This may come as a shock to you, but not all Nazis were bad people. Most were, but some were just misguided and had no idea of what was happening to the Jews.
Were they not listening to Hitler's rhetoric? You didn't have to visit the camps to know where the Nazis stood on racism. And I'll tell you what does not come as a shock to me -- that you're more willing to defend Nazis than Republicans. Hilariously sad. Sadly hilarious? Not sure.
I see you chose to edit my post and pick out just one sentence while ignoring the rest. Oscar Schindler was a Nazi. Was he also a supporter of the camps then in your opinion?
In fact I picked two sentences, but nevermind. Yosi already responded to much of the rest, in particular your couple of examples of exemplary men doing exemplary things in the face of what can only be described as a national epidemic madness. The exceptions that prove the rule.
Gimme -- I never said all Nazis supported the war and "what was going on" as you put it (nice euphemism btw). Odds are, they did. Regardless, the simple fact that Grass didn't join the SS voluntarily isn't enough to cinch his entry into the "good Nazis" club. (side note: only on AMT would I be forced to create such a category)
So true about AMT. I love playing devils advocate as much as the next guy, but the rush to demand the strictest objectivity in discussing the nazis lest we mistakenly cast them in a negative light is hysterical (dumbfounding, infuriating, astounding...), especially in light of the usual rhetorical tone that's used around here for discussing Bush, Cheney, Republicans, etc.
I have no idea where Grass stands in this regard. I certainly don't think he's a nazi, and I'm willing to believe that even back then he wasn't a true believer, although 17 year olds are apt to believe a lot of crazy shit that they later grow out of. In the end it really shouldn't matter.
This whole thing is a non-issue. A poet writes a poem that no one would have paid any attention to except that some Israeli nutbacks completely overreacted to it, and then their overreaction is siezed on by a bunch of equally nutty anti-zionists trolling the news for anything useful in indicting Israel as a whole. This whole "controversy" is dumb.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Gimme -- I never said all Nazis supported the war and "what was going on" as you put it (nice euphemism btw). Odds are, they did. Regardless, the simple fact that Grass didn't join the SS voluntarily isn't enough to cinch his entry into the "good Nazis" club. (side note: only on AMT would I be forced to create such a category)
no you didn't say it in this thread, but it is kind of like how liberals portray conservatives and vice versa, that they are ALL bad people and history will remember them as such. i was not dismising anything with my "euphemism", but for the sake of brevity i was not going to go into a long winded speech recalling the nazi atrocities, because those are well documented. but at the same time in at the end of the war EVERYONE was committing atrocities. the nazis, the japanese, the russians, the americans, all of them were committing atrocities, hence the "what was going on" at that time part of the statement. i was not saying there were good nazis and i am not saying that they were all 100% evil. there are many shades of gray when you talk about an entire country, army, and ideology...
the hardcore of the nazis were evil yes, and on the whole that ideology and movement was one of the most terrible in human history. but those forced to join at the barrel of a luger, maybe not so much. self preservation is an instinct that all of us possess, and i doubt that any one of us would take a slug to the head over the other options.
"You can tell the greatness of a man by what makes him angry." - Lincoln
Assuming wiki is right, it does seem as though his affiliation with the SS is not in the form of an evil stormtrooper of hate and genocide that most of us think of when we think SS. Not really clear from that excerpt where he stood on the whole Nazi movement, however.
And that is entirely possible. The Waffen were your soldiers, fighters. They fought like an army.
The Allgemeine SS were the ones that ran the camps and acted more as guards than actual soldiers.
Exactly. The Waffen SS were drafted like normal soldiers & carried out similar duties.
If you know anything about Grass and his work, you know he's not an anti-semitist in the slightest. This discussion is ridiculous. He expressed his own view on a political matter, like it or not, but this has been blown way out of proportion.
You are so right. Israelis all think that their state operates under manifest destiny and therefore is entitled to grow and grow at the expence of its neighbors...which is why Israel has, throughout its history, given back land to its neighbors in exchange for peace...That's really weird, since they're trying to expand and are a garrison nation that doesn't give a shit about peace with its neighbors. :roll: Maybe you can explain how this works to me.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
You are so right. Israelis all think that their state operates under manifest destiny and therefore is entitled to grow and grow at the expence of its neighbors...which is why Israel has, throughout its history, given back land to its neighbors in exchange for peace...That's really weird, since they're trying to expand and are a garrison nation that doesn't give a shit about peace with its neighbors. :roll: Maybe you can explain how this works to me.
