Thank you, Timothy. Your stable, sober, uplifting voice enhances our chances importuning us so faithfully to put our shoulders to the tiller and steer to safer waters where restoration, protection and expansion of or freedoms will drop anchor.
Trump & MAGA whine about booming Bidenomics: 98% of jobs created since 1989 were created during Democratic administrations. Republicans have lost jobs while ballooning the deficit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbPBuk5QoV8 Trump's top general calls Trump "a fascist to the core...the most dangerous person to this country” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98OkyUCJ6V0"
See “The Longest Con” by Joe Conason. Trump World is only about scamming money. Everything else is a con game. If you believe anything Donald says, you’re one of his fooled marks.
Hitler had amazing luck and amazing timing. More than once when things were falling apart he lucked out. You know the details. But the Russians putting the oar in, and the Chancellor aging and not taking Hitler that seriously were major factors in elevating him.
It is true business overall fared badly, but large corporations like Krufts or IG Farben did exceedingly well from their Nazi alliance.
We should remember too that Germany always had a first-among-not-so-equals mentality, and when this was challenged by the horrific loss in WWI their amour propre was offended. Their aim to lead in a blaze of glory had been quashed. The imposition of excessive payments in reparations plus the guarding of the border by foreign troops was a) hard to swallow, and b) aided a massive recession. So in some ways the Germans were seeking a new leader, someone above the military which, though very powerful, had failed them. Initially Hitler was more of a caricature than anything else, but as he rose and his “dynamic” speeches were heard, the people revised their opinion.
So in some ways the U.S. is in a different position. However, I think it is true that Trump presages real racism. His plan as you have outlined elsewhere, and which comports with my own study of the subject, is terrifying. The fact that mainstream media keeps softening the content of his speeches will be a major reason for a downfall if we have one. And I wholeheartedly agree that we are not special. The U.S. may be great, but all republics and empires have proven fallible over time, and we have not been given a permanent pass.
Thank you for your work. I am currently reading On Freedom, and look forward to hearing more about it.
The themes of your second paragraph are of questionable validity, leading to implications that what happened in Germany cannot happen here. Hitler never received majority support in a free election, but he struck a sympathetic cord in calling out the gross unfairness of the Versailles treaty. As the title of David Fromkin's book reflects, the British and French, with American acquiescnece, produced at the end of WW1 "A Peace to End All Peace".
My dissertation was the British reaction to the rise of Nazism, January--September, 1933. Conclusion: English did not understand what I called the metaphysical (today would be ideological) nature of Nazism. PHD at UNC, 1966. Retired Professor, Michigan State University)
My amateur understanding is that a significant portion of the British upper class and aristocracy was actively sympathetic to Hitler and the Nazis, and that antisemitism was a significant factor. Did your research support this idea?
They definitely understood Naziism: Sir Oswald Mosley, head of the British Union of Fascists; the Mitford sisters, one of whom, Unity, was a fanatical Nazi and tried to seduce Hitler; the King newly crowned in 1936, who abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, was a strong supporter of the Nazis; and even ex-PM Lloyd George, who wrote in 1936 - “I have now seen the famous German leader and also something of the great change he has effected. Whatever one may think of his methods – and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country – there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic outlook.
He rightly claimed at Nuremberg that in four years his movement had made a new Germany. It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war – broken, dejected and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence. It is now full of hope and confidence, and of a renewed sense of determination to lead its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers.
There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. The people are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spirit throughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and Englishmen I met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed with the change.
One man has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic and dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, as resolute will and a dauntless heart. He is not merely in name but in fact the national Leader. He has made them safe against potential enemies by whom they were surrounded. He is also securing them against the constant dread of starvation which is one of the most poignant memories of the last years of the War and the first years of the Peace. Over 700,000 died of sheer hunger in those dark years. You can still see the effect in the physique of those who were born into that bleak world.
The fact that Hitler has rescued his country from the fear of a repetition of that period of despair, penury and humiliation has given him an unchallenged authority in modern Germany.
As to his popularity, especially among the youth of Germany, there can be no manner of doubt. The old trust him; the young idolise him. It is not the admiration accorded to a popular leader. It is the worship of a national hero who has saved his country from utter despondency and degradation.
To those who have actually seen and sensed the way Hitler reigns over the heart and mind of Germany, this description may appear extravagant. All the same, it is the bare truth. This great people will work better, sacrifice more, and, if necessary, fight with greater resolution because Hitler asks the to do so. Those who do not comprehend this central fact cannot judge the present possibilities of modern Germany.
That impression more than anything I witnessed during my short visit to the new Germany. There was a revivalist atmosphere. It had an extraordinary effect in unifying the nation. Catholic and Protestant, Prussian and Bavarian, employer and workman, rich and poor, have been consolidated into one people. Religious, provincial and class origins no longer divide the nation. There is a passion for unity born of dire necessity.
Why bother to include Wallis Simpson’s invidious position on her support of Nazism?
The fact is the many American businessmen such as Joseph Kennedy Sr., and the founder of Ford Motors, as well as the misguided pilot, Charles Lindbergh, were among many Nazi sympathizers worldwide.Would Would you amplify their filth ?!?
Particularly at a time when anti-Israeli supporters are still trying to dismantle the Jewish State, it is best not to add fuel to the fire!
