Iott: Do NOT Judge The Nazis- "They were doing what they thought was right"

[kpete]

Cooper: "Where you aware of the history, of the atrocities that this group--I mean it wasn't like dressing up like a German grunt who was fihgitng for, you know, Germany, these were collaborators from Holland and other places who were volunteering for the Nazis while their own countries were occupied. Were you aware of that when you joined up?

Iott: Well, yes. It says right there, members of the Wikings came from many different countries. And that's...

Cooper: Were they collaborators?

Iott: I-I don't know if you'd call them collaborators. They were volunteers. They wanted to fight what they saw as a bigger threat to them than Germany."

Cooper: But you don't think they were collaborators?

Iott: I-I-I don't know that I'd put that label on them. They were doing what they thought was right for their country.

Cooper: But you called them 'valiant men.' Do you believe that these men, who in some cases took part in these crimes they were valiant men?

Iott: I think that they thought they were fighting for their homeland.

Cooper: Well, I'm sure that Nazis in concentration camps thought that they were doing a good thing, too. But that doesn't make it so.
Do you think that they were valiant men?

Iott: "I don't think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren't there at the time that they made those decisions."

VIDEO & more:
http://www.openleft.com/diary/20480/gop-nazi-fan-says-moral-relativism-when-it-suits-me

[bullwinkle428]

1. Keep digging that hole deeper, Teabag-Boy!!

[lunatica]

2. So why doesn't Iott say, "Yes, I think they were valiant men."

If he had the courage of his convictions he'd say that and defiantly stand by it. But he's such a chickenshit that he would probably would have been rejected by the very Wikings he so admires.

[LynneSin]

3. You know Hitler was nice to children and animals - I suppose Iott gives him a free pass too

:grr:

[Wednesdays]

21. Really, what is there for liberals to not love about the guy?

Vegetarian...an artist and painter...devoted to his mother...head of the National Socialist Workers' Party! :eyes:

[flamingdem]

28. Don't forget the hipster moustache! nt

[uncommon]

50. Yeah, he was super nice to all those kids he had murdered in death camps.

[WinkyDink]

52. Blonde, blue-eyed German children.

[LynneSin]

63. Details, Details

:eyes:

[WinkyDink]

91. Heh. I always tell my husband of German heritage and born in '40, he was the perfect Hitler Child,

with his white-blond hair and fair skin.

[edbermac]

60. He was a good dancer too!

Bust a move, Adolf!

[LynneSin]

69. Maybe we could get him on 'Dancing with the Stars'

:eyes:

[pa28]

101. He was a big lover of dogs too.

The Republicans are making a great case for themselves in this cycle; extending tax cuts for the richest 2%, financing their media drive with foreign dollars and rehabilitating the image of those misunderstood Waffen SS troopers. HH!

[efhmc]

4. And killed or caused the deaths of more than 10 million

innocent people in the process of being "valiant men".

[Deep13]

5. I sure don't want to be judgmental, but I'm pretty confident saying...

Nazi = bad



It's probably a good time to remind everyone that it is possible to be a Nazi sympathizer and still be the Republican tea bagger nominee for Congress.

Do I understand correctly that the group Rich Idiott is reenacting included an einsatzgruppen?

[atreides1]

25. They assisted Einsatzgruppe A

Members of the division's bakery column, led by Obersturmführer Braunnagel and Untersturmführer Kochalty, assisted Einsatzgruppe A in rounding up Ukrainian Jews. Witnesses report that the Jewish victims were forced to run a gauntlet formed by soldiers who would beat them as they passed, and when they reached the end of the gauntlet, Einsatzgruppen officers murdered them and their bodies were pushed into a bomb crater. The German 1st Mountain Division is also suspected of being implicated. Between 50 and 60 Jews were killed in this manner, as a part of the larger Einsatzgruppe operation which resulted in over 700 murders

[DirkGently]

6. Wow. Thought this guy was going to say, "I'm just a history buff." He's going with, "Nazi fan?"

Unbelievable.

