What do you think about comparing Bush to Hitler?

and PLEASE PLEASE try to keep the flaming and personal attacks down on this one.

Id like to start off by saying that it isn't a 100% similarity, but at the same time, it isnt 0% either.

He hasn't killed as many as people as Hitler did -- yet. But his advisor Rove is clearly a student of Nazi propaganda techniques. I don't mean to trivialize the horrors of the Holocaust, but yes there are some similarities.

Agree whole-heartedly. The propaganda techniques used by Rove are VERY nazi-esque.

And does anybody else find it bitterly ironic that Freepers whine, cry, piss and moan when Bush is compared to Hitler, yet a HUGE majority of them (80% or more) refer to Hillary Clinton as "Hitlery" and laugh about it? I say that nobody should be compared to Hitler, that man was pure evil. I don't do it for anybody, not even Bush.

just as it does at the bush hitler comparisson. red meat for the choir but ineffective in the election.

inventing the phrase 'FEMINAZI'. They have a lot of nerve complaining about Nazi comparisons now.

No matter what people say, Bush has no plans to kill millions of people. ALthough knowing him, it may happen by accident.

...is one (albeit a BIG one) of the aspects of Hitler up for comparision.

Problem is he also believes that he is here to do his God's work...

i say we OWE it to all the souls lost then to NEVER FORGET and if we don't use it BEFORE it actually starts happening whats the sense of remembering since if we wait till it is actually LAW, it will be waaaaay TOO LATE.

on edit: also, i don't think we should LIMIT ourselves to JUST him though since ANY ruthless fascist totalitarian will do ;->

peace

"Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them." -- Sartre

Like the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) warning Dubya of Al Queda's ominous threats, the topic of Fascism is more than just 'historical.'

Many people are dismissive of the F-word as mere rhetoric since they haven't really looked into it beyond reruns of old WWII footage on the History Channel, sometimes mockingly called 'the Hitler channel.' Unfortunately, the pictures today can be seen in shockingly realistic color.

Ignore it at your peril. It is not ignoring you. When it finds you, no remote will switch it off. My governor is a former Austrian body-builder and Hitler admirer turned movie action-figure who was elected (?) to run the world's fifth largest economy. While I'd prefer that this was just a sci-fi tale written by Kurt Vonnegut, I've learned to remain wary of unexpected outcomes. I no longer assume that progressive justice or humane values inevitably bloom out of talk of freedom with red-white-and-blue bunting.

So I've put together some links to examine this destructive social phenomenon that I can't resist sharing with anyone who will listen since I judge it to be a rising tide that many won't notice until they are choking on it and wondering where the liberty they used to breathe went and what is that awful smell?

A famous British psychologist did an analysis of Bush*'s family history and personality. Little Georgie was abused, belittled, and overshadowed by his parents so he became an alcoholic, self-destructive, anti-intellectual, and cruel 'authoritarian personality.' His rebellion against his parents is killing many innocents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1033904,00.html
(So George, How Do You Feel About Your Mom and Dad?

This 'authoritarian' personality is the precursor to Fascism Receptivity as defined by researchers in 1950 who tried to understand how large populations could embrace dictators like Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler. Many Americans match the profile, especially religious fundamentalists. Surprised? I didn't think so. But no comparisons with Hitler, OK? 'Chosen Few' doesn't mean 'Master Race'...does it?
http://www.anesi.com/fscale.htm
(The F Scale Questionnaire to Determine Fascist Receptivity)

Another indictment of cruelty comes from this study on the components of conservatism studied in an academic model. It confirms differences we have noticed as liberals: fear of change, acceptance of inequality, black and white thinking, targeting of 'others.'
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/07/22_politics.shtml
(What Makes a Political Conservative)

Now, the 14 scary symptoms of Fascism as a social phenomenon to tie it all together even...worse.
http://empirewatch.org/pages/_archives/fascism/pages/14_symptoms.html
(The Fourteen Symptoms of Fascism)

