trolling? im actually dead srious believe it or not.its just you being unable to understand something that is different and new to you. and yes i am german
and i'm really interested in what the hell is going on with you. You can't really expect someone to reply to your posts seriously. You call yourself a nazi which is in itself idiotic enough and then you even say you don't share the core opinions of that ideology in the same sentence, which is totally absurd.
its not idiotic. its honest and takes a bit of courage too in current times. and what is so hard to believe about someone thinking he is something without being able to explain exactly why and maybe not even knowing it himself.. isnt life a search for ones self for all of us to some extent. im just halfway done wiht this journey apparently
Then I would simply suggest you to actually put the time in to evaluate and examinate your core believes. Just take time and read "Mein Kampf". You will realize that racism in NS ideology is inherent. As you describe yourself as non racist this should lead to looking for something different.
just like any ideology its not comepltely linear. just like the koran mein kampf is open to interprertation. also i will not read that filth for it is racist and extremist which is horrible in my opinion. i already stated why i like to consider myself a nazi which is that it gives me a sense of belonging. dont really see the problem in that. there are many "christians" or members of the church who dont believe in god but are still members of the church for reasons not associated witht the core belief of the institution.
unfortunately for you, your political affiliation was responsible for one of the most horrific act and continues to do horrible things in small scale. It is naive for you to think that people would accept your ideology especially when you guys didnt even bother to change the friggin name Nazi. That name alone is insulting enough on human race in 21st century.
you can argue about crusade and Christians but since then they have moved on from hatred towards peace and acceptance. Exactly opposite of your views
So christards used to be evil but now they're cool in your books? They never changed their name either.
So why couldn't nazis do the same and "move on"? Not that they necessarily should value peace and acceptance of course,
For referrence, if you didn't know, Germany's military budget is EQUAL to Austria, Switzerland, Czech, Belguin, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands military budgets COMBINED. Take a look at that list of countries and their proximity to Germany. Scary isn't it?
If you didn´t know, combine the population or area of these countries and Germany is bigger.
For obvious reasons you forgot poland (larger per capita), sweden((larger per capita) Poland (larger per capita) and France (larger per capita). Compared to the position of influence Germany commands in the world the military is Laughable.
That is, and never was the power of Germany it was industry and education.
trolling? im actually dead srious believe it or not.its just you being unable to understand something that is different and new to you. and yes i am german
and i'm really interested in what the hell is going on with you. You can't really expect someone to reply to your posts seriously. You call yourself a nazi which is in itself idiotic enough and then you even say you don't share the core opinions of that ideology in the same sentence, which is totally absurd.
its not idiotic. its honest and takes a bit of courage too in current times. and what is so hard to believe about someone thinking he is something without being able to explain exactly why and maybe not even knowing it himself.. isnt life a search for ones self for all of us to some extent. im just halfway done wiht this journey apparently
Then I would simply suggest you to actually put the time in to evaluate and examinate your core believes. Just take time and read "Mein Kampf". You will realize that racism in NS ideology is inherent. As you describe yourself as non racist this should lead to looking for something different.
just like any ideology its not comepltely linear. just like the koran mein kampf is open to interprertation. also i will not read that filth for it is racist and extremist which is horrible in my opinion. i already stated why i like to consider myself a nazi which is that it gives me a sense of belonging. dont really see the problem in that. there are many "christians" or members of the church who dont believe in god but are still members of the church for reasons not associated witht the core belief of the institution.
unfortunately for you, your political affiliation was responsible for one of the most horrific act and continues to do horrible things in small scale. It is naive for you to think that people would accept your ideology especially when you guys didnt even bother to change the friggin name Nazi. That name alone is insulting enough on human race in 21st century.
you can argue about crusade and Christians but since then they have moved on from hatred towards peace and acceptance. Exactly opposite of your views
So christards used to be evil but now they're cool in your books? They never changed their name either.
This is actually a really interesting point, why should Christians be allowed to use that to define themselves without rhetoric but someone following a Nazi movement is? Seems strange, if anything Christianity has been the cause of many more deaths and tortures then Hitler could ever (or Stalin for that matter) dream of commiting such that wouldn't being a Nazi be better than a Christian?
User was warned for this post
Got warned for being non-civil... Maybe that means the "poland motherfucker" if so sorry, I was meaning that as a joke T.T because he said poland twice, I don't really care if he said Poland 10x haha.
