they were further mistreated by rather corrupt UN and Thai officials. Out of a estimated 3,000,000 prewar Hmong population less than 200,000 made it to safety. One other ill informed or stupid writer said "they were all gone" meaning, I guess, that the combat Hmongs were all dead, they are wrong. Most of the survivors are in Australia, France and here among us.

Now I don't know about those heroes who have never heard a shot fired in anger, but I am embarrassed that my country so mislead these people. The Hmongs gave up literally everything for us: their country, their homes, their peaceful way of life, most of their families, everything that we would cherish. We promised them our continued support and then we bugged out.

You mentioned having relatives who fought in Vietnam and I hope they all survived. However their chances would have been much less if the Hmongs hadn't intercepted over 50% of the N. Vietnamese troops and supplies. If you truly loved your relatives, you should be grateful for the Hmongs' sacrifices.
http://www.jefflindsay.com/hmong.shtml

"HUNTED LIKE ANIMALS" Hmong Hunted and tortured -merciless!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmSWXk1nFRc&mode=related&search=

[Ian David]

48. This is why Harry Reid invokes Orwell and not Hitler. n/t

[mmonk]

54. One cannot ignore that we are violating our own findings at Nuremberg

as a result of Hitler's Germany and that which has been the foundation and formulation of acceptable behavior since 1947 internationally.

[WillyT]

60. Great Point !!!

We are shooting the Greatest Generation in the back, and ourselves as well.

:shrug:

[mmonk]

67. Yes we are. My father was one of those from the greatest generation,

God rest his soul. The lesson learned should never be lost or the foundations set up to prevent any sort of repeat of those transgressions the past has given us to look out for and be vigilant.

[WillyT]

73. Mine Too - Marine B-25 Pilot In The South Pacific In WWII

As much as I miss him, I'm glad he's not around to see this horseshit!

:hi:

[mmonk]

99. Those are my thoughts as well.

He would be very very pissed. This is a man that didn't like to talk about what he saw in Europe, but kept all his correspondence, things he picked up, and all his records. This is a man that got all over me when I bought a used Mercedes because it was German. I miss him but still glad he didn't get to see this.

[puebloknot]

239. And so was mine, my father now surely in Heaven. Let's raise a glass to them here...

... and hope they're enjoying their just reward for their personal sacrifice to this country and the world.

[mmonk]

299. Cheers! To their memories.

:toast:

[Name removed]

57. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[cynatnite]

61. So can my name...

My grandfather murdered men, women and children. He was a Nazi.

[trumad]

70. So----I can't compare the Bush admin to the Nazi Regime?

I can't bring up similarities? Because if you're telling me there are no similarities to Hitlers Fascist regime, you're a bit naive.

[cynatnite]

81. I never said there were no simililarities...

I explained why I believe using the word to describe the bush administration isn't correct. It's in my OP.

[trumad]

86. There are many similarities to Neo-con positions and the Nazi Regime.

It is our duty to bring them up at evey turn and when you bring them up, dontcha got to use the word Nazi?

[cynatnite]

97. I'm not denying the similarities and I said so in my OP n/t

[trumad]

100. But yet we can't mention the word Nazi?

[Swamp Rat]

105. Yes, and it should be repeated ad nauseum.

The shoe fits.

[Swamp Rat]

101. Maybe you are playing 'Devil's Advocate'.

That's fine, but I am out of patience.

[Swamp Rat]

75. So, your grandfather murdered my family.

Makes sense why you don't want us to use the term.

[cynatnite]

78. I honestly don't know...

Using the term to the bushes, IMO, minimizes the horror of the Holocaust, IMO. That's why I disagree with using it.

[Swamp Rat]

85. Well, if he was a Nazi he did.

My family was exterminated in Bobruisk.

I also experienced Bushler's ethnic cleansing in New Orleans.

Therefore, I reserve the right to call Bushler and refucklicans neo-Nazis, because they are.

This is not about winning arguments.

This is not a goddamn game!

[cynatnite]

103. You asked a question on what my grandfather did and I couldn't answer...

because I don't know. He was an active part of the killing machine during the Holocaust...so yes, he was one of the ones responsible.

I'm not denying anyone the right to call the bushes whatever they want. I expressed my opinion as to why I disagree with it. Many here use it in hopes of either convincing, or arguing with someone that the bush's are Nazis. I don't agree with that method.

[Swamp Rat]

109. Ok

And I disagree, because the similarities are too many, AND it seems to affect people one way or another.

I am of the opinion the word 'Nazi' should be repeated ad nauseum, no matter what the reaction.

It works for me.

[trumad]

92. Maybe to you it does... but not me and the folks I hang with.

[Swamp Rat]

72. When I think of the word "Nazi," I see this:

[cynatnite]

83. Which is why it minimizes what the Nazis did n/t

[Swamp Rat]

94. No, saying that just minimizes what happened here in New Orleans.

Talk is cheap.

[cynatnite]

110. What happened in NOLA was horrible and unforgivable, IMO...

But it still in no way compares to the Holocaust where over six million were exterminated in every way conceivable. Put the two side by side and the Holocaust will still be more horrendous.

Maybe it's more vivid because we actually witnessed it on TV and some did in real life. It makes it far more profound in many ways and it's impact just as emotional. It still rips my guts out. But side by side...the Holocaust was worse because of the numbers exterminated and in the horrific way it happened.

[Swamp Rat]

125. Look, have you ever been inside a gas chamber?

Actually seen the piles and piles of bones, tiny shoes, eye glasses, teeth?

I have.

I know the difference, but your argument seems to be based solely on magnitude.

Bushler has only just begun. He has already surpassed Hitler's first six years in 'accomplishments.'

It can happen again... and if you were in New Orleans, you would say it already began.

I have been rather harsh in my responses (nothing against you personally) because I cannot endure much more.

:cry:

[cynatnite]

140. Yes, I have n/t

[RedCappedBandit]

219. No, see, they're not white.

:sarcasm:

[cynatnite]

84. n/t

[Poiuyt]

77. I agree that using the word "Nazi" will lose all arguments, but I there are definitely

similarities in the way they came to power, etc. Using the word Nazi when talking about Bush causes people to close their ears. It shouldn't be an all or nothing argument. It's not, "Bush is as bad as Hitler," or "There is nothing comparable between Bush and Hitler." There are areas of gray that should be able to be discussed. But as soon as you say Bush and Nazi in the same sentence, people will put up a wall.

[Swamp Rat]

98. This is not a game. n/t

[Cleita]

158. Actually the wall isn't that impermeable.

Once you give them some details of that historical period, many do listen. "I never thought of it that way,! They end up saying. It's just they need to be educated. Many didn't even get as far as WWII in their high school history classes so they only know what they hear.

[Mrs. Overall]

80. I think the fact that we, here on DU, are having this argument

points to the comparison as being at least valid enough to be raised and debated.

Has there been any other US president, since WWII, whose administration and tactics have been realistically compared to the Nazis in an authentic, debatable way?

I can't think of one....

[trumad]

88. No--

And that's why I can't stand when someone chimes that we should use the word Nazi.

[cynatnite]

90. But people see images similiar to what I posted when the term is used...

the previous poster put it very well...people will put up a wall once it's used because of those images.

[trumad]

93. Well then fuck them for being ignorant idiots.

the walls are coming down quickly---or haven't you noticed?

[Mrs. Overall]

108. I do understand what you are saying, but I also think that images that

we associate with certain events shouldn't determine whether or not we can debate the topic.

Nazism and its roots are much more complex than the horrendous images we rightly associate with it.

I guess it come down to: if you are going to compare Bush with the Nazis, have a well prepared, well researched argument that goes beyond the images and addresses the nuances as well.

This is such a complex topic--we are living in the middle of something very historic and at this point, there is just no way to see it all clearly.

I admire you for addressing this topic.

[Swamp Rat]

118. So, post NEW images, like I do.

[cynatnite]

123. IMO, there are no images of today that can compare...

to those of the Holocaust. If I were to go through the images I associated bush with, which is NOLA, Iraq and others, none of them, IMO, can come close to the horror of the Holocaust.

[Swamp Rat]

134. Because you did not experience it first hand.

I understand your point, and your perspective, but to many of us in New Orleans the images I posted above are just as horrible... and there are many photos you have not seen of Iraq.

