Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/11/11/hitlers-only-kidding-about.html
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But Netanyahu has called Trump “a true friend of Israel”!
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I was just looking for some images to post here, screaming or crying, but they all just seem to come out too sarcastic or ironic…
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I’ve always pictured Germans of that time saying about Hitler; “I’m not totally keen about his stance on the Jews but it sounds like he has a sound economic policy and a way to make Germany great again.”
You know, kinda like what a lot of Trump voters were thinking on their way to the polls on Tuesday.
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I have hit cancel on so many posts this week for exactly those same reasons.
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Actually a lot of them were thinking “I don’t want to get beaten up by the SA, so I had better vote for the NSDAP”.
The reign of terror started long before 1939.
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They’re in the queue, but I don’t think they’ll be the first ones targeted this time around.
I’ll say this for Trump: he’s brought American Jews and Muslims closer together than ever.
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Like AIPAC, Bibi confuses “Israel” with “Likud.”
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This is a long story, but stick with me.
Way back when I was in my last year of high school — this would have been 1989/90 — I made some observation about Germans, Nazis and the Second World War during a civics-type class. I can’t remember what I said, but it really upset one of the girls in the class.
Apparently her grandfather was German and lived through the Nazi era. She said something like “my grandfather wasn’t a Nazi! Most Germans were just supporting the German cause! That’s all it was! Just the German cause!”
Although I don’t remember exactly what she said, I remember that phrase — the German cause. I suppose it was something she grew up hearing.
I kept thinking about that when I would hear “make America great again.” I’m sure people who voted for Trump could claim they were only supporting the American cause.
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6 million dead Jews don’t think Hitler was just kidding.
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Of course. I’m sure the people who have been screaming at and attacking minorities around the country, as has been reported since the Trump win, also think they’re making America great again. Fascists always view the world through this lens.
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Did you know that Hitler was a vegetarian?
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Well, she is.
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A principle I take to heart, that by Maya Angelou. To me the real opinion of a person on a matter is the most extreme ever expressed by them. Up to contrite retraction, and then I feel free not to believe in it if there’s ANY self justification or not enough self mortification, preferably literal (cilice and knotted cords AT WORK, please). Either way, either D. Trump showed his true colors with the racist statements, or he’s dangerously irresponsible, unscrupulous, maybe a sociopath. In either case he is unworthy of any trust and of any office in a democracy.
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I hear a very similar argument in defense of the South’s role in the Civil War. The argument is always, “It wasn’t about slavery, it was about states’ rights.”
Such discussions always come to an abrupt end when I ask, “Right to do what?” I wonder what reaction you would have gotten if you’d asked, “What was the German cause?”
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“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be”
- Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
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Welcome to BoingBoing!
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Exactly. But I was more timid then and didn’t want to annoy what was clearly a sore point in her family.
I wonder how she voted.
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After WWII many Nazis and even non-Nazi Wehrmacht soldiers (who did not know, denied, or conveniently ignored atrocities) characterized their cause as being valiantly anti-Communist. They saw themselves as largely having sacrificed in common cause with the west.
Having noted the developing tensions (that became the Cold War) some thought the western allies had finally ‘come around’. But GI’s and prosecutors repeatedly encountered this attitude in the post war.
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