The German people in 1933 were not filled with a desire for revenge. They were painfully aware of having been unjustly blamed for the outbreak of WW1 - which, if anything, was more the fault of the Serbs, the British and the French - and then crushingly punished by the brutally one-side Versailles Treaty.
Your comment is partially correct. I suggest consulting Fischer’s recounting of Germany’s aims in WW1 where the Kaiser in 1912 anticipated what he termed a Race War between “Teutons and Slavs” for control of Europe. Germany also forced the Hapsburg Empire to come down very hard on the Serbs by pressing them with ultimatums they would never agree to thus guaranteeing the initiation of national mobilizations that were the precursors to war in that Era. There’s also the confession by Hindenburg as to why Germany lost the war that was given to a team of American reporters led by George Seldes. The report was censored by the US Army and remained unknown until Seldes published it in his 1929 book You Can’t Print That that you can read or download from here, https://archive.org/details/YouCantPrintThat
If Seldes’s report had been published in early 1919, the raft of excuses Hitler used to manipulate German public opinion couldn’t have been made for Hindenburg clearly stated the reason for Germany’s defeat was America’s entry into the war.
The Teutonic Knights traditionally invaded Slavic territory, just as their southern brethren invaded Muslim lands. The Northern Crusades dated back to the 13th century at least. So the Kaiser was looking back, not forwards.
As to Hindenburg's "confession", it is and was obvious that, with the sides evenly matched after three years of war and millions of deaths, the intervention of the USA would be decisive. Even after Ludendorff's storm troopers ripped through the Allied lines and captured American camps, they were struck dumb by the wealth of food, drink, and other goods they found. To the half-starved Germans, who considered a piece of stale black bread and some cheese a feast, the American stores were a kind of Aladdin's Cave. Nevertheless it was the Germans who were occupying the American camps, not vice versa. Germany was eventually defeated by starvation.
These are the Hitler party NSDAP results of the last two FREE elections 1932 in Germany: they got 37,3 and 33,1 per cent of the vote. There was another election AFTER Hitler had been made chancellor in Jan 1933. This was a Hitler-controlled election, but still his party received only 43,9 per cent. So: NEVER did a majority of the Germans vote for Hitler! Instead, the German power elite put him in his position, and next the majority of the Reichstag parties voted him into power with their Ermächtigungsgesetz. It is always the ruling class that decides policies, NEVER the masses (as defined by C. Wright Mills). With respect to my German grand father generation (and even mine) these facts do not matter, of course, the general perception is: the Germans voted for Hitler.
I've surmised that the US Democratic National Committee (DNC) refined their ballot-stuffing techniques from Goebbels's wizardry.
Everyone and their dog knew that the Keir Starmer/British Labour Party was a Deep-State shoe-in to win the 2024 General Election. The People (Sheeple) had grown weary of a succession of publicly unelected Conservative Party Leaders, chopping and changing over 14 years of rule.
Starmer would have given Deep-State & Backers (Friends of Israel/MIC) assurances of continued support for the War against Russia.
The facts regarding Anti-War Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party Leader in the 2019 General Election is that he polled 32.1% of the popular vote ( 10.2 million ) winning only 202 Parliamentary Seats, while Starmer, Labour Party Leader in the General Election of 2024 pulled 33.7% of the popular vote (9.7 million) but won in a landslide with 411 seats. Yes double Corbyn's seats with less of the popular vote.
Such wizardry, election gerrymandering would have made Goebbels blush, but it was STOP Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Semite Corbyn at ANY COST, even recruiting/persuading Nigel Farage's BREXIT Party to contest Labour Marginal Seats (Swing Seats) but Stand-Down in Conservative Marginal Seats. Toss in the Betrayal of Keir Starmer & The Parliamentary Labour Party (Executive) to sabotage Corbyn, plus the 24/7 MSM Deep-State Propaganda and you get an idea of How Democracy Triumphs in Britain.
Farage's Reform Party are favourites to win the popular vote at the next General Election.
The DNC sabotaged Bernie Saunders ( The People's Candidate ) in 2016, like Starmer, Hillary Clinton was their choice at ANY Cost and it was the ultimate cost as it was Anyone But Hillary in 2016 and Trump got lucky as Bernie would have won in 2016. Not that I'm a Bernie fan but I believe we'd be in a less hostile world had he been elected President in 2016.
