Are there valid comparisons of America in 2011 to Germany in 1932?

[ellisonz]

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

[TygrBright]

1. Of course. There are valid comparisons of every human-inhabited community...

...at virtually any time in modern history, and Germany in 1932.

The human impulse to identify scapegoats and undertake pogroms in order to advance political and economic agendas dates back long before Weimar and sure as hell didn't die with Hitler.

patiently,
Bright

[ellisonz]

2. Maybe I should have phrased it...

...are we living in a totalitarian society or one approaching it.

It's a good test case and a comparison that is often made.

[TygrBright]

3. Well, strictly speaking, the rightward side of the spectrum...

...breeds authoritarianism at the extreme end, and the leftward side breeds totalitarianism at the extreme end, but the two sort of meet around the back, as it were, so it's a distinction relevant only to political and social historians. From that standpoint we're looking for comparisons to rising authoritarianism, and certainly, there are valid comparisons.

But again, it's a phenomenon that neither began nor ended with between-the-wars Germany.

Humans can be sick puppies, when we're not being amazing beings of light and courage.

helpfully,
Bright

[ellisonz]

5. I really do think the much more apt comparison is to...

...the conditions that preceded the American Revolution.

I think what we're really struggling against is economic inequality and not political authoritarianism.

Capitalism vs. Mercantilism.

Democratic Republicanism vs. Monarchy

Freedom of Religion vs. Anglicanism

It's just the Germany comparisons are such good red meat we don't stop to think about the actual comparison we are making.

We've let the "Tea Party" control the narrative of the American Revolution that we've forgotten what it was actually about.

:toast:

[JDPriestly]

4. Remember, 1931 was before the Holocaust.

NAZIsm was not just the Holocaust. It was political repression, suppression of ideas and the expression of ideas that did not fit the with the narrative of the NAZIs and those who thought of themselves as middle-of-the-road.

Read the book, The Lost City by John Gunther. First, the NAZIs and their allies (who weren't exactly NAZIs) went after people they perceived as communists or anti-NAZI. Only much later did they start the extermination camps for Jews.

Kristallnacht did not take place until 1938

Kristallnacht, also referred to as the Night of Broken Glass, and also Reichskristallnacht, Pogromnacht, and Novemberpogrome, was a pogrom or series of attacks against Jews throughout Nazi Germany and parts of Austria on 9–10 November 1938.<1>

Jewish homes were ransacked, as were shops, towns and villages, as SA stormtroopers and civilians destroyed buildings with sledgehammers.<2> Around 1,668 synagogues were ransacked, and 267 set on fire. In Vienna alone 95 synagogues or houses of prayer were destroyed.<3>

. . . .

The trigger of the attacks was the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan, a German-born Polish Jew in Paris, France. Kristallnacht was followed by further economic and political persecution of Jews, and is viewed by historians as part of Nazi Germany's broader racial policy, and the beginning of the Final Solution and the Holocaust.<5>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht

The Wannsee conference

The Wannsee Conference was a meeting of senior officials of the Nazi German regime, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference was to inform administrative leaders of Departments responsible for various policies relating to Jews, that Reinhard Heydrich had been appointed as the chief executor of the "Final solution to the Jewish question". In the course of the meeting, Heydrich presented a plan, presumably approved by Adolf Hitler, for the deportation of the Jewish population of Europe and French North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) to German-occupied areas in eastern Europe, and the use of the Jews fit for labour on road-building projects, in the course of which they would eventually die according to the text of the Wannsee Protocol, the surviving remnant to be annihilated after completion of the projects.<1> Instead, as Soviet and Allied forces gradually pushed back the German lines, most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe were sent to extermination or concentration camps, or killed where they lived. As a result of the efforts of historian Joseph Wulf, the Wannsee House, where the conference was held, is now a Holocaust Memorial.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference

Americans equate NAZIs with concentration camps for Jewish people, but the repression did not start with the Jews. Jews were always targets of hateful NAZI propaganda, but the NAZI repression was first political -- ridding the Reich of political dissidents through steel-booted repression. It then moved on to Jewish people.

Those of us who compare what is going on in the US today with the early years of the NAZI administrations in Germany

[ellisonz]

7. Ok.

From 1925 to the 1930s, the German government evolved from a democracy to a de facto conservative–nationalist authoritarian state under war hero-President Paul von Hindenburg, who disliked the liberal democracy of the Weimar Republic and wanted to make Germany into an authoritarian state.<18> The natural ally for establishing authoritarianism was the German National People's Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei, DNVP), "the Nationalists", but after 1929, with the German economy floundering, more radical and younger nationalists were attracted to the revolutionary nature of the National Socialist Party, to challenge the rising popular support for communism. Moreover, the middle-class political parties lost support as the voters aggregated to the left- and right- wings of the German political spectrum, thus making a majority government in a parliamentary system even more difficult.

