To the Tea Party: Keep Your Hands Off of German History

[bush_cheney2004]

So tell me, what genocide or slavery was imposed on the Turks by Germans in the past 20-30 years? Oh yeah, that's right, the Turks have absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand. Keep deflecting, you may think it hides your ignorance, however, it only highlights it.

You dug your own grave...first by championing German reconciliation in the context of completely different circumstances and groups in America, then by ignoring the obvious shortcomings for other ethnic groups today. Try to get your apologies straight, then you can start congratulating Germany for making everything nice for "Jews". LOL!

[Sir Bandelot]

As for "Islamofascism", i dont even know what the heck that's even supposed to mean.

Fascism has meant different things over the years, but the core concept is a system where every aspect of a society, cultural, political, education, media, and industry are all brought together and controlled by government to convey a consistent ideological message. In that sense the term "Islamofascism", where Islam is the one and only thing that matters, does actually make sense.

[maple_leafs182]

Fascism has meant different things over the years, but the core concept is a system where every aspect of a society, cultural, political, education, media, and industry are all brought together and controlled by government to convey a consistent ideological message. In that sense the term "Islamofascism", where Islam is the one and only thing that matters, does actually make sense.

Fascism doesn't necessarily mean having governmental control over all of that, fascism is the merger or state and economic powers with an aggressive use of nationalism and with a natural belief in inequality....America.

Germany has a long way to go for many other ethnic groups...apologising for the obvious isn't good enough

An apology is good enough, it does us no good living in the sins of yesterday.

If Germany wishes to help others, they should do so because helping others is good thing to do not because they feel they are indebted to others.

America should forgive Al Qaeda.

9/11 killed 3000 people.

According to CNN, nearly 7000 coalition troops have died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Thousands of more Iraqis and afghans have died or been displaced.

These wars are and will continue to create bigger problems the longer they go on.

Edited October 26, 2010 by maple_leafs182

[bush_cheney2004]

An apology is good enough, it does us no good living in the sins of yesterday.

If Germany wishes to help others, they should do so because helping others is good thing to do not because they feel they are indebted to others.

Then maybe next time they should win the war.

America should forgive Al Qaeda.

9/11 killed 3000 people.

According to CNN, nearly 7000 coalition troops have died in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Thousands of more Iraqis and afghans have died or been displaced.

...then Al Qaeda can forgive America...after it's done. CNN is American too...the center of your universe.

[ToadBrother]

I completely disagree. There's a reason why unemployment, crime, acoholism, drug abuse, poverty are rampant in native and black communities. We haven't owned up to it. In the US, they passed the Civil Rights movement but the people of the south had to all of the heavy lifting themselves. Even then, the US only passed the Civil Rights Act because Kennedy was assassinated and it was his baby. In the Civil War, the Union swept in, freed them, but did nothing else. For decades the US allowed Jim Crow laws to pass effectively stripping rights away from freed slaves. As for Canada, we've done absolutely nothing regarding our native population. Just as with the Americans, we've done nothing but apologize only a couple of years ago. It's a terrible record.

Yes yes, bad things were done. Steps were taken to correct those errors. As bush_cheney said, in Germany, basically the English-speaking world and the Soviets had to pound their nation into the dirt. There was no Mark Twain or George Clutesei to awaken some sense of decency and morality, most Germans of the former persuasion having been murdered, jailed or exiled, and certainly no Jews who could bridge the gap to demonstrate wisdom and common humanity, seeing as they had all been trundled off to camps where six million of them were systematically murdered.

That's right, my friend. Six million Jews, two to four million others (Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals, and anybody else the regime decided needed killing) murdered by what amounted to a ministry of the German Government; populated by civil servants, engineers, architects, medical doctors, soldiers, I mean, even goddamned railroad engineers. As bad as the English-speaking world has been at times to the native peoples it has encountered, one has to have some profoundly damaged sense of proportion to equate even the worst of that to what the Nazis did, or to somehow assert that a mere sixty five years somehow means Germany represents some greater, culturally advanced civilization compared to ask, particular considering the evils that have come out of Reunification with all those Oesties still seemingly blaming everyone else for their problems.

In Germany Jewish culture has bounced back. It will never be the size it once was, but it's doing markedly better after being stripped of everything only 60 years ago. In some cases here, we've had over 200 and it's still a blight. We should stop associating the level of the crime (which I've already said is the worst in history, and now I'm being called an apologist, as usual, BC with the one track mind), with the level of response. Germany has done much better than we have. That's not a judgement on what happened to need the response, just the level of response.

