5 ms·

Against Normalization: The Lesson of the “Munich Post”

30 points by nafizh 10y ago

thro23990 10y ago
As someone from East Europe, I am highly offended by this post. Comparing your shit-show to WW2 is @#$%&*... Mussolini is much better comparation, but not as punchy. Trump does not advocate genocide, but enforcement of existing laws (mostly setup by democrats). And author should look where Mein Kampf is bestseller...
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- deleted 10y ago
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leereeves 10y ago
I thought Hacker News was above Nazi-comparisons, but if we are sinking to that level, perhaps we should also compare similarities between left-wing groups engaging in politically motivated acts of violence and the Nazi brownshirts. For example, consider the group UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks called: > more than 100 armed individuals clad all in black who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent, destructive behavior designed to shut [Milo's speech] down. http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/02/campus-condemns-violence-defends-free-speech/ http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/02/campus-condemns-violence... (But I'd rather we avoid Nazi comparisons altogether. They can be an effective way for an author to get attention but they can be used by both sides and they rarely lead to useful discussion.)
- more_original 10y ago
  > I thought Hacker News was above Nazi-comparisons > [makes Nazi-comparison] Edit: Parent changed > Downvoted without response? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, groups that resort to tactics like those at Berkeley are hardly above trying to silence discussion here with downvotes. into > (But I'd rather we avoid Nazi comparisons altogether. They can be an effective way for an author to get attention but they can be used by both sides and they rarely lead to useful discussion.) The latter I can agree with.
  - leereeves 10y ago
    I'm willing to engage in discussion at any level the community prefers. I'd rather not have it at this level but c'est la vie. Response to update: > The latter I can agree with. Are we still flagging political posts here? Perhaps we could agree to flag Nazi-comparisons, at least. In that spirit, it's fair to downvote my Nazi-comparison, but only if you also flag the main post.
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- rjtavares 10y ago
  Are you implying that those groups are coordinated with an American Political Party? Which one? Can you provide more information about that?
  - leereeves 10y ago
    Tolerated, certainly. > UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett said Wednesday night [after the incident described above] she wasn't aware of any arrests by the department. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-violence-prompts-uc-berkeley-cancel-milo-yiannopoulos-event-n715711 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-violence-prompt... Imagine: > more than 100 armed individuals clad all in black who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent, destructive behavior No arrests?
    - rjtavares 10y ago
      You specifically compared it with Nazi brownshirts (which were a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party). Your reasoning is that "isn't it strange there were no arrests"? Sorry, that's not the level of discussion I'm used to on HN.
      - leereeves 10y ago
        It's as relevant as the comparison the author of this article made between a man who committed genocide and a man who restricted entry into the country from 7 nations, between someone who started his political career with an attempted coup and someone who started his political career by winning an election. But thank you for illustrating another drawback of Nazi-comparisons: they're almost always inaccurate.
        rjtavares 10y ago
        If the article was about Trump restricting entry into the country from 7 nations, I would agree 100% with you. It isn't about that, though: it's about very specific events and the overall relationship between media and government. It's a fairly interesting article that will, unfortunately, be dismissed by a lot of people because Nazi-comparisons are almost always ridiculous.
narrator 10y ago
Continuous war since 2001 and all 8 years of the Obama administration is the real normalization we should be afraid of.
- rjtavares 10y ago
  We should be afraid of both (I would even argue that the Trump phenomenon is a direct consequence of the normalization you mention).
nabla9 10y ago
>'Putin isn't Hitler!' 'Trump isn't Hitler!' Wow, congratulations! You have failed the most basic lesson of learning from history in order not to repeat it! >I wrote about this fallacy extensively in Winter is Coming and elsewhere, but am happy to recap it here. Of course Putin isn't Hitler, and Donald Trump isn't even Putin—no matter how much he would like to be. The point is that no one is making comparisons to the monster Adolf Hitler became in the 1940s. But in the 20s, even for most of the 30s, Hitler wasn't Hitler either! There could be no more important lesson to understand than how a race-baiting demagogue came to power in an educated and liberal country like Germany and how he transformed that nation into a fascist death machine capable of World War and unimaginable acts. -- Garry Kasparov
- Nokinside 10y ago
  Zeit has eye opening article Adolf Hitler : "Wait Calmly" http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2017-02/adolf-hitler-chancellor-appointment-anniversary/komplettansicht http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2017-02/adolf-hitler-ch... They describe how journalists, even big liberal newspapers, big-business representatives, and conservatives had all the same illusion that Hitler would be something that could be managed and lived trough. Business leaders and conservatives aligned with him because there seemed to be some common interests they could work trough together. ""In the Frankfurter Zeitung, politics editor Benno Reifenberg expressed doubt Hitler had the "social competence" for the office of chancellor, but didn’t think it was out of the question that the responsibility of his office might transform him in ways that could earn him respect. Like Theodor Wolff, Reifenberg described it as "a hopeless misjudgment of our country to believe a dictatorial regime could be forced upon it." "The diversity of the German people demands democracy," he wrote."" Hitler needed only five months in power to change everything.
  - leereeves 10y ago
    Let's speak plainly. Are you suggesting that Trump intends to abolish democracy or commit genocide?
    - iSnow 10y ago
belorn 10y ago
The last US election can't be described without talking about the loosing candidate. A majority of voters on both side voted, not based on policy, but on emotional hatred towards the other candidate. To compare it with 1920 Germany, would we have to frame it around the emotional state of both sides. Did the Weimar Republic focused their politics on their hatred for Hitler and his voters? In contrast to the US election, not only did that not happen but when Hitler got elected as Chancellor he did so as part of a minority coalition (41%) where the Nazi party held a meekly three out of eleven seats in the Papen-Nationalist-Hitler coalition. Voter focus seems (as far as historians seems to imply) to be on the treaty and difference between the four political parties.

