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Stephen Fry released a statement: "Elon Musk is not a Nazi. Nazis make really good cars."
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
What's great about this, and Stephen Fry is brilliant, is not that he's absolving Musk, or that he's criticizing Tesla, but that it is an argument likely leading to Elon Musk protesting,
'No, my cars are good enough that I can be a Nazi!'
Hur hur. I'd wish people would stop assigning hyper-competence to Nazis. They never were. Hitler was a drug addict and the trains didn't run on time.
Exactly this. My grandmother lived under the Nazis and she said they were fucking idiots. Exactly the same type of incompetent blowhards. The whole hyper scientific ubermensch BS in the cultural zeitgeist is so frustrating. I blame all the WWII video games and movies that played up the myth to have more interesting villains than the sleazy shit stains that they actually were.
It's hard to convince people that they've been had by a bunch of morons.
The strength of the Germans was that I.) they had a really good industrial base, and ii.) the traditions within the army meant they had extremely well trained soldiers. Both of these predate nazi-rule. For instance, Germans also arguably had the best (equipped) army in WW1.
Early Nazis also galvanized a young working force with actual socialist policies that guaranteed them good jobs and housing (before Hitler's multiple violent party purges, scrapping most of it for a fascist-capitalist junta)
And drugs.
Not entirely. You should read the scathing after action reports from Wehrmacht generals who lead the Polish campaign. Basically, they wanted to postpone all offensive operation for at least 3 years because of the high armor losses and correct the deficiencies. The fucktard, Hitler, sent his best generals to desk jobs and replaced them with yes people to continue the war. This is what Bush did during the build up against Iraq and Afghanistan and exactly what Orange Nero wants to do too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_religion
Two things can be true at the same time. German soldiers were incredibly cruel in non-combat situations, and at the same time highly competent in combat.
I guess Wolfenstein being banned for glorifying Nazis actually had some merit.
My Oma survived WWII and the bastard Nazis. Opa , was a Wehrmacht Landser, survived the Eastern Front, including Stalingrad, and was later KIA at Monte Cassino. He warned Oma, while on leave from the Eastern Front, that we are going to lose war and you better head west when the Russians enter Germany. She was 3-days ahead of them, just missed the Dresden bombings and somehow survived the Battle of Berlin. Now the USA has the same incompetent blowhards running the USA straight into the ground. She warned me it could happen anywhere and she was 100% correct.
German trains still don't run on time. Can't blame that one on the Nazis, that's just a German thing.
Still better than Canadian rail. That shit is regularly late. Significantly late.
I had four long distance ICE journeys in the last two months. Three where thirty minutes late, one was two hours late.
Also had four long distance TGV journeys, of which one was about 20 minutes late, and one was an hour late, though that delay happened in Germany.
Apparently, DB is currently working on the infrastructure, but those renovations haven't been fully funded, and it looks like the conservatives will get in next.
On Via Rail Canada, my train trip was 3h. The delay was 3h. So it literally was double the amount of time.
European train delay is nothing compared to Canadian train delay.
Yeah, OK, my journeys where all around five hours. Double is kinda mad.
DB AG should hire the Japanese who operate the Shinkansen network or scrap the privatization and bring back Deutsche Bundesbahn.
I think the Japanese are going to Britain next. There was something about it on a Marketplace (NPR) episode recently I think.
At least you didn't rip up your railways. We barely even have trains here in the US.
That's just ignoring history. There are plenty of good reasons to hate the Nazis without needing to do that.
In the similar way, it's not necessary to dismiss Soviet Union's early modernization successes in order to blame them for their crimes against humanity.
Dismiss what? Fascism is catabolic. They can't build anything. They can only loot until they run out of victims.
The projections of hyper competence and secret knowledge are part of their branding.
Stop being a fascist apologist.
Honestly, this shit needs to stop. Acknowledging that some fascists have been good at something at some point does not detract in any way from being anti-fascist.
If you claim that fascist are dumb, stupid and can achieve nothing, what do you think the masses will think about your message when the fascists turn out to be competent? They will wonder what other things you are wrong about.
So I say to you: stop being a fascist enabler.