Nation states are a thing of the past, alas, most people seem to cling to the idea for reasons beyond my comprehension. Also calling parties and people right or left is a bit nonsensical, since the "extreme right" parties are often very similar to the "(extreme) left" parties, national socialism, eh?
trolling? im actually dead srious believe it or not.its just you being unable to understand something that is different and new to you. and yes i am german
and i'm really interested in what the hell is going on with you. You can't really expect someone to reply to your posts seriously. You call yourself a nazi which is in itself idiotic enough and then you even say you don't share the core opinions of that ideology in the same sentence, which is totally absurd.
its not idiotic. its honest and takes a bit of courage too in current times. and what is so hard to believe about someone thinking he is something without being able to explain exactly why and maybe not even knowing it himself.. isnt life a search for ones self for all of us to some extent. im just halfway done wiht this journey apparently
Then I would simply suggest you to actually put the time in to evaluate and examinate your core believes. Just take time and read "Mein Kampf". You will realize that racism in NS ideology is inherent. As you describe yourself as non racist this should lead to looking for something different.
just like any ideology its not comepltely linear. just like the koran mein kampf is open to interprertation. also i will not read that filth for it is racist and extremist which is horrible in my opinion. i already stated why i like to consider myself a nazi which is that it gives me a sense of belonging. dont really see the problem in that. there are many "christians" or members of the church who dont believe in god but are still members of the church for reasons not associated witht the core belief of the institution.
unfortunately for you, your political affiliation was responsible for one of the most horrific act and continues to do horrible things in small scale. It is naive for you to think that people would accept your ideology especially when you guys didnt even bother to change the friggin name Nazi. That name alone is insulting enough on human race in 21st century.
you can argue about crusade and Christians but since then they have moved on from hatred towards peace and acceptance. Exactly opposite of your views
Moved on my ass. God hates fags? Pro-life tards? Give me a break.
Well, I took a half an hour to write a handful of surface thoughts on the matter. I'll check back a few times to see if any potential reader wants clarification.
Right wing extremism will find it's sympathisers in every nation and every society.
In the countries conquered and occupied at the end of WW2, such sympathies are even more understandable. They are nations who lost their power to decide about their own fate for decades, were stuffed full of nuclear weapons and were generally prepared for annihilation in WW3 as battlegrounds.
I am not talking about anti-semitism; I am talking about militarism and hardline nationalism. Anti-semitism, and other ethnically directed "ideologies", are simple fairly unimportant parts of them, they just go well with the whole one nation one purpose preaching.
Of course there are many far rightists in Germany. Recent history dictates there must be. To the credit of the liberal political forces in power, they do everything they can, including political censure, to suppress the German far right.
Nazist and fascist parties, gatherings and adherent political speech are illegal.
Could a fascist uprising take place anyway? Yes, but it would come around in small increments. First such parties would have to be able to organise themselves officially, then they would have to gain access to mainstream media and finally be able to field their own candidates for the Bundestag and other organs of government. A coup would simply not be possible, Nazists could not gain influence within the Bundeswehr without being counteractred (never mind the fact that German military has been essentially a-political since the days of Frederick the Great*). Hitler, and the original Nazi party, gained power first through popular vote too, of course.
*Yes, some of the general staff of the Wehrmacht were what I would describe as "proper Nazies" during the days of the third reich. This does not count for many reasons. Among the more obvious ones would be that favour with the Führer was key to a succesful career.
On November 13 2012 06:54 3772 wrote: Nation states are a thing of the past, alas, most people seem to cling to the idea for reasons beyond my comprehension. Also calling parties and people right or left is a bit nonsensical, since the "extreme right" parties are often very similar to the "(extreme) left" parties, national socialism, eh?
trolling? im actually dead srious believe it or not.its just you being unable to understand something that is different and new to you. and yes i am german
and i'm really interested in what the hell is going on with you. You can't really expect someone to reply to your posts seriously. You call yourself a nazi which is in itself idiotic enough and then you even say you don't share the core opinions of that ideology in the same sentence, which is totally absurd.
its not idiotic. its honest and takes a bit of courage too in current times. and what is so hard to believe about someone thinking he is something without being able to explain exactly why and maybe not even knowing it himself.. isnt life a search for ones self for all of us to some extent. im just halfway done wiht this journey apparently
Then I would simply suggest you to actually put the time in to evaluate and examinate your core believes. Just take time and read "Mein Kampf". You will realize that racism in NS ideology is inherent. As you describe yourself as non racist this should lead to looking for something different.