In the federal election of 1928, when the economy had improved after the hyperinflation of the 1922–23 period, the Nazis won only 12 seats. Two years later, in the federal election of 1930, months after the US stock market crash, the Nazi Party won 107 seats, progressing from ninth-rated splinter group to second-largest parliamentary party in the Reichstag. After the federal election of 1932, the Nazis were the largest party in the Reichstag, holding 230 seats.<19> President Hindenburg was reluctant to confer substantial executive power to Hitler, but former chancellor Franz von Papen and Hitler concorded an NSDAP–DNVP party alliance that would allow Hitler’s chancellorship, subject to traditional-conservative control, to develop an authoritarian state. In the event, Hitler consistently demanded to be appointed chancellor in exchange for Hindenburg’s receiving any Nazi Party support of the cabinets appointed under his authority.

On 30 January 1933, Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany after General Kurt von Schleicher’s failure to form a viable government (see Machtergreifung). Hitler pressured Hindenburg through his son Oskar von Hindenburg and via intrigue by von Papen, former leader of the Catholic Centre Party. By becoming the Vice Chancellor and keeping the Nazis a cabinet minority, von Papen expected to be able to control Hitler. Although the Nazis had won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they had no majority of their own, not even with the NSDAP–DNVP alliance that started governing in 1933 by Presidential Decree per Article 48 of the 1919 Weimar Constitution.<20>

The National Socialist treatment of the Jews in the early months of 1933 marked the first step in a longer-term process of removing them from German society.<21> This plan was at the core of Adolf Hitler's "cultural revolution".<21>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany#History

[JDPriestly]

14. Yes. And in the early years, some Jews still believed that by converting

to say Catholicism or having already converted to Catholicism, they would not be harmed.

The process was gradual and it was very similar to the kinds of things we are seeing today.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Read the USPA side by side with the Enabling Act

[HopeHoops]

8. To be fair, it started after 9/11 ten years ago and was orchestrated by PNAC

The shrub was just their idiot front man. Rove, Ailes, Murdoch, (Ralph) Reed, and other assholes the GOP bend over for took care of the propaganda.

I'm basically a solid Obama supporter, but right now I'm sort of pissed. He should be using federal powers to deal with local authorities that are abusing our Constitutional rights. I didn't see any teabaggers (some of which had clearly displayed guns) being pepper sprayed. Something is fundamentally wrong. The Constitution was not meant to survive this long, and I've read historical accounts that put the expected lifetime at about 20 years. I've read it many times, including amendments, and I'm still convinced it is a solid and perhaps most stable piece of government foundation in the recorded history of man. But without sustained enforcement, it means nothing.

Corporations as individuals? :wtf: Anti-government teabaggers getting a free ride while a handful of students sitting cross-legged get pepper sprayed? :wtf: You have the right to assemble but not to stay overnight? :wtf: Tear gas to a veteran's head, pepper spray to an 84 year old woman's face, a pregnant woman, and another woman in the mouth? :wtf: Arresting people for just being somewhere? :wtf: Protest zones (think shrub here)? :wtf:

That's not what this country is about. Ben Franklin said (in multiple versions of his quote, but I'm picking a simple one), "any society that would sacrifice a little liberty to gain a little security deserves neither and will lose both." That was about 240 years ago, but it is more relevant now than any time I can think of. What's next, trying to kill the Internet? Be thee ware, for here there are dragons.

[sarcasmo]

9. What the Fuck is right.

[stuntcat]

13. indeed, WTF

.

[FarCenter]

10. No, the current period is parallel to the runup to World War I

The Long Depression from 1873 to 1896, the rising discontent of exploited workers, the rise of various leftist philosophies, etc. make the present very much more like the time before WW I. We're probably in a time frame equivalent to the late 1980s or early 1890s. I'm waiting for a Williams Jennings Bryan "cross of gold" speech, a Haymarket Square Massacre, etc.

People on this site have referenced Proudhon in some of their posts. So its back to the late 19th century and anarchist creeds for some.

[ellisonz]

11. Interesting.

I've read a lot on the post-Civil War period and never heard it referred to as "The Long Depression." I think I was more focused on the foreign policy impact of the market crashes and especially the Panic of 1893. Want to bet how many Americans could even ballpark how high unemployment got then? I recall seeing an estimate of 21%. Ron Paul is a poor man's Williams Jennings Bryan pilloried on the Cross of the Fed. I judged the period to be one of the emergence of an imperial republic created by the Republicans in order to compete with European and Japanese imperialism.

[FarCenter]

17. The US was in a position analogous that that enjoyed by China now

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Depression for the Long Depression.

It was felt most keenly in Great Britain, which had been the dominant economic power since 1814. By 1873, Great Britain was starting to lose dominance in the face of agricultural products from Argentina, the US, Australia, Ukraine, etc. It was also losing competitiveness in manufactures due to competition from the newly united Germany, the US post Civil War, and France.

In the US, the period was marked by the Panic of 1873, and punctuated by various credit and banking panics. However, things were relatively good in the US, since the country was growing rapidly and growth covers up a lot of economic problems.

