Full Version: Shadowrun and Antifa
the vilification of the Jews was the reason for, and led directly to, the death camps.
| QUOTE (mfb) | ||
not to pick on you, but that's exactly why that type of thinking is so scary. if you view a group of people as monsters without any redeeming qualities, you divorce yourself from the need to think when dealing with them. and if you're not thinking when you deal with that group of people, then it's going to be very difficult for you to differentiate between people who actually belong in that group and people who only superficially appear to belong in that group. in this case, for instance, it becomes very easy to lump anyone who expresses anything that remotely resembles antisemitism in with the Nazis, thus killing all possibility of rational discussion when considering any topic related to Jews or Judaism. another danger is that you can be led into (further) irrational action very easily; for instance, an opponent of the highway system in Germany could theoretically gain a lot of support by simply pointing out the autobahn's Nazi roots. and perhaps more to the point, by joining in with the general groupthink that vilifies the Nazis beyond their due while ignoring their redeeming qualities, you're actually doing exactly what the Nazis are most hated and reviled for. |
Very good points, especially your last argument is fucking good. I know that you're right, but as I said before, I can't stand the idea that the Nazis did anything good or anyting that has benefits for other people. That's purely subjective and I know that it's wrong, but I don't want to take another view on it. But hopefully by knowing and admitting that my point of view is not logical, I'm separated from people who're saying "the Nazis are the Evil Guys" as a reflex.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| If the number is greater than 0 and this can be proven by a preponderance of the evidence, then I will concede defeat. The fact that there exists idiots, even racist idiots who have adopted Nazi symbology, does not prove that any German official who planned or ran death camps during WWII is still alive. |
So what? The ideology still exists, and there are tools who implement that ideology. It doesn't matter that they did not exist when the earlier tools implemented that ideology.
Does it matter to the promulgation of the democratic ideal that no ancient Greeks exist?
Does it matter to the spreading of a fundamentalist religious ideal that the original prophet no longer lives?
Does it matter to astro-physicists that Einstein no longer lives?
One of the defining characteristics of humanity is its ability to pass on ideas from one generation to the next. It is the idea that helps or hinders humanity, at least as much as the person who believes it. Countering an idea that is destructive will never work as long as the focus is on individuals, and not the idea.
I'm sort of lost now. How does this apply to SR, again?
| QUOTE (mfb @ Oct 21 2007, 12:44 PM) |
| the vilification of the Jews was the reason for, and led directly to, the death camps. |
Not at all. The fact that the Madagascar Plan and Fugu Plan were conceived demonstrates otherwise.
It should also be added that the need for a Final Solution was necessitated by the breakdown of the previous plan of forced emigration. The vast expenditure for the death camps, which quite literally required the development of new means of execution (early methods attempted were slow, prohibitively expensive, and tended to be devastating to the morale and mental health of those assigned to oversee, enact, or clean up after executions), was not undertaken lightly—especially in a time of war, when resources were at a premium.
~J
the Fugu Plan was somewhat less about the vilification of the Jews and somewhat more about other features of the stereotype. i don't consider the Madagascar Plan (or the Fugu Plan, for that matter) to be a deviation from the route between vilification and death camps; just a wide spot in the road along the way.
my views on human nature lead me to believe that almost anytime a group of people is singled out based on a shared set of features (physical, mental, or spiritual), the situation will naturally progress towards genocide. it may take a long time to get there, it may even be defused before it gets there, but genocide is at the bottom of the slope that discrimination slides down. i say this because it's only in the past few thousand years that genocide has stopped being the natural response to "other, unfriendly type". hell, the bible is full of stories about how this group slaughtered that group down to the last man, woman, child, and goat. please note that the above is in no way an exaggeration.
my views on human nature lead me to believe that almost anytime a group of people is singled out based on a shared set of features (physical, mental, or spiritual), the situation will naturally progress towards genocide. it may take a long time to get there, it may even be defused before it gets there, but genocide is at the bottom of the slope that discrimination slides down. i say this because it's only in the past few thousand years that genocide has stopped being the natural response to "other, unfriendly type". hell, the bible is full of stories about how this group slaughtered that group down to the last man, woman, child, and goat. please note that the above is in no way an exaggeration.
The danger with knee-jerk saying "everything the Nazis did was bad" is that it leads directly to thinking "as such, all Nazis were completely inhuman monsters," which is exactly the sort of thinking that people claim to abhor about the Nazis themselves.
When you no longer think of the German people of that time period as people, you fall into the same thinking we're all so eager to condemn them for. Even the German military, heck, even those who were members of the political party. They were people, each and every one of them, and they did good as well as bad. The vast majority of them never latched a cattle car shut or flipped a switch or pulled a trigger on a civilian; most of them could every bit as easily have been soldiers on the Allied side. I don't imagine very many of their line infantrymen were hunkered down in trenches taking fire, saying "Man, Hitler sure is cool." I bet their thoughts during the day in and day out drudgery and terror of war were pretty much in line with the thoughts of every other soldier before and after.
