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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIt sounds extreme, maybe even crazy, but it's very true. Americans need to wake the hell up....
#WakeUpAmerica #FoxLIES
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Beowulf42
(204 posts)It follows the logic that it will only happen to the other guy, I'm safe. Like our blindness about the eavesdropping by the NSA. I hope there will come a time when millions of citizens actually awake to exactly what is happening.
LiberalArkie
(15,708 posts)they can because it is a residential internet service and a .COM. Just what are the possibilities?
billhicks76
(5,082 posts)...and Generals. Only fools ignore this extremely important point.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)Except their official communications. This might be why she ran everything through her own server under the assumption that if NSA erased the record nobody would have access or a copy of her correspondence.
billhicks76
(5,082 posts)They have said NSA uses information for blackmail or leverage to get what wants. Like votes, judgements, PR, contracts etc. They said they were digging into Obamas life in 2005.
leveymg
(36,418 posts)And, on issues that mean the most to the military, the real decider.
billhicks76
(5,082 posts)Vichey Democrats?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)
Stonepounder
(4,033 posts)First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist. (Gays?)
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew. (Immigrants? Muslims?)
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
pocoloco
(3,180 posts)Gun control followed by people control!!
....and worse!
randys1
(16,286 posts)elehhhhna
(32,076 posts)Our gov needs a rinse cycle.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)but also ignorant of their true ends. Yet, too many don't know the history and some of us were alive then and should be telling younger generations, yet some asshole named Godwin says we shouldn't and other assholes make accusations of calling people Nazis when it's far from the truth.
Recommended reading: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer and
"Mine Kampf" by Adolf Hitler
The chapters in both books on propaganda should be really familiar to Americans considering our advertising industry has been using the same methods for centuries and now our so-called news media is doing the same. Their motto is that the ends justify the means.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)
PufPuf23
(8,764 posts)Person 2713
(3,263 posts)A highly enlightening and disturbing book.
RKP5637
(67,102 posts)
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)The OP has posted an extremely offensive meme, and I find it appalling that so many are applauding it.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)They are putting out the most bigoted and disingenuous hate rhetoric out there to demonize anyone who isn't one of their adoring listeners. Goebbels would be proud of them. Yet you appear to believe they shouldn't be criticized and compared to the evil they are emulating.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Had the meme said "How did Hitler get the German populace to follow along blindly... " it would have made sense. It would have been a correct analogy to Fox News. But that's not what the meme says - it uses the 6 million number, which for years and years has been most quoted number for the VICTIMS of the Holocaust.
THAT'S why I object to the meme.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)does not refer to the victims. The victims we presume did not just follow along.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)number for Germany in the 30s/40s? Google it - the actual population of Nazi-ruled Germany was about 55 million or so (some sites say 70 million).
That being the case, why use the 6 million figure ("over" or not) if you're NOT referring to the victims? Wouldn't you logically say "over 50 million", or "over 55 million" if you were actually talking about the German population?
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)the followers were the NAZIs, not the victims. It is that part of the post, the reference to the followers that makes the meaning of the post clear.
Chef Eric
(1,024 posts)First, it begins by mentioning the "holocaust." Not Nazism, or the Third Reich, but the holocaust.
Second, it mentions "six million." Nobody uses the words "holocaust" and "six million" together without referring to the victims.
The post is poorly written. At best, it jumbles references to victims and blind followers. At worst, it blames the victims for not fighting back, which is simplistic and not entirely accurate.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)German people who followed Hitler without questioning. But the DUer is not well informed about how many Germans there were. Sic million sounds like a lot. It is actually the approximate number of Jews who died in the Holocaust, not the population of Germans who blindly followed Hitler.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust for not fighting back. See post #109 in this thread:
This seems to be a Tea Party meme, adapted and photoshopped
I was puzzled by the 'over 6 million' figure, which would refer not to those persuaded by Hitler, but to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust; the total number of Holocaust victims is around 11 million. I thought at first that it might be a misprint for 'over 60 million' which could be a very approximate figure for the population of Germany at that time.
But I then checked and found several places on the Internet where this is posted, all right-wing, and mostly illustrated, not by the Fox News logo, but by an arm tattooed with a concentration camp number. So this is definitely referring to the Jews, and is incredibly insulting however it is taken: 'The Jews only got killed because they let themselves be duped'/ 'A relatively limited form of public healthcare, at least if established by a black president, is exactly the same thing as mass extermination'/ 'All human disasters including the Holocaust are caused by gun control'/ all of the above.
<snip>
Pretty ugly stuff; ironically an example of the sort of vicious propaganda that can be used by extremists.
I'll grant that the OP most likely used that graphic in ignorance, but there have been enough DUers in this thread pointing out how clearly wrong that graphic is for the OP to take notice and make a correction. Someone with a shred of honesty and good faith ought to have edited their OP by now to remove that vile offensive graphic and found something truthful to replace it with.
I think you ought to stop trying to make excuses for the OP. They posted a disgusting right wing meme, and it's simply unacceptable that it's being allowed to stand.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I think it can be interpreted either way.
I just think it is important to state the truth about the Holocaust and not to chastise people who are misinformed. Our role should be to set the record straight.
I think we are doing that.
I did not know this was some kind of right-wing lingo thing.
Thanks.
I think you can see my point.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)And I absolutely do not agree that "...it can be interpreted either way." When "over six million" and "Holocaust" are used together in one statement, there is only one interpretation possible - that the statement is referring to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, who have been referred to by the number "six million" countless times for decades.
If the OP picked out a right-wing victim-blaming graphic by mistake, the OP needs to show that it was done with "best intentions" by either correcting it or taking it down. There have been enough people in this thread pointing out how offensive it is. Otherwise, there is nothing to show that posting that victim-blaming meme was NOT his intent.
cali
(114,904 posts)Jews and others killed in holocaust is 6 to 11 million, it sure isn't a reference to German citizens.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)the population of Germany.
