Bush/Hitler/ Stalin and other dictators....

I read another line of posts comparing Bush to Hitler and a variety of reasons why we should or should NOT take this tack in being critical of Bush and his policies.

1. We shouldn't compare Bush to Hitler because Bush has not built and filled death camps.

My question to that - is twofold....what about Guantanamo or all the various prison camps spread across Iraq and Afghanistan? And - at what point do you declare these particular prison camps evil and those particular prison camps beneficial? Torture? Random killings? Imprisonment based on race, religion or tribe???
Well - I am sorry, but we are already there - we DO torture, we DO random killings and we DO imprison Sunni's just because they are Sunni. We imprison family members of known Saddam associates in the hopes that the associates will turn themselves in. So, in essence, we are talking about degrees of evilness - Hitler massacred millions whilst Bush has killed hundreds of thousands.

2. We shouldn't compare Bush to Hitler because we have a democracy and it protects us from creating dictatorial leaders bent on world domination.

The US currently dominates world affairs with its military and economic strength. On a personal level, I feel there is a group of individuals who control the backroom dealings of the White House and Bush is a puppet to their machinations...so whomever is elected after Bush will continue the policies of a US hegonomy.

3. Hitlers grand mistake was his policies of genocide, but that was not his only defining precipt of facsism. Corporatism is perhaps a better definition whereas corporations define policy for the betterment of their agenda of profit. And this is where Bush defines himself almost verbatim to Hitler.

So, while there are definately differences between the two leaders, there are also stark revelant similarities that should strike concern and fear into every human being on the planet.

We did not condemn the nazi's after world war 11 for failing to win the war. We condemned them for starting it in the first place. The disregard of international law, the Geneva conventions and other treaties designed to avert war should be regarded with grave concern for humanity in general.

There, now I will get off my soapbox and don a flamesuit.

My argument to that point (someone was trying to make it to me not long ago), we have one party controlling all branches of government...that in itself is no longer a democracy...One party control is what we had in USSR, and what they have in China (and what they had in Nazi Germany).

USA hasn't had that for five years.

"Our Secretary of Defense, for instance, evidently can't tell the difference between working at his "stand-up desk" in the Pentagon at the pinnacle of power, with endless aides at his beck and call, and a humiliated prisoner standing in an interrogation cell, helpless and without hope, sleepless, possibly naked, in an endless twilight of detention, with that board and that tub of water down the hall, with threatening dogs nearby, with the strobe lights going and the music blaring. This is moral obtuseness on a global scale worthy of an ancient Mongol khan."

With the new cabinet Bush is putting in place, Rumsfeld, Gonzales and oh what's his name, the new head of Homeland Security, the face Bush is presenting to the world is "the face of torture."

that by comparing B*sh to Hitler is hurting our argument> I bet if that person was an American Muslim that was or is illegally jailed for their race they would feel different!!! Also how many have we pit in jail in Iraq and Gitmo that are innocently imprisoned??? B*sh is following in Adolf's footsteps. Hitler also portrayed that he was religious, and also B*sh's Grandfather had factories in Germany that were operating even after Hitler had started his extermination of Jews, how disgusting that there is so a close family connection to Hitler.

plus - we don't know how many are killed. They have such a lockdown on the press - another Nazi thing - that we may not know for awhile how bad it all is.

The shooting (by the tank) of the journalist's hotel was a clue.

People seem to have forgotten how to express ideas in this country.

The reason Hitler is a good reference point is simple, everyone knows who he is and has some knowledge of what happened in nazi germany.

There is nothing wrong with using his actions as a point of reference. And comparing the two is not suggesting they are the same and should never be taken as such.

Why should we avoid using the best examples to teach people about the wrongs of our society? Who benefitsn from that exactly? And since when did we forget the lesson of the Nazi's which is not forgetting that it CAN happen.

people whose positions and circumstances were more similar.
I think the Hitler yardstick is just way too far into left field and beyond to make any constructive headway with convincing moderates of the problems with Bush.

Im sorry but if people are too ignorant to understand what a comparison is, is there really a point in trying to reason with them?

The right comparison depends on what you are trying to explain. The right comparison is the one that best illustrates your point, be it a reference to nazi's or nixon. Im sorry but it is simply unacceptable that the right wing can build up a wall around German history.

Hitler was real. Naziism happened. It is just as relevent and appropriate as any other portion of history. It is also the only place one can find commonly understood examples of the corruption of modern democratic republics.

And your idea of citing reagan and nixon is rediculous. If someone has an objective enough understanding of history to recognize the flaws and corruption of nixon and reagan, you dont need to sell them on liberal ideas.

