Hitler comparisons

originally posted by: EyesOpenMouthShut
this thread is like nazi germany.
telling us what we shouldn't say

I have wondered, though, why it's necessary to constantly be hearing "The Homeland"...

This is not meant to be anti-patriotic and I'm familiar with the likes of the Bush family, Dulles family, etc., but immediately after it started getting used post-9/11 I was left with a feeling very like fingernails on a blackboard.

It's three syllables for gosh sakes!!!! So is "Our Country".

Those in the media obediently began to parrot that phrase incessantly. I would hazard a guess that more than 50% of listeners/viewers, whether American or not, hear that phrase and automatically make a Nazi connection.

It could easily have been stopped if someone would have had the gumption to see their script, say, "I'm not comfortable with that" and go on to insert "Our Country". Instead it's become like when someone proudly found the word gravitas in the dictionary just before an election and our country was subjected to thousands of repetitions by the rest of the Main Stream Lemmings. Same with pronouncing Social Security, even politicians express it now as the contraction So'Security!!!

If it isn't possible to call our country "Our Country", then why in the world would anyone take offense when non-Americans make connections, even though near-subliminal, that paint us in a less than favorable light????

originally posted by: EyesOpenMouthShut
would it please you if people used the word "fascist"?

now that is the word to use!

I am going to start saying, "I've got to crap like Hitler on April 30th, 1945"

a reply to: verschickter

I can dig it and "No" I'm not just typing this because I have a Weimaraner as an avatar You weren't there. This is akin to a point I made in the "Ca. cop goes off rez.." (paraphrasing)

If the word/phrase is just tossed about liberally, it loses it's emphasis and descriptor of a heinous act/deed, it lessens it's meaning.. With 'many' loosely using the word(s), their value is lessened.. (supply and demand, remember when the pocket calculator came out and it was $199? Now they sell them at the DollarStore™ for a Bueller, Bueller? a $1.00. So if Jimmy screams "You're a Nazi!!" to His 5th grade teacher this lessens the effect.

Now on 'the other side' if We didn't have Hitler, We couldn't really appreciate Gandhi.

The descriptors should be abolished because they don't "compare" so why use a descriptor that doesn't work? I won't even address the fact that there are some folks that either #1) don't believe the Holocaust occurred or "Hitler was right" when this happens, then You have a whole new "ball of wax"...

Here is the real 'clog in the line' This "theory" works for EVERYTHING.. One could be the biggest bigot; racist; homophobe, etc. et al. and unless this person opened their mouth, wrote it down or typed it, nobody would be the wiser...

In closing: "Not Your circus, Not Your monkeys..."

namaste

a reply to: JimNasium
Of course I were not there and I´m lucky.
What you said is basically my complete OP, just rephrased.
I´m still searching for the meaning of your last paragraphs, your writing style confuses me a little bit. Seems I´m not on top this weekend, was not the best week either in my life.

a reply to: verschickter

I'm trying to fit it in sans getting cut off/timed out. The points of the last couple paragraphs are : NOT to use these words/descriptors because they don't 'compare'. So why use them? When something is indeed that BIG then break out the BIG GUNS. Until then it just "cheapens" the meaning.

a reply to: JimNasium
Got it now.
2nd.

a reply to: verschickter

It`s typical propaganda to make those comparisons in lots of cases when it`s used wrongly.

"You want to over exaggerate things by putting the Nazi/Hitler label on it, and by so trying to influence the people minds in making it look like worse, or even trying to make the suggestion it`s there while basically it isn`t."

You`re asking to stop the propaganda, good luck with it when it seems to be common in the news everywhere, and accepted as normal. If media is doing it constantly, people will think it`s also normal to do.

At least it`s a good reference to spot propaganda, when used out of place frequently, you know it is.

And when propaganda is considered "free speech," as believed by many, you will need to accept it will be there.

Let me bring in the Jewish as well as the politology POV though I myself am not Jewish.
The Allies, after the World War, had universally decided to make an example of German Nazis and Hitler for the whole world - because after the fact-finding missions of Lord Russell especially, they decided nothing comparable had so far happened in human history. As far as I know, Germans (I am partly German) learned that lesson very well.