It's the number that is a mistake on the part of the author of the OP. Americans make a lot of mistakes with numbers and have no idea who large the population of Germany was at the time of the Holocaust.
But the Jewish people and many others who were taken to work and death camps in the NAZI era did not "follow." Not after the beginning of the exterminations. They were arrested and forced to leave. Many tried to escape. Many tried to emigrate. Those subject to the Holocaust did not willingly "follow."
People have forgotten what preceded the Holocaust. The Krystall Nacht. The yellow stars. The fact that Jews were excluded from jobs and from school.
The responses to my comment indicate to me that few of those responding have first hand knowledge of people who survived the Holocaust and haven't really read much about it. That explains a lot of the anti-Israel sentiment on DU.
I am not surprised, but I am disappointed that anyone thinks that Jewish people followed Hitler and went to prison camps willingly. They tried to survived. That is all.
They knew the score. It was the German people who claimed they did not know what was really happening and who followed Hitler, not the Jews, Homosexuals, genuine Christians, Gypsies, or other persecuted groups.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)is the number of JEWS killed and it does not include the other groups such as homosexuals, communists, Gypsies and the millions of disabled. In all there were more than ten-million victims in the concentration camps.
I am old enough to remember the propaganda after WWII and claiming that the victims went to the camps willingly was a huge meme.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)been forced to live in the ghettos. They were forced to wear the Star of David so they could be identified. Many were harassed continually. And many from all over Europe were fleeing the growing violence. They were a trapped abused people for centuries in Europe. By 1942 the abuse had gotten a lot worse already. The death trains may have looked like a way out but I would be very surprised if the Jews actually trusted TPTB. They were never given a reason to trust them.
The one thing I do believe is that they could never have conceived of the horrible lengths the Germans would go. None of us could have. We are not so innocent anymore. We know just how evil we can be.
I can see them fleeing the ghettos on those trains with the hope that they would not be killed if they obeyed. I can see them walking into the new ghetto they were moved to (concentration camps). And I can see that they would believe the showers were safe. All because at that point they could not conceive of the evil that faced them.
All of this does not imply a willingness or even blindness to their danger. It implies a desperation of a trapped and abused people. And to some extent it implies that they still had faith in mankind and in God.
In that kind of danger they were not paying attention to what was happening?
Sorry I will never believe that.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)because they were told they were being relocated to a better place? It seems they also were indoctrinated. Our ICE is also telling our immigrants who are crossing the south border allegedly illegally the same thing when they herd them into detention centers. Those who entered the gas chambers in Nazi camps often believed they were going to be showered and disinfected.
cali
(114,904 posts)Fuck no, they didn't go willingly. They went at the point of guns. You actually believe they went willingly and were indoctrinated?
I don't have words to express my disgust.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)WWII began. Logically even the Nazis couldn't move that many people with other Germans looking the other way and not noticing the guns. This is the reason the most heinous of the camps were in occupied countries like Poland so the rank and file Germans didn't have to worry their pretty little heads over atrocities. We do the same with Muslims we accuse of being Al queda by torturing them in other countries like Egypt or Guantanamo in Cuba. We actually do that at the point of a gun but in Nazi Germany those families n the beginning were told the were going to relocation camps, much like we tell the Central American refugees that they will be processed and we throw them into stinking makeshift prisons instead because our laws make them illegal for simply existing.
cali
(114,904 posts)The "point of the gun" for Germany's Jews came with the Nuremberg laws in the thirties when Jews were stripped of citizenship and any legal protection. And Kristallnacht cemented the concept that it was open season on German Jews. And Dachau was just outside Munich, was in operation from the early thirties until the end of the.war and was well known to Germans. Only part of the reason that death camps were located outside of germany was to hide them from the German population; largely it was logistics.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Besides that the original OP was about Fox News propaganda not being much different than Nazi propaganda. You made a nice red herring out of it by invoking the holocaust reference, which shouldn't have been made in such a way instead, and a flame war ensued. Then you proceeded to throw a bunch of ad hominems to posters who agree that Fox News is evil about how stupid and sick people were who agreed that Fox News follows exactly the same propaganda techniques as the Nazis used. You got your way. Now go away and read a book that lays it all out for you, "Mein Kampf". Hitler, in his own words, how propaganda is to be used against his perceived enemies and whom those enemies are in his beliefs.
cali
(114,904 posts)And you are deliberately twisting words.
I've read mein kampf. Inadvertently, you are making point.
And do follow your own advice and go away, Cleita.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005263
It was the German people who followed Hitler blindly without thinking.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)and you are crammed into a train with only what you can carry in a suitcase and then herded into afenced in pen where they took your one suitcase from you and separated you from your spouse and older children. Would you kind of get the message?
Especially if you had already been forced to live in Jewish ghettoes for centuries. Especially when you were already forced to wear the star of David to identify yourself. When all over Europe Jews were beaten and jailed. When those who could had already fled.
Yes, they did not realize the showers were a trap but I seriously doubt that they walked in thinking that everything was just fine.
Not fight back - with what - they had already taken their guns and their little children were among the victims.
The so called Christian German citizens should have been the ones fighting against this idiocy but instead they insisted after the war that they had no idea what was going on. Like our faux news idiots.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)in the decade before the Nazis had begun to exterminate them in earnest. They had their jobs taken away from them. Then they were not allowed to shop for food and other necessities in most of the stores. They were forced to move from their homes and finally they were rounded up and told they would be relocated to another place outside of Germany. By that time they really hadn't much choice and did what they were told. At first only those not able to work or otherwise be useful were killed.
