Is this how it felt to the Germans that hated Nazism?

[Javaman]

As I read the many things day to day and I see our rights dripping away one by one, I get this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach coupled with a sort of helplessness that is based on the fact that we had trusted our newly elected dems to do the right thing, but since they appear to not have the patience to impeach or even "put it on the table", I watch helplessly. I protest, volunteer, etc, but what is the point, if our voices are falling upon deaf ears?

I'm tired. Sick to my stomach. and just plain sad. The only time I felt sadness like this, is when my dad passed away.

It's just a tough rainy, depressing news, monday.

:(

[Squatch]

1. My Oma, 97-years old, protested POW camps

by throwing provisions such as butter and bread over the fence of such a camp near her home in the Sudetenland. When pressed by the German guards to knock it off, she kindly reminded them who provided them with vodka on those cold nights.

Her husband died on the eastern front (probably Crimea) so she really despised the war. She refused to ever give the Sieg Heil salute.

I love that woman and she is slowly slipping away.

[Sequoia]

2. You'd better get her story down.

Inspire others.

[China_cat]

3. Has she been interviewed for the Shoah project?

She should be.

http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/vhi/

[originalpckelly]

4. It's kind of sad, we forget good people who resisted.

All over Germany people hated Hitler, but alas they weren't enough.

[Javaman]

5. That's what a fear most about the U.S. There won't be enough of us. nt

[TahitiNut]

8. I suspect that what most feel is there "won't be enough of THEM" (not "us") in active opposition.

After all, we're very accustomed to letting someone else do the fighting and dying ... since we all have "other priorities." We're silent when someone else is fired for being a "whistleblower" in our own workplace - or we sneer and find ways to criticize them. (We didn't like them anyway, right?) We look down on those who serve in the military - since we have "better" things to do. (We don't like what they're doing, right?) When was the last time there was a general strike in the U.S.? (Nawww... we'd rather get a promotion and more pay.) How many millions of citizens protested in D.C. in December 2000? Oh ... right ... we had Christmas shopping to do. Oh well. It wasn't that important, anyway.

[shadowknows69]

15. If it comes to it

and I have brothers and sisters to stand with me, I'll fight and die to stop these monsters. Fuck you agent Mike. It's your country too.

[TahitiNut]

20. I figure my aged, overweight carcass .

... can stop the bullets from hitting someone else. So, when it starts I'll be there. I figure it's far, far better to die standing FOR something than running FROM something or feeding the insatiable pharma/necro-corporatist monster.

[shadowknows69]

21. lol that's about all the good I'll be

The young uns better use me as a bloated shield to get to the bad guys then

[Jonathan50]

6. Absolutely

I've always wondered why the German people allowed the Nazis to utterly devastate their country.]

I don't wonder that any more.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. Ironically, about 27%.

:freak:

[Babsbrain]

9. Seriously

How many of us, as paranoid as it sounds...how many of us wonder if our phone conversations are being overheard...

If our real names can be determined from our postings?

If our name is on a terrorist list?

If our personal information is being compromised and inspected?

If we have a bumper sticker, can the owner be identified?

Even if all that is not happening, we realize that our enemy has that capability. Is is using it? Will it use it on us?

That is what silenced the Germans against the Nazis....fear and justified paranoia. WE KNOW WHAT THEY (THE BUSHEVIKS) ARE CAPABLE OF!

[Jonathan50]

10. Read it and shudder with fear..

And if you think it has *really* gone away, I have an excellent deal on some pre owned bridge property in NY I would like to talk to you about..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnivore_(FBI)



Carnivore is a system implemented by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that is analogous to wiretapping, except in this case, e-mail and other communications are being tapped instead of telephone conversations. Carnivore was essentially a customizable packet sniffer that could monitor all of a target user's Internet traffic. It is a form of policeware. U.S. government officials have neither confirmed or denied much about the physical or logical workings of Carnivore, but there are some basic facts that are generally agreed upon.

The Carnivore system itself is simply a Windows workstation with packet-sniffing software and a removable disk drive.<1> This computer must be physically installed at an Internet service provider (ISP) or other location where it can "sniff" traffic on a LAN segment to look for email messages in transit. The technology itself is not highly advanced — using a standard packet sniffer and some fairly straightforward filtering (such as a Perl script), one could easily duplicate this functionality. Getting the cooperation of the ISPs or the owner of the LAN onto which Carnivore is to be placed can either be voluntary or by court order; however, once a system is in place it is allegedly not allowed to simply capture every email that passes through the system — by existing U.S. law, publicly acknowledged USG personnel are required to get a warrant or court order naming specific people or email addresses that may be monitored. When an email passes through that matches the filtering criteria mandated by the warrant, the message is logged along with information on the date, time, origin and destination. This logging is believed to be relayed in real time to the FBI but the details are not currently known. All other traffic would presumably be dropped without logging or capture.