Finally the 2024 US Presidential Election, the DNC decided to shoot themselves in the lungs once again as even Side-Show Bob or Crusty the Clown would have won against Trump but never a cackling Kamala, although the Democratic Superpacks/Elites (Obamas) were divided on holding a Democratic Leadership Election where they knew Kamala would not even win the vote in her own State and Bernie Saunders would've highly likely been elected candidate.
As Galloway says, we're talking Uni-Party, 2 cheeks of the same arse.
Democracy is an interesting term having several variables that modify its direct definition as rule by the masses which is now called Direct Democracy. Then there's Representative Democracy, which really isn't Democracy at all. The USA was constituted in 1787 as an Oligarchy with the Constitution's main architect Madison being openly against Democracy as he stated several times in Federalist #10. Then there's the massive problem related to the illiteracy of citizens regarding their duties as citizens in republics that are supposedly self-governing. Of course, books are written on this topic. It's more proper to say that some governments/nations have some democratic attributes, which within federalist systems exist mostly at the local level.
For genuine Democracy to succeed, its citizens must know their role and participate, otherwise it will degenerate. Thus, the thesis that it could only work in small homogeneous nations. Currently, the two best Representative governments are China and Russia.
Mostly the British in my opinion. Germany had become a threat to their (already declining) world dominance. The British have started many wars, but also, being a small populated island, setting up other countries against each other so they would fight and weaken themselves. They are still in that typoe of business today
The British may have had a cunning plan, but they ended up fighting on the continent and in the process running up debts with the Americans and it was all downhill from there. Then there was a repeat performance for WWII.
Yes, they ended up cause their cunning plans where to big to chew (Germany was winning). You can see it repeated now in Europe where they thought they could easily topple the Russian government. They have failed sofar. It’s a combination of hubris, stupidity and greed. Luckily they have tools to convince (propagandize) the plebs to fight for the greater good, for higher moral values.
So first they make the plan, then it fails miserably and eventually they have to send their population. Always a win-win for the plan makers. They don’t suffer.
I guess you missed the hazelnut moment. Russia isn’t going to waste it’s human resources fighting towards Berlin, again. Western leaders have wet dreams about decapitation strikes, well they should understand for them there is no bunker deep enough.
I didn’t miss the hazelnut moment, but our so called elites are missing it. It’s not just wet dreams, it’s hatred and they are blinded by it. There is no logic at all in what they are doing
Understandable we get a rant from a Chinese person they were treated abysmally by Japan... and so were many other countires in East Asia...
I happned to work off and on in Japan 2000-2010... and know a little about Japan and their way and ways of thinking... and even less about their complicated history...
They did a lot of harm... and that is something some Japanese are very ashamed of... how many I dont know.
What I know for sure is that The USA dropped 2 Atom bombs on them Hiroshima and Nakasaki...
Japan had alread surrendered... !!!! USA has occupied Japan since with every power possible ie military and economic and mentally ... the crash of Japans incredible economy in 1997 Japan never receovered from it... ....
Japan was/has been crushed ... they are a society deeply unhappy and confused.
.... That said there is still a lot of beauty in Japan and its people...
May they learn from their mistakes... and find their way to a much much happier Japan.
You just nailed the reason for Takaichi’s party’s victory: “Japan was/has been crushed ... they are a society deeply unhappy and confused.” And thus easily manipulated.
It was invaded by a tidal wave of trolls. I can’t speak to b’s motivation for his article. As you read, I took a very different direction and focused on what IMO is the major issue at present. Epstein’s gone yet the syndicate(s) he worked for are still operating. And Chomsky will soon pass away leaving a huge volume of work, much of which is seminal. His theory of universal grammar is huge and is something very few people are aware of that ties ALL humans together.
thanks karl.. that is very true about the troll invasion... i don't know enough to comment on chomsky, but it was interesting seeing the different viewpoints on him - both good and bad...