Many in that decade left Germany and immigrated elsewhere including America because conditions had become so difficult for them to survive. I met some of those families whose children I played with and went to school with. Most found out after the war ended their family that had been left behind had been killed. So it wasn't done all at once and it was accomplished with Nazi propaganda and lies as well as force.
I know they didn't think things were fine either, but not having an army of their own to fight back they went along hoping the lies weren't lies and that things would be better. It's really a complicated subject to be discussing in short paragraphs and in terms of black and white.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)poster used in this post. I would be interested in knowing where that poster came from and how old it is. I actually remember hearing that from American citizens when I was young.
German-American citizens who (like me) were very ashamed of what Germans had done and were trying to find some way to explain what had happened. And yes we were blaming the victims. As you pointed out in this post they were not eagerly jumping on the trains.
Took me many years to realize that I was not part of what the Nazi's had done because I had been an American for centuries.
Today we are all part of it if we do not stand up.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)of which none are or were Nazis. I have always been careful to make that distinction between Nazis and Germans, just like I do between American White Suprmacist Nazis and white Americans.
a2liberal
(1,524 posts)Luckily, all the jurors saw through the alert (0-7), I'll leave this here in case the alert was truly in good faith:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_train
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Have you seen the photos of the trains?
Do you believe the average Jewish person in the 30s & 40s could tell the difference between a locking "Cattle Car" with barbed wire on the only window ...and a coach?
Response to bvar22 (Reply #155)
Cleita This message was self-deleted by its author.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)I know people whose family members were relocated and in some cases died.
My post is well informed.
I lived in Europe for some years. I know what happened very well. I have visited an internment camp, Dachau.
cali
(114,904 posts)Cleita
(75,480 posts)the victims of the holocaust but to point out why they became victims and that was because of the careful attention the Nazis paid to propaganda to sway the German people into hating Jews, Slavs, unionists, communists and gypsies first by reducing them to second class status and finally making them illegal and then in the end the final solotion. In our day Fox News is very much the same. That was the intent of the OP.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)is offensive. I am willing to give the OP author the benefit of the doubt at this point and assume he/she didn't recognize what the poster is referring to.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)are seeing it. But what we are saying needs to be pointed out because our idiot faux news idiots are the ones who should be wising up and fighting the haters (along with us) and not the victims.
With a little change - from six million to citizens of Germany - this post would be perfect for today.
cali
(114,904 posts)And some of the responses are from people who seem to conclude that the op references holocaust victims and they still endorse it as an apt comparison
questionseverything
(9,646 posts)i rec'd because i do see a similarity between nazi propaganda and fox news
i also see a similarity between pre war germany and what is happening here in the US today...our rights being eroded and the populous not being able to stop it
in my defense i think it is a good thing that i am pre disposed to blame the nazis as most here are
Generic Other
(28,979 posts)as the number clarifies which group is singled out as the group that followed blindly. I suspect the poster did not mean this. Words are tricky. I teach English. I would flag this sentence.
cali
(114,904 posts)whathehell
(29,065 posts)I join you in your disgust at its reception here. 
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)This is one seriously stupid meme.
Sid
ladyVet
(1,587 posts)When one of my teachers found out, she asked me what I thought of it. I said the guy was a kook. She laughed, and went on. I was maybe twelve? I read some of that Ayn Rand shit a couple of years later, and figured she was a kook, too.
My feeling is, people won't wake up until it's too late, and we'll spend years fighting the wing nuts. Talk about a civil war. Lots of people going to die before we get that shit straightened out. I really wish my kids would immigrate somewhere sane, so they'll be out of the mess that is coming. Our only hope is Bernie Sanders, and I worry that enough people aren't hearing his message.
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)We have been asleep at the switch though it has been a slow creep into mind control. Walter Cronkite would be screaming at this, and that man didn't scream. He had ethics and morals so he would never have made it in today's media.
Bernie talks about a political revolution and that it will take millions of us to force the changes to get us back to Democracy and Representative government. High on the list will be busting up these media conglomerates and making rules we enforce when it comes to telling the truth on air. It is beyond ridiculous that Fox won a court of appeals decision when the court said it was ok for Fox to knowing lie to us since they are "Entertainment" and not news!
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)we take it back, we live in exceptional times, anyone with a printer and a computer can make a newspaper
or an zine or an ebook, podcast, mailing list or political website, or an off the main internet bbs.
or we make new media (which is actually what we are doing right now)
Dustlawyer
(10,495 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)That's a more apt analogy.
jtuck004
(15,882 posts)Stirring, passionate. They could do no wrong.
Besides, they had better DNA they said. Join us, we're smarter and better looking.
And if you don't we will kill you and your family in the night - but why let it come to that? We have been friends for years...
Make Germany Great Again.
And by the time they realized what they had done, them was us.
Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)cali
(114,904 posts)contemptible. Looks like a lot of DUers know fuck all about history.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)quote and modification
-
1/ They could do no wrong.
2/ Besides, they had better DNA they said.
3/ Join us, we're smarter and better looking.
4/ And if you don't we will kill you and your family in the night - but why let it come to that? We have been friends for years...
-
1-3/chant "usa number 1"
4/ citizenship can be stripped
jtuck, only answering to you to keep topic 'in thread' i realize from your answer you realize this
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)I thought the same thing about the German people. Now I can see how it happened. It has become crystal clear.
cali
(114,904 posts)other victims of the holocaust. The population of germany circa 1940 was something like 70,000,000. The approximate inner of those slaughtered in the holocaust is 6,000,000.
Comparing the victims of the holocaust to Fox news viewers is some sick shit.
