Auschwitz Selfie

[W!nston]

Touche, ihno. I agree with so much of what you say but this is not an academic debate. This is a forum for lay persons not professional students. I imagine the bulk of members of this forum work for a living in 'blue collar' jobs.

If a lay opinion slips into the discussion or maybe an emotional 'gut-feeling' is expressed I'm sure you will overlook it as an annoyance rather than a challenge to the rules of debate.

 

[ihno]

Touche, ihno. I agree with so much of what you say but this is not an academic debate. This is a forum for lay persons not professional students. I imagine the bulk of members of this forum work for a living in 'blue collar' jobs.

So you say that "blue collar" job people are not capable to follow a discussion that has arguments and that arguments are only for "academic debates"?

We can agree on disagreeing. I know lots of "non academic" people who can understand an argument, and even more, react to it. Some of them even read newspapers.

 

[Shelter]

@ihno - GREAT!!!!! I'm very envious that I cannot argue so wonderrful as you do. But perhaps it is beccause my English is not so perfect as I want it to be. Nevertheless - I'm a great admirer of your wonderful and trenchant comments. Here in Germany we say: Sie treffen den Nagel immer genau auf den Kopf (you hit the nail right on the head)! Thank you for your wonderful comments here. I love you for it. I'll hug you! -

 

[skinjo9]

Hi
I must reply to some of Dargelos’ specific points.
History is today repeating itself in Syria, Iraq, and many other countries including Africa. Furthermore don’t forget Bosnia, there is still mass genocide going on. They have learnt nothing from ww2. Indeed there are still fascist parties in Germany, England with the BMP, Italy and France etc which are all European countries.
We do not need to be in Europe to save us from the return of the criteria that we all faced back in 1933 – 39 during Hitler’s rise that I am sure. I am 62 and remember well signing up for the common market, i.e. EU. but for trade purposes only, not a democratic states of Europe., and certainly not to give our countries rights away, I.e. Fishing policy, farming policy, Health and safety at work which has gone mad under EU rules just as 3 examples, and there are many more you could list. We also gave the right of Justice through courts away, IE Hamza who we could not deport because of the EU humans rights laws which are too easy for bad people to hide under, thereby protecting a terrorist within our midst. The millions of British and commonwealth men and woman, and even children who died fighting and being killed in the bombing, didn’t die so that we could give away peacefully all the sovereign rights that we had at that time. Therefore it is not just politics here. I would remind you that politically it has always been the conservative party that has held strong for our rights in Europe not the 13 years of labour administration that dismantled everything, including our own regulations re banks etc in this country. Being in Europe has also held us back re the recession. All the Billions we pay them could have helped us out of the recession in our own country and for our own people. Now that is what we fort for, freedom in everyway, and to run our lives without party or government fascist intervention. Since the war many generations have had less discipline from parents and schools, everybody wants to pass the responsibilities of life to somebody else rather that facing up to things.
I agree that children think the world owes them a living, and with the onset of the mobile phone, children do not know how to interact with each other on a multi media basis, writing letters in correct English for example, not texting in gibberish. If the children are left to keep doing what they want, and like at Auswitz etc then they will not learn a good moral compass.
I agree that not all, but most have certainly lost respect for other people and indeed themselves. We live in a world close to complete anarchy, which the Romans found destroyed them in the end.
Just some thoughts for the thread to mull over.
Shelter, its great to see you responding in here, I will write to you again soon in private mate and take care.
I do agree with some things that Dargelos says so not having a go at anybody specific, just my views generally on items put forward.
Thanks

 

[W!nston]

We do agree more than you might imagine, ihno. You're stating your 'opinions' about other members comments just as they state their 'opinions'. There is only a fine difference between them.

If someone makes a statement that is contrary to your 'argument' the result is a 'defensive' response that challenges the validity of the other persons opinion. In the end we are all full of opinions. We just depend on different sources.