[GodlessBiker]

10. He's evil and stupid.

[Courtesy Flush]

55. I took up for him at first

Earlier this week I said that what he did was about the same as an actor playing a role on stage. In fact, actors like to play the bad guy. Looks like I was wrong. He didn't see it as a bad-guy role.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

7. Of course many of them were valiant. That doesn't mean they weren't wrong.

Courage has nothing to do with which side you're fighting on, or with whether or not you're complicit in murdering millions of innocent people.

Collaborating with an enemy who is occupying your country takes *more* courage than fighting in your own national army, if anything.

The striking thing to me here is that at no point does Iott say, loudly and clearly, that he thought that they made the wrong decision in fighting for Nazi Germany, which to me strongly suggests that he doesn't.

Acknowledging the individual courage of soldiers is one thing; not condemning their cause is quite another.

[hendo]

36. You are right. Right and wrong are often decided by the winner

Yes, the Nazis were doing the wrong thing, but if they would have won WW2 we would not be allowed to say it was wrong.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

64. That wasn't what I meant.

Both the winner and the loser decide what right and wrong are/were. The winner is better able to enforce their decision, but that doesn't mean their judgement is any more likely to be correct.

But that wasn't actually the content of my post.

[hendo]

81. Sorry for mis-reading you

Yes, they were wrong. However seeing as how the unit in question sided against communist Russia, it sort of seems to me like the never ending search for the lesser of the two evils. What the Nazis did was deplorable, but then again so was Stalin.

[Scuba]

8. I'll be glad to pass judgement. They were wrong.

[truth2power]

9. This is the same kind of thinking

that gives our American war criminals (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, et. al.) a pass.

[rocktivity]

11. What's German for

"When you find yourself in a hole--STOP DIGGING!"

:headbang:
rocktivity

[Recursion]

14. Wenn Sie in Gruben sind, nicht graben

Or maybe that should be "in Grube sind". I never can remember how the dative is supposed to work in German.

[rocktivity]

49. In French class, I could never keep those darned days of the week straight

lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi--dommage, dejuner, or dimanche?

:dunce:
rocktivity

[RandomThoughts]

12. The problem with Hilter was the ideology he followed.

The problem with Germans that agreed with him was that they did not think and feel, they just used a rational provided by eugenics with bias for self gain.

The problem with Germans that would never do such things, but fought was that their media and government was not democratic, nor transparent enough for them realize what was going on soon enough.

You can not blame people, without thinking about what motivates them, and how much they know. However if they knew and did atrocities, then that is a question for societal justice, since part of justice is enforcement


And the same eugenics thoughts are in many religions and societies today, it is not about some country or group in a country. That part is mostly used to sling propaganda.

The mind set in the camps of the guards were that some people were animals, that was instilled by propaganda, it is also part of pet doctrine, and livestock doctrine, and is a common component of superiority thought.

Some so much that they actually believed even in use of people as 'material' only as a human resource, not with dignity and respect, even thinking people were no more then food for the superior thoughts and war machines. From that thought the idea of work camps, or exterminations of what were deemed worse people by edict filled with bias for self thought, created many of the problem.

There were also many Germans that tried to stop Hitler. I respect the White Rose.
http://raincitypastor.blogspot.com/2007/02/sophie-scholl.html

[hendo]

37. Yup, apparently no one here has heard of "The Wave" NT

[Mendocino]

13. Iott ,when asked about the 1964 Civil Rights Act

wavered and waffled, then later said he would have supported it.(shades of Rand Paul) But he's no nazi.:sarcasm:

[spanone]

15. dear iDIott, the world has already judged the nazis, harshly

[Octafish]

16. Prescott S. Bush made a fortune financing the NAZIs.

Background: http://archive.democrats.com/preview.cfm?term=Prescott%20Bush

[MadHound]

19. Not to mention Ford, IBM, GM and others,

Many a fortune was made by aiding and abetting the Nazis. Worse yet, after the war our government made many of these war criminals top agents in the Cold War. In fact, if it hadn't been for the "help" of these Nazi War Criminals, the Cold War would have been a lot cooler.

[Octafish]

83. ''Money Trumps Peace'' is how one warmonkey put it.

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

Here's what formed his beautiful mind:

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

[howard112211]

17. At least this guy is consistent, unlike pro-military dems who condemn nazis but make up excuses for

American soldiers who commit atrocities.