The damage is already done. My very dear friend who was a raised a Catholic in Germany during the rise and fall of The Third Reich, calls this “shit-stirring.”
As a Jew whose grandparents fled poverty and persecution in Austria and Ukraine 1910,
I believe we should resist spreading this inflammatory rhetoric now !
I'd like to share Camus's Letters to a German Friend because they remind me of what you write in On Freedom.
I think we could all use a little Camus right now.
«Je ne puis croire qu’il faille tout asservir au but que l’on poursuit. Il est des moyens qui ne s’excusent pas. ***Et je voudrais pouvoir aimer mon pays tout en aimant la justice.*** Je ne veux pas pour lui de n’importe quelle grandeur, fût-ce celle du sang et du mensonge. C’est en faisant vivre la justice que je veux le faire vivre.»
“I cannot believe that everything must be subordinated to a single end. Some means are inexcusable. ***And I would like to be able to love my country all while loving justice.*** I don’t want just any greatness for my country if such is to come from blood and falsehood. It’s through upholding justice that I want my country to flourish.”
...
«Ce que votre victoire n’aura pu entamer, votre défaite l’achèvera.»
“Tomorrow this will be over. What your victory could not bring about, your defeat will bring to an end.”
Camus from? I agree totally re the first quote. I don't know what Camus meant exactly by the second quote but it can be taken as this: one way or another we will have our victory if it is right. Or... our cause will end; we will succumb. How do you interpret this?
Sadly, the lesson on coalitions continues to be lost on the Democrats. Rather than encouraging progressives and Greens to work with them, giving them their votes in return for meaningful progressive and climate action, they choose to vilify them, transferring blame for their own failures to those groups.
Harris is not Biden, to be sure. But her refusal to speak out on Biden's betrayal of Ukraine and his tacit support for Israel's war of genocide - admonitions count for nothing if the US continues supplying Israel with offensive weapons - are informing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian-Americans and Palestinian-Americans, together with others sharing their aspirations, that on these issues at least there is but a cosmetic difference between the two presidential candidates. And that will cost her votes.
What choice is there? Helping Trump? NO difference ( if you think a bit)? (This is what Nader said!) Harris is still VP; she does not have the room to speak in criticism or against Biden's policy. Nor do I think she had much to say about it to begin with though she is getting blamed. The Greens and "progressives" should know this if they want a win. Biden, btw, did the same against Trump. He moved more left once in. What costs Harris votes costs the Greens and the progressives too. Many, including myself, understand this... or should.
Either Harris is an active participant in White House discussions or she has no right to claim relevant experience. You can't have it both ways. And moreover she is not obligated to repeat the mistake Hubert Humphrey made in 1968 by refusing to speak out against the failed policies of the sitting President. So as far as I can tell, her silence indicates either agreement with Biden's policies or a lack of fortitude. Probably the former. In any case, the Greens cannot "win" on the issue of climate change with either candidate.
For the record, I've donated ten times as much to Harris as I had in all previous elections COMBINED. And I did not regret it a bit until recently, when Biden put a knife in the back of Ukraine, and refused to stop shipping offensive weapons to Israel.
She can claim "relevant experience" without making the policy that she supports. And she can have her own policy when she is in charge. That is not "having it both ways". The opposition is trying to pin Biden on her. Some of his policies she does agree with... Ukraine yes for sure and perhaps less fearful than Biden too. The Middle East maybe, but what Biden says and what he actually has done are Biden's "legacy" and will be until he leaves. The opposition and the critics can keep saying the "Biden Harris Administration" but this was not said prior to July 21st when Biden bowed out and supported Harris. I would not suppose anything about Harris's agreement or disagreement now in this situation. I have more hope that Harris will do the right thing, be bolder, re Ukraine and holding off weapons to Israel for some movement on Palestine plus associated urgent issues. Biden has been weak. We have donated to Harris/Walz and down ballot folks. No regrets. No other choice, and not a bad choice either. Looking forward with hope. Otherwise there will be a battle. ( Probably either way but I know what side I am on). It is binary.
You continue to miss the point that by falling to come out with her own positions on climate change, Ukraine and Palestine Harris is -rightly - assumed to be in lock step with Biden. Sometimes being better is not good enough.
Somewhere I just read a list of all her “relevant” qualifications versus Trump’s. Amazingly enough, well more than Trump the con artist criminal. This comment of yours is unfortunately representative of the dumb thinking around.
We are in a different ball game if you have not noticed. Trump is different; we know Trump. We see and hear Trump. Kamala is not Hillary in so many ways. The voters should know. If they do not then this democracy is in trouble.
Thoughtful ideas to ponder during these nerve racking days ahead. Going to be a long spell. Many over weighted, unthinkable comments from people who are suffering in their ways to understand what we are facing and how it can be handled.
First of all, vote! We know we can do that important act. Be patient! Remove as much of the media from your life as possible. It merely goes over and over the same mass of words. Nothing new there! Resist from countering or arguing with family or acquaintances who will not accept your words on the campaign. Most of all, get away and take a walk! Promise you will feel much better and more clear headed when you get back! If possible, take a dog! He is not red or blue, R or D plus will love you for it! Enjoy!
So much focus on fascists and nazis, whither the Bolsheviks and their successors the kommunists? Why does Joe Stalin get overlooked in the current political conversations and "what might happen"?