Hydra
(14,459 posts)But it also could be a reference to the number of actual hardcore supporters of the Nazi movement. It's been pointed out before that less than 10% of the people in a given area can launch a movement as long as there is not strong pushback from the general population(the good germans).
Regardless, I don't see it as entirely Faux News doing this, they're just the worst and the loudest. Our entire dialogue and mythos has been perverted.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)aggression? It says 6 million and Holocaust. Not 6 million and Nazis. It is a meme that is so poorly constructed that is is in fact offensive.
And those Christians Straights who allowed the murders of millions of Jews, Roma gay men and others did not follow blindly they simply did not give a shit.
Today in Africa, Christian Straights tell Africans that condoms give them HIV and that it is sinful to use them. Over 100,000 thousand Africans die of AIDS every single month. Their counterparts, straight neighbors and international communities simply do not care enough about them to tell them the truth or to stop the religious liars from telling them condoms will kill them. Instead on DU the Pope, head of the 'condoms cause AIDS' group, is considered a great man by people who really don't care about the 100,000 plus who die for that lie each month. Heartless, apathetic, bigoted and ignorant, sure. But blind? I think not. They can see what they are doing and they just do not care.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)that allow them to die.
And the reason - they just do not care. No 1 comes first.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)when history is not being taught (very well) and unlike most of the rest of the world is taught 'locally', 'federally', 'internationally' as opposed to most other countries 'internationally', 'federally', 'locally'
Civics/civil studies/social studies aren't being very emphasized
this isn't the teacher's fault, it is a curriculum thing
To compare my civics and history teacher ages 12-16 had a required reading list of (among others):
Milton Meyer - They thought they were free
Mein Kampf
Das Kapital
The little red
The Prince (Machiavelli)
Sun Tsu (art of war)
The book of 5 rings (Miomoto Musashi)
2-3 books per year (not term) on critical thinking and source criticism (similar to but more so http://guides.library.cornell.edu/criticallyanalyzing )
various books by Founding Fathers (despite this not being a US teacher or school)
on that list I'd say the one everyone SHOULD read is
They thought they were free
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Mayer
excerpt:
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
they worked together a lot, so when we did Das Kapital and Mein Kampf we also did WWII and time leading up to and prior to and effects and causes
worked out pretty well
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)You were lucky. NO American gets that kind of an education, and if a teacher assigned that reading list in the US they would be run out of town on a rail the next day.
Critical thinking is something most do not encounter until they get to college. I'd opine that about 40% of the US populace has, functionally speaking, zero critical thinking abilities, and another 25% has very limited abilities.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)They were however very popular cause they made it interesting and fun to learn
and kept running the whole 'religion/ethics' ties in with 'history (old civics)' ties in with civics(tomorrows history) ties in with biology/chemistry/physics (steel + gunpowder led to blaah war)...
we had guest lectures (age 14 and 16) from military psy-ops unit, counter propaganda unit and even the equivalent to a S.E.R.E. instructor and a Interrogator (both police and military)
courtesy of the civics teacher (taught language as well)
"It's cheaper to OUTthink than outFIGHT"
A lot of what they taught lay there just waiting till i was like 18 or so..and it clicked
some clicked later
lunasun
(21,646 posts)Weekly civics, critical thinking classes , logic classes, debate age 12 up BUT it is private, They started in public but we just couldn't and we are in a coveted 10/10 public district . The teachers and curriculum are priceless and in real world money more than our mortgage but we are happy to write the check
Mnemosyne
(21,363 posts)asking me if my mother 'let' me read these books. My mother never censored my reading, at all. She was cool for that, in my eyes anyway.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)in 2 year programs that teach nothing but how to do the job. No history, no civics, no philosophy, no political science, etc.
And then we wonder how we have dumbed down America. We teach them anything they want to know EXCEPT how to be a good citizen.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)History tells us WHAT happened.
Literature tells us about the people it happened to,
and what they thought and felt.
My education would be incomplete without Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, and John Steinbeck.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)situation like we do today - students miss so much.
I loved every class I ever took with the exception of golf. Went to college in Nebraska and the golf course had gopher holes all over it. If our ball went down a hole we lost a move for it.
Just joking about the golf but not the rest. Even today I read a lot of things that are not necessary for pleasure. But for learning.
saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)Sounds like you and your schools are doing a better job teaching US history, civics and politics than we do.
Sun Tsu "Art of War" is required reading in some US military schools, "I can tell you who will win and who will lose". Machiavelli was not required of me until I joined the corporate world. A very disturbing piece of political, back stabbing non-fiction.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)Locating myself (we were in the middle) and 'battle ground' if anything happened
we knew it, so the country prepared for either side as an enemy ( it doesn't matter who nukes you or invades you in the name of freedom or 'protection' )
2 of my Sun Tsu Favs
“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
(then again having said that of course, i'll apply machiavelly and tripple or quad decept that..or not...)
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
yes Machiavelli can be disturbing
but it's inspiring too, reading Machiavelli then the Harry Potter series puts a whooooole new set of eyes on Snape for instance
(or the Dune series) (the intrigue / deception behind the scenes and double and triple and quadruple treason) becomes more interesting)
it was a short period in time where it was stressed very hard that integration between subjects was to be emphasized along with me being lucky to have teachers that liked that concept and ran with it really well
from what i understand (my mom was a teacher up till 2005 or so) it is not the same nor has been for 20 or so years (almost dating myself there *jk*)
Partially the downfall of the above was a 'everyone needs to pass and go to next grade' and partially it was a prep for test as opposed to 'learn for life'
most of my teachers stressed 'learn for life' and 'you are here to learn how to learn and think, not to learn facts'
now they stress 'learn facts by rote and study for tests' which i find sad
I'd say most Americans with a history interest knows more US history (detailed) than me
Same more Russians/former USSR ditto for their history
that being said we learned enough to give a 'taste of the thought system and culture of both' (and of others)
---on edit---
to pass on the tradition i gave the above similar stuff schooling as parallel home schooling (whilst they were still in school) to my step kids
--end edit--
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Sun Tzu. And learned the lessons well.
