From the Digby quote in the ‘Bush OKs Torture, Media Yawns’ post:

“There was a time when the Village clucked and screeched about “defiling the white house” with an extra marital affair or hosting fund raising coffees. I would say this leaves a far greater stain on that institution than any sexual act could ever do. They did this in your name, Americans.”

(italics mine)

I think the ‘clucked and screeched’ of the Digby quote was the object of the shrillness reference, and not the tone of your comment. The commenter is saying that if the Moralists in the Village took a ’shrill’ tone to highlight the ‘evil’ of a blow-job, imagine how shrill We could get over Torture?

Believe me, I’d love to pass the Rock to you right here, but it’s no where near the coke-bottle-lens-myopia I had when I took the producers of “Jesus Camp” to the proverbial woodshed for Promoting Fundamentalist Propaganda at the HuffPo a couple of years ago (I had just seen a ‘trailer’ for the film and completely missed that it was a Documentary! A couple of commenters ran me through the snark machine, before I caught on and humbly begged forgiveness.)

In my case, it affected me strongly to ’see’ children being brain-washed…and I wrote from that space. Perhaps Bullock’s work affected you in a similar way?

If being called shrill is the price to pay for calling evil what it is, then let the games begin.

I don’t think I used the word shrill. I think my point is that many tried to oppose Hitler. They understood the depth of evil and human weaknesses they were up against and tried to bring in outside support to aid them because they also comprehended the cycle of violence they faced. It is beyond evil that those who were sought for support did not support the opposition movement. The outside countries contacted for help and support by the opposition did not lend support until it was quite late. I do not argue with any of your historic facts as posted but I do think it is important to not “clump” all the German people under one umbrella and compare all Germans to Hitler or Hitler to all Germans. I know that comparison would be difficult for my grandmother since she lost so many family members due to their opposition efforts.

I do not relate my personal history to belittle the reality of the evil that exists in history, especially Nazi Germany. To lose family because they fought the evil makes it all the more palatable to my life. I relate it because it is important to know there are those who are brave enough to do something but if there is not broad support, their efforts, their bravery and intent to save lives and carry out justice, dissolves. Not due to their lack of effort or effectiveness but because of a lack of broad support.

When you listen to what happened to Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, my guess is that the fear of having their same fate, paralyzes or self-censors one’s calling to walk out justice or to be part of a broad support in this country. And on that aspect of our nature, yes we are all capable. People can feel quite lonely in their desire to seek justice and may not know who to go to, where to start. Vance and Ertel have felt quite lonely in their efforts to seek justice and the price they paid.

Do I think Bush is like me, you or EW? No. Does he think he’s like me, you or EW? Obviously no.

I too am outraged at the response of the MSM, read and noted EW’s previous thread. Again, I am not calling you or anyone shrill. We agree on many aspects of history but the fact that there were opposition Germans who were not backed when they sought outside help. That is the dynamic we need to make sure does not happen again. The evil begins in the fear of taking actions that could hurt others you love which leads to self-censorship. Work like EW’s is bringing people together and growing courage to oppose the fear and self-censorship and seek justice.

I too want the games to begin. Like my family before me, I believe there is hope and justice to be found and acted upon the actors. The difference we need to make this time is to think of the “how” to bring the support together. We have less than 30% of this country in favor of this leadership. Quite a helpful dynamic.

Here’s my first suggestion. I would like to get an idea of the distribution of newspaper subscriptions by readers here and at the Lake ( I suggest other blogs participate). I then suggest a nationwide boycott of mainstream media, on the same day. End subscriptions on the same day and put in writing their failure to carry out their role as the Fourth Estate. Then I would back that boycott of the MSM with visits to our congress persons, overwhelming their staffs and hand carry letters letting them know why I am hand delivering a letter to their office. This would only have a remote impact if WE work together and gain support from friends.

Do I think this idea will work? I have no idea. But I was arrested for protesting against South Africa and I worked very hard in the divestment movement. Some of this did have an impact.

Economics can be a great moving point and our country is not in the best economic position right now. So, economic based opposition could make headway.

I hope there will be more discussion about “how” to make the games begin. But we need at least 45-50% of that 70% out there to step up.

By the way EOH, I do greatly appreciated all you share here. You are a wealth of information and have been accute at dissecting the many government documents EW presents. I mean this as sincere appreciation. Thank you.