Moreover because of the fundamental difference in how Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Lenin came to power: In Germany by subversion followed by revolution, in Russia by revolution followed by subversion. Indeed, Stalin's rise to dominance was a second subversion, following that by Lenin.
Because the political continuum looks more like a horseshoe than a straight line: the far right and the far left bend toward each other and have a lot in common.
Because "the left" has been demonized in the U.S. since at least the late 19th century. Labor unions bend over backwards to prove how pro-capitalist they are. Contrast this with the European democracies, where unions actually talk about class and social democratic parties are part of the mainstream.
Because what actually happened -- the Reagan reaction against postwar prosperity and the rise of the (white) middle class -- is way more important than "what might happen."
After reading your comment this morning, then writing a response and deleting it before posting, I decided to come back to ask you about "Joe Stalin." In the first place, is this an oblique reference to Joe Biden? My question isn't unreasonable because I frequently see the comparison among right-wingers on Twitter. If yes, please tell me what, in your view, makes Joe Biden and Joseph Stalin similar. If your answer is no, please move to the next question. Secondly, how is Joseph Stalin relevant to the current situation? Thirdly, what do *you* mean by "communism"?
Dr. Snyder, By a happy accident I purchased two copies of your new book “On Freedom” and gave it to a MAGA-QAON family member who finally expressed that she was ready to get back to reality.
Additionally, I have been talking frequently with a sister-in-law who is 64 and has NEVER voted. Over the past year change has come and she is a registered Democrat and voted in Arkansas, for the first time in her life.
She hates political news and says, “Every time that man opens his mouth he just sounds more ignorant than the last time he spoke.
Donate, if you can, vote, talk to friends and family about voting-don’t judge-just talk and ask questions and most importantly VOTE like your life depends on it, because it does.
The most essential issue in all this, though, seems missing. Germany did not have a century and a half of republican government behind it in 1933. Indeed, Germans were entirely used to authoritarian governments, and the Weimar Republic was just a quick hiccup in an otherwise unbroken history of monarchy going back centuries. Nor, of course, have Americans ever suffered the kind of defeat Germany did in 1918, or the resultant and utterly humiliating Versailles Treaty, regardless of whether or not they deserved it.
Unlike monarchy, or indeed any form of authoritarianism, democracy does not and cannot happen overnight. It takes time and experience to work at all. We may remember all the hoopla when the Berlin Wall came down and everyone was looking forward to Russian democracy. How did that turn out?
As the first nation on earth to define itself at its inception as a republic, and now having practiced our national ‘trade’ for nearly 250 years with all the mythic backing that entails, if we fall into fascism at the hands of one mendacious, malevolent, amoral, vengeful, angry, bitter, and increasingly incoherent old man and his myrmidons. our fall will so far surpass Nazi Germany’s as to bear almost no comparison.
I’m also enjoying listening to your audiobook version of “On Tyranny and On Ukraine”.
On another note I would be interested in your opinion on this latest example of US double standards with regards to two allies under attack: Ukraine and Israel.
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel
Hi Folks. Just wrote up a quick article on the back of the US decision to send a THAAD battery to Israel.
I fully support this move for what that’s worth.
I do ask however why did Joe Biden not make a similar strongly deterrent manner for its other ally: Ukraine.
If Ukraine, like Israel possessed nuclear weapons, would the US have been a better ally to Ukraine. You can bet your bottom dollar they would have.
Hitler won the last free election in Germany with 45% of the vote, what gave him control of the Reichstag was a coalition with a conservative monarchist party which got somewhat less than 7% of the vote. With this coalition, Hitler - after the Reichstag fire, which he blamed on anarchists and communists - was easily able to pass the Enabling Acts, which outlawed his political opposition and conducted lawfare against them - he actively jailed his opponents.
Germany at that point was a divided country, 52% conservative, 48% liberal/socialist/communist. There was massive civil unrest, leading to street battles between the Stürmabteilung - the brownshirts, the SA - and the Antifa, which used nearly the same symbology as the modern-day Antifa. During one of the battles, a SA man named Horst Wessel was wounded and later died in hospital, prompting the iconic Nazi song, the Horst Wessel Lied - some verses set out below:
"Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries" - the Red Front - Rotfront - were the Antifa;
"Millions are looking upon the swastika full of hope" - the 1929 Depression had hit Germany particularly hard, combined with the Versailles reparations, many Germans were impoverished and starving;
"The day of freedom and of bread dawns" - bread, food - starving people get desperate and if a possible way to get bread is offered, they'll take it, without regard to possible consequences;
"Already Hitler's banners fly over all of the streets"; both city and country, urban and rural, which is not now the case for the US. Hitler was extremely popular with the working and middle classes and especially rural people, amongst city dwellers, especially trade unionists, many were Socialist/Communists and opposed Hitler;
"the time of bondage will last but a little while now" - because Germany would repudiate the Versailles Treaty and stop paying reparations. There was a class of Germans who were getting rich off of all of this, and they flaunted their new-found wealth, they were new oligarchs, and they were hated by the working and middle classes - perhaps they saw Hitler as leading a slave revolt - many had been wiped out by the currency collapse of 1923 - I've got a 5 million mark note with a Nazi overprint - in English, it reads "They have taken our gold and silver, and leave us with this trash (Dreck). (Volksgenossen) Comrades, how much longer will we allow this plunder to continue?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ9DMRKv8-k for the Horst Wessel Lied - and Triumph Des Willens to attest to Hitler's popularity - which has been vandalized by our new Net Nazis from the Internet Archive, along with Orwell's 1984 - down that Memory Hole...
