To read the first part in this series, please click here!
I'm going to start reading The Holocaust's Explained's page entitled "How Did the Nazi Consolidate their Power".
Shouldn't Nazi be plural there?
I wonder if it's a proofreading error or a grammar thing I don't understand.
Anyway....
I skimmed through a little bit...mostly the paragraph headings. Some of this stuff, I've already encountered. But I think I need to read things multiple times to understand them...and to have any ounce of hope in remembering them.
* * *
When Hitler was appointed Chancellor, he didn't have full power right away.
The Holocaust Explained says there was a three party coalition. So the Nazis were just one of those parties.
And now we're going to learn how Hitler and his minions got rid of the opposition.
First there was the fire.
The Reichstag Fire.
The fire happened on February 23, 1933.
A communist named Van der Lubbe was arrested for the fire.
Was he guilty?
I kind of want to go down a Van der Lubbe rabbit hole—mainly because I want to understand communists more.
* * *
Falling down the rabbit hole of Marinus Van der Lubbe....
First of all, Lord Wiki says, in his intro part, that Van der Lubbe was given a pardon 75 years after the fire. So I assume that means they determined he was NOT guilty after all.
Unfortunately, 1933 Germany had a different verdict. Marinus Van der Lubbe was executed for the crime.
Rewinding to his childhood in South Holland.
He was born in 1909.
His parents were divorced. His mother died. He went to live with his half-sister. He worked as a brick-layer.
Because of his physical strength, he was nicknamed Dempsey after the boxer Jack Dempsey.
I don't know much about boxing.
I just know Jack Dempsey from The Twilight Zone movie.
At least I think that's the boxer they mentioned.
My sister and I used to do the dialogue from that scene.
All I remember fully is: I'm Cold. Where we going to spend the night? Who's going to take care of us?
Found the dialogue about Jack Dempsey.
-Oh, that was a boys' game. -My late husband, Jack Dempsey--
-Not the fighter? Oh, oh, not the fighter, not the fighter. Jack Dempsey was the most gentle man
who ever walked on the earth. Jack Dempsey loved that game. -He absolutely loved--
Now I'm totally distracted reading through the scene.
I was too young to see Haley's comet.
Birdie with the yellow bill hopped upon my window sill
Cocked his shy eye and said....
Maybe one day I should do a post about the movie lines I memorized as a child/teen that are still floating around a bit in my head.
They're kind of random...like not the main lines from a movie.
Here's one. I'll be excited if anyone can guess what it is.
Security. Security from what?
Not from what. From whom.
Ah....
Rabbit holes have rabbit holes. Don't they?
* * *
Back to Martinus van der Lubbe, the guy who probably did not start the Reichstag fire.
When he was 16, he joined the Communist Party of the Netherlands.
He became disabled (almost blind) from a work-place accident. That left him unemployed.
Van der Lubbe wanted to move to the Soviet Union...probably because they were big into the communism thing. But he didn't have the funds for that move.
Instead he ended up moving to Germany.
Lord Wiki says that he thinks that Van der Lubbe had a criminal record for multiple arson attacks, but he says he doesn't have actual proof of this...yet. He's waiting for someone to verify the rumor.
Lord Wiki says that Van der Lubbe took responsibility for the fire.
Was it a false confession?
Lord Wiki believes that, in the past, van der Lubbe took false blame/credit for starting a strike.
Okay....
So what I'm getting from Lord Wiki is that van der Lubbe might very well have been guilty. It wasn't a pardon, because innocence was proven. The pardon was because the Nazi Party was seen as "unjust," and the verdict was seen as politically motivated.
In another page, Lord Wiki says it's believed by historians that Van der Lubbe was guilty, but it was a stroke of luck for the Nazis.
It's like Van der Lubbe to the Nazis was what 9/11 was to George W. Bush and the Republicans.
And I'm guessing there are examples of times where left-wing Americans benefitted politically from someone doing something bad.
* * *
Getting back to the fire...which van der Lubbe probably started.
The Nazis used it to their advantage.
They whipped up hysteria and ended up imprisoning 4000 people. Also, Hindenburg signed something called the "Emergency Decree for the Protection of the German People".
From what I read from Lord Wiki, there's a chance that van der Lubbe acted alone and that his actions were more about being a pyromaniac and not someone with the talents needed to get thousands of Communists to rise up against the German government.
* * *
The Holocaust Explained talks about the day after the fire which was February 28, 1933.
President Hindenburg signed something called "The Emergency Decree For the Protection of the German People".