My cousin has spent a lot of time there and said he has loads of CDs of horrifying photos his fellow soldiers have passed around. He told me "some will remind Americans of what the Nazis did."

[cynatnite]

150. And the same goes for experiencing the Holocaust first hand...

having known someone who survived it can never compare to actually experiencing it for oneself.

I can't imagine what happened in NOLA because I wasn't actually there. I can only cry and be angry at bush over it. I can't imagine what being in a concentration camp was like because no matter how apt the descriptions there are, I'll still never know or understand.

But as I see both, and as I understand both, the Holocaust was worse, IMO.

And I have no doubt the US has it's fair share of atrocities(and ones we don't know about) that will remind us of the horror of the Holocaust, but in sheer magnitude and horror, it's difficult to imagine anything, even Iraq, being worse or just as bad as the Holocaust.

Swamp Rat, I respect the hell out of you and I always have. I don't want this disagreement of ours to change our future interactions on DU. You lost family in the Holocaust and a member of mine, maybe more than one, committed horrific acts in Hitler's name. It puts us on an opposite end of the spectrum so to speak, but I truly hope(and I mean this from my heart)that we not allow it to define how we deal with each other.

If it means anything(and I understand if it doesn't)I am truly sorry that your loss was due to the killing machine my grandfather enabled and the killing he was personally responsible for. If there was any possible way to reverse it or change it...I swear I would do it in a heartbeat.

:hug:

[Swamp Rat]

154. Oh no!!

Nothing against you personally!!! :hug: :hug: :hug:

It's just that I am very upset... and I apologize for my harshness. :hug:

[cynatnite]

156. Right back you Swamp Rat...

It's very emotional for me, too. I got harsh as well. :hug:

[Hubert Flottz]

316. How many people did Bush have killed by lethal injection in Texas

because they murdered one person? How many people have been put to death in the history of this country, because they took the life of another person? MURDER...is MURDER, whether it's one life taken, or a million, murder is murder. If Bush reads his Bible every day he must not retain much of what he's read. "Thou shalt not kill!"

It's like the guy who offers the lady a million dollars if she will have sex with him...She says, "SURE, for a million dollars I'd do it!" The guy then replies, "Well now that we've established what you are, lets talk about a more reasonable price!"

We have established now what Bush is too, based on the documented indications and information we now have available, thanks to the recorded history of mankind, now it's just a question of numbers...

[seemslikeadream]

124. Just like they did during Hitler's time

Did ya know the NYT wouldn't publish those pictures then? Are they publishing the REAL war photos now? They won't even cover the dead soldiers coffins coming home

[Mrs. Overall]

130. That's right. My mom was in high school during WWII and she said

that most Americans did not believe the stories/photos of the atrocities when they began to come out after 1945. She said it took her about five years to truly believe it.

We, however, have the advantage of instant news/photos/blogs, so I hope there is never such a lag of belief again.

[Swamp Rat]

136. We haven't seen anything yet.

MANY more photos are to come.

[seemslikeadream]

146. most Americans did not believe the stories/photos of the atrocities

and that is what is going on today right here at DU. People are in denial, they don't believe it is happening

[mmonk]

309. You are correct.

No similarities, no reason for discussion.

[azurnoir]

89. The term Naziwhen used to describe

the BFEE's crimes will not fly because first off to become widely accepted in the US would mean that the American people would also have to admit their own complicity in the actions of this administration, ain't gunna' happen. Also when it comes to our crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, the people dying have been given "enemy" status by the M$M and their government handlers. We hear about civilians being killed all the time, but there is always the widely published fact that the "enemy" doesn't wear a uniform, so were they "really" civilians or were they collaborating with the enemy?

[seemslikeadream]

102. Untold Suffering in the Congo Do you know who's side we're on here?

Who's who in Congo's Lost World War


Layer I: Dozens of militia and mercenary firms carrying out the atrocities.

The mass media wants you to focus on the militia alone even though it is so complex and can be called tribal warfare. This is not true, however tribal and ethnic differences are exploited as an effecitve fuel for (civil) war. Just like we observe in Iraq.

Also the mercenary firms like Executive Outcomes, Sandlines, Brown & Root/Halliburton, International Defense and Security, and Military Professional Resources make it clear that there were western powers backing the violence and providing the means. Quite a number of US Special Forces and British SAS troops were discovered among the mercs providing assistence and training.

Layer II: Rwanda, Uganda, and many more African nations.

The conflict started when Paul Kagame, President of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni, President of Uganda, invaded Congo. Both Presidents are graduates of the School of the Americas. They were solely motivated by the natural resources. Also bear in mind that both men came to power after bloody and extensive wars in Rwanda and Uganda. How could they invade when their own countries were still suffering from the aftermath of their own atrocities. Yet they had the latest technology and weapons and an endless supply of money for their invasions. Bechtel supplied the satelite images during the invasion with a specific overview of the areas with the greatest mineral wealth and Rwanda and Uganda immediately focused on those areas.

Layer III: United States, United Kingdom, and Belgium.

The three countries with most interests in Congo's natural resources providing major sourcing for Rwanda and Uganda and supplied weapons, trained soldiers for the invasion. It is worth noting that the Belgian corporations and plantations were allowed to continue in Congo/Zaire after its independence under the reign of Mobutu. The corporate interests never left the country after its independence.

Layer IV: Coltan, Gold, and Diamonds

Coltan was the main reason for the invasion. In 1996 the mobile phone industry was starting to become very large, however aluminium capicators cannot be miniaturized. 80% of the world's supply of coltan is in Congo, so it was imperative to get easy access to the Coltan mines, because it would have effectively stopped the growth market of the mobile phones.

All of it winds up bought by just three companies - Cabot Inc. of the United States, Germany's HC Starc and China's Nigncxia - the only firms with processing plants to turn coltan into the coveted tantalum powder. The largest companies who bought from those three processing plants are Sony, Compaq, Microsoft, Dell, Ericsson, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Nokia, Intel, Lucent, and Motorola.

The other natural resources like Gold and Diamonds ended up at Anglo-Ashanti Gold, Metalor, Anglo-American, De Beers, Barrick Gold, OM Group

Another system used was the nature parks which were specifically constructed to have control of the richest areas. Those nature parks were controlled by USAID, WWF, AWF, and Conservation International.

Further reading:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Africa/Congo_BehindNumbers.html

Post scriptum:
The War in Congo has been described as Africa's First World War. However the official story in the mass media always fails to mention Layer III and Layer IV who played a vital role in arming and funding the conflict. The War in Congo has produced between 3 million and 10 million deaths according to various sources. Given the immense amount of atrocities and the extend of American, European, and Asian interests, it is not an African war and should not be seen as such. It was a global war and the largest war since World War II. The only proper name is therefore World War III and the mass media have remained silent and actively stiffled the War For Mobile Phones.


A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U28joj6d1A

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMMQhHuI9_Y&mode=related...

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biEXCEOy_vs

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (4)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPKcgo4Es8E

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIM8kVSN8ug

A look at the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) (6)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_WEY7xQEhk&mode=related...

Untold Suffering in the Congo

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2...

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=9833

[seemslikeadream]

107. Bush’s Special Humanitarian Coordinator

The wildcard in the conflict is still Chevron which has been barred from Sudan in 1997 and want to return to take a piece of the Sudan's oil. Chevron is of course represented by Condi Rice. As a result the United States ambassador to Sudan denied the genocide on April 12, 2007:



Last month, Bush’s Special Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan Andrew Natsios told a group of Georgetown students that the “term genocide is counter to the facts of what is really occurring in Darfur.”

In a testy exchange with Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing yesterday, Natsios defiantly refused to characterize the ongoing violence in Darfur as a genocide.

MENENDEZ: Do you consider the ongoing situation in Darfur a genocide, yes or no? <…>

NATSIOS: There is very little violence in Darfur right now.

MENENDEZ: I asked you to answer my question.

NATSIOS: I just answered your question.

MENENDEZ: Is the circumstances in Darfur today a continuing genocide? Yes or no?

NATSIOS: There is very little fighting between rebels and the government and very few civilian casualties going on in Darfur right now.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/04/12/natsios-no-genocide /



The main culprit in Darfur is China who is funding and arming the rebels for their oil company China National Petroleum Corp which currently control 40% of the Darfur oil.



