tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post2992574131397767146..comments2023-11-05T03:25:20.581-08:00Comments on STOP THE MADNESS: CHAPTER EIGHT. SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVILRick Staggenborg, MDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3484662326396778106.post-76122417978641676792010-03-14T08:36:13.910-07:002010-03-14T08:36:13.910-07:00Sympathy for the Devil means taking a dispassionat...Sympathy for the Devil means taking a dispassionate look at history and trying to understnad how ordinary men could commit the extraordinarily evil acts that together have led to the near-total destruction of our democracy.<br /><br />I was not in new territory in asking this question. The interested reader may want to read Erich Fromm's theory of how the Nazis took hold in a democratic society that had been battered by economic depression deliberately provoked by the Allies after WWI who had felt justified in dividing the spoils of war and punishing Germany as the aggressor nation. One only need review the effects of the Marshall plan after WWII to see how differently things might have turned out had the Allies realized their moral duty to act fairly and in the interests of all after the first world war.<br /><br />Fromm argues that the Nazis arose because nationalism, authoritarianism and the willingness to sacrifice freedom for security is the natural psychological result of a nation of individuals who feel victimized and oppressed by the world. After WWII, George Orwell foresaw that this could lead to never-ending worldwide war if the masses of the populations of the great powers could be made ignorant and government propaganda designed to foster a state of confusion as to the fact that it was international corporations who deliberately maintained the system. <br /><br />This is so obvious to the dispassionate observer that Sinclair Lewis wrote "It Can Happen Here," a novel warning America in 1939 of how close to fascism we came in the same period. Instead of being appreciated, this former lion of the literary world was almost universally ignored, or villified. The myth of American exceptionalism was already alive and well at the time.Rick Staggenborg, MDhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16587630200799702811noreply@blogger.com