Stones from the River

You may remember a book from the mid-90s called "Stones from the River" by Ursula Hegi. I don't remember the story itself all that well, but it did leave the following question in my head: What was going on in the heads of the average German citizen in the lead-up to WWII? Certainly not all of them were sympathetic to the Nazi regime. But how many were not, and what impact did they have, if any? How did they allow the Nazis to come to power, how did they allow the Holocaust to happen? Were many of them just laying low, afraid of calling attention to themselves, afraid to speak out against a government that became increasingly intolerant?

The following is connected to the above--really it is. In th recent movie "An Inconvenient Truth," Gore presents the idea of a frog in hot water. If the water is already hot when you stick the frog into it, the frog panics and hops out. If the water starts cold, and heats up gradually enough, the frogs tolerance increases gradually as well, and the frog will stay in the water, not recognizing his own doom. Is this what happened to a lot of people in Germany? Were they frogs in gradually heating water?

More importantly, are we?

(no subject)

You know that it's getting ugly in the Republican camp when Republican legislators are planning to sue the president...

Bush's signing statements have raised some ire.