Someone Tell Me WHY I Am Not Allowed to Compare Fascist McCain Tactics to Nazis?

We had a kind of early fascism in America long before Mussolini and Hitler came to power in Europe. Business prospered in this country, because wealthy factory owners were able to exploit freed slaves and recently arrived immigrants and women, paying these groups low wages and using them for scab labor to bust unions. By pitting the better off white male citizen workers against the impoverished, disenfranchised workers, the bosses kept their employees divided and conquered---and they made sure that their own profits were high. They also kept their own hand picked politicians in office where they could write laws and appoint judges that would always favor the business owner and not the laborer---and they could still call this a democracy, because the people were duped into voting against their self interests. The farther south you went, the more this was true, but it happened all over.

Whenever the greed of the owner and investor class caused the economic foundations of the country to get shaky, the oppressed became a convenient scapegoat. “It’s the Italians! They’re to blame for taking all the jobs and driving down your wages!” or “Blame the Blacks who moved north after cotton prices bottomed out! If you want to do something about it, I have an organization for you.” The KKK had millions of members in the U.S. by the 1920s, and it flourished all over the country, not just in the South. It even had its own hit movie, The Birth of a Nation aka The Clansmen . For those who haven't seen the over the top portrayal of the KKK in this silent era film, here is snippet available at YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qaim-7wvOJU&feature=related

Some people seem to think that it is only fascism if you wear leather boots, march in formation and sing a song in a foreign language. Not true. The message in Birth of a Nation was southern fried fascism.

What exactly is fascism? Here is the simplest statement of fascist principles I have ever read. During WWII, Hitler issued this call for better propaganda to get the Germans behind the war effort:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/der-ewige-jude/tampa-19970302.shtml



What? What can’t go on like this? . That last line is very important in understanding fascism. Fascism comes in as many different flavors and forms as there are countries and economies that have flirted with it. However, if you understand what Hitler meant by that last part, you understand how it works.



American style fascism----which Germany and Italy copied----takes the economic hardship of the working class and uses it to divide and conquer those workers to control them for the benefit of the elite. In contrast , socialism and communism take advantage of economic crisis to unify workers so that they seize control of their economic destinies. Engels said of the United States that it would never have a socialist workers revolution as long as the capitalists could continue to exploit the latest wave of immigrant workers, to keep wages low and workers divided. This pattern continues to this day. Look at how the Republicans have attempted to exploit the same Latino immigrant workers that their corporate donors invite into the country. Watch the way they continue to deny women equal pay for equal work and the lengths they will go to in order to make people Fear the Black Man.

The latest Fear the Black Man atrocity came straight from the John McCain 2008 campaign, when Texan Ashley Todd carved a B on her own face and then proclaimed that the mythical “six foot four African-American male” bogey man did it. Go back to the Paxton definition of fascism. She pretended that she was a victim of a humiliating attack that was aimed at her for being part of the white community of Republicans who are supporting John McCain and Sarah Palin. The attack was meant to sully the purity of the “white race” since it was sexual in nature.

This lead John Moody of Fox News to write



http://foxforum.blogs.foxnews.com/author/johnmoody/

Say what? Obama was in Hawaii. He can't be the six foot four Black man. That makes no sense----unless you are poised upon the edge of fascism and all it will take is one final humiliation one last assault on the purity of your community for you to start acting like this voter in Wisconsin. He has descended into true jackbooted fascist thuggery, a political state of mind in which society’s laws and normal rules of human decency no longer matter. He is proof that the McCain-Palin “Palling Around With Terrorists” Fascism Tour of America is achieving results.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-wi-campaignattack,0,815315.story



You can tell when the fascists are at work, because the trains run on time and yet it isn't safe to walk the streets or even go to church if you are a member of a minority group. Targeted chaos. Ugly splotches of hatred and violence amidst all the patriotism and solidarity. You can also tell when the hate right is in charge, because the press reports on the weakest stories involving minority villains as if they just have to be true, even if a story has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

Take the case of Ashley Todd. One of the staples of literature and reality TV is the troubled young woman who carves letters on her face, but because she does it using the aid of a mirror, she gets them backward. Everyone knows that one. Presumably that is why John Moody covered his professional ass by adding:



Race-baiting? That is a polite term for it. Back in the 1930s, when a woman tried to keep herself out of trouble with the law by accusing nine young Black men, one only twelve years old, of rape, it was attempted murder.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_acct.html

In the link above, you can read the whole depressing story about the so called “Scottsboro Boys”, the men and boys who were imprisoned for years on the word of a proven liar when the medical evidence showed no rape, testimony by witnesses told of no rape, and even the accuser contradicted herself. The two children spent their adolescence in jail awaiting re-trials on capital murder charges, not knowing whether or not they would be sent to the electric chair---all because the state of Alabama had a vested interest in making African-Americans seem scary and in perpetuating the system which allowed only whites to serve on juries and which always favored a white over a Black in any dispute. How else were the farm owners and business owners going to keep their unskilled, low wage workers upon whom the Southern agricultural economy depended?

