RE: Grass and the SS

RE: Grass and the SS (Full Version)

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Alumbrado -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/12/2006 12:08:40 PM)
You think the whole thing was wicked...the people of Vietnam fighting the French, Japanese, Americans and others for decades to free themselves from the yoke of colonialism? Why am I not surprised?

meatcleaver -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/12/2006 12:18:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alumbrado You think the whole thing was wicked...the people of Vietnam fighting the French, Japanese, Americans and others for decades to free themselves from the yoke of colonialism? Why am I not surprised? I think you are getting the wrong end of the stick. I don't want to put words in seeksfemslave's mouth but I think he was saying that the invaders were wicked and not the Vietnamese.

Alumbrado -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/12/2006 12:31:25 PM)
Given his performance in the Darwin thread, I think he was trolling for chance to spout another bunch of woo-woo verbage. I seriously doubt if he was interested in rationally discussing just war theory as it applies to the Vietnam conflict. But anyone who thinks that the Vietnamese struggle for freedom was bad thing is free to make their case...I've asked before and not gotten much of a response.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 2:44:36 AM)
Well I must say I am pleasantly surprised. I expected to get a LOT of viscious personal abuse from American my country right or wrong brigade. Talk about missing the point Alumbrado, dear oh dear. And incidentally coming from your neck of the woods, Tennessee ? I would have thought you would have been on the the same side as me in the Darwin/Evolution thread. Have you misunderstood me there too ?

MizSuz -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 6:16:50 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave Well I must say I am pleasantly surprised. I expected to get a LOT of viscious personal abuse from American my country right or wrong brigade. I love my country and fear/ loathe my government. My government is not my country - not by a long shot. Have you ever been here? If so, did you spend any time outside of the guided tour?

Daddy4UdderSlut -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 6:22:35 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Kedikat I have questioned what I would have done in those times. What I have read about the plasticity of individual morality as a function of environment has been initially shocking, and in the end, something I'd rather not think about.

Mercnbeth -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 7:28:43 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Mercnbeth Well were ALL Nazis bad? I mean, should ALL Nazis be painted with the same brush? Some parts of Mein Kampf are just taken out of context. Sure, a percentage of Nazis did do bad things and terrorized Europe but can we assume that all were terrorists? Mr Grass is a fine author, he followed his leaders dogma religiously. If the US didn't brutally bomb his homeland and kill thousands of Germany's civilians, Mr Grass would be not only a Nobel Prize winner, but elder Statesman of a world living under the dogma of his Fuhrer. And as a bonus - NO ISRAEL! They say when you have to explain your point, or your joke, it was a bad point and/or bad joke. Guilty of a bad point here I guess based upon the wondering about my Nazi membership. Let's try it this way. What if this were written this way, and the subject was the capture of bin Laden, and we hear the lawyer give this opening statement. Well were ALL Muslims bad? I mean, should ALL Muslims be painted with the same brush? Some parts of the Koran are just taken out of context. Sure, a percentage of Muslims did do bad things and terrorized Europe but can we assume that all were terrorists? Mr. Laden is a fine architect, he followed his leaders dogma religiously. If the US didn't brutally bomb his homeland and kill thousands of Arab civilians, Mr Laden would be not only a prize winning architect, but elder Statesman of a world living under the dogma of his Ayatollah. And as a bonus - NO ISRAEL! Hindsight allows us to be prejudicial against Nazis and the philosophy they represented. We are expected to be prejudicial and if we aren't our morals are questioned. Every other thing you've done is discounted. There is no rationalized excuse permitted, nor should there be. Will we need hindsight again when it comes to this group of people who have the same basic goal as Mr. Grass'? If not, help me with the distinction.

meatcleaver -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 8:33:58 AM)
Were all Nazis bad? I thought you made a good point Merc, they probably weren't, they have all been lumped and dumped into the same dustbin of history. Many SS troops were Ukraines who joined to fight the hated Russians. You can even find the occasional SS that helped Jews escape. Not many I admit but the picture is a lot more complex than we like to paint it as we look at the (bogus) certainty of history.

CrappyDom -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 9:19:25 AM)
Don't forget, there were SS cooks too, medical corp as well. There were evil civilians and angelic military men. The world isn't as simple as black and white, at least it isn't if you have a bit of intelligence.

