Frog Boiling - "They Thought They Were Free"

[ravan]

A very insightful article about the rise of fascism and the third reich. It bears a horrible and uncanny resemblence to the events of the last three years. I've been saying this to friends and srangers alike, and it has mostly fallen on deaf ears, or (on UseNet) had Godwin's law thrown in my face. People don't want to hear it.

The worst is, even when, unlike Niemoller, we say something, it seems to have little effect. The real question, then, comes to "When and how do we resist - is it time to shoot the bastards yet?"

"You see, one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty."

Comments

[andreas_schaefer]

Thanks for an interesting post ( including the link). I too see some parallels.

Note on the linked page: Re:The fate of the judge while without a name and date it would be difficult to research, there is no known case where a judge lost more than his job by not going the party line ( and precious few of those ).

Oh, it gets better

[dubhain.livejournal.com]

The US and Canada have just announced a joint pact which will allow troops of one to cross the other's borders in case of crisis.

Leads one to wonder if a timetable for the anchluß has been established or is yet to be determined.

Re: Oh, it gets better

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Ah, lebenstraum! I figure that Canada will be annexed in mid 2004. Of course, they won't have representation in Congress, because they won't be actual states. The excuse will be some actually minor crisis, blown out of proportion, and then our troops will just never leave.

The "saving" of the canadians from their woes and the "aid" of our military in "stabilizing" their country will be a big "plus" for the Bushies to play up in the 2004 presidential campaign. The cojoining will be touted, of course, as an economic boon to all concerned, saving billions of dollars in border enforcement costs and enabling easier employment of Canafians than even NAFTA allows.

The 2004 election will be even more rigged than the last one, with many moderate or freedom based candidates either being discredited by shady maneuvers, or even having unfortunate "accidents".

Statehood for the "rescued" provinces will be planned for 2010, but there a) will be no US Congress by then or b) Congress will just be a rubber stamp for the Bush dynasty.

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

Die Straße stinkt
Nach braunen Batallionen,
Ein Pöstchen winkt
Dem Sturmabteilungsmann.
Vielleicht verdient als Bonze
Morgen er Millionen,
Doch das geht uns
'nen braunen Scheißdreck an!

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Rough translation (old slang terms, for one):

The street stinks
of brownshirt battalions
A whore winks
at a stormtrooper
Perhaps he earns like a bigwig
- tomorrow it's millions,
But we are the ones
the brownshirts shit on!

Comments:
1. Pöstchen seems to be a slang term for whore "a little post office"
2. One problem they had during the war was inflation, IIRC.

[hephaestos.livejournal.com]

Translation from the site (http://www.smo.uhi.ac.uk/~kelly/LIST/ARTICLE/Broderick/DIE%20FAHNE%20HOCH!.html) where I found it reads "The street stinks of brown battalions, a mere guard waves to an SA man. Perhaps tomorrow he’ll earn millions as a big shot, that brown shite has sod all to do with us"

[ravan.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.... if I had a better clue on gender bending in the older german, I'd wonder if "mere guard" was a play on words for a streetwalker walking her "post". Then again, my German sucks - I've only picked up a little here and there.

Thanks for the link. I found a couple other parodies in my hunt, and they struck me as funny, although I couldn't tell you exactly why.

Err....

[dubhain.livejournal.com]

It's my understanding that 'posten' and 'postchen' were government positions, which were allocated to individuals on the basis of party membership. If you didn't belong to the party, you didn't get the job. In fact, I'm given to understand that the first question one would be asked in a job interview was which party the applicant belonged to.

In Austria, this system was widely in use as recently as 2000. I don't know if it still is.

Oh, and I believe it's 'brown battalions', rather than 'brownshirt battalions', though surely this parody of the Horst-Wessel-Lied / Die Fahne Hoch! was surely referring to the Sturmabtielung (S.A.).

Standard disclaimers apply. It's been years since I took German.