Dear friends,
Thank you for the article, I enjoy intellectually stimulating conversations. I respectfully submit the link to the original posted article online, and encourage people to take a look at it and all the comments that have been posted below it. They make for good reading as well. The link is http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2006/subject-historical-significance/.
As a student of history, one thing I really wish Mr. Kraft had mentioned but didn’t, was the principal way in which Hitler (a failed artist-cum-sign painter who had been in a German prison a mere decade earlier for a failed coup d’etat, in short, a nobody) was able to pose such a threat to the rest of the world in the first place. He and his party led a hysterical campaign of fear about the threat that world jewry posed to Germany, indeed to the world. The “dicey turning point” which enabled Hitler, who was legally elected as chancellor of Germany in 1933, to assume dictatorial power was the burning of the Reichtag and the fear it caused among Germans that the “fatherland” was under attack. This allowed him to push for the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933, a series of emergency measures which allowed him to rule by decree, dissolve parliament, and launch his war of world domination.
My personal feeling is that it is dangerous to make decisions based on fear. As much as world history has been defined by the clash of civilizations, very often this clash can often be traced to irrational fear, and those who would profit from generating it. It was irrational fear of Socialism and Communism that caused another nobody, Augusto Pinochet, to massacre thousands and disappear more thousands on another 9/11 (September 11, 1976) in Chile, my erstwhile home. Most of those killed were just trying to elect someone who gave them hope for a better life. Instead they were ruthlessly killed in our National Stadium and other places. We are still dealing with the aftermath of that national holocaust.
I’m afraid I don’t have any better answers than anyone else, it would be arrogant for me to believe so. As for Iraq, we went in, now we need to finish what we started. We should win and we should do a better job of letting democracy take hold, and this can only do good things for everyone. Even so, looking closer to home I remember something I read that has also been a truism to me, and I respectfully share with you: “those who have nothing to offer will turn to fear as a tactic instead.”
I can’t think of a better way to end this missive than to quote another famous WWII figure, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In a difficult time for this country, indeed for the world, during his first inaugural address to the nation he said something that I believe carries a lot of relevance today. I hope this too will be shared with students nationwide:
“I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.” (Source: http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5057 / )
Tags: Current Events, Fearmongering, History, Hitler, Iraq, Opinions, Politics, World War II
