• masquenox@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Maybe a politicker who brags about being mentored by Henry Kissinger, a war-criminal whose record matches that of Heinrich Himmler himself, shouldn’t be referencing Hitler.

    • letsgocrazy@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      “matches that of Heinrich Himmler”, you mean the head of the SS and one of the main people behind the holocaust?

      Have you ever considered that your life, and life in general would be better if you didn’t have such absurd and shrill opinions?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Unfortunately, the American education system just kinda gives up teaching history after 1945. Otherwise, you might be more familiar with the US State Department sponsored coups and subsequent genocides in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the Pacific Rim over the subsequent 40 years.

        Kissinger absolutely was administering mass arrests and executions in US client states, from the overthrow of democracies in Iran and Egypt to the massacres of dissidents in Jakarta and Rio de Janeiro and Santiago to the arming of the Khmer Rouge and subsequent bombings in Laos and Cambodia. Say what you will about Himmler, but he only really had the reigns of a mid-sized European industrial power for a decade. Kissinger was instrumental in steering truly nightmarish foreign policies on an international scale for four times as long.

        And when you look at how folks like Kerry and Clinton and Blinken consistently turn to the Kissinger playbook to advance US foreign policy in the modern day, he’s got even more blood on his hands by proxy than that.

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I don’t know of anyone who thinks we can or should stop every genocide. Kissinger didn’t lead these things you’re talking about, or at least the things I I think you’re talking about. And he wasn’t unique in his views. Kissinger is not comparable to Himmler, this is a ridiculous post, shallow. .

          I think Kissinger and everyone in the foreign service and executive branch who helped execute American foreign policy thought was that if two violent factions were going to kill each other, America might as well back the one it thinks it can work with to advance it’s foreign policy goals. Kissinger wasn’t a wizard. He couldn’t make the north and south Vietnamese stop killing each other. You don’t have to like it to pick a strategic interest and choose a side.

          It’s called realpolitik.

      • masquenox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        There is one way in which Himmler and Kissinger differs… Himmler at least had the backbone to go and witness the results of his policies in person - specifically, the Babi Yar massacre in Ukraine. Kissinger never did go see for himself the gargantuan atrocities he had “achieved” in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Timor, and Chile.

        Oh, I forgot the other way Kissinger and Himmler differs… Himmler was hanged - Kissinger got off scott-free. So there’s that.

        • orrk@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          so you really REALLY do not understand the brutality of the Holocaust then, and less so the history of the sub-chinease peninsula, and Pinochet couldn’t hold a candle to what Himmler did

          • masquenox@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Trying to hide your hero’s crimes behind the Holocaust, are we? Just like your fascist friends over in occupied Palestine?

            Try harder.

                • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah when you start throwing accusations of fascism at random posters, that’s pretty riled up behavior. Nobody but you is talking about Isreal vs Palestine in this thread. Not a single person you responded to said kissinger was a good guy. You can compare atrocities and acknowledge they’re all atrocities.

                  • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    that’s pretty riled up behavior.

                    No, not really - considering how the situation in occupied Palestine has, once again, shown just how enthusiastically all these “liberals” start swallowing fascist justifications as soon as their fairy tale ideology is put to the test, I’d say it’s most definitely not a case of “random posters”.

                    Not a single person you responded to said kissinger was a good guy.

                    Go check the downvotes on my initial comment - there’s a very big difference between “not saying Kissinger was a good guy” and acknowledging that he was one of the most vile and prolific war criminals the 20th century managed to produce.

          • masquenox@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Do you know of other secretaries of state who went to the front?

            Yeah… they don’t really like dirtying themselves with the mess they cause, do they?

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      I guess you’re one of those people who day that Hamas is exactly the same as, and has been doing the exact same as Hitler?

      Nuanced, very nuanced…

      • masquenox@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I guess you’re one of those people who day that Hamas Israel is exactly the same as, and has been doing the exact same as Hitler?

        FTFY.

        No, I’m not one of those people. Israel prefers Willy Pete to Zyklon-B, for instance - so there is a difference, I guess.

        • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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          1 year ago

          Calling Israel the same as hitler may be funny on an “I’m 15 and this is edgy” level, but it’s ignorant as fuck to claim that. Yes, the Israeli has committed and continues to commit atrocious acts, but it’s leagues away from what the Nazis did. It’s not even in the same ballpark.