I started reading Orwell and Vonnegut on my own when I was 15. Subversive from the start. 
And with the wisdom of hindsight, Snape was Machiavelli in reverse. A (terribly conflicted) good guy all along. The revelation of the true Snape was the single most shattering thing in the Potter books.
PatrickforO
(14,570 posts)I had to read those books on my own, and did not hit many of them until after college.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)<snip>
"But the most brilliant technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as so often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success."[/font]
[font color=white]---volume 1, chapter 6 of Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler (1925)[/font]
Faux News certainly caters to the least common denominator,
and repeat their BS over, and over, and over.
Looks like they read the above book.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)maybe Lee Atwater?
bvar22
(39,909 posts)Scroll your mouse across the blank/white space under the quote box for the answer.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I read that in high school. People say that Trump is no Hitler, because Hitler was such a good speaker. Well, he was speaking to a more educated people. Trump is gearing his demagoguery for his base.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Loudmouthed ultra-nationalistic gasbag. Big talk and that's all.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)and I want to agree, but when I hear about how the Mexicans are causing all the rapes, it really sets off bells in my head. I may be wrong, but Hitler did scapegoating better than il Duce.
RKP5637
(67,102 posts)w0nderer
(1,937 posts)Germanic languages and authors (as well) tend to longer paragraphs in general from what i can tell.
also
for comparison of speech length/paragraph length...compare a dialogue in a movie from US circa 1930, 1950, 1970, 2000, 2015
attention span has gone down over the years or so it seems
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)That is why they can keep getting away with it.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)you used "our"
my attention span *stops whilst checking something shiny* what was i sayi...*checks out another shiny* ..umm where was ... ooh yeah attention span *just kidding*
i think it's training largely and a lot of people don't train it, and both have advantages
the "see shiny, assess shiny, react or ignore shiny" (normal survival mode(used in traffic for instance))
focus mode *meditates looking at a rock for 5 hours* for deep thinking/problem solving and relaxation
both are needed
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I will juggle six books at the same time. My attention can be short, but my memory (with the exception of names) is usually pretty long. I have set a book down for 2 months, come back to it, and know exactly where I am.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)alternatively that that is not a short attention span, it's an extremely long one :-P
we are all different
weird w0nderer theory of the day (one of many):
"it goes back to primal organization hunter/gatherer/organizer/shaman/leader/farmer"
which would make for 'different tasks, different genetic make up' nothing wrong with any of them
and since repetition is the supposed mother of all learning ( i'll mess you up, even if it's a name )
w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer, w0nderer,
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Different subjects, different styles, no problem. We Aspies have eidetic memory when we're motivated.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)But I generally read a few classics, a few biographies, some light fiction, and political stuff all at the same time. Engineering and science really twist my crank, too.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)tons of cosmology and theoretical physics.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)the attention span of a goddam canary. They have been deliberately trained.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)IMO. Some enjoy the comfort of not having to think.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Many do." - Bertrand Russell
jwirr
(39,215 posts)stimulation. Too much info coming in at one time - much of it senseless - and the mind just picks and chooses.
Very similar to autism?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Maybe it's just me but I have always had the ability - and I remember having it as a very small boy - to focus intensely on things - way beyond most neurotypical people's ability to do so - in which I am interested. I can also mentally shut things out completely unless they are very randomly noisy.
I am Next Gen's Data.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)football comes way ahead of politics. Not that they have autism but that we have learned to do that due to all the stimulus that is around us.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)
appalachiablue
(41,118 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)They learned from history, and so we are creeping that direction at a slower pace- the whole frogs in a pan of water thing. We see it in our nationalism, our police departments, the way Wall Street writes our legislation, etc. Hell, just look at the things Trump says about Mexicans- he receives applause for this shit.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)have very obviously studied the Hitler/Goebbels playbook in painstaking detail and have much more sophisticated delivery systems than their ideological bedmates ever had.
newthinking
(3,982 posts)Corporations and the government now astroturf and have huge "marketing" arms to spread "narratives" or confusion. War media is completely spun and (largely) heavily controlled.
We understand on this site what the right wing are doing but many have yet to understand that this has gone much farther and is now in use regardless of administration. We let it happen and it will be difficult to turn it back. And Fox propaganda is unsophisticated compared to what else is influencing the masses.
L. Coyote
(51,129 posts)is easily exploited.
Not knowing the difference between lies and logic is ignorance.
Listening to Fox News even though they are the premier political liars of our time, that's stupidity.
Blindness is not seeing shit. Seeing shit and not putting two and two together results from effective propaganda immunizing people from the truth and controlling culture. To overcome this, we need a vibrant culture which ignores the Faux and abhors ignorance. If self interest is education and knowledge instead of money, culture is progressive instead of divisive and individually atomized. The difference that matters is whether or not culture views all humanity as having a singular mutual interest in the future or if the culture perceives part of humanity as "others" in the sense of defining an out group. Therein lies a path for the egocentric to pursue power in self interest instead of humanity's mutual interests. The traits of capitalist culture tend towards self interested action because the bottom line is what matters, not the future of everyone. Social culture has to outdo our monetary culture, or, in other words, we have to out value the future of all over personal or our in group's interest. And that in group tendencies politicians exploit include nationalism and racism. These interactive interest forces are constant while culture alters which might be able to dominate culture to the detriment of one's future, a group's future, or the future of all humanity.
