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#1 2004-01-28 06:47:56

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

This is a quote I've pulled from Scott's "Constitutional Admendment" thread that I think makes for a good thread-starter:

The US President changes every 4 years, right ? And US is the biggest military power of the world. What could happen if some president in the future, and his stuff, will be some Hitler-like characters, determined to conquer the world (or blast it with neutron bombs and then colonize). Could they ever be stopped ? By Americans ? By others ? By all the countries allied ?

Good question.  I do believe it's entirely possible that the US could be taken over by a bunch of Hitler-like thugs...which is why every school child in America (and the world) needs to be taught about the Holocaust and other gruesome episodes of human history.  As for whether a "USA gone bad" could really take over the entire world, I'm not so sure about that.  Look at Nazi Germany, for example.  Hitler honestly believed that they would be taking over the entire planet, including the United States, but such a thing would have been physically impossible, unless they had been able to come up with the atom bomb before we had (and thank God they didn't!)  If the US was really bent on taking over the world with its military and nuclear threats, I think the remainder of the planet could unite and counter the threat...if not militarily, then economically.  For instance, if Europe, Russia, China and the Arab states were to get together to halt all oil shipments to the U.S. for example, then this country would be up a very large creek without a paddle..lol.  A 100% trade embargo against the U.S. would also send this country into a mind-numbing depression, with astronomical unemployment and widespread shortages of essential goods.  This in turn would likely precipitate an internal revolution, bringing about a quick and sudden end to the Hitler-like regime in power.  (And yes, the American people WOULD be able to overthrow the US government if the need ever arose...since we've got all those guns lying around...hehe.) 

Of course, it goes without saying that if nukes are ever placed into service...then the party's over...likely for good. sad   Homo sapians may not go completely extinct, but the human race would probably revert back to the Stone Age after a global nuclear war (nuclear winter and all of that).  Definitely not something you want to take lightly....

B

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#2 2004-01-28 07:13:39

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

Hitler honestly believed that they would be taking over the entire planet, including the United States, but such a thing would have been physically impossible

*Yes, but keep in mind that the U.S. in the 1930s has been compared to "an adolescent just starting to flex its muscles a bit."  We weren't that great of a power or threat to Hitler; we gained momentum in the 1940s, but we definitely needed the alliance with Russia and the Brits.

However, Japan and the Pacific fights were a different matter (IMO); I think it was Pearl Harbor and all that which really "awoke a sleeping giant" (quoting either the Japanese emperor or the admiral who led the attack on Pearl Harbor...I can't remember which).

Great thread, btw.  smile  I'm looking forward to ensuing discussion...

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#3 2004-01-28 08:11:44

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

Hmmm. Read that thread too, But Mundaka's counter points are valid. American folks wouldn't let that happen, IMO. And the fact that a lot of Americans have weapons AND the training to use them would make it *very* difficult to stage a 'coup'

it would cause a civil war, initiated by freedom-loving Americans that would be very hard to win by 'Hitler'

Of course, if that 'Hitler' had all the newschannels under his power, and played it right, he could convince the regular Joe that what he's doing is the right thing, but again, i don't think that's really possible.
I might be an European, sometimes looking a bit suspicious towards the 'new world order' rhetorics of the American Government, but i do know it's not EVIL. Misguided maybe, insensitive towards other cultures, maybe... (i say maybe! don't get into discussion, i can't win, i'm no good at this, just telling you folks what's the public opinion (what i hear around me))

No American worth its salt would tolerate a 'killing-machine'
as a leader.

just my 2 Eurocents.

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#4 2004-01-28 10:10:22

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

No American worth its salt would tolerate a 'killing-machine'
as a leader.

just my 2 Eurocents.

Thanks for saying that... big_smile   I would have to think that it'd be next to impossible for a Hitler-esque dictator to sieze control of this nation as well, but it was nice to hear this from a bona-fide European. smile

*Yes, but keep in mind that the U.S. in the 1930s has been compared to "an adolescent just starting to flex its muscles a bit."  We weren't that great of a power or threat to Hitler; we gained momentum in the 1940s, but we definitely needed the alliance with Russia and the Brits.