Op-Ed: China's Crude Conscience
Ronan Farrow | The Wall Street Journal | August 10, 2006

EL FASHER, Sudan — In a squalid hut in Zam Zam refugee camp, 16-year-old Salim Adam swats flies from the livid scar where a bullet tore through his leg. Two years ago, Mr. Adam was farming with his father when the Janjaweed, a Sudanese government-backed militia who have executed a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur, surrounded his village, firing rifles. "They grabbed my father. They demanded money and, when we had none, they shot him here" he says, smacking his palm against his forehead. Mr. Adam fled, gunfire at his back. Somehow, he dragged himself to a donkey. He cannot remember how long he rode across the desert before reaching Zam Zam.

The bullet that shattered Salim Adam's leg and the gun that fired it were almost certainly manufactured in China. The militiaman who pulled the trigger was likely compensated with revenues from Chinese oil purchases, which fund a majority of Khartoum's military actions. And the reason no help has come to Darfur is, in large part, because China has blocked every attempt to deploy a United Nations peacekeeping force. Though estimates vary, most data suggest that the death toll in Darfur has reached around 450,000, and is still rising.

By the time the world awakened to the slaughter here, China was already funneling money into Khartoum. Beijing's investments in Sudan now total around $4 billion. With a 40% stake each in the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co. and Petrodar, state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. owns the largest shares of both of Sudan's national oil consortia. And in 2005, Beijing purchased more than half of Sudan's oil exports. China now relies on Khartoum for about one-tenth of its massive oil needs, placing Sudan just behind Saudi Arabia and Iran as China's largest energy supplier by volume.

It is an unholy alliance. The U.N. imposed an arms embargo when it became apparent that the Government of Sudan's military actions in Darfur were overwhelmingly directed against helpless civilians. And yet China continues to supply Khartoum with assault helicopters, armored vehicles and small arms. Last August, Beijing sold 212 military trucks to Khartoum. Chinese oil company airstrips in southern Sudan have been used by government forces to conduct bombing raids on villages and hospitals. A U.N. investigation conducted this year determined that the vast majority of weaponry used to attack civilians across Darfur is of Chinese origin.

(...)

On May 16, the Security Council finally voted on a resolution that compelled Sudan to admit a U.N. peacekeeping assessment mission. China withdrew its veto threat only after the resolution had been gutted of key language that would have allowed some U.N. peacekeepers from a force already in southern Sudan to move to Darfur. And they did so with an explicit declaration from China's Deputy Permanent Representative to the U.N., Zhang Yishan, that their vote "should not be construed as a precedent for the Security Council's future discussion or the adoption of new resolutions against Sudan."

(...)

http://www.genocideintervention.net/about/press/coverage/index.php/archives/150

[seemslikeadream]

111. The Cold War over Oil aspect of the Darfur crisis

The Cold War over Oil aspect of the Darfur crisis

So how does the United States and Chevron fit into the Darfur crisis, because Chevron was blocked their access to the oil fields in 1997 by Bill Clinton.

The Cold War aspect behind the Civil War in Darfur.


Darfur: Forget genocide, there's oil
By F William Engdahl

(...)

Merchants of death
The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005 by John Garang, trained at the US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia. By pouring arms into first southeastern Sudan and since discovery of oil in Darfur into that region as well, Washington fueled the conflict that led to tens of thousands dying and several million driven to flee their homes. Eritrea hosts and supports the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the umbrella NDA opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.

(...)

Much of the arms that have fueled the killing in Darfur and the south have been brought in via protected private "merchants of death" such as the notorious former KGB operative, now with offices in the US, Victor Bout, who has been cited repeatedly in recent years for selling weapons across Africa. US government officials strangely leave his operations in Texas and Florida untouched despite the fact he is on the Interpol wanted list for money laundering.

(...)

Chad oil and pipeline politics
Condoleezza Rice's Chevron is in neighboring Chad, together with the other US oil giant, ExxonMobil. They've just built a $3.7 billion oil pipeline carrying 160,000 barrels per day from Doba in central Chad, near Darfur, via Cameroon to Kribi on the Atlantic Ocean, destined for US refineries.

(...)

Supplied with US military aid, training and weapons, in 2004, Deby launched the initial strike that set off the conflict in Darfur. He used members of his elite Presidential Guard, who come from the province, providing them with all-terrain vehicles, arms and anti-aircraft guns to aid Darfur rebels fighting the Khartoum government in southwestern Sudan. The US military support to Deby in fact had been the trigger for the Darfur bloodbath. Khartoum reacted and the ensuing debacle was unleashed in full, tragic force.

(...)

"West Africa's oil has become of national strategic interest to us," stated US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner back in 2002. Darfur and Chad are but an extension of the US Iraq policy "with other means" - control of oil everywhere. China is challenging that control "everywhere", especially in Africa. It amounts to a new undeclared Cold War over oil.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/IE25Cb05.html

[goodgd_yall]

145. I agree

But I think similarities to fascism are legitimate. I totally agree with you. It's a stretch and it does minimize the horrors and sufferings endured under Hitler's rule.

[seemslikeadream]

147. Then you are unaware of what the policies of the U S government

is having on the rest of the world

[cynatnite]

152. Where are bush's death camps? Bush's gas chambers? Where? n/t

[Cleita]

162. They are in other countries.

We will find out more about them when this is all over with. Right now it's hard to get information. Remember the worst concentration camps weren't in Germany but in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Austria. We have some doozies from what I understand in Uzbekistan a place that Dick Cheney likes to visit.

[cynatnite]

175. Dachau and Buchenwald were pretty bad and were in Germany...

and there were thousands of subcamps scattered all over Germany. Many of them used for only a few days and then dismantled, but still considered subcamps by the Third Reich.

But in my mind one is just as bad as another...they were all basically the same.

The lack of information doesn't mean it's true.

[Call Me Wesley]

188. Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen, etc.

were located in Germany, as well as others, given the borders of 1933.

[Cleita]

201. Stretch a point will you.

The worst camps were located outside of Germany where the superior Aryan race (according to the Nazis) resided. Bringing French, Italians, Slavs (whom Hitler disdained as much as Jews) and other European territories under Nazi domination as being part of the Germany of that day doesn't make them Germans. The big difference in those days is those European nations would not have permitted camps in their countries until they were conquered by the Germans. We have enabling dicatorships we have propped up that are permitting Americans to commit atrocities within their borders.

The Nazis were careful not to ruffle the sensibilities of the ethnic Germans in Germany whom they relied on for political support so they committed the majority of their atrocities out of their sight. Our Nazis are doing the same. I don't understand the apologists for these criminal demagogues in power. You'd think they would be considered unAmerican and treasonous by us.

[cynatnite]

202. Read 'Germany's Willing Executioners'.

That book showed exactly why they were not worried about German 'sensibilities'.

[Cleita]

215. They were propagandized first and laws were passed to

make their undesirables more illegitimate, an easier target to hate, get informed on and get arrested, yet I have know Germans of that era who were just as shocked over the Holocaust pictures as anyone. So their Nazis like our Nazis knew that of the lines they crossed, they had to make sure it didn't get out in public. Donald Rumsfeld said it best when he cursed digital cameras like Abu Ghraib would never have happened if there hadn't been cameras.

I'm old enough to know people who survived Nazi occupation and WWII. I knew a Pole who lived near Auschwitz and he and his family smelled the burning flesh every day, yet could do nothing about it as a conquered people. If it had been Germany, the Germans, who like us thought they were still free, would have raised questions. The Nazis were smart enough not to commit too many crimes in their faces and those that they did commit they either covered up, or found and scapegoat and lied their way out of it.

[cynatnite]

224. Anti-semitism was an integral part of German society for decades...

before anyone knew what a Nazi was. It was ingrained and considered a norm. German propaganda helped it along, but only because the seeds were there long before Mein Kampf.

I encourage you to read this books so you have a better understanding of how something like the Holocaust could happen in what was considered a modern society.

http://www.amazon.com/Hitlers-Willing-Executioners-Ordinary-Holocaust/dp/0679772685/ref=sr_1_1/104-5083091-2083103?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1185654575&sr=8-1

[Call Me Wesley]

235. The roots of Anti-Semitism

go back to medieval times. It was lingering through centuries, Jewish Ghettos were put up centuries before the Nazis came in place.

The question about 'if Germans really knew what was going on' is still debated. Did they? Here's a hint that can be overlooked: Jewish stores closed from one day to the other, apartments, houses empty the next day. What to think of this (and don't forget the 'Kristallnacht')? They all got on a vacation, and everyone was just waiting for postcards from afar?

