A lifelong mystery is finally solved..

[kentuck]

All my life I have wondered why the German people permitted their leader to do so much evil in their names. Now, I think I finally understand. How could a brilliant people like the Germans, with their modern ways and their many scientists, permit such a thing to happen in their country. Why didn't they stop him? I think I finally understand. I can see how it could have happened.

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. And your conclusion is??

[kentuck]

3. My conclusion is :

I can see the same thing happening with our country. I know it is not politically correct to make Hitler comparisons but we have a very serious dilemma on our hands, in my opinion. We are on the verge of seeing our madman leader drop a bomb on another country and we seem to be oblivious to the consequences of such an action. We are living in very scary times. Nothing is predictable.

[NYC]

4. I don't understand it, either.

Some of us see it, but the others don't see it, or don't want to see it. They will do nothing to stop him. Each will tend to the details of his own life. I don't understand how.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Oblivious of some consequences ...

Don't go down the road of believing that German people allowed it to happen because they simply didn't understand what was happening. What they didn't envision was the possibility they could lose or that the world would judge them harshly. They, many of them, wanted the Jews dead. They wanted Europe conquered. They went into it with their eyes wide open.

As are we.

Those of us here and groups similar to us are the voice of the opposition. Opposition existed in Germany at the time too, but it was silenced eventually.

[PublicWrath]

8. I agree,

The German people were not just bamboozled into it.
Have you read "Hitler's Willing Executioners"? Great book on this subject.

[RoyGBiv]

9. Yes ...

I had this unarticulated, gut belief that the whole "we had no idea" thing was an example of willful cultural ignorance, but not knowing German, I could never research the matter myself.

That book validated pretty much every thought I had.

[hlthe2b]

2. Good.. then perhaps you can tell us why the American people....

are permitting Bush* to do so much evil in their names?

For the life of me, I don't understand... :shrug:

[kentuck]

5. The formula...

is one part division, one part fear, one part nationalism, and one part God. And no matter what happens, they will stand behind their leader and the majority will remain more or less silent to what is happening. His 36% in the polls are a loyal 36% and they vote. The remaining 64% are not loyal to the other side. More than 50% of them do not vote at all or concern themselves with the politics of their daily lives...

[wtmusic]

13. Don't forget about the part

in many which requires them to get their ass kicked before they learn some humility. That often requires a war of sufficient magnitude.

[tocqueville]

7. a lot of European people were fooled at that time..

they had weak leaders, weak opposition... they believed in their old myths... one day it was too late...

I had an epiphany the other day : the discussion about the Mexican flags : it showed that 40% of Duers consider that waving a foreign flag on US soil (other than at sport events or similar) is DEFAMING the US flag, while Europeans and Canadians (along with a US majority) here on DU consider that it is only an acceptable cultural expression, as long it's not done in a direct hostile way.

With 40% of the people on a progressive blog having such an attitude, you can imagine what goes in the minds of the rest of the population, without being a freeper for that...

So no wonder that a leader playing on nationalism and fear can achieve...

[radio4progressives]

10. That freaked me out too..

I was absolutely astonished ... but more, it completely freaked me out that what appearedto be a rather significant number of postings and threads singing the rabid praises of nationalism and fomenting ignorance and blatent xenophobia made me wonder what the hell is going on - i presumed it was mostly infiltrators of freeptards - with a few exceptions.

how did you come up with the 40% - is there a function on DU to garner these stats?

[tocqueville]

11. that was a poll

it ended 40/60 when I left and seemed to be stable...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=866650

it's worse than that : 44/56

there were 193 posters on this thread.

Statistically it might be representative

[AusGail]

17. Starting wars

I firmly believe that patriotism, religion, greed and racism are the main causes of war. In Australia we don't show our patriotism as much as Americans. I feel that its a bit like bragging that your country is better than mine. I like to think that we are all citizens of the world, and in a Utopian existence, we all help each other out.

Anyway, our lying, sniveler of a Prime Minister has just recently made it compulsory for all schools to have a flag and raise it to the tune of the anthem everyday. I cant see that solving the world problems.

[hlthe2b]

12. I am amazed still at the WWII generation of Germans that denies

still what occurred. I worked with a very nice German lady once, whose father totally denied everything related to the holocaust and indicated that that was not uncommon among his generation (she recognized and acknowledged the evil, but her father never did). However, they had relocated to Argentina after the war, so that DOES make me wonder...

Nonetheless, on the occasions I have gone to Germany--especially around Munich, I encountered people that would have been my parent's age (WWII generation) who seemed to deny the past. I've seen men in the Beer halls wearing a Swastika pen (subtly embedded among many others) on their Bavarian hats.
They seemed like very pleasant men and not at all unlike my parents and uncles... I've always wondered about that...:shrug:

[tocqueville]

15. this is a different phenomenon

it has to to do with the the scale and the horror of the events, besides the fact that you are the loser. It's collective amnesia (you have a similar phenomenon in Japan). And the young generation doesn't want to be bothered with the past. The old Nazis cannot be very many today.

[madrchsod]

14. germany was in terrible economic depression for years

the people were broken and needed a strong leader and someone to blame. hitler used this to gain power because he did give the people hope,a sense of national pride ,and money/work. it didn`t matter to the people who got caught in the death machine as long as they worked and put food on their table. they bought the lie because they had no one else to turn to.
i see how the american people bought bush`s bullshit but soon the stench grew to strong for people not to notice. the germans did not have the luxury of voting to change their government and we do.

[zalinda]

16. You can get this at the library

http://www.legendsmagazine.net/114/wave.htm Either book or video. Explains a lot about people and the groups dynamic.

zalinda

[NJCher]

20. thanks for that link

I am very curious about this phenomenon. I look forward to reading this site.




Cher

[Hidden Stillness]

18. You Realize--They Cut You Off, First

I think one thing I learned from our own current nightmare is that, once you have even first heard of the emerging threat group--neocons, Nazis, etc.--they have already been behind the scenes dismantling legal protections and access for ordinary citizens to oppose and counter what is going on. By the time you realize what is happening here, they have removed the laws that used to be available for you to fight with (Fairness Doctrine, etc.), so that you are cut off from all that is going on, and can only watch from a distance. You can't vote them out, because "we have a new way of counting now, on new machines," and you think, "when did they install those--and who did?" You can't vote them out because they redistricted and now the bizarrely shaped district only allows them to win--your population is split; so you think, "An off-Census year--that isn't legal"; but who is there to go to? There are no reporters in the media; suddenly all are opportunist corporate hacks; when did that happen? When did they start allowing the access of such huge amounts of money in politics, and who can compete with bribes? etc., etc.

They don't even make their first alarming public moves until they have shortcircuited and sabotaged all avenues you might have had, and used to have, to respond. You are not living in the same country, already.

[KT2000]

19. That is a question that

has haunted me too. I believe that most people are followers. They want to vote for the person they think will win and they want to follow the leader. If they follow the leader, the leader will win and they will be safe.
Despising and excluding others enhances their safety.
Cowards.

[NJCher]

21. it surprises me how much some people care

One night in a class we got into a discussion about this. I was really surprised at how many people said that they thought about the Iraqi people and what bush was doing to them. They said they thought of it every day, many times a day. A number of them admitted to sleepless nights, guilt, and a great deal of frustration about not knowing what they should do.

On the other hand, I have classes where, when I bring this issue up, they look at me slack-jawed. A big part of this is ignorance and that can be blamed squarely on the American press. There is, however, no excuse for being that ignorant. If I can get on the Internet to learn the truth, so can others.




Cher