Someone who doesnt know these things doesnt know them about nixon and reagan either. You need to use the example of one of the few times where a leader went so far that everyone could finally see the evil. Hitler.

Not only that but the gravity of what happened with the Nazi's made it the intellectual focal point of a generation of thinkers. By classifying the Nazi comparisons as too controversial to use you are cancelling out large swaths of modern philosophy that was centered around understanding what happened and avoiding it in the future. That is reckless and stupid.

Give them a chance to get their mind around it.
For one thing, the context of Hitler was completely different- 1930's post WWI Germany was like another planet altogether from now. We are not in the same economic wasteland they were in. It also was far more homogenous a society than now, so you can't assemble the same block of racists here that he could- people here simply have far too diverse views and interests to do so.

But no matter- whatever his psychological profile vs. Hitler, Bush simply is on an altogether different boat than the one Hitler occupied, and he has neither the means nor opportunity to do what Hitler did.

giving them a chance to wrap their mind around it?

Of course there are differences, that is the point. It was a COMPLETELY different situations. Thats why it is useful for comparisons in the first place.

A comparison is when you take two different things and show how in some aspect they are similar. It can be limited to just one aspect and it is still a perfectly reasonable comparison.

Your argument is against equivelence, not comparison.

Of course they are in different boats, everyone is. No one has ever argued that Bush is the same as hitler. Why does everyone think that comparisons imply equivelence?

The #1 similarity imo is WAR OF AGGRESSION. What the Nuremburg Tribunal called "the supreme crime".

And bush's invasion & occupation of Iraq IS a WAR OF AGGRESSION. There can be NO doubt of that; they were NOT attacking us or anyone else, they were NOT threatening us or anyone else.

NO difference whatsoever between Hitler's invasion & occupation of Poland, and bush's invasion & occupation of Iraq. None.

with the exception of the die hard bush haters it doesn't do anything but polarize and push people away

i used to make the comparisons until i realized how stupid they sounded

i don't think bush is inherently evil, or that he sits in the white house and comes up with ways to make all of his friends a bunch of money...i believe that he thinks what he is doing is right and just and good in the eyes of god...he guided by blind, ignorant faith, not pure unadulterated evil

He didn't sit around thinking up ways to make his pals richer, and he too thought he was doing right and just and good.

Right now I bet we have 30% of Americans perfectly willing to "kill all Muslims". I also bet, had bush framed it that way after 911, you could have had 50% or more of Americans perfectly willing to "kill all Muslims".

And when we're attacked again, and if it's framed as "Muslims = evil terra-ists", then we will see a US majority thinking it perfectly fine to "kill all Muslims".

And then we will have the death camps and the genocide.

We are walking the path Nazi Germany walked. And if we keep on this path, we will be Nazi Germany. And THAT is something Americans should be talking about; the rest of the world certainly is.

have you read mein kampf? hitler had a plan

you are doing nothing with this comparison but making the rest of us look like the "crazy leftists" that the media tells everyone we are

MY opinion is we are indeed walking the Nazi Germany path. I don't give a damn what that makes "the rest of us look like" to rightwing fascists bushbots; fact is, it IS being widely discussed in the world and I will continue to partake in that discussion.

Should we just wait until we have death camps? When Gitmo's execution chambers are finished, will that death camp be enough for comparison?

Read PNAC; bush also has a plan, and it has nothing to do with any "faith".

Germany, 1930s; that's very similiar to where we are right now. And I, for one, prefer NOT to wait until we edge ever closer to Germany 1940s before speaking of the similarities between bush and Hitler, and there ARE similarities.

As much as I disagree with the way this country was tricked into the illegal invasion of Iraq, to say that this is the beginning of a plot for total world domination and genocide is just plan crazy.

That's been taken as a given for his plan from the start. Go read his own speeches; he makes it very clear what his plan is, and you bet it's for America's domination over the world.

And you've not yet read PNAC, have you.

Genocide is just "collateral damage".

Genocide was/is not the goal. World domination is the goal. And the US manitaining its alpha position on global matters at whatever cost, whether it be human lives, economic or whatever.

But here is the trully sad thing. Bush HAD his chance in the days immediately following September 11 to really make a difference. He HAD world unity for probably the first time in modern human history...and he BLEW IT with his arrogent - " you are either with us or with the terrorists" speech.

Trying to think what it compared to, all I could think of was watching a man holding the winning lottery ticket for $50 million pull out his lighter and burn the ticket to ashes.

And that doesn't come anywhere near close to what bush blew.

The entire frigging world -Castro, China, even Hussein- offered us condolences and help fighting terrorism, and bush blew them all off.

We were THE most-loved nation in the entire world and we could have become The Knight In Shining Armor for all human time with what we could have accomplished.

