So this is how it happens...

[LiberalAndProud]

I have read all the books I have been able to find on the local library shelves on the Nazi era in Germany. Always with the question in my mind, how could the people have allowed it to happen? How did they fail to stop it all before it was too late?

And now I understand all to clearly. It happens a little bit at a time. A few people start to become alarmed and someone says to them, "Courage friend, we have survived before and we will survive again."

And the day-to-day stuff still has to be done and the mortgage has to be paid and the money-lenders have to be repaid and the kids have to get to school and we'll get through this somehow won't we? won't we?

And there are so many who believe in the awful cause so fervently.

So now I understand what happened in Germany. I wonder if we can stop it here before we are devoured by the beast. but right now i have to do the stuff that i have to do every day because that is the stuff that consumes my life.

Makes me wish I believed in the Rapture. Never mind child, it all ends tomorrow anyway ...
Yea, wish I did...

[Luminous Animal]

1. That Nazi Moment

From time to time, here and at our predecessor board, somebody raises the question of how much Bush is like Adolf Hitler. The conversation is invariably shallow, with the world-weary eggheads rolling their eyes out of their sockets while trouncing the angry lefty who raised the question in the first place. Bush offers no hint of wanting to exterminate the Jews or any other similar genocidal madness, and that pretty much kills the comparison for any practical purpose.

I bring up Hitler in the same breath with Bush for another reason altogether. I assume that Bush will never propose mass executions and he will therefore never deserve to be called "another Hitler." But he damn sure is a sui generis W -- and the depth and breadth of what he is capable of doing is still unknown.

For people living in Germany, there never was a point where either the aspiring Nazi Party or the governing Nazi Reich ever announced:

"We are nihilistic madmen who will start unprovoked wars against Poland, France, Belgium, Holland, Norway, Yugoslavia, Great Britain, Greece, the USSR and the USA -- and try to conquer all those societies at once. We will attack the cities of our enemies from the air in an effort to destroy their civilization, so that we can take over and demand fealty from everybody on the planet. We will hunt down and slaughter all the Jews and Gypsies in Europe, because we think the world will be a better place after they are gone.

"We know that our wars of aggression and our systematic genocide will induce the most profound anger the world has ever seen, and millions of our people will be killed in this regime of Total War. There is a chance that we will lose this war, as we will be signicantly outnumbered by our enemies. If we lose, our country will be occupied by foreigners who will define our future for us.

"Nevertheless we have a vision for the future of our Folk -- and our destiny is to rule the world as we are the best people on earth."

History shows that thousands of people, particularly German Jews, foresaw parts or all of this fate in advance. But millions of Germans, and millions of people the world over, did not believe that Hitler would really be as bad as all that. In hindsight, it is easy for us to say that everybody should have realized that the man was a psychopathic lunatic. But for those that figured it out ahead of time, they must have had a Nazi Moment -- the last straw that confirmed that Hitler really meant to bring death and destruction to the entire world.

I have often wondered about That Nazi Moment -- what it would be like to be a student in Munich or Dresden or Berlin in 1933 or 34 or 36 or 38? You could choose to believe that the authoritarian measures of the Reich were unfortunate but beyond your control. You could regard the harassment of Jews to be unfortunate but beyond your control. You could regard the bizarre symbolism and mass hysteria of the Nazi movement as unfortunate but beyond your control. You have your own life to lead in any event. By seeing the future accurately, as some did, you pretty much condemned yourself to death or exile.

http://www.upsizethis.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=12746

[Sannum]

2. The way we feel now

Is how many germans felt in 1934. Things are spinning out of control. History is repeating itself, but people care more about Julia's twins than what path this country is taking.

[juliagoolia]

3. Time to organize a march! I wont make much impact alone.

"The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press ... in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past few years."

From The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1, pg. 871-872
(London, Oxford University Press, 1942.)

[juslikagrzly]

4. and it feels like we're more than half way there

I've never in my 47 years paid as much attention to what is going on around me. I've lived that "it will get better", "how bad can it be" life until this past year. Suddenly, my guts twists every day with each new revelation. I remember listening to Clinton speak about his book last summer, reminding us that politics is always cyclical and hoping to god he's right.

my husband points out these similiarities all the time, and we get the eye-rolling just as described in post #2. We're not crazy, tin-foil hat wearing, wannabe radical hippies. We both have advanced degrees, he's in the ministry, we have two kids, two cars, pets, etc. and WE ARE SCARED.

I've asked everyone I know, how did those who left Germany in the late thirties know when it was time? When we will know?

edited for late-night typos

[EC]

5. I don't know, I keep thinking it's time

now. I have a gay daughter, and I feel the gays are going to be our Jews. But then again I feel if I leave and don't continue to fight, I will be complacent, allowing the evil to win. I couldn't live with that either.