If you ask me, there's no dishonor in putting on a uniform and serving your country, protecting your people. Ever.
When you no longer think of the German people of that time period as people, you fall into the same thinking we're all so eager to condemn them for. Even the German military, heck, even those who were members of the political party. They were people, each and every one of them, and they did good as well as bad. The vast majority of them never latched a cattle car shut or flipped a switch or pulled a trigger on a civilian; most of them could every bit as easily have been soldiers on the Allied side. I don't imagine very many of their line infantrymen were hunkered down in trenches taking fire, saying "Man, Hitler sure is cool." I bet their thoughts during the day in and day out drudgery and terror of war were pretty much in line with the thoughts of every other soldier before and after.
If you ask me, there's no dishonor in putting on a uniform and serving your country, protecting your people. Ever.
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| the Fugu Plan was somewhat less about the vilification of the Jews and somewhat more about other features of the stereotype. i don't consider the Madagascar Plan (or the Fugu Plan, for that matter) to be a deviation from the route between vilification and death camps; just a wide spot in the road along the way. |
They were both ways to pick up the general idea of "take this group of people and move them far away", at least from the Third Reich perspective.
| QUOTE |
| my views on human nature lead me to believe that almost anytime a group of people is singled out based on a shared set of features (physical, mental, or spiritual), the situation will naturally progress towards genocide. it may take a long time to get there, it may even be defused before it gets there, but genocide is at the bottom of the slope that discrimination slides down. |
Considering how long it would have taken for the Third Reich to be needing lebensraum in, say, Madagascar, I consider this (while accurate) somewhat less useful than the statement that life naturally progresses towards death—it's true, but on a timescale that's generally not useful. The Third Reich's immediate goal was to remove people identified as undesirable out of territory controlled by the Third Reich and the society within. This goal is not identical to the goal of genocide, though in general the latter implies the former—the converse is not true, however.
| QUOTE |
| i say this because it's only in the past few thousand years that genocide has stopped being the natural response to "other, unfriendly type". |
I'd argue that the issue becomes clouded past the point of usefulness due to differences in scale—with small tribes, there can be no useful distinction between "killing those who can fight" and "destroying the tribe wholesale".
~J
| QUOTE (Critias) |
| If you ask me, there's no dishonor in putting on a uniform and serving your country, protecting your people. Ever. |
QFT.
| QUOTE |
| If you ask me, there's no dishonor in putting on a uniform and serving your country, protecting your people. Ever. |
Nor in doing so without a uniform with whatever means are available against a far superior foe.
For what it's worth I disagree that there is no dishonor in serving a country or assuming its trappings, but I don't expect agreement.
(I guess that's pretty vague, so while I don't intend to get into a big discussion on my views, I'll just note that my objection is to serving "a country" (where country is used synonymously with state), not just limited to considerations about the worthiness of any particular country)
~J
(I guess that's pretty vague, so while I don't intend to get into a big discussion on my views, I'll just note that my objection is to serving "a country" (where country is used synonymously with state), not just limited to considerations about the worthiness of any particular country)
~J
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) | ||
Not at all. The fact that the Madagascar Plan and Fugu Plan were conceived demonstrates otherwise. It should also be added that the need for a Final Solution was necessitated by the breakdown of the previous plan of forced emigration. The vast expenditure for the death camps, which quite literally required the development of new means of execution (early methods attempted were slow, prohibitively expensive, and tended to be devastating to the morale and mental health of those assigned to oversee, enact, or clean up after executions), was not undertaken lightly—especially in a time of war, when resources were at a premium. ~J |
Sounds a little bit like "oh the poor wardens at the death camp couldn't stand the mass murder they saw, so their superiors developed industrialized annhilation." Hm.
| QUOTE (Critias) |
| The danger with knee-jerk saying "everything the Nazis did was bad" is that it leads directly to thinking "as such, all Nazis were completely inhuman monsters," which is exactly the sort of thinking that people claim to abhor about the Nazis themselves. When you no longer think of the German people of that time period as people, you fall into the same thinking we're all so eager to condemn them for. Even the German military, heck, even those who were members of the political party. They were people, each and every one of them, and they did good as well as bad. The vast majority of them never latched a cattle car shut or flipped a switch or pulled a trigger on a civilian; most of them could every bit as easily have been soldiers on the Allied side. I don't imagine very many of their line infantrymen were hunkered down in trenches taking fire, saying "Man, Hitler sure is cool." I bet their thoughts during the day in and day out drudgery and terror of war were pretty much in line with the thoughts of every other soldier before and after. If you ask me, there's no dishonor in putting on a uniform and serving your country, protecting your people. Ever. |
I use the term "Nazi" for the people during the Third Reich who actually believed in the bullshit and helped its cause by killing civillians, working in death camps, oversee labor camps and similar things.