German Jewish culture is a pastiche, painted atop the Nice New Germany. It didn't recover, it was recreated, because there weren't enough Jews left in Germany to rebuild a culture.

Germany's crimes far outweigh anything the US and Canada ever did, and it will indeed be forever haunted by the absolute evil that it so gleefully threw itself into. I'd sooner be haunted by the abuse of the Native peoples or of slavery, things that one can hope to make reparations for, rather than basically obliterating the larger part of European Jewry.

[ToadBrother]

Fascism doesn't necessarily mean having governmental control over all of that, fascism is the merger or state and economic powers with an aggressive use of nationalism and with a natural belief in inequality....America.

Fascinating logic. There is this word "fascism", which I wish to tar some group with. It really doesn't represent that group at all, so I think I'll just redefine the word.

[nicky10013]

Yes yes, bad things were done. Steps were taken to correct those errors. As bush_cheney said, in Germany, basically the English-speaking world and the Soviets had to pound their nation into the dirt. There was no Mark Twain or George Clutesei to awaken some sense of decency and morality, most Germans of the former persuasion having been murdered, jailed or exiled, and certainly no Jews who could bridge the gap to demonstrate wisdom and common humanity, seeing as they had all been trundled off to camps where six million of them were systematically murdered.

That's right, my friend. Six million Jews, two to four million others (Gypsies, Communists, homosexuals, and anybody else the regime decided needed killing) murdered by what amounted to a ministry of the German Government; populated by civil servants, engineers, architects, medical doctors, soldiers, I mean, even goddamned railroad engineers. As bad as the English-speaking world has been at times to the native peoples it has encountered, one has to have some profoundly damaged sense of proportion to equate even the worst of that to what the Nazis did, or to somehow assert that a mere sixty five years somehow means Germany represents some greater, culturally advanced civilization compared to ask, particular considering the evils that have come out of Reunification with all those Oesties still seemingly blaming everyone else for their problems.

German Jewish culture is a pastiche, painted atop the Nice New Germany. It didn't recover, it was recreated, because there weren't enough Jews left in Germany to rebuild a culture.

Germany's crimes far outweigh anything the US and Canada ever did, and it will indeed be forever haunted by the absolute evil that it so gleefully threw itself into. I'd sooner be haunted by the abuse of the Native peoples or of slavery, things that one can hope to make reparations for, rather than basically obliterating the larger part of European Jewry.

You obviously missed the point that I'm not comparing the crime but the response. You obviously missed the part where I agreed with you that this was the worst crime in history. All I said was our response was lacking and Germany's wasn't. No matter how many times you point back to what actually happened which was never a part of what my argument was, that will never changed that we've failed horribly. You'd rather have the chance of reparations with natives and slaves than have the guilt of what the Germans did. That's great, I would too. When are we actually ever going to get to those reparations, though? We've been waiting a long time.

[ToadBrother]

You obviously missed the point that I'm not comparing the crime but the response. You obviously missed the part where I agreed with you that this was the worst crime in history. All I said was our response was lacking and Germany's wasn't. No matter how many times you point back to what actually happened which was never a part of what my argument was, that will never changed that we've failed horribly. You'd rather have the chance of reparations with natives and slaves than have the guilt of what the Germans did. That's great, I would too. When are we actually ever going to get to those reparations, though? We've been waiting a long time.

I live in BC. There have been ongoing negotiations since Delgamuukw v. British Columbia. I freely admit it's been slow, though I think some of the logjam in negotiations is the fault of Native negotiators. Still, there are Native peoples to have negotiations, even slow ones, with.

[GostHacked]

Fascinating logic. There is this word "fascism", which I wish to tar some group with. It really doesn't represent that group at all, so I think I'll just redefine the word.

Redefining terms goes on all the time, mainly to suit the current ideology/philosophy/political make up.

The word terrorism has been redefined many times in the past 10 years to include a much broader aspect than what the term actually means.

Things are redefined for convenience.

[dre]

Fascinating logic. There is this word "fascism", which I wish to tar some group with. It really doesn't represent that group at all, so I think I'll just redefine the word.

Her definition is actually pretty close.

[GostHacked]

Her definition is actually pretty close.

