nazis - and actual PEOPLE: WTF happened?

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Humanity is humanity, it's chock full-o-stupid fucks. Twas ever thus.
But in WWII, somehow they rallied everybody to KILL NAZIS.
I can't credit Pearl Harbor, that was the Japanese.

But somehow, people gave up sons, lovers, nylons, chocolate, etc. etc,. ad infinitum in order to WIPE OUT FUCKING NAZIS.

Now we have a nazi president and nazis marching in the street on the 75h anniversary of D Day.

How in the everloving fuck did they manage to get everybody on the right page back then?

[The Johnny]

First of all, every country had different reasons to fight the Germans, and not all were noble... sure, the neighbouring countries fought them for their territory and survival, while others it was just an opportunistic way to establish military/economic hegemony.

Then theres the other aspect of moulding the citizenry to be submissive and ignorant, but thats a whole other story.

[Doktor Howl]

Humanity is humanity, it's chock full-o-stupid fucks. Twas ever thus.
But in WWII, somehow they rallied everybody to KILL NAZIS.
I can't credit Pearl Harbor, that was the Japanese.

But somehow, people gave up sons, lovers, nylons, chocolate, etc. etc,. ad infinitum in order to WIPE OUT FUCKING NAZIS.

Now we have a nazi president and nazis marching in the street on the 75h anniversary of D Day.

How in the everloving fuck did they manage to get everybody on the right page back then?

Pearl Harbor.  Most of the country was dead set against getting in the war ahead of that.

[chaotic neutral observer]

Most of the Nazi-killing was done by the Soviets, and for them, it was a matter of fending off an invasion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but keeping the Russians from winning too much (and taking over Europe) was a significant motivation in the American participation in the war in Europe.  You weren't actually there to fight for democracy and freedom, regardless of what the propaganda posters said.

In terms of war deaths (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties), you Americans barely qualify as participants, in either absolute numbers, or as a percentage of population.

while others it was just an opportunistic way to establish military/economic hegemony.

^QFT.

[rong]

I heard it had something to do with the Rothschild's but that was just a rumor

[Doktor Howl]

Most of the Nazi-killing was done by the Soviets, and for them, it was a matter of fending off an invasion.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but keeping the Russians from winning too much (and taking over Europe) was a significant motivation in the American participation in the war in Europe.  You weren't actually there to fight for democracy and freedom, regardless of what the propaganda posters said.

Well, yeah.  The nightmare idea was the Soviets piling past Paris. 

[altered]

The thing to realize is that humans are tiny, brutish things motivated almost entirely by fear and greed. D&D goblins, really: small and ruthless and shortsighted and ugly from skin to rotten, wormy core.

Nobody gave anything up to fight the Nazis that they weren't already giving up anyway. They clutched at what they already had out of fear of losing it, whether from personal risk or from propaganda-implanted FUD. They clutched at what they didn't have, to try and secure it. That was it, that was all.

Remember, Hitler was motivated in no small part by American laws and the American eugenics movement. The "degeneracy" of Weimar Germany's sexual revolution was a thing to fan the flames, the "fear" of these weirdo freaks "corrupting" the populace. Much of the Nazi support that wasn't outright fear was definite greed: ask all the Aryan supermen who stole Jewish businesses.

This is happening again because the same pieces are in play in the same places. Yeah, our money is still meaningful to some extent. It was, you have to understand, never an economic problem that caused the Nazis to rise to power, it was fear and greed. And fear and greed was what stomped them out, too.

If you want to find motivations to work with, to repeat that small good part of that section of history, start with those.

[Doktor Howl]

The thing to realize is that humans are tiny, brutish things motivated almost entirely by fear and greed.

Gonna disagree.  Humans are - in their natural state - very, very small.  2,000,000 years of conditioning tell us to follow the loudest guy.

It's a firmware issue.  It worked fine when food was scarce and primal enemies hunted us.

It doesn't work so well anymore.  It is a perfectly good op code for constant threats.  It is less useful when there is no immediate physical threat.

[Cain]

Well, they didn't rally a lot of central Europeans, or the Japanese.

And we had to lock up an awful lot of sympathizers as a potential threat to the state when war was declared.

After it was revealed the Nazis were literally herding people into gas chambers, they became a lot less popular.  But especially in the interwar years, fascism was seen as a useful bulwark against Communist influence both nationally and internationally.

I'm sure I don't need to talk about Ford, Prescott Bush etc.