The termination of people was known.

[goodgd_yall]

258. And much of Europe, perhaps especially Eastern Europe

anti-Semitism had just as old a history in those places. So to establish work and extermination camps in other countries could be done without strong opposition.

[Cleita]

318. Also those seeds of anti-semitism weren't just in Germany but

Europe at large. Look what the Spaniards did to the Jews. The Germans certainly didn't have a franchise on anti-Semitism.

[Cleita]

238. I have read a lot more than you have about that era and furthermore discussed

this with Jewish friends of mine and it's true we aren't in agreement always. However this phrase of yours puzzles me:

I encourage you to read this books so you have a better understanding of how something like the Holocaust could happen in what was considered a modern society.

I thought that it's exactly what I was trying to do, but I get the impression that you people think that these circumstances are only important when they happen to Jews and no one else.

The fact is that if it happens to Arabs, Mexican/Lations, Catholics and anyone else not quite acceptable to the WASP Nazi element in our government right now, it will trickle down to the Jews as well eventually. So yes lets not let it happen again and call a Nazi a Nazi when we see one.

[cynatnite]

251. You don't know what I've read and how much...so don't make assumptions...

I don't agree with basing calling someone a Nazi based on possible future actions that may or may not happen...but then, I left my crystal ball at my mom's house.

And no, I don't see a Nazi when I look at bush. I see a pathetic human being who has no empathy and is disconnected from reality.

[Cleita]

257. My assumptions come from some of your posts that indicates

to me that you aren't as knowledgable about this historical era as you should be to make the assertions that you are making.

And, why are you returning to that brain fart of yours about things that might happen. News flash! They already have happened.

[cynatnite]

260. So where are bush's death camps? Where? Prove they happened...

Prove that bush has exterminated millions and millions of people like Hitler did.

You said 'if' in your previous post and I responded to that.

[Cleita]

264. I have stated that they are rumored. However, some of the rumors

are very credible. We won't know the real atrocities until these thugs are brought to justice. However, we know that Gitmo is very real. There is no BS about this although a lot of secrecy. There have been first person accounts of tortured detainees in Syria, Egypt and Ubekistan as well who witnessed atrocities. Until the Red Cross or UN are given access to inspect all these facilities and interview the inmates without being monitored, we won't know the extent except the first person accounts that are dribbling out in the world press (not ours). They are not to be ignored and dismissed like Americans like to do when confronted with something they don't like to see.

[cynatnite]

272. Oh, they're rumored...so that means it's a fact...I get ya' n/t

[Cleita]

275. Well, why don't you get together a boatload of inspectors

and demand to get into Gitmo to look it over. It didn't work for Michael Moor and it won't work for you, but it doesn't make the reality change. There are too many first person accounts that have been published out by various former detainees of various prisons including Gitmo to ignore them. Of course you won't admit to it because you like all the good Germans of the past refused to believe that you are no longer free and that your government is being run by a bunch of NAZIS who were not legitimately elected but placed in power by the Supreme Court.

[cynatnite]

276. .

[Call Me Wesley]

213. Yes, the extermination camps were build in the

occupied countries. However, if there's a stretch to compare BushCo to Nazi Germany, we would have to start at the beginning - and the beginning were concentration camps build in Germany, Munich, etc., which held, before the termination of the Jews began, political dissidents, etc. Germans were pretty aware of that fact, since it made many headlines in the press/propaganda. So was the regimes intent to terminate whole populations, communists, homosexuals, mentally handicapped, Romanis and Sinti and , etc. etc. This was no secret at all, it was broadcasted almost every day and could be read in the 'Völkische Beobachter.'

I disagree that there was any sensibility for 'ethnic Germans,' since at one point, there wasn't much urge for political support anymore. It became the law, perverted and molested, but nonetheless, and the power was seized within a group of a few. An interesting bit in Nazi history would be the rise and fall of the SA; and that's just one historiocal fact you'd see no comparison in the present US.

The comparison doesn't make sense, but it's a nice populist one and echoes with everyone on a certain level. It's a slogan, nothing else. Bil O'Reilly uses it when describing left-wing bloggers such as DailyKos. It's a shallow thing to do, IMO. Why not compare it to Stalin's regime, Mao's regime, Franco's regime? The list could go on. No, it has to be Hitler, because everyone recognizes him.

I, personally, still see way more pattern with the Mafia regarding the Bush regime, or, if you prefer this definition, mob with power. Not much unlike Putin's presidency. That's how they operate.

Edit to put in proper origin translations.

[Cleita]

229. Concentration camps were originally prison work camps that

criminals were sent to after sentencing by a court. The Nazis co-opted them first to send dissidents to without trial and expanded their operations to foreign countries that they had conquered to round up all undesirables and warehouse them for extermination if they weren't useful somehow. We are doing the same in Gitmo and that is the camp we know about. There are others especially in the 'stans and parts of the ME. Prisoners are held in all of them without trial, tortured and sometimes murders, many are women, children and old people. No one can actually get in, like the Red Cross, to document this but there are rumors and I don't see the difference myself from the Nazi Germany model.

Our communists, mentally handicapped, Romas, etc. etc. are known as al queda, immigrants, perverts etc., etc. and they are broadcast daily, yet we don't know what happens to those people when they are apprehended.

I could compare it to all the above regimes you mentioned except that they are communist regimes and their purpose is to nationalize all business. The Nazis on the other hand were business friendly and more like our RW nuts who want to privatize government than the left wing nuts in those regimes.

[Call Me Wesley]

243. I am not denying Gitmo, the torture in foreign countries, etc. etc.

I'm European, and there will be a long time to heal from Bush and his cronies and the crimes they committed, the corpses they walked over, laughing.

But still, what I can't agree on is this simple equation. It makes no sense. It might be somewhat similar (to a point), but as you said, it's similar to other regimes. So why compare this with the Nazis? That's my point. Because everyone knows Hitler, because it's easy to do. Not because it's right, IMO. It's Mafia. Look at the business aspect, the inner crowd they keep - they don't need the whole population marching and thinking the same. They might even sacrifice someone (Scooter Libby) and then comfort him. Sounds familiar? Nazis would have killed him for good. This is what I mean.

[Cleita]

249. The German Nazis were a bunch of crooks too. Shirer makes

a point of saying that Hitler surrounded himself with thugs, people of questionable reputation and malcontents when he was building up the party. They made up the bulk of his SA. So this is no different. However, once he became powerful and they became a liability, he purged them. I think if you go poking around the closets of the PNAC you will find many of the skeletons left behind when Bush became President. I dunno Dan Quayle comes to mind as one kicked to the curb, however, I'm not sure about how crooked he was.

[cynatnite]

255. Hitler purged them by killing them...

If that were true of bush, scooter would be six feet under right now. Hitler made a point of dealing decisively with his enemies and that almost always meant death.

[Call Me Wesley]

261. Agreed, what I mentioned above.

The sacrifice was total by killing them and replacing them, or, in the case of the SA, gathering a few for the SS and got rid of the rest. SA was not existing after the 'Night of the long knives.'

Scooter Libby is probably silenced. Mafia mentality.

[Cleita]

262. He only killed the ones he could get away with.

The riff raff that made up his SA were easy to exterminate. Others, who opposed him were not as easy to kill like the Rev. Neimoller who ended up in a concentration camp and survived the war to tell his story. Others were sent away into exile to some rural area they couldn't cause any problems in. There have been many suspicious deaths surrounding the Bushites and others, who are too high profile to off, have disappeared into oblivion as I'm sure Scooter Libby will.

[Call Me Wesley]

266. I have to strongly disgaree here,

sorry to chime in, but there was no 'riff raff' about the SA. The SA was the most powerful and most popular. Röhm wasn't just a silly figure, he was more prominent then than Hitler and his own staff together. No riff raff at all, but a most powerful figure. It was high risk to kill him and the SA leadership. This was no joke.

[Cleita]

273. I'm not going to argue the point entirely with you because

I know some of the SAs were important personages but since there was a big gay faction in it, and at that time Hitler was courting the religious right because they influenced the industrialists who supported the Nazis, he started to see them as a liability. It was also made up of thugs, drunks and other borderline citizens, who were his original supporters but who didn't fit into Hitler's new vision of an Imperialist Germany, so they had to go.

