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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

Hylarn (Don’t ask)
#259176: Oct 27th 2018 at 11:35:58 PM

Yes, but most attacks on Custer are people treating him as a one-of-kind horror, when he was actually fairly average. Focusing on Custer vastly under-emphasizes how horribly the US treated the native population

...Also, real Custer apologia straight-up treats him as a hero

Edited by Hylarn on Oct 27th 2018 at 11:36:35 AM

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#259177: Oct 28th 2018 at 12:12:30 AM

Again, you can say that about Nazis but you need Custer to show what was the specific atrocities he did so people understand what he did.

But that's just my take.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
math792d Since: Jun, 2011 Relationship Status: Drift compatible
#259178: Oct 28th 2018 at 2:09:40 AM

Tired: Comparing the 2018 United States to the Weimar Republic.

Wired: Taking a page from the Yanks' own book and comparing them to the Roman Republic.

In which case, things don't exactly look great either, but at least the gradual legitimization of political violence, the increasing wealth stratification and contempt for the rule of law by a political class grasping for power might not end with a repeat of the worst atrocities in human history, just some semi-bad, garden variety imperialist ones.

Still not embarrassing enough to stan billionaires or tech companies.
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259179: Oct 28th 2018 at 2:15:31 AM

I fall back on the Weimar republic because that's what I know the most about. It's part of being a pupil in Germany. You study the rhetoric, you study how the institutions in place were systematically undermined, you study the kind of atmosphere which was created so that people got along with it and you study the mind-set needed to allow something like this to happen.

Above all you really study the propaganda, so that you are equipped to recognize it immediately if you encounter it is real life. So for a German, looking at the US (and the UK for that matter) is really chilling, because we recognize the language. "Fake News" equals the Lügenpresse, the "Will of the People" equals the "Volkswille", the whole talk about immigration taking away resources is a reversed version of the "Lebensraum". Look it up, there is a long list of Nazi-typical euphemism and a LOT of them have been turning up lately, and not on the fringe, in main-stream politics. They even repeat the lie that there was anything "socialist" about the Nazis.

Some parallels aren't quite as obvious, but if the right talks about "Cultural Marxists", the are basically just doing the "paint everyone as communist" thing, if they use George Soros as "Feindbild", it's not different from the stories about the evil Jews which supposedly created the crash and stole money from the normal people.

It is just so obvious from my perspective. And it gives me the chills. It gives me even more the chills than some right wing group calling themselves "Trumpenkriegers", because not only does it sound silly, they are at least obvious about it. It's this creeping rhetoric I am fearful about.

Edited by Swanpride on Oct 28th 2018 at 2:19:26 AM

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#259180: Oct 28th 2018 at 4:37:23 AM

[up][up][up][up]Ambar brought that up back when he was still here. He also brought up that the way Custer's Last Stand was framed as Custer's incompetence is also kind of racist, since it implies that the Natives only won due to a white guy screwing up rather than through their own ability.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259181: Oct 28th 2018 at 4:41:00 AM

[up] Like I said, the polite thing to do would be to ask the native Americans how they would like to frame it. It is THEIR last stand after all.

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#259182: Oct 28th 2018 at 4:46:24 AM

[up]It wasn't a last stand for THEM since they won that one.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259183: Oct 28th 2018 at 5:03:33 AM

[up] Remind me...what happened in the aftermath?

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#259184: Oct 28th 2018 at 5:03:46 AM

It's all because they had guns and the native Americans didn't and they (the ones who keep the myth of Custer's incompetence alive) can't comprehend how it's possible to lose when you have such arsenal at your disposal,I'm reminded of the battles with Zulus the English had.

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#259185: Oct 28th 2018 at 5:11:01 AM

[up][up]A last stand would imply they were the ones who fell that day. That things ultimately didn't end well for them doesn't change that.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259186: Oct 28th 2018 at 5:23:15 AM

[up] A last stand can also be the last battle in a war which is already lost. It is kind of disgusting that the whole thing was reframed as Custer's last stand.

Edited by Swanpride on Oct 28th 2018 at 5:25:28 AM

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#259187: Oct 28th 2018 at 5:41:20 AM

It's all because they had guns and the native Americans didn't and they (the ones who keep the myth of Custer's incompetence alive) can't comprehend how it's possible to lose when you have such arsenal at your disposal,I'm reminded of the battles with Zulus the English had.

The thing about the battles with the Zulus is that everyone remembers the one where the British lost. The battle of Rorke's Drift a day or so later where the numbers were 20:1 in the favour of the Zulus? Not so much.

There's a reason that people tended to assume that the gun-armed forces would be victorious in most conflicts.