HarryVanWinkle -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 9:31:00 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Alumbrado You think the whole thing was wicked...the people of Vietnam fighting the French, Japanese, Americans and others for decades to free themselves from the yoke of colonialism? Why am I not surprised? Ah, yes, they freed themselves from the yoke of colonialism by climbing into the yoke of communism. What a choice! Sounds like having to choose between being burned at the stake or boiled in oil.

CrappyDom -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 9:59:54 AM)
Winkle, The longer they had to fight, the more radical they had to become. If we had followed through with our promise of elections after Ho helped us fight the Japanese, who knows how the country would have turned out. Imagine how Cuba might have turned out if we had embraced Castro instead of doing our best to assinate him and starve his country?

LadyEllen -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 12:50:31 PM)
I recommend a book "Through Hell For Hitler" by Henry Metelmann. Henry was a boy when Hitler came to power and was educated in naziism and became a product of that system. He enthusiastically went into the army (Wehrmacht rather than SS) and enthusiastically went to fight the "Untermenschen" in Russia. The book is the story of his life in the army under the nazis - of how despite all the indoctrination, he eventually came to see that what his union official father had told him was true. He fought on for his mates - not for Germany and certainly not for naziism - and I suspect thats the same way for many soldiers once the reality of warfare hits home and the patriotic urge has deserted them. Henry was eventually taken prisoner by the US Army and spent a few years as a POW in Arizona before returning home to Hamburg; his entire family having been wiped out and his home city in ruins he went to England, married an English girl and lived a normal life. He wrote his book for all of us to read and gain some insight into all of that era - its well written and well worth the time. E

CrappyDom -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 12:59:54 PM)
Hopefully one day in America we will have the same sort of shame attached to being a Republican or at least a neocon as the Germans do around being a member of the SS.

Alumbrado -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 1:09:18 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: HarryVanWinkle Ah, yes, they freed themselves from the yoke of colonialism by climbing into the yoke of communism. What a choice! Sounds like having to choose between being burned at the stake or boiled in oil. A bit of an oversimplification... They held open elections, and chose their President after fighting the Japanese during WWII. No telling where that would have led, if the French hadn't tried to turn a newly independent nation back into a colony, and locked them into constant warfare for the next 30 years. And last I heard, Vietnam was doing a pretty good imitation of a capitalist economy... just ask Honda.[;)]

Mercnbeth -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 7:41:51 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: CrappyDom Hopefully one day in America we will have the same sort of shame attached to being a Republican or at least a neocon as the Germans do around being a member of the SS. Your credibility is completely gone. Your ignorance will be ignored by me in the future.

Aileen68 -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 7:44:23 PM)
And to think I thought this thread was going to be about pot. Silly me.

Level -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 7:48:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aileen68 And to think I thought this thread was going to be about pot. Silly me. *That was* silly and you deserve to be spanked. Repeatedly. [:D]**

Aileen68 -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/13/2006 7:54:07 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Level quote: ORIGINAL: Aileen68 And to think I thought this thread was going to be about pot. Silly me. *That was* silly and you deserve to be spanked. Repeatedly. [:D]** Oh my.

Moloch -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/14/2006 5:27:56 AM)
Hitler Had I belive 4 SS divisions. Gross Deutchland , Totem Kopf, Viking, and Das Reich. Generally Russian didnt accept any SS as POW's and killed them on sight, germans did the same thing Russian Guard units. If I knew what the Russians were doing to civilian population in German and Ploand Id join the SS too, but then again Germans started this mess.

Bluetemptation -> RE: Grass and the SS (8/16/2006 3:24:35 PM)
First of all - the situation in Germany at that time. I read something about how the pope was a Nazi. There were severe repercussions for not joining the Nazi Youths, both for males and females, so a real big percentage of the German youth (the parts that did not live in really small villages and needed to keep the farm going) were in those groups and could be labeled nazis. Yes being in the SS is something different, and not that easy to forgive as choosing the Wehrmacht, because they were forced into that around the end of the war. All the boys of a certain age in the groups had to go. No questions only a few exceptions. The teachings were good, I heard a lot about it as my grandparents are the generation that was little kids/soldiers in this time. Do you question all the rules you get as a child? Do you question all the informations you get? But yes, people stopped seeing only the good sides, my great grandparents hid a family of the wrong political party in their home, keeping them safe from the Nazis, after my great-grandfather saw what has been made out of his political party.

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