This is why everyone uses it as a measuring stick, but Jewish historians made the point that nothing ever compares with the Holocaust and Hitler, who mechanistically annihilated millions of citizens, especially Jews and Gypsies, in death camps. Concentration camps existed before (the British Empire used them against the Boers in South Africa around 1901). Ethnic annihilation was not new either: the Turkish Empire annihilated 1.5 million Armenians (a fact Hitler always admired). The holocaust is unique, Jewish historians argue, and they also say - like the OP - that Nazism should not be compared lightly to anything else. The holocaust is incomparable and unique. It was directed by a total annihilation of an ethnic-religious group with frightening modern efficiency. While Stalin arguably killed more of his enemies, it was over the
course of decades.

(The Holocaust will not stay incomparable for long though, come the next world war... which will be Auschwitz crossed with Tschernobyl...)

Fascism in politology properly should apply to a wider range of states, starting with Mussolini's Italy where the name was coined (Fascista). The name originally came from a bunch of wild stalks you can not break easily - a Roman imperial symbol (fasces). In modern political theory you could say that after a list of certain criteria were fulfilled, a state or a movement could be called Fascist and that there are neo-Nazi movements typically with Hitler nostalgia. A Fascict state is violent, right wing, conservative (though sometimes they kill priests and rape nuns), secret police is a must, were the military is in alliance with the financial capital (free market is out). The simplest agricultural workers can be victims any time for reasons of poverty, supposed left wing political views, being part of a trade union etc.

Fascism was a descriptor of Greece under the dictatorship, with its rampant torture chambers and exile of Communists, also Salazar's Portugal, Pinochet's Chile after the 9/11'73 coup etc. and many more. Guateamala certainly by its death squads and Indian villages living behind barbed wire fences, its military rulers displaying public antiques worthy of Mr. Sade.

Don't forget that Japan had its "fascism", with a large blitzkrieg on Asia, a racial theory that Japanese were unique and the Chinese and Filipinos inferior races. They even had concentration camps and they exterminated POW's kicking every rule in the book. They just loved torturing civilians to death and there was the infamous biological experiments in Manchuria - much the same as in Nazi camps. However, they did not have simple death camps, total annihilation. They apparently killed hundreds of thousands of civilians in Nanjing just for fun. However, their total toll did not come up to that of the efficient Reich. They were naturally allies - Japan, Germany and Italy - which split in the latter times to a Fascist and a Nazi part.

Later history showed that over a much longer time, the leaders of the Soviet Union managed to dispose of far more people (including whole ethnic groups), and actually it is Mao that leads the absolute death toll in all totalitarian tyrannies - but that was all taking place slower, with sporadic attempts at mechanical elimination - mostly the Gulag was a place where they worked you to death. Plus, it was not directed at a certain ethnic group, though some like Tibetans or Uyghurs were at a distinct disadvantage.

The quick, engineering mind of sending more and more European Jews to gas chambers in a matter of a few years, was a Nazi peculiarity, so history still thinks Nazi Germany has been the very top of evil empires of all times.
(Well, if you look at the Aztecs and the Assyrians in their time, you will start to have doubts... but OK).

So I agree, use this comparison lightly!

Putin has some Nazi-like policies but he certainly lacks the hysterical charisma, plus he is no longer one of the top powers of the world. Germany before the war WAS a real top contender in industrial production to the US (imagine that), it had several colonies and it was looked upon as a world leader culturally by many European nations - all the highest engineering, science and culture was in German, and a whole circle of countries learned German as the language of modernity (Die Deutsche Kulturkreis). German music was popular like rock and roll today. I that, the US today could be more compared except that its political structure is so wholly different that it would never embrace bona fide Fascism, IMHO. German was almost accepted as an extra language in several US states... Germany produced first-rate scientists, musicians, writers, dramatists, psychologists etc. all in the times preceding the Nazi period. Modern Russia is not that far influential. Yes, they had Pussy riot but they chucked all the girls in jail. They invented Krokodile, the absolute worst drug in human history. (Good luck getting converts.) While the Nazi Army and the pilots especially were frequently high on amphetamine (Hitler liked it too), the alcohol consumption of Russia is still the highest in the world.

My two cents.

For all lover's of history it is a bit long at 6.5 hrs



but worth the watch

a reply to: douglas5

Please, sell the video to me. Does it lead to a particular conclusion? Does it show Hitler wasn't bad? Just a little something, please. I don't have six and a half hours for one film.

originally posted by: charles1952
a reply to: douglas5

Please, sell the video to me. Does it lead to a particular conclusion? Does it show Hitler wasn't bad? Just a little something, please. I don't have six and a half hours for one film.