[Call Me Wesley]

284. It merely was Röhm's vision of 'permanent revolution'

that posed a risk to Hitler's staff and their vision. But funny wise, some of the thugs, drunks, gays, were absorbed into high SS positions - this was before Himmler got absolute power over it. It still took years from then on.

I'm not so sure about the industrialist's influence by the religious right. There was, in the 'Weimarer Republik' a strong force in the parliament called 'Das Zentrum', which was based on Christian beliefs (like the CSU, CDU today - Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, is a CDU member), but I wouldn't compare them to the Fundies you have in the US. They weren't really religiously right but more conservative regarding the majority. They had members from the left-wing to the ultra-right-wing. Franz von Papen, national-conservative, was vice chancellor under Hitler. But the industry had other interests than being influenced by them.

No, I hope you don't see this just as 'arguing' over different view points. I know I can't change the basics yours and you probably know you can't change the basics of mine, but I honor every learning experience and other view points and to converse with someone who has quite an expert insight in this era.

It's late here and I won't be able to reply anymore. A good night from afar and thanks for the exchange, it's appreciated. :hi:

[cynatnite]

246. Extermination camps AKA death camps...

were built for the purpose of extermination. They were not concentration or work camps first which later became labeled death camps by the Nazis. Considering the amount of death at those camps, they could be labeled the same.

Many times they took people out of the concentration camps and deported them to death camps like Auschwitz. That was always the intention as far as the Jews were concerned. Sometimes they were executed, worked to death, and victims of disease in the forced labor camps.

Now, this isn't to say that there aren't Gitmo like prisons that aren't doing horrible things, but I truly do not believe they are anything remotely close to forced labor camps or death camps such as those in Hitler's Third Reich.

[goodgd_yall]

265. I've heard this before

That Nazis were first wanting merely to imprison certain groups as slaves (work camps were the outcome)and it was only later, as though it was an evolution in their policy, that they made the killing camps. But it is as you say, the intention was always to exterminate the "undesirables." And whether death came immediately by the gas chambers, or by dying from lack of nutrition, disease, exposure to the elements, the work camps were death camps.

[Cleita]

320. Yes, there were extermination camps built after Hitler came to

power, especially in countries he conquered, but the original pre-Nazi era camps were prison work camps. They were handy and in place for the Nazis to take over and turn into concentration camps when they came to power, but their original purposed was not to incarcerate people who hadn't had a trial and been sentenced to prison.

[treestar]

267. Come on, there are many posts upthread debunking that part

by explaining that this is the beginning when you're talking about the end.

We're in 1933 in you're in 1945.

Once again, we are trying to head off 1945.

There is no "minimizing" going on. There is a "warning" going on.

We are trying to learn from the history of 60 years ago. You're trying to cut that off, actually, if you think about it.

To anyone with any education "Nazi" does not just bring to mind the Holocaust, but also totalitarianism, dictatorial powers in one leader, extreme nationalism, all the things that led to the Holocaust were also part of Nazism. If we can't discuss it, we will repeat history because we couldn't learn from it.

[goodgd_yall]

155. You'll have to provide documentation to convince me

My consciousness of Hitler's regime began when I was a child and I've done much reading on it. You haven't posted anything on this thread that backs up what you are saying. And it would take more than a posting to do it. Try a well-thought out and well-researched academic thesis and I might start taking you seriously.

* is one of the worst things that ever happened to this country (Jackson, a genocidist of the of Native Americans comes to mind as possibly worst), but we are no where near Nazi Germany, IMO.

[seemslikeadream]

170. See you just won't look ARE you doing that on purpose?

start at post 102, not enough research for you? It takes a few moment to get it all posted here. I'm just not typing a few words like you are

[seemslikeadream]

174. and I'm just not talking about the genocide of one ethic group here you know?

bush and his buddies have fanned out. I'm counting ALL the people they are killing

[seemslikeadream]

179. genocide of the of Native Americans - NOT WORSE? 11 million

Native Americans 12 million - Four centuries later 237 thousand


That's about 11 million, I think

[goodgd_yall]

211. The slaughter of the Native Americans to me comes closest

to the genocidal aspect of Nazi rule in Germany. It was intentional for the reason of eliminating a people who were "in the way" of mining resources, land for settlers and economic enterprises, who were pagans (non-judeo-christian), and who were feared and hated for being different from the mostly European-descended Americans.

We are killing many people through war, foreign policy, and Amerian business operations, it is not Nazism. It's runaway capitalism in action. I consider it more useful to call it what it is. We need to discuss capitalism and its own destructive ways. Hyperbolic comparisons to Nazism, I agree with the OP, are not effective, because they are not accurate. Fascism is more accurate.

[NuttyFluffers]

306. and that's the absolute lowest ball number...

most of the low estimates of population for native americans puts north america around 15 million. the absolute lowest i've seen was 9 million throughout the whole continent. most sensible professors i'm dealing with say that's a ridiculously low estimate, and that the 15 million is still unrealistically low. the higher estimates are around 50 million. assuming 1/3 - 1/2 of the population was below the current mexico border, a very generous estimate, you still get numbers that can only go up higher from what you have.

oh, and then there's the slave trade, where at least 50% of the slaves died in transit... so whatever number you have of imported american slaves, just consider an equal number of victim deaths, a number easily in the millions. which speaks of nothing of the rest of the atrocities of slavery, or even post-slavery jim crow laws and lynchings.

and this is speaking of nothing of our acts of empire beyond this.

no, america just might be the most successful wholesale slaughterer of humanity the world has ever seen.

[seemslikeadream]

180. Do you use a cell phone? 4 million DEAD in Congo since 1998

Do you know why??

[seemslikeadream]

187. Rwanda 1 million in a hundred days

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

[seemslikeadream]

189. We told the Hmong we would protect them after Vietnam

I'm not sure how many have already died, I'll have to get back to you

What was once our country is no more - Where are the Americans now?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZUQI1yTPeI



Reaching the Mekong River, the border between Laos and Thailand, was very difficult. After coming close many never reached the river. Those that had made it across tell stories of seeing babies trying to nurse on rotting corpses not knowing that their mother is already dead.


I can remember, it was very, very clear, one of those things that I will never forget. It will be with me to the grave. We passed about four or five people before we got to the main group and they were crying and completely inconsolable. But that didn't prepare us for what we saw. The strangest thing is there were no jungle sounds at all, no birds nothing, no sound. There was a silence that you associate with impending doom. There were old people, fifty, sixty, seventy years old and their faces were wet with tears. I'm sorry... (Blenkinsop pauses here). It just seemed to go on and on.

They were saying, "how you could have left us here for so long? How you could you abandon us to live like animals, we are not dogs and we are forced to live like dogs?"

One guy described a scene of coming back into an area where they'd been attacked and seeing the severed heads of children on sticks. People are summarily executed. I spoke to a man who said "Bhun Si" is his name. He is in his his forties and he's got terrible terrible wounds. He was wounded in 1991 from a rocket attack and he has got a wound in his thigh that still needs to be treated. He has lost his left eye, his eyes, the left side of his face is molten and he has never seen a doctor or a nurse.

[FogerRox]

153. Nazi was a politcal party, Bush belongs to the republican politcal party

It is far more accurate to say Bush is a corporatist or fascist.

[goodgd_yall]

157. Yes, fascism comparisons are legitimate

but comparisons to Hitler comes from ignorance, if you ask me.

[FogerRox]

256. Right, and its not an accurate comparison

its comparison borne of ignorance,.

[DemGa]

159. I also think of the heavy propaganda

That's a BIG one, and when you see anything like it, it NEEDS to be pointed out. No, the OP if anything SUPPORTS this position.

But what should we say then? Ummm this seems a lot like some right-wing tactics which I shall not name?

[cynatnite]

163. IMO, no one should use it as a comparison or an accusation...

no matter who uses it and for whatever purpose. I don't understand how you can say I support this position when I very clearly said why I do not.

[DemGa]

167. Okay point taken

What I mean is the nature of the atrocity in the original post makes it necessary to point out anything that resembles the lead-up to that.

But I'm sure this was addressed in the many preceding posts before mine. I think, though, if the comparison is made, it should be done so with a good deal of forethought.

[SOS]

161. Rove's foreign policy adviser, Michael Ledeen,

is an avid supporter of Mussolini-style fascism.
Agree that "Nazi" is counterproductive, but there are people in this administration who deeply admire Mussolini.