          Same goes for Hamas. It’s a horrible terror organization, it holds zero candles to hitler and his buddies

          • masquenox@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            hitler may be funny on

            No, Clyde - I don’t find genocide a laughing matter whether it’s nazis or zionists doing it.

            It’s not even in the same ballpark.

            Really? You don’t think there’s any correlation between the nazis’ genocidal concept of “lebensraum” and that which Israel is doing in Palestine?

            it holds zero candles to hitler and his buddies

            Funny you should mention that… it doesn’t hold a candle to Israel when it comes to terrorism, either.

            • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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              1 year ago

              I don’t think that, when comparing two large systems, it’s okay to take two specific items that I “like” and compare only those two.

              Israel and Nazi Germany are not comparable. Comparing them and then worse, finding them quite equal is just 15 years old levels of dumb and ignorance

              • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Israel and Nazi Germany are not comparable.

                Tell me you don’t understand how right-wing ideology works without telling me you don’t understand how right-wing ideology works.

                Noting the differences between Israel and Nazi Germany displays just how similar they actually are - unlike Nazi Germany, Israel is utterly dependent on the west (and in particular the US) for literally it’s day-to-day existence and therefore cannot pursue the policies it wants to pursue with zero constraints as Nazi Germany finally did when it launched it’s genocidal colonialism project in 1941.

                The incremental genocide Israel has been perpetrating since 1949 is purely a matter of geopolitical pragmatism - but the ideological drivers of said genocdie is no different to those that drove Nazi Germany.

                • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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                  1 year ago

                  Yeah, no.

                  You lost perspective. Badly. Israel is bad. Really bad. Everybody will agree with that.

                  However, comparing Israel with the industrialized mass murder of Nazi Germany is just bullshit. It shows that you don’t understand Israel , Nazi Germany or (most likely) both.

                  Nazi Germany damn near exterminated Jews, gays, Romani, etc. Israel can’t hold a candle to the horrors of nazi Germany.

                  Please go read a history book

                  • masquenox@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    It shows that you don’t understand Israel , Nazi Germany or (most likely) both.

                    So, again… tell me you don’t understand how right-wing ideology works without telling me you don’t understand how right-wing ideology works.

                    And again… noting the differences between Israel and Nazi Germany displays just how similar they actually are - unlike Nazi Germany, Israel is utterly dependent on the west (and in particular the US) for literally it’s day-to-day existence and therefore cannot pursue the policies it wants to pursue with zero constraints as Nazi Germany finally did when it launched it’s genocidal colonialism project in 1941.

                    Please go read a history book

                    You have already demonstrated a disturbing lack of understanding when it comes to the ideology that underpins white supremacist genocidal regimes - perhaps it’s best not to underscore it with comments like these?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Hamas is exactly the same as, and has been doing the exact same as Hitler?

        A small paramilitary organization operating in occupied territory is doing the exact same as the Chancellor of a European industrial powerhouse?

        I’m always a bit surprised when some terminally online guy tries to give people in Hamas this much credit.

        • Caradoc879@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Small paramilitary organization? Okay guys, we can call Isreal out for genocide while still acknowledging Hamas as a terrorist group that slaughtered 1,000 civilians, plus whatever else since then.

          Hamas and Isreal both suck. The only people I care about are the civilians and dead kids.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Okay guys, we can call Isreal out for genocide

            Can we? I heard that was anti-semitism.

            Hamas and Isreal both suck.

            One is a paramilitary response to the suffocating violent occupation of the other. Might as well denounce the Vietcong, the Spanish Republicans, or Nate Turner Slave Revolt as Terrorists. You wouldn’t be the first.

            But to equate the two is to equate the symptom with the illness. Even the fucking Times of Israel acknowledges that the Hamas movement is the direct result of Netanyahu’s domestic policies. The Palestinian Authority has been denuded of all legal agency in a territory they cannot govern thanks to Israeli sanctions. Gaza hasn’t had an election since 2006. There is no way for anyone in the territory to survive, absent the black markets and smuggling corridors maintained by Hamas paramilitary.