just like any ideology its not comepltely linear. just like the koran mein kampf is open to interprertation. also i will not read that filth for it is racist and extremist which is horrible in my opinion. i already stated why i like to consider myself a nazi which is that it gives me a sense of belonging. dont really see the problem in that. there are many "christians" or members of the church who dont believe in god but are still members of the church for reasons not associated witht the core belief of the institution.
unfortunately for you, your political affiliation was responsible for one of the most horrific act and continues to do horrible things in small scale. It is naive for you to think that people would accept your ideology especially when you guys didnt even bother to change the friggin name Nazi. That name alone is insulting enough on human race in 21st century.
you can argue about crusade and Christians but since then they have moved on from hatred towards peace and acceptance. Exactly opposite of your views
Moved on my ass. God hates fags? Pro-life tards? Give me a break.
are you people finally beginning to understand ? and i thought hope was lost
The modern day right extremists here in Germany might not seem as outlandish as in the past. Like someone in this thread sad already, even the NPD (their party) has pleaded to uphold democratic processes and minority rights and so on.
The thing is though, these pleads are very hard to believe. Because they act like this creepy bullied kid in high school movies. They make 'death lists' of people they want gone once the 'revolution' finally comes. I swear, I am not making this up. They film the counter-demonstrators whenever they have their gatherings. They slander journalist and politicians who comment on them. And they really do believe, that in time the 'real Germans' will rise up again and then they will get rid of all these 'negative influences' like foreigners and communists and homosexuals and rich bankers and so on...
In times of hardship or emerging hardship, this is likely to happen. Someone comes along and offers them a place in society other than looking for a job and blames it on something they can agree on. Blaming for example unemployment is much easier to do with race other than say, education, because you can visualize it and hate it. If you hate something that you can't see you'd have to educate yourself, and that is waaaaay to hard for some people. So give already-outcasts something to hate from someone who is in a similar spot and the ball is starting to roll. Wouldn't be too worried about it, I mean, the french have a socialist president, THE FRENCH!
On November 13 2012 06:09 Grimmyman123 wrote: The solution is simple, and it was done 67 years ago, but it was not maintained.
Demilitarize Germany like we did at the end of World War 2. Maintain and enforce a zero military policy. We didn't learn the first time after World War 1 and allowed germany to rearm itself, and look what happened. If Germany is allowed to be run by some radical group again, with their current military, its a problem.
For referrence, if you didn't know, Germany's military budget is EQUAL to Austria, Switzerland, Czech, Belguin, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands military budgets COMBINED. Take a look at that list of countries and their proximity to Germany. Scary isn't it?
After World War 1, and then World War 2, we should have learned. There should not have been a wall dividing Germany. There should have been a wall surrounding it.
(Yes, I know this is an extreme point of view and is not wholy realistic due to the need for a country to be able to defend itself. However, the statistics and numbers are a bit frightening when it comes to Germany's military budget, military size, and the country's past history of conflicts.)
Past history of conflicts? You should try a little closer to home if you want a real history of conflicts.
Edit: And before accepting the unification the allies wanted a clear declaration that Germany stays in the nato and doesnt become a demilitarized neutral state. From wiki: In December 1989, the administration of President George H. W. Bush made a united Germany's continued NATO membership a requirement for supporting reunification. Kohl agreed, although less than 20% of West Germans supported remaining within NATO
closer to home? do tell.
Nato you post - why Germany as part of Nato? So the rest of Nato can keep eyes on Germany so if need be, Nato can keep Germany under its thumb like a bug.
On November 13 2012 06:38 SupLilSon wrote: I have relatives living in Europe, it's not like the World is completely disconnected in this day and age... Tons of ridiculous racist propaganda and ideology is floating around there. You get the same shit in America or anywhere else but it's usually restricted mostly to uneducated people. In Europe you get highly educated people buying into this crap, which is arguably much more dangerous.
Lets gather all of europe which differs immensely in terms of culture, put it into one box and then slap a racism sticker on it.
What gives you the idea that high educated people in europe are buying into racist propaganda?
It's anecdotal, but one of my cousins who grew up and lives in England is a successful doctor. He also truly believes that Jews run the American media and are the root of all evil.
He's not some antisocial nut who has crazy ideas. Him and his friends, who are also educated doctors buy into this propaganda.
