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- Manlobbi
Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
No. of Recommendations: 5
If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done during the rise of Nazi Germany, it’s whatever you’re doing in this moment.
From an “Indivisible” communication
No. of Recommendations: 1
Watching Fox & Friends First with my morning coffee. It’s now 4:30am here.
Didn’t have TV back then.
No. of Recommendations: 3
I"m going to "No Kings"! rallies and then shouting :No Kings!" because i've got a new meme every other week.
Then i'm gonna shout "Alligators!" "Viktor Orbam!"
Then i'll be in my non diverse enclave where 24/7 i'l only consorting with people of like mind.
I'll whine about Nazi but cancel any point of view differing from mine like "WAPO ONLINE!"
This is all after spending decades refusing to take seriously, the concerns of people who were not in my bubble.
And because i'm so self segregated, and so used to living in my own socioeconomicpolitical ghetto slash silo.....i was so out of touch with the rest of my country that i only knwo the other side's worst elements. And in the process, i totally ignored, scoffed at, degraded, and waved off the concerns - both real and imagined of huge blocs of my fellow citizens --oh ignored these people all the while shouting "Democracy!"
I figured hey, i've got my OWN voters enslaved in inner cities. I can shout "fund education!' for 50 years but refuse to let them leave their plantation school. I can shout "Racism!" when someone brings up that 70% of them are having babies out of wedlock, and having lives of poverty, fear, dependence on MY Liberal ass, and how in that same racist America - while my slaves are in prison, OTHER non white demographics are only getting more advanced, more sought after, and flourishing in every sector of my country.
Oh and then after decades of ignoring the rest of the country, some of their concerns reached a boiling point and they embraced a demagogue who doesn't give rat piss for their well being ---but he at least listened, or even pretended to listen to them. he proposed solutions based on anger, and appealed to their worst elements ALSO - and spoke in bullshit platitudes and also offered a few solutions that my citizens thought were long overdue.
INstead of adopting the *tiny few* of his issues - and realizing i need to shift- and accepting i need to LISTEN and take seriously the many voters - moms dads grandparents innocent kids who attended the rallies, I painted them ALL as racist (Projecting my own racial discomfort on them).....
And I helped the demagogues win.
And then even after they lost i helepd them keep a hold on things.
And then I helped them win again.
And now, I post online and call them Nazis.
That's what I did right now.
Oh, and I donated my coat to make a few wool sweaters. Jeff Bezos bought them to cover his ugly ass wife's big fake titties. He could still aford the sweaters even after my big stand of cancelling WA-PO online!
My mission going forward: Not changing even 1%. After all this is a "democracy!" - it means the rest of the people need to HEIL at my point of view....I don't need to take theirs seriously and try to compromise with them.
And now it's the crack ass of dawn. I've not shouted "Ukraine!" in awhile. So i'm gonna shout "Ukraine!" and "our allies!" while not doing the same when Israeli humans are literally snatched out of their country. I'm not gonna shout "China! because they fund my 401K(and i love them central planning authoritarians) ---so those Muslims Uyghurs can sit in their Chinese Concentration camps get ate Phucked while I shout "Nazi!!!!!" here at home.
Bibliography: Mine Baaaaaaaaaa Kampf ******* *********.
No. of Recommendations: 2
Then i'll be in my non diverse enclave where 24/7 i'l only consorting with people of like mind.
You should get out more.
No. of Recommendations: 3
So coffee and Kool-Aid then.
No. of Recommendations: 2
hen i'll be in my non diverse enclave where 24/7 i'l only consorting with people of like mind.
You should get out more.
***
I do. And constantly challenge my own point of view and consort with diverse peoples weekly at least. I watch left leaning figures far more than my own. I don't "cancel" any of them. WAPO!
Hence i usually call elections accurately, and i'm well ahead on trends.
If I was a self segregator, i'd be here shouting "No Kings" one week. Then "Nazi" the next. THen "Alligator" the next -- always reacting reacting reacting.
BTW, haha@ your status quo.
I'm winning.
boom.
No. of Recommendations: 3
Watching Fox & Friends First with my morning coffee. It’s now 4:30am here.
Didn’t have TV back then.
Fair enough. Then let me rephrase:
You’d be sitting, drinking your morning coffee and reading the latest copy of Der Stürmer
Probably also complaining about all of those filthy foreigners that Der Fuhrer was finally getting rid of.