However, Japan and the Pacific fights were a different matter (IMO); I think it was Pearl Harbor and all that which really "awoke a sleeping giant" (quoting either the Japanese emperor or the admiral who led the attack on Pearl Harbor...I can't remember which).

Yes, I agree with you on that one.  America in the 1930's was a very isolationist, provincial nation, and the last thing the Americans wanted was an expensive war coming on the heels of a decade-long economic depression.  But when American soil was attacked without provocation...the U.S. went from almost zero to spending 40% of its GDP on the war effort in the space of three short years.  When Americans realized that their country was no longer safe from hostile nations, we quickly learned how to be a "Can Do" nation, and we kicked not one, but two military superpowers in the butt...lol.

But the U.S. certainly had a lot going for it...good leadership, a huge pool of resources and people to draw upon, plus we had the advantage of using England as a giant aircraft carrier to bring Hilter to his eventual defeat....good thing the Brits were able to hold off Hitler's attempts to take them over, huh?

This brings to mind a speech given by two individuals who came to my college...one of them was a Holocaust survivor, and the other was a former Nazi youth leader...and I remember what they both said *quite* clearly.  When the former Nazi got to the part in which he went face-to-face with Hitler, and was told that Germany was going to conquer the United States, I quickly developed this vision of a huge military invasion by the Germans on the East Coast, the surf turning crimson as millions of American citizens pushed them back into the ocean with their hunting rifles and handguns.  As I said repeatedly back then, I say that was not a battle the Germans (or the Russians, etc...ever see "Red Dawn", anyone...hehe.) could have won.  No way, Jose....lol... smile

B

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#5 2004-01-28 11:48:04

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

But the U.S. certainly had a lot going for it...good leadership, a huge pool of resources and people to draw upon, plus we had the advantage of using England as a giant aircraft carrier to bring Hilter to his eventual defeat....good thing the Brits were able to hold off Hitler's attempts to take them over, huh?

*I'll say.  yikes

I just wish the U.S. would have tried to step in much earlier, to help stop the roundup and slaughter of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, dissidents, etc., and others who perished at the hands of the Nazis -and- that we hadn't bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I've mentioned before (a long time ago) my grief over those two incidents:  Those cities were populated by civilians entirely -- old people, children, and women.  If the U.S. were going to bomb any Japanese city in an attempt to get them to back down it should have been Tokyo.

Not that I would want Tokyo bombed either (!!), but it was THE military installation for Japan (a more logical target, IMO, if you're going to go ahead and do something like that).  And twice?  Did we have to drop the A-bomb on Japan TWICE?  I don't think so.

I've read books about the Holocaust, a book entitled _Hiroshima_, and other accounts of Japanese survivors of the A-bomb.  It's just all horrible, all of it, and most wars are unnecessary (regardless of who starts it) -- that's the real tragedy. 

It's too bad the intense energy which drives hatred and war can't be harnessed more frequently towards beneficial ends. 

My husband watches war movies, somewhat frequently.  I will sometimes watch as well, for the human interest aspects.  It's amazing what people can achieve (survival) under such horrific duress.  Like the POWs in Germany who forged official documents; they didn't have access to a typewriter of course, but one man was so artistic and skilled with a common lead pencil that he filled out forms (passports and etc., used for escape) with lettering so precise and steady that it LOOKS EXACTLY LIKE typeprint.  Amazing. 

Don't mean to go too far off topic, but another survival situation:  A man named Howard Rutledge who was shot down over Vietnam; he and his comrades endured long months of isolation in tiny, foul rooms.  He kept himself sane by building houses in his mind...board by board, nail by nail, wire by wire.  Then he'd furnish the house, and move on to the next. 

He was once interrogated in a room lit by a dim bulb; when his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw dozens of huge spiders hanging down all around the room, some as big as his fist.  And he was tied up to boards, in a torture position during all that.  ::shivers:: 

His ordeal is told in a book entitled _In the Presence of Mine Enemies_.  He's a Christian, and he relates how his faith helped him as well.

It's amazing what people can survive.  It's hideous that humans put each other through these terrible things.

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#6 2004-01-28 13:27:19

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

I just wish the U.S. would have tried to step in much earlier, to help stop the roundup and slaughter of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, dissidents, etc., and others who perished at the hands of the Nazis.