To be fair, Jewish interests run our Foreign Policy from AIPAC, to CFR, etc. If you even dare utter a word that it is immoral to take from the individual to give to anyone else, including Israel you're derided as anti-semitic. ADL, and SPLC are also rabid racists who cry foul whenever you dare to stand up for your own liberties and rights, as if anyone else has the right to my labor, my property, or my life. That isn't to say there aren't other exceedingly dangerous interests like the MIC, but to completely disregard the fact that people like you cry racism whenever someone mentions that we should end foreign aid, stop meddling in the affairs of other countries, and bring our troops home from around the world.
You mean you want to leave Israel undefended? You mean to want to take away Israel's aid? RACIST! Anti-Semitic! You mean to tell me that AIPAC, CFR, and other Jewish-dominated interests push us in foreign conflicts, steal from individual Americans to give to Israel, and other foreign countries to bribe allegiance, etc. RACIST! Anti-Semitic!
That's a bunch of bullshit to be quite honest. You can't have any honest dialogue these days because people immediately start ad-homining and shutting down the debate by casting inflammatory oft-out right not true, remarks. Just because I believe that individuals have a natural right to their own life, liberty, property, and labor and since I deny that so-called 'right' of anyone else having such a right to it, I am anti-semitic because that includes Jewish people/Israel as well as everyone else?
If I say I am closing my store at 9PM and a black guy comes in at 9:30 and I tell him, 'sorry, we're closed', am I racist? No, that rule is for everyone. I don't care if you are black, purple, pink, or magenta.
In any event, the only problem I have is that American foreign policy is being run by foreign interests, and our boys and girls, our property, and our interests (free-trade, peace, friendship and diplomacy with all), are being subverted for the purpose and use of Israel and the MIC. God forbid anyone criticizes or laments the way Israel conducts itself (that socialist war-mongering hellhole).
On November 13 2012 04:20 DeepElemBlues wrote:go ron paul etc because he cares for us
Couldn't really have put it better, politicians in this country try so very, very hard to look like they can connect with the populace and fail just as hard. If they put as much effort into actually giving a fuck who knows what they could achieve...
it's not only politicians who see fringe parties as fringe.
On November 13 2012 04:49 farvacola wrote:
On November 13 2012 04:41 MoltkeWarding wrote:
On November 13 2012 03:28 schaf wrote: I think in Germany the whole WW2 education backfired a bit. I agree it has to be done and it's good that we get it in school a lot. But when I was growing up (mid 20s now), it felt like being German is actually a bad thing. You get constantly confronted with the horros and of the past and their guilt. My parents were not a particular help in that regard either as they were heavily influenced by the hippie movement. So, if you grow up in that environment every identification with your nation is basically taken from you (might seem a bit extreme, but with me that was the case) and if you want to be a non-conformist or a rebel in school, you look for things that are 'forbidden'.
The NPD is a joke. But they actually have a good strategy. They do offers for young people in areas where there is nothing else, do free jurisdictional advice for unemployed people, do community festivals - and the people buy it. It works.
All in all, I wouldn't call all followers of the NPD as Neo-Nazis.
And there are countries who have a much more severe problem with this, for example Russia (yes!):
When I first visited Berlin several years ago, I stood under the Brandenburger Tor, with a plaque detailing the glorious events of March 1848, supposed to remind us of the best political traditions of Germany's ancestors, in contrast to 1870 and 1933. The plaque commemorated Germany's first liberal-democrats, how they rose up for their rights against an authoritarian regime, how they for a wrinkle in time seized the destiny of the nation and seemed to propel it to a hopeful future.
This is the kind of dogma, half naive, half ridiculous, which is being commonly propagated as "History" in Germany today, in classrooms, media and the popular imagination. The National Assembly which assembled in Frankfurt in 1848 eventually perished under the duress of its own national radicalism, and was forced to prostitute itself out to Frederick William IV, who wound up protecting his "democrats" from the people, but rightly refused to pick his crown up from the gutter. No one today will teach 1848 as an object lesson in the failures of historical German liberalism and constitutionalism, an episode whose multifaceted complexities, by the way, would have been more profoundly understood under the classical curricula of such authoritarian regimes as Bismarck's Prussia or Hitler's National Socialist Germany than by the historically tone-deaf people of today.
It is being trumpeted as a milestone event in the progress of Germany because national curriculum of self-censorship has practically eradicated all other political achievements from German memory. It has painted the sweep of Germany with a broad brush and, while subscribing to the Sonderweg theory that all of Germany's history must be read under the dim shadow of the Third Reich, occasionally pretends to promote Germany's Western legacy by citing and mis-citing such episodes as the March Revolution or Operation Walküre. This kind of post ex-facto ideological manipulation exists all over the place. The German Biedermeier is more properly the teleological Vormärz, the War Credits vote of the SPD in 1914 is now seen as an departure from political norms in German history, rather than its conformity to it.