PS: The Nazi's killed 12.5 million in their camps.
Let us remember ALL the victims fascist ideology.

[Canuckistanian]

164. The Nazis didn't START by committing genocide

And no one's accusing the Bush administration of doing it now. Nor are they saying it's going to happen in the future.

But the series of steps that led to the Nazi's power grab in the 30's are being repeated today, although on a slower time scale.

I think that most are using this early period of Nazism as a cautionary tale of what COULD happen when a relatively small group of people end up with almost unlimited power - without firing a shot.

We still don't know what their ultimate plan is, if it's organized at all. But if the conditions for this power grab remain, then the stage is set for a future regime that might be just as bad as Hitler's.

[robinlynne]

172. Exactly. Those photos were only available AFTER the fact. not during.

[cynatnite]

181. Many here at DU have said that they believe bush will commit such atrocities...

It is a cautionary tale that can be used for any government, IMO.

But I'm not going to call someone a Nazi based upon future actions that may or may not happen. No one has a crystal ball for that. IMO, the imagery is just too powerful unless you can convince them to set it aside in their minds. Even still, I think most people would say 'bush didn't slaughter millions of people' and if someone says 'but bush could', they will more than likely roll their eyes and/or walk away.

[goodgd_yall]

195. Read "Rebuilding America's Defenses"

published by the Project for the New American Century for a clue into the ultimate plan. It's chilling, but it still isn't "Nazi."

[LostInAnomie]

165. I agree. The Reductio ad Hitlerum that occurs on here is ridiculous.

It's childish hyperbole used to stifle debate and stir emotions. Bush is a piece of shit on his own merits. We don't needs a flawed analogy to prove it.

[Cleita]

171. And what would be a good analogy in your opinion?

C'mon, put your cards on the table. To dismiss all the posts above as Reductio ad Hitlerum is a tad imperious so I hope you have plenty of sound reasons to back your opinion.

[LostInAnomie]

182. Why does he need an analogy? Isn't what he's done on his own more than enough...

... to be despised?

[Cleita]

203. So what words do we use to point out what he and they have done on his own?

Do we call them the dispicables? It doesn't quite have a good ring to describe what has gone on.

[LostInAnomie]

214. If all you are looking for is a good label or something with a "good ring"...

... then it shows how disingenuous the label of "Nazi" is. It isn't being used as an accurate description of the crimes being committed. It is being used to stir emotions and to cause a false emotional link.

[Cleita]

218. So you are a board member of Oxford Dictionary?

Anyone knows that the meaning of a word evolves with its usage.

[LostInAnomie]

223. So you are admitting that it is not an accurate analogy to the actual Nazis?

Or, has the evolution watered down the definition enough that any similarity now merits the title?

[Cleita]

232. No I'm just asking what your authority is to proclaim that it's

the wrong word to use?

[LostInAnomie]

248. So people have to be authorities in Etymology to disagree with the use of "Nazi"?

One could easily ask, what your authority is to use "Nazi" and proclaim that it is the correct usage?

[Cleita]

252. I just think you don't know what you are talking about .

The fact that you can't put up a reasonable argument to back your original post seems to indicate this to me.

[LostInAnomie]

287. Alright, I'll start here.

Nazism was based on a racial ideology that viewed other races as inferior sub-humans, and some races were viewed as unworthy of life and therefore should be subject to extermination.

Is there such a racial component to the Bush Administration's ideology?

[Cleita]

317. LOL! Buwahahaha!

Is there a racial component to the Bush Administration ideology? That's a knee slapper! Everything they do is based on class and by default racial discrimination. Don't be fooled by their tokens. They are just window dressing. Colin Powell figured out his non-function and left. These are greedy white men bent on ruling the world for a small group of aristocratic greedy white men and their token wives. They may let the occasional Arab in their club for their oil, but the minute those oil wells dry up they well kick them to the curb because they really don't like their ethnicity or their culture.

[LostInAnomie]

321. So in other words, there is not, and you will make assertions based on extrapolations...

... instead of giving actual proof of a master race ideology.

Going on to my second point: Has the Bush Administration abolished all other political parties other than the Republican party?

[goodgd_yall]

233. But that doesn't mean one has to agree with that usage

The common usage of Nazi or nazi has been opposed by people before * was elected. I used to use the term on an overbearing boss or someone with serious control issues. But once I read a piece that challenged the trivialization of "nazi," I stopped making it a part of my speech in that way. This is because I agree with the OP that it's overuse minimizes the actual reality of Nazi history and the beliefs of true self-proclaimed Nazis.

[Cleita]

319. Well, I personally have never used it to describe a boss or

anyone who wasn't a real Nazi (I met many of them in South America after WWII when I lived there)until now. I started calling the Bushites Nazis because they really are in ideology and if I may put my :tinfoilhat: on for a moment, I think the Nazi party is alive and well in different parts of the world including North America. I already knew some of them who escaped and resettled in South America. For decades after the war, they were much like the IRA, an outlaw party, but still around waiting to become legitimate again. They seem to be making a comeback and I wouldn't be surprised if once we turn over all the rocks we will find a mother organization that can be directly traced back to Hitler's Nazi Party.

[Lint Head]

173. The Bush criminals refuse to let people see the carnage they have

done. These images were seen after the Nazis were defeated. Not during and not before. George Bush's Grandfather Prescott Bush admired Hilter and wanted to overthrow FDR to bring fascism to the US. This is a historical fact not a myth. George Bush surely admires his Grandfather so there most definitely 'is' a Nazi connection. :dem:

[mdmc]

184. perhaps they are like desert nazis

the victims might not be Jewish, but they are still from the Middle East.

[FiveGoodMen]

190. Too bad nobody stopped them!

Maybe because everyone refused to believe it would eventually get that bad.

It might eventually get that bad here.

Especially if everyone refuses to accept the similarities that have been observed so far.

[mogster]

193. You have a point

The mainstream completely lack the ability to see nazism as it really was experienced by those who lived in the 1920's and 1930's.
It is viewed backwards through history and we fail to see the 'everyday' nature it had before becoming monster regime number 1, responsible for death factories and the death of tens of millons world wide. However, I think comparisons between the regimes will strike people and make them think, if they are on mark and not rubberstamping only. We should always be on guard against authoritarianism and it is a duty to point out not only the many similarities between the nazi and current day policies, but also the will to power, the will to change the way people think and feel, and the speed at which status quo is changing.
The 'old world order' is only six years back in time, yet we seem in many ways to have adopted the change as inevitable. We forget how it was to live in a world where the tomorrow was more or less foreseeable, and the general method of interaction between nations was peaceful diplomacy.
If I were you, I'd trust people to understand what's happening by doing comparisons to the past, whichever authoritarian regime you use as a model. By explaining which factors that made democracy go bust in the 1930's Germany, you also will bring history closer to the people you're talking to.

[nebenaube]

194. You are just so wrong... n/t

[mmonk]

206. One of the purposes of never forgetting is to ensure no one

takes a similar path again.

[hfojvt]

208. you .... you.... you

pictureNazi!

[redacted]

220. I disagree. Drawing appropriate comparisons exploits one of their weakest spots.

Just because one comparison doesn't work doesn't mean we can't take advantage of the thousand-plus appropriate parallels that do.

Our opponents are very vulnerable on those, and they know it. That's why they're so sensitive to the comparisons--they are so difficult to deny.

I think this point was taught in week two of my university course in logic and reasoning (Philosophy 102b, I think) a couple of decades ago. I still have the textbook.

[alarimer]

225. Right-wingers ARE fascists though

Maybe not like Nazis, maybe more like Mussolini. I get my varieties of fascists confused at times. But what else would you call a group of people who steal elections, want to kill liberals, homosexuals and the poor (and maybe actually have from time to time), ban books, movies or music they do not like, want to install state religion and kill everyone who believes differently and, worship corporations above all else.

[Bicoastal]

226. So...American soldiers = SS?

THIS is why sane people instantly recoil when we refer to this Administration as Nazis or Bush as Hitler--because if you put two and two together, it's quite a grevious insult to the soldiers we spend many of our other posts sympathizing with. After all, Bush isn't personally killing the Iraqis...so was Casey Sheehan a Nazi? Is Webb's son? Are our DU Vets former members of the Gestapo? Why don't we just spit on them and call them "Baby-killers," because I'm sure those "Third Reich" Republicans would just love that.