No. of Recommendations: 22
If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done during the rise of Nazi Germany, it’s whatever you’re doing in this moment.
I know precisely what my family was doing "during the rise of Nazi Germany" because my uncle wrote detailed memoirs.
My Jewish great-uncle was a pediatrician. He emigrated from Vienna to Queens, New York in 1929. He sent a steady stream of letters to my grandfather, a math professor at he U in Vienna, keeping him advised of the rise of the Reich as explained by the free press that was rapidly disappearing in Nazi occupied regions.
He urged my grandfather in 1932 to get visas for 'the boys.' My grandfather, being Jewish and paralyzed from the waist down had no chance of getting a visa. He committed suicide on krystallnacht because, as he explained in 'the note' he knew his boys would never leave without him. And to his brother in New York, "Paul, please watch over my boys."
Between 1932 and deserting the German army to which all male students were conscripted, my uncle completed his PhD in physics and fought Nazi youth in the streets of Vienna. My father, a medical student, tended to the medical needs of the neighborhood; victims of the brown shirted punks... and that's what they were doing as my grandfather committed suicide on Krystallnacht.
My Catholic grandmother, a school teacher, continued to work until she was fired for being married to a Jew. She did what she had to do to keep her husband and 3 boys fed ... selling off their possessions to survive and pay for their escape from Vienna in the spring of 1939- my dad and uncle to the US army. She and her youngest son fled to Ljubljana with nothing....to sit out the war with her Catholic family.
No. of Recommendations: 2
That is an interesting glimpse into microhistory (i.e. one family coping). Very cool.
However, the majority of Germans (and Austrians) did nothing. For various reasons, including complacency, fear, and tacit support (or even vocal support).
The majority of Americans also are doing nothing. I'm glad to see the protests, especially the big organized ones. It's at least something, as they explore deporting citizens and constructing concentration camps. E-Baa is correct that the Dems need to start pounding on the Reps about cuts to benefits (e.g. Medicare), and other things that affect their lives. Their base already agrees about immigration (and other stuff), so they need to connect with the fence-sitters on stuff that matters to them. They have to walk the line between the perception of permissive immigration, and deporting without due process, because a lot of Americans think we're being invaded (wrongly, but that's what they think).
Fortunately, we don't -yet- have any Brown Shirts we have to battle in the streets. We need to win the vote by addressing people's actual concerns. That's the only way to stop this. And, yes, talk like this will go over most voters' heads because they don't know the history, and likely don't take seriously the comparisons to 1930s Germany (or are even annoyed by them, however apt the comparisons).
No. of Recommendations: 4
However, the majority of Germans (and Austrians) did nothing. For various reasons, including complacency, fear, and tacit support (or even vocal support).The vast majority of Austrians wholeheartedly supported the anschluss.
Nazi propaganda machine was very effective. Trump/Miller learned well from it.
This website comports with the oral and written history I got from my family.
https://shunculture.com/article/did-austria-get-na..." The unification of the two countries had strong support in Austria, and the Austrian chancellor, Kurt von Schuschnigg, was pressured to resign and appoint several top Austrian Nazis to his cabinet. The next day, Hitler accompanied German troops into Austria, where they were met with cheering crowds."
No. of Recommendations: 3
True on all counts. The propaganda machine was very effective.
This was 1938 (annexation of Austria). The people hadn't really lived under the Reich prior to that, and only had the propaganda. Germany had been living under it, with the Gestapo (is ICE becoming the Gestapo?) and neighbors reporting each other, etc. Only about 32% (if memory serves) of Germans voted for the NAZI party, so even a majority of them weren't supportive. When Chancellor Hitler was able to invoke dictatorial powers, many (most) Germans did nothing. At some point (certainly before 1938), they were able to do nothing because the regime was firmly entrenched (I don't pretend to know exactly when that was). Hindenburg died in '34. So probably no more than a few months after that event, as a guess. The Reichstag burned in '33, which likely would have been the best shot at opposition prior to the Chancellor becoming der Fuhrer.
But the Dems can't campaign on those parallels. The populace will miss it, even if you and I don't. They need to focus on what is being taken away from people, and to whom "gifts" are being given (i.e. robbing the poor to pay the rich). Dems need to win the election(s) in 2026 and '28, not score points with -IMO accurate- comparisons to the fascists.**
**That's sort of a 'boy cried wolf' thing...Dems have been overusing the term "fascist" for so long that when real fascists show up, people ignore the Dems.