I take it you're referring to the U.S brokered peace treaty with Egypt which was inspired by the shock of the 1973 Yom Kippur War? A war that could have been avoided if Israel hadn't rejected Sadat's earlier peace proposals.
Your claim that Israel's 'giving back' land it stole from certain of it's neighbours who happen to possess formidable militaries is somehow to be considered magmanimous? Sorry, but I don't buy that.
Why doesn't Israel pull the settlers out of the West Bank? Those settlers aren't their for any military or defensive reasons. So if it's not simply a land-grab,then what's the excuse?
'After coming to power in late 1970, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat indicated to the United States that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. In February 1971 he offered a full peace treaty to Israel, which it rejected, although international consensus supported the Sadat offer which conformed to the US position (John Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace, Dial, 1973, p. 286).
When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated action in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights.
It was clear that the Arab World could not go on indefinitely watching Israel expel Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported.
On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action: "In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).'
NOAM CHOMSKY: For Israel — it was a fateful decision. That’s the point at which Israel quite explicitly chose expansion over security. They were then expanding into the Sinai, planning to build a city of a million people, Egyptian Sinai, settlements driving farmers out into the desert and so on. Well, that was the background for the 1973 war, which made it clear that Egypt can’t simply be dismissed. Then we move on to the negotiations which led, in 1979, to the U.S. and Israel pretty much accepting Sadat’s offer of 1971: withdrawal from the Sinai in return for a peace treaty. That’s called a great diplomatic triumph. In fact, it was a diplomatic catastrophe. The failure to accept it in 1971 led to a very dangerous war, suffering, brutality and so on. And finally, the U.S. and Israel essentially, more or less, accepted it.
On the relationship between Israel's magnanimous peace treaty with Egypt and it's expansion of illegal settlements in the Occupied Teritories:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/19/n ... l_strongly
Chomsky: There was a peace treaty in 1979, and it was interpreted in Israel right away, and in the United States, as essentially licensing Israel to expand its criminal activities in the Occupied Territories and to attack its northern neighbor, Lebanon, which is exactly what it did. The reasoning, which was pretty clearly expressed, is that with Egypt neutralized—that’s the one major deterrent to Israeli actions—and if they’re neutralized, if there’s a peace treaty they pull out of it, then Israel is free to go ahead to do what it wants in the Occupied Territories and attacking Lebanon. Notice that’s exactly what happened. Now that’s—they’re very—and it’s continued that way. And there’s plenty of bitterness in Egypt about this.
I'm not saying that they gave back the Sinai out of magnanimity. I'm just saying that the fact that they gave back land undercuts the notion that Israel is animated by some sort of militaristic concept of manifest destiny.
There are some valid defensive/security reasons for Israel to want to hold on to parts of the West Bank, but I agree with you that Israel should end the occupation and withdraw. The fact that they have not yet done so, however, is also not proof of militaristic expansionism as the primary motivating force behind Israeli decision-making.
you couldn't swing if you were hangin' from a palm tree in a hurricane
Out of curiosity, is this opinion widely shared amongst your circle of friends and acquaintances? If so, what, if any, steps are people that you know doing about it?
Comments
Gimme -- I never said all Nazis supported the war and "what was going on" as you put it (nice euphemism btw). Odds are, they did. Regardless, the simple fact that Grass didn't join the SS voluntarily isn't enough to cinch his entry into the "good Nazis" club. (side note: only on AMT would I be forced to create such a category)
I have no idea where Grass stands in this regard. I certainly don't think he's a nazi, and I'm willing to believe that even back then he wasn't a true believer, although 17 year olds are apt to believe a lot of crazy shit that they later grow out of. In the end it really shouldn't matter.
This whole thing is a non-issue. A poet writes a poem that no one would have paid any attention to except that some Israeli nutbacks completely overreacted to it, and then their overreaction is siezed on by a bunch of equally nutty anti-zionists trolling the news for anything useful in indicting Israel as a whole. This whole "controversy" is dumb.
the hardcore of the nazis were evil yes, and on the whole that ideology and movement was one of the most terrible in human history. but those forced to join at the barrel of a luger, maybe not so much. self preservation is an instinct that all of us possess, and i doubt that any one of us would take a slug to the head over the other options.