This is all perhaps only ephemerally relevant to the issue at hand. Looking at the OP, however, and reading the report by the Friederich-Ebert-Stiftung, it's obvious that some things are being misrepresented. In the Spiegel-polls, the NDP does not command enough support to enter any State parliament in Germany apart from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the polls show them at 6%. The Survey of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung has a list of questions so leading, that sometimes an answer which reveals a discerning historical understanding will be registered ideologically as “Rechtsextrem”
i.e.
Question 1:
Im nationalen Interesse ist unter bestimmten Umständen eine Diktatur die bessere Staatsform
Quite apart from the fact that this question betrays a lack of understanding as to what Dictatorship is, a classical scholar who admires Sulla might agree to this statement, and be labelled an extremist. The leading clause is the stipulation “unter bestimmten Umständen,” which vastly inflates the number of people who will be labelled inaccurately.
Question 2:
Ohne Judenvernichtung würde man Hitler heute als großen Staatsmann ansehen.
The leading aspect of this question is raised by its very hypothetical nature. You might as well ask if Hitler behaved as Mother Theresa, would he be seen as a saint today? The question is deliberately drawing on the great Hitler-biographer Joachim Fest's assertion in the introduction of his 1974 biography: Shall we call him great?
Fest asserted in his biograhpy that had Hitler died in 1938, he would have gone down in history as the greatest of German statesmen, surpassing Bismarck. These are debatable, but not trivial postulations. Yet under the consideration of the F-E-Stiftung, a lifelong bourgeois conservative like Fest would have been labelled an extremist.
The list goes on and on, deducing folly from folly. Finally all this “information” is reduced to a number ready for publication. After a long, exhaustive, methodological study, the final results conclude that the percentage of people holding extreme-right attitudes in Germany have grown from 6.6 percent to 15.8 percent. People are shocked. New resolutions are made from the left to accelerate the social and mental terraforming of the nation. We have to make German history even more mendacious and crude. We have to educate people better. We have to address socio-economic inequality.
Call me old-fashioned, but I have a better thermometer of measuring the presence of extremism in modern life. I go on the internet and see which people are going into a crazed frenzy calling everything else extreme.
This post was a highly enjoyable read, I recommend everyone read this before thinking too hard on the "evidence" presented in the OP.
disagree. the more 'thoughtful' the more pernicious when it comes to a defense of reactionary thinking. on a tactical level there may be an argument of turning to a more content based examination of the ideas and histories, rather than using sanctions and labels. however, at the same time the shadow of those ideas and histories is quite concrete no matter which approach.
for people who think it's okay, or even glorious, the examination has already been done and they are overruled. they should be condemned with pleasure, and that's all.
Shadows are not concrete. And there is always the most compelling argument of all for having the full picture of history. Sanctions and labels are simply a way to make the shadow you prefer as "concrete" as possible, with regard for the truth being a secondary concern if a concern at all.
Yes, thoughtful criticisms are more dangerous to an interpretation or opinion than those that are not, I don't see what your point is besides saying that what you think is so true and right that people should just turn their brains off and enjoy the sanctions and labels they're being fed.
shadows is the word because it was used in a scary scary sense to trivialize concrete history. the shadow of the third reich, for instance, is quite concrete.
there is no shortage of factual determination of the issue. there is however a distinct need for moral sanctions of the sort that prevents the moral stance against what nazis did and stood for from becoming arguable, relativizable, etc.
The real absurdity of democratic fanaticism is that they are always pretending that what's unpopular is too dangerously popular, and what's popular is lamentably unpopular. There's a kind of ethical self-satisfaction in the knowledge that you are an advocate of something that needs to be said, and yet the only people to whom you say them are ones who already agree with you. What we need is the easy moral satisfaction of being right without the hard work of learning.
In other words, if oneofthem had lived in the Third Reich, he would have understood all about the predatory innuendo of the Jewish press, and lamented the lack of foresight in his fellow citizens in spotting out the Jewish danger. Never mind whether or not he knew anything about Jews, their culture, history or theology.
For some reason people nowadays are always imagining themselves to be mentally ahead of the curve while they're just straggling along.
it was never about what is popular or unpopular, to represent 'democratic fanaticism' whatever that means as simply reverse hipsterism is to badly miss the point. the worry is always about the moral deficiency in society which is repeated and emphasized after the war (though somehow not applying to apartheid regimes or israel until later).
read your arendt or something. if you ever read anything in the 19th century and beyond.
