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    Dashiell HammletLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 5:14pm

    I gotta say (having lived there):

    Fuck Germany, Forever and Always, Forever.

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      JRuDashiell Hammlet
      6/15/15 5:20pm

      I lived there too. I love it.

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      StenchofaburnerDashiell Hammlet
      6/15/15 5:22pm

      That’s where I live (when I am not traveling for work) and it is a very complicated place. I am not white and look kinda Mediterranean (I am Peruvian but to the untrained eye I know I look “generic brown-ish”) and one thing that is pretty evident is that all the work that Germany has done about their atrocious past is sort of superficial. I love it here, don’t get me wrong but I sometimes get the impression that it’s a bit like teaching someone superficial manners without having much of any other positive emotions. They repeat all the textbook stuff about how racism is bad, discrimination is awful, we are ashamed, etc but they don’t always seem to feel it, if it makes sense. They repeat it because they were drilled this is how they should behave but they do not necessarily have the associated emotions with this sentiment. Also, and this is a pet peeve of mine, at every opportunity they will spew how racism is terrible because it brings shame. Mind you, not because it hurts the victim but because it embarrases them.

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    lexadexLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 5:13pm

    Ugh, old people.

    If it isn’t racism or driving, it’s Nazism

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      Cary Grant's Buffleheadlexadex
      6/15/15 5:21pm

      I blame current Hitler Youth. Stupid hipsters.

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      The Outlaw Balloonlexadex
      6/15/15 5:22pm

      Don't forget the smell.

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    MattLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 5:14pm

    It's to be expected. If you want the dead opposite, look to the US, where we act like a few isolated acts somehow make this country post-racial. Yes, we've made improvements, all but the most cynical among us would act like there's not been tangible improvements since the days of MLK, but collectively, as a country, we keep pulling a George Bush with racism, looking like a bunch of dumb fucks with a 'Mission Accomplished' banner behind us.

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      OhYouSoFunnyMatt
      6/15/15 5:30pm

      Right? I find it funny that Americans spend so much time feeling morally superior to modern-day Germans for their country’s role in WW2 (i’m second generation Polish, and am not excusing them for anything), yet no thought it given to the equally atrocious Japanese actions in WW2 (Unit 731 anyone?)....or god forbid what Andrew Jackson did to Native Americans or the colonists to slaves, etc etc. Maybe because Quentin Tarantino didn’t make a movie with Brad Pitt about it...I dunno...just seems very selective.

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      Executor ElassusMatt
      6/15/15 5:31pm

      The consensus opinion of German politics has been, since 1947 (!), that Germans had been made to feel sufficient shame, and thus should no longer be required to dwell on any of that unpleasantness.

      Also, the neat trick about reactionary bigoted fascist assholes in most societies is that they also have their hands on all the levers, so you can’t throw them out or society as a whole disintegrates into anarchy and warlords (cf. De-Baathification and ISIS).

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    borgohurisLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 10:32pm

    This could be said of all White Americans when it comes to being racist against Black Americans. One has to wonder why the United States doesn’t conduct a survey about that.

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      Svinthinlaborgohuris
      6/15/15 11:44pm

      really? all white americans? get a grip bro, and maybe also stop generalizing based on the color of peoples skin. There are plenty of completely not racist white people too. Being white doesnt automatically decide that youre going to be a shitty person.

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      borgohurisSvinthinla
      6/15/15 11:59pm

      Your defensive statement proves otherwise. Also, I notice that you aren’t getting that riled up about all Germans being called Nazis, are you? If you don’t want to be considered racist then do the hard work it takes to counteract the racist culture you are brought up in instead of desperately defending White supremacy online.

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    chucchinchillaLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 5:15pm

    This would never happen in the US.

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      Mama Penguinochucchinchilla
      6/15/15 5:40pm

      OMG, there's some kid with a pickup who just showed up in our small town and he has a huge Confederate flag stuck in the back, waving for all to see and admire. We're Jewish and my husband has been chasing after him for weeks trying to catch him and school him on his flag, etc. It would be utterly comedic if it weren't so sad.

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      flamingolingochucchinchilla
      6/15/15 6:23pm

      Yeah, though Reconstruction was stopped too early in its track and successfully rolled back by generations of Confederacy apologists and historical revisionists.

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    The Gray AdderLeah Finnegan
    6/16/15 7:59am

    While Jews who survived the Holocaust vividly recount the abuse they suffered in school and at the hands of fellow pupils, non-Jewish Germans mostly describe their school years as peaceful and fun.

