America now is Germany then: Analogies
52 2016-01-07 by magnora7
The German people of the late 1930s imagined themselves to be brave. They saw themselves as the heroic Germans depicted by the Wagnerian Operas, the descendants of the fierce Germanic warriors who had hunted wild boar with nothing but spears and who had defeated three of Rome's mightiest legions in the Tuetenberg Forest.
But in truth, by the 1930s, the German people had become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery was both salve and slavery. Germans were required to behave as if they were brave, even when they were not.
It's easy to look back and realize what happened. But at the time the Hitler administration, with the help of the media, looked pretty good to the German people. Hitler was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938; the German people assumed they were safe from a tyrant. They lived in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government could and more importantly could not do. Their leader was a devoutly religious man, and had even sung with the boy's choir of a monastery in his youth.
The reality was that the German people, as individuals, had lost their courage. The German government preferred it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But the German people didn't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding individual courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the German people simply pretended that the situation did not exist. And in that simple self-deception lay the ruin of an entire nation and the coming of the second World War.
When the Reichstag burned down, most Germans simply refused to believe suggestions that the fire had been staged by the Hitler administration itself. They were afraid to. But so trapped were the Germans by their belief in their own bravery that they willed themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes, so that they could nod in agreement with Der Fuhrer while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoided the one situation which most required real courage: to stand up to governmental lies and deceptions.
When the Hitler administration requested temporary extraordinary powers; powers specifically banned under German law, but powers the government claimed they needed to have to deal with the "terrorists", the German people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, agreed. The temporary powers were conferred, and, once conferred, lasted until Germany itself was destroyed.
When the Hitler administration staged a phony invasion by Poland, the vast majority of the German people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to their government's deceptions, did not question why Poland would have done something so stupid as to attack Germany, and as a result Germans found themselves in a war.
But the German government knew they ruled a nation of cowards, and knew they had to spend the money to make the new war something cowards could fight and win. They decorated their troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further trapping them in their self-image. The Hitler administration copied the parade regalia of ancient Rome, to remind the Germans of the defeat of the legions at the Tuetenberg Forest. Talismans were added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fell in battle.
Knowing that it takes courage to kill the enemy face to face, the Hitler administration spent vast sums of money on wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, the world's first cruise missile and the world's first guided missile, weapons that could be used to kill at a distance, so that those doing the killing need not have to face the reality of what they were doing.
The German people were lured into WW2 not because they were brave, but because they were cowards who wanted to be seen as brave, and found that shooting long range weapons at people they could not see took less courage than standing up to the government's lies and deceptions. Sent into battle by that false image of courage, the Germans were dependent on their wonder-weapons. When the wonder-weapons stopped working, the delusion of grandeur faded, the illusion ended, the Germans lost the war.
The American people imagine themselves to be brave. They see themselves as the heroic Americans depicted by Western Movies, the descendants of the fierce patriot warriors who had tamed the frontier and defeated the might of the British Empire.
But in truth, by the dawn of the third millennium, the American people have become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery is both salve and slavery. Americans are required to behave as if they are brave, even when they are not.
The American people assume they are safe. They live in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government can and more importantly cannot do. Their leader is a devoutly religious man and with the help of the media looks petty good: TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year 2000 and 2004.
The reality is that the American people, as individuals, have lost their courage. The government prefers it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But Americans don't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the American people simply pretend that the situation does not exist.
When the World Trade Towers collapsed, most Americans simply refused to believe suggestions that the attacks had been staged by parties working for the US government itself. Americans were afraid to, even as news reports surfaced proving that the US government had announced plans for the invasion of Afghanistan early in the year, plans into which the attacks on the World Trade Towers which angered the American people into support of the already-planned war fit entirely too conveniently.
Now the US government has requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under Constitutional law, but powers the government is claiming they need to have to deal with the "terrorists". The American people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, are agreeing. The temporary powers recently conferred will be no more temporary in America than they were in Germany.
The vast majority of the American people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to the government's deceptions, never question why Afghanistan would have done something so stupid as to attack the United States, and as a result, Americans find themselves in a war.
The US government knows they rule a nation of cowards. The government has had to spend the money to make the new war something cowards can fight. The government has decorated the troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further trapping them in their self-image. Talismans are added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fall in battle.
Knowing that it takes courage to kill the enemy face to face, the United States government has spent vast sums of money on wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, cruise missiles, and guided missiles, weapons that kill at a distance, so that those doing the killing need not have to face the reality of what they are doing.
But so trapped are Americans by their belief in their own bravery that they will themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes, so that they can nod in agreement with the government while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoid the one situation which most requires real courage; to stand up to the government's lies and deceptions. When the wonder-weapons stop working, the delusion of grandeur fades, the illusion ends, the Americans will have lost ..... themselves.
The lesson from these facts is that it isn't easy to spot a genocidal tyrant when you live with one, especially one whom the press supports and promotes. Tyrants become obvious only when looking back, after what they have done becomes known. The German people did not stand up to the Hitler administration because their media betrayed them, just as the American media is betraying the American people by willingly, voluntarily, even proudly, abandoning its traditional role as watchdog against government abuse.
