Reply #25: That books brought up three things in my mind

[happyslug]

First was Demenjuk's trial in Germany. At best he was a Right wing authoritarian (RWA) who did what most people would do in the circumstances he was in (And noted by the author citing the Milgram Experiments), yet today Germany has put him on trial after leaving the people who ORDERED him to do what he did to die of old age. Is this trial one of Revenge (The Israeli Supreme Court Freed Demenjuk once it became clear he had NOT been "Ivan the Terrible" for any other trial would be one of revenge not Justice) or someone trying to show that Germany (And the US who extradited Demenjuk to Germany for the Trial) no longer supports such actions (But in a way that NO one who actually had a hand in passing the orders on could be tried)? It almost smacks of Right Wing Dominator's sacrificing a Right wing authoritarian (RWA) to show that today's Right Wing Dominators no longer support what they did in the 1940s (And remember Right wing Dominators have no problem in such a sacrifice if it provides them Power).

Second is maybe we need the Draft, just to get such Right wing authoritarian (RWA) to have to work with others. In his research such Right wing authoritarian (RWA) almost always deal with others of their own makeup. When such Right wing authoritarians (RWA) meet and have to deal with other NON-Right wing authoritarian (Non-RWA) the Right wing authoritarians (RWA) become less Right wing authoritarian (RWA). The drafted ended in 1972 and since that time the Military has gone to all-volunteer. More whites volunteered for combat roles then did Blacks (Blacks were recruited to "Get an education" while whites were recruited to serve their nation, please note this is NOT true of all whites and Blacks, just tendency AND the whites who volunteer for Combat roles tended to be RWA more then anything else). Since the Draft ended, the military, was a whole, has become more Right Wing, and has gone further to the right then the nation did as a whole from 1970-2000 (A Military officer did a paper on this a few years ago, I can NOT find the cite at the present time but it was on the net). Why? simply because you had less non-right wingers being drafted into the Military. When I was in Boot Camp in 1981 the Sergeant in overall command of my Battalion had been drafted in the 1960s and decided afterward he liked it and stayed in. The Younger Sergeants in command of my company tended to also have been subject to the draft (By 1981 the draft was only dead nine years) but compared to my fellow enlistees all of these long serving Sergeants were more left wing (No Flaming liberals, but to the left of most of the men, I was in a all male combat arm, who were in ROTC at that time (The other enlistee ranks, the non-ROTC, were more "normal" in political outlook, but since my was a summer company we had a lot of ROTC in the ranks between Collage terms. Research has tended to support my observation, that as the 1980s and 1990s went on and the Military left the draft further and further behind, it became more and more right wing. This has increased since the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan as inner-city blacks just refused to enlist and the Military became more and more dependent on Rural enlistees. We may have to go back to the draft just to bring into the Military people of a less right wing background AND to expose those people who do enlist that most Americans are NOT Right wing authoritarians (RWA).

Third is that the people to fear is NOT the Right wing authoritarians (RWA) but the Right Wing Dominators. The environmental experiments cited by the Author seems to show that Right wing authoritarian (RWA), while maybe not the worse people to be in charge of things will NOT destroy the earth. Right wing Dominators, on the other hand, can lead such Right wing authoritarians (RWA) to such a future (And lost money for the Right Wing Dominators are more concern with Power then Money). While Right wing authoritarians (RWA) can be a pain in the neck, they are people others can work with, not so with the Right Wing Dominators. The Right Wing Dominators will do anything to get control and hold onto control even if that means total failure (Reminds me of Hitler in the last year of WWII, ordering the Destruction of Germany so the Allies, both the Western Allies and Russia, could NOT recover anything AND that the German People would suffer from NOT winning the War for him).

More on the Miligram experiments:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200203/the-man-who-shocked-the-world