Robrecht Your friendly neighbourhood Regent from The Netherlands Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
#259188: Oct 28th 2018 at 7:47:56 AM

Since we've had mention of the Weimar Republic and its relation to the current situation in the US... And since this is relevant to US politics in general, especially in so far as people in the US don't seem to be aware of this and would be really helpful to their understanding of world politics if they did:

Let's talk for a minute about the myth/misconception surrounding the NSDAP not getting the majority of the vote.

The myth or misconception in question is, of course, not that the NSDAP didn't get the majority of the vote. That part is absolutely true. At their height during the end of the Weimar Republic, the NSDAP 'only' got ~44% of the votes (if you've ever wondered why '44' is a less common part of Nazi numeric iconography, overshadowed by '1488' and the like, this is why. It has nothing to do with 1944).

The myth or misconception in question is that it matters in any way that they didn't get over the magical 50% vote barrier.

Because the Weimar Republic, like most modern (continental) democracies, and unlike the US, had a multi-party system with coalition governments. In which multiple parties who, together, have 50% or more of the seats in parliament have to agree to cooperate in order to form a working government.

And that's how the Nazis rose to power: The Nazis first became a threat when they got around 18% of the vote, making them the second largest single party, which forced the Social Democrats (Centrists with leftist leanings) and the Communists (far left), as the largest and third largest parties respectively, to form a government together. And while the Social Democrats and Communists were pretty similar when it came to social policy, their approach to economics was vastly different... And that would have been bad enough if it hadn't been in the midst of the Great Depression, where a clear economic policy was needed.

Once the NSDAP got to around 33% of the vote in the next election (making them the largest party) off of the back of the Great Depression, they simply refused to work with the left wing parties who, together, still had a larger portion of the parliament, but not more than 50%, and then blamed the leftist for all the things that weren't getting done due to Nazi obstructionism and in the subsequent election they got 44% of the seats off of that (and more importantly, the Social Democrats and Communists saw their seat numbers plummet) and were able to form a coalition government with the relatively small conservative and centrist parties and take power.

Does that 'obstruct the opposition at every turn, then blame the subsequent failure to deal with an economic crisis on them' thing sound familiar?

This is also why, when far right parties regularly got between 15-30% of the votes in the various European elections that occurred in 2016 and 2017, we weren't joining Americans in jumping for joy at them not getting a majority. Nor were we particularly fond of American media referring to far right parties becoming the second or third largest party in a country as them being 'defeated'.

Because historically we know that in our coalition-focussed system it doesn't take 50+% to radicalise the entire nation and create a fascist hell hole.

Edited by Robrecht on Oct 28th 2018 at 3:48:54 PM

Angry gets shit done.
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#259189: Oct 28th 2018 at 8:19:23 AM

[up][up] Just FYI, there’s an entire movie, Zulu, about Rorke’s Drift and the British surviving/triumphing.

Edited by wisewillow on Oct 28th 2018 at 11:28:14 AM

Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#259190: Oct 28th 2018 at 8:29:16 AM

Shake up expected in the cabinet after by the end of the year.

Reports are the Mattis might leave on his own, but Trump is itching to fire Session, Neilsen, and Ross. Sessions for reasons I'm sure we are all familiar with, Homeland Security Secretary Nielsen for not stopping immigration, and Commerce Secretary Ross for not getting all those big trade deals Trump kept bragging about.

Secretary of the Interior Zinke might be let go as well due to his open corruption being too open even for Trump.

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#259191: Oct 28th 2018 at 8:36:09 AM

highlights from trump’s ego-fest last night.

Trump, again trying to justify holding the rally, repeats his lie that the NYSE opened "the following day" after 9/11. He says we can't allow "sick" and "demented" people to determine how we live our lives.

"Remember the New York Stock Exchange," Trump repeats. The NYSE was closed until six days after 9/11. He's asking people to remember something that didn't happen

Trump on the shooting and the rally: "We have our lives. We have our schedules. And nobody's going to change it. So we're here. And let's have a good time. And if you don't mind: I'm going to tone it down just a little bit." Many in the crowd yell: "Noooo."

Sir Alert and Tears Alert: "Steelworkers...Big, strong guys they came up to me. One of them said 'thank you sir for saving our country.' And he was crying. And I'm tellin' you, he was crying. I don't think this guy cried when he was a baby. This guy never cried."

Trump's speech said steel jobs had "vanished," but he said "vanquished" by accident. As usual, he refuses to admit he misspoke, saying, "You can say 'vanquished' and 'vanished.' It's a combination of both.

Trump says he is very careful about making sure he does not fall down on stairs and narrow passageways.