And now, an analysis of a Bush* State of the Union speech that illustrates the linguistic science of abusive speech used to psychologically manipulate and deceive the listener, something White House speech writers have mastered to diminish the power of the listener. Yes, the counterrevolution has been televised.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/130534_focusecond13.html
(The Power of the Presidency Resides in Language as Well as Law)

This article explains the power of repetition as mind programming and the tactics of disinformation and segregation of 'conspiracy' ideas to hide knowledge of government manipulation through the use of television and other ubiquitous media. The 1938 radio broadcast of 'The War of the Worlds' confirmed the power of mass deception that has been exploited for decades.
New! Improved! Coming to a theater near you!
http://www.mackwhite.com/tv.html
(The TV Hive Mind)

Here is an article that explores the marketing power of fear used by Detroit to sell Americans SUVs, along with help from Arnold Schwarzenegger and the first Bush Gulf war. The same methods were used to link these previous sales to the gutting of the Bill of Rights and an unjustified pre-emptive war all at the same time. What a campaign!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,995252,00.html
Trading On Fear

And it could go on for a very long time and eventually lead to something worse. I wouldn't say millions was out of the picture. Remember, he started this war on purpose, not by accident.

they both served in the military, but hitler saw action, bush didn't

If WW1 poison gas can really be considered as a WMD.

course, so is a cluster bomb, bunker buster, or a MOAB.

This is the type of thing that pisses of moderates especially, and even me.

I don't like Bush either, but comparing him to Hitler only minimizes the true atrocities committed by him.

if you say is Bush like Hitler or not... its is asking a y/n 0% or 100% alike question, and neither answer is truly correct.

If you ask that to me Id answer, no, *But there are some aspects where thay share similirities... such as

Starting a war, via lying to the public, without a real good reason, personal gain and ego involved
Fixing (trying to) elections
Love of executions
A love of propaganda
Alot of secrecy
Breaking promises

Do we not become like the freepers when we launch obscenity, ridiculous what-ifs, and the such on here?
I wish it would stop and only the REAL issues be discussed with SOME sort of civility. I'll tell you, I lurked for many months before joining this board, and I was totally turned off by some of the assinine things I read here.
Bush&Co is bad enough all by itself. Let's stick to the issues.
Bush like Hitler? There is no comparison. This *was* a democratic society protected by the Constitution. What he's done to OUR society and freedoms IS relevant. Comparing him to Hitler is overkill and pointless.
Better to work as hard as you can for our candidate instead of hanging out here bashing freepers and wasting time.
Have you donated to Kerry?
Have you done anything outside your computer to get our candidate elected???

Both loved executions.

It's eerie isn't it.

why wait?

GWB = President Hitler

Hitlers level of murder, but, in my book, once your past 1 (in bushs case 10000 min) , your just as evil.

Sept 11th - 3000
Afghanistan US - ?
Afghanistan Civilians - ?
Iraq US - 1000
Iraqi Civilians - 10,000+

Liberia - ?
Haiti - ?
Venezuela - ?
Columbia - ?
Philippines - ?

(I've got to get to work, or I'd go look up the numbers, but you get the point, I hope.)

So how many people did Hitler kill in his first three years in power?

My guess is when Bu$h's reign is over, he will go down has the worst and most brutal leader in modern history.

hitler put prayer in schools, and bush wants prayer in schools

"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith.... We need believing people."

and to the poster who says bush has no plans for killing millions of people...will hundreds of thousands suffice? could be millions...before this is over.

compared to Hitlers 55,000,000.

Different scale, different level of creulity, same lack of respect for life, both still evil

I honestly think he lacks the mental capabilities to be evil.

It is more than fair to call his handlers like Cheney and Rumsfeld evil, I think that * is just too dumb to be evil, and that he really believes all the crap that he says.

I tend to see Bush more on the order of a Mussolini or Franco, though of course, neither of them ever had nukes.

Both supported "traditional Christian values" and had the overwhelming support of their country's religious establishments. Franco wanted to bring back the glories of Baroque Spain, and Bush the wonders of puritan slave-owning America.

I even believe the old National Review up to the 1970's had a "thing" for Franco.

