Hitler Junior: Path to Democracy (4/20)

After Hitler: The Path to [Phony] Democracy

(DW History and Culture) April 20, 2025: [Ah, the myths we spin and repeat. Idi Amin killed many more than Hitler, but no one mentions him because he was not promoting white supremacy or an Aryan "race" in doing it.] Today (4/20) is Adolf Hitler's birthday, so let's look back a little.

Did Al Gore just compare Don Trunf to Hitler?

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:50 (Title) After Hitler: The Path to Democracy
• 01:04 Germany at the beginning of 1945
• 04:48 Prescribed Democracy - a recipe for success?
• 10:46 DeNazification - a new beginning?
• 13:54 Learnings from the past

With the invasion of neighboring Poland by the German armed forces in the fall of 1939, Germany ignited the Second World War. Six years of murder, destruction, expulsion and hunger shaped the fate of people in many parts of the world. In May 1945, the guns fell silent in Europe. Germany was allegedly defeated [except for those who traveled to New Swabia in the Antarctic and Argentina to live on, possibly still pulling strings and the levers of power].

It was an end and a beginning at the same time. But how did the political, social, and economic reconstruction take shape in post-war Germany? How did a dictatorship become a democracy? DW looks at the first years after the end of the war -- and the long road towards a new political order. #dwhistoryandculture.

For more visit: dw.com/en/culture/s-1441. Follow DW's netiquette: p.dw.com/p/MF1G

• DW History and Culture, April 20, 2025; Pfc. Sandoval, Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

World's Greatest Religious Monument (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

"Digging for the Truth: Angkor Wat: Eighth Wonder of the World" (History's Channel) - Angkor Wat is actually the world's largest religious monument.

• Part One
  
• Part Two
• Part Three
• Part Four
• Part Five
  

(Be2die4, June 6, 2011) Let's face the reality. Worldwide Cambodian communities are not blind to Hun Sen's autocracy or ignorant of what it is doing to Cambodia, plundering the nation. Cambodia needs leader not a tyrant or another Khmer Rouge military dictatorship. Of course the music, so popular in Asia, is not helping the awareness campaign. Bear with it, for there is an important message about what the [western] powers that be allowed or encouraged in Asia -- from Vietnam in the southeast to Afghanistan in the northwest.

Once great Cambodia (Khmer Empire) suffers under a new dictator

Is the CIA or is China hacking the Web?

Performers take the stage May 2, 2011 near image of Mao Tse-tung at Beijing's Red Classic restaurant nostalgic for China's revolutionary past (Ng Han Guan/AP).

(CNET) The Chinese military wants to beef up its cyber-defense efforts as it anticipates greater threats originating from the U.S.

"The U.S. military is hastening to seize the commanding military heights on the Internet, and another Internet war is being pushed to a stormy peak," the Chinese military wrote in its official newspaper, Liberation Army Daily.

"Their actions remind us that to protect the nation's Internet security, we must accelerate Internet defense development and accelerate steps to make a strong Internet army."

Though Liberation Army Daily isn't an official mouthpiece for the Chinese government, Reuters, which first reported on the story, points out that it typically reflects the official opinion of China's ruling party. More

Is it the CIA?

Wisdom Quarterly

The best evidence pointing a finger at the CIA is twofold. It has easy access (through the NSA, Google, Facebook, misconstruing the Patriot Act, as well as subversive and clandestine means such as co-opting arrested hackers), and what it stands to gain is enormous. It would gain a blanket cover story, with plausible deniability for itself as the source.

In this way it can accuse China, or any other convenient cyber "terrorist" group it wants to target for "retaliation," all the while explaining how American citizens lost our privacy. CIA Agent Phillip Agee explained how it's done in general. In particular, My Lai and Ben Tre* revealed CIA involvement prompting the US military during the U.S. war on Vietnam:

"We had to destroy [privacy] in order to save it."

The CIA has followed the same tactics in the Americas (Agee himself being involved in them) and is following them today in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen. Why not one more front, the Web itself?

And the blame is put on an "anonymous" hacker group to show that, far from being the perpetrator, the CIA is the victim of malicious hacks humiliating it. Remedy? Orwellian clampdown? All out cyber-war?

Oh no, CIA hacked; this means war!
(WPN) The hacker group LulzSec, famous for their gaming community hacks, is moving on to bigger targets. While the group has claimed responsibility for hacks and data dumps against Sony, Bethesda, and Nintendo in the past, they recently went after the U.S. Senate and have now taken down the CIA’s website. More

• *One of the most famous quotes of the Vietnam War was from the AP writing about the provincial capital Bến Tre in 1968: "'It became necessary to destroy the town to save it,' a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties..."

Tibet: The Story of a Tragedy (film)

Curtains to Tibet fest

Deccan Herald (India)

Palden Namgyal, Tenzin Choekyi, and Dawa Tsering presented a musical concert using traditional Tibetan instruments like the Yangchen and Dram-ngyen (string instruments). The trio played "The Enthronement of His Holiness" and "Grateful Parent."

The three-day cultural presentation of Tibet came to a close in a traditional manner with the dismantling of the mandala. The program was a way to silently protest the Red Army and present the peace-loving culture of Tibet to Bangaloreans [Bangalore, India].

Earlier in the day, the monk Namdak spoke on the Buddha and the Dalai Lama. Organizers of the event said there was an overwhelming response from Bangaloreans. “Everyday during the [event], there were more than hundreds of people who visited us during the program,” said Suresh Jayram, Curator of Rewa (50 years of hope). The program was supported by Asia Arts Network, an international granting body that supports art and culture. Source

Similar fest celebrating Himalayan cultures at California's Pacific Asia Museum (WQ)

• Visions of Enlightenment (PacificAsiaMuseum.org)
• Discovering Ganesha: Remover of Obstacles