These are the Hitler party NSDAP results of the last two FREE elections 1932 in Germany: they got 37,3 and 33,1 per cent of the vote. There was another election AFTER Hitler had been made chancellor in Jan 1933. This was a Hitler-controlled election, but still his party received only 43,9 per cent. So: NEVER did a majority of the Germans vote for Hitler! Instead, the German power elite put him in his position, and next the majority of the Reichstag parties voted him into power with their Ermächtigungsgesetz. It is always the ruling class that decides policies, NEVER the masses (as defined by C. Wright Mills). With respect to my German grand father generation (and even mine) these facts do not matter, of course, the general perception is: the Germans voted for Hitler.
Yes, the author provided a graphic showing the 1932 election results where NSDAP won but with a minority. And we know what happened afterwards. Yes, that aspect was also omitted by the author, but IMO it had no bearing on his argument that populations are manipulated into manufacturing consent thorough voting. Trump did that here by lying about MAGA and being against war. Writers at Foreign Affairs journal address “American Authoritarianism” but try to lay the blame on other nations instead of where it belongs within the USA. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/american-authoritarianism-levitsky-way-ziblatt
This is a rather shallow analysis IMO. The left offered the populous more globalism. Trump ran on a populist message. No new wars, end the Ukraine war, Cut immigration, lower energy prices, bring back manufacturing, raise wages (no taxes on tips.. which Kamala actually endorsed after the polling data came back. Lol), lower home prices. It isn't enough to just dismiss that. To say everybody is just uneducated and stupid for believing him. The Democarats knee capping Bernie Sanders in 2 elections show that people are attracted to Populist ideas. Whether it is Trump or Bernie giving voices to those ideas. This is the big no no in Western democracies though. Only the thoughtful intelligent educated classes sponsored by billionaires get to run things. Populism is something to be beat down into the dirt at all costs. Everybody who doesn't like that is just a stupid hillbilly loser who deserves to be poor and just needs to accept rule by his betters. This is what people instinctively want to reject. It doesn't matter that Trump is fake. He at least spoke to that. That is why he got elected and it is why he is going to get destroyed in the midterms. The voters are not as stupid as the educated think they are. They can see they don't live in a democracy and are frustrated. My prediction is the next presidential election goes democrat. The US will have its own version of Keir Starmer. That presidency will follow Starmer's. In a few months everyone will be pissed off. The tech bros now working with the US version of Starmer will cancel people, alert authorities, jail people for online speech aginst the government and Israel (Trump already started with Israel and the Ds will take it further). This is all that will be on offer. Its is a closed system now. The feedback line was cut long ago.
I spent my undergrad years studying Japanese politics, economy, and society in a then new interdisciplinary course; at the time Japan was riding high on its success due to the US policy of countering Soviet and communist expansion by enabling its allies through expansionary fiscal and trade policies. Japan and Germany were huge beneficiaries, and countries like Australia gained through iron and coal exports, which went swimmingly well until two events, the crisis of USD gold convertibility (trade defecit problem) and the 1973 oil crisis.
Japan dutifully submitted to the Plaza Accords and four years later was hammered by financial collapse. Just as an aside I'd gone to Japan to hook up with a mate working for an offshoot of Recruit, but by luck I left a month before the financial tsunami broke. That was the end of Japan's postwar good fortune.
So here we are, it's entirely predictable how this will end. China is a sovereign state, Japan is not. The people of South Korea have a greater prospect of breaking free from the US menace than the Japanese. This time Japan is not facing a fractured China, and it suffers exactly the same supply chain problems as resource poor nation, so it's a huge mistake to even attempt to remilitarise as they would face the same response that Andrei Martyanov has spoken of regarding Russia - Europe; it's not WWII tank wars, it's overwhelming missile based destruction.
As mentioned, Japan’s big problem is lack of resources. And a major ability China is acquiring is to mount a naval blockade of Taiwan and soon Japan. IMO, China can also defend the Malaca Strait.
The Island chain defense strategy was a war of attrition. Cut off China from resources and starve it out. That is the plan. Russia and China were never supposed to come together. The US still has to defeat Russia to defeat China. Island chain defense fails with Russian resources flying over the border. Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, targeting inland into Russia, Russian tankers, assasination of Russian leaders and midfle managers, interference in the Caucuses and middle Asia, trying to ply India away from Brics, trying to get Turkey to take a more belligerent attitude... the US is doing everything it can think of to break Russia. This is full spectrum dominance in action.