This brings to mind my visit to the National Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC.  It was heartbreaking to see all of that, but I learned an incredible amount about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany in the few hours I was there.  I learned how the Nazis stripped the rights of Jews and other "undesirables" little by little, while other nations stood by and did nothing.  Not to say that the Jews didn't put up a fight, however, as I saw some truly amazing stories of Jewish heroism during this terrible time...how people communicated with the secret codes written on soap wrappages, etc.  And the room full of shoes from 1000's of victims....words are not enough to decsribe the feeling of standing in that room, smelling those musty shoes...

The thing I fail to understand, is why the U.S. took so little direct action against the slaughter of the Jews even well after we knew about it.  We didn't bomb the rail lines used to tranport the prisoners, for instance, and everyone knows about the story of the ship full of refugees that got turned back, to be killed at the hands of the Nazis... sad   There's a good deal that the U.S. should be ashamed of, unfortunately... (including, but not limited to, the atom-bombing of Japan, the interrment of Japanese-Americans, etc, not to mention not getting in the war when Germany began taking over Europe...)

B

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#7 2004-01-28 13:44:15

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

I'll try my question once again....

A man comes to your door, he tells you that the government has declared him a terroist and they are looking for him. He asks you to help hide him becuase he is not a terroist.

Do you help him hide, or do you turn him in?

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#8 2004-01-28 14:06:15

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

I'll try my question once again....

A man comes to your door, he tells you that the government has declared him a terroist and they are looking for him. He asks you to help hide him becuase he is not a terroist.

Do you help him hide, or do you turn him in?

Well, the *logical* thing to do would be to obey the law and turn him in, as harboring a known fugitive is a felony.  Yes, the guy may be innocent, but that's for the justice system to figure that out. 

When in doubt, call the cops.  They're paid to deal with problems like this...

B

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#9 2004-01-28 14:09:38

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

The Jews were criminals. Harboring a Jew, or other undesirable was considered treason. The justice system didn't care about innocence since the system was being used by the executive branch to enact their vision.

When in doubt, call the SS...

See, the world isn't as different as we might like to think.

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#10 2004-01-28 14:13:46

Rxke
Member
From: Belgium
Registered: 2003-11-03
Posts: 3,669

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

A man comes to your door, he tells you that the government has declared him a terroist and they are looking for him. He asks you to help hide him becuase he is not a terroist.
Do you help him hide, or do you turn him in?

Isn't that in a novel by J.P. Sartre?

(and now i *will* get ridiculed, read a gazillion books, but always forget by whom)

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#11 2004-01-28 14:43:08

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

See, the world isn't as different as we might like to think.

And this is why the price of freedom is *eternal vigilance*...

B

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#12 2004-01-28 14:51:01

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

So, you would give over someone who may or may not be guilty, to a system that provides them no legal consul, that keeps the individual incommunicado, that offers no charges (other than being a 'terroist') by which to justify the detention, that also offers no evidence by which to establish that the person is or is not a 'terroist', that is allowed to detain an individual indefintietly, without judicial review, and can be tried and punished in secret, with the maximum penalty allowable being death, decided by a military tribunal?

Eternal vigilience has allowed this to happen today, again.

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#13 2004-01-28 14:57:02

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

*I dunno...there just might be a big difference between Usama bin Laden (denounced as a terrorist by his own people, other Islamic-controlled nations, and including his family who have renounced him as a terrorist and distorter of Islam) and Anne Frank (a little girl skipping rope one day, dying in a concentration camp the next because she was collectively damned based on her race by a group of rabid nationalists).

Perhaps we should keep CONTEXT in mind?

--Cindy  smile


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#14 2004-01-28 15:01:21

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

An unjust system used to bring justice to the guilty is more dangerous to the innocent.

The laws that were used to intern the undesirables in 1930's Germany were first laws designed to bring the criminals to justice.

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#15 2004-01-28 15:08:55

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

*An unjust system is one which employs "moral relevancy," thereby endangering innocents (because it doesn't distinguish between a criminal and a child, for instance...example as in my most previous post).

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#16 2004-01-28 15:17:12

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

So Cindy, you believe that the current system used by the American government to combat terroism on our soil does not employ "moral relevancy"?