 

[gorgik9]

Well,touche (or whatever) yourself, Sniffit...
I thought I would make a more substantial post than before in this thread, and maybe I will later, but right now I'm pretty angry, so this - Sniffit - will get personal. Lots of emotional gut-feeling...

I hate and resent the good old middle class gospel, that working class lads and countryside farm lassies are so fucking stupid, that we, the good middle class people, had better leave education and politics to the intelligent people that understand those things. The lads and lassies just wanna get drunk and blabbermouth a bit, we know that.

Yes it's true that I'm an academic like ihno. I'm the very first in my family to get an education at the university - my parents, both of them born in the 1920s and both of them now dead, started working at 13 or 14 years of age after 6 years of school. Just like their parents before them and all their cousins and uncles and so on. That was the story of almost everybody in the swedish countryside in the 1920s and 1930s.

I think I knew shiploads about workingclass people and farm boys through my parents and my mates parents decades before you, dear Sniffit, started to educate me. And the very idea that working class people can't follow an argument is in it self so fuckin' stupid and demeaning that I don't know what to say. I'd say so very typically middle class.

I never cought the vibes of stupidity and narrowmindedness from my parents. My dad never thought me the great values of moralistic blabbermouthing. An if I started to blabber, he usually said - a bit irritated - stop blabbering and get to the point. My point is this : I didn't have to go to the university and become an academic to see the value of clear arguments. My working class parents had already tought me.

In the US of A there was a movement in the mid-19th century called the Know-Nothings. We never had such a movement in Sweden.

 

[ihno]

You're stating your 'opinions' about other members comments just as they state their 'opinions'. There is only a fine difference between them.

If someone makes a statement that is contrary to your 'argument' the result is a 'defensive' response that challenges the validity of the other persons opinion.

There is also the possibility that the better argument is convincing. Ever thought of that?

But that may be it.

 

[W!nston]

I was raised in a 'blue collar' home with very little financial security. We were far from affluent. In fact we were poor. We moved from a lower middle class neighborhood to a rural farming county when I was 15.

My father taught us to hold our chins up and be proud of our name. It was a different era. I was Gay. My family all knew it. I came out at 18. It was a non-event. Everyone knew. We laughed and cried together. That is a beautiful memory for me.

If I express an opinion and clearly say it is my 'opinion' and I don't claim any academic credence for my opinion I don't expect it to be motive for a put down. I may not have the education others have but I am still entitled to express an opinion. If some one wants to take issue with it that's fine but leave out the dressing down and overkill of rebuttal.

 

[dargelos]

Now I am going to tell you what you already know, just to give it some fresh air.
Every post, long and short, makes a contribution to the forum, and every member, whether with one thanks or a quarter of a million thanks, has an equal right to be listened to, including those with white collars, blue collars or like me, ragged collars (no work, no money)
The worst thing that can happen to a post is for nobody to read it ( ok, getting banned is worse, but that happens to the person), so any reaction is a good reaction because it proves that your stuff is getting read and making somebody think. It would be a sterile debate if everybody agreed with everything for fear of causing offence. Watching how the site hardcore do it, we learn that any criticism there is should be made of the content within the message , not of the fact of that message having been posted and absolutely no not ever of the member doing the posting. The saying 'play the ball not the man' is worn out through overuse so I won't say that.
Now flame me for telling granny how to suck eggs but don't stop the excellent debating.

 

[W!nston]

Well, I won't flame you because you are absolutely right.

I will ask you to expand on your 'telling granny how to suck eggs' story. That sounds like it would be very entertaining.

 

[dargelos]

This is an English saying going back hundreds of years which means telling you something that you already know. The modern equivalent might be teaching Tom Daley how to swim, or giving Amazon advice about tax evasion.
A statement of the obvious is a chance for everyone to calm down. In the good old days we would all stop for a cigarette break to cool off but now that's not allowed.

 

[ihno]

Fishing policy, farming policy, Health and safety at work which has gone mad under EU rules just as 3 examples, and there are many more you could list. (...) The millions of British and commonwealth men and woman, and even children who died fighting and being killed in the bombing, didn’t die so that we could give away peacefully all the sovereign rights that we had at that time.

