Pain

As a rule one will not have to go far to uncover the pain. Indeed, even the individual is not fully free from pain in this joyful state of security. The artificial check on the elementary forces might be able to prevent violent clashes and to ward off shadows, but it cannot stop the dispersed light with which pain permeates life. The vessel, sealed off from pain’s full flow, is filled drop by drop. Boredom is nothing other than the dissolution of pain in time (p. 13). - Ernst Jünger

At the time Jünger is writing this Germany is looking like they are getting out of the Great Depression that took place five years earlier.  The Nazi took over power and the German people are starting to feel good about their country again.  Jünger is warning the German people that if they think that there is no more pain right now they are mistaken.  The German people need to give themselves to the government in order to allow the government to protect them from pain.  Jünger is saying that conformity is necessary to allow for this protection to take place.  It is boredom which represents not helping the government that causes pain to a person.  They need to help the government in any way the government says. I choose this passage because I feel that when people conform to everything that a government says is the first step to to totalitarianism.  It is governments like the United States that welcome different views and individualism that strive and become great nations.  The first step to stop totalitarianism is the first amendment, and it should never be taken away.  

Night and Fog

As a Jew I have always been told about the horrors of the concentration camps.  I have seen the images from documentaries but, every time I see another picture or another film such as this one it hurts like the first time.  I don't think that we should stop telling the story of the Holocaust because we must never forget what one man can do if given the power.  One thing that always surprises me is that the Nazis understood I feel that what they were doing was inherently wrong.  The reason I feel this way is because they tried to make the camps look nice from an outsider looking in.  They did not want to have to much attention to these camps, in order to do this they made them look nice.      

Triumph of the Will

Before I watched this film I did not have a great understanding of the German's propaganda program.  I knew that they had one but I never saw a film about it I only saw posters of propaganda.  What shocked me the most was how much Hitler wanted to show unity in the film.   I knew that he wanted the German people to feel like equals and he said he was a man of the people but I didn't realize the trouble he went through to show this.  In the film it shows solders without any rank on them to show that all of the military is just as important.  Rudolph Hess said in a speech "The Party is Hitler - and Hitler is Germany just as Germany is Hitler."  Hitler was trying his best to show that he was a regular person.  But as he says these things he also shows that he is better than the average person by flying on planes for travel and having parades.  It's strange how it worked that the German people looked at Hitler as a equal and a super human at the same time. 

State Formation as Organized Crime

Charles Tilly says that the objective for a government to have control over its territories is to have two types of control, internal and external.  The internal control is where the government has direct power of its country that it is in.  However the government needs an external agency to have control over lands that are outside the governments direct control.  This is very similar to what Weber said bout how a government should control its country.  

     The causes that make a country grow in power is war.   "The very activity of extraction, if successful, entailed the elimination, neutralization, or cooptation of the great lord’s local rivals."  In order to have power you can not have other parties in the country try to go against the government.  If this happens it weakens the power of the government, so the government uses violence to stop the upraising.

Politics as a Vocation

"The leadership of a state or of a party by men who (in the economic sense of the word) live exclusively for politics and not off politics means necessarily a ‘plutocratic’ [rule of the wealthy, after the Roman god of wealth and the underworld, Pluto—Prof.] recruitment of the leading political strata. To be sure, this does not mean that such plutocratic leadership signifies at the same time that the politically dominant strata will not also seek to live ‘off’ politics, and hence that the dominant stratum will not usually exploit their political domination in their own economic interest (pp. 85-6)" Max Weber 

     This quote is talking about we need politicians that are either independently wealthy or they get their money only from politics.  Weber says that this is important because government is so big and difficult to run that you need people that are completely invested in politics to run a country.  Politicians that are not full time and have other commitments to deal with can not be effective at their job as a politician.  

     I choose this quote because besides the reason that Weber has for a full time politician I feel that we need both types of people in politics the wealthy and the one that needs the money.  Any country has wealthy people and people that need to work hard to earn a living.  Both of these types of people need to be in politics in order for the government to understand its people's problems.  If there was only one type of politician in government then not all the people would be represented and the ones that are not represented would suffer.   

Article 159

"The right to form unions and to improve conditions at work as well as in the economy is guaranteed to every individual and to all occupations. All agreements and measures limiting or obstructing this right are illegal."

      This article always workers to come together and demand to be treated with respect and given proper working conditions.  Without this right major companies that only care about their bottom line would take advantages of the workers, by not paying them a proper paycheck, not having a safe place to work because it cost to much money to make it safe, and other causes similar to this.  The article also says that it is illegal to stop a union from forming or existing.  These rights are still protected in America and they have done very well.  For example sport leagues have unions for their players.  The NFL players union almost had a lock out a few years ago because they thought they were being taken advantage of  by the owners of the teams. 

Article 62

"No state is represented by more than one delegate in the committees formed by the Reichsrat."

     The Reichsrat is similar to the congress of the United States in that it represents the people of the country in the government.  This article is to make sure that no one state has more of a representation in the government.  This is important because if states have more representation that means they will have more power, with more power they could make laws that benefits their state and not the rest of the country.  This still protected in the Senate of the American government is set up that no one state has more than two representatives in government.