Think about the implications of these inflammatory terms before you start throwing them out willy-nilly. I think the two should be seperate. What's happening right now is as different from the Third Reich as it is similar, so why not call Bush "Bush" and the Republicans "Republicans?" Those are already shameful, disgusting terms as it is. Yeesh.

[seemslikeadream]

228. 14 Characteristics of Fascism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVVa1IvHdKc

[Fascist Papers]

230. Bush = Nazis, no...but Bush = fascists. yes.

You're point is well taken about use of the word Nazi to discribe Bush's crimes against humanity. But only the German fascists, which is what the Nazis were, specifically choose the jews as their national enemies. If you look to what the Nazis had in common with all other fascist states, you will see that fascists choose "non-nationalists" and minority races as degenerate...say, lowerclass blacks, illegal mexican immigrants, Moslems and homosexuals...and in this, they are right in line with Bush priorities.

John Dean in talking about the same issues, used the word
"authoritarian" to discribe the Bush/Cheney gov't, but I think he is erring on the side of indulgence. Authoritarians are not necessarily
empire builders, devoted to illegal wars to build their own wartime industries, but fascists are.

Authoritarians, like the paleo-conservatives, support the constitution, but interpret it in the most conservative way. Fascists, on the other hand realize that the Constitution is all that stands between them and the permanent party-government that they desire.

If you wish to describe the Bushes properly, fascists is the proper word, but you'll still have a fight to make your point, as fascism is such a loaded concept.

Still, study fascism, learn about it, and you'll see that it's the proprer word to describe what the Bush neocons are attempting to do.

[goodgd_yall]

245. Agree on everything you wrote

I think fascist is the appropriate word, but, as you say, even that characterization of Bush and his gang would alienate people; but at least it is accurate.

[mmonk]

234. So are you saying there are no similarities due to the Holocaust

or are you saying because of the Holocaust, we must not speak of them?

[cynatnite]

281. No, I'm not saying there are no similarities...there are, IMO...

but, I don't believe it's a valid one because of the Holocaust. Those images are awfully hard to wipe from most people's minds, IMO, and I think they wouldn't take anyone seriously who believes it because of the similiarities. Bush hasn't exterminated millions and even using 'he might in the future' doesn't warrent the label, IMO. I'm not going to call someone a Nazi based on who his grandfather was, similar ideologies, or for what he might do in the future. It still doesn't make it so. I'm also of the opinion that it minimizes the horror of the Holocaust.

Other names like fascist, moron, idiot, boy king, etc...yeah, I can go with that. :)

[mmonk]

298. You might be pleased to know I don't call them Nazis

however, I will on occasion mention parallels that are inescapable concerning the cessation of constitutional rights with the Patriot Act and other new laws to take away rights with the Enabling Act, or I may mention pre-emptive or pre-ventive war concepts or the forgeries to sell an invasion of another country, use of fear of terrorism due to an event to seize powers, use of secret prisons around the world where we have an occupying presence, etc. such as the things probably mentioned in these threads. I think we must be aware of how such things take root and recognize the dangers and I think it a duty of people to issue warnings using history as a guide.

[cynatnite]

300. No disagreement because the parallels are troubling, IMO...

I think it's great we keep such a close eye on them and it's important to never forget history. I do agree very much :hi:

[mmonk]

302. With you there.

:hi:

[seemslikeadream]

236. Prisoner 345 It's a number, just a number

Prisoner 345 It's a number, just a number




http://www.prisoner345.net /



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

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



Prisoner 562

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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


Song of Choice


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

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

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

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

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

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

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



If fascism is slowly climbing back



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

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

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

Peggy Seeger

[OzarkDem]

240. Genocide in America

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,514089,00.jpg

[treestar]

242. Only to people whose minds operate in black and white, either/or

That does describe a lot of Americans, though.

Still, we have to quit letting the stupidest among us control the discourse, or we will descend further and further. That's how we got here.

Bush isn't Hitler NOW, but he and his cabal have similarities to the early days of Nazism. Those images you post are the end of the story, and we'd be more concerned about the beginning. We're not going to wait for that to happen before we put a stop to it.

Post 911 the American people had certain similarities to the German people of the early 1930s. Fortunately, they appear to be wising up.

That's what is good about America. We see tyranny on the horizon and start reacting - we don't wait until it's too late before we start trying to fight it off.

[zonmoy]

244. Don't like nazi, find a term that fits both bush and the nazis

that doesn't use the word.

[seemslikeadream]

250. Why is Iraq in Chaos? NO END IN SIGHT Learn the Truth! 7/27

How can you fight if you don't recognize the warning



http://www.noendinsightmovie.com/



http://www.ericblumrich.com/
Much has been said about the war in Iraq, especially how we were so horribly misled into it. Robert Greenwald and Michael Moore, among many others, have done an excellent job in translating this painful episode in our recent history into film.

One would think that after a dozen or so excellent (and a few dozen not-so-excellent) films, the subject had been tapped dry. When I got a review DVD of "No End In Sight," I sighed to myself: "What- ANOTHER one of these?" What else can be said, really?

A hell of a lot, as I soon found out.

This film is the first that I've seen that, rather than focusing on the chicanery during the lead up and immediate aftermath of the invasion, covers the long, sorry history of our occupation of Iraq- and it's a story so stained with blind arrogance and grotesque incompetence that it baffles the mind.

It's important to note that the film's cast of commentators isn't the rogue's gallery of antiwar liberals you'd normally expect in such a film. The damning evidence this film presents is related by the likes of former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, US Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Major General Paul Eaton, General Jay Gardner, Walter Slocombe, and Col. Paul Huges (among many others.) These are, as the film's website boasts, "The ultimate Insiders." These were people who had a front-row seat to the debacle that is our adventure in Iraq.

No- scratch that word: "Debacle." Replace it with "Irreversible shitstorm."

It has become the de-rigeur defense of the remaining 25% who support the war to say "All you lib'ruls can do is second-guess." The antiwar majority is accused of playing "monday morning quarterback." "It's easy to just sit back and criticize," we're told...

Indeed, it is easy to sit back and criticize:

Item: When Baghdad fell, and the city devolved into an orgy of chaotic looting, not only were we unprepared for it, our troops were given express orders not to interfere. Thus, we showed the people of the newly-conquered country of Iraq that we were unwilling or unable to exercise authority.

Item: Instead of immediately turning over power to an interim Iraqi government, we installed a Provisional Authority. In the staff of this imposed government, only a handful could speak arabic, and even fewer had any experience that would prepare them for their new positions. This new government was not only incapable of communicating with the Iraqi people, it was incapable of governing them.

Item: This Provisional authority put 23-year-old white kids who had just graduated from Ivy League universities in charge of entire Iraqi government agencies. It didn't matter that they had zero knowledge of what they were doing- what mattered was the fat check the kid's father had sent to the republican party.

Item: Paul Bremer decided to disband the Iraqi army, which resulted in a half-million heavily armed men roaming the country, looking for their next meal. Keep in mind, until Bremer decreed thusly, the higher echelons of the existing Iraqi army were ready and willing to help secure the country under US supervision.

Item: "De- Ba'athification" fired everyone who had any links with the former ruling party, even though a majority had joined simply out of a sense of self-preservation. This effectively barred 100,000 of Iraq's most educated and influential people from taking any role in Iraq's reconstruction.

Item: These examples are but the tip of the iceberg.

What's especially frustrating, is that these insane decisions were challenged- not by liberal whackos like you and I, but by highly-experienced, knowledgeable military and civilian experts from within the administration. At every turn, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bremer, and the usual suspects were warned that they were screwing the pooch, but they ignored these warnings, and just kept on making horrible decisions- no matter how many times they were proven wrong.

Bush, when he enters the picture, is blissfully and willfully ignorant of what's going on.

After watching this film, I felt drained, and saddened. It paints a picture of a monolithic arrogance that almost strikes one dumb with wonder (and that's sayin' something, considering I've been studying this nest of vipers for well on to a decade.)

If it's showing in your town, I can't think of a better way to spend a few bucks and a few hours. However, If you're a recovering alcoholic, I'd stay away- after viewing this, you'll want to blot out everything you've just seen...



It's more horrible and sad than you could imagine.