His position is "I don't care what atrocities a soldier commits as long as he is doing his job and following orders.". I don't agree with this opinion and think it is stupid. But at least he is applying this opinion in a universal way. However, here on DU you will find people who will condemn the acts of German soldiers in concentration camps and against civilians in, say, Russia, but will defend the soldiers who did the abuses in Guantanamo and who killed the civilians in the Wikileaks collateral murder video with their usual bullshit mumblings about "soldiers doing what they signed up for". I think this dude, as insane as his opinion may be, is more respectable than the people who think they can pick and choose which atrocities they will make up excuses for and apply the "following orders" line to.

[Botany]

18. The valiant men of the Waffen SS @ work

Warsaw, Poland their homes burned the woman and children gassed right off and the
men who looked healthy were worked to death as slave laborers.



The Wiking Waffen SS which Iott was dressing up as, helped to round up jews in occupied Europe and had Dr. Josef Mengele as one of their own
"valiant men."

[GodlessBiker]

20. Sounds like "situational ethics" to me. For shame, teabagger!

[immoderate]

71. Maybe the republicans are indulging in "cultural relativism."

For a bunch of people who claim that morality is absolute, they sure are able to carve a loophole for the Nazis.

I think I will hold on to my own definition of what constitutes a "good Nazi."

--imm

[Jester Messiah]

22. Looks like you misspelled "Idiot" ;-) [nt]

[RockaFowler]

23. Just unbelievable

And they paint Obama as a Nazi??

This infuriates me. Yes there were people who followed orders - it doesn't make it right.

[hendo]

38. TO be fair, has this individual ever called Obama a Nazi? NT

[Ichingcarpenter]

39. Good Grief

Somebody must of spilled coffee on your Waffen SS reenactment uniform
this morning.

[hendo]

40. Do you have the same hatred of Civil War reenactors? NT

[Ichingcarpenter]

41. The Waffen SS seems to be what you are defending

besides this republican

[hendo]

42. I am defending history buffs

I have many friends who take part in historical reenactments, both civil war and WW2.

John Stewart was right, this is a non-issue.

[RaleighNCDUer]

57. Not the same thing. You can do historical reenactment in a Wehrmacht uniform

and not be offensive - there were millions of Germans who fought simply because they were drafted and patriotic, but to be a member of the Waffen SS you had to be a True Believer and a party member, and for a reenactor to paint the SS as 'just following orders' is disingenuous to the nth degree because, as a history buff, HE KNOWS BETTER.

[hendo]

66. We may still dis-agree, but at least you make a logical case

Unlike many of the other responses here :)

[Ichingcarpenter]

85. You defend people that dress up in Waffen SS uniforms

I don't mind dressing up in a Wehrmacht uniform, you don't even know the difference
Ms Historical Reenactment Buff or don't care.

Then you say his statement 'may be over the top'..... I find your support of this nut
alarming since he is a darling of the Tea Party who have used Obama is a nazi stick.

I quit playing dress up war games reenactments

when I was 9 when friends and family started dying in 'real wars'

This dick head never went to war and I expect you didn't either.

[hendo]

45. Yes, because his political affiliation makes his status as a history buff suspect

WTF? Broad statements like that are usually the job of our opposition.

[SargeUNN]

65. here is the problem with your defense

This group is not doing historical re-enactment for the purely historical sense, but they are doing it with a revisionist approach. If you go to their website you will see how they leave out the most hideous acts you will see there is a BIG difference. As for the Confederate re-enactments, I once joined the Sons of Confederate Veterans because at the time I thought it was purely a historical group seeking the actual history, but after meeting with them a few times I saw they were selling a political agenda and revisionist history, so I quit. Their re-enactments often proved to be revisionist and some pretty accurate but it depended on the group. Don't let them fool you, some are trying to change the real history to make things look better and this Wikings group is such.

[hendo]

73. perhaps you could point me to the place on thier website

that pushes a revisionist approach?

Maybe I am missing something: http://www.wiking.org/

[SargeUNN]

74. do you see any mention

of the horrors, of the running the gauntlet process they used on Jews that this very unit used? Do you see the horrors mentioned on the site? Isn't omission of details while highlighting the unit revising things? You bet it is. Having been a SCV member I know exactly how they do it.