I watched the whole documentary. There`s some interesting stuff in it, but it`s neo-Nazi propaganda...conclusion Hitler was good, lots of stuff about the not so good things he did is conveniently left out. At the same time there`s stuff in it what has been left out in our history books..."History is written by the Victors."

a reply to: BornAgainAlien

Dear BornAgainAlien,

I'm forever in your debt. Your sacrifice will be sung of for years.

I don't think an idea is bad simply because Hitler, the Jesuits, Bush, or Obama had it. I look at an idea and ask if anyone else had ever used this idea and how did it work out? Or, is there anything about this idea that is so repugnant that I don't have to consider it further?

I'm sure that some of Hitler's ideas were reasonable. I can't think of any off hand, but that's because I don't know the history. Whether it's just or not, anything connected to Hitler is now contaminated beyond recovery. If anyone actually admires Hitler, they should dig for whatever he did that was good, and reintroduce it under a new name. But, trying to claim that Nazi beliefs in general were good, is a folly and doomed to failure.

With respect,
Charles1952

originally posted by: charles1952
a reply to: BornAgainAlien

Dear BornAgainAlien,

I'm forever in your debt. Your sacrifice will be sung of for years.

I don't think an idea is bad simply because Hitler, the Jesuits, Bush, or Obama had it. I look at an idea and ask if anyone else had ever used this idea and how did it work out? Or, is there anything about this idea that is so repugnant that I don't have to consider it further?

I'm sure that some of Hitler's ideas were reasonable. I can't think of any off hand, but that's because I don't know the history. Whether it's just or not, anything connected to Hitler is now contaminated beyond recovery. If anyone actually admires Hitler, they should dig for whatever he did that was good, and reintroduce it under a new name. But, trying to claim that Nazi beliefs in general were good, is a folly and doomed to failure.

With respect,
Charles1952

I couldn`t agree more.

The whole documentary has some interesting stuff in it, because our history books don`t want to give us the idea there were some reasonable things he has done. But for instance gives a false perception as him not being a raging lunatic, and lots of other stuff. Maybe such things will influence people who don`t have a good deal of history knowledge. It didn`t work on me, because my knowledge of that period is big enough.

If you have a clear conception about what has happened, even without all the info, it gives a few interesting different pieces of extra information, but not more as that. Too much is conveniently left out to paint a very wrong picture.

originally posted by: charles1952
a reply to: douglas5

Please, sell the video to me. Does it lead to a particular conclusion? Does it show Hitler wasn't bad? Just a little something, please. I don't have six and a half hours for one film.

'

it gives you a insight into where the money and idea's that Hitler had around him and where they came from and how when he turned on the banker's [ Rothchild's ] thing's went wrong .

Germany had nationalist's but America has patriot's but when he got rid of the control a certain group had on the country they went from the basket case of Europe to the best economy in a few years

It does make you think that it is going on again in another part of the world

Actually, I'm surprised that no one brought this up:

OP, have you never heard of Godwin's Law?

Godwin's law (or Godwin's Rule of Nazi Analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage asserting that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1" [2][3]—​ that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.

It would be nice not to see it happen all the time, but I have seen it happen all the time....even with long discussions on space exploration.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Good that you posted it, I forgot about that theory, some member wrote about it a while ago.

Actually, NAZI Germany 1933 was a hell of a lot worse then things are here and now... I have to agree with the OP on this one.

"Then"?

Don't you mean "than"?

The thing about this sort of stuff is .. people are not doing this to mock germans or to be funny. They are doing this because they see a fascist police-state, the likes of which that particular era exemplified, _IS_ what everything is heading towards, even if a bit slower than back then. Though they have lately sped-up the process considerably..

I mean, even if the comparison is not YET accurate, and if it is still an exaggeration, things can be 'somewhat like that', and since it's going towards -that-.. I don't really see anything wrong with using that kind of rhetoric, as long as it is truthful and poignant. Even if it's 10% like it was back then, it's still truthful. "it's like (something)"-type of statement doesn't specify HOW MUCH or to what degree it is like (something).

Also, is policing words and tiptoeing around terminology really going to save the world?