Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea
EN | IT

587 posts since 2006

Tag: history

  • News fatigue  

    The Dangers of Disengagement – Germany 1933 / USA 2025

    Many Americans, including myself, find ourselves tuning out the news—or perhaps more accurately, running away from it. I can’t believe what is happening in the USA. The administration is far worse than I expected, and I thought I had expected the worst. Even writing this blog post makes me fear for my safety. Like so many others, I feel helpless.

    Although I no longer live in the United States, most of my family and friends do. I can’t easily ignore their plight—or that of so many people suffering from the brutality and ineptitude of the American government. Furthermore, what is happening in the U.S. is not confined to that country; it is putting the entire world order at risk. The last time the world saw something like this was the rise of tyranny led by Nazi Germany prior to World War II.

    I Was a News Addict

    For most of my life, I was pretty much a news addict. I would watch two or even three hours of news a day. Now, I watch almost no TV news. I still visit the websites of The New York Times and CNN because I don’t want to be totally uninformed. Slowly, I suspect, news outlets will bend to the will of the “Dear Leader”—so perhaps it won’t matter anyway.

    Did the Germans Turn Off the News

    Reflecting on my own behavior and that of my friends, I began to wonder if something similar happened in Hitler’s Germany, starting in 1933. Is this phenomenon we’re witnessing—the widespread turning off of the news—a reaction that has occurred before?

    Hitler never had the support of the majority of Germans. In the last free election, 1933, his party won just 44% of the vote. His power came from a coalition of elites and a mobilized mass base. Sound familiar? The majority of Germans probably didn’t approve of his actions but became passive endorsers out of fear, fatigue, or apathy.

    Inner Emigration

    In 1930s Germany, media freedom did not exist in the way it still does (for now) in the United States. Once Hitler rose to power in 1933, the Nazi regime quickly dismantled independent journalism, replacing it with propaganda directed by Joseph Goebbels. We are beginning to see echoes of that in the U.S. today.

    Germans weren’t tuning out so much as being forced to tune in. And yet, despite the saturation of Nazi messaging, many Germans chose what historians have called “inner emigration”—emotionally and intellectually distancing themselves from the regime while outwardly conforming. Many didn’t approve of what was happening, but they chose not to resist, or even to fully acknowledge it.

  • If we can not agree on past have can we agree on the future

     

    Vietnam Stone

    I have watch the first three installments of the Stone Series, “The Untold History of the United States”.  I find it very interesting and powerful but somehow I don’t think it really was that way although I am sure many of the points are correct  I read a lot of reviews of the show.   The reviews really depend on the political point of view of the reviewer it seems.

     

    I often have discussions on Facebook with someone that worked for me at Intel and whom I consider a friend.  I think of him as a very thoughtful, intelligent and caring person who apparently disagrees with most things I believe politically and economically.  He puts a lot of effort and research into his comments on my FB posts.  I will refer to him by his initials, DM. Recently, we have had a go around regarding the suitability of John Kerry to be Secitary of State.  My friend thinks he is unsuitable because of his actions during and after then Vietnam War.  He thinks that he and people like Jane Fonda are pretty much traitors.  While I think they are heroes because the risked a great deal to speak out about an unjust war.  That does not mean I agree with everything they said or did.  Nor does it mean that I think that everything the US Government did was bad.

     

    Vietnamnapalm1966www

    I feel strongly about the Vietnam War because I was an early active anti war protestor.  This was before it was “popular” to be against the war.  We did not have the internet back then.  The information that most americans were getting came from the major media.   Our protest group was getting other information which made us believe that the war was not just.  By the way, we were being tracked by the FBI and they would follow us and take our photos and even tap our phone lines. I still have to use the Freedom of Information Act to get my file.   I was particularly concerned about the use of Napalm and would protest the loading of that material by Dow Chemical.  I did not serve in the war.  I  was classified 4F for medical reasons but would not have served in that war even if it meant prision.  I am particularly appalled by those that could have served but did not like Romney but who took strong pro Vietnam war positions before heading off for missionary work in France.  The point of this  blog is not to judicate  the Vietnam War.  I am just trying to explain how I feel.  

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    Now we have so much information, you would think we could get to the “truth”  but with so much information, there is always more. Everyone picks the things that support their already held views.  I am sure I do that too.  But much of the stuff we read on the net is distorted.  In fact my recent discussion with DM started with a photo that he posted on Facebook showing Jane Fonda and John Kerry together.  It turns out this photo is not real. It was photo shopped during the 2004 presidential campaign.  I assume that DM does not realize that.   And when I point it out to him, I hope he does not say ” it might has well be real”.  

    I constantly run into the issue of agreeing on history when talking with Palestinian friends about the history of the Israeli and Palestinian conflict.  In fact, I think the only way that progress can be made is if both sides agree not to discuss the past.  

     

    Recently, I read a book called 1491 which describes the Americas before Columbus.  In reading it, I realized that everything I had been thought about the history of the America’s before Columbus was wrong.  Frankly, I was in shock.  I can also recommend Lies My Teacher Told Me.

     

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