The Holocaust and why we should remember that it happened

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I was doing some research on the Holocaust on the Internet and I came acrossed this link. http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/onl ... ymedicine/

Just looking at the stuff on this page made me realise how lucky I am to be living on this planet, today instead of during the 1930s and 1940s. I feel that we should all consider ourselves very lucky. People who had any Disability, no matter how minor, were killed in the Gas Chambers along with Blacks, Jews, Gypsies and Homosexuals. And after that, they were burned in the Ovens. And most of us think that we have problems. I think that we should all count our Lucky Stars, including I, before we go to bed, tonight.

To mark today (Pearl Harbor Day) I sat at the computer, smoking a bowl of tobacco, and read all I could on that day and WWII in general.

I was almost in tears by the time I was done.

50 million people killed in six years of war. The darkest times in all of human history.

Not only should we remember the Holocaust, we should remember the war in general and learn from it. Israel as we speak is still fighting a racial war with the Palestenians, they learned nothing from the Holocaust. They haven't gone as far as Hilter went, but they systematically segregate people based on race and keep them in a state of poverty and misery. Read about the 'camps' Israel set up for the Palestenians and how those camps have turned into ramshackle cities of cinderblock and steel over the last 50 years.

And my country, the United States, recently launched a pre-emptive war against Iraq to secure lucritive contracts for a few coorporations. Yes, Iraq was in the hands of a brutal dictator, but so are many other countries that as of yet, haven't come under attack from us.

Those who forget history are doomed to relive it.

I hope that eventually humanity loses the urge to kill its own kind. But I seriously doubt that'll ever happen. I think it's instinctive for animals to fight, but our high intelligence allows us to fight on insane scales and for insane reasons.

The same should be said for world war one, the first "modern war" where we first saw the use of machine guns, tanks, airplanes, submarines, and posion gas, the most hideous weapon of its time. Those who didn't survive a gas attack were the lucky ones, those who did had to face a lifetime of pain and disfigurement.

Germany launched the first gas attack at ypres belgium on april 22, 1915 using chlorine gas. It killed 10,000 troops in a few minutes. The gas reacts with water to form hydrochloric acid and oxygen free radicals. The troops unlucky enough to breath this stuff in died from asphyxiation becasue their lungs were destroyed, those who got the gas in their eyes were blinded.

The first weapon of mass destruction.

I thought it was closer to 60 million. Why does no one ever bring up the hidden holocust of Hitler's more evil older twin, Stalin, that we know of killed almost at least twice as many people as Hitler, 11,000,000. Something like 100,000-200,000 alone died constructing trans siberian transporation lines. When the Germans invaded they were shocked at the mass graves uncovered, I think that is where they got the idea. I wonder how many top Nazis actually had Jewish blood. And yes many died in the War of Attrition too, but the difference is between civilian bombings on both sides (re: London (Axis), Stalingrad (Axis), Dresden (Allies, I think a higher death toll as the A bombs), Hiroshima (Allies), Nagasaki (Allies), Japans ICBMs (although only like 9 died from them), Costal sub attacks, Berlin (Allies), attacks on China by Japan, and France during Germany's invasion, many, many more civilians died in WWII than in WWI and that is the biggest difference.

PS. Not many of them other countries invade other countries, ignore peace treaty stipulations, or attempt to create nukes (Israel destroyed at least one attempt). Also imagine if Neville Chamberlain had the guts to say no to Hitler, WWII might never have been. You can't give an dictator nation an opening when it has already taken the sovereignty of nation and threatens and attempts to create more powerful means of attack in opposition to said peace treaty.
And don't forget Palestine was part of Jordan which invaded Israel. Israel was attacked twice by neighboring islamic countries. And Arafat and terrorists did constant attack and threaten Isreali safety, do they not have the right to defend themselves. Though I see your side too, that maybe it is time to stop occupying enemy territory, but they should ensure that it does not threaten their safety in doing so.

Scots it was not the first. Don't forget the machine gun of the Franco-Prussian war, Greek Fire in Greco-Roman times, Bio warfare during the middle ages (diseased pigs catapulted into cities.), among others. WMDs have been around a long time.

One more thing, I have been to the Holocust Museum in person.