This is a quote. ... Education, upbringing toward independent thinking through family, society, the education system, and politics; future prospects for one's own socioeconomic development under the incentive to achieve; opportunities for the development and nurturing of individual talents and abilities; freedom, including the absence of any censorship. These are essential factors whose presence, absence, or degree of both determines the intergenerational development of a society. Intergenerational, because a newborn child is from birth under the influence of the generations of grandparents and parents.
"Do you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be? Charles Bukowski. This quote from an extremely intelligent and clever thinker, author, and alcoholic hit my brain back then, many years ago, like a steel sledgehammer.
The rulers, the owners, have known about the above factors since antiquity, from Japan, through China, Persia, Arabia, Europe, to the Americas before colonization by Europeans, and further across the Pacific to Oceania. There is no need to single out a Goebbels or a Gustave Le Bon. Tribal leaders, shamans, the Christian church, and the nobility practiced propaganda long before these two useful idiots.
The flaw in Hua Bin's reasoning is that it is not democracy, the vision, that is at fault, but the errors in the same system we have suffered since antiquity. The division of society into owners and those dependent on the owners. To this day, after tens of thousands of years of human history, nothing has changed in this regard. The only thing that has evolved is technology. These technologies have enabled a degree of subtlety in manipulation that has turned us into puppets.
Does anyone really believe that democracy exists in Switzerland? Who owns the media, which shape the public opinion that influences popular referendums? The media are owned by the owners.
Who, or which class, has worked for many centuries to ensure that most Japanese are politically so phlegmatic and disinterested or believe that decision-making must be solely the affair of professional politicians? This is glossed over with the caricature: "Japanese culture." Everyone knows that politicians are corrupt. Well, not everyone. There are also the stupid. But most people know it. Yet they do not think about who corrupts the politicians and for what purpose. Nevertheless, they call it democracy and keep voting for politicians. So be it, and nothing will ever change.
It is not the vision that is at fault, but the thoughtlessness and cowardice of people. Putin was wrong when he said that people with visions should see a doctor. He himself could never have initiated and led such historic changes if he did not have visions himself.
I’d like to know when Putin said that as he clearly mapped out his vision for Russia’s future in his 2024 Leap Day speech.
As for voting changing things, only people can change things. Voting elects people who either fulfil their campaign promises or don’t. And in a federal structure like the USA, you need more than one person to enact change.
I haven't read the context of Putin's statement regarding 'visions' (who translated from the Russian to English), but could Putin have been referring to 'hallucinations' which are themselves visions?
Bah people still believe the human race is good? Thats at least one thing americans and chinese have in common. They believe in fairy tales. Nah, they humans only appear good individually because of the constraints placed by society, but when they gather the beast eventually shows. This is what Hegel said was the truth of christianity in terms of philosophy of right. That human being is bad, and should be tamed, molified. But this molification always remain a "should" , the beast always prevails in the end. Again, the japanese collective is as bestial and bloodthirsty as the americans or whomever. If the pools show "they" dont want war, the truth is the majority would love to see people they dont care about getting murdered, but only say "no" becaue of the social constraint on public speech , the so called "PC".
The German people in 1933 were not filled with a desire for revenge. They were painfully aware of having been unjustly blamed for the outbreak of WW1 - which, if anything, was more the fault of the Serbs, the British and the French - and then crushingly punished by the brutally one-side Versailles Treaty.
Your comment is partially correct. I suggest consulting Fischer’s recounting of Germany’s aims in WW1 where the Kaiser in 1912 anticipated what he termed a Race War between “Teutons and Slavs” for control of Europe. Germany also forced the Hapsburg Empire to come down very hard on the Serbs by pressing them with ultimatums they would never agree to thus guaranteeing the initiation of national mobilizations that were the precursors to war in that Era. There’s also the confession by Hindenburg as to why Germany lost the war that was given to a team of American reporters led by George Seldes. The report was censored by the US Army and remained unknown until Seldes published it in his 1929 book You Can’t Print That that you can read or download from here, https://archive.org/details/YouCantPrintThat
If Seldes’s report had been published in early 1919, the raft of excuses Hitler used to manipulate German public opinion couldn’t have been made for Hindenburg clearly stated the reason for Germany’s defeat was America’s entry into the war.