Wall Street and American Big Business supported the Nazis - https://www.reformation.org/wall-st-hitler.html for an exhaustive view. Henry Ford was a friend of Hitler, a life sized portrait of Ford hung on the wall of Hitler's office at the Reichskanzlerei, behind his desk. Ford built the trucks that Hitler used in his Blitzkrieg in 1939-1940 - and the Ford Trimotor aircraft that Hitler flew in. IBM was behind the punched card system used for registration of Germany's Jews and other "dysgenic" people - a precursor of today's technocracy, Walt Disney produced Hitler's favorite film, Snow White, and Coca-Cola was a major sponsor of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. And the Nazis got major American foundation support: "By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in today's money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 toward creation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression. Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's complex of eugenics institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others. Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed. Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing around ... the Germans were calling a spade a spade." https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php - and the people behind this in the US were Progressive Democrats from California and New York and the Ivy League.
It gets to be really difficult to figure out where the greatest threat comes from - the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. As for Kamala Harris, I wouldn't vote for her for dog catcher. She railroaded three poor black *innocent* men onto Death Row - advancing her career by claiming to be "tough on crime". She knew they were innocent, and she got her way by withholding and concealing evidence which proved that they were innocent. The Innocence Project got wind of this and filed an appeal citing the Brady violation, and the Appeals Court agreed, vacated the sentences, and they walked free. She appealed one of the cases to the California Supreme Court - that one of them had a "right to be executed" - and that case got tossed, and she got censured. She should have been disbarred. Prosecutors get to pick their cases, and she picked on poor people who couldn't afford to fight back - and in California, they have severely overworked public defenders instead of panel attorneys like in Kansas - and she "won" a ton of cases and really screwed over the poor.
“In sharp contrast to the kid-glove treatment of corporations and the rich, Kamala Harris was harsh and unrelenting toward rank-and-file people accused of crimes even when there was clearly false testimony and evidence tampering used to convict. The story is a long one, studied and recounted in depth by San Francisco School of Law Professor Lara Bazelon and published January 17, 2019 in The New York Times. Bazelon concluded that Kamala Harris was not a “progressive prosecutor,” writing that “time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or remained silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.” Harris even refused to investigate officer-involved shootings when called upon by the California State Legislature and appealed a ruling by a federal judge in Orange County that the death penalty was unconstitutional, bizarrely arguing that the ruling undermined defendant protections!”
I’ve been up against prosecutors who played fast and loose with ethics, but nothing like Harris - who tried to kill innocent people - people she *knew* were innocent - in order to advance her career. She's disgusting and I would never, ever vote for her for anything. See for details - https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/06/kamala-harris-another-establishment-candidate/ She’s toxic, surely the Democrats could have done better, and if they actually had had a primary, they no doubt would have, but Democrats either don’t do primaries at all or cheat non-Establishment candidates like Bernie out of well-deserved victories - and that’s how it is in Kansas, too. But now we’ve got Hobson’s choice, between Scylla and Charybdis. I may well vote for Trump...
Thank you, Timothy. Your stable, sober, uplifting voice enhances our chances importuning us so faithfully to put our shoulders to the tiller and steer to safer waters where restoration, protection and expansion of or freedoms will drop anchor.
"Do not just sit back & hope." Get fired up & #VoteBlue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkf0_Ku-vgA
The GOP has been captured by fraudsters & power by any means authoritarians. The projection & propaganda never stops.
Trump, Vance & their election denying sycophants can’t handle the truth threatening fact checkers, whistleblowers & truth tellers with retribution. https://wapo.st/3XXgHPt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaL0eCSFHGU
Trump & MAGA whine about booming Bidenomics: 98% of jobs created since 1989 were created during Democratic administrations. Republicans have lost jobs while ballooning the deficit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbPBuk5QoV8 Trump's top general calls Trump "a fascist to the core...the most dangerous person to this country” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98OkyUCJ6V0"
See “The Longest Con” by Joe Conason. Trump World is only about scamming money. Everything else is a con game. If you believe anything Donald says, you’re one of his fooled marks.
Hitler had amazing luck and amazing timing. More than once when things were falling apart he lucked out. You know the details. But the Russians putting the oar in, and the Chancellor aging and not taking Hitler that seriously were major factors in elevating him.
It is true business overall fared badly, but large corporations like Krufts or IG Farben did exceedingly well from their Nazi alliance.
We should remember too that Germany always had a first-among-not-so-equals mentality, and when this was challenged by the horrific loss in WWI their amour propre was offended. Their aim to lead in a blaze of glory had been quashed. The imposition of excessive payments in reparations plus the guarding of the border by foreign troops was a) hard to swallow, and b) aided a massive recession. So in some ways the Germans were seeking a new leader, someone above the military which, though very powerful, had failed them. Initially Hitler was more of a caricature than anything else, but as he rose and his “dynamic” speeches were heard, the people revised their opinion.
