#1148 – Dick Bernard: The First Night of the RNC 2016
POSTNOTE: A new friend, a retired North Dakota farmer my age, linked me to Ken Burns 2016 Stanford University Commencement address: The address is pertinent, and well worthy of your time, here.
My intention was to watch the RNC this year. I lasted part of the first hour last night. I left about the time of the Duck Dynasty guy, and after the distraught lady who lost her son at Benghazi said Hillary belonged in prison in stripes. (Watching the lady as a speaker, she didn’t seem like she wanted to be there, and didn’t really know what to do while there, but somebody thought she’d be useful because she’d blame Hillary for something even the obsessed Congressional Benghazi Committee couldn’t succeed at doing: finding Hillary Clinton culpable of anything relating to the tragic events at Benghazi.)
Nonetheless, the lady cut a tragic figure, ironically speaking before the Party who Reveres War, and considers those who work for peaceful resolution of things as wimps or worse. “Making Us Safe” means having bigger guns and using them quicker….
Succinctly, even watching a piece of the action on television, I felt like an enemy alien – somebody, if they knew who I was, would publicly pillory me…even though they didn’t know me at all.
This is a nasty “red meat” bunch at the RNC Convention this week, notwithstanding all of the reverence for God.
This morning I had a rude awakening when a dear friend, on the doorstep of 90, and I’d say Democrat as they come, who sent an e-mail that more than a little suggested that she’d been sucked in by the Benghazi Mom’s tale about Hillary. How could she possibly believe this crap? But she apparently did…at least enough to write me about it. (She’s one of those women who for some reason have never liked Hillary.)
This led to a thought: months ago, I heard of Trumps fascination with how the Nazi’s could manipulate people simply by communication. Seems it was from a deposition given by one of his ex-wive’s when they were divorcing. Hitler or someone’s work was his bedside reading, then.
But last night and this mornings communications brought to mind an unbelievable quote I’d seen back in the early days of the Iraq War: It goes like this, and it was attributed to Nazi Reichmarshall Herman Goering, who committed suicide before he could be hung for WWII war crimes:
“Why, of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?
Naturally, the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia, nor England, nor for that matter, Germany. That is understood, but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simpler matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.“
Even then I was skeptical of quotations, so this one I decided to track down, and when I found one of the versions including the probable source, I went to the University of Minnesota Main Library, up in the old book stacks, found the book, checked it out, and read it till I found the specific reference.
Yes, it was true: Quoted in the book Nuremberg Diary, p. 278, Gustave Gilbert, Farrar, Straus & Co., 1947. Gilbert was psychologist assigned to the Nazi prisoners on trial at Nuremberg, and this came from an interview he had with Goering himself.
I doubt I’ll watch the rest of the week. The several thousand delegates can scream with delight at the speakers. I’ll take the easy road, and read the accounts the next day, as this one, from Day 1: “Another Opening, Another Show”
POSTNOTE: I looked up the Wiki on the U.S. State Department. Look at the sidebar at the top of the page. The State Department has, as I count, 69,000 employees in (likely) every country on the planet. Still, the buck stops at Hillary Clinton’s desk?
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