The Teutonic Knights traditionally invaded Slavic territory, just as their southern brethren invaded Muslim lands. The Northern Crusades dated back to the 13th century at least. So the Kaiser was looking back, not forwards.
As to Hindenburg's "confession", it is and was obvious that, with the sides evenly matched after three years of war and millions of deaths, the intervention of the USA would be decisive. Even after Ludendorff's storm troopers ripped through the Allied lines and captured American camps, they were struck dumb by the wealth of food, drink, and other goods they found. To the half-starved Germans, who considered a piece of stale black bread and some cheese a feast, the American stores were a kind of Aladdin's Cave. Nevertheless it was the Germans who were occupying the American camps, not vice versa. Germany was eventually defeated by starvation.
Yes, and Hindenburg admitted to that aspect too.
These are the Hitler party NSDAP results of the last two FREE elections 1932 in Germany: they got 37,3 and 33,1 per cent of the vote. There was another election AFTER Hitler had been made chancellor in Jan 1933. This was a Hitler-controlled election, but still his party received only 43,9 per cent. So: NEVER did a majority of the Germans vote for Hitler! Instead, the German power elite put him in his position, and next the majority of the Reichstag parties voted him into power with their Ermächtigungsgesetz. It is always the ruling class that decides policies, NEVER the masses (as defined by C. Wright Mills). With respect to my German grand father generation (and even mine) these facts do not matter, of course, the general perception is: the Germans voted for Hitler.
I've surmised that the US Democratic National Committee (DNC) refined their ballot-stuffing techniques from Goebbels's wizardry.
Everyone and their dog knew that the Keir Starmer/British Labour Party was a Deep-State shoe-in to win the 2024 General Election. The People (Sheeple) had grown weary of a succession of publicly unelected Conservative Party Leaders, chopping and changing over 14 years of rule.
Starmer would have given Deep-State & Backers (Friends of Israel/MIC) assurances of continued support for the War against Russia.
The facts regarding Anti-War Jeremy Corbyn Labour Party Leader in the 2019 General Election is that he polled 32.1% of the popular vote ( 10.2 million ) winning only 202 Parliamentary Seats, while Starmer, Labour Party Leader in the General Election of 2024 pulled 33.7% of the popular vote (9.7 million) but won in a landslide with 411 seats. Yes double Corbyn's seats with less of the popular vote.
Such wizardry, election gerrymandering would have made Goebbels blush, but it was STOP Pro-Palestinian, Anti-Semite Corbyn at ANY COST, even recruiting/persuading Nigel Farage's BREXIT Party to contest Labour Marginal Seats (Swing Seats) but Stand-Down in Conservative Marginal Seats. Toss in the Betrayal of Keir Starmer & The Parliamentary Labour Party (Executive) to sabotage Corbyn, plus the 24/7 MSM Deep-State Propaganda and you get an idea of How Democracy Triumphs in Britain.
Farage's Reform Party are favourites to win the popular vote at the next General Election.
The DNC sabotaged Bernie Saunders ( The People's Candidate ) in 2016, like Starmer, Hillary Clinton was their choice at ANY Cost and it was the ultimate cost as it was Anyone But Hillary in 2016 and Trump got lucky as Bernie would have won in 2016. Not that I'm a Bernie fan but I believe we'd be in a less hostile world had he been elected President in 2016.
Finally the 2024 US Presidential Election, the DNC decided to shoot themselves in the lungs once again as even Side-Show Bob or Crusty the Clown would have won against Trump but never a cackling Kamala, although the Democratic Superpacks/Elites (Obamas) were divided on holding a Democratic Leadership Election where they knew Kamala would not even win the vote in her own State and Bernie Saunders would've highly likely been elected candidate.
As Galloway says, we're talking Uni-Party, 2 cheeks of the same arse.
You might find this a hoot, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/american-authoritarianism-levitsky-way-ziblatt
Recently taped and watched Animal Farm (1954) as well.
How can democracy decline when it has never been permitted to exist?
