A word on our friend Ahnold...

[penmage]

I have just one comment on the Ahnold situation.

On top of everything else, what bothers me, really, is that he claimed Adolf Hitler as a role model.

This doesn't bother me because if means he's anti-semitic. It doesn't bother me because he's idolizing an evil dictator who was responsible for the murder of thousands. He explained that he admires Hitler for starting with nothing and rising up on his own, but doesn't admire the things he did.

What bothers me is that the man is stupid enough to say that he admires Hitler in the first place. I mean, dude. If you want to admire someone like that, pick Abe Lincoln. The man lived in a log cabin, for goodness sake.

It's just stupid to use Adolf Hitler as your example, whatever your reason.

It scares me that a man foolish enough to use Adolf Hitler as his "rags-to-riches" role model has been elected to power.

Comments

[g33kgrrl]

amen, sister.

*sigh*

[celtic4.livejournal.com]

I'll say only this, in the interests of fairness.

Arnold being Austrian, believe me when I say that Arnold probably has a fierce nationalistic HATRED of Hitler. In my visits to Austria, I witnessed a strong sense of hatred toward Hitler, who betrayed and ruined the country; and a great sense of shame toward World War II and the Holocaust, even though Austria was an occupied country at the time. If Arnold has a shred of nationalistic pride, he hates the man.

Hitler did indeed rise to power from poverty. To ignore that fact because of political correctness is ridiculous. However, Arnold should have justified his statement somehow, because Hitler has got to be one of the worst people ever to have lived in this modern age.

That being said, that Arnold quote was from what, 30 years ago? The man was a recent immigrant. Abe Lincoln would NOT have been the first person to leap to mind, being a foreign personage. Arnold probably picked the person that overshadowed recent European history because he was a recent immigrant from Europe and thus unfamiliar with American (socially accepted) heroes.

I'm not saying what he did was right, but for the media to make it out like the man idolized a mass murderer is a bit much. I apologize if this was offensive, but I would like to bring out the other side of the issue here.

[penmage.livejournal.com]

Don't apologize - hearing the other side of things is good for me - and definitly don't apologize for having an unpopular opinion. Even if I disagree with you, I respect your opinion, and your right to have it. And I do enjoy hearing things I disagree with ;).

That said, I think it's ridiculous that the media is making it out like he idolized a mass murderer. He obviously didn't mean that; he clarified his statement himself.

However, it's not really common sense to say that you admire anything about Hitler - the man is a triggerword. It's like saying you admire Osama Bin Ladin - it's just not a smart thing to say, no matter how you mean it.

What worries me isn't that he idolizes Hitler - it's that he didn't have the common sense not to say it.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

This "hatred" would be why Austria elected a fascist a few years ago? (Haider.) And were happy with Waldheim for so long?

I think de-Nazification was done in Germany but the West were inclined to think nice little Austria -- where Hitler came from -- was an "occupied country". Occupied with great enthusiasm. Germany has paid compensation to Holocaust survivors and families of victims -- feeble compensation, but something. Austria refused -- there are people living in houses that were taken from Jewish Austrians and there has been no compensation at all. They agreed in principle that they'd pay some -- in 2000! (I haven't heard if they have actually done it yet. But fifty years!)

As for personal evidence, you've had good experiences with Austrians, I've had bad ones. The only people I've ever met more racist than one particular Austrian couple was a South African at the height of Apartheid. But that's anecdotal on both sides -- look at their politics. What Arnold said might not have been anything like as far from mainstream in Austria as it was elsewhere.

[celtic4.livejournal.com]

Of course, there are "good" Austrians and "bad" Austrians, like there are in any country. I certainly don't claim to speak for them all, I'm just trying to see both sides of the issue here. I appreciate you commenting on my post. I learned a lot. ^_^

I'm part Austrian so this touches me on a more personal level. Some of my family members died in the Holocaust, and I've had to deal with people thinking my family were "Nazis" because of our Austrian heritage, even though that couldn't be further from the truth. I hope you don't think I'm trying to stand up for Hitler or *anything* he stood for!

I highly doubt Austria was occupied with great enthusiasm...the Holocaust claimed not only Jews, but Catholics, gypsies, homosexuals, dissenters, and disabled people. My family members fell into some of the latter groups, and were executed along with all the rest. My grandfather escaped and made his way to America, and that led eventually to me. Since then, my family has visited the country several times, and I know for a fact that much of the southern region of that country devoutly wishes Hitler were burning in Hell. They are ashamed, embarrassed, and angry...particularly the younger generation. The election of a fascist puzzles me, but I don't know any facts about it, so I can't really comment until I've investigated it more. ^_^;

Anyway, this post has become quite long! Again, I don't mean to be offensive, just trying to round out the situation. ^_^

[shadowluck.livejournal.com]

*blinks* That is worrying.

*waves from the other side of the Pacific, where the politicians are free-thinking and squabbly but not, unfortunately, a great deal brighter*

you said it

[shellefly.livejournal.com]

only commenting here to say, "Well said!"

well, and also, in response to another comment in the thread, I am *sure* there is another rags to riches story that Ahnold could have cited, even a European one. Didn't he see Sound of Music? :)

[fshk.livejournal.com]

You know what, though? He's not our governor. Let him make a mess of California. If New York had elected it, I'm sure I'd be leading the protests, but nothing Arnold does in office will directly affect us.

[jaenanda.livejournal.com]

Being Californian, I have more difficultiy with his misognistic streak the misguided so-called "hero worship". If I'm not mistaken, anyway, the Hitler comment has been taken way out of context. He didn't exactly just come up as say "I think Hitler was really great!", and even if he did, at the time, his motivations were more likely to play, well, not exactly devil's advocate, but to show perhaps an alernate side of the coin.

Maybe that's just because I don't hold Hitler to be the paragon of evil myself. The man was sick, true. And f-ed up and waaaay megolomaniacal. He had some terrible terrible drug problems and some deep-rooted personal hatred that he carried out to a devastating extreme. But he wasn't the ultimate evil to ever walk the plantet. He was a sick man whom circumstances and human ambivalence allowed to infect the world. Truely inhuman, truely evil people can't rise to power like that. They can't, and they don't. Hitler was bad man who did very, very bad things. But under different circumstances, he might also have been a very good man. That's a tragedy.

I dunno. world war 2, the haulocaust, they're still fresh in global memory. I don't think even the best of historians will have a clear veiw of the actions and events that those years encompased for another few decades at least. And until then, I won't be bothered by people saying untimely and tactless things from time to time. In short, Arnold saying that is the least of my worries about him, and I don't feel that politicains, or anyone, really, should be judged that harshly for offhand comments taken out of context. Just my own views.