The US is Facing a Weimar Moment »
Posted By dissent 9 months, 3 weeks ago in NewsIn early 1919, Germany put in place a new government to begin rebuilding the country after its crushing defeat in World War I. But the right-wing forces that had led the country into the War and lost the War conspired even before it was over to destroy the new government, the "Weimar Republic." They succeeded.
The U.S. faces a similar "Weimar Moment." The devastating collapse of the economy after eight years of Republican rule has left the leadership, policies, and ideology of the right utterly discredited. But, as was the case with Germany in 1919, Republicans do not intend to allow the new government to succeed. They will do everything they can to undermine it. If they are successful, the U.S. may yet go the way of Weimar Germany.
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dissent
we live in a culture of war.
let's make it a culture of peace.
"my country is the world. and my religion is to ...
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berkeley9 months, 3 weeks ago
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this valid argument has many aspects, some more important than others.
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the one that he only touches upon is the role of the corporate press. it's main power today is its habit of ignoring certain events or people, making them officially invisible. while the web is growing in influence, it doesn't yet match the power of the old order and its need for secrecy.
obama is still giving mixed signals about where his priorities are. the hope of the future lies in transparency. he needs to hear that over and over again.-
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Klarissa9 months, 2 weeks ago
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This is an insult to those of us who honestly believe that doubling and tripling the US deficit will solve our financial problems.
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Watch terrible inflation rear its ugly head when people realize that the treasury is printing money like crazy.
And Germany had their problems because the could not afford the reparations, and PRINTED MONEY to make the payments, which in turn caused the inflation.
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hyperbola9 months, 3 weeks ago
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One thing that is not widely known in the US is that Germany also faced nihilistic "conservative" fanatics during the pre-Hitler period.
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Historical Comparisons: Fritz Stern Publishes "Five Germanys I Have Known"
"Can It Happen Here?" is the headline of the NY Times review of the Fritz Stern's memoir:
In November 2005, Fritz Stern received an award for his life's work on Germans, Jews and the roots of National Socialism, presented to him by Joschka Fischer, then the German foreign minister. With a frankness that startled some in the audience, Stern, an emeritus professor of European history at Columbia University, peppered his acceptance speech with the similarities he saw between the path taken by Germany in the years leading up to Hitler and the path being taken by the United States today. He talked about a group of 1920's intellectuals known as the "conservative revolutionaries," who "denounced liberalism as the greatest, most invidious threat, and attacked it for its tolerance, rationality and cosmopolitan culture," and about how Hitler had used religion to appeal to the German public. In Hitler's first radio address after becoming chancellor, Stern noted, he declared that the Nazis regarded "Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life."...
http://atlanticreview.org/archives/467-Historical-...
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tadair9199 months, 3 weeks ago
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we are facing a weimer moment precisely because we spend more than our output. we paid for the war on terror on a credit card, and now we are inflating the value of the dollar by printing trillions upon trillions out of thin air.
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this is the opposite of economic conservatism. you can't spend your way out of a debt. and you certainly can't print money out of debt. this is suicide. -
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vor9 months, 3 weeks ago
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I have referenced this as the only possible scenario that someone from the Far Right (like Palin) could ever come to power (especially as their base is clearly shrinking).
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They now have the propoganda machine in place. All they have to do is once again trick those undecided voters that comprise the maleable portion of the voting bloc.
Rush Limbaugh has already extended the 3 Minute Hate to 3 hours. His listeners could be the core of such a movement. They will continue to deny any responsibility (they always do) and like salivating dogs will only move in for the kill once the opposition is sufficiently weakened from their attacks. It is only the will of the people that can prevent this but as Goering well knew fear can be used to crack that will. And it is truly fear mongering we are now hearing. They have no shame. Cheap, underhanded tactics once got them in power and even though they failed in '08 they still got 58 million votes.
All the hope on Inauguration Day has to be tempered by the size of the task at hand. And failure is not an option. Whether or not this theory is plausible, little good would come from a renewal of Republican leadership. Especially if they are allowed to shirk responsibility for this mess for which they are so clearly culpable. It would be a terrible precedent. We already see Cheney (the neocon Godfather) on a revisionism tour before Obama's first 100 days are even over. He may be completely delusional but that never stopped him before. -
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Klarissa9 months, 2 weeks ago
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From the article:
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"Over the years Stern protests the ways radicals abuse the memory of Nazism to support their present-day political agendas, whether the 1960's students who called authority figures fascists and Nazis, or those today who compare foreign leaders they dislike to Hitler and cry "Munich" at every diplomatic gesture."-
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hyperbola9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Obedience to Authority in America
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...Thinking people can see that most Americans veer between manic-depression and paranoid-schizophrenia. While they know they are getting kicked around by the rich, there's such a strong tradition of obedience to authority in America that most people just take it in stride and just get on with their lives. This is a population with an severe "abuse" problem. I compare it to the compulsive behavior among women and children who've lived in abusive relationships. The sickness passes from one generation to the next without interruption. It is a condition that has to be treated, which means creating a process where the person can see that the violence being done to them is violence and not love. America is a nation badly in need of therapy.
