Everyone likes to say, "Hitler did this", and, "Hitler did that". But the truth is Hitler did very little. He was a world class tyrant, but the evil actually done by the Third Reich, from the slave-labor camps to WW2 was all done by German citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not, and who because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government, refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire, refused to see the invasion by Poland was a staged fake, and followed Hitler into national disaster.
The German people of the late 1930s imagined themselves to be brave. They saw themselves as the heroic Germans depicted by the Wagnerian Operas, the descendants of the fierce Germanic warriors who had hunted wild boar with nothing but spears and who had defeated three of Rome's mightiest legions in the Tuetenberg Forest.
But in truth, by the 1930s, the German people had become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery was both salve and slavery. Germans were required to behave as if they were brave, even when they were not.
It's easy to look back and realize what a jerk Hitler was. But at the time, Hitler looked pretty good to the German people, with the help of the media. He was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938. The German people assumed they were safe from a tyrant. They lived in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government could and more importantly could not do. Their leader was a devoutly religious man, and had even sung with the boy's choir of a monastery in his youth.
The reality was that the German people, as individuals, had lost their courage. The German government preferred it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But the German people didn't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding individual courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the German people simply pretended that the situation did not exist. And in that simple self-deception lay the ruin of an entire nation and the coming of the second World War.
When the Reichstag burned down, most Germans simply refused to believe suggestions that the fire had been staged by Hitler himself. They were afraid to. But so trapped were the Germans by their belief in their own bravery that they willed themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes, so that they could nod in agreement with Der Fuhrer while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoided the one situation which most required real courage; to stand up to Hitler's lies and deceptions.
When Hitler requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under German law, but powers Hitler claimed he needed to have to deal with the "terrorists", the German people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, agreed. The temporary powers were conferred, and once conferred lasted until Germany itself was destroyed.
When Hitler staged a phony invasion from Poland, the vast majority of the German people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to Hitler's deceptions, did not question why Poland would have done something so stupid, and found themselves in a war.
But Hitler knew he ruled a nation of cowards, and knew he had to spend the money to make the new war something cowards could fight and win. He decorated his troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further trapping them in their self-image. Hitler copied the parade regalia of ancient Rome, to remind the Germans of the defeat of the legions at the Tuetenberg Forest. Talismans were added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fell in battle. Finally, knowing that it takes courage to kill the enemy face to face, Hitler spent vast sums of money on his wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, the world's first cruise missile and the world's first guided missile, weapons that could be used to kill at a distance, so that those doing the killing need not have to face the reality of what they were doing.
The German people were lured into WW2 not because they were brave, but because they were cowards who wanted to be seen as brave, and found that shooting long range weapons at people they could not see took less courage than standing up to Hitler. Sent into battle by that false image of courage, the Germans were dependent on their wonder-weapons. When the wonder-weapons stopped working, the Germans lost the war.
I remember as a child listening to the stories of WW2 from my grandfather and my uncles who had served in Europe. I wondered how the German people could have been so stupid as to have ever elected Hitler dog catcher, let alone leader of the nation. Such is the clarity of historical hindsight. And with that clarity, I see the exact same mechanism that Hitler used at work here in this nation.
The American people imagine themselves to be brave. They see themselves as the heroic Americans depicted by Western Movies, the descendants of the fierce patriot warriors who had tamed the frontier and defeated the might of the British Empire.
But in truth, by the dawn of the third millennium, the American people have become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery is both salve and slavery. Americans are required to behave as if they are brave, even when they are not.
The American people assume they are safe. They live in a Republic, after all, with strict laws regarding what the government can and more importantly cannot do. Their leader is a devoutly religious man.
The reality is that the American people, as individuals, have lost their courage. The government prefers it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. But Americans don't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the American people simply pretend that the situation does not exist.
When the World Trade Towers collapsed, most Americans simply refused to believe suggestions that the attacks had been staged by parties working for the US Government itself. Americans were afraid to, even as news reports surfaced proving that the US Government had announced plans for the invasion of Afghanistan early in the year, plans into which the attacks on the World Trade Towers which angered the American people into support of the already-planned war fit entirely too conveniently.