What is more important to you personally today, burning fossil fuel to drive to a concert or the future climate of the earth? Should we jet about to resorts, free to mindlessly pollute the planet? Republican leaders fantasizing about the end times and their place in heaven is not something we need to repeat. We need a new sustainability consensus understanding of our impact on the entirety of life and the future consequences of out decisions and actions today.
Like a tree falling in the forest with no one there, in my cultural sphere no one listens to Fox News. There is a time lag in the Midwest and rural world, but don't expect Fox to survive the cultural shift today any longer than the Republican Party does.
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)
Joe Chi Minh
(15,229 posts)will find a lot of other brilliant articles on his site.
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)
BlancheSplanchnik
(20,219 posts)It's been a horrible, upsetting couple of decades.
orpupilofnature57
(15,472 posts)
Kablooie
(18,625 posts)and they had enough control over government to prevent effective investigations.
When we start hearing of mysterious deaths of powerful democrats it will be time to panic.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)First comes the creation brownshirts and burning books or cd's for starters
gotta remember...opposition has been in power 8 years soon
remember under Bush what happened to War opposing Dixie chicks?
once you have the political opposition properly demonized you can start nacht und nebel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacht_und_Nebel
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy.
I am scared for Bernie. He is very dangerous to TPTB.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)He's bringing up issues that the powermongers don't want to be discussed.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)KT2000
(20,572 posts)in that camp you will also find holocaust deniers. That is how they inoculate themselves from any self-examination.
DirkGently
(12,151 posts)Part of the problem is that we don't all seem to agree on what constitutes outrageous problems, short of a general consensus that Germany attempting to take over all of Europe and exterminate Jewish people, Gypsies, gay people, intellectuals, and the infirm was beyond the pale.
But that was the mistake the Germans made. No one proposed that level of insanity right out of the gate. They started by scapegoating minority groups, (Communists first, I think). Physical intimidation. Nationalism. Militarism. Indoctrination. Belief in a mythical past and a "pure" culture.
We have a lot of this going on right now.
So, yes -- Fox News and its subsidiary, the Republican Party, are absolutely pushing intolerance and authoritarianism, and are getting away with it to a disturbing degree.
But we've got to be able to recognize authoritarian elements without needing to conclude that we're headed toward the genocide of six million people by goose-stepping fascists. When we do that, people look around, don't see trains and gas chambers, and assume all is well.
There is a lot in the middle between a free democratic society and a fascist holocaust. We need to get better at rejecting the million tiny steps that lead from one to the other.
rladdi
(581 posts)Republicans hijacked the states and federal government. It is a very scary situation. But the GOP keeps citizens uneducated so they just are puppet for the GOP. Many Republican states ban certain school room studies so kids will not know about voting or their rights. FOX NEWS AND IT COMMENTATORS continue to spread lies and misinformation. You just need to know how many rapists, felons and other criminals the GOP elects to office in both the states and federal government. They disregard the laws of this nation. We see that in KY right now with the clerk refusing marriage licenses. Republicans think they are above the laws of this land. WAKE UP READERS AND INFORM THOSE AROUND YOU. BECAUSE IF THE GOP WINS IN 2016, AMERICA WILL NOT EXIST ANY LONGER.
Why is the GOP running so many candidates, they will do anything to hijack this nation unfairly. We have lost our democracy in the GOP controlled states.
cali
(114,904 posts)For fuck's sake. This is one of the ugliest pieces of dog shit I've ever seen posted here. Talk about victim blaming. The reference is obviously to the victims of the holocaust, not the German people. And Jews, the Roma, dissidents and the disabled did not follow Hitler- not blindly and not I any other way.
PatrickforO
(14,570 posts)1933. So, perhaps the author of that sign could have said sixty-six million Germans instead of the six million. That said, this thread had some really good discussion about parallels between America in the last decade and Germany in the 1920s. There were some chilling references to how the great swollen propaganda organ Fox 'news' ejaculates deliberate lies to generate fear, militant nationalism and racism. Which is true.
One poster makes the point that after these things are in place comes the reactionary, totalitarian rule. Following this is nacht and nebel. They come in the dark of the night and the next day no one knows where the victim went. Trucks with closed canvas tops...long trains with cattle cars...camps.
Most of the people on this thread see it happening now and are trying very hard to oppose any further drift toward right wing extremism.
I do not think the original poster meant to blame the victims.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Are all the DUers rec'ing this piece of shit really that fucking ignorant of what the 6 million number implies in reference to the Holocaust? It's pathetic!
Behind the Aegis
(53,944 posts)Though, by some accounts, it could be the "others", as the total of the Holocaust is usually 11 million (6M, Jews, 5M, various other groups), more recently, the numbers are usually equal and the total of the Holocaust is about 12 million. What is really unappealing about the meme is it implies "they willing went to the slaughter", which is offensive on so many levels. But, if we look at the first part, what the creator of the meme "remembers" from learning in school about the Holocaust, it shows how pathetic our education system really is.
cali
(114,904 posts)Behind the Aegis
(53,944 posts)The meme, probably unintentionally, compares the Jews to Fox viewers, and blames them for their fate. I say it is likely unintentional, but there is the slimmest of chances it is not as I have seen more than a few who blame the Holocaust on the Jews willingness to "go along with Hitler" in a desire to have a Jewish homeland. That 'theory' is very popular among some extremists on both sides.
cali
(114,904 posts)100 recs. Crap
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,324 posts)Like: a plane crashes on the Canadian/Us border. Where do you bury the survivors?
Honestly, I skimmed over the OP and saw propaganda, willingly, six million and didn't really give it a whole lot of thought and thought to myself. Yeah, I agree.