Except the Southern Baptists, every Christian denomination in America opposed the Iraq invasion.

It took Hitler 12 years of power to achieve the millions of dead.

Bush has had less than 4.

However, as someone mentioned on another thread, the better comparison is with Mussolini. Such comparisons can certainly be revealing, but in the final analysis we're dealing with the re-emergence of a phenomena that's a good deal older than the 1930s. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis...

well said, BritDem!

-Reliance on propaganda and state promulgated lies (Rove is clearly a student of Goebbels as much as Machiavelli and appears to have taken Goebbels' principles as his template on how to operate)

-Reliance on fear

-Reliance on war and glorification of war and the military and nationalism

-Use of police state tactics (Detention of prisoners indefinitely without charges or representation in Guantanamo, and who knows WHAT all is going on in Iraq)

-Promotion of a mythology and "cult" of the leader himself as opposed to the party or the state (Krugman talked about this in one of his columns, describing the use of staged photos of Bush in one of his recent budgets, like it was some kind of campaign ad, instead of just graphs, text etc.)

Now some of these are similar to various other despotic leaders throughout history, so they are not all uniquely "Hitleresque" except the use of propaganda through the Ministry of Rove seems most characteristic of the Nazi regime.

I'm not saying shrubco has done anywhere near the harm of the Nazis, or even intend to, but they don't have that power yet. That's what this election is about. To get that whole machinery out of office and throw their train off the rails, make sure they never get that power.

Hitler was unique. He was so extreme in many ways specific to his own style and that of his party that I think the comparison is a red herring. It distracts us from the real job of saving what democracy and civil liberties we still have.

You don't need an overt policy of ethnic genocide to be a bad dictator. You certainly don't need to be an anti-Christian trying to revive myths of the dark ages. You don't need armed mobs battling their opponents in the streets.

Even among classic fascist dictators there was a lot of variation in their ideologies and methods. Focusing on Hitler distracts us from the hard work of examining exactly how democracy is being quickly eroded. Making sloppy analogies between Bush and Hitler only allows our opponents to paint us as extremists, and to bring up irrelevant points or argument (but Bush supports a Jewish state, how could he be like Hitler? But Hitler was a pagan and Bush is a "good Christian"?)

I agree with the posters who say that a better comparison would be Mussolini, but I still wanted to get a feel for what DUers think of the Bush-Hitler comparison...

Im actually suprised to see the overall opinion so far is less radical than I expected (and glad to see it too).

Though I believe Bush is employing most of the techniques of fascism, comparing him to Hitler is just inflammatory. Not that comparisons don't exist, but as you said, they tend to be sloppy and bring attention away from the true matters at hand.

The important thing is that this administration shows all the indications of despotism (indeed, more than just warning signs by now), and must be stopped.

This "Loyalty Day" thing is just another FLASHING RED LIGHT that should help us maintain our vigilance and sense of the current danger and the importance of the task at hand.

Hitler just happens to be the most well known - untill now.

While I think Bush has some fascist tendencies (or corporatist; same thing, essentially, but it doesn't immediately turn people off when you say it, and you get an opportunity to explain what you mean), I think comparing him to Hitler or calling him a Nazi only turns off the very people you're trying to reach.

http://www.couplescompany.com/Features/Politics/Structure3.htm

There certainly are some elements of the 14 points of fascism that fit our government. I'm not sure how the WWII administrations would have fared under that list, to be fair.

And I'm sure there are some holocaust survivours that would agree too.

identify an "enemy" scare the populace into false patrioitism - create a phony war (remember poland?)divide the population into patriots and unpatriotic - remove civil liberties and then the sky is the limit.

any bush has done or will do..and stalin tops them all.stalin murdered an estimated 20-25 million people during his life

in fact he barley reads at all(though he claims to read the bible).

about how Hitler used totalitarian methods to consolidate power and how Bush uses some of the same methods to accomplish same; I think it bad strategy to compare the two.
Bush would more be a blend of Africaneer and boss Tweed with a twist of Mark Hanna. I think it best we inform the citizenry about the Patriot Act, Diebolt, and Katherine Harris' disenfranchising black voters over call Bush Hitler.
That would have a greater impact over name calling.

and Eva Braun was much hotter than Condoleeza Rice. But other than that...

