both Jews and Gentiles might read the following

[Sean Smith]

A problem for alot the Jews was they looked back at their history, saw that persecutions came and went, and decided to hunker down and wait it out. Everything in their prior history suggested that persecution came and went in cycles, and that if they rolled with the punches the majority of them would get by through this one, too. Even the nastiest work of the pogroms in Russia or the Inquisition in Spain (which were pretty damn nasty) came and went... and the majority of Jews survived them. Furthermore, even these were distant memories by 1933.

Problem was, the Nazis were fundamentally different from what came in the past. They weren't just another cycle of Old European anti-semitism, which typically peaked with some spasmodic violence and discrimination, then gradually lost momentum and petered out. Hitler and his cohorts literally wanted to wipe out everyone who was a Jew, used to be a Jew, or was even distantly related to a Jew. Certainly, Mein Kampf and the nastier Nazi propaganda from the likes of Sturmer said as much, but at the time this was universally accepted as just exaggerated rhetoric.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Quote:
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Even the nastiest work of the pogroms in Russia or the Inquisition in Spain (which were pretty damn nasty) came and went.
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The Inquisition in Spain was not directed against Jews. Muslims and Jews had been expelled from Spain at the end of the Reconquesta. However, converts to Christianity were exempt from deportation.

The Inquisition had authority only over Catholics, and particularly focussed on those Catholics who were secretly practicing other religions -- including Islam and Judaism.

To be fair, the Spanish killed far fewer people for religious reasons than the British -- in just a few years in the late 1500s, the British killed more people that the Inquisition in three hundred years.

 

[Edward429451]

Resistance means organization. And it's better to resist in the political realm, overcoming the forces of statism and tyranny with ballots rather than bullets, if you can.

I agree Vern. It would be nice to do it from the ballot box. But the million dollar question is, Is the ballot box valid anymore? One would certainly like to think that it is, but I have long suspected that it's just a pony dance anymore, to appease the masses into thinking that they even play a part in the process at all.

The fix is in. We vote and vote, and our rights continue to diminish incrementaly. Or so it seems to me.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Quote:
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The fix is in. We vote and vote, and our rights continue to diminish incrementaly. Or so it seems to me.
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That's why I'm running for Congress. We fight this fight a seat at a time.

 

[moa]

Matis, I think your quote of; "I came, I saw, I conquered" was from Julius Gaius Caesar in his Commentaries.

I read his Commentaries in high school. Interesting is that we had as required reading of a man who admitted killing something like 1.8 million people and enslaving a bunch more.

 

[Stealth101]

Matis.....
Your post was a great read!
Some years ago I met a man who fought in the Warsaw ghetto...he said that it lasted for over a year...he was carried away to Aushwitz where his entire family died. He lived and went to Israel to fight for the war for independence. His stories and the tattoo across his arm greatly impacted me. I still remember it clearly.
Some how I cant help but wonder if the same thing that happened in Germany, is about to happen here. Little by little our rights have eroded. Is this how it happened back then? Our political correctness is nothing more, than the seeds of facism. Clearly our nation is carried along on a course that is not good. We all see it happening....but?
At some point this could all ignite like dry tinder, into our worst nightmare. And who has the courage of their convictions.....will we answer the clarion call?
To talk of this ...you could be branded a wacko or worse,
and yet something is happening.............

 

[Ian]

While researching the essay, I happened across a collection of German communiques from Warsaw - it included reports of armed skirmishes up until the middle of June, 1944. The revolt broke out in April 1943...Nazi soldiers were getting shot by Jews in Warsaw longer than they were getting shot by Americans in Europe. There are few people I have more respect for than those fighters.

From the momument to the them in Warsaw: