So real quick, just to catch everyone up; just under 100 years ago there was this arson attack on the German parliament building, which added to the general chaos and made a lot of people feel very scared.
Generally the vibe is pretty noticeable:
- Ordinary politician: “This is awful, we all need to work together to promote stability.”
- Problematic politician: “It was them. It’ll happen again. Only I can provide stability with my impressive MAN GENITALS. Also, anonymous troopers are a super good idea.”
Point is, creating division and chaos, using the language of blame, then feeding off (or even causing) random fiascos is job #1 for any Insufferable Turdburger.
Anyway, to help thick people understand the warning signs, humanity made lots of stories about it, and some of them got pretty famous:
Okay Palpatine! We trust you, dude!
Aaaanyway, you know all that. You know that division and chaos are the tactics required to bring about a certain type of regime. You know all that.
A grown-up response
Maybe how we respond is pretty simple, we just keep calm and oppose division wherever possible. This means using the language of ‘us’ rather than ‘them’. It means taking responsibility for failings and being kind to one another, honouring difference. And where we see divisive language, we recognise it for what it is, and stop buying into that stuff.
It also means befriending our ‘enemies’ and learning to disagree well, learning to de-polarise our adolescent desire for justice and leaning into the more advanced and healing state of grace.
Gov. Cox has some decent things to say on the topic.
And when we manage to grow up a bit, reconciliation happens, and everyone enjoys delicious sexytimes together. Seriously, that’s how it works. See Grace comic. Super simple, super simple. Okay, go!
And then; boobies
Oh you came here for boobs rather than obvious political commentary from someone thousands of miles away? Well right now in Lithium comic production, I’m rendering the bit where Karen gets walked to her death. Sometimes life has those darker moments, but that’s okay.
Also, for the Easter Egg -hunters out there, I’ll be using Lady Macbeth references and Rembrandtian paintings in the background of this scene to tell the meta story of what’s really going on. Will anybody notice? Who knows, but I will so I’m doing it. Heheh. Good times!
Okay fine, here’s a quiet little intimate moment of nudity, to keep you going:
Yes! History! My most beloved topic. And by locking longer and longer, you find out what “Dunning-Kruger-Effect” really is.
You just felt for it. Sorry.
Some missing parts:
* The German article about the Reichstag is 22 pages long, the English 16 pages
*The “Treaty of Versailles” that ended WWI, limited the police to 100.000. The NSDAP had about 427.000 armed personal between 1932/1933 when the building burned down. Guess which “honest people” in brown shirts “kept up” the “order”. So beautiful ironed shirts… .
* Today we assume, that the nazis burned down the building by themselves
And you missed the most important point: _Spreading_fear_and_misinformation_. If you add this to your mix, your “using the language of ‘us’ rather than ‘them’” approach won’t cut it. Nice thought so.
So here is what you gonna do:
* understand how democracy works (can’t defend something, if you don’t know what it is)
* compare it to your country (you know…like in school)
* if not match: make fucking sign and go fucking protest for your rights!
Brought down the Soviet Union: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monday_demonstrations_in_East_Germany
…just saying.
Okay, okay…and this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn4VDwaV-oo
By the way: nice that people always pull the Hilter-card. Guess when you are No.1 on the list, all the other numbers are no longer relevant. Guess thats why people say, “He is the Michael Jordan off…” and don’t refer to Larry Bird..
But as an observer, I rarely see “Waterbarding in Guantanamo” (2006) or “War crimes by UK forces in Iraq” (2004) mentioned. Is it only Germany working on it’s past? And the other First World countries go duck and cover? Well, how convenient for them.
Somehow I heard from people from the UK, Netherlands and Sweden that their school history class don’t even cover the “dark” moments of their history. Is that true?
Thanks Albert. You’re quite right that every country is responsible for its own suuuuper bad stuff – and it is a shame the UK isn’t reminded more often of some of their Gov’s various crimes over the centuries. I think people mention the Reichstag so often because it really was a lovely textbook example of how things can slide from having-votes to not-having-votes: – and can be orchestrated by the very people pointing the fingers at everyone else! Totally agree we should protest rights, and I’m sorry that Mr Hitler gets dragged into conversations so much, please don’t take it personally, it just saves us the effort of looking into our own political dung heaps 🙂
In terms of history classes – I think this is improving in the UK, with a more negative approach to talking about colonialism for example, but there can be a bit of a bias depending on the teacher. In my day, I certainly spent many more years learning about Nazism and Stalin’s era than any of the darker English chapters. Fascinating stuff wherever we look.