Has anyone read Mein Kampf?

[caseball2051]

this is one of the more educated and mature forums that I am a contributing member of, so i thought it would be the best place to ask.

has anyone read it? is it worth a read? is it a hard read?

I got some negative feedback when I asked my girlfriend if it'd be weird if I read it. But I am a history major and I am reading it scholastically.

I can get it at my university's library for free. I hope nobody is offended by this question and I do not want this to turn into any sort of political debate of any kind.

 

[hemp;)goofy8cheerio]

u can prolly download the book & hav it read to u thru a reader like expressivo, if it bothers u, try relaxin background music ravi shankar?

 

[Raf007]

I read it when I was 15 (out of cruel curiosity), 15 years ago, I don't remember much... except that it was really boring, bad writing (nobody would have published that ), and of course lots, lots, lots of craps and wrong ideas and assumptions (but I guess you kind of knew that one ).
unless you have a paper to do on it, just skimming throug it should be enough...altough it's always interedting to know what crazy people can come with.

 

[lwien]

I hope nobody is offended by this question and I do not want this to turn into any sort of political debate of any kind.

Not offended at all...........and I'm Jewish. In my opinion, it's all about.......Know Thine Enemy.

 

[stinkmeaner]

I have read it and found it quite an interesting read. It was nice to see a perspective on the mind that one can call an 'Evil Genius', he accomplished so many technological advances and so much destruction in an incredibly short amount of time.

I can't say I understand his actions, but I can understand the hate and how it incubates and eventually hatches, this can be mirrored by our treatment or some could say genocide of Native Americans, then followed up by African slavery and the eventual release and mistreatment of blacks to the extent that hate is practically ingrained in the African American mind so much so that they still don't fully integrate into society as of today.

 

[vapirtoo]

Hey Buddie, The hate is not primarily in the African American mind,
has never been and never will be. Hatred exists in the minds of the
power brokers.
Now the really weird thing : wasn't Hitler Jewish?

Just a comment from a voice in segregated NYC.

 

[hemp;)goofy8cheerio]

i heard hitler may have been a rothschild, his mother was a maid that werked in a rothschild house & got preggers

 

[stinkmeaner]

Hate will always be there as long as segregation. Just my opinion.

 

[DevoTheStrange]

yeah but when segregation is integrated as such a huge part of society it is very difficult to move away from. First thing would be to make people aware that they are active participants in such practices whether it be knowingly or unknowingly. Ignorance is more expensive than education.

 

[vapirtoo]

Sadly I kind of agree.
At least a little vapor makes
it seem better. :/

 

[stinkmeaner]

I live in the South and it is just mind boggling that you can go to any town and each have a 'ghetto' with a predominately black population, when I say ghetto I don't mean to offend anyone, but what are you going to call a place that you can't drive down the street without being flagged down to buy crack.

It was different in Germany from what I understand, the Jews were the ones becoming successful while native Germans felt like they were suffering. The difference being the Germans were the majority and the Jewish were the minority. So it was an easy target for blame with a large native population to do something about it.

They are having the same problems in Germany right now, I have family there and they are constantly hearing in the news about the Turkish overtaking Germany. I think almost every country has it issues with minorities but I think most countries have evolved enough to not let it come to a Holocaust like situation again though.

 

[lwien]

I think almost every country has it issues with minorities but I think most countries have evolved enough to not let it come to a Holocaust like situation again though.

Correct, most countries, but man, look at some of the shit that happens in Africa.

 

[stinkmeaner]

Exactly why I said 'most'. Africa is a big problem that needs to be fixed, terrorism has already spread, some have even started pirating again. I have read that the governments in African countries are largely corrupt, even more so than ours,

I haven't studied Africa as much as others and wouldn't even know where to start in terms of fixing the problems.

 

[lwien]

Here's an interesting ranking starting with the least corrupt government first:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/gov_cor-government-corruption

 

[stinkmeaner]

Interesting list, but I wonder how it fares now that we are in 2010. So much has changed in the last 5 years. I think most in Iceland would object to that list.

 

[Pappy]

Due to the influx of Muslims immigrated to perform menial labor over the past few decades, anti-Semitism is sadly once again reaching a crescendo in Europe.

Re: Reading Mein Kampf - I agree with Iwien. It's not books or ideas, it's readers and followers who are dangerous.

 

[vapirtoo]

Hey folks ,
As the economic situation of the world worsens,
the real chance of a demagogue emerging to
cast out the trouble-makers and make the world safe
for.. whoever, will definitely come to past once again.

I hate to be negative, but there is no fix for the world.
The fix lies in each and every one of us to be better
people. We can't fix shit! Look at us, in two wars, making enimies
out of the people that we think, we are trying to protect.
We have to work on ourselves, and this forum in many ways
is a small start. ( Look at how we treat each other through this
fairly new method of making a village )

 

[stinkmeaner]

I guess you are referring to my post, yes 'fix' might be a bad term, maybe I should say helped or structured.

 

[vapirtoo]

Cool stinkmeaner,
Only they can't be helped or structured if they ain't ready for it.

