|
BoscoX -> RE: Republicans slowly realize Trump may be worst president ever (8/14/2017 7:32:13 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: Musicmystery
They sure did. Back to 1940s Germany.
[image]https://i.imgur.com/RP6REbw.png[/image]
“I’ve heard this kind of talk before, but I never expected to hear it in America.”
“Don’t be a Sucker” was produced by the U.S. War Department in 1943 to warn Americans not to fall for fascist rhetoric.
Back then, it would have been shown in cinemas, but today, in light of in the light of Charlottesville and the cauldron of hate and division in America that’s long been bubbling—now boiling over, thanks to the president himself who knowingly stirred it up to further his own campaign—it is going viral on the small screen.
The echoes of its message, more than 70 years on, are even more chilling than ever. Because this has all happened before. And we should know better.
It’s really a clip from the original 17-minute long short film that’s trending. In it, an older man with an Eastern European accent warns a young American man about the dangers of the hate-filled speech another “average American” man on a soapbox podium is giving.
“I was born in Hungary, but now I am an American citizen. And I have seen what this kind of talk can do—I saw it in Berlin. I was a professor at the university. I heard the same words we have heard today.”
“But I was a fool then,” he continues. “I thought Nazis were crazy people, stupid fanatics. Unfortunately it was not so. They knew they were not strong enough to conquer a unified country, so they split Germany into small groups. They used prejudice as a practical weapon to cripple the nation.”
The viral clip ends shortly after. But in the full film, which you can see in the U.S. War Department archives, here, he goes on:
“We must never let that happen to us or to our country. We must never let ourselves be divided by race or color or religion, because in this country we all belong to minority groups…
Your right to belong to these minorities is a precious thing. You have a right to be what you are and say what you think because here we have personal freedom. We have liberty. And these are not just fancy words. This is a practical and priceless way of living. But we must work it. We must guard everyone’s liberties. Or we can lose our own.
If we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution or by prejudice, we are threatening our own freedom. And this is not simply an idea. This is good, hard common sense.
You see, here in America, it’s not a question whether we tolerate minorities—America is minorities. And that means you and me. So let’s not be suckers. We must not allow the freedom or dignity of any man to be threatened by any act or word. Let’s be selfish about it. Let’s forget about ‘we’ and ‘they. Let’s think about us.”
These words sink deep into my own South African heart because I am a product of a similarly pioneering, marauding, violent, beautiful, heroic, tragic, chequered, but proud nation. A nation of minorities, of conflict, and contradiction, but a nation all the same. Though, if we cannot learn to see ourselves as such—as “us”—then we will be our own demise, as nations, and as a species.
And we will have no excuse for it. Because we saw it coming.
https://www.elephantjournal.com/2017/08/watch-the-u-s-war-department-made-a-video-in-1943-thats-going-viral-after-charlottesville/
Godwin's law
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
American attorney and author Mike Godwin coined his eponymous law on Usenet in 1990
Godwin's law (or Godwin's rule of Hitler analogies)[1][2] is an Internet adage that asserts that "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Hitler approaches 1."[2][3]—that is, if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or his deeds.
Promulgated by American attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990,[2] Godwin's law originally referred specifically to Usenet newsgroup discussions.[4] It is now applied to any threaded online discussion, such as Internet forums, chat rooms, and comment threads, as well as to speeches, articles, and other rhetoric[5][6] where reductio ad Hitlerum occurs.
In 2012, "Godwin's law" became an entry in the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.[7]
Generalization, corollaries, usage[edit]
With respect to probability theory, Godwin's law becomes a special case of a Bernoulli trial.
Indeed, there are many corollaries to Godwin's law, some considered more canonical (by being adopted by Godwin himself)[3] than others.[1] For example, there is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned Hitler has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.[8] This principle is itself frequently referred to as Godwin's law.[citation needed]
Godwin's law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent's argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.[9][10] Similar criticisms of the "law" (or "at least the distorted version which purports to prohibit all comparisons to German crimes") have been made by American lawyer, journalist and author Glenn Greenwald.[11]
History[edit]
Godwin has stated that he introduced Godwin's law in 1990 as an experiment in memetics.[2]
Godwin's law does not claim to articulate a fallacy; it is instead framed as a memetic tool to reduce the incidence of inappropriate hyperbolic comparisons. "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler to think a bit harder about the Holocaust", Godwin has written.[12] In December 2015, Godwin commented on the Nazi and fascist comparisons being made by several articles on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying that "If you're thoughtful about it and show some real awareness of history, go ahead and refer to Hitler when you talk about Trump. Or any other politician."[13] On August 13, 2017, Godwin made similar remarks on social networking websites Facebook and Twitter with respect to the two previous days' Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, endorsing and encouraging efforts to compare its alt-right organizers to Nazis.[14][15]
See also[edit]
icon Internet portal
Philosophy portal
Association fallacy
List of adages named after people
Straw man fallacy
Think of the children
Reductio ad Hitlerum
|
|
|
|
