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“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
– Naomi Shulman
@aral seen in this light, I am a TOTAL asshole.
@aral They are in the US now. They act like ostriches. They hide their head under the sand pretending things are OK.
@HolgerFiallo @aral Have a brother like this. When I'm in the kitchen watching some indie political news, he smokes weed then hides upstairs until I finish my meal & leave.
@aral there's a great poem (“fascist nations”) by wiktor woroszylski, himself a polish jew, and it starts like this:
Shortly after the war of 1914-1918 the first fascist nations
emerged in Europe In those nations
the sun rose and set at the usual time shedding light
on homestead roofs and hills' green slopes Cattle
mooed gently in cowsheds Mothers kissed
their children's foreheads to wake them at dawn¹
(he wrote it in 1969, a year after the nominally socialist regime of people's republic of poland started an antisemitic and nationalist campaign that forced many members of the polish jewish community – already struggling after being almost entirely wiped out during ww2 – into exile)
¹ translation by stanisław barańczak and clare cavanagh
@aral And it's fucking hard to be a resister. I admit to falling short.
@FinalOverdrive @aral
It’s very hard indeed. Try it sometimes, but it’s never appreciated.
At least I vote and don’t use products and services of ‘wrong’ companies
@FinalOverdrive @aral Resistance against the Nazis in Belgium and the Netherlands included sabotage and to murder Nazis.
Germanys constitution includes §20 (4) GG: "Against anyone who undertakes to abolish this order, all Germans have the right to resist if no other remedy is possible."
https://www.belgiumwwii.be/de/belgien-im-krieg/artikel/widerstand.html
@FinalOverdrive @aral I have no clear idea how this would look look in practice. But I understand that "resistance" against Nazis in Belgium during WW II included heave violence.
@aral I still can't help thinking that if the part of the German people who literally only joined out of fear had instead stood up against the Nazi party, right there and then and in Germany, when the events first happened... What turned into World War 2 could have been cut off at just "The German Civil War"... I mean there's a chance, right?
@Violette_Valentine @aral At that time, when the Nazis first came to power in 1933, people were terrified of an imminent Bolshevik Revolution and the horrors that would follow.
When the Nazis improbably won out, the immediate reaction was, Whew, we dodged a bullet there!
By the time people realized that the wrong people were now in charge, there was no means of organized resistance available.
@aral Count me as that pain in the ass resister next door.
@aral It's a great quote in a way, but lately I don't know if people can tell who the bad guys are anymore. A lot of the left is worshipping the Russians and siding with nazis. The communists are also siding with nazis. I don't know if we have people with enough information to resist. Resisters too are wanting authoritarian governments.
> I don't know if we have people with enough information to resist. Resisters too are wanting authoritarian governments.
This is a good point and I think this issue was there with the Nazis. Disinformation has been a tool of the government trade for a long time and people didn't 'look the other way' for no reason. Just as the absolute majority of us do squat against oil companies burning down the world.
Why is that? What do we believe in that makes us stay at home, paying taxes for their subsidies?
This is part of the job of the resistance - to invest time disentangling the truth, and help people access accurate information.
@andymouse @aral And to be fair, this is what I've been seeing on places like the former Twitter. I do hope that real resisters in the world are more informed. But after being an ally to Ukraine, I can definitely say that nazis have infiltrated leftists. Leftists would do with understanding that Russia & China are closer to fascism now than they are to communism. Not that I think communism is a good system. Just that they are not that no matter what leftists want to believe.
@wasootch
Who / what do you see as the issue here? Aside from some misguided tankies my lived experience doesn't really line up with what you're saying here*.
*unless you're referring to largely ignoring and refusing to undertake voluntary precautions to mitigate the still very much ongoing pandemic in which case yes, that pretty much seems like a huge universal blind spot across all political lines right now.
@mnemonicoverload @aral Try being strongly pro-Ukraine for a while and you'll definitely see it. Not here really although there are a few tankies from time to time that have harassed me. But on other platforms the pro-Russia group is the weirdest group I've ever experienced. And I see a lot of admiration of authoritarians in the left. Part of it is trying to understand if these people are real or troll farm accounts.
