Here's hoping Ken Burns' new documentary might change a few things

[misanthrope]

His new work, "The U.S. and the Holocaust," is set to premiere Sept. 18-20. The survey is far more than a blanket condemnation of Nazi Germany but also examines America's role, how our history of racism and eugenics interacted with the European situation.

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/us-and-the-holocaust/

The part I'm most curious about will be discussion on how the Nazi regime was actually inspired by American racism and the Jim Crow South in particular. The Nazi architects of their Jewish policies and "Final Solution slathered praise on the American South and sought its emulation.

How deep was Nazi kinship with Dixie? There's far more detail in this 2017 Bill Moyer interview with author James Whitman.
https://billmoyers.com/story/hitler-america-nazi-race-law/

My deepest hope is that more Americans will start to see the Confederate battle flag for what it truly is, the American swastika.

[OAITW r.2.0]

1. +1

I will be watching it, but I already know how it ends....

[brush]

2. Didn't South Africa also look to US segregation for their apartheid policies?

[Deuxcents]

3. Ken Burns is pretty thorough w/ his documentaries

He is a master at this, imo. I’ll be watching, too. How many parts to this one?

[ShazamIam]

4. It is now a, "tradition" for U.S. Nazis to fly the Confederate flag & the Confederates the Swastika

Tradition being the code for let's have some race based slavery.

[Buckeyeblue]

23. That's right. People who fly a confederate flag think they are bold

But they are really telling everyone who and what they are. I always take note.

[ShazamIam]

25. Yes, it is always painful when it is someone I thought I knew.

.

[misanthrope]

5. Three parts, six hours

There's a lot more info at the link in the OP.

[thucythucy]

6. The Nazis also took "inspiration" from American eugenicists--

who argued that disabled people needed to be sterilized and even exterminated for "the good of society."

The technologies used during the Holocaust to murders Jews--gas vans and gas chambers--were perfected during experiments on people with disabilities. It was called "the T-4" program and is a well documented but perhaps lesser known aspect of this horrific history.

[WarGamer]

9. And American eugenicists took inspiration from Europeans... who invented it.

antisemitism, racism, slavery... Europe was doing it all long before the USA.

[Upthevibe]

7. Kick. N/T

[WarGamer]

8. Nah... European History is replete with centuries of antisemitism

To be more accurate... the USA adopted European antisemitism.

https://www.ushmm.org/antisemitism/what-is-antisemitism/why-the-jews-history-of-antisemitism

[misanthrope]

11. During the crafting of the 1935 Nuremberg Laws

The stenographer's notes are unabashed in the Nazi lawyers' numerous references to American law as a model for what they sought. This was unsurprising since Hitler praised American anti-immigration law in "Mein Kampf." Those lawyers specifically praised the American South's de jure establishment of Black disenfranchisement and their creation of a one-party system.

It is detailed in the Moyers' interview linked in the OP.

[WarGamer]

12. Like I said... the Americans got it from the Europeans.

Sure there are curious little links between early 20th Century Americans and the Nazis...

But they were ALL drinking from the same cup for centuries.

Slavery in the USA was no different than it was a bit earlier in Europe.

Eugenics started in England.

Nazism and Fascism started as an ideological counter to Bolshevism which was inspired by the French Revolution, inspired by the US Revolution... inspired by the 30 years war?

[misanthrope]

14. The documentation speaks for itself.**nm

**nm

[WarGamer]

15. Oh I hear ya...

But there's "always" more to the story rather than trying to sell a tv show, interview or blog...

[Solly Mack]

10. K&R

[AverageOldGuy]

13. The people who need to see this . . . .

. . . do not watch PBS and Fox will never carry it.

[progressoid]

19. Yep. N/T

[robbob]

16. I heard that Hitler was a big fan

of the US reservation system, and took inspiration for the concentration camps by how the United States handled their “Indian problem” in the days of westward expansion. Labelling the problematic population as “inferiors”, herding them onto ever shrinking reservation areas, slowly starving them to death; these all seemed to Hitler like a blueprint for enacting his final solution.

[Dan]

17. I remember reading a book (a long time ago)

Where the American Ambassador was trying to reach out to German authorities about their treatment of the Jews. The Germans responded with - and how do you treat your Blacks and Indians. Discussion closed.

[DallasNE]

18. This Will Be Shrugged Off

As just more Critical Race Theory propaganda. And that is what is so frightening about it as it will lead to more calls for book burning. As this shows, history cannot be buried because it keeps boiling back to the surface to rip off the scab one more time.

[misanthrope]

20. The only explanation I can think of

is that these dreadful states of existence are endemic to our species somehow and we have to fight our nature to keep it at bay. That certainly seems to be the case and why a functioning democracy takes eternal diligence.