A lot of people didn't go en par with the Nazi ideology and maybe even worked against it, that's true.
So yes, I agree with Critias. And this topic makes my head spinning around.
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| Sounds a little bit like "oh the poor wardens at the death camp couldn't stand the mass murder they saw, so their superiors developed industrialized annhilation." Hm. |
That's pretty much the case—that and the fact that the other methods were, not even taking into account the stress on the staff, typically extremely expensive.
Of course, that wasn't my main point, but you've made a correct observation here, even though your tone suggests you may have issues with it.
~J
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| They were both ways to pick up the general idea of "take this group of people and move them far away", at least from the Third Reich perspective. |
"move them far away" is the procrastinator's genocide. i'm not trying to draw any moral equivalence between moving people and killing them, but i think it's useful to remain aware of the logical conclusion of this sort of behavior.
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| I'd argue that the issue becomes clouded past the point of usefulness due to differences in scale—with small tribes, there can be no useful distinction between "killing those who can fight" and "destroying the tribe wholesale". |
that would be a good point of this sort of behavior were limited in any way to small tribes. it isn't, though--it's present at all scales of human organization, from small tribes to large, industrialized nations.
n/p
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) | ||
That's pretty much the case—that and the fact that the other methods were, not even taking into account the stress on the staff, typically extremely expensive. Of course, that wasn't my main point, but you've made a correct observation here, even though your tone suggests you may have issues with it. |
It makes sense that the people in charge tried to minimize psychological stress for their troops, even when these troops are wardens in concentration camps - but I don't have much sympathy with the assholes who worked in concentration camps or similar places.
i don't think anyone's asking for sympathy (as in feeling bad for them). what's being asked is that peope view the wardens and such as people, rather than cardboard cutout villains. not for their sake, but for yours.
| QUOTE (Penta) |
| To join in the freeway debate: KK, the street cars only made sense on an intraurban level, within cities. Intercity, you had the rail lines, which had capacity limits. The Interstate highway system was incredibly necessary - those who say it wasn't don't realize how bad the long-haul transport system in the US was before it was built. It's instructive, perhaps, that the Interstate was built under Eisenhower. Besides his WW2 experience, he'd been one of the army officers that took part in the 1919 transcontinental motor convoy - a simple idea, right? Just send trucks along the roads? (It didn't go offroad once.) Nope. It took 2 months, thanks to delays that included getting stuck in mud. You can move a lot over rail - but railways have a capacity limit that is even firmer than that of freeways. (McDonald's is a similar story - yes, they've now wiped out a lot of decent places in...everywhere, but they initially were a hell of an improvement over the roadside eateries that were common before McDonald's brought at least a level of quality. You think McD's sucks? Be happy you never risked what came before.) |
...not wishing to derail (arrgh!) this much further. My initial comment was basically that the autobahn concept wasn't all that good of a tradeoff for all the lives lost in the "Great War".
Good highways, yes we did need them, but they came at a heavy price here as well and that was the demise of the intercity, interurban and surface transit lines. The government could have just as well nationalised the railways as a "Strategic" part of the infrastructure. They didn't, they chose to build roads instead.
Yes rail as it is today has a finite limit, however many lines were abandoned over the last four decades reducing the total rights of way. Meanwhile, highway construction (both new and widening projects) continued unabated.
For the long haul, four diesel electric locomotives can haul the equivalent of 100+ 53' tractor trailers and do so with a crew of 3 - 4. Twin rail lines take up a smaller right of way than a four lane highway. Rail is also less impacted by weather than road or air transport.
Security? An interstate highway is no more secure than a rail line. Bombs can take out either. With the exception of bridges (and both modes are incredibly vulnerable in this respect) a damaged rail line can be brought back to full service more quickly than a damaged highway (keep in mind the term "full service")
Since the Autobahn was brought up, lets look at Germany. They did not abandon rail when the autobahn was built. As a matter of act the DB is among the finest most relible rail systems in the world. Furthermore many cities I visited also had a network of trams (streetcars). So yes superhighways and good transit can co-exist.
Now I can almost hear the argument "Germany is much smaller than the US," and taken at face value, that is correct, but it is also a convenient excuse. Where good interurban transit is important is usually in "corridor" areas which are usually comprised of several municipalities in close proximity (such as the Great Lakes Region, the California coast, the Pacific Northwest) This is where the European model would work. Unfortunately unlike Europe, our "express" trains (save for the Northeast Corridor) are forced to share the rails with and at times give right of way to slower freights.
I remember between Milwaukee and Chicago there were two sets of tracks, one for freights, and the other called the "400" line (named after the passenger trains that operated on it) . Both lines were double tracks. When I returned for a visit to my old neighbourhood recently, the freight right of way was turned into a freeway spur that created a barrier (which required you go out of your way to get around) and the 400 line was down to a single poorly maintained track used by local freights.