So in some ways the U.S. is in a different position. However, I think it is true that Trump presages real racism. His plan as you have outlined elsewhere, and which comports with my own study of the subject, is terrifying. The fact that mainstream media keeps softening the content of his speeches will be a major reason for a downfall if we have one. And I wholeheartedly agree that we are not special. The U.S. may be great, but all republics and empires have proven fallible over time, and we have not been given a permanent pass.
Thank you for your work. I am currently reading On Freedom, and look forward to hearing more about it.
The themes of your second paragraph are of questionable validity, leading to implications that what happened in Germany cannot happen here. Hitler never received majority support in a free election, but he struck a sympathetic cord in calling out the gross unfairness of the Versailles treaty. As the title of David Fromkin's book reflects, the British and French, with American acquiescnece, produced at the end of WW1 "A Peace to End All Peace".
that's not what I read in Barcus second paragraph which suggests that it might very well happen here. No?
My dissertation was the British reaction to the rise of Nazism, January--September, 1933. Conclusion: English did not understand what I called the metaphysical (today would be ideological) nature of Nazism. PHD at UNC, 1966. Retired Professor, Michigan State University)
My amateur understanding is that a significant portion of the British upper class and aristocracy was actively sympathetic to Hitler and the Nazis, and that antisemitism was a significant factor. Did your research support this idea?
They definitely understood Naziism: Sir Oswald Mosley, head of the British Union of Fascists; the Mitford sisters, one of whom, Unity, was a fanatical Nazi and tried to seduce Hitler; the King newly crowned in 1936, who abdicated to marry Wallis Warfield Simpson, was a strong supporter of the Nazis; and even ex-PM Lloyd George, who wrote in 1936 - “I have now seen the famous German leader and also something of the great change he has effected. Whatever one may think of his methods – and they are certainly not those of a parliamentary country – there can be no doubt that he has achieved a marvellous transformation in the spirit of the people, in their attitude towards each other, and in their social and economic outlook.
He rightly claimed at Nuremberg that in four years his movement had made a new Germany. It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war – broken, dejected and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence. It is now full of hope and confidence, and of a renewed sense of determination to lead its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers.
There is for the first time since the war a general sense of security. The people are more cheerful. There is a greater sense of general gaiety of spirit throughout the land. It is a happier Germany. I saw it everywhere, and Englishmen I met during my trip and who knew Germany well were very impressed with the change.
One man has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic and dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, as resolute will and a dauntless heart. He is not merely in name but in fact the national Leader. He has made them safe against potential enemies by whom they were surrounded. He is also securing them against the constant dread of starvation which is one of the most poignant memories of the last years of the War and the first years of the Peace. Over 700,000 died of sheer hunger in those dark years. You can still see the effect in the physique of those who were born into that bleak world.
The fact that Hitler has rescued his country from the fear of a repetition of that period of despair, penury and humiliation has given him an unchallenged authority in modern Germany.
As to his popularity, especially among the youth of Germany, there can be no manner of doubt. The old trust him; the young idolise him. It is not the admiration accorded to a popular leader. It is the worship of a national hero who has saved his country from utter despondency and degradation.
To those who have actually seen and sensed the way Hitler reigns over the heart and mind of Germany, this description may appear extravagant. All the same, it is the bare truth. This great people will work better, sacrifice more, and, if necessary, fight with greater resolution because Hitler asks the to do so. Those who do not comprehend this central fact cannot judge the present possibilities of modern Germany.
That impression more than anything I witnessed during my short visit to the new Germany. There was a revivalist atmosphere. It had an extraordinary effect in unifying the nation. Catholic and Protestant, Prussian and Bavarian, employer and workman, rich and poor, have been consolidated into one people. Religious, provincial and class origins no longer divide the nation. There is a passion for unity born of dire necessity.
I have never met a happier people than the Germans and Hitler is one of the greatest men.” https://alphahistory.com/nazigermany/lloyd-george-meets-hitler-1936/
Luckily for you, I wasn't at your dissertation defense...
Why bother to include Wallis Simpson’s invidious position on her support of Nazism?
The fact is the many American businessmen such as Joseph Kennedy Sr., and the founder of Ford Motors, as well as the misguided pilot, Charles Lindbergh, were among many Nazi sympathizers worldwide.Would Would you amplify their filth ?!?
Particularly at a time when anti-Israeli supporters are still trying to dismantle the Jewish State, it is best not to add fuel to the fire!
To pretend it didn't happen, to forget about it, is even worse.
Would love to read it.
The damage is already done. My very dear friend who was a raised a Catholic in Germany during the rise and fall of The Third Reich, calls this “shit-stirring.”
As a Jew whose grandparents fled poverty and persecution in Austria and Ukraine 1910,
I believe we should resist spreading this inflammatory rhetoric now !
The rhetoric needs to be confronted and dealt with, forgetting is not an option.
I'd like to share Camus's Letters to a German Friend because they remind me of what you write in On Freedom.
I think we could all use a little Camus right now.
«Je ne puis croire qu’il faille tout asservir au but que l’on poursuit. Il est des moyens qui ne s’excusent pas. ***Et je voudrais pouvoir aimer mon pays tout en aimant la justice.*** Je ne veux pas pour lui de n’importe quelle grandeur, fût-ce celle du sang et du mensonge. C’est en faisant vivre la justice que je veux le faire vivre.»