I think this decree intended to protect the German people as much as Desantis intended to protect Florida school children with HB1557.
The decree gave the Nazis the ability to imprison anyone that they saw as traitors. It also removed the right to free speech, the right to own property, and the right to a trial.
Yikes.
* * *
There was an election on March 5, 1933.
The Holocaust Explained says, The SA also ran a violent campaign of terror against any and all opponents of the Nazi regime. Many were terrified of voting of at all, and many turned to voting for the Nazi Party out of fear for their own safety. The elections were neither free or fair.
I hope this doesn't happen to us.
But I think it will in some form.
It will probably happen much less to white people, especially wealthy white people.
I think here, though, it's going to be less about scaring people into voting for the GOP and more about making it very difficult to vote and making it possible for votes of certain populations to be tossed out.
The March 5, 1933 election had HIGH turnout—89%.
I think it's easier to have a low turn-out of certain populations rather than having a high turn out of people who feel very forced to vote a certain way.
Even with their campaign of terror, The Nazis didn't have supreme success.
They got 43.9% of the votes which meant they still did not have a majority in the Reichstag.
* * *
I've decided to read a bit about a scary term I've heard of but don't know much about.
Poll-watchers.
The Brennan Center for Justice has an editorial about it.
Or it might be an article.
But judging from the title of the organization and the title of the piece: "Who Watches the Poll Watchers", I'm thinking it's going to have some bias in it.
Skimming through...I'm concluding it's more of an article.
It says that poll watchers are people from political parties and/or candidates who watch over the election process. And each state has varying laws on what these poll watchers can and can't do.
Most states have laws protecting the voters from intimidation, saying the watchers have to stay a distance away and/or cannot interact with the voters.
The article looks at laws that are trying to give more freedom to the watchers which in many cases would probably give less freedom to the voters.
There was a bill in Nevada (NV AB 248), that if I'm understanding it right, was written to PROTECT the voters. It's purpose was to require partisan watchers to be accompanied by election officials.
That bill died.
In Texas, there's a bill (TX HB 6) that gives watchers permission to stand close enough to hear voters and election officials...but they can't get close enough to the casting a ballot part.
A lot of the bills are saying the same things.
To be honest, it sounds kind of...not scary to me.
But I don't know how intimidating these watchers are.
One question I have is: are these watchers allowed to carry guns.
Another question: Are there going to be an equal number of watchers in all polling places? Will upper class and upper middle class white people find as many poll watchers in their neighborhood as Black and Hispanic people will in their neighborhoods?
If white GOP watchers are able to stand watch in Black Democratic areas, will Black Democrats have as much ability to stand watch in white GOP polling places?
A lot of these bills seem less about securing elections and more about pushing the message that our elections are NOT secure and not trustworthy.
But some of them seem more dangerous...more ominous.
Such as TX HB 2601 which allows watchers to take pictures and videos of people in the voting area...though fortunately they are not allowed to take pictures of people actually voting.
Is that a huge threat?
I'm not sure.
It could make it harder for people in hiding to vote.
For example, people who are hiding from their abuser.
But that's probably a risk anytime someone goes out...with all these people videotaping for social media these days.
On the surface, these bills don't seem too dangerous to me. But I feel it's probably one of those things where if I read more, I'd understand why it would be harmful.
* * *
I'm imagining going to vote and how I'd feel if I knew people were watching. Or how would I feel if I was an election worker and there was someone watching me work...watching me count.
No matter what, I'd probably feel somewhat intimidated. Because I'm self-conscious that way.
It would be much worse if the watchers acted and looked intimidating. There'd be a difference between a friendly, easygoing person vs. someone who purposely dresses in an intimidating way and glares at me. Or stares. Or glares AND stares.
Could watchers pretend to be there to watch but instead be there to make you feel like you're in high school again...being ridiculed, laughed at.
If you're Black, could they give you the idea that if you make one wrong step...they're going to find a way to arrest you and send you to prison. For life? Or shoot you and then say they thought your phone was a gun.
* * *
I'm concluding that The Brennan Center for Justice article was NOT written with a lot of bias, because I feel I should be more worried than I am.
So I'm going to read more to find out why I need to be fretting over poll watchers.
Another pro-democracy organization called Let Texas Vote has an article entitled "Alarming Video reveals discriminatory poll watcher program in Harris Count".
I just watched the video.
And
HOLY FUCK.
It's this guy pointing to white areas of Harris County and saying we need people from these areas to go down to these areas (apparently Black/Brown areas of Harris county) to be poll watchers.