I'm not advocating abandoning roads for rails, but our nation seems to have pretty much gone in the opposite direction over the last 50 years. I believe both are important and should be a complement to each other rather than be at odds. My biggest beef with freeways is how they changed cities on an interurban and livability level (as illustrated above).
In a way, I am fortunate that the city I now live in does have several interurban lines (Portland's Max). However as of late, light rail is being "promoted" at the expense of surface bus service (basically the streetcar of today) instead of the two working together. This is no fault of the transport modes, this is the fault of management's short sightedness. Extremism on behalf of any cause is a bad thing.
...oh & BTW, I agree on Micky D's. I always know what I am going to get whether I'm in Seattle WA, Sioux City IA or Zagreb Croatia. The same bad case of nausea and indigestion.
...now let's put the train (eg this thread) back on track
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| It makes sense that the people in charge tried to minimize psychological stress for their troops, even when these troops are wardens in concentration camps - but I don't have much sympathy with the assholes who worked in concentration camps or similar places. |
But why did it produce stress? Consider the implications of that—what does it tell you about those "assholes"?
Add one part reflection on the Milgram experiment and shake well. Top with a review of research on the effects torture has on torturers.
~J
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| but I don't have much sympathy with the assholes who worked in concentration camps or similar places. |
You act as if most of those 'assholes' had any choice about where they were assigned to work, and what that work consisted of.
| QUOTE (Kyoto Kid) |
| My initial comment was basically that the autobahn concept wasn't all that good of a tradeoff for all the lives lost in the "Great War". |
Nobody asked about a 'tradeoff' or merit ratio or relative worth of each as compared to the other. Merely that something considered 'not evil' could have grown out of what is considered an evil regime.
Actually, I did suggest that the tradeoff might have been worthwhile. As I'm not writing any theses on related topics, though, I don't have time to follow up with the kind of analysis required to actually provide an answer to the question.
~J
~J
Fair enough.
| QUOTE (Fortune) | ||
You act as if most of those 'assholes' had any choice about where they were assigned to work, and what that work consisted of. |
They had. The police batallions who commited mass murder in the occupied states of Eastern Europe were formed by volunteers. The wardens in death camps where SS men who volunteered to get in there.
I don't how much choice a Wehrmacht soldier had, though. But there has been a detailed investigation of it with the title "Verbrechen der Wehrmacht". There may be a couple of offender who weren't volunteers, but they were the exception, not the rule.
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) | ||
But why did it produce stress? Consider the implications of that—what does it tell you about those "assholes"? Add one part reflection on the Milgram experiment and shake well. Top with a review of research on the effects torture has on torturers. |
I have no sympathy (Mitleid) for either kind of people. They had their choice.
The industrialization of murder in the Third Reich was "improved" to reduce the stress on the employees and to maximize the number of people to be annihilated, agreed, but that doesn't mean that the Nazi rulers actually cared for their soldiers and wardens. They wanted to reduce the stress on them to maximize their workforce.
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| They had. The police batallions who commited mass murder in the occupied states of Eastern Europe were formed by volunteers. The wardens in death camps where SS men who volunteered to get in there. |
Note that I snipped the portion of your post referring to Wardens, and qualified my post with the word 'most'. The general rank and file soldier or guard had no more choice to be there than those assigned to the Eastern Front.
| QUOTE (Fortune) | ||
Note that I snipped the portion of your post referring to Wardens, and qualified my post with the word 'most'. The general rank and file soldier or guard had no more choice to be there than those assigned to the Eastern Front. |
The guards and wardens in the concentration camps were SS men. No soldiers of the Wehrmacht were on duty there. SS men were volunteers (we're talking about the german one - while other occupied countries formed SS divisions too, those didn't work on concentration camps), noone was forced to serve in the SS. Wouldn't made much sense, as the SS was a sort of "elite troop" and thus were attractive for fanatics only.
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi @ Oct 20 2007, 08:36 PM) |
| Edit: but Hyzmarca forgot us! You'd also need an Anarchist homeland. |
But what organization would advocate for it?
| QUOTE (Kyoto Kid) |
| 1. The US had a decent transportation system, literally one of the best in the world that was sold out "lock stock & barrel" in the late 50s (major thesis of mine in college). It was called the Interurban and surface street rail system (streetcars) that disappeared almost overnight. The onslaught continues with further cuts to intercity rail, local transit systems, and regional transportation. |
I like not having to travel between states out here on a two-lane road.
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| Was anything of it (the advancement in rocket science or the data gahtered by torturing people in death camps by sadists like Dr. Mengele) actually worth the lives of millions of people? Or would humanity maybe been able to get this knowledge over time without eleminating people? |
Was anything that came from the colonization of North America worth the lives of millions of people?
I'd say so.
| QUOTE (Penta) |
| "Because Mussolini had the motormen shot if the train was late." |
I bet that kept the unions in line. But that's not a bad idea.
| QUOTE (Grinder) |
| The guards and wardens in the concentration camps were SS men |
Volunteering to serve in the SS is a totally different thing than actually volunteering for the duty they ended up carrying out (in some cases). I am sure that most of those 'volunteers' did not have prior detailed knowledge of just what they were signing up for.