Forget it, Jake. It's the Internet.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)are following the propaganda trail. I am willing to give the OP author a chance to explain. The poster is offensive.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,324 posts)I think a lot of people, like me, skimmed it. I give DUers the benefit of the doubt. The person who made the gif, not so much.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Behind the Aegis
(53,944 posts)...in regards to anti-Semitism and use of it, I am not surprised by the tone-deafness with something like this.
ismnotwasm
(41,975 posts)I wasn't going to open it, but I gave in this morning. I'm sorry I did
I don't want to kick it either, but...
cali
(114,904 posts)RKP5637
(67,102 posts)Given the political climate and number of information limited people in the US, I fear we are possibly headed backward a lot.
Snobblevitch
(1,958 posts)Godwin would be proud.
I don't watch Fox News, but come on.
Skittles
(153,142 posts)they deny global warming, and think Dubya was a fine president
How would you account for that?
Snobblevitch
(1,958 posts)Skittles
(153,142 posts)it is a huge chunk of the repuke party, and I very much believe propaganda like FOX NEWS has contributed to this ignorance
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)one of the more useful ones is this: There are believers, who accept everything for what it is, or choose a belief system and never, ever question it even in the face of facts that blatantly and unquestionably stand in diametric opposition, and there are skeptics - those of us who ask uncomfortable questions about everything - why? what's the evidence? who stands to benefit? who's behind X or Y? is there an ulterior motive?
I was born a profound skeptic and DU has a very healthy element of skepticism taken as a whole.
And thinking is far too difficult for people who can be eternally distracted by one shiny thing after another.
Rex
(65,616 posts)The OP is talking about the German people, not Jews...the ignorance level around here is astounding.
Skittles
(153,142 posts)that is freaking SAD
merrily
(45,251 posts)After it caught on he tried to pretend there was more to it than that.
gopiscrap
(23,736 posts)w0nderer
(1,937 posts)--orig quote--
Back when I studied the HOLOCAUST in high school,
I remember thinking "How did Hitler get over 6 million people to follow along
blindly and not fight back?"...Then I realized, I'm watching my fellow AMERICANS
take the SAME path.
--end orig quote--
Edit to suit the text nitpickers on the thread
--new quote--
Back when I studied the HOLOCAUST in high school,
I remember thinking "How did Hitler get over 6 million people to follow along
blindly and not fight back?" and "60+ million people to not defend them"
...Then I realized, I'm watching my fellow AMERICANS
take the SAME path.
--end new quote--
this is how i'm pretty sure most on this thread thought of it, i know i thought of it similarily
---PLEASE---
speak up if you did
---/end PLEASE---
***footnote contains how i thought of it
(for others.."anything to distract from the topic"...better that than "productive discussion possibly arming people mentally against propaganda" )
***(footnote)
6 million didn't really fight as an organized unit or even small ones...only as exceptions(minor resistance and yes.."the Warsaw Ghetto uprising" was a small amount of resistance...compared to the total 6 million). This wasn't a Jewish 'error' it was a cultural and situational problem.
They were (the Jews):
...pacifistic (largely, by culture and how they were forced to live)
...oppressed(largely)
...in a stress situation (that's what the army tries to do to recruits and prisoners) ...no sleep, no safety, no time to think, always harrassed
...unable to believe people would do this
...taken by surprise
...over powered
...not helped from the outside
the 60 million (population): didn't help..why?
...Some didn't know
...some didn't want to know (i don't want to know what happens to terror suspects/jews)
...Most feared for their families (something very few Americans are familiar with(yet)...state your opinion..your kid gets tortured, or
...your wife raped in front of your eyes, or you vanish and they starve)
...most didn't believe it...repeat a large enough lie often enough...
...some didn't want to help, they believed what they were told (the enemy is bad, they will come for you and ruin your way of life (bad iraqi...oops too late....bad afghan...oops too late...bad iranian...working on it aren't we?))
...some agreed (kill them s''dn''gas') "parking lot the r'gh''ds"
cali
(114,904 posts)is breathtakingly ignorant.
The Warsaw Ghetto was hardly the only instance of resistance. No, it wasn't largely cultural. Summed up briefly: Many simply couldn't believe that they would be slaughtered. They were just trying to wait it out. They were unarmed people up against overwhelming force.
w0nderer
(1,937 posts)certainot
(9,090 posts)the reason its happening is IT'S NOT FOX! fox is a decoy.
republican radio does the groundwork repetition for everything fox. every day it lays out a prechewed smorgasbord of bullshit sandwiches for MSM and fox blockheads to graze on
differences-
-there are plenty of easy to reach free alts to fox for politics on tv -rw radio is the only free easy political source for most parts of the US while driving or working
-fox cannot be coordinated on a local level like rw radio can
-fox is being watched and recorded. rw radio is practically invisible to the left. talk radio blowhards lie all they want and the left never notices
fox is incapable of the coordinated national repetition talk radio can do - talk radio buzz is unbeatable - 400 different blowhards screaming the same exact shit and no one gets in their face- how can that not be believed?
ignoring rw radi is the biggest political mistake in history
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)pre-WWII German population was over 40 million people. I think what the OP meant to say was: How did the Nazi Party ideology gain control over the German population. Well, they did it through propaganda and most importantly, through a democratic process. Of course we don't know how much of that process was legitimate, or rather how much of the voting process was corrupted by the Nazi leaders. When you use a "target" to divide the country and keep on telling the same lies over and over again about that target, the misinformation, regrettably, becomes the "truth''. They blamed all of their problems with the county on the Jews, the socialists, the democratic socialists, and anyone they deemed deviant.
The Republican Neo-conservatives are using the same tactics; they know it. They're not going away anytime soon. Because the media is part and parcel to the madness. The corporately controlled media's interests, PROFIT $$$, and not wanting to pay any taxes, are at stake. FOX NEWS is a surrogate for Corporate America in getting out the lies and half truths.