[hendo]

78. Sorry, you apparently have more experience similar groups

However, there is a quote on their website that makes a valid point. I wonder if it was up prior to this scandal.

Racism or anytype of embracement of Nazi idealogy of any kind is strictly prohibited by this reenactment unit and our parent organization WWIIHRS, please review our disclaimer on the main page!

edit: and the full disclaimer from their front page

Disclaimer: This page or anyone involved in its creation, or members of reenactment groups listed here, are in no way affiliated with real, radical political organizations (i.e., KKK, Aryan Nation, American Nazi Party, etc.) and do not embrace the philosophies and actions of the original NSDAP (Nazi party), and wholeheartedly condemn the atrocities which made them infamous. May the victims of this unspeakable horror rest in peace. As we portray the German combat soldier, we are only interested in recreating his daily life, furthering our understanding of what it took to be a soldier, and at the same time having fun reliving history. We honor the men (and women) who really experienced the war, and we salute their courage and loyalty to put their lives on the line in defense of their native soil, no matter what nationality or government.

[SargeUNN]

80. Problem with that

the disclaimer is a cover. If they really followed it wouldn't they print the horrors too? If a racist says I am not a racist and then goes off on a racist presentation, do you dismiss it because he started with the disclaimer?

[hendo]

82. No, i guess the reason why i dismiss it

is because for every war reenactment there needs to be another side. If a group chooses to focus on the positive aspects of their unit (ie. the bravery of the men in their fight against communism) while at the same time not acknowledging the horrors that that unit committed they might not be completely honest. However I do not necessarily see it as an attempt at revisionist history.

Out of curiosity, are there groups that go to reenactments as Nazi units that have the horrors of the Nazi regimes on their websites?

[Warren Stupidity]

108. "the bravery of the men in their fight against communism"

clueless.

Riddle me this: were the SS and their collaborator buddies equally brave whilst fighting alongside the communist red army as they divvied up eastern europe?

Or did this alleged bravery only emerge after the breakup between stalin and hitler?

Not acknowledging the horrors of a regime that employed the SS to exterminate millions is not revisionist? Seriously? WTF is wrong with you?

[hendo]

24. There is nothing wrong with historical re-enactment

however these comments are a bit over the top.

[Nancy Waterman]

26. How about dressing up as a KKKlansman

for interesting and enlightening historical reenactment.
Maybe his son would enjoy that and they could bond some more.

[hendo]

29. Its a frickin war reenactment

They happen all the time.. People also dress up as confederates to fight union soldiers.

Are we going to attack all history buffs now?

Who would you have US troops fight in a historical reenactment?

[WinkyDink]

56. Look, if a CW re-enactor said, "I can't judge the Confederates," YES, I would VERY MUCH condemn such

stunning clap-trap.
When an American politician claims he cannot judge the actions of NAZIS, THE DEFEATING OF WHOM TOOK MANY AMERICAN LIVES, he is a fool ignorant of, or at least indifferent to, the very history he purports to "re-enact." Or else he is a witting sympathizer.

Does this mean I applaud the Bombing of Dresden (or Hiroshima)? No, it does not.

[Romulox]

27. Sorry to burst your bubble, but future apologists will be saying the same thing about US!

:hi:

[hendo]

35. Only if we lose the war ;) NT

[UTUSN]

30. Coffin, meet Nail - bwah-hah-HAH!1 n/t

[MrScorpio]

31. Wow... Simply wow

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_pS7sKjlzwFg/SRgi4ybXe_I/AAAAAAAACNw/Ksk8-S7buDw/s400/nazi+executor.jpg

I'm sure that he goes "Seig Heil" in his sleep.

[krispos42]

32. I thought his side was against moral relativism? n/t

[Tsiyu]

33. In their heart of hearts, these Teabagging Chickenhawks

revere the Nazis.

They want to have their kind of power today to do away with the "others."
Only a fool, and those who don't read Intelligence Report, can't see this.

Decent people revile the Nazis.

Iott is the scum of the earth, just like those evil ones he worships.

[LynneSin]

34. They are a new kind of Nazi - I doubt they would want to enact another 'Final Solution'

but they would like to create the country in a way that they can isolate themselves from anyone 'Not like me'.