Yeah, Arendt is now required reading for most people involved in modern history or political theory, although it's still seen as somehow avant-garde. I don't like Arendt, but I find it weird that someone would subscribe to her analysis of evil and yet promote "moral sanctions of the sort that prevents the moral stance against what nazis did and stood for from becoming arguable, relativizable, etc." If you agree with Arendt on Eichmann, you'd be joining me in trying to encourage the crowd of "sanctioners and labelers" into a more nunaced view of the psychology of the Nazi leadership.
However I am rather disappointed that someone who openly advocates ad-hominem wars (or as some guy once said: sanctions and labels) upon their opponents would not rise to stature of a Deborah Lipstadt, and start throwing categorical accusations all over the place. I guess the thinkers of our generation are not destined to be the preachers.
On November 13 2012 07:14 mijagi182 wrote: hmm Christians worse than Hitler and his nazists - this Bible book must be a real hatefest compared to Mein Kampf! Should give it a read :D!
gosh could people be more hateful and delusional...
Well actually the Bible is pretty bad....
Historically speaking, they've done comparable things as well.
On November 13 2012 04:20 DeepElemBlues wrote:go ron paul etc because he cares for us
Couldn't really have put it better, politicians in this country try so very, very hard to look like they can connect with the populace and fail just as hard. If they put as much effort into actually giving a fuck who knows what they could achieve...
it's not only politicians who see fringe parties as fringe.
On November 13 2012 04:49 farvacola wrote:
On November 13 2012 04:41 MoltkeWarding wrote:
On November 13 2012 03:28 schaf wrote: I think in Germany the whole WW2 education backfired a bit. I agree it has to be done and it's good that we get it in school a lot. But when I was growing up (mid 20s now), it felt like being German is actually a bad thing. You get constantly confronted with the horros and of the past and their guilt. My parents were not a particular help in that regard either as they were heavily influenced by the hippie movement. So, if you grow up in that environment every identification with your nation is basically taken from you (might seem a bit extreme, but with me that was the case) and if you want to be a non-conformist or a rebel in school, you look for things that are 'forbidden'.
The NPD is a joke. But they actually have a good strategy. They do offers for young people in areas where there is nothing else, do free jurisdictional advice for unemployed people, do community festivals - and the people buy it. It works.
All in all, I wouldn't call all followers of the NPD as Neo-Nazis.
And there are countries who have a much more severe problem with this, for example Russia (yes!):
When I first visited Berlin several years ago, I stood under the Brandenburger Tor, with a plaque detailing the glorious events of March 1848, supposed to remind us of the best political traditions of Germany's ancestors, in contrast to 1870 and 1933. The plaque commemorated Germany's first liberal-democrats, how they rose up for their rights against an authoritarian regime, how they for a wrinkle in time seized the destiny of the nation and seemed to propel it to a hopeful future.
This is the kind of dogma, half naive, half ridiculous, which is being commonly propagated as "History" in Germany today, in classrooms, media and the popular imagination. The National Assembly which assembled in Frankfurt in 1848 eventually perished under the duress of its own national radicalism, and was forced to prostitute itself out to Frederick William IV, who wound up protecting his "democrats" from the people, but rightly refused to pick his crown up from the gutter. No one today will teach 1848 as an object lesson in the failures of historical German liberalism and constitutionalism, an episode whose multifaceted complexities, by the way, would have been more profoundly understood under the classical curricula of such authoritarian regimes as Bismarck's Prussia or Hitler's National Socialist Germany than by the historically tone-deaf people of today.
It is being trumpeted as a milestone event in the progress of Germany because national curriculum of self-censorship has practically eradicated all other political achievements from German memory. It has painted the sweep of Germany with a broad brush and, while subscribing to the Sonderweg theory that all of Germany's history must be read under the dim shadow of the Third Reich, occasionally pretends to promote Germany's Western legacy by citing and mis-citing such episodes as the March Revolution or Operation Walküre. This kind of post ex-facto ideological manipulation exists all over the place. The German Biedermeier is more properly the teleological Vormärz, the War Credits vote of the SPD in 1914 is now seen as an departure from political norms in German history, rather than its conformity to it.
