OT: Free speech?

[Grauzone]

Originally posted by dogscoff:

Something else about the holocaust that many people don't realise is that Hitler also sent disabled people, ... [/QB]

Hitler was not only one. Stalin has killed in the same time many more people. But russian archives are not so exact as german archives are.

[Randallw]

Stalin murdered many more of his own people* than Hitler yet Hitler is considered worse. Perhaps it was because under Stalin people were shipped off to Siberia where they just happened to die, or people just happened to die because of the communists caring more about their plan than the starving Ukrainian peasants. The soviets were just less exact in what they did. The Nazi efforts were planned to specifically kill people. There is a joke that in Nazi Germany at least the trains ran on time, but what is important is what the trains were doing. The Germans get criticised more, either rightly or wrongly, because they were more specific and planned things to the Last detail. It may not be so much that people were killed but that the one regime had a Mission statement and list of goals etc (almost like modern business) Truely History is written by the victor.

*strangely enough neither Stalin or Hitler was actually from the country he ran.

[ May 19, 2004, 11:53: Message edited by: Randallw ]

[Grauzone]

Originally posted by Randallw:
Stalin murdered many more of his own people* than Hitler yet Hitler is considered worse... Truely History is written by the victor.

*strangely enough neither Stalin or Hitler was actually from the country he ran.

I think you are right. It is the precicion and efficiency that makes germans to the worst criminals in this time (and the fact that they loose the conflict). But i don't understand why and how my generation of german adults is responsible for this crime. To criticise Israelian politics brings you automaticaly near to the position of Antisemitism, even though many of israelian doings are not so far from what Stalin has do with ethnical minorities in russia. And why do the USA protect this behaviour?

[Randallw]

Blaming Germans today for what past generations did is as stupid as antisemitism blaming jews for what their ancient ancestors might have once done.

[Atrocities]

I wonder if Mel Gibson is going to make a movie about the holocaust? The Pation of The War?

I have no desire to his current movie, from what I have heard it is all about hate and blame. We have enough of that in the world now and we don't need any more.

[sachmo]

Originally posted by JayBdey:
America committed atrocities too.

America dropped incendiary bombs on the German town of Dresden. Dresden was a town of mostly old wooden buildings and the fire created a surge of air that sucked people into it. The death toll of the Dresden bombing exceeded the atomic bLasts on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These people were burned to death by the firestorm that sucked them into the core of the fire. It would have been a slow, horribly painful death for many of them.

Yet no kids in America learn about this in school, and you won’t see it on the history channel.

Many of the casualties from the firebombing attacks in Germany and Japan were from asphyxiation and smoke inhalation. It was indeed a horrible, horrible way to die. The problem is in what position you take on the subject. If you believe that it was necessary to save more lives, then it becomes acceptable. I have a feeling that if there were chemical bombs and/or nuclear weapons going off in America, there would have been far less outcry about the prisoner abuse.

And I learned about the firebombing of Germany and Japan in high school in the late 80's. I have also seen it documented on the History Channel. Maybe they don't talk about this in school anymore, because it might offend someone. I'll ask my kids when they get there.

[Grauzone]

Originally posted by sachmo:
The problem is in what position you take on the subject. If you believe that it was necessary to save more lives, then it becomes acceptable. I have a feeling that if there were chemical bombs and/or nuclear weapons going off in America, there would have been far less outcry about the prisoner abuse.

It is never acceptable to fall back to such kind of barbarism. Not for people who say they defend "freedom", "peace" and "human rights". Acceptance for such practics for enemies leads in most cases to use same practics on own population few years later.