It is naive, not to mention racist, to assume that tyrants appear only in other nations and that somehow America is immune simply because "we're Americans".
America has escaped the clutches of a dictatorship thus far only through the efforts of those citizens who, unlike the Germans of the 1930s, have the moral courage to stand up and point out where the government is lying to the people. And unless more Americans are willing to have that kind of individual courage, then future generations may well look back on the American people with the same harshness of judgement with which we look back on the 1930s Germans.
17 comments
7 deweyweber 2016-01-07
Don't move the post from Reddit. Otherwise I would not have seen it. Just be sure to copy to other sites for safekeeping.
The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire now reads like the morning paper as the United States is in a race to the bottom. Comparisons with fascism are also in order as we see a developing police state, unending war, and the decline of the rule of law.
It's as though the ruling class looked at some corrupt third world country, became jealous and said "Why are we giving so much to the middle class?"
3 moodmomentum 2016-01-07
Looking for a single tyrant in the U.S. (or in Germany for that matter: the Nazi movement was more than Hitler) is a mistake.
A more apt analogy would be Argentina's 1976 overthrow of its democracy, with "the Generals" (the Junta), a.k.a. The Pentagon.
But there are hundreds of parallels, probably more suited for a better discussion board.
This is a fine essay and post and long piece of writing, but consider moving it away from Reddit, which is not designed for archival of such pieces of thoughtful writing. Reddit is designed for posts that will disappear in a matter of days. Which sadly renders your thoughts and the energy & time you put into this post all 404.
Consider looking at non-disappearing discussion boards like Deep Politics Forum or Rigorous Intuition.
Meanwhile, I'll leave you with this: we're in a "Strategy of Tension" phase of dissolving social cohesion, much like the Weimar Republic of 1920s Germany.
During that time, there were many of the same cultural tensions (sexual, social, legal) that exist today. There was a name for it: Kulturkampf (culture war).
Also during the 1920s were a series of over 100 political assassinations (like the 1960s on steroids, killing only German left-wing politicians). This was recounted in a book you cannot find on the Internet or in the U.S., titled Four Years Of Political Murder by E. J. Gumbel.
On the theme of cowardice against fascism, Milton Mayer wrote a famous book called They Thought They Were Free which states that the Nazi takeover was like a cornfield. In the spring, it was knee-high. By late summer, it was over your head and you were engulfed. And there were no moments of sudden betrayal by citizens (until Krystallnacht). There were only tiny betrayals. Like Abu Ghraib, or al-Awlaki's assassination-without-trial.
The U.S. has had much larger betrayals than Nazi Germany did: JFK & 9/11 & the Anthrax Attacks were gigantic moments of naked betrayal that take a continuous, ongoing self-betrayal of turning a blind-eye to ignore the obvious.
We are very much repeating the Weimar Republic, but also repeating Chile 1973 and Argentina 1976. Those last two nations ended up with Operation Condor. Condor was supported by the CIA and directed by a group of Nazis in exile living in Chile in Colonia Dignidad.
The great thing about Operation Condor is that concentration camps were no longer necessary.
3 magnora7 2016-01-07
5 comments, I actually see 2. That means 3 are shadowbanned...
2 xleb1 2016-01-07
Right now it says 7 comments. I see 3. That means 4 were shadowbanned. More than half the comments on this thread are missing!
3 blacy0520 2016-01-07
A staggering amount of parallels.....it isn't a carbon copy but the general situation is pretty much the exact same thing.
I've mentioned to some folks that America is basically like Nazi Germany, and they scoff - it's out of the question. I don't say exactly, I say basically.
Blind nationalism and advanced technology is fucking dangerous, it seems we have forgotten this lesson.
2 Ihopeitsround 2016-01-07
I think about these comparisons all the time; I wish more people understood what you are conveying here today, you did it beautifully. Thank you.
1 merryman1 2016-01-07
Will write a longer post later when I'm not on my phone but a lot of this is pure bollocks, this is a complete misrepresentation of German society during the Weimar Republic and the reasons for Hitlers success.
2 merryman1 2016-01-07
Sorry for the delay guys!
For turning around the German economy and for his perceived role as the instigator of said recovery.
The 1933 enabling act put an end to this. If you weren't aware that Germany was under the rule of a tyrant by 1933 then you were simply not paying any attention. I think its worth noting though that this was not seen as a bad thing. Fascist ideology was overtly anti-Democracy and perceived the state as far more of an all-pervasive entity.
I was going to counter the first point about German's still retaining there extremely martial, patriotic culture as this was very much not the case in normal post-war German society but then this point was raised which... sort of answers itself really.
Its not clear here whether you are talking about Weimar Germany or post-1933 Germany. I'll assume the latter, in which case this is dead wrong. You are right to say that there was still a strong undercurrent of Nationalism and that many Germans on the whole were apathetic about governance until the NSDAP began increasing in popularity but I think the majority of individuals felt that Hitler was doing good things for their country. Nazi ideology preached of a stronger country that no longer felt weak or guilty in the face of the international community but stood its ground. Whilst with hindsight we can see how this lead to the re-militarization of the German culture, at the time it was not clear at all. Hitler was perceived to have saved the economy from a second wave of ruin, spread a deal of propaganda about the various Communist and Socialist movements in the country (more about them later) not to mention the Jewish communities within the country which gave rise to the idea of internal enemies, and gave massive subsidies to various programs which promised the average German worker a car, good holidays in previously exotic locations, and a sense of pride that their work was contributing to the re-establishment of a great European power.
False. Again hindsight is 20/20. The various fringe political movements in Germany had been operating on surprisingly violent terms for years at this point. The NSDAP was notoriously anti-Communist and spent a lot of time ensuring that the one thing their followers feared was a Communist uprising. It's not unlike if the leaders of the PEGIDA movements came forwards and claimed Islamists were responsible for such an action today, few would bother questioning this as it fits the narrative they have been fed for the past few years.
Again re: the Enabling Act of 1933. Imprisonment without trial and torture of suspects was introduced. You wonder why people were afraid to confront the widely accepted narrative? There was, in fact, a 'counter-trial' held in London by exiled German Communists. Want to guess why they fled?
The room was also full of Sturmabteilung, the NSDAP's private militia force. Again, want to guess what happened to those who voted against the motion? You make it sound like the 'German government' was some kind of single entity, not the multitude of individuals that it was. The NSDAP did not hold a majority but could command support from other Conservative political groups which pushed them into a commanding position. This was seen as an exception so Hitler took measures to ensure the outcome would be controlled. This is no different to Octavian Augustus or Julius Caeser declaring themselves Consul for life with Legionaries standing in the Senate-house.
By this point they had no say. That said, yes many did believe. The evidence was not at all clear at the time given the NSDAP's stranglehold over communications within the country and the sheer amount of propaganda that the population was subject to. By 1939 I don't think its an exaggeration to say the majority of the German population genuinely feared an imminent Communist insurrection and had fully bought into the narrative that only a 'strong' Germany back in control of it's former European Empire could fight against this. Bear in mind that the people had already bought into similar stories about massacres against Germans in Czechoslovakia!
I'm not sure how you can say this. Post-war Germans lived one of the harshest existences that citizens of an Industrialized European nation have endured in the last century. I think regardless of what lies they were sold (and I agree they were lies, I can't stress enough that personally I am a Marxist, I think fascist ideology is poison) the German people over the course of the inter-war period and WW2 showed a determined resilience to harsh circumstances. I find it disgusting that so many bought into the narrative of genocide for self-preservation, but we cannot blame humans for human failings.
As had many other Imperial European nations up until 1914. Hitler was stuck in a 19th Century mentality for sure but I've no idea why you keep drawing back to the battle of Tuetenberg Forest. The Nazi references to the Teutonic race hark back as much to the Teutonic order guarding the borders of Europe against the pagan east as they do the Teutonic people.
What??? Germany had access to some of the finest engineers on the planet at this time whilst also suffering from a serious dearth of manpower to keep the factories running. Production focused on smaller numbers of absolutely cutting edge weapons (after the initialization of Total War) because Hitler particularly felt that they emphasized the superiority of German technology whilst also less likely to result in the attritional warfare that Germany could not compete with. Why on earth would a small-ish nation with relatively limited manpower want to engage with an enemy on even terms?
Feel like I'm repeating a lot here now but... Once again, the kind of propaganda machine that the Nazi party established was incredibly sophisticated for its time. The kind of full-spectrum assault that Goebbels perfected is still the primary model used in propaganda today. This was an era before the internet, when people generally trusted what they heard and read, especially if multiple sources were repeating the same story. Even if someone did see through this what do you expect them to have done? Had themselves thrown into a Concentration Camp? What sane person would do this? Many people did flee Germany but I have a feeling you'd just see these people as cowards also.
i) You guys never faced the might of the British Empire ;)
ii) See 'The Century of the Self'. This has been deliberately propagated just as the harmful narratives that predominated Nazi society.
Because at the time they were confronted with a barrage of information claiming the attacks were conducted by terrorist cells whilst evidence for any conspiracy theory on this issue is still somewhat vague.
Again you seem to be stuck on this idea that somehow the government of a country somehow acts unanimously and under the good graces of all its citizens. 'Afghanistan' did not attack the United States, this was never the argument.
1 gameoverplayer1 2016-01-07
Agreed. And awaiting your post.
1 shmusko01 2016-01-07
An issue which contains a scathing critique on just what a lunatic e was.
Because if you said otherwise, you were carted off to prison
Uh...Just no
Hitler was not religious in the least.
1 Homonoetic 2016-01-07
For the sake of the argument, please provide some sources for these rebuttals.
0 clowncar 2016-01-07
This title will hurt my head for the rest of the day.