Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Hitler Had Some Good Points (split off from the

shakran · 03-09-2004, 09:17 PM

here are my thoughts, and this one's long:

Hitler's primary goal was power. If planting flowers and kissing butterflies were the fastest way for him to get complete power, he'd have done it. So let's look at what Hitler saw for his opportunity for power:

Germany was in a depression. Not just a financial depression, but a country-wide emotional depression. They got their asses thoroughly kicked in WWI. They had crap for a military, crap for money, people were carting wheelbarrows full of cash around just to buy a loaf of bread. In short, life in Germany sucked. Bigtime.

Enter Hitler. What's the best way for him to get power? Find someone to blame the country's troubles on. (remember that statement, it's very important later). Hitler picked the Jews primarilly. The reason we're in this mess is that the Jews put us there. It's not YOUR fault that your life sucks, and it's not your NEIGHBOR's fault. It's the fault of the Jew.

The German people, downtrodden and miserable, quickly snapped to this idea of having a scapegoat. Here's someone to blame! It enabled them to feel better about themselves - to have a more positive outlook on their lives. It served as a drug for the country. And now that they had someone to blame, here was a man who was leading the fight against these terrible Jews who had caused all this trouble.

People began following him because he seemed to be a way out of the terrible situation they were in. And remember, he didn't start off right away throwing Jews into the gas chambers. He built up to it nice and slow, letting the people get used to each additional sanction/atrocity against the Jews, all the time reminding them that it was the Jew that put them in a terrible mess and it was Hitler who, by taking care of this Jew problem, was leading them out of it.

See, I think that too much time has been spent saying that Hitler was evil. I mean, yeah, we KNOW that. The real question isn't why Hitler wanted to kill Jews. That's explainable by both his psychopathology and his lust for power. The REAL question is why the HELL did millions of Germans allow it to happen!

Let's shed a little light on it by looking at events in our own country's history. Back in the early days of the cold war we had a huge red scare in this country. Anti-communist sentiment was running high thanks to the fearless fight against the communists lead by a Wisconsin senator named Joe McCarthy. He told us the communists were everywhere and were responsible for trying to destroy us. We had to watch out for them, and we had to report anyone who might be a communist. Even Edward R. Murrow was accused of being a communist. And people started following him. They flocked behind him very much like the Germans flocked behind Hitler. Why? Because here was someone blaming a specific group for all the problems they faced. It's much easier to blame others than to fix the problem. McCarthy and Hitler were cut from the same cloth -they both had an insatiable hunger for power, and they both used essentially the same tactics to get it. I and many others are firmly convinced that it was only our system of government, with its checks and balances, that prevented McCarthy from gaining more power and eventually becoming a United States Hitler. Germany didn't have that advantage, however, which allowed Hitler's meteoric rise to power.

By the way it's interesting to look at what's happening today. Our leaders today are asking us to flock to them so they can fight the terrorists, a group of people who share common traits with the Communists and Jews of old - those traits being that there is a nearly universal fear throughout the country of them, and that it is very easy for the government to make them out to be a much larger threat than they actually are.

Hitler used the Jews as a vehicle to gain power by making his people terrified of them. Note that Hitler was careful to paint the Jews as a threat even when his oppression had rendered them incapable of being a threat even had they wanted to be.

McCarthy used the Communists to gain power by making his people terrified of them. Note that McCarthy was also careful to paint the communists as a threat even though that threat was nebulous and impossible to quantify.

George Bush Jr. is using the Terrorists to gain power by making his people terrified of them. Note how Bush is making the terrorists out to be a threat, and is using that threat as the main platform of his reelection campaign. That frankly represents a conflict of interest - after all, if he's depending on the people being afraid of terrorsts to guarantee his reelection, he does not have very much incentive to actually eradicate the terrorists does he? The far smarter thing to do would be to attack irrelevant people who are widely known as evil people, call them terrorists, and therefore try to make it LOOK like he is fighting the terrorists when in fact he cannot defeat the terrorists if he wants to use them as leverage to get reelected. That, by the way, is one of the reasons why he went after Iraq.

So what's the point of all this? It's that Hitler manipulated his people in order to accomplish his goal - gaining absolute power. I find it difficult to fully blame the Germans for falling for it, as the citizens of the United States have fallen for it as well, under McCarthy and today under Bush.

