aw. RE: aw. RE: Why did Elser plant the bomb?

[Bekah]

On Feb 14, 2009, at 11:26 PM, Joseph Tracy wrote:
> I am skeptical of the no Hitler, no holocaust argument . My sense  
> is that  this fascist polity of hate and racial /national  
> supremacy   combined with corporate militarism was a world wide  
> phenom driven by many forces and that charismatic assholes always  
> rise to the occasion and lots of people die because of the  
> colonialist scape-goating nature of the thing.


Well,  I agree that  it's important not to take it too far.   Hitler  
didn't do it all by himself and Germany and all of Europe have a long  
history of anti-semitism.  I think it's important to note that until  
WWII  Germany's national anti-Semitic history was  not, by a long  
shot,  the worst in Europe - they've had periods of peace and a  
certain amount of assimilation - Read "The Pity of It All: A Portrait  
of Jews in Germany  1743-1933"  by Amos Elon - good stuff there.

But the loss of WWI,  the fear of Russia and the  Bolsheviks, the  
Treaty of Versailles  PLUS the surge in anti-semitism and the  
charisma of Hitler all  worked together.  This is to say nothing of  
the technology available in 1930s but not available to prior  
generations of would be genocidal maniacs.    Hitler was the straw  
that broke the camel's back,  the last marble,  something like  
that.   Without him connecting these issues and adding his own  
charismatic insanity,  there might not have even been a Holocaust  
with close to 6 million killed.  (There have been much worse,  
btw.)    Germany made great use of the Jews during the Franco- 
Prussian war and they were very close to achieving their goal of  
parity in the aftermath of unification.  (1871-).


> I don't buy the notion that Karma means all victims are guilty. If  
> this is so then all killers are instruments of justice. If Karma is  
> real it is a much bigger wheel.

Oh heavens,  no, neither do I!  And in some cases that idea (in  
different words)  can be used by the "powers-that-be" as  
justification for the status quo - a vindication of their rights to  
power.  "The underclass is  poor because they're stupid, lazy,   
drunkards, etc. "  Imo, it's distinctly racist, classist, sexist, and  
all the other "ists."  I think it was politically useful in India in  
the Axial Age when the only way out of your caste was to live  
"good,"  die nobly and start over - hopefully up the ladder a rung or  
two.   It's been transformed in our times to mean something like  
"what goes around comes around" in your lifetime.  Some of that  
latter is probably true although "the rain falls on the good and the  
bad."

*****

> I also think there was heroism and certainly courage in what Esler  
> did. The question is how different was that courage from the  
> bravery of German soldiers fighting for the Fatherland?   It is  
> easier to see that something must be stopped than to know how to  
> stop it.  Not many want to pose Ted Koszinski as a hero or role  
> model for destroying the corporate world empire.

You bet it took courage for Esler.   One difference between Esler's  
actions and those of the German soldiers is that Esler acted alone  
and  against the trend, the crowd,  a very powerful force in Germany  
at the time.  (You don't go yelling, "Down with Hitler,"  at the  
stadium.)   About Ted K.,  the chips aren't yet in on the fate of the  
"corporate world empire"  so we can't know if Ted was acting in  
accord with the future or not.  (Esler obviously was.)    When the  
empire falls,  then perhaps Ted K.  can be a hero (of some deranged  
kind) - depends on how it comes down.

Bekah