30 points by nafizh 10y ago

As someone from East Europe, I am highly offended by this post. Comparing your shit-show to WW2 is @#$%&*... Mussolini is much better comparation, but not as punchy. Trump does not advocate genocide, but enforcement of existing laws (mostly setup by democrats). And author should look where Mein Kampf is bestseller...

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

leereeves 10y ago

I thought Hacker News was above Nazi-comparisons, but if we are sinking to that level, perhaps we should also compare similarities between left-wing groups engaging in politically motivated acts of violence and the Nazi brownshirts. For example, consider the group UC Berkeley Chancellor Nicholas Dirks called: > more than 100 armed individuals clad all in black who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent, destructive behavior designed to shut [Milo's speech] down. http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/02/campus-condemns-violence-defends-free-speech/ http://news.berkeley.edu/2017/02/02/campus-condemns-violence... (But I'd rather we avoid Nazi comparisons altogether. They can be an effective way for an author to get attention but they can be used by both sides and they rarely lead to useful discussion.)

more_original 10y ago
> I thought Hacker News was above Nazi-comparisons > [makes Nazi-comparison] Edit: Parent changed > Downvoted without response? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, groups that resort to tactics like those at Berkeley are hardly above trying to silence discussion here with downvotes. into > (But I'd rather we avoid Nazi comparisons altogether. They can be an effective way for an author to get attention but they can be used by both sides and they rarely lead to useful discussion.) The latter I can agree with.
- leereeves 10y ago
  I'm willing to engage in discussion at any level the community prefers. I'd rather not have it at this level but c'est la vie. Response to update: > The latter I can agree with. Are we still flagging political posts here? Perhaps we could agree to flag Nazi-comparisons, at least. In that spirit, it's fair to downvote my Nazi-comparison, but only if you also flag the main post.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
rjtavares 10y ago
Are you implying that those groups are coordinated with an American Political Party? Which one? Can you provide more information about that?
- leereeves 10y ago
  Tolerated, certainly. > UC Berkeley Police Chief Margo Bennett said Wednesday night [after the incident described above] she wasn't aware of any arrests by the department. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-violence-prompts-uc-berkeley-cancel-milo-yiannopoulos-event-n715711 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/protests-violence-prompt... Imagine: > more than 100 armed individuals clad all in black who utilized paramilitary tactics to engage in violent, destructive behavior No arrests?
  - rjtavares 10y ago
    You specifically compared it with Nazi brownshirts (which were a paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party). Your reasoning is that "isn't it strange there were no arrests"? Sorry, that's not the level of discussion I'm used to on HN.
    - leereeves 10y ago
      It's as relevant as the comparison the author of this article made between a man who committed genocide and a man who restricted entry into the country from 7 nations, between someone who started his political career with an attempted coup and someone who started his political career by winning an election. But thank you for illustrating another drawback of Nazi-comparisons: they're almost always inaccurate.
