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Comment by frumplestlatz | Hacker News Reader

> All of those big tech companies have willingly given in to Trump and his band of goons and are cooperating at a scale that dwarfs anything the Germans could have ever wished for.

This is dangerously ahistorical and an offensive trivialization of the scale of human suffering inflicted by the Nazi regime. Fascism as practiced by the NSDAP involved the total integration of the state, the legal system, industry, media, and civil society into a single coercive apparatus in service of a genocidal war. German corporations were not “cooperating”; they were subordinated, aligned, and legally compelled within a one-party totalitarian state.

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46897035

Yes, we substantially disagree on a contentious policy question. That does not change historical fact, nor does it make claims like “dwarfs anything the Germans could have wished for” anything other than profound historical illiteracy.

> Yes, we substantially disagree on a contentious policy question.

Ours is not merely a policy disagreement, you failed to provide a reasonable case for violating the 2nd, 4th, 5th, and 15th amendments. Indeed, you only seem to respond to comments when you can find a way to nitpick semantics and/or tone.

FWiW I come from a large extended family that racked up a lot of time on the pointy end of much of this; Desert Rats, Japanese PoW camps, jungle fighting, and a good deal of the post WWII ground work.

So I really do have to ask you, when you spoke of:

> The problem is the repeated use of Nazi analogies and grossly inflammatory language,

What, exactly, is up with the current US administration, Trump, Miller, clear throws to Blood Tribe language, veiled messages of racial purity and all that .. is it all "just a joke" ?

The early moves of both Stalin and Hitler, before either became the world villians we all know, was to extend their borders within their own countries so that they could sidestep "the law" of the land with their own personal squads of intesticial vagueness.

The administration is unquestionably veering unilateral and authoritarian and can no longer be trusted by allies.

Some, even most, were cooperating, and some others from other countries, like USA, too.

history is a lie agreed upon.

the common man's task is to figure out "agreed upon by whom?"

Let's just stipulate everything you said is true. You do realize that the subordination of German corporations validates the quote you're ostensibly arguing against? Given your framing, German fascists would have loved the scale of cooperation that the American fascist executive branch is receiving from corporations, rather than have to do the difficult work of subordinating them.

The German population[1] was not unwilling; your error is not recognizing that it started with cooperation and grew until all of society was subordinated to the totalitarian state.

There was massive alignment across their society. What they “achieved” would not have been possible any other way.

As someone that abhors the destructive ideologies of that era — and has spent a considerable amount of time studying the history — it’s amusing ironic to be repeatedly compared to the predominant fascist ideology (not that you personally have done this) by people echoing the behavior of the predominate destructive left-wing ideology of the day.

From a historical perspective, it’s not the right-wing that I’m worried about now. I worry about the totalizing, agency-eroding, violence normalizing, and norm-enforcing (thought terminating) “ethics” that have taken firm hold of the left’s levers of power over the past 15 years.

[1] except for the German populations that they literally wanted to murder, of course.

I definitely have worries about far-left capture if/when a power vacuum occurs after the current fascist executive and semi-fascist legislative experience the whiplash of Americans finally pushing back. But you know what? I'll start focusing on that when we get closer to that reality. It's the fascists currently in power that deserve our focus. And you seem to be willing to carry water for them. I assume you don't see it that way, but that's hard to square with some of your other comments.

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