The hecklers of the wheelchair bound woman made me think of the "Final Solution"

[elehhhhna]

Last night, when Tweety ran the clip, Lawrence O'Donnell and he were actually speechless with regard to how to even discuss it. One of them asked the other if he'd seen anything like it before, and what he'd compare it to...no answer. All that came to mind for me was Hitler's Final Solution.

The hate-loving-moron mob mentality is getting scary.

[FiveGoodMen]

1. I wish someone from the research side of psychology would weigh in on how this happens

We really have mass insanity at this point.

If we understood it, maybe we'd be able to shut it off.

[elehhhhna]

8. any comprehensive history of Rwanda in the 80's

pretty much explains it:

Tell them they're victims.

Tell them who the "threat" is.

Repeat repeat repeat.

Shake, stir, pour.

BOOM.

[FiveGoodMen]

9. And yet, try arguing here at DU that the Fairness Doctrine was good because

it prevented one side from dominating the public discourse and see what kind of reactions you get!


Actually, what I was getting at was slightly different. You're right about how they do it, but I'm wondering what mental appendix we inherit that keeps going bad and killing the brain.

I'm guessing there's something our chimp/human common ancestors had that caused them to become uncritically dedicated to a certain leader, following their every dictate even to homicidal/suicidal lengths.

We see that in religion after religion all around the world. That has to come from somewhere. It was probably adaptive at some earlier evolutionary stage and is now the human race's ticking time-bomb.

[AllieB]

11. That's because there's a lot of RW trolls here who have a limited grasp of history.

Rwanda, Hitler's Germany, Milosevic's Serbia, etc.

[Echo In Light]

2. At its most simple, dumb, mean people hate intelligent, considerate ones.

[kdmorris]

3. Are you serious?

Hitler's Final Solution was a government plan to enslave and kill an entire group of people, complete with laws on how to tell them apart from the "real" humans. It laid out how to round them up, how to kill them and how to dispose of their bodies. It was systematic murder on a HUGE scale.

And this bunch of assholes makes you think of that? Man, I hate it when people from EITHER side start talking in hyperbole like this.

[elehhhhna]

5. How in hell do you think the Nazis got "normal" people to participate in the holocaust?

The vilified the disabled, the different, the "different from us".

The Rwandans hate radio called the victims of THEIR genocide "cockroaches"...,for YEARS, before they actually gave the orders, OVER THE AIR, to "Kill the cockroaches".

If you can't see the parallels I hardly think you're trying.

I have a distant relative who died at Auschwitz in '43. His mother was a Jew, so I doubt he fell from a guard-tower, if you catch my drift.

[kdmorris]

6. I do catch your drift

and I still think you are wrong. The people who go to these town hall meetings and act like assholes ARE the "normal" people that went along with the Nazis.

EVERYTHING politically these days is "the Nazis", or "like Hitler" when it really isn't. When they paint Obama pictures to look like Hitler, they are doing the same thing that you are. Using something horrible in history to try to make current events worse than they are, to make it more scary.

Sorry about your distant relative. Had he been alive today, how do you think he would feel about you comparing his murder (and that of probably most of his immediate family) to a bunch of assholes yelling at a woman in a wheelchair?

[elehhhhna]

7. You and I agree. My point is your first paragraph exactly.

I have family in Holland who knows about the Nazis all too well and they can see the parallels. Inciting a mob into thinking they're victims who require retributiuon is an old trick -- and I don't mention the Nazis lightly I do not belive that my analogy compared death in the camps to being shouted down by idiots. Perhaps too subtle for you.

[RagAss]

10. Good luck with that optimistic view of mankind.

[benld74]

4. Made me wish for their Final Destination