Posted on 01/06/2021 6:34:24 PM PST by SeekAndFind
As my listeners and readers can hopefully attest, I have been on a lifelong quest to understand human nature and human behavior. I am sad to report that I have learned more in the last few years, particularly in 2020, than in any equivalent period of time.
One of the biggest revelations concerns a question that has always plagued me: How does one explain the “good German,” the term used to describe the average, presumably decent German, who did nothing to hurt Jews but also did nothing to help them and did nothing to undermine the Nazi regime? The same question could be asked about the average Frenchman during the Vichy era, the average Russian under Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev and their successors, and the millions of others who did nothing to help their fellow citizens under oppressive dictatorships.
These past few years have taught me not to so quickly judge the quiet German, Russian, etc. Of course, I still judge Germans who helped the Nazis and Germans who in any way hurt Jews. But the Germans who did nothing? Not so fast.
What has changed my thinking has been watching what is happening in America (and Canada and Australia and elsewhere, for that matter).
The ease with which tens of millions of Americans have accepted irrational, unconstitutional and unprecedented police state-type restrictions on their freedoms, including even the freedom to make a living, has been, to understate the case, sobering.
The same holds true for the acceptance by most Americans of the rampant censorship on Twitter and all other major social media platforms. Even physicians and other scientists are deprived of freedom of speech if, for example, they offer scientific support for hydroxychloroquine along with zinc to treat COVID-19 in the early stages. Board-certified physician Dr. Vladimir Zelenko, who has saved hundreds of COVID-19 patients from suffering and/or death, has been banned from Twitter for publicizing his lifesaving hydroxychloroquine and zinc protocol.
Half of America—the non-Left half—is afraid to speak their minds at virtually every university, movie studio and large corporation—indeed, at virtually every place of work. Professors who say anything that offends the Left fear being ostracized if they have tenure and being fired if they do not. People are socially ostracized, publicly shamed and/or fired for differing with Black Lives Matter, as America-hating and white-hating a group as has ever existed. And few Americans speak up. On the contrary, when BLM protestors demand that diners outside of restaurants raise their fists to show their support of BLM, nearly every diner does.
So, then, who are we to condemn the average German who faced the Gestapo if he didn’t salute Hitler or the average Russian who faced the NKVD (the secret police and intelligence agency that preceded the KGB) if he didn’t demonstrate sufficient enthusiasm for Stalin? Americans face the left’s cancel culture, but not left-wing secret police or reeducation camps. (At least not yet—I have little doubt the Left would send outspoken conservatives to reeducation camps if they could.)
I have come to understand the average German living under Nazism and the average Russian living under communism for another reason: the power of the media to brainwash.
As a student of totalitarianism since my graduate studies at the Russian Institute of Columbia University’s School of International Affairs (as it was then known), I have always believed that only in a dictatorship could a society be brainwashed. I was wrong. I now understand that mass brainwashing can take place in a nominally free society.
The incessant left-wing drumbeat of the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and almost every other major newspaper, plus The Atlantic, the New Yorker, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, NPR, all of Hollywood and almost every school from kindergarten through graduate school, has brainwashed at least half of America every bit as effectively as the German, Soviet, and Chinese Communist press did (and in the latter case, still does). That thousands of schools will teach the lie that is the New York Times‘ “1619 Project” is one of countless examples.
Prior to the lockdowns, I flew almost every week of the year, so I was approached by people who recognized me on a regular basis. Increasingly, I noticed that people would look around to see if anyone was within earshot and then tell me in almost a whisper: “I support Trump” or “I’m a conservative.” The last time people looked around and whispered things to me was when I used to visit the Soviet Union.
In Quebec this past weekend, as one can see on a viral video, a family was fined and members arrested because six—yes, six—people gathered to celebrate the new year. A neighbor snitched on them, and the celebrants were duly arrested. The Quebec government lauded the snitches and asked for more public “collaboration.”
Snitches are likewise lauded and encouraged in some Democrat-run states and cities in America (Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti in March: “Snitches get rewards”) and by left-wing governments in Australia. Plenty of Americans, Canadians, and Australians are only too happy to snitch on people who refuse to lock down their lives.
All this is taking place without concentration camps, without a Gestapo, without a KGB and without Maoist reeducation camps.
That’s why I no longer judge the average German as easily as I used to. Apathy in the face of tyranny turns out not to be a German or Russian characteristic. I just never thought it could happen in America.
Powerful observations by Dennis.
The willingness of the American Public to submit to the tyranny of the past few months is breathtaking.
I intellectually have long understood "The Good German" conundrum--but now I have lived it.
Fat pompeo and chris miller are not far behind.
My belief is that one of the reasons why America is falling under socialism is because God is allowing it to happen in order to show that no society or people or tongue or race is immune from the danger of it.
When every knee bows before the Christ, it will be in recognition that every one of us could have been a socialist and was at risk of oppressing his fellow man.
Thank you for posting.
Now I must begin my search for where I will retire (if ever) as an ex Pat overseas. Right now I think Croatia or Poland.
Great observation by DP. Makes a lot of sense looking around. The only universal issue around the good German or Russian or Frenchman, is their society was clearly completely out of whack......as is the US today.
Like the Jews in exile, some remnant survived.
We've been living in this since the 1960s. Just look at the laws put on the books since then, all designed to make sure successive generations had more irrational takes and fewer contributors.
I would choose Philippines. That country doesn’t have the money to impose any serious level of population control.
Germans culturally were not used to an Democratic institutions (From the Kaiser (royalty) to the the Weimar Republic which went straight into disastrous socialism — just before Hitler rose to power after communists were battling in the streets).
Germans followed what the ‘big men’ in their country and their traditions told them to do. Hitler had to start his most atrocious crimes only after the war started and still had to largely hide it all from the population or chance being overthrown (there was a reason the big extermination camps were in Poland away from Germany).
Hungary doesn’t sound too bad either, however I hear learning the language is a *****.
I have often wondered if part of the good German image was a ruse.
Laying low until an opportunity presents itself to do something.
No doubt some of them were working for the underground but could not risk being caught. What good would it do for everyone who opposed Hitler to be shot or sent to concentration camps.
Someone had to be around when it was all over to pick up the pieces.
Lookit all the Good Germans...
Dennis has earned the status of national treasure - a title he shares with the likes of Thomas Sowell, VDH, Shelby Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Peter Robinson and select group of others
It goes without saying that George Soros knows this very well. And he is going to his death making sure this happens in the America he hates.
Prager is correct, as he often times is.
Imagine if there had been protests back then by conservatives specifically because of the creation of the Department of Education, and repeatedly every year and perhaps even twice a year, that could’ve aided Reagan when he attempted to begin to get rid of the DoE, to put pressure on the senators and congress back then.
But instead, everybody went, voted, and then went silent for 729 days. Reagan was left out in the cold, without any help from us at all!!! And here we are, decades later, with a near majority of young citizens believing the lie that America is racist despite easily retrievable facts. Paying the price for all that apathy.
Now the 1619 Project would probably still exist all the same, but there wouldn’t be a vehicle for it into the schools.
How progressivism begets more progressivism..................
This is the answer.
I used to have to go to Hungary on business. They say that if you are not born Hungarian, you can never understand the language. I never tried.
Not sure about the apathy part, but the “I never thought it could happen here” part is the common thought before it did happen there.
Now it’s our turn. Will we be any different?
Nope, it happens here, too, unless Jesus returns first or we really could trust the plan after all.
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