But so trapped are Americans by their belief in their own bravery that they will themselves to be blind to the evidence before their eyes, so that they can nod in agreement with the government while still imagining themselves to have courage, even as they avoid the one situation which most requires real courage; to stand up to the government's lies and deceptions. The vast majority of the American people, their own self-image dependant on continuing blindness to the government's deceptions, never question why Afghanistan would have done something so stupid as to attack the United States, and as a result, Americans find themselves in a war.
Now the US Government has requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under Constitutional law, but powers the government is claiming they need to have to deal with the "terrorists". The American people, having already sold their souls to their self-delusions, are agreeing. The temporary powers recently conferred will be no more temporary in America than they were in Germany.
The US Government has decorated the troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further trapping them in their self-image. Talismans are added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fall in battle.
Finally, knowing that it takes courage to kill the enemy face to face, the United States government has spent vast sums of money on wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, cruise missiles, and guided missiles, weapons that kill at a distance, so that those doing the killing need not have to face the reality of what they are doing.
As I mentioned above, Hitler was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938. Stalin was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year for 1939 and 1942. Both of these men, and many others also celibrated by the media, were unimaginable monsters. The lesson from these facts is that it isn't easy to spot a genocidal tyrant when you live with one, especially one whom the press supports and promotes.
Tyrants become obvious only when looking back, after what they have done becomes known. The German people did not stand up to Hitler because their media betrayed them, just as the American media is betraying the American people by willingly, voluntarily, even proudly, abandoning its traditional role as watchdog against government abuse.
It is the very nature of power that it attracts the sort of people who should not have it. The United States, as the world's last superpower, is a prize that attracts men and women willing to do absolutely anything to win that power, and hence are also willing to do absolutely anything with that power once they have it. If one thinks about it long enough, one will realize that all tyrants, past and most especially present, MUST use deception on their population to initiate a war.
No citizen of a modern industrialized nation will send their children off to die in a war to grab another nation's resources and assets, yet resources and assets are what all wars are fought over. The nation that wishes to initiate a war of conquest must create the illusion of an attack or a threat to start a war, and must always give their population of cowards an excuse never to question that carefully crafted illusion.
It is naive, not to mention racist to assume that tyrants appear only in other nations and that somehow America is immune simply because we're Americans. America has escaped the clutches of a dictatorship thus far only through the efforts of those citizens who, unlike the Germans of the 1930s, have the moral courage to stand up and point out where the government is lying to the people.
Unless more Americans are willing to have that kind of individual courage, then future generations may well look back on the American people with the same harshness of judgement with which we look back on the 1930s Germans.
Kinky Friedman has always been a little "off the wall", and while his race for the Texas Governor fell short, I have to say I usually agree with what he has to say, so I had to share this recent story from Texas Monthly. Won't run into too many gigar smoking Jewish Cowboys, but anyone who wants to make Willie Nelson his transportation secretary is cool with me... I know it's long but it's a pretty damn good read so give it a shot...
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Quote:
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. More often-especially today-it's a political statement.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child and, believe it or not, I smoked as a child. At the tender age of eighteen months, when my mother's back was turned, a prescient if somewhat perverse uncle surreptitiously substituted a cigar for my pacifier. I don't know if I should thank Uncle Eli, but 61 and a half years later I'm not only still smoking-I've started my own cigar company. I named it Kinky Friedman Cigars, or, as it's become increasingly known throughout Texas and the world, KFC.
Although smoking in general is currently being attacked from all quarters, I have no qualms about becoming a Jimmy Dean-style pitchman for my product. I strongly believe smoking cigars can yield at least three positive effects: reducing stress, increasing longevity, and irritating Lady Gladys Cumwell. From time to time, of course, as the situation dictates, I still resort to the pacifier. This draws the occasional rude comment, but truthfully, there's not that much difference between a good cigar and the time-honored pacifier. After a lifetime of smoking I have only one or two taste buds left, but I can assure you, those little buds are having one hell of a party.
Simply to suck on a cigar these days is tantamount to making a political statement. Politicians and bureaucrats at all levels of government have failed so disastrously at resolving the issues that matter to most people-health care, education, immigration, energy, property taxes, the environment-that all they seem able to do is tax tobacco and pass ever more stringent smoking regulations. The combined might of our government appears capable only of criminalizing trivia. You'd think George Washington crossed the Delaware expressly to keep Winston Churchill, Mark Twain, and Groucho Marx at least twenty feet away from the entrance to Katz's Deli.
We're turning our beautiful country into nothing more than a condo association. Rules, regulations, and political correctness are strangling the best things America has to offer: freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom to be who you are. If you own a bar and want to let people smoke, you should be able to put a sign on the door, "Smoking allowed." If you don't want smoking, fine. Maybe you have a bar and you don't want drinking. That's fine too. If you're gay, you can go to a gay bar; if you're straight, you can go to a Jewish singles Purim party. This is the way America should be. Instead, we have a Houston city councilman who told former mayor pro tem Michael Berry, explaining why he voted for a citywide ban on smoking in bars, "What if I want to bring my kids to the bar?" Common sense is going up in smoke, folks.
Misguided zealots behind draconian smoking laws often fall back on the argument "It's for your health." They haven't noticed, apparently, that whenever you see a ninety-year-old geezer, most of the time he's still puffing a stogie. But you almost never see a ninety-year-old smoking a cigarette. This is because we cigar smokers religiously follow the wise example of Bill Clinton: We don't inhale.
Unfortunately, not everybody's fired up about my new venture. One malcontent recently e-mailed me the following message: "It is sad to see an icon turn into a whore."
"I don't care what you call me," I wrote back. "Rick Perry calls himself a public servant. Al Sharpton calls himself a civil rights leader. Besides, whores tend to hang around with a better class of people than icons." I'm waiting, with bated smoke rings, for his response.
The other folks who aren't too happy with Kinky Friedman Cigars are some of the cigar industry Goliaths who don't like seeing little David sharing their shelf space in stores. Nevertheless, after only a matter of months as the CEO of our small start-up, my friend Little Jewford (he's a Jew and he drives a Ford) filed the following report: "We've moved more than 100,000 sticks in the last quarter. You're on track to become the Famous Amos of the cigar world!"
While being the face of the company is fun, I know we need some savvy as well. That's why I tapped a true cigar maven, Sean Robinson, to be the president of KFC. At the urging of cigar magnates Hank Bischoff and Rafael Nodal, Sean traveled to the jungles of Honduras. There, amid machine guns, tarantulas, and beautiful women rolling beautiful cigars on their beautiful thighs, he befriended a man named Nestor, the king of the Cuban cigar-makers, who promised to create a special blend for Kinky Friedman Cigars.
When Sean returned, he had several small darts in his back, compliments of the Mosquito Indians, and five cigar lines: the Governor, the Kinkycristo, the Texas Jewboy, the Willie (which has a little twist on one end), and the Utopian, the only cigar in America benefiting animal rescue (profits go to the Utopia Animal Rescue Ranch). Sean and Nestor are currently developing three new lines: the Clinton, a replica of the Cuban Montecristo I once presented to Bill at the White House; the Kinky Lady, with the butt (of the cigar, that is) dipped in honey; and a brand-new cigar whose blend, I'm told, enhances the flavor of tequila. In anticipation of their arrival, my friend Ben Welch has built the largest portable climate-controlled cigar vault in Texas. We are very concerned the Clinton's becoming too moist. In the humidor.
I'm sure there are people out there who'll write letters to the editor of Texas Monthly casting asparagus upon this column, but I promise you, my words aren't hazardous to anybody's health. I'm just saying that God's not going to honk your horn until he's good and ready, so you might as well find what you like and let it kill you. Don't get me wrong: I admire Lance Armstrong, consider him a friend, and appreciate his work fighting cancer. I respect anyone with genuine intentions regarding the welfare of all people. What I object to are officious little hall monitors who use health as a smoke screen to promote their agenda and themselves. What I want these people to put in their pipes is this: Spain, Israel, Japan, Italy, France, and Greece all have more smokers per capita than the U.S. They also have longer life expectancies than we do. What can we conclude from this? Speaking English is killing us!
