From my local paper: "Learning from history and Hitler" by Jerome Christenson:

[elocs]

http://lacrossetribune.com/news/local/article_a44d3b40-62fe-11df-acac-001cc4c03286.html

While driving to North Dakota last weekend I listened to a novel about Hitler. It was a fictionalized history — imagined words and scenes framed by the record of history. A history that is uncomfortable to recall.

Set in the years leading up to his election as chancellor in 1933, this wasn’t the Hitler of Auschwitz and the Blitz, but a petty politician shouting for attention and scrabbling for influence. An odd little man with big ideas, a high opinion of himself and a rag-tag coterie of fanatic followers. A man and a movement whom conservative political aristocrats like Alfred Hugenberg and Franz von Papen were confident they could use and control.

It takes a novel to step back to 1920s Munich, to take the names and faces that have become caricatures of evil and return them to the streets, plazas, beer halls and cafes they frequented; to pull them free of history and put them back in the world of women and men.

And put me back there with them.

He ends with:

Still, we’d do well to recognize the passions that race, envy and angry fear-mongering talk generate — in Bavaria or in Boston.

In 1926, the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei and its goofy-looking leader weren’t the incarnation of evil — just some loudmouths on the fringe.

It took voters looking for scapegoats, for easy answers, for the easy way out; and respectable politicians eager to pander to the politics of the lowest common denominator to put Germany on the path to Nuremberg.

We’d do well to remember that.

My comment:

Hmmm. How history sputters to repeat itself as we currently have our own group of shrill and angry fist waving people looking for scapegoats in economic hard times. God forbid if they find their own little Hitler, or Hitleress. There certainly are a few who would love to have the job.

Just imagine, like Germany of the 1930s today we have our own paranoid people who would go after minorities--not only people from other countries, but those with the wrong religion.

Back then Hitler railed against the Communists, but today the excoriating brand is "Socialist!" Also today we have the spewing about Liberals and an anti-intellectual atmosphere. Obviously this cries out for re-education camps where these groups and those "minorities" and other undesirables could be "concentrated".

If that little group took power, because "take" is what their path would be using the map of history, our borders would become closed and anyone trying to enter illegally would be shot. The trouble is that it would reach the point when any trying to get out of the country would be shot also.

Yes, this angry group looking for a charismatic leader has a steel claw beneath that velvet glove and they don't like those different from themselves, being about 98% white with little tolerance for religions other than their own.

We like to ponder, could it happen here? Yes, it sure could, and God help us all if it succeeds. I wonder how many in Germany in the 1930s thought Hitler was a joke and not to be taken seriously?

[doublethink]

1. ...........

http://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/dp/0226511928/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1274289612&sr=1-1

[elocs]

2. That's an interesting book. From the first review:

http://www.amazon.com/They-Thought-Were-Free-Germans/product-reviews/0226511928/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

The true value of this book and hence Mayer's most valuable contribution has been to draw a graphic conceptual picture of how the system of Nazism worked as seen at ground level by ten ordinary Germans and from the interior of German society: To a man, they all agreed that it brought them untold economic success, bound them patriotically and politically into a coherent cultural unit, restored the nation's pride and gave all Germans renewed reasons for hope in the future.

Given this rosy and very much interior and insulated backdrop, it is no wonder there was no basis for ordinary Germans to see (or even to be able to perceive) Nazi excesses, or to see Nazism itself, as an inherently evil system until it was too late.

This was true in part because all Germans already had community permission to hate Jews. The excesses, reserved mostly for Jews, thus seemed normal and in any case were always introduced in carefully orchestrated, slowly escalating, but easily digestible bites. This was done specifically to stay below the radar of the everyday German conscience -- so as to never assault German sensibilities too abruptly. Even the most alert of Germans and the least anti-Semitic Germans were lulled to sleep by this strategy.

But more importantly, because all Germans were wedded to the Nazi worldview thorough its benefits, both tangible and intangible, there were few incentives for them to "rock the boat" by pointing to its excesses. Dissension was left for victims and outsiders to engage in. However, being identified as an outsider or as a dissenter, at a minimum, could ensure social exclusion and a slow social death; and if one were very unlucky, it could mean disappearance into a concentration camp, or even a swift bullet to the temple.

