It Can’t Happen Here

“Nazism seemed to many just an extreme version of what (most Germans) had always believed in or taken for granted. It was nationalistic, respectful of the armed forces, socially conservative, disdainful of laziness, hostile to eccentric or incomprehensible ideas that came from cities, disapproving of homosexuals or other unconventional human types, and avid to achieve “greatness” for Germany. They welcomed parts of the Nazi political and social smorgasbord and told themselves the rest was less important or was not meant seriously.”

-Walter Rinderle & Bernard Nordling, historians

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17 Responses to It Can’t Happen Here

  1. gjrebane says:

    Wow! Did you an equivalently pithy paragraph in mind had Hillary won?

    • Chris Peterson says:

      Written back in January, and the author nailed it. (Perhaps you were preoccupied?)

      http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-authoritarian-213533

    • Michael Anderson says:

      Yes George, this is what was teed up for a Hillary win:

      “Marxism seemed to many just an extreme version of what (most Russians) had always believed in or taken for granted. It was globalist, respectful of pacifists, socially liberal, disdainful of individual industry, hostile to eccentric or incomprehensible ideas that came from the provinces, disapproving of authoritarians or other unconventional human types, and avid to achieve ‘greatness’ for Russia. They welcomed parts of the Marxist political and social smorgasbord and told themselves the rest was less important or was not meant seriously.”

      -John Dewey & Lionel Trilling, historians

    • rl crabb says:

      Hillary didn’t win. I think it’s a good idea to remind Republicans how your best laid plans can go awry if you aren’t careful. The ball’s in your court, we’ll see how its played.

  2. Michael Anderson says:

    That’s a nice find, Chris.

    Speaking of crazy authoritarian ideas, here’s one that a friend just emailed to me. Talk about nutty!
    http://rebaneruminations.typepad.com/rebanes_ruminations/2016/12/large-area-surveillance-and-suppression-system.html

    • Chris Peterson says:

      So sad; such a brilliant mind wasted.

      An Estonian immigrant who has devoted his life, and extensive American education, to the pursuit of eliminating as many fellow humans he may find undesirable from as safe a distance as possible. (A trait he no doubt picked up in his experience as an artillery officer, which explains his obvious distain for actual “combat” veterans as being too costly and ineffective.)
      From his parents recollections of being cared for in a post war camp for refugees, (an experience he was without a doubt too young to personally remember), he has sought to distance himself from the truly hard work of promoting peace, and removing as many obstacles to it as possible, and instead focused on the far easier task of devising new and improved methods for killing the social outcasts of today’s society.

      War, and social insurrection, should be a messy and horrific spectacle,never an armchair occupation, and never left to the drawing boards of those who would remove the human equation as much as possible. As we’ve seen in recent times, such as no more footage of the returning caskets, the farther removed we are from the actual carnage, the more it proliferates. Eating donuts and drinking lattes while monitoring fellow citizens for possible annihilation at the touch of a button is a far uglier existence than the actual act of murder itself, no matter the cause. The X, Y, and Z of his calculations has a certain insanity to them; such as Pol Pot meets Rube Goldberg.

      We all revile an Orwellian future, but in Rebanes’ Ruined Nation, we have found a zealous architect of just such an existence.

      • John Dough says:

        Chris, in my opinion, your last sentence is all based on your values, perception of values, or lack thereof. I would be glad to have George Rebane on my six any day.

        • Chris Peterson says:

          Not a bad idea, if you don’t mind him being miles away, watching on a monitor screen. But that’s the very folly of his grand scheme; the fact that in an urban setting, there are no target-rich concentrations, other than civilian casualties. It’s the reason why Afghanistan is where great nations go to die. In places like the Russian bombing of Aleppo, or our own “Shock and Awe” attack on Baghdad, where you don’t care about collateral damage, the results, if not outright horrific, are truly spectacular. (Over a half million dead to defeat a force of maybe 50K.) But in any of the terrorist attacks we’ve witnessed to date, having a 50 caliber gun mount, and/or a small missile placement, on every street corner, is an absolutely asinine idea.
          So yeah, as long as you’re not standing too close to where a terrorist has already done his damage, Rebane’s your man. (Assuming he doesn’t have some sci-fi pre-cog capabilities we’re unaware of.)

  3. rl crabb says:

    Some of my liberal friends don’t understand why I don’t vote for the so-called lesser of two evils. Probably because they slip crap like this under the door on a holiday weekend… http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-24/obama-signs-countering-disinformation-and-propaganda-act-law

      • Greg Goodknight says:

        RL, from that link…
        “The C.I.A., the F.B.I. and the White House may all agree that Russia was behind the hacking that interfered with the election.”