Democracy is an interesting term having several variables that modify its direct definition as rule by the masses which is now called Direct Democracy. Then there's Representative Democracy, which really isn't Democracy at all. The USA was constituted in 1787 as an Oligarchy with the Constitution's main architect Madison being openly against Democracy as he stated several times in Federalist #10. Then there's the massive problem related to the illiteracy of citizens regarding their duties as citizens in republics that are supposedly self-governing. Of course, books are written on this topic. It's more proper to say that some governments/nations have some democratic attributes, which within federalist systems exist mostly at the local level.
Democracy has a tendency to degenerate into 'soft despotism' as well as the risk of developing a tyranny of the majority.
Alexis de Tocqueville
For genuine Democracy to succeed, its citizens must know their role and participate, otherwise it will degenerate. Thus, the thesis that it could only work in small homogeneous nations. Currently, the two best Representative governments are China and Russia.
Three things that told me all I need to know about Starmer:
1. Day one after election he calls Biden to say Britain backs US to the hilt;
2. Day two he calls Netanyahu and quite incredibly, more or less tells him Israel's interests are at the forefront of any UK policy decisions;
3. Day three, in a tv interview he is asked where he would rather be, Westminster or Davos? He smirked and shamelessly declared, "Davos".
BTW, day 4, I predicted that Labour would suffer exactly the same fate as the Conservatives at the next polls.
All true!
As Director of Public Prosecutions the POS denied knowledge of the Post Office scandal where Horizon's IT system fraud ruined many lives.
The UK is a banana republic on steroids
Mostly the British in my opinion. Germany had become a threat to their (already declining) world dominance. The British have started many wars, but also, being a small populated island, setting up other countries against each other so they would fight and weaken themselves. They are still in that typoe of business today
Yes, they were master manipulators of the European powers. Hitler made the same mistake as the Kaiser in thinking the British would remain neutral.
The British may have had a cunning plan, but they ended up fighting on the continent and in the process running up debts with the Americans and it was all downhill from there. Then there was a repeat performance for WWII.
Yes, they ended up cause their cunning plans where to big to chew (Germany was winning). You can see it repeated now in Europe where they thought they could easily topple the Russian government. They have failed sofar. It’s a combination of hubris, stupidity and greed. Luckily they have tools to convince (propagandize) the plebs to fight for the greater good, for higher moral values.
So first they make the plan, then it fails miserably and eventually they have to send their population. Always a win-win for the plan makers. They don’t suffer.
I guess you missed the hazelnut moment. Russia isn’t going to waste it’s human resources fighting towards Berlin, again. Western leaders have wet dreams about decapitation strikes, well they should understand for them there is no bunker deep enough.
I didn’t miss the hazelnut moment, but our so called elites are missing it. It’s not just wet dreams, it’s hatred and they are blinded by it. There is no logic at all in what they are doing
Understandable we get a rant from a Chinese person they were treated abysmally by Japan... and so were many other countires in East Asia...
I happned to work off and on in Japan 2000-2010... and know a little about Japan and their way and ways of thinking... and even less about their complicated history...
They did a lot of harm... and that is something some Japanese are very ashamed of... how many I dont know.
What I know for sure is that The USA dropped 2 Atom bombs on them Hiroshima and Nakasaki...
Japan had alread surrendered... !!!! USA has occupied Japan since with every power possible ie military and economic and mentally ... the crash of Japans incredible economy in 1997 Japan never receovered from it... ....
Japan was/has been crushed ... they are a society deeply unhappy and confused.
.... That said there is still a lot of beauty in Japan and its people...
May they learn from their mistakes... and find their way to a much much happier Japan.
You just nailed the reason for Takaichi’s party’s victory: “Japan was/has been crushed ... they are a society deeply unhappy and confused.” And thus easily manipulated.
Thanks for your great work Karl!
We've restacked and shared this link on 'The Stacks'
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/the-stacks
good observations karl and i agree with you.. thanks..
on a different note - what do you think happened at moa yesterday?
It was invaded by a tidal wave of trolls. I can’t speak to b’s motivation for his article. As you read, I took a very different direction and focused on what IMO is the major issue at present. Epstein’s gone yet the syndicate(s) he worked for are still operating. And Chomsky will soon pass away leaving a huge volume of work, much of which is seminal. His theory of universal grammar is huge and is something very few people are aware of that ties ALL humans together.
thanks karl.. that is very true about the troll invasion... i don't know enough to comment on chomsky, but it was interesting seeing the different viewpoints on him - both good and bad...