I'm also sure it's not escaped anyone's notice that after a massive financial crisis which basically destroyed a generation's earning potential, impoverished millions and saw the primary architects not prosecuted (while increasing their wealth), socialist and anarchist political positions gained a lot more traction.  And then a whole bunch of Nazis rolled up, because that's what always happened.

It's even how it happened in Nazi Germany. Members of the Prussian military-aristocratic elite, (Hindenburg, von Papen, von Schleicher) all thought they could play Hitler while using his popularity to crush the SPD and KPD (socialist and communist parties, respectively). The problem was Hitler was too canny and...well, the rest is history.

And then of course after the war the Nazis never really went away. The CIA snatched up a bunch, as did the KGB (the CIA's bunch also may have been reporting to the KGB, but that's another story for another day). They were then deployed to every dirty warzone in South America and the Middle East where reds needed to be beaten down. They even founded their own arms company, "Merex AG" which played a pivotal role in arming third world regimes and providing training to their security services.

Meanwhile, Nazis who got out prison started founding new parties, recruiting more people. With the fear of the potential Communist invasion of Europe, some of these "commited anti-communists" were rolled into the stay-behind units intended to undertake sabotage and assassination in the event the Soviets ever passed the Fulda Gap. But, well, you know what happens when you give Nazis guns and paramilitary training....they called it the "Years of Lead" in Italy, and it involved some of the largest terrorist attacks in European history. In France they had the OAS, notorious for their experience with plastic explosives. Belgium is it's own level of weirdness but Westlands New Post and the "Brabant Killers", if they are not the same, deserve some mention.

Nazism never went away. It just kept a lower profile.

[The Johnny]

The funny thing about everything is that its almost consensus that everyone hates Nazis, but that doesnt mean people dislike authoritarianism.

Seriously not trying to be a snob, but its important to think of it within the framework of authoritarianism and totalitarianism:
Fascism, nazism, and XXth century Mao and soviet communism all were totalitarian... meanwhile in different degrees, Franco's spain, Brasil, Argentina, the USA and Mexico have had authoritarian tendencies.

So its a number of bad signaling/communication that people nowadays are using... like im pretty sure most of us here in the forum emphatize with anti-fascism movement, but its misnamed, cause Fascism was specifically Mussolini's italian thing and he died like what? almost 80 years ago? Fascism is over... the accusing someone of being a Nazi is an easy insult to convey a number of things, like racism and authoritarianism but its incorrect cause no official Nazi party exists since, again, 80ish years ago.

The distinction between authoritarianism and totalitarianism is highly contested, but one can distinguish one from the other because totalitarianism even tho its always authoritarian, has qualities that the other one doesnt have, which is the motivation to have one unique ideology fronting it... so by todays standard, totalitarianism only exists in China, and even some arabian states dont qualify, because theyre more like absolute despotic monarchies.

The thing with authoritarianism is that its not incompatible with "democracy" nor capitalism, and thus, it doesnt show up in most peoples radar and its implications... like, i dont think the USA or Russia will become totalitarian any time soon, but theyre clearly authoritarian, their respective presidents have accumulated so much power that it fits the description.

The root of the problem is the enabling of authoritarianism, the lack of distribution of power and the lack of proper checks and balances.

[altered]

Please read Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism before you talk about Fascism as if it was just Mussolini.

It's not that you're entirely wrong, it's that you're confusing two similar but distinct terms. Like talking about how democracy hasn't existed since the Roman Empire destroyed the power of the Greek city-states, because Athens was the only Democracy. It's not entirely wrong, but it misses the point, hard.

In the same way, neo-Nazis are in fact not Nazis if you specifically use Nazis to refer to the members of the NSDAP. But they are no different in how they work or their beliefs than the NSDAP's membership, so calling them Nazis isn't really wrong either.

The only reason I'm making a big deal out of this is that modern fascists and Nazis have made a whole cottage industry out of semantic nitpicking of that very form. To the point that 9 times out of 10, someone who says there aren't Nazis anymore probably agrees with the Nazis we have now in some way. It's a dog whistle, of sorts, and you are now aware of both why it is wrong, and why it is worth correcting.

[rong]

I think modern Nazis are more the result of

"Everyone I don't like is a racist.
Hitler, a known Nazi, was a racist. 
Racists are like Hitler. 
Racists are Nazis. 
Everyone I don't like is a Nazi."

[Cain]

No, it really isn't.

[rong]

Is it still considered racist if you hate the entire human race?

[chaotic neutral observer]

Is it still considered racist if you hate the entire human race?

Only if you hate some races more than others. If you hate all humans equally, you're fine.