Look, the shoe is on the other foot

[EndlessWire]

How often did I think about why German citizens allowed Hitler to commit atrocities in their time in Hell. A lot of them said that they did not know.

And, here we are, with concentration camps in a complicit foreign country. They are over there for the precise reason that they couldn't really exist within our borders (although they could.) It's the way he gets away with it. Something bad happening far, far away. Someplace he can disappear people to without intereference.

Germans had a form of this happen to them. Some liked it, some didn't, but it happened to all of them. What did they do about it? Not much, apparently.

We can't simply consent through silence about this. This is horrendous. This is UnAmerican, and the work of a dictator. It is cruel, and beyond comprehension. See what this is leading to? Disappeared Ones. Us. Anyone he wants. Which is all of us who are not useful to him.

Sometimes, I think that as soon as I have experienced all the new things life has to offer, it will be time to go. I've seen "fire balls in the sky" sort of thing. And now, I have switched places with the German people of those other years, and as excruciating as it is, I finally understand. I am living during a time when people think it's okay to happen as long as it doesn't happen to them.

I don't want murderous gang members hanging around. But, it is a pretext upon which the Hellbeast hangs his hat. I'd rather pursue Due Process even if everyone of them is an evil murderer. It is unacceptable to turn the US into an accomplice to atrocities. That is not who we are.

In the future, people of some other age will ask, why did you let this occur? And, we will have no come back. We can't just say, We didn't know. We DO know. It's horrible, and we have to do something about it.

[617Blue]

1. So many people constantly mainlining soc media misinfo right into their brains

Walk into a public space, people all scrolling their safety blanket devices staring at the pretty colors.

[Iamscrewed]

2. Apathy

I'm constantly dealing with people who are fed up with news and politics. Unfortunately until they see and smell the dead piling up they will remain apathetic.

[Dan]

3. A lot of them said they didn't know....

A lot of them lied. Just like we will do if we say we didn’t know what is happening.

[DENVERPOPS]

4. Like I have said

countless times before..........The perfect title for a book about the past 45+ years would be:

WHILE THE NATION SLEPT

First it's a foreign country, then closer to home: Gitmo, and then it's at every private prison here in the U.S.

[Fix The Stupid]

5. lol..."Unamerican"???

That's about as 'american' as it gets...

Where do people get off stating this all the time?

WW1 - Stayed out and sold weapons to the enemies. Got in when the war was over in 1917.
WW2 - Stayed out and sold weapons to the enemies. Got in after Pearl Harbour.

Vietnam, Korea, South American "regime change", Iraq, afghanistan and probably 10 other horrendous things your country has done...but this is "Unamerican"?

It's totally on brand.

[SamKnause]

6. Thanks.

It seems to be ignored or maybe unknown.

They will do to us what they have done to foreign countries.

When I found out we were not the 'Shining Beacon On The Hill' I was crushed.

[EndlessWire]

8. Where do I get off?

Too bad I have the idea that we are basically a good people. I stand by my record as having said that we were not perfect, but we were making social progress. We are now being purged of any brighter aspects of our society, but pardon me if I think that's unAmerican. Pardon me if I think that Donald Trump the Dictator is unAmerican.

I am calling for resistence here, and you show up to spit on me. Figures; I notice you had nothing to say about the no due process issue.

[electric_blue68]

33. I'd say The USA is a mix of actions...

Last edited Thu Apr 17, 2025, 10:03 PM - Edit history (1)

Some bad from the get go.
Some good from the start.

Kudos to all who've pushed in all manner of ways to make us live up to The Bill of Rights for everyone!

I think there are more good people in The US than not; but woah, do we have a dangerous bunch (and not that small a bunch) of racists, sextist extremists with authoritarian loving tendencies especially to help keep various people in "their places". Or to retreat on gains made.
Hideous, horrific actions.

[PJMcK]

9. Right on!

This is actually one thing Trump got right when he said that our history ain’t so clean.

Still, we should reach for our better angels.

Trump & Co. need to go.

[homegirl]

10. WW2 Got in after Pearl Harbor..

have you been to Western Europe and bowed your head at the thousands and thousands of graves of WW 1 + WW 2 American soldiers in those hallowed fields?