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#17 2004-01-28 15:32:39

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

So Cindy, you believe that the current system used by the American government to combat terroism on our soil does not employ "moral relevancy"?

*I wouldn't doubt that it does (as much as I would like to think otherwise), at least to some extent.  What the parameters of that extent are, I admit I do not know (being honest). 

Are you a moral relativist, Clark?  Or a contrarian?

Not a put down...I'm simply curious for a straight answer please.

My example of bin Laden "vs" Anne Frank stands, IMO, as highlighting the dangers of moral relevancy (regardless of where it is found, who is employing it, etc.).

--Cindy


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#18 2004-01-28 16:11:11

Byron
Member
From: Florida, USA
Registered: 2002-05-16
Posts: 844

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

Eternal vigilience has allowed this to happen today, again.

Perhaps this should be worded as the LACK of eternal vigilence...the American people have the responsibility of making sure that their government adheres to the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution.  If it doesn't, then we (the voters) need to do something about it...like voting in the first place..lol.  Apathy is the acid that erodes freedom, and we have far too much of it in this country, IMO.... ???

And yes, context IS important....in just about everything we do.

B

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#19 2004-01-28 16:14:09

clark
Member
Registered: 2001-09-20
Posts: 6,362

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

You provide me two choices, so I choose a third, my own.  :;):

Everything is subjective to an extent, to believe otherwise is to invite the danger of absolutism of belief, which taken to its eventual extreme, allows no room for growth or self-correction.

"I'm right, you're wrong."

There is no dialogue, only statements.

As for the contrarian... well, I must be honest and admit, I enjoy taking things apart. Don't you? big_smile

Your example may stand, but so does mine. A system that does not allow for the public to view its actions, and correct its mistakes, yet compels and forces us to be a part of that very system, cannot be just.

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#20 2004-01-29 03:27:42

Mundaka
Banned
Registered: 2004-01-11
Posts: 322

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

neutral


Macte nova virtute, sic itur ad astra

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#21 2004-02-04 08:22:24

Gennaro
Member
From: Eta Cassiopeiae (no, Sweden re
Registered: 2003-03-25
Posts: 591

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

There's been a lot of discussion about Nazi Germany here lately. Okay, I'll admit I'm partly responsible for starting it. However, I don't intend to delve into it so deeply myself, this is a Mars forum after all. Here are my comments, take them as they are and feel free to question them at will. I haven?t added any footnotes but I think I can provide references for most of it if requested.

Okay, here we go...

1) No matter how aggressive his pre-war central and eastern European policy, the latter downright inhuman, Hitler never intended to conquer the world. This is just a standard embroiderment phrase used to harness antipathy in TV-documentaries, but without basis in fact. Indeed he didn't even intend to conquer all of Europe, thinking for instance the war with Britain was unfortunate and unnecessary, which is clear if you read the wartime table-talks from '41-'44 or even examine the peace overtures after the fall of France. Predictably, he blamed 'World Jewry' for instigating the Atlantic powers against Germany.
In fact, most of Germany's expansion in Europe was attributable to the war itself and the initial showing of the Allies, not a masterplan of conquest and world domination.

2) One could perhaps argue that the US was attacked ?unprovoked? in Pearl Harbour, but it?s also a matter of what is meant by provocation. Rather, forces within the US leadership had reckoned for quite some time that a war with Japan was probably unavoidable and even preferable to maintaining the peace. When Japan joined the tripartite pact after the German invasion of the Soviet Union and aimed at conquering British and Dutch possessions in the south west Pacific, the United States reacted with a trade embargo, depriving Japan of much needed oil supplies. This did the job of triggering the Japanese attack. It also turned US opinion in support of a war against Germany in Europe, something Roosevelt had advocated for years to no avail. So when the attack at Pearl Harbour was certainly unexpected, the war with Japan itself was not.
Hitler on his part decided to honour the agreements with Japan. Probably hoping the Japanese would join the war against the Soviet Union and since the Axis by this time was practically at war with the US in the Atlantic anyway, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on december 11.   