The US is now in the same position that Great Britain was in the late 1800s. China is now in the position that the US had then.

[ellisonz]

21. I had forgotten about the Panic of 1873.

The 1870s certainly did plod on:thumbsup:

[Poll_Blind]

18. I voted yes- but I think your comparison is more fitting. nt

PB

[stuntcat]

12. to me the most valid point to compare is we are Humans just like they were.

Yeah yeah they're in black and white in all the pictures. And they didn't have iPhones or the internet. But humans are humans, our minds have not evolved as fast as our technology.. or fast enough to keep up with how quickly our population exploded.

It's brilliant, really, how the world-wide economy works. But when it and the environment start collapsing at the same time humans will be reduced to their most basic instincts. and one of those instincts is following the leaders who promise to save us, and rid us of whatever or whoever is threatening us.

just my opinion of course.. but honestly I'm horrified of the next few decades. I've lost faith in our species. I'm reminded over and over daily of why.

[Nye Bevan]

15. YES. Anyone who has witnessed Mitt Romney's thuggish brownshirt paramilitary squads

marching through their towns, cannot fail to be chilled by the prospect of this dictator-in-waiting coming to power. He is obviously going to suspend the constitution, appoint himself supreme leader for life, and murder millions of innocent people.

And to add insult to injury, he will probably shut down DemocraticUnderground.

[ellisonz]

16. Skinheads just love Mormons.

And internet debates because it allows them to live our their fantasy - they too think the fascist future is not far off :silly:

[AntiFascist]

19. As an online discussion grows longer? What a convenient excuse!

I think the appearance of jackbooted riot police commiting acts of violence on peaceful protestors has much more to do with it, don't you think?

[firehorse]

20. hmmm... no. When my neighbors start getting carted off to concentration camps and gassed, then I'd

agree. But until then, ... Godwin's law. Too easy to participate in that trap.

[Kaleko]

22. If you intend to wait that long before you pay attention to what's going on,

you might as well wait until it's your turn to be taken down.

In the meantime, enjoy your smug superiority over all those who see the warning signs clearly.

[firehorse]

24. So you equate injustices happening today and abuse of power

the same as your whole family and town being carted off in trains to concentration camps and being gassed.

I don't think so.

My eyes were wide open when I was tear gassed in the Paris metro stations after 1986 bombings, I've watched twin towers come down while standing on my roof. I was disgusted with the marshall law forced on my neighborhood afterwards. I've been shoved by cops down at OWS.

None of it comes close to what people went through in Nazi Germany. Not even close.

[Kaleko]

26. No, the false equivalency comparison is all yours.

Don't put words in my mouth. I'll spit them right out.

[firehorse]

28. then you spell it out, what exactly is happening right now that you equate to

entire neighborhoods, towns and villages being carted off to concentration camps, where people are being gassed to death.

[Kaleko]

29. Invalid premise.

[firehorse]

30. so in other words equating now to Nazi Germany is a false equivalency

[Fire Walk With Me]

23. This is far worse, this is global. European "austerity" and money problems were =created=

as a Disaster Capitalism power grab. The results? Goldman Sachs advisers as the new PMs in Greece and Italy.

Now it is also happening here. Weaken the economy with phony wars, drain it with bailouts, no solution except "austerity", gotta milk social security and medicare...then comes the bigger power grab.

The international money buddies are taking over the world. #Occupy is our answer!

[freshwest]

25. Yes. What's worse is there may be no countries to act as a balance. I have friends abroad who are...

Deeply concerned (I won't say terrified, but they almost are) because the ideals of equality, freedom of expression, movement, etc. and social mobility were strongest here. Seeing the rabid right wing gain power has shown them that there will no help from us.

And there will be no country to emigrate if this plays out on a global scale. No escape by changing location anymore, no refugees from the worst places as there always was. If the bankers and corporates continue to accumulate wealth and power, they can influence the smallest details of our lives. With databases that identify people and stop them from entering other countries, corporations eager for contracts to enforce this state of things for profit, and the restrictions on travel, public activities and the like, our world is getting smaller.

And people I know who lived through those days and are still alive, say the emotional tenor of these days is very much the same. And thugs act on mob mentalities, all visceral emotions, and it can get very dangerous for anyone they percieve as interfering.

OTOH, the world's people have intermarried; many have homes in more than one country, even if impoverished; and people are doing all they can to free themselves of the bondage to the system. Not so much on a political level, but in the things that matter: food, water, housing, taking care of their health, getting off the grid and it's working, no matter how bizarre some of the arrangements may seem to more conventional people.

[Hippo_Tron]

27. I just don't understand the obsession with slippery slopes

Regardless of whether or not w're slipping towards a totalitarian Nazi-esque state (which nobody can really prove that we are or aren't one way or another), I don't like peaceful protestors getting pepper-sprayed in the face.

Lets do something to change that.