by banned » Tue Oct 18, 2005 2:07 am
...of reading books about the Nazi rise to power from the old classics like Shirer's book to brand new stuff. I had known the rough outlines but it still opened my eyes. One book was about the different ways the Nazis locked down control of all societal institutions, another focussed just on one town, yet another on just one guy who was a boy in Hitlerjugend and at the very end of the war, still only a teenager, joined the Army.<br><br>While I found many similarities and parallels (Reichstag Fire/9/11, Enabling Act/USAPATRIOT Act, Homeland Security/Gestapo) there were several striking differences that I think--hope--will make it less likely we follow Germany of that era all the way down the same road.<br><br>One is that Germany, despite having been cobbled together from many different principalities, was homogenous in being overwhelmingly ethnically Germanic, and the "outlander" Germans Hitler wanted to bring into the Reich identified strongly with their ethnicity. The US is the most heterogenous society on earth. Sure, we have the red/blue state difference, but we're not all red or blue marbles in red or blue states. Even within cities, the inner city might be liberal Democrat and the 'burbs Republican. Nazism made use of preexisting "Volkish" ideology and traditional antisemitism. Sure the US has its own history of yob politics and bigotry, but outside of the south, it doesn't have the same hold on people. Germany was basically a Christian country divided between Lutherans and Catholics, with a minority of Jews. Unless you live in a real backwater, open any phone book in the US and look at the plethora of religions--everything from Baptist to Bahai.<br><br>Germany also was always a strongly authoritarian nation. The US, again, has that strain, but it has other equally strong strains. Americans are descended from rebels and malcontents and while they often may bluster about telling other people what rights they can and can't have, they get seriously pissed if you turn it around on THEM. "Register them Meskins, but I ain't givin' you MY name, bub."<br><br>Germany was also a relatively compact country with a small judiciary. I'm not saying it's impossible, but gaining control of every judge from SCOTUS to the justice of the peace in Snow Hill Holler West Virginny is a different matter. Same with the higher educational system. I sure wouldn't want to be the one to try to impose 'ideological purity' on every college campus in the country. What would fly at Bob Jones U. ain't going to fly at Brandeis.<br><br>Unfortunately, while I came to the conclusion that the neocons might be naive in following the Nazi playbook in such a vastly different country, I also realized they don't have to. You don't have to have that kind of control, if most people are either caught up in their own lives of self aggrandizement, or are too poor to have energy for anything but bare survival, or, as is happening now, creating a society in which there isn't much of a middle class so you have the fat cats at one end who aren't going to object because they're getting phat stuff, and at the other end the poor whose plight worsens constantly and whose numbers are steadily increased as people in the middle class slide down into poverty.<br><br>It's hard to control 50 thinking, independent minded, activism oriented people. It's easy to buy off 50 greedheads, or tyrannize over 50 demoralized souls, or control 25 of each (since the 25 collaborators are happy to help you oppress the 25 have-nots.)<br><br>In 2000 BEFORE the election I said that the reason a fanatical minority could not capture national office was because the 'middle' in the US was so big and the whack jobs confined to the extreme ends of the spectrum. I said that because for a variety of reasons, I hadn't really paid much attention to what was happening in my country for about ten years. (One reason was I didn't watch television or read the mainstream newspapers, another that I live in the SF Bay Area which only generalizes sociologically to...er...the SF Bay Area, another that I had a high tech job that kept me so obsessed with work that I had like one day a week to relax and I spent it doing things like getting a massage and hot tub or watching old black and white classic movies to unwind. Coincidentally I left my job right before the election, and my 'take' on it was that of someone who had basically lived in a cave for half a decade. I remember reading an article about George W. Bush and going completely bonkers at what a dangerous moron he was, suddenly sending out daily emails and haranguing my friends and acquaintances that we COULD not let this guy into office.<br><br>I woke too late.<br><br>However, obviously I wasn't alone. Too many of us didn't realize our country had become a place where Bush v. Gore could happen and everybody just go "Oh OK" or at worst "What a pisser!" <p></p><i></i>