3) The ordinary German and even party member became aware of the holocaust only after the war. From the Nuremberg trials to any biography or interview with still living German veterans the reply is always the same, so generally when people go ?we didn?t know?, you had better believe it.
Likewise "death camp/Vernichtungslager", as for camp with extermination facilities, is an Allied designation which has nothing to do with actual concentration camp terminology. It could perhaps have been used unofficially by camp population, but there?s never any mention of it in official records or German news/propaganda.
Rumours about Nazi mass murders of Jews circulated in some quarters, but as these were spread by the underground (the enemy) and generally fantastic in nature, they were generally not believed.
That Dachau for example is actually a suburb of Munich and was known by everyone does not contradict this (concentration camps were no secret). The catastrophic situation with unimaginable human suffering, mass death and deprivation that most western camps were in at the end of the war was also largelly due to the distribution breakdown and chaos of the closing war months itself, not standard regulation of these camps.
Of course, it's better not to lock people up, deprive them of most necessary sustenanance and persecute certain ethnic groups to start with. The reason why I write this is that Germans on average had no sense they were fighting for a ?killer machine?. On the contrary they thought they were fighting a just war where Germany had been attacked and the Jews were an enemy within that had to be taken under custody. Hence it should at least be considered possible that also an Amercan population can be made into believing they are fighting a just war when perhaps they are not. In any event, a future aggressive and totalitarian US state would not look or smell like a Hitleresque Germany, so it?s kind of a moot point.

4) The reasons for persecuting and eventually exterminating the Jews was fear for their supposed superiority and maliciousness, not only against Germany, but the white man's world at large. It was not, which is occasionally inferred, a question of destroying inferior racial elements or weeding out the weakly.
In fact, current US fear of terrorism is related to this fear in some ways. Like in Germany you're a good citizen, not bringing your fellow man into harm, if you refrain from protecting terrorists and instead turn them over to the authorities and the justice system. Like clark put it, ?when in doubt call the SS?.
I don't wish to push this analogy to far though (for obvious reasons).
Furthermore, I absolutely disagree when people compare Bush with Adolf, which I feel is shallow and cartoonish. It might be that both men are crooks, but in such a case they're entirely it in their own right. Ideologically, personally and in relation to the historical situation, these guys have absolutely nothing in common.
Indeed, Dubyas employers (the Neocons) are the very people Hitler hated/feared profoundly.

5) Cindy told a story about smart allied POW?s escaping German prison camps as a matter of ?survival?. It should be noted though that western Allied POW?s were treated in accord with the Geneva conventions, so escaping was certainly a courageous and patriotic act but in no way necessary for survival. For Russian POW?s however it was another story and countless numbers of them perished in German hands. But even then the picture is not that clear cut since at the same time perhaps about one million Russians volunteered for the Axis, taking up arms to fight the Bolshevik regime. 

6) When fantisizing about stopping Hitler in his tracks in the 1930's (as a child I often contemplated the rightneousness of assassinating Hitler to save humanity, cute huh?), one should bear in mind the potential anachronicity of such thoughts. The wide scale program for exterminating Jews for example, did not come about until the summer of 1941 at the earliest. Prior to the war and during the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact era, the official policy of the Nazi state was expulsion of the Jews, preferably to Palestine, but Madagascar was also considered. In fact, until the invasion of the Soviet Union, a special train with Jewish emigrees went regularly from the Reich to Vladivostok along the Trans-Siberian railroad.

6) Unlike in the USSR, the ordinary population by and large supported the National Socialist revolution and stood by Hitler to the end. Civil society also endured longer. In comparison, stealing a bicycle in the Soviet Union in the 20's could lend you an arbitrary bullet or shipment to the Gulag. Peasants were repressed and murdered by the millions and while workers were killed en masse during anti-bolshevist demonstrations as early as 1918, the judicial system and many basic freedoms were continually exercised in Germany well into the war. When critical about the excesses of party bosses it's typical that a standard comment read "if only the F?hrer knew", which can be considered na?ve but is important to note in order to understand the general perception. Even people critical of power abuse by the party felt that Hitler was a sincere leader and basically on their side.
There's above all no reason to rationalize the 30's news reels; those tears of happiness are real. What's needed is to understand them from an historical view point. In that Hitler represented liberation from outside coercion, material tribulations and lost dignity, essentially a redemption and rejuvination of the people, they can begin to be understood.

