After watching the Judgement at Nuremberg for the second time this year I am compelled to write about the theme of that movie and what is happening today in the United States of America.
The German people were condemned for “allowing” Hitler and his NAZI party to get into and stay in power. The Judges went along with it, some holding their noses, some embracing the new patriotic feelings after the humiliation of WW1, some thinking it was a phase that would end.
The Population welcomed all the good that Hitler did. Since they were not involved with the bad stuff, they let it go and decided to not pay attention to it. The” Others” were not them or their friends or family. Out of sight out of mind.
I have a staunch republican voter in the house, she is elderly but still has her mind. She can represent the mind of the normal people who embrace FOX news and are not involved in anything outside their own lives.
I am one of the current “others”.
Today I told her that I lost my job, which I loved, went to college to learn and worked at for 10 years because of my religion. Those terrorists were, after all Muslims, and all Muslims are potential terrorists. My relatives knew I was Muslim since I was 16. However in their desire to forget me and my leaving the Christian/Jewish fold, they never once considered how I and my husband could be affected after 9/11 or with the anti Muslim sentiment that has prevailed in this country for decades. They never once gave it a thought. Just like the good Germans never gave what was going on a thought. Most were not intellectuals. And thinking too much is hard work.
Many people here are more like the character Montgomery Clift played in the movie. The challenge to understand or go outside their comfort zone never appealed to them. It is as easy to be ignorant of the world’s happenings now as it was then with no TV and limited news access. The cable channels make it easy to never hear anything that you do not already believe or validates your ideals. People today are as ignorant as they were in the 1900s, 1910s,1920s, 1930s.
Now general ignorance is even more so since there is a lot of easy idea to fill the gaps in knowledge. There are many lies, misstatements, and propaganda that fill the airwaves and the empty minds of those who are not up to the intellectual challenge of out side their box life.
FOX and the other networks are enough for them. And most will rather watch a 50 year old rerun or a game show than to think. After all it is not their problem or life that is affected by the infection of the lie deliberate.
So how did the Germans let the NAZIs happen and all that came after? The same way the Americans are letting it happen now. We have no death camps...we are much more subtle than that.
We do kill an amazing amount of people a day in our quest to rid the world, our world, of Terrorists ( which all seem to be Muslims). We are much cleaner with the drones, and we kill them over in their own countries so we do not need to dispose them off after they are dead. We do not even record how many we kill, we do not care to know their names or gender or age.
So my dear fellow Americans this is how the German people let such a thing happen. Just like you are letting it happen now. Just like we turn a blind eye to Israel as their do it to those who just happened to living in Palestine when they wanted to occupy it in the name of Israel and to never forget or let it happen to them again....of course the “others” are not in that ideal to never let it happen to them ….they are after all the terrorists and the ones that are a threat to their way of life…
We all learned from the best and greatly improved on the techniques.
There are things the Nazis did better...Their uniforms, the fact they had a goal in mind for their country and people, They had a plan that everyone could see and know about if they wanted to know. Germany was organized.
SHGBA!
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