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Old 03-11-2012, 01:52 AM
 
12,997 posts, read 13,589,352 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RPON View Post
Do you consider someone racist because they read Mein Kampf? What if that same person read the communist manifesto?
I am being attacked in the politics section because I know which MK is the best read and understand...
No of course someone is not racist just for reading Mein Kampf. People read lots of things for lots of reasons. It's our God given right to do so... that said, I probably shouldn't have read Mein Kampf on a city bus for several days in a row like I did. I didn't think anything of doing so at the time (I was a bookish college student who read lots of things), but the regulars treated me differently after that. Live and learn.
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Old 03-11-2012, 01:56 AM
 
12,997 posts, read 13,589,352 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Doll Eyes View Post
Well I'm black and no I wouldn't consider someone racist for reading it. Can't say I'd sit down with it on a park bench, though LOL. I actually considered reading MK, but people have said it's so poorly written it's not worth it. I can't tolerate a book like that....Someone I know thought "American History X" was racist and that is a GREAT movie & there's a point to the racism and language in the movie, they don't get that though. People don't have any sense anymore. *smh*

Stay out of the politics section, it's a pointless section, IMO. They just want to argue and badger each other, not actually discuss anything.
It really is. People aren't just being uncharitable to Hitler because of his offensive views. The book is really repetitive. You could easily cut out hundreds of pages and lose nothing. That said, Hitler does a few funny lines here and there ... he said anyone who doesn't find himself lied about in the papers in the morning didn't make full use of the previous day. At the time I read that, i thought it was pretty funny.

As I seem to recall, the best part is where Hitler talks about propoganda -- more of the how-to than his specific brand of it. That's the only area where he comes across as a "stand out" thinker. After that, it's just interesting as a study of a diseased mind.
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Old 03-11-2012, 03:07 AM
 
Location: Texas
44,256 posts, read 64,109,235 times
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It is studying history. Only someone totally uneducated would berate you for reading any book. I personally found it boring and poorly written.
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Old 03-11-2012, 08:54 AM
 
Location: Earth Wanderer, longing for the stars.
12,406 posts, read 18,912,804 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stan4 View Post
It is studying history. Only someone totally uneducated would berate you for reading any book. I personally found it boring and poorly written.
Yes. I think it is almost a disincentive for his beliefs.
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Old 03-11-2012, 04:33 PM
 
15,488 posts, read 15,472,081 times
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Racist? In the distant past, I read both MK and the CM, and I don't recall either one being about race. Jews, of course, don't constitute a race.
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Old 03-12-2012, 07:44 AM
 
Location: Earth Wanderer, longing for the stars.
12,406 posts, read 18,912,804 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cida View Post
Racist? In the distant past, I read both MK and the CM, and I don't recall either one being about race. Jews, of course, don't constitute a race.
I remember a science show on tv that traced the genetics of a small black tribe in Ethiopia (I think). They said they were Jews and wanted to move to Israel, which rejected them. Then their genetic testing showed that they were more direct descendants than most people who were then calling themselves Jews and living in Israel. They are now supposed to be accepted and living happily in that country.

I am kind of confused over race, too. If we are all related and came from the same source, then what we call races today seems to mean that we froze history at a certain point and whomever was living in whatever area at that point was considered a race.
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Old 03-13-2012, 12:00 PM
 
2,757 posts, read 3,989,006 times
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I read some of Mein Kampf, and I'm black. It's interesting - and important - to know what other people think, no matter how much one disagrees with them.
The beast (Hitler) could write.
I want to buy the book, at a thrift shop, of course. Pay full price? Nope.
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Old 03-21-2012, 02:19 PM
 
Location: On the Ohio River in Western, KY
3,387 posts, read 6,607,207 times
Reputation: 3362
Quote:
Originally Posted by Doll Eyes View Post
Well I'm black and no I wouldn't consider someone racist for reading it. Can't say I'd sit down with it on a park bench, though LOL. I actually considered reading MK, but people have said it's so poorly written it's not worth it. I can't tolerate a book like that....Someone I know thought "American History X" was racist and that is a GREAT movie & there's a point to the racism and language in the movie, they don't get that though. People don't have any sense anymore. *smh*

Stay out of the politics section, it's a pointless section, IMO. They just want to argue and badger each other, not actually discuss anything.
It was horrible. A spaztic crack moneky could probably write better than Hitler did in that book.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mooseketeer View Post
Of course not. I read "Mein Kampf" and my Great Grand Father died escaping from Auschwitz and my Great Uncle spent years in various death camps ( he is a survivor). We even studied bits of it at school during History. I must admit I thought apart from the moral aspect of it though it was basically an incredibly written, badly argued piece of trash in literary terms and dull as ditch water. Not a book I would care to re-read.

Hitler was a far better orator than a writer. Whatever his skills may have been writing was certainly not one of them.

Knowledge is never a bad thing and it is rather difficult to criticise something in an informed manner if you haven't got the facts at your fingertips so sometimes books like MK have to be endured if you are going to gather a deeper understanding of certain issues.

I have read a lot of contentious and controversial books in my days, some proponents of slavery and colonialism and I am deeply opposed to both. Contemporary sources are often the only way to really get to the nub of some questions. You gain an insight into the minds of people who are so removed from your own way of thinking that it is almost impossible to understand what lies behind their beliefs.

If the profits from MK went to a Nazi organisation then that would be an issue but otherwise, knowledge is knowledge. It used to be that all profits of MK went to various charities , is this still the case ?

What makes someone racist is believing the crap in those books and trying to follow its precepts. A book is only a vessel for words, those words are meaningless until a human being decides to believe them.

I have read the Bible and many other Sacred texts and I am a staunch Atheist...
He was a good orator, but an even better painter. He should have stuck to the starving artist gig; would have been better for EVERYONE in the long run!
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Old 03-21-2012, 02:35 PM
 
Location: Matthews, NC
14,688 posts, read 26,512,069 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Cav Scout wife View Post
It was horrible. A spaztic crack moneky could probably write better than Hitler did in that book.



He was a good orator, but an even better painter. He should have stuck to the starving artist gig; would have been better for EVERYONE in the long run!
One would think so, but there may have been someone crazier out there who might have won the war.
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Old 03-21-2012, 02:36 PM
 
531 posts, read 499,009 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RPON View Post
Do you consider someone racist because they read Mein Kampf?
Other way around.

I don't think you're racist because you read Mein Kempf. I think you -- RPON that is -- read Mein Kampf because you're racist.

.
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