      - rjtavares 10y ago
        If the article was about Trump restricting entry into the country from 7 nations, I would agree 100% with you. It isn't about that, though: it's about very specific events and the overall relationship between media and government. It's a fairly interesting article that will, unfortunately, be dismissed by a lot of people because Nazi-comparisons are almost always ridiculous.

narrator 10y ago

Continuous war since 2001 and all 8 years of the Obama administration is the real normalization we should be afraid of.

rjtavares 10y ago
We should be afraid of both (I would even argue that the Trump phenomenon is a direct consequence of the normalization you mention).

nabla9 10y ago

>'Putin isn't Hitler!' 'Trump isn't Hitler!' Wow, congratulations! You have failed the most basic lesson of learning from history in order not to repeat it! >I wrote about this fallacy extensively in Winter is Coming and elsewhere, but am happy to recap it here. Of course Putin isn't Hitler, and Donald Trump isn't even Putin—no matter how much he would like to be. The point is that no one is making comparisons to the monster Adolf Hitler became in the 1940s. But in the 20s, even for most of the 30s, Hitler wasn't Hitler either! There could be no more important lesson to understand than how a race-baiting demagogue came to power in an educated and liberal country like Germany and how he transformed that nation into a fascist death machine capable of World War and unimaginable acts. -- Garry Kasparov

Nokinside 10y ago
Zeit has eye opening article Adolf Hitler : "Wait Calmly" http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2017-02/adolf-hitler-chancellor-appointment-anniversary/komplettansicht http://www.zeit.de/wissen/geschichte/2017-02/adolf-hitler-ch... They describe how journalists, even big liberal newspapers, big-business representatives, and conservatives had all the same illusion that Hitler would be something that could be managed and lived trough. Business leaders and conservatives aligned with him because there seemed to be some common interests they could work trough together. ""In the Frankfurter Zeitung, politics editor Benno Reifenberg expressed doubt Hitler had the "social competence" for the office of chancellor, but didn’t think it was out of the question that the responsibility of his office might transform him in ways that could earn him respect. Like Theodor Wolff, Reifenberg described it as "a hopeless misjudgment of our country to believe a dictatorial regime could be forced upon it." "The diversity of the German people demands democracy," he wrote."" Hitler needed only five months in power to change everything.
- leereeves 10y ago
  Let's speak plainly. Are you suggesting that Trump intends to abolish democracy or commit genocide?
  - iSnow 10y ago

belorn 10y ago

The last US election can't be described without talking about the loosing candidate. A majority of voters on both side voted, not based on policy, but on emotional hatred towards the other candidate. To compare it with 1920 Germany, would we have to frame it around the emotional state of both sides. Did the Weimar Republic focused their politics on their hatred for Hitler and his voters? In contrast to the US election, not only did that not happen but when Hitler got elected as Chancellor he did so as part of a minority coalition (41%) where the Nazi party held a meekly three out of eleven seats in the Papen-Nationalist-Hitler coalition. Voter focus seems (as far as historians seems to imply) to be on the treaty and difference between the four political parties.