I’ve been working through a few biographies of the top brass of Nazidom, and even with the rather perfunctory understanding I’ve gained from these books of Hitler’s seizure of power and all that followed in Nazi Germany, my ears are pricking up in horror every day as I listen to the latest news from around the world. And I’m not even going so far as the Holocaust. If the Holocaust and WWII never happened, the Nazi regime would still have been an unmitigated nightmare.
The language certain politicians are using is plucked directly from the mouths of Goebbels’ and Himmler’s rotting corpses. How can they not see what lies ahead if they continue with this shit? We know how this story ends. We have examples of it from recent memory, we don’t even need to cast our minds back to the 1930s 🤷
The language certain politicians are using is plucked directly from the mouths of Goebbels’ and Himmler’s rotting corpses. How can they not see what lies ahead if they continue with this shit?
What’s even more infuriating is that when you try to point this out to others, they act like you’re insane/exaggerating.
…because most don’t study the rise and causes of what happened. They only study the result. “Never again” refers to the holocaust, but nobody puts that sign on the the road that led to it.
- Wealth disparity and inflation
- Fear of “others” taking what little people have
- Traumatized populations from decades of war
With populations scared and desperate, they’ll latch on to any demigogue that appears.
It is emotionally and intellectually painful using critical thinking while those around you are calling the other side Nazis.
1 Nazis are bad 2 The other side are bad 3 The other side are Nazis Optional: add an example that confirms bias
Both sides calling the others Nazis doesn’t imply that centrists are using critical thinking. It just means that one side is lying. Nazism is a far right ideology.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre
As someone who consumes a lot of ancient history, it can also make you like “Ah yes, another city rises, another is displaced by climate disaster, and another falls due to land mismanagement. ‘Tis the way of things.”
It’s true. I wonder how many ancient Babylonians, Greeks, Chinese, Egyptians, Persians, Romans thought:
“Surely, this empire will last forever! Look upon our works, ye mighty, and despair!” (EDIT: LOL It appears we’re all of one mind remembering this poem. We must be doing something right. XD)
Especially in modern times it’s insanely difficult to imagine the geopolitics shifting drastically, but it’s happened before, it’s happening now. The difference being that the rest of the globe is now much more invested in your shenanigans with your neighbors, but it’s still happening.
What does one do amidst a regime change?
I’m glad I’ve never had to seriously consider it until now. …but it unnerves me that I probably need to start.
Hegel remarks somewhere[*] that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce
This fantastic opening quote must have also been Marx’s weirdest flex.
I really have begun to believe that politicians should employ historians to give advice on certain political events by drawing comparisons to previous situations.
That only really works in a benevolent dictatorship. In a democracy, the masses can vote for reality-rejection candidates.
It’s a pity democracy seems to be better than all the alternatives in practice, cause in principle there should be ways to improve things more. Inevitably though all other forms turn into draconian crap. Well, democracy does sometimes too, but less often.
What’s odd about today’s “democracy” is how increasingly little government itself matters, next to corporations that are stronger than nations.
Government could choose to reign these corporations in, but the money the give officials makes them choose not too
“It’s okay, I’ll enjoy my retirement long before corporations start buying literal states, springing up company towns, employing workers younger than my current children, and buying and selling people via contracts, whilst waging open war with drones and wageslave conscripts.” –Most Politicians as they watch their green line go up, probably