[mopinko]

24. you are correct. it's our innate longing for the big chimp.

my son likes to say that it's pity we didnt evolve from gorillas instead of chimps. but of course, w/o chimp's capacity for violence, we wouldnt have.
i read a book on evolutionary psychology in the clinton years and felt like i'd found the rosetta stone. early tribes were just like primate tribes. the 'head man' form of society is still deeply ingrained. it's takes everything to go right in development for a human to rise above that. it takes art, music, philosophy, law and respect for law.

neither the u.s. nor nazi germany invented any of this. and it's past time for the species to see this shit clearly, and reject it soundly. ye shall know them by their actions. they burn books, they hang witches, they control women.

wake up ppl.

[misanthrope]

27. Well said

Though the field of anthropology seems to be under growing attack these days, I think everyone should have a couple of classes in it, one physical anthropology and another cultural anthropology. I have witnessed the way it changed college students, how they reshaped their understanding of our species and so many of the pitfalls we face.

I also wanted to point out that in your list of things that allow us to rise above our primitive states -- "art, music, philosophy, law and respect for law" -- most are viewed by American culture as frivolities. Except for law and that is only due to the power and wealth that can be accessed through it.

[mopinko]

28. after i was a super mom for 20 yrs, i tried to go back to art.

i had dropped out of school, and rly couldnt afford to and didnt want to go back.
i did a brochure for myself. i had to explain those yrs, ya see.
so my artist' statement said, approx, in part-

there were no spaces available w jane goodall and the chimps, so i built a little troop from scratch.

it's been enlightening.

[ShazzieB]

21. I cannot wait to see this!

I just went to the link and watched every one of the trailers and teasers, some more than once. I think this series is going to be highly informative, eye-oening, and heart-wrenching. It's also going to piss off a lot of people, not all for the same reasons.

I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of just how little we actually did as a country to help the Jews of Europe when they were being rounded up and methodically exterminated. It's not that we did nothing, but we could have done SO much more. Some are not going to want to believe the facts, because they are so uncomfortable. We Americans like to think of ourselves as the "good guys," and we don't like being reminded of the times when we weren't.

Then there are the haters, the antisemites, the Holocaust deniers. Some of them are deeply invested in denying or minimizing what the Nazis did, while others believe the Nazis didn't do enough, and none of them will be happy with the way this flies in the face of their ideology. Their reactions are not going to be pretty.

But boy, does America ever need this! Especially right now, with antisemitism on the rise and democracy fighting for its continued existence. I would even venture to say that this is exactly what we need.

[misanthrope]

22. Agreed

I think this is not only timely, but Burns is likely to get some blowback on it like he hasn't seen with his other films.

[Wounded Bear]

26. NAZI's weren't just "inspired" by Americans, they were financed...

I hope he includes how much money Papa Bush et al funneled to Germany between the wars.

[TigressDem]

29. Except that.... the reThugs will say, but that was the Democrats, not us.

My response is, yep, but WE DEMs did the RIGHT THING and kicked the KKK to the kurb and moved on to legislation that goes up against racism.

Y'all's turn.

[misanthrope]

30. Regardless of party label, it was conservatives

That is the part that matters most.

[TigressDem]

32. Really, racist oligarchs is the part that matters most.

Because the battles we have on the surface with conservatism aren't anything compared to the back room crap that goes on and the dog whistle crap out to the mob base from rich people wanting only the ruling class whites to be in charge.


WHEREVER THAT CRAP raises its ugly head, it needs to be lopped off, like a Medusa with those damm snakes writhing around and turning everyone to stone.

[Deminpenn]

31. Eugenics played a significant role

American Experience did an episode on eugenics and how it naturally meshed into the Nazi's beliefs.

[TigressDem]

33. I watched "Who Put The Klan Into Ku Klux Klan?" By Neil Oliver. Eye opening.

Summary

In this surprising documentary, archaeologist and historian Neil Oliver examines the links between racism today in the Deep South and the Scots who first occupied it. He begins by explaining that hundreds of thousands of Scots emigrated to America throughout the eighteenth century after being forced off of their land. The arrival of cotton gave them the opportunity to become slave masters and wealthy plantation owners, but the Civil War left them embittered. Because of that, six Scottish-American former Confederate officers formed a fraternal society that became the oldest and most feared hate group in America: the Ku Klux Klan. At the turn of the twentieth century, a racist novel by another Scots American became a bestseller, and the famous film based on it, The Birth of a Nation, revitalized the Klan. Now, well over 1,000 hate groups stalk America, including the League of the South, which advocates a separate Southern society run by Anglo Celts.