This is all perhaps only ephemerally relevant to the issue at hand. Looking at the OP, however, and reading the report by the Friederich-Ebert-Stiftung, it's obvious that some things are being misrepresented. In the Spiegel-polls, the NDP does not command enough support to enter any State parliament in Germany apart from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, where the polls show them at 6%. The Survey of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung has a list of questions so leading, that sometimes an answer which reveals a discerning historical understanding will be registered ideologically as “Rechtsextrem”
i.e.
Question 1:
Im nationalen Interesse ist unter bestimmten Umständen eine Diktatur die bessere Staatsform
Quite apart from the fact that this question betrays a lack of understanding as to what Dictatorship is, a classical scholar who admires Sulla might agree to this statement, and be labelled an extremist. The leading clause is the stipulation “unter bestimmten Umständen,” which vastly inflates the number of people who will be labelled inaccurately.
Question 2:
Ohne Judenvernichtung würde man Hitler heute als großen Staatsmann ansehen.
The leading aspect of this question is raised by its very hypothetical nature. You might as well ask if Hitler behaved as Mother Theresa, would he be seen as a saint today? The question is deliberately drawing on the great Hitler-biographer Joachim Fest's assertion in the introduction of his 1974 biography: Shall we call him great?
Fest asserted in his biograhpy that had Hitler died in 1938, he would have gone down in history as the greatest of German statesmen, surpassing Bismarck. These are debatable, but not trivial postulations. Yet under the consideration of the F-E-Stiftung, a lifelong bourgeois conservative like Fest would have been labelled an extremist.
The list goes on and on, deducing folly from folly. Finally all this “information” is reduced to a number ready for publication. After a long, exhaustive, methodological study, the final results conclude that the percentage of people holding extreme-right attitudes in Germany have grown from 6.6 percent to 15.8 percent. People are shocked. New resolutions are made from the left to accelerate the social and mental terraforming of the nation. We have to make German history even more mendacious and crude. We have to educate people better. We have to address socio-economic inequality.
Call me old-fashioned, but I have a better thermometer of measuring the presence of extremism in modern life. I go on the internet and see which people are going into a crazed frenzy calling everything else extreme.
This post was a highly enjoyable read, I recommend everyone read this before thinking too hard on the "evidence" presented in the OP.
disagree. the more 'thoughtful' the more pernicious when it comes to a defense of reactionary thinking. on a tactical level there may be an argument of turning to a more content based examination of the ideas and histories, rather than using sanctions and labels. however, at the same time the shadow of those ideas and histories is quite concrete no matter which approach.
for people who think it's okay, or even glorious, the examination has already been done and they are overruled. they should be condemned with pleasure, and that's all.
Shadows are not concrete. And there is always the most compelling argument of all for having the full picture of history. Sanctions and labels are simply a way to make the shadow you prefer as "concrete" as possible, with regard for the truth being a secondary concern if a concern at all.
Yes, thoughtful criticisms are more dangerous to an interpretation or opinion than those that are not, I don't see what your point is besides saying that what you think is so true and right that people should just turn their brains off and enjoy the sanctions and labels they're being fed.
shadows is the word because it was used in a scary scary sense to trivialize concrete history. the shadow of the third reich, for instance, is quite concrete.
there is no shortage of factual determination of the issue. there is however a distinct need for moral sanctions of the sort that prevents the moral stance against what nazis did and stood for from becoming arguable, relativizable, etc.
The real absurdity of democratic fanaticism is that they are always pretending that what's unpopular is too dangerously popular, and what's popular is lamentably unpopular. There's a kind of ethical self-satisfaction in the knowledge that you are an advocate of something that needs to be said, and yet the only people to whom you say them are ones who already agree with you. What we need is the easy moral satisfaction of being right without the hard work of learning.
In other words, if oneofthem had lived in the Third Reich, he would have understood all about the predatory innuendo of the Jewish press, and lamented the lack of foresight in his fellow citizens in spotting out the Jewish danger. Never mind whether or not he knew anything about Jews, their culture, history or theology.
For some reason people nowadays are always imagining themselves to be mentally ahead of the curve while they're just straggling along.
it was never about what is popular or unpopular, to represent 'democratic fanaticism' whatever that means as simply reverse hipsterism is to badly miss the point. the worry is always about the moral deficiency in society which is repeated and emphasized after the war (though somehow not applying to apartheid regimes or israel until later).
read your arendt or something. if you ever read anything in the 19th century and beyond.