Everytime you compare him to Hitler, everyone rises to his defense and begins reciting the reasons why he is not Hitler. Some of those points you have to concede. Not that I think Bush isn't evil, but he isn't Hitler and I don't think it is a good idea to give the other side an opportunity to defend him.

* is more like a Baby Doc, or a Mussolini

Never thought Hitler was a puppet. And I don't think anyone ever thought that Hitler was not really in charge.

And Hitler wrote a book.

Basically, Bush is inferior even as a monster.

by allowing him to portray his critics as a bunch of crazies.

or ineffective "strategy" using this comparison much or pushing this argument in debate with our enemies, because it is considered just inflammatory and people just shut off their minds to the debate.

But as a matter of historical analysis and looking at ourselves as a nation and a people, exploring this comparison is important. There is a tendency among Americans, perhaps many posting here on this thread, to assume as a matter of first principle, that "it couldn't happen here" (Nazi despotism, genocide, the whole lot). Perhaps some of those same people would also have thought it impossible, a month ago, that they might be seeing photos of POWs held by the U.S. stripped naked, with electrical wires attached to their hooded bodies, pointed to by their leering captors.

But you can explore around the edges of that comparison. Would it be possible for a government to exploit the destruction of a building and use this as a rallying point to gather all power to itself? To push fear and propaganda to convince its populace to support invasions of other countries that had not attacked it? Has such a thing happened in recent world history? Do we see the signs?

It doesn't mean the historical road leads down the same path, but we don't want to go down it too far and find out. So, while I wouldn't necessarily push this argument, depending on whom I was speaking to, I think it would be a terrible mistake to ignore the lessons of this history.

It's true.

Bush's administration is about crony capitalism mixed with aggressive nationalism. It's got imperial aspirations. Sound familiar?

Bush and his administration live in a different world than Adolph Hitler lived in, and they approach their agenda in somewhat different ways. But the agenda is very similar, and the dangers are very similar.

I agree that it's not a good sell, but that doesn't change the fact that it's true.

are doomed to repeat it."

Being afraid to draw comparisons between 1933-1939 Germany
and current day America is foolish.

Hitler and the Nazis didn't begin their wholesale extermination
of the 'impure' until 1942, with the Wannsee Conference that
formalized "The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem."

If we do not stop the Bush criminals, they will take us to something
just as horrible. You can count on it.

.
.
.


“Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951” - Federal Documents

By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

MORE

And almost half the USA wants to RE-ELECT Bush?

We are in trouble indeed.
Be afraid.

Be VERY afraid.

Hitler was actually elected..

That is one of many differences between shrub and hitler.

"Bush is Not a Nazi - So Stop Saying That.."
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/bushnonazi.html

Because those (and a few others) are the folks that are driving this...

Of course it was in an admiring and complimentary way. Drudge excerpting from Woodward's book, "Bush At War":

ROVE THOUGHT POST-9/11 WORLD SERIES GAME LIKE NAZI RALLY

"The president emerged wearing a New York Fire Department windbreaker. He raised his arm and gave a thumbs-up to the crowd on the third base side of the field. Probably 15,000 fans threw their arms in the air imitating the motion.

He then threw a strike from the rubber, and the stadium erupted. Watching from owner George Steinbrenner’s box, Karl Rove thought, It’s like being at a Nazi rally." (p. 277)

http://www.drudgereport.com/wood.htm (emphasis added).

That is some sick shit...and it seems like the Nazi correlation gave Rove a big, rubbery boner.

Actually, I read somewhere that Rove's family name is actually Röverer and it was changed because of the direct Nazi lineage. Can anyone verify?

Hitler came from a humble background and fought for his country. He was also a riveting public speaker.

But it's quite instructive to study Hitler's rise to power. How can a civilized, educated country fall victim to tyranny?

It can't happen here?

GWB is a walking, breathing, speaking model of everything that is wrong with America. But he is not, yet, trying to eradicate an entire race of people based on his perceived racial "superiority."