Shame On You...

[Uncle Joe]

12. We can only live in the present so American or unAmerican is whatever we make it during our time. n/t

Last edited Tue Apr 15, 2025, 01:58 PM - Edit history (1)

[Ol Janx Spirit]

23. Are there some citations and expanded discussions to back up these assertions?

America is imperfect and given the frequent change in administrations does many things that even Americans do not agree with, but when you accuse a country of doing things like selling weapons to the enemy in major world conflicts it requires some evidence in order to be taken seriously. Also, which country is the model of a world power that is perfect?

[kwolf68]

26. What enemies did the US sell to before WW2?

Far as I recall I don't remember Germany ever driving around a Sherman tank or using M1 Garand rifles. We certainly helped France and Britian. Enlighten us about how America was selling enemies munitions prior to 1941.

[ITAL]

28. We didn't sell weapons to Germany in WWI

I mean someone probably would have but the British blockade was really effective at shutting things down so our trade was really only with the Entente. Also, the war was far from over in April of 1917 when we Declared War. Some of the worst battles of the entire war were yet to come, and the Meuse-Argonne was the deadliest in US History at that time.

[Dixiegrrrl]

7. Germany's concentration camps were built in Poland.....

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/auschwitz

Same reasoning, perhaps.

That press conference,was an intentional scripted public message to us all..

Now the question is who will be responding and how.

[KT2000]

11. Stunning information

and if he is not stopped, he is sadistic enough to implement something like this.

I am convinced - they knew.

[Mariana]

36. The extermination camps were in Poland.

The earlier concentration camps were built in Germany. Dachau opened in 1933.

[Ohioboy]

13. My protest sign this weekend will have to do with due process

[thesquanderer]

14. "They are over there for the precise reason that they couldn't really exist within our borders" - see also Guantanamo nt

[Mustellus]

15. yes Bush W....

. . did 'rendition' to other countries. Subcontracting torture.

Not that Murricans won't do it themselves. After Abu Graib became public, not one captured American soldier was returned or
rescued alive. Their bodies, when found, were brutally tortured. As Jesus said in the Golden Rule.. "What goes around comes around".

Till Bergdorf. Obviously he betrayed his country, cauz he didn't make them torture him to death. Or maybe they just got
tired of using electric drills on eyeballs.

[Joinfortmill]

16. All the 'good' Germans. All the 'good' Americans

But not here, at least for now.

[Kaleva]

17. Gandhi used hunger strikes to great effect.

[TygrBright]

19. Gandhi was dealing with a free press in America and a semi-free press in the UK. n/t

[Kaleva]

20. What is your opinion of Maddow, Lawrence, Olbermann,

Jen Paski, Amy Goodman, Paul Krugman, and others?

100 Best Liberal Political Blogs and Websites in 2025

https://bloggers.feedspot.com/liberal_political_blogs/

[TygrBright]

22. They preach beautifully to a small choir. n/t

[Kaleva]

30. The press in old GB during the time of Gandhi was far more constrained

The Royals were off limits. The papers were owned by the rich such as Lord Rothermere, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Camrose, and Lord Kemsley. The Astor family owned The Times.

[TygrBright]

18. We did do something about it. We elected a brutal, tyrannical imbecile. n/t

[3Hotdogs]

21. I disagree that Germans did nothing.

There were numerous attempts on Hitler's life.

[raccoon]

37. Not only that, but by the time the Nazi government was exterminating Jews and others, there wasn't much the average

person could do.

Maybe get involved in the Resistance. Hide Jews. Both at great personal risk to themselves and their families.

Any speaking out about the many atrocities would end in their being shot or sent to the camps themselves.

[ReRe]

24. The only problem I have with Justice

is that it's too damn slow. I keep telling myself "Be patient if you can, ReRe." Take heart, EndlessWire. We're still shy of the first 100 days, and the protests have begun. If April 5 said anything it was that the people everywhere are beginning to enter the streets. I won't be satisfied with those until they surround the WH on all sides. I predict that will happen in the next 6 months. Social media is burning up in dissent. We The People are getting there.