He ends with:

Like a thief in the night, tyranny always descends upon sleeping societies in a cloak of patriotic conformity. It attacks when one is unguarded psychologically and least wary of an assault. By the time the citizen is prepared to raise a dissenting voice, in the name of state security, his throat (and presumably his vocal cords) have already been cut and he has been rendered mute. Once the national conscience has been drugged, sedated, or put to sleep, it is difficult to reawaken it.

Since there are no political systems that are entirely insulated against criminal activity, corruption or evil, only healthy, timely, vigorous and authentic dissent can act as an antidote to the evil inherent in tyrannical political systems like Fascism and Nazism.

Without drawing too fine a distinction, it is difficult to miss the many parallels between contemporary American society and 1933-1939 German society.

So, are Palin and the teabaggers really just a shrill and vocal joke to be dismissed? I think like cockroaches they need to be electorally stomped and stamped out at every opportunity.

[elocs]

3. Does anyone think that Palin and the teabaggers have the potential for this kind of dark side?

I think that if McCain had been elected and everything totally fell apart with a major, major Depression here that the conditions would have been ripe for teabagger nazism.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

4. I don't see them as sinister

It's a cheap caricature overused on both sides.

I see them as neglectful. Hooray they want to be self-sufficient. They actually do want to be (I know, I know, many collect disability, SocSec, etc; that's a different thread).

But the fact remains while they are being self-sufficient and independent-minded lots of people are being hurt by fraud, ill-will and just plain bad luck. There's no evil in standing up for your neighbor.

Yes, they can be charity-minded but we must admit the organizing power of government, i.e. a professional military beats armed mobs every time...to borrow an analogy that reaches them on their wavelength.

There's no evil in saying your boss can't spend your pension money on his business.

There's no evil saying corporations can't grow so large that if they act fraudulently they collapse the entire US/world economy

There's no evil saying we want war as a last resort

There's no evil in reforming immigration so people aren't literally being kept as slaves because they have been labelled "illegal"


I've come to a place where I believe most conservatives WANT what they THINK is good. It may be self-centered and it is definitely short-sighted but I'm losing my taste for the Nazi allegations. It's ridiculous when they do it. It's ridiculous when the LaRouche types do it.

If nothing else real conservatives--not those that lie to them to get votes--could never be real fascists. They worship at the altar of decentralization too much. The real life Nazis were, if nothing else, hyper-regimented. RWers want their little slice and the rest is pretty much ignored.

[elocs]

5. Did many Germans feel that Hitler was not sinister at first either?

Time will tell with Palin and the teabaggers how dangerous they may be. I still wouldn't take them lightly though.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

6. Like I said...

...most run-of-the-mill conservatives aren't organization/centralized power types. They don't share the regimentated mindset the Nazis had. They want to be left alone.

Sticking their fingers in their ears and going, "la-la-la-la" doesn't make them sinister, just self-involved.

They forget that schools, roads, disaster relief, etc come from organizations. These things can be provided on smaller scales but America is a large-scale society. We can't keep allowing our family, friends and neighbors get run over by bad luck and bad actors (no, I'm not referring to Steve Gutenburg).

[elocs]

7. Like I said...

Time will tell.

[southern_belle]

8. I believe there could be danger...

with some of the far-right - the extremes. I am not sure that they could take-over entirely, but I believe that there are factions that would do harm. The difference with Hitler in the 20's/30's and now is communication - the Internet. I believe people are more aware - aware of the history of the Nazi movement and the possible comparison of The Militia and other factions who actually want to take over this country. One of groups that frightens me is the organization that Todd Palin belonged/belongs to, which states they want to take-over the government. Could they have used Sarah to get their foot in the door (Thankfully she wasn't intelligent enough to handle it), but she is sharp enough to have her following. Well, I know it sounds like a conspiracy, but its something I pay attention to anyway.

[elocs]

11. That's not to say that the danger will be as full blown as the Nazis and Hitler.

It could find success in certain areas of the country and techniques employed by Hitler and the Nazis could be used by Palin and the teabaggers. They need a charismatic leader, and not necessarily an intelligent one. Unfortunately for them, things seem to be getting better, but hate always works for some people.

[madmusic]

9. It could and might happen here.

See the Milgram Experiment for confirmation that obedience to authority is a live and well in the states.

http://psychology.about.com/od/historyofpsychology/a/milgram.htm

Indeed, it is PC to kiss the brown shirts' ass.

[southern_belle]

10. Wow! The Milgram Experiment says it all n/t

[Hubert Flottz]

12. Things like the death camps took several years of working up to.

Give the tea baggers time and air time and they'll get there!