If these bills get passed, what we need is an organization that has Black and Brown people (guarded and protected by white allies) to go and watch over white polling places.
Also the video talks about the poll watchers needing to have confidence and courage to go in these areas.
The article talks about intimidation techniques that have been employed...such as standing too close to a voter or video-taping them.
Anyway, my feeling in all of this is we should work less on fighting these laws and more on making sure the pain is felt equally.
Democrats need to send as many poll watchers to Republican polling places that Republicans send to Democratic polling places.
* * *
This afternoon, I was suddenly curious about TV shows that conservatives consider conservative-friendly.
I Googled and ended up on Conservapedia.
There's some pretty funny stuff.
Such as Family Ties: In this dramedy series, hardworking conservative children, e.g. Alex P. Keaton (played by Michael J. Fox in his breakout role), outsmart their liberal, ex-hippie, underachieving parents.
For House of Cards: This popular series exposes Democrats for what they really are—corrupt frauds and atheists, and conservative Christians are shown in a positive light.
For Sabrina (old school version) In this live-action sitcom adaptation of the Archie Comic, Sabrina Spellman may be a witch, but the show does not glorify witchcraft. Instead, it celebrates family and teaches such Christian morals as honesty and individualism.
(Why, where, and how does Christianity teach individualism? If you're a Christian and can explain that to me, please do!)
Then there's a category of things that are labeled as "Debatable Whether Conservative".
Brooklyn 99: Main character Captain Holt is an open homosexual in charge of the fictitious 99th police precinct in Brooklyn, New York City. However, his sexuality is downplayed for the most part, and this sitcom seems to humanize the police in an era when liberal news media does everything it can to dehumanize the authorities.
Friends: The sitcom is about six young adults living in New York City. It often promotes alcoholism and sex outside marriage. But on a conservative note, the show condemns smoking and drug usage, and somewhat a condemnation of the homosexual agenda, as Ross’s life was negatively affected by his wife being lesbian, as well as Chandler's childhood being effected by his dad becoming a transgender
Kim Possible: Although it was feminist due to the titular character Kim Possible tending to save the world and her sidekick Ron Stoppable generally being comic relief, it also was pro-family values, as it was notably one of the few Disney Channel shows where the fathers of the main characters (Kim and Ron) were not depicted as bumbling, buffoonish, childish, or as a jerk, and in many cases the fathers actually helped significantly to save the day
Okay. That's all funny in an infuriating kind of way.
But what I really wanted to talk about is their take on a BBC documentary called The Nazis: A Warning From History.
Conservapedia says, the documentary, or at least the first episode, repeats leftist propaganda made post-World War II of claiming the Nazis were a "far-Right" political party when in reality they belonged to the far-Left (and only being slightly to the right of German Communists/Red Front at most.
So are they saying the Weiner Holocaust Library in London, the source I've mainly been using, is leftist propaganda?
I asked in my first post if perhaps the Weiner Holocaust Library was leftist.
I don't think they are.
I am wondering, though, if other big Holocaust museums say what Conservapedia says...that the Nazis were left-wing and not right-wing.
Maybe in one of my posts, I will go through various Holocaust websites and see if most of them promote this so-called leftist propaganda. Will any of them agree with Conservapedia?
* * *
I got to thinking that Jewish people themselves...we tend to have a left-wing bias.
Looking at a Pew study.
It looks at Christians and Jews and their political leanings.
Black Protestants are the most likely to support the Democratic Party (86%)
But Jews aren't far behind (71%). They have the highest percentage of Democrats besides Black Protestants.
In my flavor of Judaism...Reform, 80% lean Democrat.
And THAT is all by party.
In terms of liberal vs conservative... Jews are the group that's most likely to be Liberal.
Again...just a reminder, this deals only with Judeo-Christian religion. It leaves out Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etc.
There's one group of Jews who very much lean Republican and support Trump. The Orthodox Jews. Only 9% of them consider themselves liberal and 60% of them consider themselves conservative (politically not religiously)
It will be interesting to see if Holocaust museums, programs, or websites run by Orthodox Jews will label the Nazis as being left-wing rather than right wing.
* * *
I'm going to get back to consolidation of power stuff on The Holocaust Explained website in my next post. But I might also start looking at various Holocaust websites. IF not, I'll get to that in a post further down the line.
What would our world be like if we
knew for sure there
was life after death, and
we could easily talk to our
dearly-departed on the Internet?
The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts
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