In terms of how the US is amalgamating almost everything into a single centralized entity that covers all the bases. Then yes, it's not hard to show that the US is indeed fascist. And I think Canada is as well. Although many won't notice it, even when it slams them in the face. This centralization is very evident with the security agencies and law enforcement.

Nicky

Fascism doesn't necessarily mean having governmental control over all of that, fascism is the merger or state and economic powers with an aggressive use of nationalism and with a natural belief in inequality....America.

No it does not necessarily mean government control, but it usually manifests in that fashion. Local, state and Federal police forces are now acting as one, which is tied into the military through the FBI/CIA/NSA/Pentagon. All of it is centralized and controlled by a selected few. That does say to me .. fascism because of the air of nationalism that shows an inequality, (they are bad we are good).

[Shady]

In the latest Republicans are Nazis comparison, The View's Joy Behar likens Sharon Angle's new television ad to a Hitler Youth commerical. But it's the Tea Party that needs to keep their hands off of German history.

[bush_cheney2004]

In terms of how the US is amalgamating almost everything into a single centralized entity that covers all the bases. Then yes, it's not hard to show that the US is indeed fascist.

Yep.....one BIG CENTRALIZED ENTITY...except for 50 separate state governors, legislatures, court systems, county governments, local governments, public and private school systems, blah, blah, blah.

No it does not necessarily mean government control, but it usually manifests in that fashion. Local, state and Federal police forces are now acting as one, which is tied into the military through the FBI/CIA/NSA/Pentagon.

Yea...that's why the State of Arizona is suing the US federal government for border security and immigration control.

All of it is centralized and controlled by a selected few. That does say to me .. fascism because of the air of nationalism that shows an inequality, (they are bad we are good).

...and the selected few will selected again in about one week in democratic elections.

[Sir Bandelot]

As bad as the English-speaking world has been at times to the native peoples it has encountered, one has to have some profoundly damaged sense of proportion to equate even the worst of that to what the Nazis did, or to somehow assert that a mere sixty five years somehow means Germany represents some greater, culturally advanced civilization compared to ask, particular considering the evils that have come out of Reunification with all those Oesties still seemingly blaming everyone else for their problems

I would not put the blame for what happened exclusively on the Germans shoulders. Fact is, antisemitism existed throughout the whole of Europe for over a thousand years. the "Jewish question" is one that was shared by every country. And evidence shows, when the nazis enabled their final solution, there was no great resistance to sending jews from every nation to the concentration camps, many of which were spread throughout Europe and operated by local governments, guards and executioners. yes, even non-European countries did little to help the Jews, when the time came Canada also turned its back on jewish people who wanted to leave Europe. Look up the story of the SS St. Louis. That is only one example of a policy that deemed Jewish refugees more dangerous for Canada than the Nazis were.

So it is too easy now to forget, what many countries in the world were responsible for in that insane time. And do you think it couldn't happen again? That's why it's important to be on guard and condemn anyone who appears to be taking our nation back down that same road.

[GostHacked]

Yep.....one BIG CENTRALIZED ENTITY...except for 50 separate state governors, legislatures, court systems, county governments, local governments, public and private school systems, blah, blah, blah.

It's not quite there, but it is well on it's way to becoming just that. I guess the European as a whole can be considered fascist!

Yea...that's why the State of Arizona is suing the US federal government for border security and immigration control.

And why it won't go anywhere. Arizona will be told to sit down and shut up.

...and the selected few will selected again in about one week in democratic elections.

That was never in doubt.

[ToadBrother]

Yep.....one BIG CENTRALIZED ENTITY...except for 50 separate state governors, legislatures, court systems, county governments, local governments, public and private school systems, blah, blah, blah.

Indeed, for some big monstrous centrally-controlled corporatist government, the United States seems awfully chaotic. When I think of fascist states, I think of Germany, Italy, Hungary and even Japan during the 1930s and 1940s, you know with monolithic governments ruled by an individual or rather small cabal, with virtually no freedom of the press, freedom of speech or freedom of much else, with political non-comformists and oppositions basically eradicated or driven so far underground and to the fringes that they essentially became resistance movements.

Fascism was once seen in political science circles as one of the forms that a totalitarian state could take. Now it's just a sort of political expletive, a meaningless insult. I accept that words evolve in meaning over time (linguistics and philology are pet interests of mine), but the way the word "fascism" is used in the West has rendered it meaningless, or at most simply meaning "That's what I call my political opponents."