Yeah, Arendt is now required reading for most people involved in modern history or political theory, although it's still seen as somehow avant-garde. I don't like Arendt, but I find it weird that someone would subscribe to her analysis of evil and yet promote "moral sanctions of the sort that prevents the moral stance against what nazis did and stood for from becoming arguable, relativizable, etc." If you agree with Arendt on Eichmann, you'd be joining me in trying to encourage the crowd of "sanctioners and labelers" into a more nunaced view of the psychology of the Nazi leadership.
However I am rather disappointed that someone who openly advocates ad-hominem wars (or as some guy once said: sanctions and labels) upon their opponents would not rise to stature of a Deborah Lipstadt, and start throwing categorical accusations all over the place. I guess the thinkers of our generation are not destined to be the preachers.
why would i do that. i have pretty sophisticated stuff that's more along the lines of performative action theory and truly avant garde shit. but anyway yea i don't like arendt either particularly if she liked heidegger
On November 13 2012 00:36 BluePanther wrote: For all the comments about how America is too far right politically, Europe always has this problem and we never really do.
That is because nazis are not really that much to the right. They just got placed there as they hated communists and vice versa. They were/are economically much to the left of anything in American mainstream politics. Even in social area they were/are not really further to the right of big parts of Republican party. Plus it is not like US does not have its similar number of similar crazies.
On November 13 2012 07:14 mijagi182 wrote: hmm Christians worse than Hitler and his nazists - this Bible book must be a real hatefest compared to Mein Kampf! Should give it a read :D!
gosh could people be more hateful and delusional...
Well actually the Bible is pretty bad....
Historically speaking, they've done comparable things as well.
the bible is quite hard to read imho, but Mein Kampf is just written torture
On November 13 2012 00:36 BluePanther wrote: For all the comments about how America is too far right politically, Europe always has this problem and we never really do.
That is because nazis are not really that much to the right. They just got placed there as they hated communists and vice versa. They were/are economically much to the left of anything in American mainstream politics. Even in social area they were/are not really further to the right of big parts of Republican party. Plus it is not like US does not have its similar number of similar crazies.
Also the two party system of USA means that fringe/small/extreme parties never get a seat anywhere.
the article you posted is kinda dubios i have to say. It say that in east germany 92,1% are pro democratic while 15,8% have a far right-wing world view. So 7,9% are pro democratic while they have a right wing world view? Kinda strange tbh. Also as a fellow german you might remember that compared to 8+ years ago the nazi movement is pretty much meaningless now (at least political speaking - there may be local problems tho). So overall I'm pretty suprised by this study. Looks to be quite sensational but you should always have an eye for stuff like that i guess.
On November 13 2012 06:09 Grimmyman123 wrote: The solution is simple, and it was done 67 years ago, but it was not maintained.
Demilitarize Germany like we did at the end of World War 2. Maintain and enforce a zero military policy. We didn't learn the first time after World War 1 and allowed germany to rearm itself, and look what happened. If Germany is allowed to be run by some radical group again, with their current military, its a problem.
For referrence, if you didn't know, Germany's military budget is EQUAL to Austria, Switzerland, Czech, Belguin, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands military budgets COMBINED. Take a look at that list of countries and their proximity to Germany. Scary isn't it?
After World War 1, and then World War 2, we should have learned. There should not have been a wall dividing Germany. There should have been a wall surrounding it.
(Yes, I know this is an extreme point of view and is not wholy realistic due to the need for a country to be able to defend itself. However, the statistics and numbers are a bit frightening when it comes to Germany's military budget, military size, and the country's past history of conflicts.)
Past history of conflicts? You should try a little closer to home if you want a real history of conflicts.
Edit: And before accepting the unification the allies wanted a clear declaration that Germany stays in the nato and doesnt become a demilitarized neutral state. From wiki: In December 1989, the administration of President George H. W. Bush made a united Germany's continued NATO membership a requirement for supporting reunification. Kohl agreed, although less than 20% of West Germans supported remaining within NATO
closer to home? do tell.
Nato you post - why Germany as part of Nato? So the rest of Nato can keep eyes on Germany so if need be, Nato can keep Germany under its thumb like a bug.
The problem is your statements are completely ignorant. Germany is much further from being ruled by some extremists than US is. Germany has no way of any military action against its neighbours. You know that they have two nuclear powers just around the corner. And Germany is not nuclear power. Their military spending is pitiful compared to other countries. Plus allies pretty much demanded remilitarization from Germany, no the other way around. Also you seem to have missed last 50 years of history, maybe you should educate yourself before you start your knee-jerk reactions.