I was not intending to get this deeply into a discussion about a topic this sensitive to you (and some others), nor do I intend to pursue the matter. You obviously have your views, and they are by your own admission set so deeply in stone that they are unlikely to change with even the most convincing argument backed up by incontroversial proof (which isn't coming from me
).
| QUOTE (martindv) | ||
But what organization would advocate for it? |
I recognize that this is a joke, but anarchism and anomieism aren't the same thing. Now if it only weren't so difficult to keep non-hierarchical organizations together…
~J
One Reich, One Fuhrer...
| QUOTE |
| "move them far away" is the procrastinator's genocide. i'm not trying to draw any moral equivalence between moving people and killing them, but i think it's useful to remain aware of the logical conclusion of this sort of behavior. |
So the Trail of Tears and the forced relocations of Palestinians both show streaks of procrastination...
It all makes sense.
| QUOTE (martindv @ Oct 21 2007, 05:44 PM) | ||
I like not having to travel between states out here on a two-lane road. |
...the above quote was primarily in reference to interurban transportation. If you read my last post you will notice that I agree a good highway system is important but as complement of rather than an exception to rail.
Personally I'd rather pay someone else to deal with the "piloting" (I know, poor term relating to rail but "driving" doesn't really fit either) responsibilities and hassles so I can sit back and enjoy the trip or tend to other things like writing or planning what I will be doing when I arrive at my destination. I don't have to deal with traffic, speed traps, big trucks, crappy fast food, roach motels, and the potential of that breakdown in the middle of bumf**k nowhere.
| QUOTE (Fortune) |
| I was not intending to get this deeply into a discussion about a topic this sensitive to you (and some others), nor do I intend to pursue the matter. |
Ditto most of the sentiment behind this part of the post, for the record. I'm primarily of German stock, myself, and have the dubious pleasure of actually having had family on both sides of WWII, as well as (I only learned somewhat recently, upon my last grandfather's death) actually having a measurable 1/16th Jewish ancestry (that branch of the family tree being cut off in the 1940s). I imagine having a certain three or four of my recent (great-grandparents or younger) family members in the same room at the same time would be...uhh...dramatic, for want of a better word.
So I know my own views concerning the entire affair of WWII are...well..my own views. It's a period of history I've studied quite a bit, thought about pretty hard, and had to make up my own mind about -- sometimes contrary to what I was told by one family member or another, or The History Channel, or any given movie or college class or whatever other single source you can think of.
I don't mean to piss anyone off -- just this once -- when I share those views or thoughts, since it's a topic that so many people rightfully take so seriously.
I would argue that because it is such a serious topic, it's one that we ought to be particularly willing to piss people off about—because ultimately many of the attitudes around it are actively dangerous. Sensitivity can be afforded for little things, but "it can't happen here"/"they're monsters, fundamentally different" and the like threatens us all.
I have to fight my tendency to avoid confrontation (hey, stop laughing!), but I believe the risks of letting that sort of thing go unchallenged far outweigh the personal discomfort and potential ire of others I may incur, or the discomfort I may cause others.
~J
I have to fight my tendency to avoid confrontation (hey, stop laughing!), but I believe the risks of letting that sort of thing go unchallenged far outweigh the personal discomfort and potential ire of others I may incur, or the discomfort I may cause others.