No diplomat or their foreign ministry missed it. Won’t change the Hollywood studio system, but it should have the lawyers checking the contracts they once thought were water tight.

But in the Same Week, the Pope declines at the last minute, an invitation to a State Dinner in his honor at the White House. All during a week when the President admitted that in the Situation Room, under the Oval Office, his closest circle of Associates, with his participation and knowledge, choreographed torture sessions. Could it just be that all the Historical digging and analysis that has raised the question, “What did Pius XII do when the Germans were, in 1943, rounding up the Jews of Rome right under his nose?” finally born fruit? Have these questions finally brought home something of what might be expected of a moral leader? Could be, and the US Press just has, once again, missed the story while being all stressed out over the displacing question of whether Bush will attend the Hoopla in Beijing this summer.

Normally the planning for a State Dinner includes consultation between the Embassy of the visiting country and the Protocal Office at State on the wording of toasts. I am wondering if things fell apart as they tried to negotiate toasts. Oh to be a fly on the wall if such were the case.

I think Bullock, writing in 1952, may have been intentionally overstating in order to bring about a reappraisal of how such evil came to be, and not just in Germany. Arendt’s famous reappraisal, in her coverage of Eichmann’s trial in Jerusalem and its revelations of the banality of evil, wasn’t to come for another eleven years.

But in 1952, in France, after a spurt of investigations and revenge killings, Vichy officials and their public supporters were being ignored and reintegrated into high government positions. In Poland, thousands who lived near the death camps and supported their “commerce” denied knowledge and went on with their lives, some believing the Jews deserved their fate for having killed the Christ; the former center of European Jewry was and remains bereft of Jews. Hundreds of influential, if not top, German Nazis were protected by their fellow Germans, and in places the church, and a new cohort of believers was being raised.

The US, too, quickly forgot the Nazis and ended most investigations into their crimes. It chose reconciliation (and the employment of Nazi scientists and agents), purportedly to garner support to defend against the Soviet menace, measuring it a greater evil than past wrongs, as if the two were competitors in a horse race. A year after Bullock’s 1952 biography of Hitler, the notion of forgetting was so commonplace that a former senior English diplomat titled his popular autobiography, Old Men Forget.

We do it; it’s how we’re built. The ReichWing will want us to forget Bush’s crimes before we recognize them so that nothing can be done about them. They’re succeeding. Witness the related post about the MSM’s collective yawn at his revelations. If being called shrill is the price to pay for calling evil what it is, then let the games begin.

Alan Bullock, an influential historian and later vice chancellor of Oxford, ran into a weather front of criticism for suggesting that the Austrian Adolf Hitler wasn’t much different than the ordinary German.

I appreciate your points. I do have to make a counterpoint. Alan Bullock was very wrong in his conclusions. Having had family in Bavaria who opposed Hitler, some who were executed for opposing Hitler, I have to strongly disagree. My grandmother opposed Hitler, my great grandfather, my great uncles and a host of extended family and members of surround towns and villages opposed Hitler. My sister-in-law’s grandfather was very high in the German government and he had secret meetings with the British government trying to seek help in eliminating Hitler. He unfortunately, in the dead of night while going to meet with his British informant, was captured and executed. I wish I could go on but it is a difficult story to write. Many attempts were made to overcome Hitler and none succeeded. Many who sought to organized with outside aid, were turned away. There was even a Catholic priest in Bavaria who organized opposition as well and he is never recognized in history.

Yes, none were successful. But MANY gave their lives to try and overcome Hitler and the Nazi party. It is difficult to read the generalizations of revered historians when not every German was like Hitler,nor w did my grandmother consider Hitler like every German.

The larger problem lies in humanity. Not that Hitler was so much like the average German but in the underpinnings of our reaction to fear and hate. My family was extremely average German but managed to opposed and fight against Hitler. They just did not buy into the hate and fear cards.

We face a similar challenge of recognition. The world won’t let us walk away from it:

Now, have we as a nation done enough? Are we too showing our weakness as humans? Most definitely. We have not pack-filled our congressional offices with citizens refusing to leave until Bush-Cheney are dealt with. Who will do it?

It’s the “Who will do it?” that lies at the heart of the banality of evil driven by fear and hate.

Because someone has to start calling us on our crimes.

The US is responsible for its own conduct, but why are they going along?