    Because it probably was. There was a whole bureaucracy in the Hitler regime devoted to the pursuit of happiness. Strength Through Joy! Maybe you recall those little bug-shaped cars they used to make over there - yup, each one to be sold at a loss (before the war intervened) with KdF eating the difference. They built holiday camps and ran travel agencies and television studios. Das volk can’t afford TV sets? No problem! We’ll set up a bunch of them in convenient locations in Berlin so people can watch TV. Morale was very important to the Nazis, that is, for those who qualified.

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      swedeandsourThe Gray Adder
      6/16/15 10:24am

      No question. Albeit a very different level of state-sponsored discrimination, it’s why white baby boomer parents think life was so great in the 1950s— because for white families living in the suburbs life was fan-fucking-tastic. Eligibility for FHA loans, massively disproportionate public funding for suburban white institutions, GI Bill, schools where the teachers were women who would be doctors and lawyers today but then were cut off from doing anything else, social security benefits for their grandparents (as opposed to 70%-80% of blacks who weren’t eligible), an economic boom that was largely based on the total destruction of foreign industrial capacity, and a complete insulation of the suffering of the poor.

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      ArmchairSophistThe Gray Adder
      6/16/15 11:18am

      That really is a crucial distinction, too. Glad someone pointed it out. So much of what occurs under authoritarian rule mixes abuse of the disempowered with placation and appeasement of the ruling caste/broader majority. The latter enables them to willfully ignore the former. It’s not like the majority of gentile Germans were frothing Nazis, as much as many of them were enabled into complacency.

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    justachickLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 6:43pm

    Dear Germany,

    I’m glad there is finally a scientific study I can cite for my enduring dislike of you.

    Why are people surprised they are still Nazis? I am not. You murdered millions of people and your entire society was either active or complicit in making that happen. That isn’t something that a PR campaign can fix in a few decades.

    And when you send your large creepy dim but punctual offspring to NY to visit our city and they stare at every Jew they see like they’ve seen leprechauns, we notice that, Germany. Do you want to get your ass kicked again? Was twice not enough for you?

    And, Germany, just like you seem to be telling your kids about the glory days of Nazi time, my family told me all about how great it was to kick your ass, so just let us know. We’re always up for another round. Maybe this time we’ll bring Israel with us when we visit.

    Signed,

    American Jew

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      plights & gripes as bad as achillesjustachick
      6/15/15 10:22pm

      Dear America,

      Like the rest of the world, we know what shameless braggarts you are, but please stop trying to take credit for our victory over Nazi Germany.

      Signed,

      Russia

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    festivusaziliLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 6:13pm

    that it still harbors swells of anti-Semitism, due to events that began some 80 years ago

    The roots of anti-Semitism in Europe are centuries (or millenia) old. They did not begin 80 years ago. Check out some of these bug-fuck crazy anti-Semitic fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. That shit has been around since the Pope was still the big cheese in Europe; the Nazis had fertile ground to work with.

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      Captain Crunchfestivusazili
      6/15/15 6:37pm

      I’m pretty sure anti-Semitism has been around as long as the Jewish faith (~4000 years). Jewish history is, quite literally, the story of a people in perpetual exile/diaspora; even with the creation of the modern state of Israel, every single neighbor nation sent armies to destroy them on multiple occasions.

      And the only way Israel continues to exist as anything like a representative democracy is by sequestering massive swathes of their Arab/Palestinian populations into two non-voting, semi-autonomous, sub-state regions.

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      Gaying Mantis TobogganCaptain Crunch
      6/15/15 9:26pm

      And the only way Israel continues to exist as anything like a representative democracy is by sequestering massive swathes of their Arab/Palestinian populations into two non-voting, semi-autonomous, sub-state regions.

      You win the irony award today!

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    TRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)Leah Finnegan
    6/15/15 5:18pm

    People may express dismay at Germany’s draconian laws against pro-Nazi speech, but this is why those laws exist. Losing a war and becoming a democracy won’t magically enlighten an entire nation; it takes generations of social training and vigilance against fascist reaction. Is it right to limit free speech in this way? Maybe, maybe not. But when our Supreme Court seeks to strike down any legal recognition of racial prejudice, all we are doing is putting our nation’s ideals ahead of our nation’s reality.

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      Gamora ThanosTRUMP DELENDUS EST (fka Chatham Harrison)
      6/15/15 8:20pm

      It just drives it underground there is no enlightenment just masks

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    Masshole JamesLeah Finnegan
    6/15/15 5:14pm

    I’m one of those “get all our troops home from overseas” isolationist-types. Except for Germany. I’m all for keeping our 50,000 troops there permanently. In fact, we should probably triple that number.

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      OhYouSoFunnyMasshole James
      6/15/15 5:20pm

      lol, not sure if serious...

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      Masshole JamesOhYouSoFunny
      6/15/15 5:26pm

      I’m pretty serious. They need to be kept a close eye on.

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