Man, that was long.

03-09-2004, 09:17 PM	#35 (permalink)
shakran Tone.	here are my thoughts, and this one's long: Hitler's primary goal was power. If planting flowers and kissing butterflies were the fastest way for him to get complete power, he'd have done it. So let's look at what Hitler saw for his opportunity for power: Germany was in a depression. Not just a financial depression, but a country-wide emotional depression. They got their asses thoroughly kicked in WWI. They had crap for a military, crap for money, people were carting wheelbarrows full of cash around just to buy a loaf of bread. In short, life in Germany sucked. Bigtime. Enter Hitler. What's the best way for him to get power? Find someone to blame the country's troubles on. (remember that statement, it's very important later). Hitler picked the Jews primarilly. The reason we're in this mess is that the Jews put us there. It's not YOUR fault that your life sucks, and it's not your NEIGHBOR's fault. It's the fault of the Jew. The German people, downtrodden and miserable, quickly snapped to this idea of having a scapegoat. Here's someone to blame! It enabled them to feel better about themselves - to have a more positive outlook on their lives. It served as a drug for the country. And now that they had someone to blame, here was a man who was leading the fight against these terrible Jews who had caused all this trouble. People began following him because he seemed to be a way out of the terrible situation they were in. And remember, he didn't start off right away throwing Jews into the gas chambers. He built up to it nice and slow, letting the people get used to each additional sanction/atrocity against the Jews, all the time reminding them that it was the Jew that put them in a terrible mess and it was Hitler who, by taking care of this Jew problem, was leading them out of it. See, I think that too much time has been spent saying that Hitler was evil. I mean, yeah, we KNOW that. The real question isn't why Hitler wanted to kill Jews. That's explainable by both his psychopathology and his lust for power. The REAL question is why the HELL did millions of Germans allow it to happen! Let's shed a little light on it by looking at events in our own country's history. Back in the early days of the cold war we had a huge red scare in this country. Anti-communist sentiment was running high thanks to the fearless fight against the communists lead by a Wisconsin senator named Joe McCarthy. He told us the communists were everywhere and were responsible for trying to destroy us. We had to watch out for them, and we had to report anyone who might be a communist. Even Edward R. Murrow was accused of being a communist. And people started following him. They flocked behind him very much like the Germans flocked behind Hitler. Why? Because here was someone blaming a specific group for all the problems they faced. It's much easier to blame others than to fix the problem. McCarthy and Hitler were cut from the same cloth -they both had an insatiable hunger for power, and they both used essentially the same tactics to get it. I and many others are firmly convinced that it was only our system of government, with its checks and balances, that prevented McCarthy from gaining more power and eventually becoming a United States Hitler. Germany didn't have that advantage, however, which allowed Hitler's meteoric rise to power. By the way it's interesting to look at what's happening today. Our leaders today are asking us to flock to them so they can fight the terrorists, a group of people who share common traits with the Communists and Jews of old - those traits being that there is a nearly universal fear throughout the country of them, and that it is very easy for the government to make them out to be a much larger threat than they actually are. Hitler used the Jews as a vehicle to gain power by making his people terrified of them. Note that Hitler was careful to paint the Jews as a threat even when his oppression had rendered them incapable of being a threat even had they wanted to be. McCarthy used the Communists to gain power by making his people terrified of them. Note that McCarthy was also careful to paint the communists as a threat even though that threat was nebulous and impossible to quantify. George Bush Jr. is using the Terrorists to gain power by making his people terrified of them. Note how Bush is making the terrorists out to be a threat, and is using that threat as the main platform of his reelection campaign. That frankly represents a conflict of interest - after all, if he's depending on the people being afraid of terrorsts to guarantee his reelection, he does not have very much incentive to actually eradicate the terrorists does he? The far smarter thing to do would be to attack irrelevant people who are widely known as evil people, call them terrorists, and therefore try to make it LOOK like he is fighting the terrorists when in fact he cannot defeat the terrorists if he wants to use them as leverage to get reelected. That, by the way, is one of the reasons why he went after Iraq. So what's the point of all this? It's that Hitler manipulated his people in order to accomplish his goal - gaining absolute power. I find it difficult to fully blame the Germans for falling for it, as the citizens of the United States have fallen for it as well, under McCarthy and today under Bush. Man, that was long.