He said there was some narrow runway at the venue, then said if he fell down it'd be bad because it'd be big headline news, then explained that he is therefore quite careful about walking and such.

"There's no more nuclear," Trump says of North Korea, specifically talking about nuclear testing but phrasing this with some skilful ambiguity.

Trump goes Real Estate Guy about North Korea: "That location's so good. Between China, Russia and South Korea. What a location. It's gonna be fantastic."

We're on the part where Trump complains about critics of his handling of North Korea and claims he avoided a war that was a "potential nuclear catastrophe."

Trump says he really admired the "serious" wall in the DMZ between North and South Korea. He explains, "A fence with a lot of electric currents going through it...you take a look at that, you say, 'I'm passing.'"

Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259192: Oct 28th 2018 at 8:39:19 AM

[up][up][up][up] Yep. Those are two other aspects which are creepily familiar: the left wing being busy fighting each other (though that was a little bit more bloody in the Weimar Republic), and losing ground because they spend just as much time tearing each other down than pointing to the threat from the far right, and the far right systematically sabotaging the government and blaming every failure on the left wing, even when it was most of the time the right wing.

Also claiming incidental successes as their own. When Hitler rose to power, the economy in Germany recovered, but not because of him, but partly despite of him. He actually did very little to improve the life of the common worker, but the fact that the world economy improved around the same time made a lot of them think that he did.

It's naturally not a one-to-one parallel, but there are just way, way too many familiar patterns to not sound the alarm.

Edited by Swanpride on Oct 28th 2018 at 8:39:40 AM

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#259193: Oct 28th 2018 at 8:51:47 AM

[up][up] Just FYI, there’s an entire movie, Zulu, about Rorke’s Drift and the British surviving/triumphing.

Starring Michael Caine and where the daughters of one of those portrayed in the film objected to his portrayal. I know. It's just that when these things come up people focus on the outside cases—where the worse-armed force one—rather than the more numerous situations where they lost.

Grafite Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: Less than three
#259194: Oct 28th 2018 at 8:51:56 AM

[up][up] You must be thinking about 2016. Right now, the left is visibly united in their movement to hold Trump accountable, having managed to get enough contributions for many democratic challengers to outraise incumbents. And even if Trump wanted to, he wouldn't be able to use a catastrophe like the Reichstag Fire to ban any opposition, so again, the comparison falls flat.

Edited by Grafite on Oct 28th 2018 at 3:52:12 PM

Life is unfair...
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259195: Oct 28th 2018 at 9:04:09 AM

[up] To a degree. There is still the "Corporate Democrats vs Progressive" divide and they sometimes can't help but to attack each other (nothing to say about the far, far left which still punts the idea that the whole Russian story is a hoax), but yes, with the benefit of seeing the signs, they have a better chance turning the ship around because they know that (for now) they have to work together no matter what to get rid of Trump. Question is if they will realize that they can't stop doing so once Trump is removed. Because he is just the first step, he is NOT the end-game.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#259196: Oct 28th 2018 at 9:04:12 AM

You must be thinking about 2016. Right now, the left is visibly united in their movement to hold Trump accountable, having managed to get enough contributions for many democratic challengers to outraise incumbents. And even if Trump wanted to, he wouldn't be able to use a catastrophe like the Reichstag Fire to ban any opposition, so again, the comparison falls flat.

Well said.

Not to mention that some people are rather overstating Democratic focus on Trump, 50% of Democratic midterm ads are about healthcare so we're unified with a message smile

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 28th 2018 at 12:04:33 PM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Swanpride Since: Jun, 2013
#259197: Oct 28th 2018 at 9:07:57 AM

[up] True. Which is a good sign. Hopefully the party will be just as unified when it comes to implementing a working healthcare system.

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#259198: Oct 28th 2018 at 9:09:41 AM

[up]Agreed, we better not have another Lieberman. I don't want some corrupt milquetoast fuck sabotage the reform our nation dearly needs.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Oct 28th 2018 at 12:09:52 PM

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#259199: Oct 28th 2018 at 9:30:29 AM

Healthcare is the top message for Democrats. In contrast, its only #4 for Republicans.

This is a total 180 from when the ACA had just been passed and the Republicans were screaming about death panels while Democratics sorta distanced themselves from it. Now the Democrats have half a decade to show how much a net positive the ACA has been and are clearly loudly and proudly championing its defense while Republicans are flat footed on what they should say.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#259200: Oct 28th 2018 at 9:32:01 AM

All of this is true, but it doesn't matter for the parade of "Democrats stand for nothing besides hating Trump!"

I saw a lot of political cartoons the other day that boil down to that. We'll, here's hoping enough people don't buy into it.


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