You are viewing a single comment's thread:
RE: Did He, or Didn't He?
Just to play devil's advocate here, Ray:
For instance you do realise that it took Hitler almost 16 years to raise one of the fiercest armies the world had ever seen?
True, but after being elected Chancellor, it only took him just 53 days to purge the government and take complete power. These things can happen surprisingly quickly.
I can almost wholeheartedly promise you that Elon is not a Nazi.
Probably not, but you also probably shouldn't make promises like that. I believe Chamberlain made some similar promises about Hitler and peace in our time or some such. Statements that didn't age very well.
I mostly agree with you that it was not the nazi salute. Even if his personal feelings lean that way, I can't believe he would be stupid enough to show them off like that. At the same time, the perception of whatever it was he did being the Nazi salute isn't helped by him going on to make a statement to the German people saying that they shouldn't feel sorry about the events of WWII and shouldn't apologize.
It did, you're right. 53 days wasn't that long at all.
But remember, Germans were in extreme poverty back then. There was no assistance. It was have a job and eat (if you could) or starve and die. The Mark had hyperinflated so high that it was more valuable as toilet paper. Germans were on the street, hungry and dying.
People were looking for quick solutions -- I don't think we've ever seen that kind of trouble in the west since those days.
Those days were completely incomparable to the times we live in now.
You're right on the promise thing. Even I said I'm no absolutist - stranger things have happened.
As much of a bubble as the stock market is in now, we actually could enter a major recession soon if this bubble pops. And you can be sure Trump will just try to keep the bubble going to enrich his friends, so when it finally pops, it won't be pretty. Would it be as bad as the Great Depression? I suppose a lot of that depends on how our fearless leaders react to it. Bad policy and bad attempts to fix the situation were a big factor in making it much much worse last time.
But anyway, you're absolutely right that things aren't currently as bad as they were then. They are actually quite good. The economy objectively improved a lot under Biden. But stats and real data are meaningless—what matters is how people feel, and with Fox News screaming about how the economy is worse now that at any time in US history, the propaganda is having an effect and people feel like things are pretty terrible, like Great Depression terrible. Perception is everything. So while the two situations are not the same, they are exactly the same in some ways.
Well, I mean why would people apologize for what their grandparents did? Perhaps any Nazis still alive during WW II should apologize. Otherwise, It's like asking all white people to apologize for slavery.
At any rate, I think if Elon is truly a Nazi, it should become pretty obvious in relatively short order. If the only evidence we get that he is a nazi is an awkward gesture then it's pretty safe to say he isn't. It's not something you have to interpret with great nuance. Either your rounding up minorities and shipping them to be gassed, starved, and cremated alive in concentration camps (or something comparable)...or you are not. I'll keep an eye out for disappearing neighbors.
You're right. And that is the exact argument Japan always makes when China makes its yearly demand for Japan to apologize for WWII. There certainly is room for a debate here—I'm not saying otherwise. I think the timing wasn't the best though for that comment. I mean whether what he did was or wasn't the nazi salute doesn't really matter, then turning around and making that comment does not give a good image when connected to his action.