We could have WALKED the American TALK of freedom and liberty and integrity, taken the moral high road, been that "shining beacon" and that "city on the hill".

But instead, bush blew it all on bully arrogant belligerance and showed the entire world what a total SHAM America's "liberty" and "freedom" and "integrity" and "morality" really is. Now we're the most hated nation in the world, and our "president" is seen by the world majority as the biggest threat to world peace.

As author Margaret Atwood so aptly put it in April 2003;

If you proceed much further down the slippery slope, people around the world will stop admiring the good things about you. They'll decide that your city upon the hill is a slum and your democracy is a sham, and therefore you have no business trying to impose your sullied vision on them. They'll think you've abandoned the rule of law. They'll think you've fouled your own nest.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0404-07.htm

Too late.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Im sorry that your comparisons involving hitler were stupid, but you can make perfectly intelligent comparisons to hitler. And hey, some people cant be reasoned with in this way. Which is understandable, but our goal should be to educate them, not silencing ourselves to respect thier ignorance.

Your thing about evil is horribly wrong. Hitler was a man, not a demon. Nazi Germany wasnt an example of corruption destroying democracy and opening the window to tyranny, not an example of some magical evil force.

The issue isnt evil, it is the protection of our rights from powermongers who would bring down our government and impose thier will. Because once you are in that position, its just a matter of time before a madman gets into the drivers seat.

by accusing me of being unable to make intelligent comparisons

i'm saying they were stupid comparisons because they do absolutely nothing

i also enjoy you telling me what i do and don't want to believe

i KNOW hitler was human and that's what makes his actions all the more horrifying. i could accept what happened if he was some "demon possessed by magical evil" but the fact that he was just a human is much more terrifying

if you believe that comparing george bush to adolf hitler will help the progressive cause, then don't let me stop you. but are you too blinded by your hatred for bush to see that comparing him to arguably the worst dictator in modern history (i know others have been worse but he's the most recognizable) is going to do nothing but push otherwise persuadable individuals further and further away from you?

it is, i believe, a lost cause, and a plain stupid one at that

You are the one who inferred that because all of your arguments seemed bad to you that all arguments involving hitler must be bad. If you are going to argue that, you cant be upset when someone points out the obvious flaw in your reasoning.

The comparisons dont do absolutely nothing. They do absolutely nothing when the person you are talking to A. doesnt understand them or B. Wont listen to them

Certainly when faced with that a new tactic is neccessary, communication requires understanding and listening, but the problem in those cases is with the person, not the argument. The argument is still sound and can be used in other situations, and these people need to be reached somehow and brought to the point where they listen and can understand the concepts we are discussing.

Here is the place where you are painfully wrong. Understanding what is really going on in America REQUIRES that you be able to think rationally enough to be able to handle these comparisons.

So of course, when talking with someone, you must reach them with language they understand, but if people are going to refuse to open thier minds up to considering very new ideas, you wont convince them of anything anyway so why do you care?

I am not going limit my discourse on a forum full of liberals so as not to upset people who already hate me and refuse to listen to me and will probably never give me a chance.

i used the exact same arguments as everyone else on here has, but i stopped because it is stupid to make the comparison, as i have stated.

if you want to go on yammering about bush and hitler until your face turns blue then go right ahead, i in the meantime will be working on making this country turn blue in 2008

real nice.

If you need to lie to yourself, and pretend that the comparison is stupid to keep yuorself from making it in front of the wrong people, fine, but dont tell me that I cant talk about here on DU.

I dont want to go yammering about anything. I want to be free to cite the greater portion of 20th century thought on morality and government which all arose from analyzing Nazi Germany.

Heck even our international law comes mainly from dealing with the situations that arose from the Nazi's. Its impossible to discuss what is happening in our country without citing the Nazi's and the right wing knows that, and they use you as a tool to censor us.

I dont want to be stifled on democratic underground becase you are deathly afraid of someone who disagrees with us as a matter of religion taking things out of context.

Why you insist on acting like I am saying somethning unreasonable I do not understand.

may even seem tautological to us, but the problem is that in general consumption amongst the general public it is NOT constructive in advancing the debate. People hear Bush = Hitler and they immediately turn off and tune out because they immediately assume you are overreaching.
Mention Hitler and you end the debate. Very destructive to our cause in the end.

not because of what we say.

The destruction was done by the dumbing down of public debate in this country to the point where referencing eurpoean history is considered off limits.

And there are two different issues here.

1. Should you use Hitler as your argument to convince a Bushy.

2. Is it appropriate in any situation.

If you think that no, it isnt a good selling line, but yes it is approrpriate to compare them in an intelligent discussion we dont disagree at all.