“I cannot believe that everything must be subordinated to a single end. Some means are inexcusable. ***And I would like to be able to love my country all while loving justice.*** I don’t want just any greatness for my country if such is to come from blood and falsehood. It’s through upholding justice that I want my country to flourish.”
...
«Ce que votre victoire n’aura pu entamer, votre défaite l’achèvera.»
“Tomorrow this will be over. What your victory could not bring about, your defeat will bring to an end.”
https://casdinteret.com/2021/11/albert-camus-letters-to-a-german-friend-warning/
Camus from? I agree totally re the first quote. I don't know what Camus meant exactly by the second quote but it can be taken as this: one way or another we will have our victory if it is right. Or... our cause will end; we will succumb. How do you interpret this?
Thank you
Sadly, the lesson on coalitions continues to be lost on the Democrats. Rather than encouraging progressives and Greens to work with them, giving them their votes in return for meaningful progressive and climate action, they choose to vilify them, transferring blame for their own failures to those groups.
Harris is not Biden, to be sure. But her refusal to speak out on Biden's betrayal of Ukraine and his tacit support for Israel's war of genocide - admonitions count for nothing if the US continues supplying Israel with offensive weapons - are informing hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian-Americans and Palestinian-Americans, together with others sharing their aspirations, that on these issues at least there is but a cosmetic difference between the two presidential candidates. And that will cost her votes.
What choice is there? Helping Trump? NO difference ( if you think a bit)? (This is what Nader said!) Harris is still VP; she does not have the room to speak in criticism or against Biden's policy. Nor do I think she had much to say about it to begin with though she is getting blamed. The Greens and "progressives" should know this if they want a win. Biden, btw, did the same against Trump. He moved more left once in. What costs Harris votes costs the Greens and the progressives too. Many, including myself, understand this... or should.
Either Harris is an active participant in White House discussions or she has no right to claim relevant experience. You can't have it both ways. And moreover she is not obligated to repeat the mistake Hubert Humphrey made in 1968 by refusing to speak out against the failed policies of the sitting President. So as far as I can tell, her silence indicates either agreement with Biden's policies or a lack of fortitude. Probably the former. In any case, the Greens cannot "win" on the issue of climate change with either candidate.
For the record, I've donated ten times as much to Harris as I had in all previous elections COMBINED. And I did not regret it a bit until recently, when Biden put a knife in the back of Ukraine, and refused to stop shipping offensive weapons to Israel.
She can claim "relevant experience" without making the policy that she supports. And she can have her own policy when she is in charge. That is not "having it both ways". The opposition is trying to pin Biden on her. Some of his policies she does agree with... Ukraine yes for sure and perhaps less fearful than Biden too. The Middle East maybe, but what Biden says and what he actually has done are Biden's "legacy" and will be until he leaves. The opposition and the critics can keep saying the "Biden Harris Administration" but this was not said prior to July 21st when Biden bowed out and supported Harris. I would not suppose anything about Harris's agreement or disagreement now in this situation. I have more hope that Harris will do the right thing, be bolder, re Ukraine and holding off weapons to Israel for some movement on Palestine plus associated urgent issues. Biden has been weak. We have donated to Harris/Walz and down ballot folks. No regrets. No other choice, and not a bad choice either. Looking forward with hope. Otherwise there will be a battle. ( Probably either way but I know what side I am on). It is binary.
You continue to miss the point that by falling to come out with her own positions on climate change, Ukraine and Palestine Harris is -rightly - assumed to be in lock step with Biden. Sometimes being better is not good enough.
Somewhere I just read a list of all her “relevant” qualifications versus Trump’s. Amazingly enough, well more than Trump the con artist criminal. This comment of yours is unfortunately representative of the dumb thinking around.
How did that work out for Hillary?
We are in a different ball game if you have not noticed. Trump is different; we know Trump. We see and hear Trump. Kamala is not Hillary in so many ways. The voters should know. If they do not then this democracy is in trouble.
Well. Kamala is not a sexual predator criminal snake oil salesman. And she likes dogs. Has that going for her.
Or fraudulent incompetent immoral old fart.
Or an oath breaking insurrectionist
Or a racist bribe for favors taker Autocrat dictator loving thief.
Thoughtful ideas to ponder during these nerve racking days ahead. Going to be a long spell. Many over weighted, unthinkable comments from people who are suffering in their ways to understand what we are facing and how it can be handled.
First of all, vote! We know we can do that important act. Be patient! Remove as much of the media from your life as possible. It merely goes over and over the same mass of words. Nothing new there! Resist from countering or arguing with family or acquaintances who will not accept your words on the campaign. Most of all, get away and take a walk! Promise you will feel much better and more clear headed when you get back! If possible, take a dog! He is not red or blue, R or D plus will love you for it! Enjoy!
Making donations yes... phone banking?? knocking on doors???
Just started On Freedom. Thank you for continuing to remind us how precious our freedom is.
Do you think #4 (big business defending democracy) is feasible?
There's definitely a spotty record of this, see my comment below - and this - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot
So sorry but I cannot access it, alas.
Fixed to cite non-paywalled content, sorry about that. This isn't paywalled, either: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/06/kamala-harris-another-establishment-candidate/
Thank you so much for this, and for your longer writings.