Some radio stations ban the Dixie Chicks (can't blame them, I find them awful, particularly their horrible rendition of one of my favorite Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac songs), and suddenly the US is a fascist state. Never mind that in a real fascist state, you would only publicly make that declaration once, and then you would never be seen again.

Edited October 26, 2010 by ToadBrother

[bush_cheney2004]

....Fascism was once seen in political science circles as one of the forms that a totalitarian state could take. Now it's just a sort of political expletive, a meaningless insult. I accept that words evolve in meaning over time (linguistics and philology are pet interests of mine), but the way the word "fascism" is used in the West has rendered it meaningless, or at most simply meaning "That's what I call my political opponents."

Agreed...it is just intellectually lazy...shorthand for emotion rather than meaningful a description in historical context. A fascist USA could really do a lot more damage if it wanted too.

Some radio stations ban the Dixie Chicks (can't blame them, I find them awful, particularly their horrible rendition of one of my favorite Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac songs), and suddenly the US is a fascist state. Never mind that in a real fascist state, you would only publicly make that declaration once, and then you would never be seen again.

Yet the very same Dixie Chicks supporters applaud NPR's firing of Juan Williams....go figure. For the record, I purchased a Chick's CD for "Wide Open Spaces" before the "shut up and sing" controversy.

[nicky10013]

Indeed, for some big monstrous centrally-controlled corporatist government, the United States seems awfully chaotic. When I think of fascist states, I think of Germany, Italy, Hungary and even Japan during the 1930s and 1940s, you know with monolithic governments ruled by an individual or rather small cabal, with virtually no freedom of the press, freedom of speech or freedom of much else, with political non-comformists and oppositions basically eradicated or driven so far underground and to the fringes that they essentially became resistance movements.

Fascism was once seen in political science circles as one of the forms that a totalitarian state could take. Now it's just a sort of political expletive, a meaningless insult. I accept that words evolve in meaning over time (linguistics and philology are pet interests of mine), but the way the word "fascism" is used in the West has rendered it meaningless, or at most simply meaning "That's what I call my political opponents."

Some radio stations ban the Dixie Chicks (can't blame them, I find them awful, particularly their horrible rendition of one of my favorite Stevie Nicks/Fleetwood Mac songs), and suddenly the US is a fascist state. Never mind that in a real fascist state, you would only publicly make that declaration once, and then you would never be seen again.

Though I agree with the sentiment that the forms of government of the US and fascist states are much different, new research has pointed to the fact that the Nazi Regime and other Fascist regimes were far from monolithic. They weren't organized in the least and far more chaotic than the US constitutional system. In regimes with absolute dictators, rather than bureaucracies acting like bureaucracies, by analysing then passing on information about policy or merely carrying out policy, everything became what in essence was a popularity contest in the eyes of Hitler. The goal of the Nazi government wasn't to carry out policy, it was to please the Fuhrer. As a result, there were many different department working on the same things just to please a guy who knew absolutely nothing about administration. It might've been a better system if Hitler had a clear vision of who was supposed to be doing what, however, he was very aloof.

[ToadBrother]

Though I agree with the sentiment that the forms of government of the US and fascist states are much different, new research has pointed to the fact that the Nazi Regime and other Fascist regimes were far from monolithic. They weren't organized in the least and far more chaotic than the US constitutional system. In regimes with absolute dictators, rather than bureaucracies acting like bureaucracies, by analysing then passing on information about policy or merely carrying out policy, everything became what in essence was a popularity contest in the eyes of Hitler. The goal of the Nazi government wasn't to carry out policy, it was to please the Fuhrer. As a result, there were many different department working on the same things just to please a guy who knew absolutely nothing about administration. It might've been a better system if Hitler had a clear vision of who was supposed to be doing what, however, he was very aloof.

I'm well aware that these sorts of regimes still have political contests going on, though they're always under the surface. However, the US has no such hidden system. Opposition is open, vocal, sometimes to the point of insanity. As bush_cheney has pointed out, the US political system is anything but centralized. It shows none of the classic signs of a totalitarian government, fascist or otherwise. It's a democracy, in all its disorganized and messy glory. If Bush were a Hitler or a Mussolini, there would have been no 2004 election, and the US would still be run by President George W. Bush. There would be no newspapers, TV shows or radio programs giving a voice to his opponents. There would be no elections. Hell, Congress would have hung up its jacket and handed everything over to the President (after all, that's what happened in Germany with the Enabling Act, which basically sidelined the Reichstag until the Allies basically created new legislative assemblies after WWII).