[librechik]

11. not yet--not enough of us have been dragged off in the middle of the night yet

[Lex]

16. By the time that starts happening, it's too late.

I wouldn't be surprised for it to start happening.

But CNN would cover Paris Hilton and everyone would shrug.

[ludwigb]

12. Our Time is really more similar to 1920s Germany...

When promise of democracy and specifically the Social Democrats were gradually beaten down by a coalition of buisness moguls, crazy right-wing political parties, and a mass media devoted to hate. The Social Democrats, the Communists, and the constitution-supporting liberals failed to come together to form a lasting coalition against forces of nationalism and militarism.

[seemslikeadream]

13. They took Carl von Ossietsky And broke his body - but not his mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tn0fdKsQWg


Prisoner 562

Half a thousand, half a hundred
Six times two, pick up your pen
Child, my child, count it up now
That's the number that I mean

It's a number, just a number
One of hundreds, a sign of shame
Each man's jacket had a number
Men had numbers, none had names

Hitler's system took their freedom
Took them prisoner, one by one
For the courage of their convictions
They were tortured, gassed and burned

They took communist, they took pacifist
They took social democrat
Jew and Christian all were prisoner
In the concentration camp

To the camp of Esterwegen
Listen child and understand
They took Carl von Ossietsky
And broke his body - but not his mind

In Berlin upon the 4th of May
19 hundred and 38
The Gestapo with its treatment
Signed his death certificate

Five-six-two his prison number
Listen, child, I beg you please
Keep in mind, always remember,
He got the Nobel Prize for Peace

In the struggle against injustice
He fought hard and he fought long
Child - remember Ossietsky
Peace won't come by words alone


Words and music: Oswald Andrae
Song Lyric as sung by Dick Gaughan


Song of Choice


Early every year the seeds are growing
Unseen, unheard they lie beneath the ground
Would you know before their leaves are showing
That with weeds all your garden will abound?

If you close your eyes, stop your ears
Shut your mouth then how can you know ?
For seeds you cannot hear may not be there
Seeds you cannot see may never grow

In January you've still got the choice
You can cut the weeds before they start to bud
If you leave them to grow high they'll silence your voice
And in December you may pay with your blood

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and take it slow
Let others take the lead and you bring up the rear
And later you can say you didn't know

Every day another vulture takes flight
There's another danger born every morning
In the darkness of your blindness the beast will learn to bite
How can you fight if you can't recognise a warning?

Today you may earn a living wage
Tomorrow you may be on the dole
Though there's millions going hungry you needn't disengage
For it's them, not you, that's fallen in the hole

It's alright for you if you run with the pack
It's alright if you agree with all they do



If fascism is slowly climbing back



It's not here yet so what's it got to do with you?

The weeds are all around us and they're growing
It'll soon be too late for the knife
If you leave them on the wind that around the world is blowing
You may pay for your silence with your life

So close your eyes, stop your ears,
Shut your mouth and never dare
And if it happens here they'll never come for you
Because they'll know you really didn't care

Peggy Seeger


Camps and prisons were established in the Emsland since 1923

10 years later

In 1933, the Nazis decided to use two of these existing camps for their political opponents: Borgermoor and Esterwegen.





http://www.jewishgen.org/ForgottenCamps/Camps/EsterEngl.html

Camps and prisons were established in the Emsland since 1923: Borgermoor, Aschendorfer Moor, Brual-Rhede, Dorpen-Walchum, Neusustrum, Overlangen, Esterwegen, Wesuwe, Veerssen, Füllen, Gross-Hesepe, Dalum, Wietmarschen, Bathorn, Gross-Ringe (camp Alexisdorf). In 1933, the Nazis decided to use two of these existing camps for their political opponents: Borgermoor and Esterwegen.

Officially, Esterwegen was not considered as a concentration camp but as a "Strafgefangenenlager" - "punishment camp for prisoners". Of course, the living conditions in this camp were the same as in the concentration camps: tortures, executions, forced work in the swamps until death, etc... In 1941, several prisoners of war coming from Belgium, France, Holland and Tchecoslovaquia as well as non-German political prisoners were transferred to Esterwegen. On this date, it became a sub-camp of the concentration camp of Neuengamme.