[AntiFascist]

254. Bush has certainly learned the lessons of Hitler's failure...

he won't be as overt with his exterminations. Better to stir up racism, religious superiority (in all 3 major religions), and military allegiance, then let the dark side of human nature take its course.

[Karenina]

295. No well-kept statistics, no nasty pictures.

[Orsino]

259. Only to those unable (or unwilling) to understand analogies...

...or to admit that one can compare nonidentical things.

[RestoreGore]

268. If your investments supported the building of the camps these people were exterminated in...

You are a NAZI to me.

[The Backlash Cometh]

269. How about Nazi wannabe?

Bush is just in the first stage of fascism. That doesn't mean that he hasn't fully developed into whatever he plans to become if he's given the free reign. I'd like to believe that we've slowed him down, but there's still that sticking point. The fact that he has acted in a manner that has shown complete disregard for protocol, precedent or Constitution. And we still don't know what he would do if we're attacked again, particularly prior to the 2008 election. Will he step down? Why should he? The man has shown every evidence to the contrary.

[seemslikeadream]

289. Yes a juvenile nazi

Not quite grown up yet, still playing with toys

[Gabi Hayes]

279. nazis? fascists? GOP? what's the difference? ask Swamp Rat. I stand with him:

http://www.ericblumrich.com/ihr.html

[depakid]

280. Basically just another angle of Godwin's law

As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.

Godwin's Law does not question whether any particular reference or comparison to Hitler or the Nazis might be appropriate, but only asserts that one arising is increasingly probable. It is precisely because such a comparison or reference may sometimes be appropriate, Godwin has argued, that overuse of Nazi and Hitler comparisons should be avoided, because it robs the valid comparisons of their impact.

There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically "lost" whatever debate was in progress.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

[LostInAnomie]

294. Exactly

I used the term Reductio ad Hitlerum because it's basically the same tactic. It conflates any similarities with Hitler and being the same as Hitler.

It's basically:

Hitler did X
A did X
Therefore, A is the same as Hitler

Nazis did X
B did X
Therefore, B is a Nazi

[RestoreGore]

282. 31 Similarities Between Bush and Hitler

http://www.oneplanetonenation.com/cgi-bin/news/newsscript.pl?record=21

I say, if it walks like a duck...

[seemslikeadream]

290. Excellent

Thanks :hi:

[RestoreGore]

308. You're welcome, because I'm tired of being told to walk on eggshells...

And that one cannot see the similariries between Bush and Hitler, which are stark. His policies are very much aligned with Nazi ideology and it is only truthful to compare the two as it would be to compare them to Stalin, or even Nero. I remember reading an entry about the book Bob Woodward wrote about Bush and war wherein there was an excerpt recalling an appearance Bush made in Yankee Stadium after 9.11, and in the midst of the nationalistic fervor he was fomenting, Karl Rove was quoted as saying to the cheers of the crowd that it had the feel of a Nazi rally. These people are not Americans and they are not in this for love of this country. I will not then sit and be told what to say when I am discussing policies. I just think some don't want it being compared because once again, they think it will keep "their side" from "winning" an election... and that is a laugh. Winning a rigged election just like the one that put Bush in power. He even reached power the same way Hitler did, via the supreme court. So in my opinion his policies are in alignmnent with Nazi policies and I will not be told to say otherwise. Perhaps instead of caring more for how people parse that, people should be more concerned with getting the maniacs OUT of our government before the next attack comes and the boom is really lowered.

[Greyhound]

283. The implication is that it is possible to "win" an argument with those that would deny

our crimes. That is false. Anybody that would deny that they are using the same playbook that the nazis did will never concede even the smallest point in any argument. This desperate and willful blindness is also why we are complicit and will be judged as harshly as the Germans were by those that will dominate once we're done destroying ourselves.

[Trajan]

286. I don't buy it ....

That picture represents the ultimate result of Nazism ..... But the rise of the fascist Nazi party had characteristics and traits the can be compared to current political trends in contemporary history ....

I don't buy Godwin's Law ..... Nazis were lots of things, and hurt humanity is many ways: to deny the lesser arguments because of it's ultimate horror would do a disservice to humanity ....

One CAN and SHOULD argue that certain Nazi-like tendencies exist within the current regime's political expression ....

[Jack Sprat]

288. You reserve that right to hold that opinion.

Yet, you cannot control everyone's attitude concerning this. Though the picture is horrific, there were loyal Nazis who were never aware of atrocities until after the war ended. That did not mean that these faithful followers of Hitler's Nazi Party were not complicit. When you see Iraqis piled in sexual poses, when you read the accounts of innocent children killed by our soldiers, when you see prisoners held without trial, do you not see some connection in the mind thought of both Bush and Hitler. Bush is conducting a genocide of Iraqis and there is reason to suspect that it is being conducted for just that purpose. That is why I think that "Nazi" is not a sacred word, just reserved for the Germans who came to power in the 1930s. It can also apply to Americans or anyone else when they torture, kill, and occupy a civilian population. We have no reports of ovens or gas being used, but mass graves are prevalent throughout and neither you nor I can say positively that Americans were not involved. Also, I would point out that Bush has a private Army at his disposal. They were dispatched to a Florida precinct on election night of Nov 2000 and they are deployed in Iraq right now.

[seemslikeadream]

292. What do you think is going to happen to the Kurds

when we leave?

[guruoo]

296. I believe more Americans think of images like this...

IMHO, American more often think of images related to what led
to the image you have posted. If I am wrong, then we need
to put more effort into changing American's though process
as it relates to the rise and fall of the Third Reich.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

301. Here's an image for you.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/27/national/27MIAM.html?ei=5007&en=2d23e55b7d505fcd&ex=1385355600&adxnnl=1&partner=USERLAND&adxnnlx=1185676325-3OA6MUVPpH/2cGJ1O82idg

[guruoo]

303. Yeah. Exactly.

[Agnostic_Jihad]

305. yes i agree

I agree that it's very distatseful to call them Nazis.

[RestoreGore]

310. So is the OP stating they do not deserve to be tried for war crimes?

Because what they have done and are doing does not compare to anything previously? You don't always need a concentration camp to kill millions of people. They are doing it very slowly over generations and very methodically. The children of our world will also suffer for their crimes, and to me they epitomize all that is evil in this world. You may not call that "nazi" but to me Nazi is evil, and that describes them to a tee.

[Agnostic_Jihad]

311. why do you guys

need to villify people you disagree with? how can you try someone one the grounds that they're ignorant of history and culture? that's what happened here, nothing more, nothing less, they're policy sucked and the effect was a lot of dead people, but i don't see any evil intent on the part of the bush/cheney adminsitration. if anything it came out of the misguided idealism of neo-conservatism

[RestoreGore]

312. Why do you feel the need to villify those who exercise their free speech?

And sorry, but if you see no evil intent here then you are the ignorant one. And excuse me but, "the effect was a lot of dead people?" Is that all they are to you? Are you sure you are a Democrat?

[Agnostic_Jihad]

313. yeah

i'm sure. the dead people reference has to do with our comparison with the holocaust, one that doesn't hold water. hitler wanted to exterminate a race and dominate countries for lebenstraum, while bush wanted to liberate a country from a fascist and impose western democratic values in a fundamentalist society where those concepts are alien to them

one is evil and one is naive. they are totally different

[RestoreGore]

314. Wow, are you ever ignorant of history

Go look up the history behind how Hussein got to power in Iraq and who it was that helped him until he wouldn't play ball anymore. Then maybe you can respond here without looking totally ignorant of what went down and why.

[Agnostic_Jihad]

315. why

are you so fond of accusations and personal attacks? i know about the american support of his dictatorship during the cold war era and during our tensions with the ayatollah. i also know that the baathists were originally affiliated with the nazis, so in a sense bush was fighting the descendant of nazis

hurling insults..either at the president or myself..does nothing to clarify anything

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

325. I'm going to give this thread two thumbs up.

[robertpaulsen]

329. I have two words for ANYONE who rolls their eyes at me during an argument.

FUCK YOU.

Because anyone who rolls their eyes at me does not deserve the civility I always present at the outset of any argument regarding the atrocities and war crimes of the BFEE. Once you lose my respect, I have no desire to educate or inform you. I'm not saying this to you personally, just in general. NOBODY ROLLS THEIR FUCKING EYES AT ME IN AN ARGUMENT OR THEY GAIN MY PERMANENT DISDAIN.