7) Now if these were true feelings, part of the German trauma is undoubtedly related to the love/hate switch turned on immedeately after the war. To survive personally, socially and politically in the new environment, everyone had at least to pay lip service to some imagined enmity of the regime, hatred for Hitler and the party, although most had in ernest experienced very little of the racial policies, the atrocities conducted in the east, the executions, the breakdown of the judicial system etc. Memories of pride in fulfillment of duty and the like, were suddenly replaced by the demands for collective guilt and shame and had to be buried deep down and denied, instituting the sense of peculiar dishonesty that still pervades the German relation to the past.

Now, I?m not writing all of this just for the sake of trolling or showing off. I just think that when putting up an hypothesis like the one in this thread, one should be aware what the Nazi state was really like for people living in it as well as not acquitting or heralding some sort of imagined ?true? Germany or Germans that were supposedly against Hitler. As for the Hollywood version of Nazi Germany, it would probably not have been accepted even by the Germans themselves.

Excuse me for being long-winded. Well, you know, I'm an historical blabber mouth.
:;):

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#22 2004-02-04 18:41:42

Cobra Commander
Member
From: The outskirts of Detroit.
Registered: 2002-04-09
Posts: 3,039

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

Gennaro, I must say that was one of the most well thought out, objective, and accurate summations of the topic I have ever read. Or I might just be in shock to learn that someone else actually read the "table talks" ???

One little point I'd like to add. While Hitler did not want to "conquer the world," he did believe that eventually the Greater Reich would be forced to fight a war for world dominance against America. In addition to the few glimmers of this in Mein Kampf, the idea is stated more bluntly in his "Second Book," (just recently available in English) which he was wisely advised not to publish. This was in 1928.

Of course on Hitler's timetable, he would probably not have been alive to see it and therefore it may well have been avoided by his successors, but who can say?


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

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#23 2004-02-04 20:28:57

Palomar
Member
From: USA
Registered: 2002-05-30
Posts: 9,734

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

In addition to the few glimmers of this in Mein Kampf, the idea is stated more bluntly in his "Second Book," (just recently available in English) which he was wisely advised not to publish. This was in 1928.

*I've never heard of this "Second Book" before. 

I read parts of _Mein Kampf_ years ago (study requirement).

Gennaro:  Maybe I was wrong about where these POW's who created false documents were from (the one man with pencil print so neat and precise it looked like type print).  I don't recall their nationality for certain, but I'm quite sure they were prisoners of the Germans. 

--Cindy

P.S.:  Cobra Commander, I read your "Constitution" post in the new thread you started.  You neglected to inform the reader that I, Cindy, own Olympus Mons.  Thank you (and please don't forget that again).   tongue  :laugh:


We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...

--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)

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#24 2004-02-05 04:06:38

Mundaka
Banned
Registered: 2004-01-11
Posts: 322

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

neutral


Macte nova virtute, sic itur ad astra

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#25 2004-02-05 17:17:18

Cobra Commander
Member
From: The outskirts of Detroit.
Registered: 2002-04-09
Posts: 3,039

Re: Challenging America's superpower status - is it possible?

Quote (Cobra Commander @ Feb. 04 2004, 19:41)
In addition to the few glimmers of this in Mein Kampf, the idea is stated more bluntly in his "Second Book," (just recently available in English) which he was wisely advised not to publish. This was in 1928.

*I've never heard of this "Second Book" before. 

I read parts of _Mein Kampf_ years ago (study requirement).

The "Second Book" is a rather obscure piece of history, to the extent that usually when I mention it to someone they think I made it up. It's a very revealing read, even more so than Mein Kampf, though the somewhat clunky writing style persists. Couple that with the fact that it was never really finished or edited and you get a volume of interest to very few.

P.S.:  Cobra Commander, I read your "Constitution" post in the new thread you started.  You neglected to inform the reader that I, Cindy, own Olympus Mons.  Thank you (and please don't forget that again).

Doh! My plan to usurp Olympus Mons is foiled! The Martian Colonial Authority cedes it back, as soon as we defeat Emperor Scott and his claim to the whole planet. big_smile


Build a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

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