        By “The CIA”, the NY Times means the anonymous CIA official who chatted with a reporter from the Times. There has to date been no actual CIA report, so it ranks below the CIA standard of truthiness under George Tenet for a hearty “It’s a slam dunk, Mr. President” regarding Iraqi WMD.

        The FBI didn’t agree with an assignment of Russian intent to interfere with the election but then they are more tied to the rules of evidence for criminal or civil charges. Guesses don’t count for them without real evidence.

        And “the hacking”, according to WikiLeaks, was non existent. They’ve gone on the record multiple times that what they made public was leaked to them by someone with legal access to the information.

        Yes, the Russians (the Chinese, North Korea, and kids in Macedonia) hack USA systems every day (but remember, we have no evidence any hostile country hacked the private Clinton server, possibly because it wasn’t set up securely to begin with), and while outside hacking was perhaps not taken seriously enough by the current administration, none of that stolen information, like those juicy emails to and from Podesta, has been revealed to be false.

        Then there was that juicy wikitidbit that Hillary’s friends in the media were pushing Trump as a valid candidate preferred by Hillary.
        http://observer.com/2016/10/wikileaks-reveals-dnc-elevated-trump-to-help-clinton/

        Oh, what a tangled web we weave. When first we practise to deceive!

      • Chris Peterson says:

        Take a bucket of hot water, (truth), add a few pieces of dry ice, (political zealotry), and you will manufacture fog, (propaganda). All use the same recipe, but for some it is the main course.

        http://www.factcheck.org/2016/12/trump-russia-u-s-election/

        • Greg Goodknight says:

          It’s still just innuendo from Obama’s DHS, and doesn’t identify even one bit of WikiLeaked information that is deemed to be false.

          It would be a real change for the KGB to be accused of doing the work US journalists used to do themselves… ferreting out bad actors in the US political process.

          It also fails to mention that WikiLeaks has been resolute that their sources were not the Russians, but of course, factcheck.org and the Annenberg Foundation have never been accused of being terribly friendly to the GOP

          • Chris Peterson says:

            “factcheck.org and the Annenberg Foundation have never been accused of being terribly friendly to the GOP.”

            So, an organization dedicated to the truth is not particularly fond of the GOP? Hmm.

            We may not know the truth of a thing, but exposing lies moves us closer to it.

          • Greg Goodknight says:

            Chris, I’d expect you to have warm fuzzies for partisan, solid left groups doing “fact checks”. I use them sometimes myself, especially when fact checking the hard left in the occasional blog would reject even centrist sites as being conservative toadies.

          • steven frisch says:

            I am sorry but this post is ridiculous, Greg.

            First, no one has confirmed nor denied the authenticity of the DNC or Podesta Wikileaks information. The authenticity of the information is not the issue.

            The question is, “Did Russian security services use the release of hacked information to game the election by seeking to maintain a narrative in the media about them and their content.”

            Not only is there clear evidence–released by the DHS and confirmed by the FBI, that Russian security services did so, the have released source code directly linking the hacks to specific Russian funded hackers.

            It is also ridiculous to say that the Russians did work journalists should be doing–hacking is illegal, it is stealing private information from private parties–that is not the job of a journalist. They would be prosecuted for it. Granted, once information is released it is the job of journalists to cover the story, but it’s not the job of a journalist to violate federal law.

            I read almost all of the DNC and Pedestal e-mails—there is remarkable little “bad behavior” there to be found–as a matter of fact there was quite a bit of good behavior. Did some people propose doing things that appear unseemly, yes, but did they actually do them, no. In almost every instance internal checks on ethics held people back from the very sorts of dirty tricks people deplore.

            I read the Clinton speeches courtesy of Wikileaks as well. For the life of me I can’t believe they did not just release them. They are actually very thoughtful, demonstrate a clear mastery of the issues, and had no smoking guns.

            As far as your observation that factcheck.org and Annenberg are not friendly to Republicans–that is a classic logical fallacy–the question is is their information accurate. Perhaps they are accurate and Republicans just play fast and loose with the facts?

  4. rl crabb says:

    After a few people alerted me, I’ve decided that the zerohedge article is questionable. You can’t trust anyone anymore. (Hint: If it’s on Reinette Senum’s Facebook page, be skeptical.)

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