<meta charset="utf-8"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 10.8333px; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(80, 0, 80); ">>This is the threshold where Godwin's law starts to break down.<</span><div>
<font class="Apple-style-span" color="#500050" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 11px;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; ">I'm guilty of conforming to Godwin's Law a lot, btw. But at least you can still carry on the discussion once Hitler is invoked. More often than not, even with a bunch of atheists and agnostics like us (or most of us -- don't want to assume) God eventually gets dragged into it, and then you're really screwed. I have a new roomier law: once God or Spinoza or the Many World's Interpretation is mentioned, the on-line discussion is for all practical purposes kaput.</span></font></div>
<div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;"><br></span></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="arial, sans-serif"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse;">Darren<br>
</span></font><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 6:04 PM, Darren Greer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:darren.greer3@gmail.com">darren.greer3@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im"><br>>I remember as a teenager seeing documentaries about McCarthyism and<br>thinking to myself, "those sorts of things could never happen again!"<br>I turned out to be so horribly wrong about that...<<div>
<br></div></div><div>As dispiriting as it is to think that we haven't come very far, in the end I believe it's a good thing to contemplate and understand. I think it was Elie Wiesel that said that if we continue to brand Hitler and the European fascists as sheer monsters instead of ordinary humans capable of monstrous acts, we won't be able to recognize and forestall it when it's happening again.</div>
<div><br></div><div>The tuning point in my understanding of where we are politically came when I read John Keegan's Second World War and Henry Wallace's (Roosevelt's VP) 1944 essay The Danger Of American Fascism.</div>
<div><br></div><div><a href="http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm" target="_blank">http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm</a></div><div><br></div><div>Up until then I thought, like most, that fascism was overt totalitarian control by the few over the many, and characterized by jack-booted racial intolerance. I got my eyes opened for good when I read that essay and Mussolini's definition of it: <span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"><b><i><span style="font-family:Arial">"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism </span></i></b></span><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"><b><i><span style="font-family:Arial">because it is a merger of state and corporate power."</span></i></b></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:'Times New Roman'"><i><span style="font-family:Arial"><br></span></i></span></div><div><font face="Arial">Then I learned that the U.S. congress has a fasces symbol on one of its interior walls, and that was the end of my political innocence. I'm not exactly a New Wold Order Conspiracy theorist, mostly because I don't believe these guys are clever or patient enough to plan for that long and in such secrecy. But I'm not exactly brimming over with civic pride and trust in our political leaders either. And if I ever do get invited to Bilderberg, I'm wearing a wire.</font></div>
<div><br></div><div>Darren </div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="im">On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 5:34 PM, John Grigg <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:possiblepaths2050@gmail.com" target="_blank">possiblepaths2050@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="im"><div>On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 11:12:08PM -0400, Darren Greer wrote:<br>
<br>
> rather liberators. Did it in Poland, Czechoslovakia, France. The fact that<br>
> some government officials want to brand Wikileaks as a terrorist<br>
> organization should scare you. It should scare all of us. As you suggest,<br>
> you can paint anything with that particular brush. It reminds me very much<br>
> of the kind of propaganda tactic that Shirer described.<br>
<br>
</div></div><div class="im">Eugen replied:<br>
<div>Apologies for a me-too. But it's not "reminds me very much of".<br>
It is absolutely very much exactly 100% the very same thing. This is<br>
the threshold where Godwin's law starts to break down.<br>
Caveat emptor. Your soul is at stake.<br>
>>><br><br></div>
</div><font color="#888888"><br>
John<br>
</font><div class="im"><div><div></div><div><br>
<br>
<br>
On 12/17/10, Eugen Leitl <<a href="mailto:eugen@leitl.org" target="_blank">eugen@leitl.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 11:12:08PM -0400, Darren Greer wrote:<br>
><br>
>> rather liberators. Did it in Poland, Czechoslovakia, France. The fact that<br>
>> some government officials want to brand Wikileaks as a terrorist<br>
>> organization should scare you. It should scare all of us. As you suggest,<br>
>> you can paint anything with that particular brush. It reminds me very<br>
>> much<br>
>> of the kind of propaganda tactic that Shirer described.<br>
><br>
> Apologies for a me-too. But it's not "reminds me very much of".<br>
> It is absolutely very much exactly 100% the very same thing. This is<br>
> the threshold where Godwin's law starts to break down.<br>
> Caveat emptor. Your soul is at stake.<br>
><br>
> --<br>
> Eugen* Leitl <a href="<a href="http://leitl.org" target="_blank">http://leitl.org</a>">leitl</a> <a href="http://leitl.org" target="_blank">http://leitl.org</a><br>
> ______________________________________________________________<br>
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</div></div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><font face="'Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><i>"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."<br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><font face="'Lucida Grande', 'Trebuchet MS', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"><i>"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."<br>
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