~J
| QUOTE (hyzmarca @ Oct 20 2007, 08:13 PM) | ||
That because of Zionists. Zionists use "Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust" (a number which might be an overestimation, by the way) to excuse theft, terrorism, and genocide. The entire existence of the "State Of Israel" is founded on the mythology of the Holocaust and the lie that only Jews were killed. If we were to actually accept the truth, then we the world wouldn't be able to accept the systematic theft of homes and ceaseless murder of Arabs and Christians in the name of maintaining a 'Jewish homeland' without also accepting a the violent militant creation of a 'Gypsy Homeland', a 'homosexual homeland', a 'Freemason's homeland', a 'Jehovah's Witness's Homeland', and a 'handicapped homeland'. As it stands, it is equivalent to the excuse used by every rapist, child abuser, and serial murder. "I was abused, so it is okay for me to do it." Some liberals take that excuse seriously and tell child molesters to go a rape as many kids as they possibly can because it isn't their fault; reasonable people don't. Yet, somehow, billions of rational individuals accept that excuse from Zionists and tell them to go oppress Muslims and Christians and even other Jews as much as they feel like in ways that wouldn't be acceptable if Communist China were doing it. So fuck the Holocaust. Fuck the mythology of the Holocaust. It doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter. It was more than sixty year ago now. But somehow this mythology is still being perpetuated. Our guiltridden European brothers have codified it into law, to the point where anyone who suggests that maybe it is five million Jews instead of six million Jews will either be imprisoned or killed. Screw that. It isn't a mythology that should be perpetuated. The perpetuation of this mythology is why the ICC exists. It is why hundreds of little girls are being held as sex slaves right now instead of being returned to their families where they belong. Fuck that. I don't believe that sexual slavery is a good thing. But the perpetuation of sexual slavery in Africa is the direct consequence of the world's belief in the mythology of the Holocaust. So screw it all. A bunch of people died sixty years ago. Big deal. Get over it. Most of those people would be dead by now, anyway; and most of the people involved are dead already. It does not matter. Nothing Nazi Germany did really matters, except for the Autobahn. It is the only thing that is still around. It is the only thing that isn't dead history. There is no reason to invest any emotions in it. There is no reason to let the bad stuff that they did that doesn't matter the slightest little bit overshadow the good stuff that they did that doesn't matter the slightest little bit, because none of it matters the slightest little bit. They're dead and gone. Their actions exist in immutable dead history. They might as well be fictional characters. And, hell, if you are a Zionist then the Holocaust was a good thing, because there would be no Israel without it. Even the Holocaust has its good side from certain perspectives, such as the Israeli perspective. As long as the Israelis can keep milking it, they can get away with anything. |
So, uh um.. do you have some sources to back up your assertions? See unlike Holocaust deniers (not saying you are one!) I like historical sources. Specifically:
- Zioninst terrorism & genocide (I'll grant theft)
- Ceaseless murder of Arabs & Christians
- Suggesting that 5 million Jews died in the Holocaust causes one to be legally imprisoned and killed in Europe
- Sex slavery as direct consequence of 'Holocaust mythology' (a definition would be apreciated)
Oh btw, I consider myself somewhat liberal and don't approve of Israel in its current incarnation.
There have been some good issues raised in this thread. One that I would like to comment on is the Idea of political speak. Its mentioned in George Orwell's 1984 (not sure if it was originally his idea) that one can control the conversation and even rational thought simply by controlling the political terms used. A good example is Fascist: Major negative association and even more importantly: almost completely disassociated from what actual fascists thought it meant.
And to shake up the rest of your world views:
It has been suggested that nothing that came out of Nazi Germany was worth the cost of their negative actions. Unfortunately these weren't direct costs. If I could accelerate rocketry/propulsion research or more generally: science research, simply by gassing 6 million people (less than 1/1000 th of the world's population) I would have to give it some thought. However it seems that it would be easier just to increase federal science spending by an order of magnitude or 2.
And yes SS officers weren't inhuman monsters; they were very human monsters -- the only kind there are.
| QUOTE (HappyDaze) |
| So the Trail of Tears and the forced relocations of Palestinians both show streaks of procrastination... |
i was thinking of those two examples specifically when i wrote what i wrote. Amerinds haven't been wiped out completely because they simultaneously stopped being a threat and became a larger than life mythical people in the eyes of their oppressors (for chrissake, the US cavalry names most of their attack helicopters after Amerind tribes). the Palestinians haven't been wiped out--yet--because Israel doesn't have enough backing--yet--to get away with a genocide of their own.
| QUOTE (Fortune) |
| Volunteering to serve in the SS is a totally different thing than actually volunteering for the duty they ended up carrying out (in some cases). I am sure that most of those 'volunteers' did not have prior detailed knowledge of just what they were signing up for. |
i have a hard time believing anybody in the SS didn't know what they were getting into, no matter what their assignment was. you can't kill eight million people (give or take a few million) in total, or even near-complete, secrecy. you can keep it quiet enough that much of your civilian population can claim to have not known, but you can't keep it out of the rumor mill that is the real motive power behind any military. SS recruits getting shipped in as guards to the concentration camps may not have had any direct proof of what was going on there, but all of them had to have heard the rumors.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| And, hell, if you are a Zionist then the Holocaust was a good thing, because there would be no Israel without it. |
i'm not a big fan of Israel, but i'm a bigger not-fan of not-facts. an official plan to give Palestine to the Jews came into being in 1917, and the process of making it a reality began in 1922. reaction to the Holocaust may have sped things up, but Jewish power and influence in the area had been growing steadily for two and a half decades before the UN made the decision to officially create the nation of Israel.
| QUOTE (Kagetenshi) |
| I would argue that because it is such a serious topic, it's one that we ought to be particularly willing to piss people off about—because ultimately many of the attitudes around it are actively dangerous. Sensitivity can be afforded for little things, but "it can't happen here"/"they're monsters, fundamentally different" and the like threatens us all. I have to fight my tendency to avoid confrontation (hey, stop laughing!), but I believe the risks of letting that sort of thing go unchallenged far outweigh the personal discomfort and potential ire of others I may incur, or the discomfort I may cause others. ~J |
Oh, right. And normally I'm quite willing to smack people across the face with my opinion, and then club them over the head with it, give them a shot to the abs to double them over, and a final two-handed swing with my opinion just behind one ear to knock the bitch right out.
