I have not noticed any particular media blackout on coverage of Communist oppression and nastiness. This may have been a problem in 1940, but the world’s supply of remaining Communist true believers is now down to Fidel Castro and a few aging academics in the social sciences. At this point, willingness to take a stand against Communism is like willingness to take a stand against the Spanish Inquisition–reasonable enough, but not a great sign of courageous independent thought.

I don’t find it all that entertaining to wallow in the horrors of history, whether that’s German murder factories or Soviet engineered famines or Rwandans chopping their neighbors into sausage with machetes. Instead, I am interested in figuring out how to apply the lessons from history to my own time and place.

So, you’re right–the darkest parts of our history–slavery, genocide and ethnic cleansing of Indians, all the horrors of the civil war–are still a lot less horrible than the mass murder of Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, socialists, gays, and God knows how many others by Nazis. At our worst, we haven’t remotely matched the Soviet Union and its satellites in police states and torture chambers and bloody repression. We’ve never come close to the horrors of the Great Leap Forward or Cultural Revolution or the Khmer Rouge’s charming decision to roll their country back to the year 0. Our treatment of the Indians wasn’t even especially notable compared to the way Europeans handled their colonies, as best I can tell. Slavery was ugly as hell, but for most of the time we were doing it, it was also being done by a bunch of other countries, notably the advanced, civilized European countries of France and the UK.

But, the interesting question isn’t how bad the Nazis and Commies were in the last century, or how awful things still are in hell-holes like North Korea today. The interesting question is, where are *we* headed?

The consensus of the powerful in the US, right now, is that there are pretty much no limits to what may be done by the president in fighting the war on terror. The Republicans and Democrats have gotten together to give Obama the kind of powers you expect to see in the hands of some third-world dictator–he can have anyone locked up or killed on his say-so, with no questions asked. We have a huge flow of money going into a homeland security bureaucracy, 95% of whose possible functions are evil. (The other 5% are unnecessary.) We lock up a bigger fraction of our population than China or Russia or Iran or Saudi Arabia or any other country. It’s pretty clear that Americans’ communications are routinely spied on, at least at the level of recording them, searching them for keywords automatically, building social network data on everyone, and calling the interesting patterns to the attention of the human analysts.

We have built up a turnkey police state, with the laws, organizations, administrative structures, budgets, and plans all at the ready. Sooner or later, some president will decide that turning the key is better than going to prison for the latest corruption scandal, or losing the next election and letting the other party start investigating and jailing his supporters.

Recognizing this, and finding a way to dismantle it before it gets used, is several orders of magnitude more important than making sure that the Communists get the right amount of criticism for their bloody and awful crimes, or that everyone recognize that the US was never as bad as the USSR or Nazi Germany.

No irony was detected. Some things DO change. Name of the country. How fast (or slow) they boil the frog.

I’ll take a state-less society, thank you…and I will, with the help of pure magic and luck, figure out how to build a freaking road without having to exterminate kids on the other side of the globe and throw 2/3 of my poor neighbors in prison. Just saying…if I understand the Republic/Dem voter position correctly, and i think I do.

Recently I read a thread somewhere about genocide in current times. It was about the stages of genocide and it was referring to White people interned in camps in South Africa. The article said they are in the stage of genocide known as “preparation.” It’s happening right now, it’s the truth, but you won’t hear about it just as Americans in the late 1930′s and early 1940′s didn’t know about the German camps in the East.

That’s where those Poles were while those photos were taken. They were later starved to death, worked to death, or quickly exterminated.

Not much has changed. When one group of people is disarmed they are at the mercy of others who don’t show mercy. I resolve to defend myself. Most people don’t. It’s sad just like those photos.

With that being said, you may point out all of the atrocities you like with or without disclaimers. I couldn’t care less. It just so happened in this instance, Dave Krueger happened to make one of his trademark sarcastic remarks an a number of us thought he made a good point. States are dangerous institutions, though some cause less harm than others.

No, we are not living in concentration camps (though the US did use internment camps). No, riot police are not machine gunning US citizens in the streets and I sure hope it doesn’t come to that. No, we aren’t starving due state collectivization of farms. No, most of us aren’t being disappeared for speaking out (yet?). But, as Dave pointed out, we should raise the bar a bit. The frustration with the “at least we aren’t Iran” attitude is probably what leads radicals to insert reminders like Dave did.

But AGAIN: how does a post on pictures of NAZI-OCCUPIED Poland/Poles translate into a seemingly Pavlovian, reflexive *requirement* that people simply _must_ point out that “it can happen here, too!” Are you saying that since the USA isn’t a Perfect Nation peopled by Immaculate Beings of Light Free of Sin, that Americans have no rights – none whatsoever – to point out atrocities committed by other nations/groups, much less arrogantly dare to *criticize* those nations/groups? Or that we can, but only if we’re careful to include an obligatory ‘We suck, too!’ disclaimer? ‘Cause that’s sure what it sounds like.