The fall-out continues in today’s thread which b attacked early on. Few are adhering to the topic or related developments.
i have been out most of the day and will find out shortly!
These are the Hitler party NSDAP results of the last two FREE elections 1932 in Germany: they got 37,3 and 33,1 per cent of the vote. There was another election AFTER Hitler had been made chancellor in Jan 1933. This was a Hitler-controlled election, but still his party received only 43,9 per cent. So: NEVER did a majority of the Germans vote for Hitler! Instead, the German power elite put him in his position, and next the majority of the Reichstag parties voted him into power with their Ermächtigungsgesetz. It is always the ruling class that decides policies, NEVER the masses (as defined by C. Wright Mills). With respect to my German grand father generation (and even mine) these facts do not matter, of course, the general perception is: the Germans voted for Hitler.
Yes, the author provided a graphic showing the 1932 election results where NSDAP won but with a minority. And we know what happened afterwards. Yes, that aspect was also omitted by the author, but IMO it had no bearing on his argument that populations are manipulated into manufacturing consent thorough voting. Trump did that here by lying about MAGA and being against war. Writers at Foreign Affairs journal address “American Authoritarianism” but try to lay the blame on other nations instead of where it belongs within the USA. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/american-authoritarianism-levitsky-way-ziblatt
This is a rather shallow analysis IMO. The left offered the populous more globalism. Trump ran on a populist message. No new wars, end the Ukraine war, Cut immigration, lower energy prices, bring back manufacturing, raise wages (no taxes on tips.. which Kamala actually endorsed after the polling data came back. Lol), lower home prices. It isn't enough to just dismiss that. To say everybody is just uneducated and stupid for believing him. The Democarats knee capping Bernie Sanders in 2 elections show that people are attracted to Populist ideas. Whether it is Trump or Bernie giving voices to those ideas. This is the big no no in Western democracies though. Only the thoughtful intelligent educated classes sponsored by billionaires get to run things. Populism is something to be beat down into the dirt at all costs. Everybody who doesn't like that is just a stupid hillbilly loser who deserves to be poor and just needs to accept rule by his betters. This is what people instinctively want to reject. It doesn't matter that Trump is fake. He at least spoke to that. That is why he got elected and it is why he is going to get destroyed in the midterms. The voters are not as stupid as the educated think they are. They can see they don't live in a democracy and are frustrated. My prediction is the next presidential election goes democrat. The US will have its own version of Keir Starmer. That presidency will follow Starmer's. In a few months everyone will be pissed off. The tech bros now working with the US version of Starmer will cancel people, alert authorities, jail people for online speech aginst the government and Israel (Trump already started with Israel and the Ds will take it further). This is all that will be on offer. Its is a closed system now. The feedback line was cut long ago.
You mentioned he's US educated, 'nuff said.
I spent my undergrad years studying Japanese politics, economy, and society in a then new interdisciplinary course; at the time Japan was riding high on its success due to the US policy of countering Soviet and communist expansion by enabling its allies through expansionary fiscal and trade policies. Japan and Germany were huge beneficiaries, and countries like Australia gained through iron and coal exports, which went swimmingly well until two events, the crisis of USD gold convertibility (trade defecit problem) and the 1973 oil crisis.
Japan dutifully submitted to the Plaza Accords and four years later was hammered by financial collapse. Just as an aside I'd gone to Japan to hook up with a mate working for an offshoot of Recruit, but by luck I left a month before the financial tsunami broke. That was the end of Japan's postwar good fortune.
So here we are, it's entirely predictable how this will end. China is a sovereign state, Japan is not. The people of South Korea have a greater prospect of breaking free from the US menace than the Japanese. This time Japan is not facing a fractured China, and it suffers exactly the same supply chain problems as resource poor nation, so it's a huge mistake to even attempt to remilitarise as they would face the same response that Andrei Martyanov has spoken of regarding Russia - Europe; it's not WWII tank wars, it's overwhelming missile based destruction.
As mentioned, Japan’s big problem is lack of resources. And a major ability China is acquiring is to mount a naval blockade of Taiwan and soon Japan. IMO, China can also defend the Malaca Strait.