The the question is, can we use it on a public message board supposedly for liberal discussion. I say yes. We cant stifle our discussion because people who hate us can twist our words.

I will continue to proudly reference history on democratic underground from any time in history I choose. Censoring ourselves on our own discussion forum because the right can spin our words to sound really bad isnt an option in my book.

And I think discussing freely here does our movement more good than trying to not annoy arch conservatives who spend most of thier time trying to find somethign about us to be annoyed by.

http://semiskimmed.net/bushhitler.html

amongst... http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Bush+Hitler&btnG=Google+Search

mispost

of whom there are more than a few in my environs, who LIVED the horror and who seem... well... "relieved" to be asked to recount their stories candidly to their American neighbor, say things like, "I will die soon, may what I know never be buried with my body," who FIERCELY defended America until the Iraq invasion, start FREAKING OUT at what they are seeing and making "comparisons," or more accurately DARK PREDICTIONS, I would think it W-A-Y past time to SHUT UP AND LISTEN CAREFULLY.

The right is trying to bury history and some on the left want to go along with it.

It was common knowledge after WW2 that the world had to know what happened and had to be dillegent to make sure similar things never happened again. It would be irresponsible of us to not explore that comparison.

Noone does anything that they consider evil.

And Bush is not driven by anything except the PNAC.

Cheney is....

Bush is the idiotic front man.

who rose from obscurity.

He had nowhere near the means in life that the silver spoon coke monkey has.

Imagine what Bush could be if his morans of murika clan rose up to back him...is that why he is trying his damnedest to creat such poverty, so they will?

but just bc there isn't a difference doesn't mean that there isn't a comparison, as someone else upthread said.

another major difference: hitler was actually extremely extremely charismatic and intelligent. bush is a fucking chimp. (i'm not saying hitler wasn't a bad man, far from it...but you can't ignore the fact that hitler was a fucking genius)

Bush is just a puppet figurehead who has the personality that appeals to the massive population of US mongoloids. While he's up there repeating the words "Terror" and "Freedom" in every sentance, the PNAC is able to do their work. The PNAC is comprised of some very-very intelligent, though insane, members who hold an incredible amount of power.

This President thing is just an ego boost for an incredibly stupid man who has failed at practically everything.

Why else is he sent away to his ranch whenever something critical is going on in the world and he's in danger of saying something stupid.

i didn't mean that bush wasn't backed by some very scary and intelligent people, i just meant that all hitler needed was muscle in his rise to power...he had the intelligence

Maybe the Hitler comparison's should be to Cheney!

The parallels between el Bushe and el Duce are actually pretty readily apparent, not least in this creepy cult of personality that's growing up around him. I was at a state fair this summer, and walked past the state Republicans' booth. People were lining up to buy framed photographs of el Bushe. That gave me the chills. How far from that until every public place is required to have a statue of Our Great Leader?

He's got more than a little in common with Kim in Korea, too. <shudder>

A friend of mine wrote this awhile back: As for me, I will live as I have always lived and keep in mind the lessons passed on by my family...if that blue zone around this state disappears, I'm out of here because the ones in my family who ignored the creeping stench of Fascism are now buried in a mass grave in Croatia called Jasenovac. The rest died in the 90's war between Serbia and Croatia. The ones who were called paranoid and stupid are here now and alive.

Kick

still support his actions. Just as the Germans did in the 30's and forties.

Read Thom Hartmann's When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0316-08.htm

After reading, come back here and discuss why comparisons between Hitler's Germany and bush*s NeoCons are invalid.

BTW:
Pandora's Box HAS been Opened!
The Cat is OUT of the BAG!
The Taboo is Broken!
The Verboten is rescinded!


This picture and article appeared in a MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPER!

Minneapolis Star Tribune (last week)


Direct comparisons of Hitler and bush* are now MAINSTREAM!

in the images of death camps, genocide, gas chambers, and efficient, deadly murder of millions of jews - that we forget to see other striking similarities of Germany/1930's to USA/2000.

We seem so fixated on this one horrible aspect of Hitler, that we cannot see past it and cannot recognize the whole of Hitler's rule.

It is as if Bush is at war with Roosevelt. At war with the New Deal. Clearly he sides with corporations at every turn. Clearly corporations benefit at the expense of the middle class. Clearly, the corporations are profiting from the Bush wars whilst the poor, the young and the elderly are being asked to pay the price, bear the burden and carry the costs.

OMG. that is fucking scary.

that link is the scariest thing i've ever seen. are people dumb? blind? deaf?

yea, looks like it. we have our very own fuhrer now!

fuck. i wanna go study abroad NOW! germany sounds good. anyone with me for germany?