But in this particular case, given the somewhat off-topic nature of the conversation as it's evolved, the fact I like Grinder, and the fact I feel like several of us were (accidentally or otherwise) kind of dog-piling on the guy as I reread this thread, I wanted to make it clear it wasn't anything personal. I wasn't necessarily arguing, so much as just conversing and sharing my own thoughts on the matter at hand.
That's how I see it as well. I hold some pretty strong views on the topic myself, but I'm not really all that interested in 'winning an argument' about them. Especially here, and possibly at the expense of some good feeling on the part of other posters.
Oh yeah? Well FUCK YOU. Dumpshock sucks anywa--oh, wait. Nevermind. Okay, carry on. Sorry. Reflex.
| QUOTE (Narse @ Oct 22 2007, 12:20 AM) |
So, uh um.. do you have some sources to back up your assertions? See unlike Holocaust deniers (not saying you are one!) I like historical sources. Specifically:
|
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun...uring_the_1930s (Admittedly, not without provocation.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Moyne
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massa...rab-Israeli_war
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Bernadotte (Lets put this one in perspective, shall we. Zionists murder a man who saved 15,000 people om Nazi death camps because they don't like the way he is negotiating peace)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibya_massacre
| QUOTE |
Have you watched the news any time within th past seven years?
| QUOTE |
| QUOTE |
| |
The International Criminal Court, the most evil orginization in existance today born out of silly notions about "War Crimes" and "Crimes against Humanity" for the implicit purpose of raping black children. And they do rape black children in a roundabout way. I explained that in a previous topic. It is a very obvious case of collective guilt about WWII spawning a merciless machine that rapes black children. Did I mention that they rape black children?
| QUOTE (mfb) |
| i'm not a big fan of Israel, but i'm a bigger not-fan of not-facts. an official plan to give Palestine to the Jews came into being in 1917, and the process of making it a reality began in 1922. reaction to the Holocaust may have sped things up, but Jewish power and influence in the area had been growing steadily for two and a half decades before the UN made the decision to officially create the nation of Israel. |
UN General Assembly Resolutions are not binding. The Partion Plan was a General Assembly Resolution. Hence, the Partition Plan was not binding. And it wasn't implemented. There wasn't even a serious attempt to implement it. When the British Mandate Expired, everything would have been exactly as it was, except for the fact that militant Zionists "declared independence" the day before. Let us examine that, for a moment. They were a minority population consisting of a rather large number of refugees at that point in time which just "declared independence" and kicked out all of the people who actually lived there. It would be the equivalent of a bunch of Blackwater employees vacationing in France (with their guns) and just declaring that France is independent while violently displacing all of the French people. No one would have stood for it if not for the whole death camps thing. The British certainly wouldn't have. Hell, plenty of British soldiers resigned so that they could stay beind and help the Arabs.
| QUOTE (Narse) |
| What is the ICC exactly? Google lists all kinds of things, but somehow I don't think the Holocaust is responsible for The International Color Consortium. |
...I thought it was the Interstate Commerce Commission
...Oh Crap we're back on that topic again......bad KK! Evil, naughty KK! No more derails about transportation. Now go back to your streetcar barn and don't come out until you are told you can.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) |
| When the British Mandate Expired, everything would have been exactly as it was, except for the fact that militant Zionists "declared independence" the day before. Let us examine that, for a moment. They were a minority population consisting of a rather large number of refugees at that point in time which just "declared independence" and kicked out all of the people who actually lived there. |
you make it sound like the Zionists had no hope at all before the UN swooped in in 1947. they had strong support (and strong opposition) from many sectors of many nations around the world, and their presence and influence in the region had been growing for decades by that point. if anything, Britain relinquishing their mandate was a step forward for the Zionists, since it appears to me that by that point they'd run out of influence with the crown.
i'm not saying the Holocaust wasn't a major factor in speeding up the formation of Israel. but i don't think that without it, the Zionist movement would have suddenly fallen to pieces.
| QUOTE (hyzmarca) | ||||||||||
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Irgun...uring_the_1930s (Admittedly, not without provocation.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Moyne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_David_Hotel_bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massa...rab-Israeli_war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Count_Bernadotte (Lets put this one in perspective, shall we. Zionists murder a man who saved 15,000 people om Nazi death camps because they don't like the way he is negotiating peace) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qibya_massacre
Have you watched the news any time within th past seven years?
The International Criminal Court, the most evil orginization in existance today born out of silly notions about "War Crimes" and "Crimes against Humanity" for the implicit purpose of raping black children. And they do rape black children in a roundabout way. I explained that in a previous topic. It is a very obvious case of collective guilt about WWII spawning a merciless machine that rapes black children. Did I mention that they rape black children?