The Island chain defense strategy was a war of attrition. Cut off China from resources and starve it out. That is the plan. Russia and China were never supposed to come together. The US still has to defeat Russia to defeat China. Island chain defense fails with Russian resources flying over the border. Iran, Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, targeting inland into Russia, Russian tankers, assasination of Russian leaders and midfle managers, interference in the Caucuses and middle Asia, trying to ply India away from Brics, trying to get Turkey to take a more belligerent attitude... the US is doing everything it can think of to break Russia. This is full spectrum dominance in action.
"No, thank you very much. You can keep your 'democracy' and shove it up your a**."
"You have a better chance to change the weather by farting than to change government by voting" – a Substack reader.
Hua Bin
https://huabinoliver.substack.com/p/no-thank-you-very-much-you-can-keep
This is a quote. ... Education, upbringing toward independent thinking through family, society, the education system, and politics; future prospects for one's own socioeconomic development under the incentive to achieve; opportunities for the development and nurturing of individual talents and abilities; freedom, including the absence of any censorship. These are essential factors whose presence, absence, or degree of both determines the intergenerational development of a society. Intergenerational, because a newborn child is from birth under the influence of the generations of grandparents and parents.
"Do you remember who you were before the world told you who you should be? Charles Bukowski. This quote from an extremely intelligent and clever thinker, author, and alcoholic hit my brain back then, many years ago, like a steel sledgehammer.
The rulers, the owners, have known about the above factors since antiquity, from Japan, through China, Persia, Arabia, Europe, to the Americas before colonization by Europeans, and further across the Pacific to Oceania. There is no need to single out a Goebbels or a Gustave Le Bon. Tribal leaders, shamans, the Christian church, and the nobility practiced propaganda long before these two useful idiots.
The flaw in Hua Bin's reasoning is that it is not democracy, the vision, that is at fault, but the errors in the same system we have suffered since antiquity. The division of society into owners and those dependent on the owners. To this day, after tens of thousands of years of human history, nothing has changed in this regard. The only thing that has evolved is technology. These technologies have enabled a degree of subtlety in manipulation that has turned us into puppets.
Does anyone really believe that democracy exists in Switzerland? Who owns the media, which shape the public opinion that influences popular referendums? The media are owned by the owners.
Who, or which class, has worked for many centuries to ensure that most Japanese are politically so phlegmatic and disinterested or believe that decision-making must be solely the affair of professional politicians? This is glossed over with the caricature: "Japanese culture." Everyone knows that politicians are corrupt. Well, not everyone. There are also the stupid. But most people know it. Yet they do not think about who corrupts the politicians and for what purpose. Nevertheless, they call it democracy and keep voting for politicians. So be it, and nothing will ever change.
It is not the vision that is at fault, but the thoughtlessness and cowardice of people. Putin was wrong when he said that people with visions should see a doctor. He himself could never have initiated and led such historic changes if he did not have visions himself.
I’d like to know when Putin said that as he clearly mapped out his vision for Russia’s future in his 2024 Leap Day speech.
As for voting changing things, only people can change things. Voting elects people who either fulfil their campaign promises or don’t. And in a federal structure like the USA, you need more than one person to enact change.
Oh, sorry. I got it mixed up. It was Helmut Schmidt. Not Putin.
I haven't read the context of Putin's statement regarding 'visions' (who translated from the Russian to English), but could Putin have been referring to 'hallucinations' which are themselves visions?
I don't think so. In German and English, the word "visions" was clearly written. When he said it in Russian in the audio, I couldn't understand it.
Bah people still believe the human race is good? Thats at least one thing americans and chinese have in common. They believe in fairy tales. Nah, they humans only appear good individually because of the constraints placed by society, but when they gather the beast eventually shows. This is what Hegel said was the truth of christianity in terms of philosophy of right. That human being is bad, and should be tamed, molified. But this molification always remain a "should" , the beast always prevails in the end. Again, the japanese collective is as bestial and bloodthirsty as the americans or whomever. If the pools show "they" dont want war, the truth is the majority would love to see people they dont care about getting murdered, but only say "no" becaue of the social constraint on public speech , the so called "PC".