The US is full of such abusive notions as "tough love" which only reinforces dependence on the violent parent or partner. There is absolutely no way to confront the situation constructively except by raising awareness to what is happening and pointing out as clearly as possible that this crisis was created by the rich and imposed on the rest of us. And, as soon as you say that, you risk being marginalized-- especially among the I-Generation.
There's almost no discussion about class in the US, even among the Left, and yet, the chasm between rich and poor has grown wider in America than anyplace in the industrial world. The rich get richer and the poor own nothing. The middle class--the class of illusion--is committed to defending the so called American dream and believing whatever the rich tell them in order to sustain their own very tenuous existence. Remember, George Carlin said that "They call it the American dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it." Just try to convince someone in the middle class, some working man or woman, that the US kills and exploits the rest of the planet to serve the narrow interests of 10% of the population, they just point to their college educations, their cars, and other trinkets and shrug it off as unimportant or plug their heads back into the sand. What do they care? They have their Starbucks and their I-Pods and their flat-screens. ... -
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hyperbola9 months, 2 weeks ago
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.... Americans should take the constant erosion of civil and economic liberties in their country over the past 30 years seriously. They need to ask themselves who has benefited from the enormous investment in more police, prisons and military, than in schools and hospitals or affordable housing? These developments were not inevitable or automatic. That means that other choices were and still are possible but they must be made consciously and they require action to implement them.
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The banks aren't going to feed and house people or provide them with anything except shinier chains. The poor and black will get rusty chains, tent prisons, and brutality, like they always do (especially given the host of government incentives for the private prison-industrial complex). The next time someone brings up our "post racial" society, just remind them of Katrina and the thousands of poor black people who were herded into the Superdome at gunpoint. The evacuation and "reconstruction" of New Orleans bear an uncanny resemblance to forced removals imposed by apartheid South Africa under the infamous Group Areas Act. Apartheid's founders drew explicitly on US segregation practice. Don't think it can't happen here again. ...
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22221....
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sumptuousdigs9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Now it's no secret that some people who consider themselves very conservative and 'true republicans' have leveled a death wish for the Obama administration's policies. Some tout fiscal shrewdness and let the chips fall were they may conservatism. These people are obviously prepared to ride it out.
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Others cite their desire to regain power, apparently risking all to win it all.
Any Capitalist worth his dollar knows that the end is not to amass wealth (it is just a means) but to amass power.
At the very outset of our National endeavor, the new government reneged on it's promise to pay the veterans of the revolution. Hamilton's argument was (as unsavory as he admitted it was) that the masses would just spend the money, but a select group would turn it into capital!
...and the rest, my friends, is history. -
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FrankHummel9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Hyperbola DEAD NUTS ON TARGET-
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Whoever "hyperbola" is, I'd like to shake his/her hand.
What is raised in the above posts under that name is DEAD NUTS ON TARGET!
As a fourth-generation descendant of expatriates who BAILED-THE-HELL OUT of Germany --- way back in the 1800s, long BEFORE the Weltkrieg and then (not long thereafter --- only about 15 years, in fact) the Nazizeit (/ Narrheit / Schreklikheit u.s.w.), I have in my life LONG been observing the parallels noted by Parabola.
It was ironic that some of the descendants of such expatriates later found themselve having to "go back" to "the old country" to PUT DOWN the militaristic madness that grew up there --- perhaps partly because those who HAD the INITIATIVE to bail out PRECISELY IN ORDER TO GET AWAY FROM the foolishness of their countrymen, were then NOT THERE to exercise the independence to resist the nonsense foisted off on all those remaining "Good" Germans! Those folks BOUGHT INTO THE BULLBLEEP that was FOISTED OFF on them by "their" marvelous MISguided (or maybe merely MISBEGOTTEN!) MIS"leadership"(!)--- which, by the way, was actually AUSTRIAN, not German.
Anyway, a particularly IRONIC (pun fully intended) example of that is ENSHRINED IN THE VERY NAME of the SUPREME MILITARY COMMANDER of the "Allied Expeditionary Force", as it was called, that was conceived for the purpose. Even those few who may know some German may have never reflected on the fact that "Eisen" means IRON and "hauen" means TO BEAT or THRASH!)(Actually, the name refers to an implement for making HAY ["heu"].)