UN General Assembly Resolutions are not binding. The Partion Plan was a General Assembly Resolution. Hence, the Partition Plan was not binding. And it wasn't implemented. There wasn't even a serious attempt to implement it. When the British Mandate Expired, everything would have been exactly as it was, except for the fact that militant Zionists "declared independence" the day before. Let us examine that, for a moment. They were a minority population consisting of a rather large number of refugees at that point in time which just "declared independence" and kicked out all of the people who actually lived there. It would be the equivalent of a bunch of Blackwater employees vacationing in France (with their guns) and just declaring that France is independent while violently displacing all of the French people. No one would have stood for it if not for the whole death camps thing. The British certainly wouldn't have. Hell, plenty of British soldiers resigned so that they could stay beind and help the Arabs. |
OK, I'll grant Zionist terrorism too. But genocide seems to be too much of a reach. War crimes yes, Genocide no.
The killing of Arabs (didn't see anyone identified as Christian, of course some of those Arabs could have been.) wasn't portrayed as ceaseless on the news, and btw for most of the last 7 years I lived VERY far away from Isreal, so lots of that stuff probably didn't make it (actually I still live pretty far away).
None of the laws listed on wikipedia include capital punishment for holocaust denial. Most require gross underrepresentation so saying 5mill Jews died wouldn't get you thrown in jail.
Maybe I just don't know enough about the international criminal court, but I'm completely missing the link between them, the Holocaust and sex slavery. Your post didn't really help illuminate me either.
| QUOTE (Narse @ Oct 22 2007, 06:02 PM) |
| Most require gross underrepresentation so saying 5mill Jews died wouldn't get you thrown in jail. |
1,000,000 people is not enough to qualify for gross underrepresentation? One sixth of the recognized figure? What specific number would you put up as the cut-off point then before it is considered illegal (or in poor taste, or whatever complaint you would prefer)? 2,000,000 less dead? 3,000,000?
the formation of the ICC was inspired by the Nuremberg trials. hyz claims (i'm neither disputing nor lending credence to these claims) that the ICC spends an inordinate amount of time crushing the ability of African nations to govern themselves, thus propagating sex slavery (because the lack of a strong government makes it easier to run such slave rings).
I'm not sure as I agree with Hyzmarca, but his explanation of his opinion of the ICC (which comes from the Private Armys (sic) thread):
| QUOTE (Hyzmarca) |
| The Lord's Resistance Army is a Christian paramilitary revolutionary organization, founded by Joseph Kony, that has been in conflict with the government of Uganda for 20 years with the propose of establishing a Christian theocratic state. Over these two decades, they've done the same twisted shit that every paramilitary resistance organization in Africa does, the forcible conscription of minors, systematic slaughter and mutilation of civilians in remote villages, systematic rape, sexual slavery, that sort of thing. Nothing particularly original, but very annoying nonetheless. Anyway, Kony is tired of fighting, anyone would be after 20 years of getting nowhere, so he and his top Lieutenants have been attempting to negotiate peace with the government of Uganda and they are all willing to stand trial and admit their crimes in a traditional judicial ritual called Mato Oput, which will probably result in forgiveness rather than punishment. This is what the vast majority of Ugandans want, even those who have been victimized by the LRA, simply because they want to end the violence and get on with their lives. The one and only obstacle to this is the ICC, which has filed indictments against LRA leaders and refuses to resend them, citing the backwards theory that European justice is somehow superior to African justice as their justification for intentionally damaging the peace process. With an organization like the ICC around, peace and reconciliation are impossible. It refuses to accept anything less than the draconian punishments it provides and by doing so ensures that those who are most violent will fight as hard as they can to retain their power. And they know this. And they don't care. Or, more realistically, it is the entire point. And, let's face it, the only people that are going to be targeted are Black Africans. No White person is ever going to stand trial before the ICC, simply because Africa is where all of the genocides are happening. It is just European colonialism in another form. The poor negros can't do anything without a White massah looking over their shoulders. That is the sentiment that created the ICC. And the ICC has every intention to metaphorically whip Uganda until they're all screaming "Tobyyyyyyy!!!!!!!". |
~J
I wasn't aware that I was so sensitive on this topic before I dived into the discussion. I don't have any hard feelings or hold a grudge against anyone who has been involved in it and made controversial (to me) postings that came across strange to me. It was really interesting to see what opinions every one of you has about the topic of the Third Reich, making it for a experience I don't want to miss. So everything's fine here. 
You are aware that the ICC charges the serbian warlords and did so in the past too? Unless I confuse the ICC with another court, but I don't think I do.
No, actually, the ICC has only investigated Sudan, the DRC, the CAR, and Darfur. In accordance with the principle of avoiding retroactive laws, it has no authority to investigate alleged crimes committed before 2002 (the date of its creation). Milošević was prosecuted by a special tribunal created specifically for him [Edit: war crimes in former Yugoslavia]. You're probably thinking of the International Court of Justice, a UN body—the ICC is independent.
~J
~J
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