Reading this made me flash back to my father's words about WW2 and Germany. He fought in the war, and it deeply affected him. The paternal side of his family had emigrated from Germany, and it was appalling to him what the Nazis did to German Jews. Friend turned against friend. When I was eight years of age, my father introduced me to a German woman who had lived through the war and emigrated to the United States after. I listened as she shared how the Nazis had come into her classroom and broken her wrist because she didn't say "Heil Hitler" quickly enough. Over sixty years later I remember the fear I felt hearing her story.
I had a holocaust survivor in the family (no longer with us) and the one feeling she remembered the most was the shock of how easily all of society went along with things and how unreal it felt. Even when she was being loaded for transport to the camps she remembered thinking that it all seemed so surreal, like a giant sick joke. The feeling that this couldn't *really* be happening, even as it was *actually* happening. That's what being on the business end of epistemic certainty looks like from the side of "the other" once it's progressed far enough.
Rita, I was so wrong too. I keep talking about the Dorothy Thompson story in HarperтАЩs Magazine from 1940 or so. I read it only a year or so ago. It is so good and is about who at the party will тАЬgo Nazi?тАЭ My USA moral superiority to the Germans for all my 70 years is long gone. It can happen here, and we are almost 100% there. And my fellow Christians are front and center for the autocracy. It IS frightening.
No offense meant here,but arenтАЩt the Christians always front and venter when thereтАЩs some killinтАЩ to be done? Sure there are exceptions, Like when there just arenтАЩt enough Christians around, but тАж.
It's frightening. I sound like a broken record, but I wish everyone would watch "The Mortal Storm". It's an old 1940's black and white movie about a blended German/German Jewish family. It begins the night Hitler was elected, and it's exactly as you say. I never thought this could be the United States. I was wrong.
That's how that shit starts! Appeals to humor are always a convenient cover for the alt-right. It's a way of publicly stating your actual views while maintaining plausible deniability about them.
Reading this made me flash back to my father's words about WW2 and Germany. He fought in the war, and it deeply affected him. The paternal side of his family had emigrated from Germany, and it was appalling to him what the Nazis did to German Jews. Friend turned against friend. When I was eight years of age, my father introduced me to a German woman who had lived through the war and emigrated to the United States after. I listened as she shared how the Nazis had come into her classroom and broken her wrist because she didn't say "Heil Hitler" quickly enough. Over sixty years later I remember the fear I felt hearing her story.
I had a holocaust survivor in the family (no longer with us) and the one feeling she remembered the most was the shock of how easily all of society went along with things and how unreal it felt. Even when she was being loaded for transport to the camps she remembered thinking that it all seemed so surreal, like a giant sick joke. The feeling that this couldn't *really* be happening, even as it was *actually* happening. That's what being on the business end of epistemic certainty looks like from the side of "the other" once it's progressed far enough.
Rita, I was so wrong too. I keep talking about the Dorothy Thompson story in HarperтАЩs Magazine from 1940 or so. I read it only a year or so ago. It is so good and is about who at the party will тАЬgo Nazi?тАЭ My USA moral superiority to the Germans for all my 70 years is long gone. It can happen here, and we are almost 100% there. And my fellow Christians are front and center for the autocracy. It IS frightening.
No offense meant here,but arenтАЩt the Christians always front and venter when thereтАЩs some killinтАЩ to be done? Sure there are exceptions, Like when there just arenтАЩt enough Christians around, but тАж.
It's frightening. I sound like a broken record, but I wish everyone would watch "The Mortal Storm". It's an old 1940's black and white movie about a blended German/German Jewish family. It begins the night Hitler was elected, and it's exactly as you say. I never thought this could be the United States. I was wrong.
How many times has ,тАЭOh this is just a joke,тАЭ been used to excuse Trump and his ilk.
тАЬItтАЩs a jokeтАЭ is the standard retort of gaslighters and abusers.
That's how that shit starts! Appeals to humor are always a convenient cover for the alt-right. It's a way of publicly stating your actual views while maintaining plausible deniability about them.
I guess if things really go south we can all look forward to hearing, тАЬitтАЩs just a prank bro!тАЭ as we get locked into a reeducation camp.