The English and German languages are in fact VERY CLOSE COUSINS. THAT results from the historical fact that the "Saxons" (Sachsen is one of the sixteen "states" of modern-day Germany) once set out in their little boats and conquered the nearby-neighboring "Angles", exporting their language and culture off into what later evolved into "our" own. There is a HUGE slug of German embedded in English! --- which, by the way, makes it a relatively EASY language for us to learn!) -
FrankHummelComment removed: Spam
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FrankHummelComment removed: Spam
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FrankHummel9 months, 2 weeks ago
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"Inflation" is actually the systematic, programmed DEVALUATION of "wealth" --- which operates to LIMIT the capacity of people to "save" for their OWN future, or to leave any substantial inheritance to their progeny.
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The idea is that the "dollar" is slowly, inexorably "SUBDIVIDED" so as to create an ILLUSION of "growth" (inasmuch as the "raw" descriptive NUMBER will APPEAR to increase) although there may not ACTUALLY be any REAL growth, but may instead in fact be a considerable degree of inexorable DECLINE --- when “worths” of things are not gauged MEANINGFULLY in terms of REAL EQUIVALENT GENERAL PURCHASING POWER. And this goes on without it being “generally apparent”to all those who very much WANT to assume the "bona fides" of "their" ofttimes MISguided (or perhaps merely MISBEGOTTEN!) MIS"leadership", and are "just too busy" to actually THINK for themselves. So long as people blithely believe in and cling to the MYTH of the essential "constancy" of the "dollar", they can be beguiled into "keeping on keeping on".
Generally, unless things “get out of hand” (as they sometimes do), the RATE of "inflation" is LIMITED to no more than a few percent a year --- to which most people, being economically naïve, WILL NOT BE SENSITIVE. The nature of the whole business is rather akin to the analogy of the proverbial TOAD that when dropped abruptly into a bowl of HOT WATER will immediately and energetically HOP OUT --- but which, if it is instead already “safely” ensconced in a bowl in which the water is steadily heated up sufficiently SLOWLY, simply DOES NOT PERCEIVE the danger (since its limited sensory systems respond only to ABRUPT change), SO THAT IT ENDS UP SLOWLY COOKING TO DEATH. -
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FrankHummel9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Consider the people who make LONG TERM investments --- for example, a HOME in which they live for a very long time, or a RETIREMENT FUND, (or perhaps a SUCCESSION of such assets which they hold for many years, "rolling over" [generally "tax free"] from one to another a number of times), but which is/are RESPONSIBLY MAINTAINED [THAT being, of course, an ONGOING EXPENSE rather like "rent"] --- so that the REAL value of THE ASSET ITSELF really does NOT actually change. Such “prey” can, however, STILL be gradually and steadily "relieved" of their supposedly "accumulated" underlying “wealth” by means of "inflationary rescaling" in a COUPLE of different ways.
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First of all, if when the asset IS ultimately divested the number of "after" "dollars" is not enough to actually equal to the REAL EQUIVALENT PURCHASING POWER of the "before" "dollars", then the diference in net real worth has ACTUALLY been STEALTHILY EXPROPRIATED FROM THE VICTIMIZED "INVESTOR" --- even though the NUMERICAL measure of things APPEARS to have “grown”.
And furthermore, if the TAXATION of the home or other asset is pegged (as it generally is) over the course of those years, to its APPARENT "NUMERICAL dollar worth" rather than to its REAL (i.e. "inflation adjusted") worth, then the REAL TAXATION rate will have, in ACTUAL fact, over the period of holding of the investment, ALSO been steadily, inexorably increased --- without it having been explicitly "apparent"!
Gee, folks --- and here you think BERNIE MADOFF has been a scoundrel. You should face up to the reality of what "our" marvelous, supposedly "legitimate" "financial" and "governmental" systems actually do to people! And what ACTUALLY renders such utterly ORWELLIAN nonsense POSSIBLE, really, is the tacit ACCEPTANCE by “We the Prople” OURSELVES of the antics of “Big Brother”! -
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antibrainwasher9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Hey rab, go listen to your idol, Drug Gaybaugh, and put your daily lip lock on the bleeding cyst on his yellow bellied cowards hideous massive arse. Get your daily dose of brainwashing, and maybe something will trickel down you can lick up like a good brownshirt lemming con.
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antibrainwasher9 months, 2 weeks ago
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Its real simple. If you voted to give Caribu Barbie the bomb, you are an idiot, and are completely insane.
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If you voted to give a senile Warmonger and a white trash alaskan idiot leadership over the economy, you are an insane idiot.
If you voted for Caribu Barbie, you have proven by your actions, you are incapable of reason. You are a moron of higest order, a selfserving coward incapable of putting the country before your morally bankrupt ideology. You are scum. -
SandmonsterComment removed: Hard Banned
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Mikunited9 months, 2 weeks ago
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I think the similarities,between The Wiemar republic and the modern day USA,are much overstated in this article. The financial crises of 2008-2009 is Global in scope.It's not just affecting European and American economies.Emerging nations and the third World ,are being equally hard hit.
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