I should say that in this comment I am probably paraphrasing Noam Chomsky at some points, so credit where credit is due. Anyway, most commenters on The Agitator are Americans. This is our frame of reference. Furthermore, I think we should focus largely on what the U.S. Government does, purportedly “in our name” and with our tax dollars.

I certainly don’t have a problem with condemning the behavior of Arab slave traders or the North Korean Government or the Saudi Monarchy (our dear friends) or any other foreign actor. That is easy to do. But the fact remains that I am not a resident/taxpayer in those countries. I–we–should put most of our effort in to criticizing and trying to change the government that allegedly represents us. The government that claims to be a beacon of freedom. The government that claims to be the model of democracy that everyone else should follow (or else!). The government that too often talks high-minded shit and then does the opposite.
And when we do criticize other governments we shouldn’t be too self-congratulatory, because it CAN happen here.

In order to make progress as a civilization we have to take the best examples we have and work upwards from there, fixing what is wrong and keeping what is right. The simplistic approach of “its all bad” leaves not no other route but descent into the abyss.

To merely say “its all bad” condemns us to no future. We HAVE to look at each and make the judgements that A is better than B, no matter how flawed A is!

In order to make progress as a civilization we have to take the best examples we have and work upwards from there, fixing what is wrong and keeping what is right. The simplistic approach of “its all bad” leaves not no other route but descent into the abyss.

To merely say “its all bad” condemns us to no future. We HAVE to look at each and make the judgements that A is better than B, no matter how flawed A is!

Before the Pavlovian howls of “IBM punchcards helped organize death camps!” begin, let me point out that’s not the point. GERMANY and RUSSIA invaded Poland, and killed/enslaved millions of Poles. We didn’t.

So why then are pictures of Poles under the Nazi boot greeted with comments “hating the behavior of [our] government”? Have you ever seen a post about, say, ‘Bull Connor and the freedom riders’ draw comments of, say, “Hey! Arabs are still capturing, killing, raping and selling slaves in Africa today!” “No”, right? Because the one has *nothing to do* with the other, right? So why doesn’t that apply in this instance?

and I agree with them. and I wish I could pound out sarcasm like Dave. and thanks for the Polish cavalry links, crazy.

el coronado | October 18th, 2012 at 1:42 pm

@#34 -

“How well do you suppose Gandhi and MLK, Jr. would have done had they been going up against a people/nation that had no problem with more….brusque methods of dealing with troublemakers? Let’s ask some Tibetans how well they think a Gandhi-like passive resistance would work against their Red Chinese occupiers. Let’s ask some Burmese how long MLK, Jr. would have survived had he been protesting the military junta running *that* country.”

“Or we could just ask the folks in the infamous recent photo how well passive resistance worked out for THEM. You know the one: where the kindly old-fuck cop is walking along, spraying pepper spray into their unresisting, nonviolent faces. Ya suppose THEY would classify their protest as “successful”? (especially in light of the fact that, IIRC, they all got arrested after being pepper-sprayed. Winning! Just like Teacher taught ‘em! Yay, Gandhi!!!)”

But now you are criticizing Dave Krueger for making a sarcastic comment aimed at the “it can’t happen here crowd.” Hmm, one day you are a “street fighting man” and the next day you decide, “well it’s not so bad. Let’s not talk too much shit about the government.” So, how did you justify your not so subtle calls for violence on the 18th if you are undecided on this matter? If I was going to ridicule people for not advocating violence then I think I would be damn sure that we are past the point of no return. Let me leave you with two pieces of advice:
1.) All nation-states are dangerous, no matter what flag they
wave. Some are simply more inclined to use physical
violence against their people. That is just the way it is.

2.) Real world violence (not movie violence or video game
violence) is nasty and should be avoided unless
absolutely necessary. I tell you this from experience.
Don’t go around thumping your chest and calling for
action based on a whim. Use violence only to save yourself
or others from great bodily harm or death.

#14 Crzybob – thanks for the history lesson. It’s ironic how the Nazi propaganda about Polish cavalry charging tanks resonated with Poland’s allies – exactly the opposite of the dismissive effect the Nazi’s wanted! However, I stand by my opinion of the heroism of the POlish forces in the face of the Nazi invasion – they had 904,000 total casualties out of total military of 950,000 according to the article you linked to in Wikipedia, which is pretty dang heroic by any measure!

Hitler and Stalin just happen to be the most commonly sited examples. To me, a head of state who only murders a 100,000 people (regardless of the world population) isn’t morally superior to one who murders ten million.

I’ll spare you my definition of murder. Suffice it to say it goes beyond lining people up in front of a gas chamber.

I know your trying to be ironic – but it fails here. Given most of human history your above statement is correct in its unironic sense.

Are there problems, yes. Have more people lived together longer with less bloodshed and more prosperity than ever before in history? Yes.

Hitler and Stalin were biggest mass murderers in history, only because the populations have grown. But they are comparable to countless despots – Alexander, Attila, Ghengis, Tamerlane, Leopold, Nicholas, Ataturk, on and on and on …, all the product of oligarchies (a place citizen’s united is speeding us to).

As Mark Twain once said – democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.