During WW2, I wondered how and why the German people

allowed Hitler take over their country. I know the answers, now, and I owe the German people an apology!

And when the media kisses right wing ass while pretending not to.

My mom worries constantly that my mouthing off about Bush anywhere, anytime, almost any place (I'm a little discrete at work) will get me into trouble and she nags me about it (though she does agree with me). I finally had enough and asked her, "I guess you would have been a "Good German", wouldn't you?". The Old One is 83, she remembers WWII, she was shocked and ashamed of herself when I pointed that out to her.

What's wrong with Americans that we're SO SUBMISSIVE??????? Even the men here are submissive! Stand up and fight for what's right!

I don't understand how it being allowed to happen right before our eyes.

Outside of the attitude that it can't happen here, I am having real problems trying to understand Congress complacent attitude toward the criminals. Either they are in collusion or under sever threat. I don't know which.

are still running this country- the wealthy elite. They have to be convinced to tell their senators to stop supporting Bush. Will it ever happen???

Most of their members in government work for the people who pays for most of their income. And, I am afraid that is not the American public at large, but corporate interests. In fact, if you dig into the fascism, it turns out that one of the main tenets of fascist movements is the marriage of government and corporate interests over the interest of the individual. I.e. economic profit trumps over the considerations of the individual. Which describes the actual situation of this country to a T.

People like Nader got crucified for stating the obvious. It is too late now, I am afraid.

There is no viable alternatives. Trying to work within the system is counter productive and simply naive.

However, our current status quo and what was going on in Germany during the Weimar Republic are not comparable scenarios. So it is pointless trying to draw any comparisons on why the Germans let the nazis come to power, the lessons derived from that exercise can't be applied to our current situation. I am afraid we need to come up with our own solution. A great challenge indeed, but this is the true measure of greatness... those who are able to adapt to the challenges of their time and come up with the pertinent solution are the ones that allow humanity to move forward. Those who comply are bound to be ignored by history.

It is time for this country to stop signing about how great, brave and free it is, and start walking the walk. Else we should be brushed aside as a side-note in human history and let the human experience move forwards in whatever direction it is going.

the Germans had is they had a reason. Americans did not.

The Weimar Republic had to deal with hyper inflation, the consequences of Versailles, and a country that was for the most part failing apart in more ways than one: emotionally, politically, economically, structurally, etc.

It is under those circumstances when critters like Hitler and his ilk pop up: the "national salvation" is the oldest excuse in the world when it comes to totalitarian forces to come to power. Be it in the form of empire, monarchy, church, dictatorships, etc.

The little dirty secret regarding Hitler, is that none of the parties involved were "innocent." People don't wake up one day and decide to comply with the nazis, but given the alternatives they had at hand at that moment, for most Germans.. the nazi approach was the "lesser" of the alternatives. Once survival kicks in, other considerations take a second seat. The average German saw a relative improvement during the early 30s with respect to where they were in the 20s. And that is what most people don't want to touch with a 20ft pole.


Heck, look at our country. In the big scheme of things, 9/11 as tragical as it was, it was really a drop in the bucket in the course of human events. Yet we have carried one of the most horrific responses the world has seen. We have invaded and killed tens or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in response for a few knocked down buildings and three thousand deaths. And to this day there is no political will to take the current administration to task over it...

Now multiply 9/11 for a thousand fold, and you can see that the events of WWII and today's means that we have learned lick squat as both a nation and human beings.

the Treaty of Versailes. Hitler promised to fix that. There were many people outside Germany who admired him for what he did with Germany. True, they did not know the whole story.

The unanswerable question for me has always been "What would I have done had I been there?"

I knew in 2000 a vote for Bush was a vote for war in Iraq. The Bush Administration has been bad beyond my wildest imagination.

We weren't the only country affected by it. Germany was already suffering from a Depression and the crash only made it worse. He reached out to the unemployed, homeless, hungry and poor and offered them a way out. He attacked the Jews as the reasons for the Germans' problems and told them the were the superior race and deserved to live well, not in squalor as they were then.

I don't like what's going on in this country, but I don't see the GOP offering the poor a leg up, nor do I see them using another race or religion as a scapegoat. Sure, in specific and very limited instances one or two may have tried to take a page from Hitler, but it was narrow in scope and, more importantly, rebuffed by US citizens and unsuccessful (I'm thinking particularly of the "religious right" here and their vastly unsuccessful attempts to gain power). And these attempts will continue to be squelched by the citizens of this country.

Most Germans could not afford them at the time. Read "The Wages of Destruction: the Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy" by Adam Tooze. We have cable "news."

I don't have cable so I am not traumatized. I am so hearing impaired. right now, I never listen to the radio - so no talk radio shows for me.

And each time it (fascism) happens, there's always a Bush directing and profiting.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18061.htm

There are, of course, many more parts to the puzzle, and historians will be writing for years about Nazi Germany as the primal case of a first-world country degenierating into savagery at some levels.

Digging out some of Hannah Arendt's works on life in Germany at the time is highly instructional. She got into a lot of trouble with Jewish groups because of her thoughts on how evil could appear completely benign, but she is likely the most brilliant modern thinker about such things.

Puts Kant in his place, she does.

Are all the trade unionists in a concentration camp yet? Have laws discriminating against one ethnic group been introduced? Look, I'm not happy about how things are going in this country, but a little perspective please. This is not Nazi Germany. I still say what I want on a computer and nobody has come knocking on my door. In Nazi Germany, I would have been LONG GONE.

Edit: I just got back from Germany, btw. I know a thing or two about the history, what happened there. We have got a very engaged populace here in the States. And it's only growing. In Germany during that time, there were few small d democrats -- instead there were the National Socialist party, the Communist party, and the Social Democrats. The latter two refused to ally against the Nazis, and they ended up with Hitler as chancellor. Talk about a purist BS strategy that turned into a catastrophe.

We're comparing the BEGINNINGS of both societies - and the IDENTICAL similarities are too powerful and NUMEROUS to ignore, as you are too willing to do...

No, there are no unionist in concentration camps yet, BUT THERE ARE THOUSANDS OF INNOCENTS IN CONCENTRATION CAMPS - Guantaniimo ring a bell?

Many have and can go thru your entire list and find ample evidence of equal things NOW...

YOU are in serious denial...

because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the sick, the so-called incurables, and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't mentally ill.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.

Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left
to speak up for me

Why Germans Supported Hitler, Part 1
by Jacob G. Hornberger, Posted July 16, 2007

Part 1 | Part 2

It has long intrigued me why the German people supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. After all, every schoolchild in America is taught that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts were the very epitome of evil. How could ordinary German citizens support people who were so obviously monstrous in nature?

Standing against the Nazi tide was a remarkable group of young people known as the White Rose. Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, a German brother and sister who were students at the University of Munich, the White Rose consisted of college students and a college professor who risked their lives to circulate anti-government pamphlets in the midst of World War II. Their arrest and trial was depicted in the German movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, which was recently released on DVD in the United States. -snip-

rest of article here .... http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0703a.asp

note: The only problem I have with the linked article is about 'The Reichstag fire of 1933' ... being blamed on 'terrorists' and not leaving open the question of Hermann Goering and other Nazi cohorts possible involvement (false flag operation) back then. Anyway interesting read just the same. Peace.

Didn't think they had the votes???

By the way, I heard that old lie about "Hitler being elected" again today on Democracy Now. It was an old clip of that idiot Col. Wilkinson -- former colon powell stooge..

Hitler was NOT elected -- he was appointed (selected?) by Hindenburg and the capitalist masters and then took all power unto himself with the collusion of the capitalist masters.