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Summer Wine
Joined: 20 Mar 2005 Location: Next to a River
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 3:47 am Post subject: We use terms too freely. |
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I have read recently that jews forced from Gaza are calling others Nazi's. I have also heard that other people routinely use the word to describe someone they consider fascist or different in political thought. I re-read this on the internet and feel that maybe we use the term too lightly. This hasn't happened in America or Western Europe lately, God Willing, it will never happen again. check out this link or type it out and read it. Never again, should really mean that. Its the impersonality that really gets me. HOW COULD ANYONE DO THAT TO ANOTHER? HOW?
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/timeline/einsatz1a.htm |
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dbee
Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Location: korea
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 6:20 am Post subject: |
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I don't know if you've read the book "hitler's willing executioners" SW, but it basically highlights the fact that most of these killings were carried out, not by the hardcore SS, but rather by a reserve militia formed in German towns and cities. The people who did this, were postmen, doctors, accountants and school teachers among others, they weren't some inhuman subspecies that ate children for breakfast and tortured animals during lunch ... in many respects they were just like you and me.
Slaughtering civilians and large populations is something everyone of us is capable of doing under the right circumstances. Moses did it in the old testament, bush has it done in the name of democracy, Sharon has done it personally, Churchill considered it good policy, Atta did it in 9-11,
I think that in a sense you are asking the wrong question ... it's not how did they do it ? ... but rather why did they do it ? ... and how can we structure the world in a way that makes sure no-one can do it in the future ? |
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I_Am_Wrong
Joined: 14 Sep 2004 Location: whatever
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 7:10 am Post subject: |
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| I don't know if you realize this but "hitler's willing executioners" is one of the most contested books in historical academia. The author uses a small amount of data from a small area during a small period of the war to make a rather large assumption. |
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billybrobby

Joined: 09 Dec 2004
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 2:30 pm Post subject: |
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| dbee wrote: |
I don't know if you've read the book "hitler's willing executioners" SW, but it basically highlights the fact that most of these killings were carried out, not by the hardcore SS, but rather by a reserve militia formed in German towns and cities. The people who did this, were postmen, doctors, accountants and school teachers among others, they weren't some inhuman subspecies that ate children for breakfast and tortured animals during lunch ... in many respects they were just like you and me.
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and yet in other respects they weren't like you and me. like, you know, the whole murdering thing. |
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babtangee
Joined: 18 Dec 2004 Location: OMG! Charlie has me surrounded!
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 4:01 pm Post subject: |
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The idea that we can be sure that, in the same circumstances, we would not do what they did is ridiculous.
But that's what you get, I guess, when you get a film like Schindler's List, which paints the SS as inhuman lunatics, regarded as culturally important.
Of course Germany did have a culture of subservience to authority/state, which probably helped. (Remind you of anywhere?)
Still, people shouldn't get too high and mighty. No one knows what they are capable of - until they actually do it (that includes being a hero, and refusing the orders of your nation/superiors). |
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death from above

Joined: 31 Jul 2005 Location: in your head
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 5:14 pm Post subject: |
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| when it's kill or be killed, who really thinks they would choose to die? |
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steroidmaximus

Joined: 27 Jan 2003 Location: GangWon-Do
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 8:06 pm Post subject: |
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Ghandi
Jesus
Socrates
etc |
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Yu_Bum_suk

Joined: 25 Dec 2004
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 9:20 pm Post subject: |
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| I_Am_Wrong wrote: |
| I don't know if you realize this but "hitler's willing executioners" is one of the most contested books in historical academia. The author uses a small amount of data from a small area during a small period of the war to make a rather large assumption. |
It's a good example of why political scientists shouldn't write history. |
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