 

[Plotinus]

I think you'll ultimately be disappointed, it's an anticlimactic experience. The only thing you can learn from Mein Kampf is that even stupid, relentlessly boring people are capable of seriously fucking the world up, if they're given the chance.

She wrote this in reference to Adolf Eichmann, a mere Nazi underling, but Hannah Arendt could as easily have been describing Hitler when she wrote about the sickening "banality" of evil. In a perverse way, it almost makes you wish an actual evil genius had slaughtered so many people. That such a dope could get away with it makes things worse.

Someone asked whether most countries hadn't "evolved" past the possibility of repeating the Holocaust. Not to come off as harsh, but I think it's sobering that in a thread specifically about Hitler's atrocities, we find racial stereotypes.

There is no single "African American mind", nor do African Americans share one single political attitude or opinion.

There are not ghettos in "every" southern town, and predominantly black neighborhoods are not automatically ghettos. I live in one such neighborhood and I have never once been offered crack, or any drug.

It's not my intention to embarrass anyone, but these kinds of comments are a great illustration that something like this can happen again, here or anywhere. Germany was one of the world's most modern countries, a cultural, political, and economic (though in a downturn) capital admired by the entire world. You don't need to be evil to let Nazism happen again, you just need to be willing to believe that entire races, regions, or ethnicities of people can have a single purpose or opinion.

When you embrace that mindset, you've become a totalitarian - someone who believes in the unified will of great masses of people. When you reject it, you're a small-d democrat - someone who believes that individuals have the right to follow their own purposes and keep their own counsel.

 

[lwien]

When you embrace that mindset, you've become a totalitarian - someone who believes in the unified will of great masses of people.

What's scary, is that is happening right now in the US concerning Muslims. It's born from fear.

The question is, is the fear legitimate and is the resulting fear of, in this case, Muslims in general, warranted? We can all come up with some great rationals why it is or why it isn't.

But it's really worth an exploration because out of this fear can come some really ugly things.

During WWII, we locked up American born Japanese out of fear. Took their land, took their businesses and locked them up. Now granted, we didn't exterminate them, but only because our fear and desperation levels were not as high as they were in Germany, but we can't succumb to the thought that we are somehow more ethically sound and therefore we would never do such a thing. That kind of mindset would be a very dangerous mistake for we are all capable of committing such atrocities providing the right set of circumstances were to be in play.

There was a study done awhile ago in a college (forgot the name of the study and the college) but it was a situation where they had a mock prison and they put students in charge of other students for a period of time. They had to call off the experiment early because the cruelty that occurred was getting out of control.

Point being that what happened in Germany during WWII could happen again, even right here in the good old U.S of A. when fear turns to hate.

 

[stinkmeaner]

I think the U.S. Government and the media are both doing a pretty good job of turning the general population of Americans against Muslims. I can't tell you how many Americans that I have talked to that think we needed to invade Iraq because of 9/11.

 

[Plotinus]

When you embrace that mindset, you've become a totalitarian - someone who believes in the unified will of great masses of people.

What's scary, is that is happening right now in the US concerning Muslims. It's born from fear.

The question is, is the fear legitimate and is the resulting fear of, in this case, Muslims in general, warranted? We can all come up with some great rationals why it is or why it isn't.

But it's really worth an exploration because out of this fear can come some really ugly things.

During WWII, we locked up American born Japanese out of fear. Took their land, took their businesses and locked them up. Now granted, we didn't exterminate them, but only because our fear and desperation levels were not as high as they were in Germany, but we can't succumb to the thought that we are somehow more ethically sound and therefore we would never do such a thing. That kind of mindset would be a very dangerous mistake for we are all capable of committing such atrocities providing the right set of circumstances were to be in play.

There was a study done awhile ago in a college (forgot the name of the study and the college) but it was a situation where they had a mock prison and they put students in charge of other students for a period of time. They had to call off the experiment early because the cruelty that occurred was getting out of control.

Point being that what happened in Germany during WWII could happen again, even right here in the good old U.S of A. when fear turns to hate.

I think this is on the money. I was greatly troubled by the controversy over the "ground zero mosque", as I was by the notion - so popular in 2008 that it became uncontroversial, much to our shame - that Muslims are somehow not eligible to be President in the United States. The people who demonize all Muslims as terrorists seem to quickly forget that Muslims number around 2.5 *billion* people - nearly a third of the global population.

When we let ourselves get lazy and start attributing political ideology - or worse, political conspiracy - to such huge swaths of people, we've already lost. I was particularly distressed to see some Jewish organizations - including the Anti-Defamation League, which I had previously supported but will support no longer - fan the flames of the mosque controversy. That is a very dangerous game.

 

[lwien]

I think the U.S. Government and the media are both doing a pretty good job of turning the general population of Americans against Muslims. I can't tell you how many Americans that I have talked to that think we needed to invade Iraq because of 9/11.

20% of Americans, that is 61,400,000 Americans think Obama is a Muslim. Of course the same percentage of Amerians thinks the sun revolves around the earth. Bunch of dumbasses.

 

[stinkmeaner]

That brings to another point, why does a president or any other government organization have to reference or mention 'God' which has nothing to do with politics, or especially politicians.
Don't they realize that religions are like empires, so many have come and gone, how can you be so sure on one?