Kosciuszko was recruited in France by Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin, and in August 1776 he arrived in America. He initially served as a volunteer, but on October 18, 1776, Congress commissioned him a Colonel of Engineers in the Continental Army. At the recommendation of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and General Charles Lee, Kosciuszko was named head engineer of the Continental Army.
He was sent to Pennsylvania for his work with the Continental Army. Shortly after arriving, he read the United States Declaration of Independence. Kosciuszko was moved by the document because it encompassed everything in which he believed; he was so moved, in fact, that he decided to meet Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration.[citation needed] The two met in Virginia a few months later. After spending the day discussing philosophy, and other things they shared in common, they became very close friends. Kosciuszko was a guest at Monticello on many occasions, and spent prolonged visits there.
Kosciuszko's first task in America was the fortification of Philadelphia. His first structure was the construction of Fort Billingsport.[1]On September 24, 1776, Kosciuszko was ordered to fortify the banks of the Delaware River against a possible British crossing. In the spring of 1777 he was attached to the Northern Army under General Horatio Gates. As the chief engineer of the army he commanded the construction of several forts and fortified military camps along the Canadian border. His work made significant contributions to the American successful retreat from the battle of Ticonderoga and victory at Saratoga in 1777
After the battle, Kosciuszko, then regarded as one of the best engineers in American service, was put in charge by George Washington of military engineering works at the stronghold in West Point on the Hudson River. Then he asked to be transferred to the Southern Army, where he also made significant contributions to the American victories.
After seven years of service, on October 13, 1783, Kosciuszko was promoted by Congress to the rank of brigadier general. He was also granted American citizenship, 2.5 square kilometres of land in America, and a large sum of money. He used the money to help some black slaves gain their freedom. He was also admitted to the prestigious Society of the Cincinnati, one of only three foreigners allowed to join, and to the American Philosophical Society.
he is great general he fight befor agains russia in Poland.
Poland was a great country after the medival, no i dont want to say "just" after, now it is a big industy hype there *wisper* European-Union ftw! *wisper off*
Poland is great!
No, and i say this not only cause i buy there cigarettes and working girl
Churchill wrote in his Nobel Prize winning series on WWII that FDR knew about the Japanese plans to attack Pearl Harbor. pages 602-603 of THE GRAND ALLIANCE, c1950. Churchill makes these points about his good friend and colleague FDR, accusing him of treason while knowing that the facts would eventually come out:
I would seriously disagree...they had some of the best tactical minds in world war 2. Zhukov, Chuikov, Konev and the like.
Russia was caught off the front foot and was in a massive scramble to get everything right, their factories and the like were enroute to the urals. In the west, france and england were not exactly all prepared either.
They had tactical genius and help, but once they got their shit together...russia totally and utterly wiped the germans from the fucking map. The russians were extremely practical and very resilient..unlike the germans. (And even if japan did attack...russia had more than enough land to yield to the japs before the japs would have been routed...the japs wouldnt have had a chance against russian armour since the IJA didnt have any major development in armour.)
Look at tanks...T-34 was the single most important weapon the russians made (apart from the PPSh-1 submachine gun). It was technically very good (even after the war) and most importantly, easy and cheap to make.
The german tigers, panthers and king tigers were technically the most potent tanks in the war, but it was extremely hard to manufacture and extremely complex...but how is a single tiger/panther tank going to handle 100+ T-34's, hrmm?
Russia made more T34/43's in one year alone than what germany made tigers for the entire war! About 35,000+ t-34's were made from 1940 -1944 and 25,000 T34/85's in 1944-45. All up...thats something like 60,000 tanks. Thats a shitload of fucking tanks! LOL
Ive studied WW2 in intricate detail and also studied the tactical moves of both sides and the like.
The russians had huge numbers...this helped them no doubt...but they did have tactical genius in amongst their group. Konev, Chuikov and the best of them all...Zhukov.
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just kidding ...let us agree to a draw!