I would rather compare Bush to Nero, or maybe to King John.

Oh, wait...

:P

"But Bush hasn't exterminated 6 million people!"

Two points:
1. "YET".

And

2. By the comparative time-line, we are still in the mid-1930's. Hitler hadn't killed 6 million by 1936, either.

cancelled the election for Chancellor, banned political opposition parties, threw their elected representatives out of the Reichstag, threw their leaders in Dachau, and murdered any of his own party who spoke against him.

Yup, the resemblences are uncanny.

Personally, I like to think Bush is most easily compared to Joe DiMaggio. Now you might say that there's no way because Bush has never hit in 56 consecutive games. My answer to that will be ...

YET !!

Tell me again how there's no comparison after we're all in the 14th year of George Bush's Martial Law.

Just keep telling yourself it's gonna be all right...whatever lets you sleep and blissfully consume...Bet there were plenty of people like you in 1930's Europe who thought that Hitler guy was a joke....

Your statement about Joe Dimaggio makes about as much sense as saying Bush can be compared to AHH-nuld. Sure, just get frat boy in the gym 6 days a week and pump him full of 'roids and he too can be Mr. Universe, right?

:kick:

As Arianna Huffington said recently at a book reading when someone at the mic compared Bush to Hitler (or Repubs to Nazis - I can't remember the precise quote) - she said that we don't even have to go there (with the name-calling) because the FACTS are on our side. I agree wholeheartedly.

Hitler also was the actual boss.

Hitler wasn't a fundie.

Other than that . . . pretty similar.

In fact, we should be quite persistent in pointing out some of the differences. For example,

* Hitler was a decorated veteran of World War I. Bush went AWOL from his national guard duties in Alabama during the Vietnam war.

* Hitler was appointed Chancellor because his Nazi party won an election. Bush was appointed president in spite of losing an election.

* The Weimar Republic (pre-Hitler Germany) was still recovering from impoverishment due to the tolls laid upon it after WWI; Hitler leveraged economic resentment and racial pride in his rise to power. Pre-bush USA was fantastically wealthy; bush leveraged economic apathy and racial pandering in his rise to power.

Etcetera.

<snip>
The Fernald School, and others like it, was part of a popular American movement in the early 20th century called the Eugenics movement. The idea was to separate people considered to be genetically inferior from the rest of society, to prevent them from reproducing.

Eugenics is usually associated with Nazi Germany, but in fact, it started in America. Not only that, it continued here long after Hitler's Germany was in ruins.

At the height of the movement - in the ‘20s and ‘30s - exhibits were set up at fairs to teach people about eugenics. It was good for America, and good for the human race. That was the message.

But author Michael D'Antonio says it wasn't just a movement. It was government policy. "People were told, we can be rid of all disease, we can lower the crime rate, we can increase the wealth of our nation, if we only keep certain people from having babies," says D’Antonio.
<more>
http://truthout.org/docs_04/050404C.shtml

I guess Hitler did the best he could to fulfill the blueprint. Will they ever give up?

pretzels. Bush doesn't have a moustache and ...

...the shrub is far more evil.

Both are Despots; they are anti-democratic.

But any despotic regime wants things that the people don't want, and the people are in fact not entire powerless, so the leaders have to do things so that they can get away with it. What they can get away with depends on cultural and political circumstances of the time; they have to adapt strategy and tactics to the situation at hand.

In this day and age a western government could not get away with simply confiscating all media, so they get where they want via a different route: get corporations to own the media, and corporations are buddies with government. The end result is in essence the same as Hitler's state-controled media. What we now call (right-wing) media-bias used to be called propaganda and censorship.

Nor could the hardliners within the republican party get away with just outright killing all their Democrat opponents, no matter how much they'd like to. So a few get suicided, others get bribed, intimidated, and quite a few were republican agents to begin with.

All things fascism, totalitarianism, dictatorship etc, are just forms of despotism.

Highly recommended educational movie on despotism by Encyclopaedia Britannica (1946):
http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=prelinger&collectionid=00178