[Enthusiast]

43. What was the worst crime

committed by the Waffen SS? In my opinion, even worse than slaughter of innocents was torture and cruelty perpetrated on the same by the SS.

The U.S. national propaganda machine has convinced millions of Americans that torture was necessary for the security of our nation. Nothing has been done to hold the advocates of torture responsible for their crimes in this country. I'm fairly certain that the case was made that the slaughter of innocents and cruel torture by the Nazi was done for the security of the German nation. The believe the case was made at Nuremberg by the defense. Correct me if I'm wrong.

I do, in fact, see parallels in todays United States of America and Nazi Germany.

Of course I'm not claiming we are there yet. We are still allowed to make accusations against people like Iott, those that glorify Nazi past. And we still hold elections, such as they are.

But the love of all things military and the ultra nationalism of the far right in this country should raise alarm bells. Nazi Germany didn't start out by gassing homosexuals, Gypsies, the mentally disabled, communists, socialists and Jews. These atrocities only came about gradually. It started with accusations by the media and characterizing certain groups as undesirables. Eventually much of the civilian population of Germany were convinced that eliminating certain groups was justifiable.

[fascisthunter]

44. anyone still think these whackjobs aren't nazi material?

this mentality has been around since the beginnings of mankind I'm sure... question is, do folks have the balls to confront this shit or is everyone too afraid? You deal with this shit because when you don't it spreads like a cancer.

[area51]

46. Not too surprising,

given that St. Reagan placed a wreath at that SS grave. This is from a member of the republican party, that tries to follow nazi party ways, including trying to ban abortion, and getting rid of people considered "useless eaters".

[hendo]

47. FYI: John Stewart

This link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-11-2010/indecision-2010---unforced-errors-edition
Around the 3:30 mark.

You are all right, we cannot put up with right wing people defending this guy. WTF.

"The truth is, that this guy.. He's not a Nazi, he's a history nerd,guy likes doing reenactments. WW1, Civil War, the war of the roses, I think he did. That's the kind of nuanced personal background color so well understood in our modern media age"
...queue the over-reactions.

John Stewart is such a Nazi sympathizer!
:sarcasm:

[Binka]

58. Jon Is WRONG Here (Yes I Know He Is Jewish) & So Are You

Enough of your tripe. Welcome to IGNORE. Go fish Hendo.

[hendo]

59. Thank you for doing me the favor

of not having to respond to your comments on my posts anymore.

[immoderate]

72. Jon is using the literary device known as ...

:sarcasm:, which was invented in Brooklyn in 1932 by Leo Gorcey..


--imm

[Ichingcarpenter]

87. Once a Nazi always a Nazi

except Nazi Zombies but that's another story

[Hell Hath No Fury]

61. Uh...

since you keep talking about him the least you could do is spell his name right: JON Stewart. :eyes:

This guy is more than a "history buff" playing dress up. His own comments suggest that he respects what the Nazis accomplished and he chooses not to comdemn the actions of the very group he role plays.

Sorry, but it is pretty damn clear he is one of those Americans who thinks the Nazis had a lot of it right.

[Demstud]

48. I think he could've gotten a pass from many people.

Knowing the way politicians exaggerate things about their opponents during election season and distrust of political ads in general, I can definitely see people thinking that maybe it was a legit educational historical re-enactment of some kind (like he was an actor playing the villain in a play). Sometimes it's just hard to imagine someone being so stupid to actually dress up as a nazi, pose for pictures in their nazi getup, and then say that maybe those guys weren't so bad in an interview in which he's trying to convince people he's a NOT nazi sympathizer!

[Stevenmarc]

51. In other news, Iott embraces "Springtime For Hitler" as his campaign theme song

[hendo]

79. The Producers is AWESOME! :) NT

[LoZoccolo]

53. Well, the voters will be doing what they think is right at the ballot box in a few weeks.

Hopefully it will be the last time we'll have to worry about what kind of Nazi ideology might make its way into the U.S. House of Representatives.

[political_Dem]

54. And I say it again.

The teabaggers prove with each new example that they are not only racist as hell, but dumber that a sack of hair. How many more examples does a person need to understand that we don't need folks of this sort in government?