One of the problems is that no one likes history. I don't know why, because I always loved it when I was young. But things are different now with the internet. History is at our fingertips. And it's in front of our eyes. Young people are learning more history everyday because of the internet. And they are learning from people like you who write posts like this.
So all I can say is "Keep Hope Alive", like Jesse Jackson always says.

[moniss]

25. There was an active German Resistance from the '30's throughout

the war. The popular telling in the West has always been that the German people all stood by and let it happen and proclaimed later that they didn't know. That was a purposeful piece of propaganda by the West. The fact that the Resistance did not succeed in stopping the Nazis does not mean they weren't trying and sacrificing their own lives.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism

[kwolf68]

27. Great post

shit is no always simple and the situation in Germany certainly was not.

[biophile]

29. Our resistance might not succeed either

Success or not, people will be hurt and die. The only question is how many.

[Woodycall]

31. Read this excerpt from...

"They Thought They Were Free - The Germans, 1933-45"
~ Milton Mayer ~

It will chill you to the bone...

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm

[raccoon]

38. Great post.

[EndlessWire]

41. Thank you so much

The whole thread is worth it for this reference that you posted. It should be mandatory reading. It is indeed chilling. It could have been written about us, now. It summarizes what is happening now, but it was published in 1955. It especially talks about the people being exhausted from the every day assault of events that depleted them from action.

When we say today, Everyday is a fresh hell, this is what it means. When we smartly say that he is just thinking up distractions for us to absorb, we are certainly right. He is shell shocking us into doing nothing.

So, it seems that there are two layers to what he is doing. One, basic derangement to our processes, where he is destroying our legal infrastructure, with the many threads that takes. But, the secondary layer is the ultimate bewilderment that results, and the flurry of activity which keeps us relatively quiet.

I will buy this book. TY.

[Woodycall]

42. Thank you.

Last edited Thu Apr 17, 2025, 04:00 AM - Edit history (1)

Thom Hartmann turned me on to this excerpt during the first Trump regime. It's exponentially more relevant now. Please propagate the link as much as possible as it seems to "strike a nerve", provide historical perspective, and bring the events that are currently unfolding here, into sharper focus.

[soldierant]

32. None of Hitler's camps was on German soil.

They were deliberately elsewhere because they were to be "stateless," - so no accountability.

Which doesn't necessarily mean people who said they didn't know are telling the truth. I don't believe they had a free press in Germany then, and newspapers were still on paper. They did have radio and newsreels, but not just anyone was making them. There were actions that they could see, like the Hitlerjugend and the SS, which would certainly have been enough to raise suspicions, or so I would think. And i expect that the fascixm of the time was a cult just as MAGA is a cult.

There was a line in "Judgment at Nuremberg" - an actor playing a convicted judge said to the Spencer Tracy character - swore to him - that he had not known. And the Tracy character replied, "You knew the first time you sentenced a man to death whom you knew was not guilty." that's totally from memory, soI apologize for any inaccuracy, but the sense is correvt.

[Mariana]

43. That is false.

That is false. Dachau, Buchenwald, and many other concentration camps were opened in Germany, beginning in 1933.

The extermination camps that were built for the purpose of murdering Jews and others were in Poland.

[soldierant]

44. Your right. I was thinking of death camps and misspoke. Thanks.

[Radical Lutheran]

34. The Shoe is on the other foot??

Some Unpleasentness which is rarely if ever shared in High School History Class...

PAPPY BUSH - invested in the THIRD RIECH
FORD sold MANY MANY Trucks to Nazi Germany
IBM punch cards were used in the Nazi Concntration Camps

1950's Secratary of State brother of Delmonte Foods - over threw Democraticly Elected Government of El Salvador
1950's USA / CIA over threw over threw Democraticly Elected Government of IRAN

There is alot more, but I am too dispairing tonight to continue...

THIS IS ALL OUR CHICKENS COIMING HOME TO ROOST - We All need to Repent and Promise NEVER AGAIN.

[iemanja]

35. There is support for authoritarianism throughout society

Look at all the people who openly support deportation and internment of Palestinians. They are fully complicit in the fascist state.

[Ferrets are Cool]

39. I said these exact same things to wifey yesterday.

[Javaman]

40. the term "good German" will soon be replaced by "good American". nt