The EU doesn't do anything that the governments don't want. The laws and regulations are not being made in Brussels but in Berlin, Paris, London.

In Germany it's the same: Everybody is angry with the "crazy EU" and their silly rules about lightbulbs etc.

But Merkel, Cameron and that french guy use the EU-Commission as an escape-goat so before the next election during the campaigns they can pretend that they were always against it and that they are not the target of the frustration.

 

[dargelos]

I have a terrible confession to make to you. When I was a young boy I read a book about the second world war. That wasn't the confession, this is;
One chapter went into detail about the work of Dr Mengele. He was the nazi doctor who performed needless experiments of unimagineable cruelty in the concentration camps. I am ashamed to say I was laughing out loud when I read about what the good doctor got up to. The story read like a parody of the script of a bad horror movie, the worst horror movie you ever saw. I could not think it possible that such a story was true. My young mind reacted with laughter as a defense mechanism. With further reading I soon learned that cruelty on this scale was all too real, and the reality would have been even more bloodthirsty than that book dare describe, so I felt sick about myself for finding it funny when I didn't know any better.
I tell you this so you imagine yourselves, young, immature, finding out about the atrocities of the nazis for the first time. You see photos of kids smiling after a visit to a concentration camp and think they are not taking it seriously. Maybe they can't. Maybe there is a limit to how much evil an undeveloped mind can swallow at one sitting. In a years time they will be desparate to get those photos taken down. They will have become older and wiser. Mother nature compensates us for the loss of our youth by allowing us wisdom. Hopefully.

 

[ihno]

I have a terrible confession to make to you. When I was a young boy I read a book about the second world war. That wasn't the confession, this is;
(...)

Children often tell jokes about such things. It's natural, they don't understand it yet.

The "Third Reich" as well as other dictarships often have a comical quality. Watch the "Great Dictator", which is btw. in some points not really far from the truth.

Telling jokes about the regime was made a crime in Germany rather soon after the Nazis took over. Especially during the war it was very dangerous and you could get in a prison camp for telling a joke about Hitler (defatism). The Nazis feared that there could be revolution like in 1918/1919 and so they persecuted defatism very harshly. All in all there were a couple of reasons why the Germans didn't manage a sucessful uprise after it was clear that the war was lost, this was one of them.

As for Mengele: You write "needless experiments" and yes, you read that very often.
But that is not really accurate. The truth makes it even more disturbing in the historical perspective. Of course there were pure sadists too like Ilse Koch from Buchenwald who collected items made from humans. But as for Mengele the point is another: The Nazis were convinced that their experiments made "scientific sense". Mengele was conviced about the scientific value of his experiments, he simply disregarded human life.

 

[gorgik9]

I was raised in a 'blue collar' home with very little financial security. We were far from affluent. In fact we were poor. We moved from a lower middle class neighborhood to a rural farming county when I was 15.

My father taught us to hold our chins up and be proud of our name. It was a different era. I was Gay. My family all knew it. I came out at 18. It was a non-event. Everyone knew. We laughed and cried together. That is a beautiful memory for me.

If I express an opinion and clearly say it is my 'opinion' and I don't claim any academic credence for my opinion I don't expect it to be motive for a put down. I may not have the education others have but I am still entitled to express an opinion. If some one wants to take issue with it that's fine but leave out the dressing down and overkill of rebuttal.

@ Sniffit
It seems we're more alike you and me than I guess either of us thought, when it comes to social backgrounds and things like that.

I got seriously angry and with a mixture of some misunderstandings - that makes up to a not very good cocktail. And what I said about the Know-Nothings...well,I shouldn't haveX_X Please accept my apology...

But I still think that there has been way to much of - yes! - moralistic blabberings on kids.

@ dargelos
Thank you very much for gracefully cooling off hotheads like me. That's some impressive savoire vivre as the french say.

