472 comments
noduerme · 11 days ago
"The Germans" is an absolutely jaw dropping read, a series of interviews with average German citizens and low-level nazi party members, conducted a decade or so after the war, by an American Jewish journalist. It shows, in first hand accounts, the banality of evil and how easily it can prevail if people do nothing. It is an account of modern tyranny and everyday collaboration. The parallels in the feeling of what's happened in American society, particularly the silence, confusion and cowering now of anyone who should oppose a hostile takeover and dismantling of our democracy and our laws, are striking. It should have been required reading in American schools, when there was still time to educate people against these dangers.

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LandoCalrissian · 12 days ago
President is unilaterally shutting down federal agencies. If this goes on there really isn't a constitution anymore, not in practice anyway.

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gspr · 11 days ago
This is one of the best books I ever read. I picked it up pretty randomly a few years back. It changed me.

Before reading it, I was firmly of the opinion that good people (like me! and everyone I like!) will (mostly) resist a fascist takeover. At least passively resist. As in not actively collaborate. Mostly. Reading that book obliterated almost all of those beliefs. (What little was left was destroyed by having children, and actually directly experiencing what it means when people say "I'll do anything for them").

I think it's the most upset I've been since I was a child and asked my parents why people suffering in a war on the news didn't just say that they don't wanna be in the game anymore. Because that was the rule that applied in kindergarten.

This all sounds very depressing. But read the book. It's a damn important book. (And it's very short and almost free – just read it).

pagutierrezn · 12 days ago
To make matters worse, this is not only "rehappening" in the US. It's global

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Waterluvian · 11 days ago
> "You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow.

I felt this for four years straight last time.

But what scares me far more is if very large, recklessly shocking occasions occur and the resisters are nowhere to be seen. I keep hoping to wake up to footage of mass protests and riots and fires and anger and aggressive intolerance of these shocking occasions.

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