I know that American citizens aren't that stupid to believe this Hitler sympathizer. Right?

[anaxarchos]

62. SS Viking was more than an ordinary German unit and more than...

... even an ordinary SS combat unit, as others have said.

It was expressly formed by an order from Himmler himself in September of 1940, to create an SS combat division of "racially pure" volunteers from Norway, Denmark, Holland and Belgium. It was an organization intended from the beginning for collaborators, Quislings, and non-German Nazi-fuckheads. It was part of an explicit attempt to transform Germany's war into Race War. It became a dumping ground for collaborators from many countries.

Re-enactment, my ass.

Who plays the Russians or the Poles in such "re-enactments"?

Who plays the Jews?

[hendo]

77. Well, it wouldnt be much of a reenactment without another side

and they claim to be members of the World War Two Historical Re-enactment Society ( http://www.worldwartwohrs.org/ ), a group which has groups representing the major military forces in WW2 (with the notable exception of france and japan): http://www.worldwartwohrs.org/Units.htm

Your question of who plays the jews is a misnomer. The victims of a war are rarely represented in historical reenactments. Would you prefer if they staged missions of rescuing jews from concentration camps?

[Ichingcarpenter]

88. Keep digging your hole

and its not a foxhole.

[hendo]

89. I have no hole to be digging, perhaps you have confused me with someone

who gives a damn.

edit: but I do respect that you aren't one of those wimps who puts people they disagree with on ignore ;)

[Ichingcarpenter]

92. I don't ignore you

I might even put you on a 'friends' list
because of your comments....... LOL

I do like DU's search function for donors.

[hendo]

95. Yeah, the search function is one thing that i miss

I let my donor status lapse, and I sure do miss it.
edit: there are many issues that I agree with you on, but this is not one of them ;)

[nightgaunt]

104. Part of what such units did was roundup those to be exicuted after conquest

Either way Jews and others would be represented if they wanted authentic reenactments. Such as when they handed their prisoners over the the RSHA,"the Einsatzgruppen (Special Action Groups). The Einsatzgruppen were formed to gather Jews, partisans, and other peoples from the areas the armed forces conquered, and to murder them. During the War, the RSHA was always growing, adding new offices to its structure."

"This main office was the Reich Central Security Main Office, or RSHA. The RSHA was formed on September 27th, 1939, and was by far the most feared and the most sinister of all the main offices in the RF-SS. The RSHA was formed from two other existing main offices, the Hauptamt Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police Main Office) and the Sicherheits Hauptamt (Security Service Main Office)."

There wasn't an equivalent to this in the American civil war unless it was being a guard at Andersonville prison camp. That and the fact that for most of the war any black Union soldiers that survived a battle were murdered on the spot by CSA soldiers. They hated the idea of blacks being armed and after them. It lasted through most of the war. Also something I doubt is reenacted. ( Did he bond with his son in those Civil War reenactments too?)

Excerpts from http://www.feldgrau.com/ss.html

Iott and his group soft peddle just what the Waffen SS and the accompanying organizations were designed to win battles but mostly to remove the 10% of what they considered to be the lowest form or human and sub-human life from their midst and eventually the world. Iott agrees with them not only the sanitized version of that killing organization but being a member in the play acting of it. At least a new version of it anyway he would seem to agree with their ethos.

Also just imagine if a Democrat had said and done the same thing? Wouldn't they be flayed and burned in the public pillory by now? Jon Stewart is just wrong this time, it happens to all of us.

[Riktor]

107. The problem isn't so much these guys are re-enacting...

... it is that they are revising history to present the 5th Panzer SS as a cadre of freedom fighters who joined Hitler's crusade solely to protect their families from the godless commies to the east. We know this is bullshit. Wiking was comprised of foreign-nationals who wholeheartedly subscribed to the Nazi ideology, "racial purity" included.

[Scurrilous]

67. K & R

:thumbsup:

[bulloney]

68. Maybe Iott does this for educational purposes, but I haven't seen any outreach activities from them

How hard would it be to produce some evidence that he and his colleagues conducted some educational outreach activities on Nazis?

Iott's whole MO seems to be a charade.