Actually the gas chambers were prototyped on disabled people. Disabled people were divided into two primary groups: Those who were allowed to live (but were usually sterilized and put to work in slave labor), and those who were killed.

The ideas leading up to this were prevalent in many places, not just in Germany, and were part of the eugenics movement, in which the United States played a large role (Hitler admired the United States eugenic policies). Many of the prejudices played on to make all these things possible are still in effect today -- they have never been fully and directly addressed. This is why we still have things like lowered sentencing for killers of disabled people, because like it or not we are still to many people considered "useless eaters," "lives not worth living," "drains on the economy," and so forth. People still think "better dead than disabled," and we still often die as a result of these prejudices when we could otherwise have lived. We are still often killed in institutions and our killers nearly always get away with it. While we are not systematically rounded up and slaughtered, our lives are still not valued, and as long as this is true a very similar thing (whether or not identical in exact form) could easily happen again. In fact I think such things are already in the starting stages, and some people I know who have studied the patterns of genocide agree with me: We are already devalued, dehumanized, and frequently segregated, and our lives already legally have been shown to have less value in the United States and some other places.

Some links on this topic:

http://www.autistics.org/library/thenandnow.html
http://www.geocities.com/growingjoel/murder.html
http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/ ... tion.shtml
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/mord.htm

Of course you realize the reverse nightmare of this is "Harrison Bergeron". Middle ground prefered over the extremes.

The perfect race.

























..















If "perfect" means "boring" or "common", and "race" means "bunch of pathetic clones"

Last edited by hale_bopp on 08 Dec 2004, 2:15 am, edited 2 times in total.

Hale_Bopp

I dont get it???

Actually, in "Harrison Bergeron", it's both people considered disabled and people considered very able who are devalued. Which isn't really the reverse of devaluing disabled people, it's something else entirely. You can value everyone in a society without making them the same: Alike and equal are not the same thing at all, which is the flaw in Harrison Bergeron's shallow and naive conception of equality.

I think people are so desensitized nowadays, not many of them want to acknowledge the atrocities that were carried out in the past. With regards to Stalin, I agree with Epimonandas, when people think of WW2 and the loss of life they immediately think of Hitler, when Stalin was just as bad- if not worse.

@Epimonandas: Which Holocaust museum did you visit? I have visited Dachau Concentration Camp.

The one in Washington, D.C. One guy there made a cruel remark because I was taking pictures, but isn't that the whole point of the museum and therefore pictures, to remember.

A Wrinkle in Time

I saw a documentary on Sea Hear on the BBC about the sterilization and killing of the Deaf in Germany before and during WW II. It said this was the first time the survivors could tell about their experiences on tv; which was sort of amazing to me. And disturbing; if people don't hear about what happened in the past, are they ever going to pay attention to what is happening today?

Here's a little something I was given to read in May of this year. I think it should be right up there with all the other horrors that have been done to others. (This article will really make you think twice about eating Quaker Oats for breakfast!)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/29/60minutes/main614728.shtml

America's Deep, Dark Secret

May 2, 2004
60 Minutes

(CBS) One of the deep, dark secrets of America's past has finally come to light. Starting in the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of American
children were warehoused in institutions by state governments. And the
federal government did nothing to stop it.

What I really want this article to say is that the place was unacceptable for the real "morons" as well. Being called a "moron" and being sent to an institution for "morons" isn't the worst thing that happened here. Being treated as a non-person is.

***

Me too. That and an acknowledgement that things like this and/or equivalent to this are still done would be nice: People will usually admit terrible things in the long-distant past, but rarely admit the present. And too often they will only even admit those things in the long-distant past if they happened to people who are now valued.

You might be interested in this article, which addresses exactly your concern (and mine):

http://www.ualberta.ca/htbin/lwgate/ICA ... cle-3.html

Friends, let us not forget that we, yes, we the aspies are the new persecuted minority. A genocide against autistic people draws near. If we allow genetic testing for autistic spectrum conditions to occur, aspies will be aborted before the third trimester! We already wear yellow stars on our sleeves, and those stars are our eccentric behavior.

In fact, there is little difference between someone being called a "dirty Jew" and a "ret*d autistic." It hurts, either way. Society must transcend its petty differences and begin accepting people as they are.