4 ms·

Then it's clear that you're entirely ignorant of the history of radio in Germany, in particular its contribution to the rise of the Nazis. Before 1933, German

Then it's clear that you're entirely ignorant of the history of radio in Germany, in particular its contribution to the rise of the Nazis. Before 1933, German radio broadcasting was conducted by 10 regional broadcasting monopolies, each with a Weimar representative. Their radio had a distinctly anti-fascist and anti-Nazi slant up to the Nazi victory in 1933. If anything radio hindered the rise of Hitler. https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Petrova04042013/Petrova04042013.pdf https://www.princeton.edu/csdp/events/Petrova04042013/Petrov...

bonaldi 8y ago
Can I suggest you read at least the abstract of your cites? “This negative effect [of four years of anti-Nazi messages] was fully undone in just one month after Nazis got control over the radio in 1933 and initiated heavy radio propaganda.” (Emphasis added)
- froasty 8y ago
  Clearly literacy, as well as history, eludes you. By March of 1933, the Nazis had risen to power. The Nazis did not weaponize radio and then rise to power. They rose to power and then took over radio. And just how did they manage to dismantle the Weimar democracy and take over all forms of mass media so easily? Because for years prior, those in control of the German government had justified every violation of fundamental law, order, and governmental restraint in order to pinion the ability of political enemies to operate freely in the name of democracy and propriety. Yet, it turns out that, as your kind apparently never learns, power changes hands and the tables are turned against you. And yet now you have no tenable defense against being silenced--your opinions are the ones deemed too pernicious to allow to exist in a "free" society (as every society claims to be!). Your protestations are now "fake news" and, all-too-suddenly, you find yourself, your allies, and countless other innocents in a railway car to places like Kolyma or Auschwitz.
  - bonaldi 8y ago
    You are again failing to read your own cites. "Radio propaganda helped Nazi to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews leading to their deportation to concentration camps and caused open expressions of anti-Semitism." The weaponisation of radio by the Nazis, which naturally had to occur after they took power, is what drove the rise of fascism in Germany. You're really going to struggle to make the case that propaganda in no way supported the Nazi state here. And I guess the Germans must also be in that group that "never learns", what with their strict controls on Nazi speech. Still, they seem to be doing better at avoiding fascist leadership than the soi disant land of the free.
    - busterarm 8y ago
      > Still, they seem to be doing better at avoiding fascist leadership than the soi disant land of the free. Are they really? https://newrepublic.com/article/144954/return-fascism-germany-greece-far-right-nationalists-winning-elections https://newrepublic.com/article/144954/return-fascism-german... If you've been paying any attention, you'll noticed that Merkel has completely caved to anti-immigrant fears among Germans and backpedaled almost entirely.
    - froasty 8y ago
      It is absolutely amazing how thick you are. Of course, mass radio and propaganda helped the Nazi state operate. But they were only broadcasting on the radio after they had power in 1933. It only helped them amplify their hold after they already had total control of the government, in 1933. But you know what actually helped the Nazi state form? Banning the NSDAP from 1923-1925. And in 1927, banning Hitler from public speaking. And in the period from 1925 to 1932, using armed fighting squads to try to de-platform him in bars precipitating the existence of the Sturmabteilung (SA). And yes, using radio as a political fulcrum to turn people away from opposition parties. In 1933, Hitler walked the road paved for him by people like you. First as the farce of Weimar, then as the tragedy of National Socialism. Every action had a precendent. Every action justified first by a moral panic. Moral panic by people that can conceive of no reason not to use their over-weaning self-righteousness as a lever to tell other people what to do, without considering the long-term consequences of such actions, without context, without understanding, blindly obeying emotions generated by other people. Because clearly, in retrospect, the Crusders' blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Inquisition's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Commonwealth's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Bolshevik's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Nazi's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, and countless other movements unnamed. But your sense of moral self-righteousness is morally right and justified and will lead only to utopia and the land of milk and honey. How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in 't!
  - busterarm 8y ago
    Thank you for expressing this truth so perfectly. It would be wise for many to study your words (or, preferably, history).

bonaldi 8y ago

Can I suggest you read at least the abstract of your cites? “This negative effect [of four years of anti-Nazi messages] was fully undone in just one month after Nazis got control over the radio in 1933 and initiated heavy radio propaganda.” (Emphasis added)

froasty 8y ago
Clearly literacy, as well as history, eludes you. By March of 1933, the Nazis had risen to power. The Nazis did not weaponize radio and then rise to power. They rose to power and then took over radio. And just how did they manage to dismantle the Weimar democracy and take over all forms of mass media so easily? Because for years prior, those in control of the German government had justified every violation of fundamental law, order, and governmental restraint in order to pinion the ability of political enemies to operate freely in the name of democracy and propriety. Yet, it turns out that, as your kind apparently never learns, power changes hands and the tables are turned against you. And yet now you have no tenable defense against being silenced--your opinions are the ones deemed too pernicious to allow to exist in a "free" society (as every society claims to be!). Your protestations are now "fake news" and, all-too-suddenly, you find yourself, your allies, and countless other innocents in a railway car to places like Kolyma or Auschwitz.
- bonaldi 8y ago
  You are again failing to read your own cites. "Radio propaganda helped Nazi to enroll new party members and encouraged denunciations of Jews leading to their deportation to concentration camps and caused open expressions of anti-Semitism." The weaponisation of radio by the Nazis, which naturally had to occur after they took power, is what drove the rise of fascism in Germany. You're really going to struggle to make the case that propaganda in no way supported the Nazi state here. And I guess the Germans must also be in that group that "never learns", what with their strict controls on Nazi speech. Still, they seem to be doing better at avoiding fascist leadership than the soi disant land of the free.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    > Still, they seem to be doing better at avoiding fascist leadership than the soi disant land of the free. Are they really? https://newrepublic.com/article/144954/return-fascism-germany-greece-far-right-nationalists-winning-elections https://newrepublic.com/article/144954/return-fascism-german... If you've been paying any attention, you'll noticed that Merkel has completely caved to anti-immigrant fears among Germans and backpedaled almost entirely.
  - froasty 8y ago
    It is absolutely amazing how thick you are. Of course, mass radio and propaganda helped the Nazi state operate. But they were only broadcasting on the radio after they had power in 1933. It only helped them amplify their hold after they already had total control of the government, in 1933. But you know what actually helped the Nazi state form? Banning the NSDAP from 1923-1925. And in 1927, banning Hitler from public speaking. And in the period from 1925 to 1932, using armed fighting squads to try to de-platform him in bars precipitating the existence of the Sturmabteilung (SA). And yes, using radio as a political fulcrum to turn people away from opposition parties. In 1933, Hitler walked the road paved for him by people like you. First as the farce of Weimar, then as the tragedy of National Socialism. Every action had a precendent. Every action justified first by a moral panic. Moral panic by people that can conceive of no reason not to use their over-weaning self-righteousness as a lever to tell other people what to do, without considering the long-term consequences of such actions, without context, without understanding, blindly obeying emotions generated by other people. Because clearly, in retrospect, the Crusders' blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Inquisition's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Commonwealth's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Bolshevik's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, the Nazi's blind self-righteousness was morally wrong and led to horrors, and countless other movements unnamed. But your sense of moral self-righteousness is morally right and justified and will lead only to utopia and the land of milk and honey. How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in 't!
- busterarm 8y ago
  Thank you for expressing this truth so perfectly. It would be wise for many to study your words (or, preferably, history).