So much focus on fascists and nazis, whither the Bolsheviks and their successors the kommunists? Why does Joe Stalin get overlooked in the current political conversations and "what might happen"?
Because Trump is much more like Hitler than Stalin. And right now, in the US there's zero risk from communism, but serious risk from fascism.
Moreover because of the fundamental difference in how Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Lenin came to power: In Germany by subversion followed by revolution, in Russia by revolution followed by subversion. Indeed, Stalin's rise to dominance was a second subversion, following that by Lenin.
Because the political continuum looks more like a horseshoe than a straight line: the far right and the far left bend toward each other and have a lot in common.
Because "the left" has been demonized in the U.S. since at least the late 19th century. Labor unions bend over backwards to prove how pro-capitalist they are. Contrast this with the European democracies, where unions actually talk about class and social democratic parties are part of the mainstream.
Because what actually happened -- the Reagan reaction against postwar prosperity and the rise of the (white) middle class -- is way more important than "what might happen."
After reading your comment this morning, then writing a response and deleting it before posting, I decided to come back to ask you about "Joe Stalin." In the first place, is this an oblique reference to Joe Biden? My question isn't unreasonable because I frequently see the comparison among right-wingers on Twitter. If yes, please tell me what, in your view, makes Joe Biden and Joseph Stalin similar. If your answer is no, please move to the next question. Secondly, how is Joseph Stalin relevant to the current situation? Thirdly, what do *you* mean by "communism"?
Looking forward to your response, JL.
Dr. Snyder, By a happy accident I purchased two copies of your new book “On Freedom” and gave it to a MAGA-QAON family member who finally expressed that she was ready to get back to reality.
Additionally, I have been talking frequently with a sister-in-law who is 64 and has NEVER voted. Over the past year change has come and she is a registered Democrat and voted in Arkansas, for the first time in her life.
She hates political news and says, “Every time that man opens his mouth he just sounds more ignorant than the last time he spoke.
Donate, if you can, vote, talk to friends and family about voting-don’t judge-just talk and ask questions and most importantly VOTE like your life depends on it, because it does.
Thank you Dr. Snyder
The most essential issue in all this, though, seems missing. Germany did not have a century and a half of republican government behind it in 1933. Indeed, Germans were entirely used to authoritarian governments, and the Weimar Republic was just a quick hiccup in an otherwise unbroken history of monarchy going back centuries. Nor, of course, have Americans ever suffered the kind of defeat Germany did in 1918, or the resultant and utterly humiliating Versailles Treaty, regardless of whether or not they deserved it.
Unlike monarchy, or indeed any form of authoritarianism, democracy does not and cannot happen overnight. It takes time and experience to work at all. We may remember all the hoopla when the Berlin Wall came down and everyone was looking forward to Russian democracy. How did that turn out?
As the first nation on earth to define itself at its inception as a republic, and now having practiced our national ‘trade’ for nearly 250 years with all the mythic backing that entails, if we fall into fascism at the hands of one mendacious, malevolent, amoral, vengeful, angry, bitter, and increasingly incoherent old man and his myrmidons. our fall will so far surpass Nazi Germany’s as to bear almost no comparison.
Great to listen to your calm words today.
I’m also enjoying listening to your audiobook version of “On Tyranny and On Ukraine”.
On another note I would be interested in your opinion on this latest example of US double standards with regards to two allies under attack: Ukraine and Israel.
U.S. to Deploy Missile Defense System and About 100 Troops to Israel
Hi Folks. Just wrote up a quick article on the back of the US decision to send a THAAD battery to Israel.
I fully support this move for what that’s worth.
I do ask however why did Joe Biden not make a similar strongly deterrent manner for its other ally: Ukraine.
If Ukraine, like Israel possessed nuclear weapons, would the US have been a better ally to Ukraine. You can bet your bottom dollar they would have.
https://open.substack.com/pub/gmanschronicle/p/us-to-deploy-missile-defense-system?r=lyl1g&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hitler won the last free election in Germany with 45% of the vote, what gave him control of the Reichstag was a coalition with a conservative monarchist party which got somewhat less than 7% of the vote. With this coalition, Hitler - after the Reichstag fire, which he blamed on anarchists and communists - was easily able to pass the Enabling Acts, which outlawed his political opposition and conducted lawfare against them - he actively jailed his opponents.
Germany at that point was a divided country, 52% conservative, 48% liberal/socialist/communist. There was massive civil unrest, leading to street battles between the Stürmabteilung - the brownshirts, the SA - and the Antifa, which used nearly the same symbology as the modern-day Antifa. During one of the battles, a SA man named Horst Wessel was wounded and later died in hospital, prompting the iconic Nazi song, the Horst Wessel Lied - some verses set out below:
"Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries" - the Red Front - Rotfront - were the Antifa;
"Millions are looking upon the swastika full of hope" - the 1929 Depression had hit Germany particularly hard, combined with the Versailles reparations, many Germans were impoverished and starving;
"The day of freedom and of bread dawns" - bread, food - starving people get desperate and if a possible way to get bread is offered, they'll take it, without regard to possible consequences;
"Already Hitler's banners fly over all of the streets"; both city and country, urban and rural, which is not now the case for the US. Hitler was extremely popular with the working and middle classes and especially rural people, amongst city dwellers, especially trade unionists, many were Socialist/Communists and opposed Hitler;
"the time of bondage will last but a little while now" - because Germany would repudiate the Versailles Treaty and stop paying reparations. There was a class of Germans who were getting rich off of all of this, and they flaunted their new-found wealth, they were new oligarchs, and they were hated by the working and middle classes - perhaps they saw Hitler as leading a slave revolt - many had been wiped out by the currency collapse of 1923 - I've got a 5 million mark note with a Nazi overprint - in English, it reads "They have taken our gold and silver, and leave us with this trash (Dreck). (Volksgenossen) Comrades, how much longer will we allow this plunder to continue?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJ9DMRKv8-k for the Horst Wessel Lied - and Triumph Des Willens to attest to Hitler's popularity - which has been vandalized by our new Net Nazis from the Internet Archive, along with Orwell's 1984 - down that Memory Hole...
