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Did not expect to see an image of someone with their head half blown off. Trying to find my thoughts on this. The Einsatzgruppen pretty much started the Holoca

Did not expect to see an image of someone with their head half blown off. Trying to find my thoughts on this. The Einsatzgruppen pretty much started the Holocaust via mass shootings (before all other methods). They switched to gas vans (according to this article, China uses this too? What in the fuck) for some vile cognitive gymnastics where they convinced themselves it was too demoralizing for the goons to have to shoot that many people without being drunk all the time (to carry out the deed). They sought a more efficient, less taxing method, and that’s where the gas vans came in. The Nazis did this to anyone that they could lump into ‘a national threat’ bucket, so Jews that were also communist Russians were instant kill (as opposed to German Jews who initially got put in labor camps). If the CCP ever decides routine shootings is taxing or inefficient (like the Nazis), things wouldn’t be so far off to having an “efficient” death camp to just handle it en masse. I tend to always over-fit the Nazi parallels, especially with China, but China’s prime issue is scale. Whatever they do, they must always consider scale. Crackdowns will happen at scale (Hong Kong), censorship will happen at scale (speech/internet), imprisonment will happen at scale (Uighurs), and mass executions (if we were to ever get the numbers) will happen at scale. As hard it is to not turn away from that picture in the article, I would sincerely like to know what that woman’s crime was.

ekianjo 6y ago
> imprisonment will happen at scale (Uighurs), Not just imprisonment, mass raping of Uighurs women as well: https://www.insider.com/uighur-activists-mass-rape-chinese-men-xinjiang-2019-12 https://www.insider.com/uighur-activists-mass-rape-chinese-m...
dan-robertson 6y ago
I think the point of the article is that the choice to involve ordinary police officers in the killings is to give them a stake in the current regime (or at least to make them fear the consequences of any other future regime.) I don’t think more organised death camps fit with that motive, but it could be wrong.
- runawaybottle 6y ago
  The Einsatzgruppen were actually like ordinary police. They were never actually told to create death camps initially, it was just more ... efficient, so Nazi sub leadership switched to that somewhat independently. This book makes an interesting point about the bottom-up theory of what really started the Holocaust (this is an unforgettable read, I feel like author literally accounted for every death batch (and yes ‘batch’ has to be used due to the scale): https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471 https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stal... Basically, it was simple broad directives that got interpreted by these disparate elements of the Nazis in the Eastern front. What does it mean if someone is not only a Jew, but also a communist Russian? Pretty much an instant threat, and forward deployed units liberally interpreted it into mass-killing vs forced labor camps. Once that genie was out of the bottle, you would look unproductive in the regime if you weren’t upping the ante. What is the CCP creating here? You want units with blood on their hands ratcheting up new and interesting ways of currying favor with the regime? Hey bosses, I found a great new way to promote CCP Authority, forget Uighur camps, get a load of this. Suddenly you have a macabre competition within a peculiar institution that can only become darker if left to find it’s own logical purpose (be the very best ccp you can be, whatever that means, and oh John the guy you started with recently rose the ranks doing this, not saying you should too, but take some initiative). No master plan, just a dark organic evolution.
josefx 6y ago
> for some vile cognitive gymnastics where they convinced themselves it was too demoralizing for the goons to have to shoot that many people without being drunk all the time Sadly mental gymnastics seem to do their work often enough. For example firing squad style executions also tend to use mental gymnastics, by introducing blank rounds the individual members of the squad are no longer certain that they will fire the lethal shot, making them less hesitant to aim and shoot correctly.

ekianjo 6y ago

> imprisonment will happen at scale (Uighurs), Not just imprisonment, mass raping of Uighurs women as well: https://www.insider.com/uighur-activists-mass-rape-chinese-men-xinjiang-2019-12 https://www.insider.com/uighur-activists-mass-rape-chinese-m...

dan-robertson 6y ago

I think the point of the article is that the choice to involve ordinary police officers in the killings is to give them a stake in the current regime (or at least to make them fear the consequences of any other future regime.) I don’t think more organised death camps fit with that motive, but it could be wrong.

runawaybottle 6y ago
The Einsatzgruppen were actually like ordinary police. They were never actually told to create death camps initially, it was just more ... efficient, so Nazi sub leadership switched to that somewhat independently. This book makes an interesting point about the bottom-up theory of what really started the Holocaust (this is an unforgettable read, I feel like author literally accounted for every death batch (and yes ‘batch’ has to be used due to the scale): https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stalin/dp/0465031471 https://www.amazon.com/Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-Stal... Basically, it was simple broad directives that got interpreted by these disparate elements of the Nazis in the Eastern front. What does it mean if someone is not only a Jew, but also a communist Russian? Pretty much an instant threat, and forward deployed units liberally interpreted it into mass-killing vs forced labor camps. Once that genie was out of the bottle, you would look unproductive in the regime if you weren’t upping the ante. What is the CCP creating here? You want units with blood on their hands ratcheting up new and interesting ways of currying favor with the regime? Hey bosses, I found a great new way to promote CCP Authority, forget Uighur camps, get a load of this. Suddenly you have a macabre competition within a peculiar institution that can only become darker if left to find it’s own logical purpose (be the very best ccp you can be, whatever that means, and oh John the guy you started with recently rose the ranks doing this, not saying you should too, but take some initiative). No master plan, just a dark organic evolution.

josefx 6y ago

> for some vile cognitive gymnastics where they convinced themselves it was too demoralizing for the goons to have to shoot that many people without being drunk all the time Sadly mental gymnastics seem to do their work often enough. For example firing squad style executions also tend to use mental gymnastics, by introducing blank rounds the individual members of the squad are no longer certain that they will fire the lethal shot, making them less hesitant to aim and shoot correctly.