Reply #17: Actually I was comparing the German civilians of 1918-1933 to US

[JohnOneillsMemory]

civilians today. There was the same burning sense of denied entitlement. The hypernationalist German people were told they were winning the war in the summer of 1918. A few months later, they were told they had lost. They were shocked and outraged and turned on each other to find out 'who had betrayed them.' Hitler exploited this anger and channeled it towards Jews and other scapegoats. He also militarized the culture and pointed it at conquest of 'inferior populations.'

Americans have the same master-race mentality. We are raised with a narrative of the USA as the pinnacle of civilisation which should dominate the planet because of our inherent goodness and strength. I call this the 'Superman Jesus in a Cowboy Hat Syndrome.' When the Vietnam war came to be seen as a lost cause, the power structure blamed 'those liberals, their liberal press, those lazy negroes and perverted homosexuals' for 'diminishing public unity and denying us our rightful victory.' This divides people and harnesses hatred and anger into a remilitarized culture. That's why the current neo-con regime have been so successful in spreading fascism.

This is why I liken Germany between the wars and the rise of Hitler to the America we live in today.