 

[dargelos]

I wasn't pointing at any particular individual, gorgik, and could just as well have said the same about the topic "Christians must be prepared to die" which was also getting dangerously close to overheating. All compliments are in any case welcome.
Thanks to skinjo for providing the counterbalance to my Eurolove. I said there was much criticism to be made and jo made it loud and clear, so now both sides have been heard, that is balance. My opinions differ but it was fair honest comment which I appreciate.

 

[gorgik9]

I wasn't pointing at any particular individual, gorgik, and could just as well have said the same about the topic "Christians must be prepared to die" which was also getting dangerously close to overheating. All compliments are in any case welcome.
Thanks to skinjo for providing the counterbalance to my Eurolove. I said there was much criticism to be made and jo made it loud and clear, so now both sides have been heard, that is balance. My opinions differ but it was fair honest comment which I appreciate.

well, I felt I needed some cooling off, and I thought you did it gracefully - so kudos to you!

 

[dargelos]

Advertisment. If you need to take time to relax, read 'Over the Fence' in my stories.

 

[ihno]

Sorry, only in german. Stumbled across it: Youth in Isreal

http://anonym.to/http://www.spiegel...dern-und-jugendlichen-in-israel-a-979628.html

But there are also pictures and the "blue collars" would not read the text anyway, would they?

 

[skinjo9]

Quote
The EU doesn't do anything that the governments’ doest want. The laws and regulations are not being made in Brussels but in Berlin, Paris, and London.
In Germany it's the same: Everybody is angry with the "crazy EU" and their silly rules about light bulbs etc.
But Merkel, Cameron and that French guy use the EU-Commission as an escape-goat so before the next election during the campaigns they can pretend that they were always against it and that they are not the target of the frustration.



I must say that this thread is most interesting. Hearing different views is exactly what society needs, and shows true democracy. IHNO puts some very good points over, and I agree with a lot that is said, but I feel that a political following can sometimes hinder the actual truth. The EU is made up of many member states, but it is not just Berlin London and France that make the rules. It is the legal brains within the community that advise the representatives of each country as to how rules will be changed, as they have to consider international law. Therefore I feel that the end results that are ratified by all members actually places an enbrance on each country within without the actual population of that country being fairly represented by whatever number of mep's vote on their behalf. The reason being that there are too many countries represented, all with a different agenda, and somebody loses out somewhere in the debate. This is why we all voted originally in the 1970's for a common market, Trade being the mandate not politics.
You can’t have 28 or whatever the number of countries in the community trying to run all the countries the same way, they all differ, not one size fits all parentheses. This system is bound to fail in the end as human beings have a strong tribal instinct and if what you say German people are fed up with EU rules the same as we are and they pay more funds than any other state, Merkel in the end will have to bow to political pressure at voting time, the same as Cameron, but we are a small country now, but still have power within our people to stand for what we want, and Cameron is the right guy to give the EU some stick because in power you have to be strong and make unpopular decisions, which he does, but he believes in the UK surviving, and not ending up like Greece, Spain, and other bankrupt states in EU having to pay exorbitant rates for borrowing money to survive, we are still triple A credit worthy, more than any other member except for Germany. France isn’t even triple A now. I know some people may think that I am going on a bit, but sincerely I say, that I have lived for 62 yrs and worked as a self employed person and never drawn a penny from the government through 4 main recessions, and survived, and I am worried that we are too focused on trading with Europe, not the far east, India (a rising commercial power) china and so on, and if we fail, our young guys will become even more despondent, and self possessed as they seem to be now.
There is a good old saying, "you have to travel with hope if you want to arrive", and hope now seems to be a dwinderling accent. Ok I’ve said enough. Hope further debate can proceed through this excellent thread, with so many great guys debating. Although we have wandered off the main topic “Auswitz selfies”, but really it’s the young people’s aspirations that need to be addressed in a positive way.
Sniffit Thanks for your very valuable input, I know how it feels to pick yourself up and make such a great effort to run against societies unprejudiced and narrow mindedness, and I am not being patronising when I say that, sincerely thank you.