Wall Street and American Big Business supported the Nazis - https://www.reformation.org/wall-st-hitler.html for an exhaustive view. Henry Ford was a friend of Hitler, a life sized portrait of Ford hung on the wall of Hitler's office at the Reichskanzlerei, behind his desk. Ford built the trucks that Hitler used in his Blitzkrieg in 1939-1940 - and the Ford Trimotor aircraft that Hitler flew in. IBM was behind the punched card system used for registration of Germany's Jews and other "dysgenic" people - a precursor of today's technocracy, Walt Disney produced Hitler's favorite film, Snow White, and Coca-Cola was a major sponsor of the 1936 Berlin Olympics. And the Nazis got major American foundation support: "By 1926, Rockefeller had donated some $410,000 -- almost $4 million in today's money -- to hundreds of German researchers. In May 1926, Rockefeller awarded $250,000 toward creation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry. Among the leading psychiatrists at the German Psychiatric Institute was Ernst Rüdin, who became director and eventually an architect of Hitler's systematic medical repression. Another in the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute's complex of eugenics institutions was the Institute for Brain Research. Since 1915, it had operated out of a single room. Everything changed when Rockefeller money arrived in 1929. A grant of $317,000 allowed the institute to construct a major building and take center stage in German race biology. The institute received additional grants from the Rockefeller Foundation during the next several years. Leading the institute, once again, was Hitler's medical henchman Ernst Rüdin. Rüdin's organization became a prime director and recipient of the murderous experimentation and research conducted on Jews, Gypsies and others. Beginning in 1940, thousands of Germans taken from old age homes, mental institutions and other custodial facilities were systematically gassed. Between 50,000 and 100,000 were eventually killed. Leon Whitney, executive secretary of the American Eugenics Society, declared of Nazism, "While we were pussy-footing around ... the Germans were calling a spade a spade." https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Eugenics-and-the-Nazis-the-California-2549771.php - and the people behind this in the US were Progressive Democrats from California and New York and the Ivy League.
It gets to be really difficult to figure out where the greatest threat comes from - the Democrats are as bad as the Republicans. As for Kamala Harris, I wouldn't vote for her for dog catcher. She railroaded three poor black *innocent* men onto Death Row - advancing her career by claiming to be "tough on crime". She knew they were innocent, and she got her way by withholding and concealing evidence which proved that they were innocent. The Innocence Project got wind of this and filed an appeal citing the Brady violation, and the Appeals Court agreed, vacated the sentences, and they walked free. She appealed one of the cases to the California Supreme Court - that one of them had a "right to be executed" - and that case got tossed, and she got censured. She should have been disbarred. Prosecutors get to pick their cases, and she picked on poor people who couldn't afford to fight back - and in California, they have severely overworked public defenders instead of panel attorneys like in Kansas - and she "won" a ton of cases and really screwed over the poor.
“In sharp contrast to the kid-glove treatment of corporations and the rich, Kamala Harris was harsh and unrelenting toward rank-and-file people accused of crimes even when there was clearly false testimony and evidence tampering used to convict. The story is a long one, studied and recounted in depth by San Francisco School of Law Professor Lara Bazelon and published January 17, 2019 in The New York Times. Bazelon concluded that Kamala Harris was not a “progressive prosecutor,” writing that “time after time, when progressives urged her to embrace criminal justice reforms as a district attorney and then the state’s attorney general, Ms. Harris opposed them or remained silent. Most troubling, Ms. Harris fought tooth and nail to uphold wrongful convictions that had been secured through official misconduct that included evidence tampering, false testimony and the suppression of crucial information by prosecutors.” Harris even refused to investigate officer-involved shootings when called upon by the California State Legislature and appealed a ruling by a federal judge in Orange County that the death penalty was unconstitutional, bizarrely arguing that the ruling undermined defendant protections!”
I’ve been up against prosecutors who played fast and loose with ethics, but nothing like Harris - who tried to kill innocent people - people she *knew* were innocent - in order to advance her career. She's disgusting and I would never, ever vote for her for anything. See for details - https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/06/kamala-harris-another-establishment-candidate/ She’s toxic, surely the Democrats could have done better, and if they actually had had a primary, they no doubt would have, but Democrats either don’t do primaries at all or cheat non-Establishment candidates like Bernie out of well-deserved victories - and that’s how it is in Kansas, too. But now we’ve got Hobson’s choice, between Scylla and Charybdis. I may well vote for Trump...