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
Exactly. The Waffen SS were drafted like normal soldiers & carried out similar duties.
If you know anything about Grass and his work, you know he's not an anti-semitist in the slightest. This discussion is ridiculous. He expressed his own view on a political matter, like it or not, but this has been blown way out of proportion.
Agreed, killing other innocents is the way to go, just in case.....
Meanwhile Israel should be able to grow in their manifest destiny....no matter who gets in the way....
same as it ever was.
I take it you're referring to the U.S brokered peace treaty with Egypt which was inspired by the shock of the 1973 Yom Kippur War? A war that could have been avoided if Israel hadn't rejected Sadat's earlier peace proposals.
Your claim that Israel's 'giving back' land it stole from certain of it's neighbours who happen to possess formidable militaries is somehow to be considered magmanimous? Sorry, but I don't buy that.
Why doesn't Israel pull the settlers out of the West Bank? Those settlers aren't their for any military or defensive reasons. So if it's not simply a land-grab,then what's the excuse?
'After coming to power in late 1970, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat indicated to the United States that he was willing to negotiate with Israel to resolve the conflict in exchange for Egyptian territory lost in 1967. In February 1971 he offered a full peace treaty to Israel, which it rejected, although international consensus supported the Sadat offer which conformed to the US position (John Kimche, There Could Have Been Peace, Dial, 1973, p. 286).
When these overtures were ignored by Washington and Tel Aviv, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated action in October 1973 against Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai and Syrian Golan Heights.
It was clear that the Arab World could not go on indefinitely watching Israel expel Egyptians, Syrians and Palestinians while installing Jewish settlers in their thousands. By 1973 nearly 100 settlements had been established and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had been displaced, expelled, imprisoned or deported.
On 6 October 1973 the Egyptian and Syrian armies attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and on the Golan Heights in an attempt to liberate their territory occupied by Israel. The Secretary-General of the Arab League explained the Arab action: "In a final analysis, Arab action is justifiable, moral and valid under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. There is no aggression, no attempt to acquire new territories. But to restore and liberate all the occupied territories is a duty for all able self-respecting peoples" (Sunday Times, 14 October 1973).'
NOAM CHOMSKY: For Israel — it was a fateful decision. That’s the point at which Israel quite explicitly chose expansion over security. They were then expanding into the Sinai, planning to build a city of a million people, Egyptian Sinai, settlements driving farmers out into the desert and so on. Well, that was the background for the 1973 war, which made it clear that Egypt can’t simply be dismissed. Then we move on to the negotiations which led, in 1979, to the U.S. and Israel pretty much accepting Sadat’s offer of 1971: withdrawal from the Sinai in return for a peace treaty. That’s called a great diplomatic triumph. In fact, it was a diplomatic catastrophe. The failure to accept it in 1971 led to a very dangerous war, suffering, brutality and so on. And finally, the U.S. and Israel essentially, more or less, accepted it.
On the relationship between Israel's magnanimous peace treaty with Egypt and it's expansion of illegal settlements in the Occupied Teritories:
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/19/n ... l_strongly
Chomsky: There was a peace treaty in 1979, and it was interpreted in Israel right away, and in the United States, as essentially licensing Israel to expand its criminal activities in the Occupied Territories and to attack its northern neighbor, Lebanon, which is exactly what it did. The reasoning, which was pretty clearly expressed, is that with Egypt neutralized—that’s the one major deterrent to Israeli actions—and if they’re neutralized, if there’s a peace treaty they pull out of it, then Israel is free to go ahead to do what it wants in the Occupied Territories and attacking Lebanon. Notice that’s exactly what happened. Now that’s—they’re very—and it’s continued that way. And there’s plenty of bitterness in Egypt about this.
There are some valid defensive/security reasons for Israel to want to hold on to parts of the West Bank, but I agree with you that Israel should end the occupation and withdraw. The fact that they have not yet done so, however, is also not proof of militaristic expansionism as the primary motivating force behind Israeli decision-making.
Out of curiosity, is this opinion widely shared amongst your circle of friends and acquaintances? If so, what, if any, steps are people that you know doing about it?