One of the most famous prisoner of Esterwegen was the German writer Karl Von Ossietzky. As pacifist and Nazi opponent, Karl von Ossietzky was jailed at Esterwegen since several months after he received the Nobel Prize of Peace in 1936. He was extremely weak and had been beaten and tortured several times. A emissary from the Helvetic Red Cross was sent to Esterwegen to inspect the condition of detention of Karl Von Ossietsky: "The SS officer came back with a shivering man, pale as death, a poor creature who seemed unable to feel anything. All his teeth were broken and he had a broken leg. I came to him for a handshake. He did not respond..." With the Nobel Prize, Karl von Ossietsky represented a problem for the Nazis: they could not kill him because he was at this time known worldwide. So he was transferred to a civil hospital where he died in 1938, under the close watching of the Gestapo.


President Roosevelt and Vice President Wallace's warnings have come full circle.


http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0719-15.htm

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in The New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan.

"The really dangerous American fascists," Wallace wrote, "are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those. The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power."

In this, Wallace was using the classic definition of the word "fascist" - the definition Mussolini had in mind when he claimed to have invented the word. (It was actually Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile who wrote the entry in the Encyclopedia Italiana that said: "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Mussolini, however, affixed his name to the entry, and claimed credit for it.)

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

[MetaTrope]

14. Interesting story!

The FBI "had its finger on" Prescott Bush. But he became a senator.

[Prophet 451]

17. Pretty much

There's a few surviving accounts from those who disagreed with the Nazis aims and they make for depressing reading. Mainly, it's about fear; fear both of the Nazis and of how much worse things could be without them.

[Ezlivin]

18. Read "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer

It's been an eye-opening experience for me to read about "ordinary" Germans who ended up Nazis.

And it's not as simple as we think it was.

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933,between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know it doesn't make people close to their government to be told that this is a people's government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing to do with knowing one is governing.

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

<snip>

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

<snip>

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in "43" had come immediately after the "German Firm" stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in "33". But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying "Jew swine," collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way. (pp. 160-177)

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

19. I'd say, yes. We, the people, have lost all control over 'reality'.

The corporacrats supporting/appeasing/profiteering off a 'benevolent' leadership control our reality, now,...even though we know better.

[Ino]

22. I feel the same way...

...ever since the Senators made "God Bless America" the new anthem (where was god on 9/11?), and you have to stand up for it or others will hiss "show some respect!" At the start of the 2002 baseball season I hoped they'd drop it, then 2003, but it's still going on today. They can never stop it now.

...ever since the library sent me a new library card with a magnetic strip like a credit card. I threw it away & used my old one for 3 years, but now I can't check out books without a new card.

...ever since George & Jeb tried to override the courts on Terry Schiavo

...ever since flying became a police station line-up. Did I miss a lighter in the bottom of my purse? Will I lose airfare/hotel payments because my name is on the no-fly list? I can't even check. I can't get it off the list if it is. Will I get dehydrated because I can't take water onboard?

...ever since politics, federal funding & science became faith-based. I can't foresee that being stopped any more than "God Bless America" falling by the wayside.

...ever since one scandal after another resulted in NOTHING. I've stopped thinking, "NOW they've gone too far. NOW they'll be stopped."

...ever since I became afraid to put a bumpersticker on my car or a sign in my window. Will my house/car be vandalized? Will I lose customers who come to my home office?

...ever since the Dems took impeachment off the table and MEANT IT!

...ever since the Dems backed down on Alito, and Roberts, and war funding.

...ever since the right of habeas corpus became a "matter of opinion," and torture turned into "enhanced interrogation techniques," and things taken for granted are now "open to debate," and the rule of law is "pre-9/11."

...ever since I became aware of the importation of cheap labor, the exportation of jobs, the relocation of American companies to other countries.

...ever since I refused to get screening tests recommended by the doctor, for fear they'll be used to claim a pre-existing condition. Ever since I have to change doctors every year because my husband's company insurance changes every year.

...ever since they tried to outsource protection of our ports to another country, sold off wetlands and national parks to developers

...ever since poisoned pet food, and toothpaste, and Thomas the Train toys, and who knows what else? Then they say it's American companies' fault for not asking why these goods are so much cheaper. And they're right.

...ever since Dems accept Repug talking points & spin as if they're legitimate

...ever since the political talk shows gab endlessly about an election 18 months away rather than focus on the atrocities happening NOW

This country is so FUBAR, divided. Yeah, I have that helpless/hopeless feeling.