In his campaign ads, he tries to market himself as a job creator when in fact, after his father handed him the keys to the Foodtown chain of grocery stores in NW Ohio, he sold out to another chain and the Foodtown stores were all shut down, leaving about 5000 people unemployed. Iott, meanwhile, received a nice payout for selling out. To me, this is a bigger crime than any Nazi re-enactment activities he may have been involved with.

In the land of Teabaggers, I guess this is the definition of a "job creator."

[Forrest Greene]

70. No One Ever

...does anything they think is wrong. Someone who pushes a little old lady in a wheelchair down a flight of stairs does so thinking, at some level, that it's the right thing to do. Otherwise, why do it?

Even if someone understands an act is wrong from an ordinary point of view, if they perform the act, for some reason they think doing wrong is right.

Mr. Iott attempts to make the case that because Nazis thought their actions were right, they are somehow to be admired. This reveals him as being not so much a Nazi sympathizer as being a not very deep thinker. (One with a Nazi fetish.)

It's a question similar to "Does the end justify the means?" The answer is no, it never does. Slave owners, serial killers, genocidal cavalrymen all think their ends --- slavery, murder, elimination of populations --- are right, & that therefore their means of achieving those ends --- enslavement, murders, & military campaigns --- are right. But they're not.

You should all admire & agree with my position here, because I think it's right. Right?

[annabanana]

75. Holy fuckin' shit!. . "Oh those poooor Nazis"!!?!

Can we stick a fork in this guy yet?

[NoGOPZone]

76. Does he think the Crucifixion can be rationalized on that basis? nt

[mitchum]

84. Dummkopf

[BlueIris]

86. Ew. And thanks, Mr. Cooper. nt

[librechik]

90. wait, Sergeant Schultz. Only the Democrats do cultural relativism.

Pukkkes aren't allowed. YOU ARE WHO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH, REMEMBER?

[4lbs]

93. Hey, and the REAL Vikings (the Norsemen) raped women and burned down villages.

I guess we can't judge them harshly, because you know, we weren't there when they made those decisions to do those acts.

Also, we can't judge Pol Pot either, because you know, we weren't there in Cambodia at the time he made the decision to kill hundreds of thousands of people for nothing more than being the slightest bit educated.


:crazy:

[hughee99]

94. We judge people who think they are doing the right thing all the time.

Iott does as well. The Democrats, "terrorists", and illegal immigrants are doing what they think is right, and I have yet to hear a single repuke, elected or otherwise, suggest we shouldn't judge them. What a ridiculous statement.

[K8-EEE]

96. In a way his point is the same as Bill Maher about the 9/11 hijackers

When he was arguing with people calling them "cowards" he's like, how are they cowards? They're crazed mass murdering turds but they were unafraid to hijack the planes, crash them and die so "cowards" doesn't really fit.

In the same way, is a Nazi soldier running into enemy fire any less "valiant" that the other side? The CAUSES and REGIMES they fight for are wrong; but they can still be valiant. You can be valiant for an evil cause.

[marew]

97. Frigging incredible!

He is one sick puppy! They thought concentration camps were a good thing. Massive deaths, incredible suffering, horrible experiments on people, and he says: "I don't think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren't there at the time that they made those decisions." I need to go throw up!

[Solly Mack]

98. Damn

[donheld]

99. 100% insanity

[Rex]

100. I don't think we can sit here and judge that today. We weren't there at the time that they made..."

Words that will haunt your failing campaign and soon to be loss...remember them asshole, you deserve to eat them the most when your son is old enough to ask why people think you are such a big loser.

[Crunchy Frog]

102. Why do people keep dropping the "d" from his last name?

[MadHound]

103. Ya know, one could actually make the argument that he's right,

After all, the extreme, genocidal anti-semitism that swept through Germany and Eastern Europe didn't suddenly spring into being, it was a multi-generational cultivation of hate. Hitler and his ilk simply unleashed it, took it to it's ultimate conclusion.

Many of the members of the Wikings did indeed believe that they were doing what was right, as did many ordinary Germans of that time. That doesn't make them "valiant men" however, except in their own eyes. But that was how extreme the anti-semitism of the day was, a hatred that had been building for over a century, waiting to be released.

That doesn't excuse Iott for his actions, but historically he's correct.