@mnemonicoverload @aral I have spoken now with a lot of them and many do seem quite real. It's strange to me. When leftists are joining up with racists and nazis I think they've lost the plot entirely.
@wasootch @mnemonicoverload @aral I have experienced the same issue but in reverse I suppose. Most people who mention ukraine, at least localized in my scandinavian country, are often nationalists. They are not leftists or progressives, even on surface level. It gets even worse when you ask the same people if they think palestinians deserve soverignty and to not be bombed. I have not really experienced pro-palestinians being anti-ukraine.
@wasootch @mnemonicoverload @aral I have to mention that I know that the vast majority of the nationalists subjects here obviously do not care about ukraine at all (unlike you), and only fear for their own nation, with their idea of russia being entirely based on cold war era vibes. Being pro-ukraine should not be considered fascist at all. You just also have to be consistent in your support of human rights if you want to be taken seriously.
@wasootch @mnemonicoverload @aral there is something to be said, maybe, about how leftists *should* be more vocal in their support of ukraine, but I’m not sure what that looks like when russia is already embargoed. This, while our own nations are constantly supplying Israel with weapons that are consistently used to level hospitals, and make it illegal to support the palestinian people in the streets. And just to look like we are bipartisan with nazis?
@chrisashtear @aral I actually often find they say things that make them much closer to nazis.
@aral I feel compelled to boost this every time I see it because my family thought we could solve our problems by not talking about politics.
Germans today have a saying, "If ten people are sitting at a table and a Nazi sits down with them, how many Nazis are at the table? Eleven."
@aral
White supremacy in the Deep South of the US has always been built upon gentility.
Decorum enables rhetorical erasure of violence from public conversation.
@aral 
you need not always express your opinions
The rhetoric sounds dramatic but....
I think people are taught to be nice instead of kind. Nice is not making waves or avoiding offending nazis. Kind is standing up to nazis and protecting those they target.
And this is why our Davids — the “serious” columnists who really never say anything useful, but do a lot of bland both-sides damage — penned columns about how people lack niceness and we need to restore niceness.
We need lovely people who will go along nicely with the fascists.
I want to give this to my boss So Badly. She's exactly like this & I just get So Tired of the pretense
@aral This indeed...
@aral *nodds in agreement*
@aral There's a really good old Canadian documentary called Hidden Heroes about survivors of the Holocaust in the Netherlands who go back and meet the people who hid and sheltered them. The stories of resistance are incredibly brutal - far from the sanitized stuff we see in the movies. Really eye-opening.
@aral unsolicited podcast recommendation:
Behind the bastards: How Nice, Normal People Made The Holocaust Possible
❶ #Mastodon is full of “nice people...focused on happier things”
https://mastodon.social/@B2Spirit_TT/110913510417509721
YET...
❷ The fact that #Politics is more embraced is goodhttps://rb.gy/2r4vk
HOWEVER, #Research #Data shows:
❸ #Security #Threats aboundhttps://gizmodo.com/mastodon-fediverse-child-abuse-material-stanford-resear-1850670857
+
❹ The #Fediverse has a #MentalHealth Problemhttps://medium.com/@thisismissem/the-fediverse-has-a-mental-health-problem-4cb4845dfee1
+
❺ Instances are already fracturing into tight ideological bubbles
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36549218
#SocialMedia #Psychology #Abuse #Law #BlackMastodon #News #Science▼
That's true, it's always been an undercount by many times the actual number.
Gypsies, Romas, gays, POWs, people with physical or mental issues, all were killed, not just Jews.
@aral It's true in hindsight and a decent rule of thumb. However, one never really knows the capabilities of other people, or even one's own, until facing a situation where action is critical. Words and appearances can be deceiving.
Allowing shit to escalate to the critical point (people being dragged away) is another story, but even then, weighing risk and success is very difficult. Throwing livelihood away over one thing may result in being unable to help with another. A cruel reality of choices. Though on the other hand, a sacrifice is never judged by its impact.
@aral speaking of appeasers vs resisters, this is a topical read: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/views/columns/62594/appeasement-climate-change-george-orwell
oh, that's why. we're all blocked and their instance server didn't clear up that old post.
