Let the Conservatives and Tea Partiers thrive on wrong-headed comparisons to Nazi Germany...

[Bicoastal]

...I'd like to think DUers are too smart and have a better grasp of history to compare our political landscape to a state which gave the world Zyklon B, Josef Mengele, and camps designed to manufacture death in all its forms.

I'd like to think it, but I'm sure many will come and prove me wrong.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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

[Bicoastal]

2. You can't post locked threads...

...but this OP was definitely meant as a counter-response to the sentiments expressed therein.

[Sebastian Doyle]

3. Those death camps didn't happen over night, ya know

It was an escalation that brought things to that point, because the German people didn't stop it. The frog in the pan of water metaphor might apply to some of them, though not all. The famous Reinhold Niebuhr poem ("first they came for the......") fits even better.

The teabaggers said nothing while Chimp and Darth shit all over the Constitution and started two illegal wars of convenience. Now they're passing around batshit crazy theories about the President, carrying assault rifles to his appearances, and openly calling for his assassination (and that of other elected officials) in their teabagger meetings and batshit cult churches.

The body count of the Third Reich ain't there yet. But the mentality of it sure as Hell is. :scared:

[COLGATE4]

5. I agree with you.

The Nazis didn't come into full flourish overnight, but by gradual steps. At each step they were minimized by the German elite - aristocrats, industrialists and military, each of whom thought they could keep Hitler 'in check'. The breeding ground for this type of mentality, founded on fear and lack of education and/or introspection is present and alive and well today - just look at Palin's and Beck's followers. Just because they've 'dialed it back' for the time being doesn't mean that the 'dream' the Nazis dreamed isn't alive and well in a significant portion of the American populace. We disregard it at our own peril.

[mix]

8. The reactionaries you and I fear are uniquely American.

American conquest, genocide, racism, and religious fanaticism emerged far earlier than Nazism or fascism.

[Cleita]

9. Those camps were part of the Weimar Republic. They were prison work

camps. When the Nazis came into power, they started changing the laws making everything Jewish and what Jews did illegal, like eating in a restaurant for instance. That become the law. Then they could throw families of Jews into those camps, use them for slave labor to work and starve them to death. After awhile they didn't even bother with the formality of charging them with crimes. I believe once they occupied Poland and other countries, they felt free to build camps whose only purpose was as extermination facilities like Auswich. If we ever get Republicans back in office, I believe you will start seeing the direction we were headed in revived with torture and torture facilities in other countries as what was happening under Bush/Cheney.

[mix]

4. I agree.

Nor do I agree with likening our present state to fascism, a notion based on a misunderstanding of what Mussolini meant by "corporatism."

Our particular hell is neo-liberal and imperialist in origin.

Nazism and fascism are their own particular forms of evil just as neoliberalism and empire are our own.

[Cleita]

6. I think there was a lot of comparison you could make with Germany

in the previous Bush administration because they did do much of what Hitler and his party did to gain power. For instance, Hitler was not elected Chancellor the first time but appointed by President Von Hindenburg before he died in office much like George Bush was appointed by the Supreme Court both the results of indecisive elections. Co-opting the media and replacing it with propaganda was another method used to secure the power they gained, and there was the invasion of Poland, which came about in a similar way that the invasion of Iraq was done. However, this administration has no comparison to Nazi Germany like the Bush administration did so those tea party people are really out of it.

[Sebastian Doyle]

11. And don't forget the whole Reichstag building episode

Chimp & Darth copied that one too :evilfrown:

[Posteritatis]

7. You must be new here. (nt)

[MadMaddie]

10. The Brown shirts were the catalyst that started Germany down

the road to disaster. The Brown Shirts started out with bullying the Jewish citizens and threatening the citizens. At the same time the propaganda radio, cartoons and posters started showing up.

It is a mistake to disregard historical perspective when similar activities are happening in real time.

It is ugly and it is hard to believe that anything similar could happen here.

Let's take a peak at what has happend over the last two years, the Repugs have pulled the veil back to expose their KKK hats, the subtle racist comments are in the forefront now and not so subtle. The posters, the attack on President Obama's citizenship and the threats.
And not so surprising the outright attack on Gays in this country.

To the right wing nuts that read this, yes there were carcitures of your guy from the last 8 years but there were no overt battle crys to lynch him or murder him. Prosecute him absolutely we talked about that.

This is not a game these people are playing they are deadly serious on violently taking over the government. If that means destroying innocent people in the process well that's just collatoral damage.

Janet Napolitano was right the first time she said we have to watch for internal homegrown terrorist.

We ignore their activities at our own peril.

[mix]

12. The rise of Nazism is a cautionary tale, nothing more.

All the injustices and wrongs you describe, along with our homegrown terrorists, are the products of our political system and history and have nothing to do with Nazism or fascism.

Americans have a hard time facing this fact; the Nazi comparison is an example of this

[MadMaddie]

14. You are correct that it has nothing to do with Nazism or facism

but that was not my point. My point is in 2010 it seems the thought of the day is to ignore all historical similarities because it's the convenient thing to do.

It may not be the exact blue print that happened in Germany but the similarities cannot be ignored. Yes, it is American and it is unique but it is not something original.

Cautionary tale it may be but ignore it and one day we will be looking back saying how could it have happened?

[zbdent]

13. so where's the "media outcry" when they do the Nazi comparisons?

crickets chirping ...