[Shallah Kali]

105. What's Wrong With Nazi Reenacting

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/10/whats-wrong-with-nazi-reenacting/64489/

But in fact there are far more people out there like Rich Iott. They don't specifically deny the Holocaust; they'd just rather not think about it too much. They're more interested in the Nazi perpetrators, whom they see as cool -- powerful, purposeful, casually and overwhelmingly violent, glamorous, almost sexy.

If they think at all about Nazi policy, or about the ideology to which the people who originally wore those uniforms pledged loyalty, they tend to focus either on military strategy or domestic policy. In this portrait, the Nazis reestablished unity, order, and an appealingly traditionalist set of family and gender roles (at least nominally). They managed an astonishing set of early victories against significant odds and stood down the Communist threat: again, nominally, but the facts aren't what matter here. The fact that neither domestic policy nor military strategy can be divorced from Nazi genocidal intentions -- that it was all for the protection of the Volksgemeinschaft, the idealized Nazi racial community, and all threats to that community needed to be eliminated -- gets waved away, or just misunderstood.

I'm not calling Iott a Holocaust denier, not in the classic sense of that word. But I think it's fair to think of him as a Holocaust minimizer, at the gentler end of the denial continuum but still undeniably present on that spectrum. People like Iott, seemingly just a geek running around in uniform on the weekends, share certain qualities with hardcore Holocaust deniers. Specifically, both deniers and minimizers are interested in rehabilitating Nazism, and ignoring or lying about the millions of Jewish and non-Jewish innocents the Nazis killed.

It's an ugly business, no matter how Iott tries to defend it. Much more
than just a weekend game.

Andrea Orzoff
Associate Professor
Department of History
New Mexico State University

On Being a Wiking

http://www.historynet.com/on-being-a-wiking.htm

What you often hear is that the {Wiking} division was never formally accused of anything, but that's kind of a dodge. The entire German war effort in the East was a racial crusade to rid the world of 'subhumans,' Slavs were going to be enslaved in numbers of tens of millions. And of course the multimillion Jewish population of Eastern Europe was going to be exterminated altogether. That's what all these folks were doing in the East. It sends a shiver up my spine to think that people want to dress up and play SS on the weekend.

snip

While I had a ball, especially back in graduate school when I actually had time to set up and play a monster game like Drang nach Osten, I can tell you one thing about those days. There was a fringe element in the hobby that worshiped the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS, and, I sometimes suspected, Hitler himself. Ask anyone who was wargaming back in the 70's and 80's, and I'm sure they'll confirm what I'm saying. The number of wargames back in the day that seemed to be channeling the Wehrmacht on their box covers–usually with a cover image of a German army or SS officer in a heroic pose–was a topic discussed constantly in the wargaming press.

We loved the games, in other words, but a lot of us were embarrassed about what seemed to be a kind of adolescent crush on the Wehrmacht. I remember how exciting it was when The Avalon Hill Game Company came out with their second gamette in the Squad Leader series. It dealt with the eastern front, it was called Cross of Iron (German reference there), but it had an image of a Soviet officer on the cover. It seemed things were evening up a bit.

So, to all my re-enactor friends, I say this: I really don't think it's good for the anyone in the "Living History" community to be dressing up in the uniform of a criminal organization. The war in the east was more than a mere military campaign, and the Waffen-SS wasn't just "soldiering." They were fighting a "war of extermination" (Vernichtungskrieg). The historical record of the Waffen-SS is as clear as you can get, it isn't a pretty one, and I think there are better ways to spend your free time.

[Riktor]

106. I wonder if he would extend the same courtesy to the Red Army.

Somehow, I think not.

[Hubert Flottz]

109. Now Now...Don't look back.

It's okay to be a war criminal when you see a president and his VP get away with it.

Edit...What Nancy meant was, "Sanity is off the table." What Obama meant is, "We don't have the guts to do what's right about the neocon's crimes against humanity and peace."

Our standing as far as the great defender of human rights, in shot to hell. The economy in shambles is a tiny part of the damage that the neocons have done to our country. The neocons trashed the economy on their way out the door to create a smoke screen for anyone who might want to chase the war criminals. The only fucking thing missing from the PNAC plan was the ovens. Wake up and smell the big chimney near your ass!