            This is a deliberate consequence of the stated policies of the Israeli government.

            So both Hamas and the IDF are creatures of the Israeli government. The only way to resolve this conflict is to effect regime change in Israel.

            The only people I care about are the civilians and dead kids.

            The only way to achieve that is a ceasefire. And Israel will not implement a ceasefire until its leadership is removed.

      • Cowbee@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

        Bit of a false assumption, isn’t that? There is no ethical consumption under Capitalism, so trying to advocate for better while participating in an unjust system is a requirement for many people.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          There’s no ethical way to run a nation. Lincoln was barely able to free the slaves and FDR couldn’t end segregation. Hilary listening to Kissenger doesn’t mean she supports everything he ever did.

          • quicklime@lemm.ee
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            1 year ago

            Listening to him, okay.

            Repeatedly, publicly, referring to him as a dear friend and invaluable mentor is another thing entirely.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              It’s called ‘politics.’

              People in politics say nice things about people they hate all the time.

              Ronald Reagan hated Jimmy Carter with a passion. Here’s Reagan speaking about Carter at the opening of Carter’s Presidential Library.

              https://youtu.be/GWTEUOjk2vs

              Politics is the art of making deals with those you abhor. If they have to blather on and on about good fellowship that’s just the oil that keeps the machine operating.

              Demanding that every politician agree 100% is how the GOP managed to shut down the goverment so many times.

              I always remember NYC Mayor Ed Koch’s joke. “If you agree with me 51% of the time, vote for me. If you agree with me 100% of the time, seek therapy.”

              • quicklime@lemm.ee
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                1 year ago

                Taken entirely generally, your points are uncontroversial and common knowledge. But if you’re suggesting Hillary Clinton does not genuinely admire and feel personal friendship for Henry Kissinger, I believe you are mistaken.

                I also did not say, nor did I intend to imply, that she “supports everything he ever did”. In replying to your earlier comment which contained that phrase, I was by no means intending to claim that HRC was a completely uncritical supporter of literally every action of HK.

                • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                  1 year ago

                  You know, it’s possible to be friends with people who are bad without being bad yourself.

                  Back in the day, the most successful Socialist politician in US history was Fiorella LaGuardia. He ran for New York City mayor on a Fusion ticket, getting support from a wide range of parties, including the GOP. f he’d had a purity test for everyone, he’d have never gotten elected.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There’s no ethical way to run a nation. Lincoln was barely able to free the slaves and FDR couldn’t end segregation.

            A hard, bitter truth

            Hilary listening to Kissenger doesn’t mean she supports everything he ever did.

            Absolute bullshit.

          • orrk@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            that is one of the dumbest thing I have read today, and I looked at Reddit’s hot page today,

            are you REALLY going to equivocate anything the US did to the fucking Holocust? fuck, even what they did to the Native Americans can’t hold a candle to that shit, most natives died to disease, almost all Jews/Sinti/Roma/Disabled/Openly Left-wing/Gay/trans died to systematic industrialized execution on a scale that can sparsely be comprehended.

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              1 year ago

              I think you replied to the wrong person. All I said was that I don’t think Hilary Clinton personally approved of Kissinger’s bombing South East Asia.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              :-/

              If you really wanted to set off a riot, you could say you’re using a Huawei device. Then tear into these dorks by citing the peak standard of living of Chinese industrial workers relative to their global peers. No student debts. No medical debts. 90% of them own their own homes. Retirement at the age of 60 is the norm. Life expectancy that exceeds their Western peers. Higher GINI index ranking.

              Lemmy.word hates China with a passion, and nothing drops napalm on a thread like mentioning how much better Chinese industrial workers have it than folks doing shift work in a Toyota plant in Georgetown, Kentucky or Tijuana, Mexico, much less a Mississippi carpenter or some poor bastard doing contract machinist work in lead-contaminated Flint Michigan. And heaven help these bastards if they’re in the UK. People in that former heart of empire can’t even afford groceries, while folks in Pacific Rim states like Vietnam and Malyasia have grown fat and happy.

          • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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            1 year ago

            Yes, everybody is shades of grey bad. However if you are unable to make a distinction between say, Hilary Clinton bad and clown car Trump bad, then you have a problem