No, I think 6 million + jews, homosexuals, political dissidents, etc, refers to the number of people that were murdered by the Nazis. I don't think that the population of Nazi Party "followers", at it's inception, had any idea where Hitler would take the country, inevitably into total annihilation. But they were as ignorant as much of the population of the U.S. is today. FOX is making bigots and racists out of half of the population, telling the ignorant masses that the problem with the country is ''government" and ''entitlements''. Whether they'll succeed I have no idea. But now is the time for people to wake up.
Chasstev365
(5,191 posts)There's a reason I've been trying to make that one stick!
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)people numbered in the tens of millions. This is disgusting. I guess the meme is trying to say something 'liberal' but what it says is vile, perhaps unintentionally but vile. They need a rewrite.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)libertarian friends. Odd to see something so simplistic as to be wrong here.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)I was puzzled by the 'over 6 million' figure, which would refer not to those persuaded by Hitler, but to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust; the total number of Holocaust victims is around 11 million. I thought at first that it might be a misprint for 'over 60 million' which could be a very approximate figure for the population of Germany at that time.
But I then checked and found several places on the Internet where this is posted, all right-wing, and mostly illustrated, not by the Fox News logo, but by an arm tattooed with a concentration camp number. So this is definitely referring to the Jews, and is incredibly insulting however it is taken: 'The Jews only got killed because they let themselves be duped'/ 'A relatively limited form of public healthcare, at least if established by a black president, is exactly the same thing as mass extermination'/ 'All human disasters including the Holocaust are caused by gun control'/ all of the above.
The earliest posting that I can find is this, from a Tea Party site:
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/photo/americans-following-the-same-path
This is not illustrated. But here is a version with the illustration I mentioned.
http://www.thelastgreatstand.com/2014/11/23/is-rand-paul-trying-to-warn-us-of-the-coming-internment-camps/
Pretty ugly stuff; ironically an example of the sort of vicious propaganda that can
be used by extremists.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)to make his point about Fox News is a right wing meme and totally inappropriate. It's really disappointing to see so many DUers just unquestioningly going along with it. Even worse, some trying to defend it even after it's been pointed out to them.
Thank you for attempting to bring the truth about that graphic here - although it appears that few will pay attention.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)forced into the concentration camps one town at a time family by family, person by person. They did not follow and they were not given a choice. Had not been given a choice for centuries before Hitler.
If the poster were instead referring to the ordinary German people at that time it would be totally correct. "How did Hitler get the ordinary German people to follow along blindly and not fight back." is the real question. And part of the answer would be that they were only concerned about themselves. He said what they wanted to hear - that someone else was to blame.
And in that sense you are right - they were the Fox News people of that day. Willing dupes who refuse to think. Who stood by and watched to disappearing of their neighbors and asked no questions. Who think as long as it is okay in my house I do not care what is happening down the street.
Rex
(65,616 posts)OH NOES! SOMEONE HAS A SADZ ABOUT THE FOXNEWS GETTING LAMBASTED ON DU!
How sad, pathetic and totally expected.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)I see is that the poster in the OP is totally offensive toward the 6 million Jews that were victims of the holocaust. It would be acceptable if the number was 66 million, referring to the population of Germany.
cali
(114,904 posts)offended because Fox news is being slammed?
That is just pathetic.
Response to cali (Reply #121)
Post removed
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)The Nazis raided homes in the middle of the night and dragged people way at gun point. They did not blindly follow they were exterminated. To make light of that is to BE FoxNews. It is very close to Holocaust denial. It is Holocaust revisionism. It's not acceptable. For the same reasons Fox News is unacceptable.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)holocaust? Should read 66 million to refer to the population of Germany.
Rex
(65,616 posts)God the ignorance of people here...I'm out you folks are giving me a headache.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)ignorant. So you believe the poster in the OP is referring to Nazi's? I don't agree. It wasn't just Nazi's that followed the Fuhrer and enabled the Nazi's. I interpret the poster in the OP as it stands to mean the 6 million Jews followed blindly and didn't fight back.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)the rest of the world to be Nazis, they wore what we call the Nazi uniform and insignia as they invaded neighboring nations. The people of the occupied countries did not check to see which Nazis were official Party Nazis when they were murdered or annexed.
Old Crow
(2,212 posts)I made a mistake. I thought the graphic was referring to the German people; didn't catch that it was referring to the victims of the Holocaust. I definitely don't want to recommend an image that seems to be blaming the victims.
Pharaoh
(8,209 posts)be very wary, if some theocratic fascist gets in, it might be a time to flee to canada,..........
They might want that wall after all, To Keep us out!!!!!!!!!
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)Faux not only throws out extreme spin, they flat out lie. It is not fundamentally different than the way Goebbels operated.
They are as much responsible for the dumbing down of America as anyone. Jay Leno owes them for helping make "Jaywalking" so funny.
merrily
(45,251 posts)This makes it sound as though, of the 12 million, the Jews were the ones who somehow co-operated in their own deaths, which is bullshit. Their choice was to "go along" or get shot on the spot.
I get what the OP image is trying to say, but I wish another way had been found to say it.
RKP5637
(67,102 posts)to say it. It's too easy to misconstrue the message.
merrily
(45,251 posts)
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,710 posts)It would make a lil more sense if it implied the German people let it happen but there wasn't much they could do about it, indoctrinated to the point of delusion or not, but it makes no sense at all as there was certainly nothing the Jews could have done about it.
Gothmog
(145,086 posts)Aerows
(39,961 posts)that I would love to move to Antarctica and get it over with. I'll stay year round. Only have 300 people to talk to during peak times? Hell yes, I'm prepared.
TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)Seriously?
That kind of hyperbole is not going to win aguments!
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)
Sid