The United States is not a fascist state, not if fascism is a word that has any meaning at all.

And I'm sure in the day to day governance Hitler may have been aloof, leaving things to his underlings, but I can tell you that in the administration of the war, Hitler was all too involved. The generals, particularly those from the regular armed forces, and not the political-military SS groups, had a considerable number of problems with the way Hitler was prosecuting the war, seeing strategies like Operation Barbarossa as sheer folly, but Hitler was very much in control, and forced the issue, hating Bolsheviks almost as much as he hated Jews.

[bush_cheney2004]

...And I'm sure in the day to day governance Hitler may have been aloof, leaving things to his underlings, but I can tell you that in the administration of the war, Hitler was all too involved. The generals, particularly those from the regular armed forces, and not the political-military SS groups, had a considerable number of problems with the way Hitler was prosecuting the war, seeing strategies like Operation Barbarossa as sheer folly, but Hitler was very much in control, and forced the issue, hating Bolsheviks almost as much as he hated Jews.

Good point...now we will read how Bush mismanaged the Iraq War just like Hitler!

Edited October 26, 2010 by bush_cheney2004

[maple_leafs182]

Fascinating logic. There is this word "fascism", which I wish to tar some group with. It really doesn't represent that group at all, so I think I'll just redefine the word.

I'm taking political science at the University of Winnipeg, most of the definition I said came strait out of my text book.

I didn't redefine anything.

you know with monolithic governments ruled by an individual or rather small cabal, with virtually no freedom of the press, freedom of speech or freedom of much else, with political non-comformists and oppositions basically eradicated or driven so far underground and to the fringes that they essentially became resistance movements.

Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC.

Well, we were the only antiwar voice that had a show, and that, I think, made them very nervous. I mean, from the top down, they were just terrified. We had to have two conservatives on for every liberal. I was counted as two liberals. - Donahue

He was the top rated show on MSNBC at the time.

Jesse Ventura

It was awful. I was basically silenced. When I came out of office, I was the hottest commodity out there. There was a bidding war between CNN, Fox and MSNBC to get my services. MSNBC ultimately won. I was being groomed for a five day-a-week TV show by them. Then, all of a sudden, weird phone calls started happening: “Is it true Jesse doesn’t support the war in Iraq?

His show was cancelled before it even began.

That is the mainstream media, it is used to serve special interest groups.

The Federal government has been taking rights and liberties away from citizen in order to protect them from terrorists.

[ToadBrother]

The Federal government has been taking rights and liberties away from citizen in order to protect them from terrorists.

Oh good grief. The worst I've seen is the idiotic security theater at international airports.

The US is not a fascist state. Actually looking at fascist states from the 1930s ought to be enough to see the difference.

And starting off your post with "I'm a PoliSci Guy" don't impress me. Anybody who thinks that the US is a fascist state doesn't know a damned thing about fascist states.

[GostHacked]

Oh good grief. The worst I've seen is the idiotic security theater at international airports.

The US is not a fascist state. Actually looking at fascist states from the 1930s ought to be enough to see the difference.

And starting off your post with "I'm a PoliSci Guy" don't impress me. Anybody who thinks that the US is a fascist state doesn't know a damned thing about fascist states.

Maybe in this new Politically Correct world, we can't call a spade for being a spade now.

[ToadBrother]

Maybe in this new Politically Correct world, we can't call a spade for being a spade now.

Calling the US government fascist isn't calling a spade a spade, it's calling a spade a turnip.

[Sir Bandelot]

Calling the US government fascist isn't calling a spade a spade, it's calling a spade a turnip.

Fascism was not defeated in WW2, not by a long shot. In fact fascism proved how successful a system it can be, in organizing the political and economic activities of a nation. Fascism doesn't mean arresting your enemies to make them go way. There are many ways to deal with that kind of problem, and all types of government, fascist or non, do things like that when someone is deemed to be a threat or undesirable in some way.

There are fascist elements incorporated into every western country. Just because modern fascism has a more smiling face does not mean it doesn't exist. To say fascism is not a component of the American political industrial system is incorrect.

However debates on the true meaning of "fascism" are known to be very lengthy and generally, unresolved. In the end it matters not, it's only a word. What matters is, providing fair criticism of a given system for what it is.