Tellingly, it was the American Communist Party that came to the defense of the Scottsboro men and children, I guess because communists can see through bullshit issues like race and religion that the bosses use to divide the working class. Or maybe because people hated communists so much, they figured they couldn’t be hated anymore than they already were for taking the case.

We have a funny kind of double standard in this country. McCain and Palin can run around calling Obama-Biden, who are moderate, corporate Democrats socialists and communists in order to scare the Republican base. However, when Palin and some of her supporters start using tricks straight out of the Nazi playbook, we are not supposed to talk about it. Why the hell not? The Bush Family, along with the Morgan family (whose mortgage house and bank just happens to be one of the select few chosen to be rescued) were big political and financial backers of Hitler. They tried to stage a right wing, military coup against FDR who, along with Churchill and Stalin, was one of the anti-fascists of the 1930s. Had they succeeded, the present world order might be completely different. Sometimes, I think that they have not given up their plans.

Take for instance the seemingly coordinated effort to make it appear that a( six foot four inch) African American male sexually assaulted a white female McCain worker in western Pennsylvania. The McCain campaign could not wait to peddle that story to the press.

Who else used to incite fear in the masses by claiming that the enemy of the state was perverted and obsessed with the women of the dominant social group? From The Eternal Jew the propaganda film which Goebbels produced in response to Hitler’s call for something to get German’s motivated for war, go to 9:00, the part where it says “The Jew is instinctively interested in everything abnormal and deprived” and watch the Nazi’s depiction of Jewish rapists and child molesters.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbeAqNLXhhQ&feature=related

The McCain campaign’s number one message this year has been Fear . Fear change. Fear Blacks. Fear Muslims. The video which has invaded the homes of voters in swing states, Obsession with its anti-Islam message is designed to incite fear of all things Islamic---including the Democratic nominee with his foreign sounding name and his Muslim family members. It may be responsible for a gas attack on sleeping children at a mosque in Dayton, Ohio.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-rodda/muslim-children-gassed-at_b_130076.html

Guess that makes two instances of jackbooted fascist thuggery we can chalk up to the McCain-Palin Campaign.

Here is the mini version of Obsession (not the full length documentary) that was mailed out to unsuspecting voters in swing states :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVXJaqcoC7k&feature=related

Try to ignore the gratuitous use of action-suspense background music which is out of place with the documentary style footage. Yes, it completely destroys the reality effect. So, why did they use it? Because you have to scrape the bottom of the barrel when you want to make The Path to 9/11 or Obsession . Skilled filmmakers have better things to do with their time than make cheesy propaganda films. First we see testimonials about Islam being a religion which preaches the need for world domination. This is followed by a long series of gruesome video images of human casualties of violent accidents or terrorist acts. Lots of blood, lots of bandages, lots of human misery, lots of finger pointing but no compassion. Compassion would give people hope and this video is not about hope, it is about fear.

Now, compare this piece pf political fear mongering from the Republicans to the last and most infamous portion of The Eternal Jew . Goebbels’ film is a masterpiece compared to the more recent video. He maintains the illusion of journalistic/documentary accuracy by avoiding the temptation to incorporate a dramatic soundtrack. At the beginning of this final film clip, he shows Jewish people in a synagogue. The voice over pretends to describe Jewish biblical teaching, which, we are told, promises that all but the Jewish people will be wiped from the face of the earth. “God’s anger is upon them and he say’s ‘Even the best among them will I kill.’” And “The Lord told the Israelites ‘You have made me the one God of the world, and I will make you the only rulers of the world.’” And do not forget “Glory to the eternal one, who reduces the enemies of your people, humbles them and wipes them out that the earth may belong to you alone and your people.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-fUtVK8bAE&feature=related

Oooo. Scary. Sound familiar?

After establishing that The Eternal Jew is secretly plotting to take over the world with his endless wars and banks, Goebbels then uses the ploy of announcing that he will show scenes so shocking that sensitive people should not watch. This ensures that everyone will watch, but if they are upset by what follows, they will not blame the people who made the propaganda (the way many people blamed the McCain Campaign for Obsession ). No, they will blame their Jewish neighbors.

At this point, the audience is treated to many minutes of graphic, gratuitous footage of cows being slaughtered which in some ways are much more shocking than the images in Obsession You get to see the animals eyes in close up as they die. You watch the blood pour from their necks. You observe their death throws. The horror which the audience feels becomes horror at the Jewish butchers who are using kosher methods to slaughter the animals, according to the narrator. For people from the city, whose only contact with a steak comes in the restaurant where it is served on a plate medium rare, any scenes of a dying animal seem barbaric in the extreme. The pity the viewer feels at watching the animals die fuels horror at the callousness and cruelty of their killers.


Obsession is nothing but The Eternal Jew colorized and gimmicked. Even the use of black and white world maps to show the “creeping menace” of Islam’s spread around the world is stolen from the German propaganda film.

We have all seen the ads about Sarah Palin’s brutal treatment of animals. The difference between those and The Eternal Jew is that Palin is one person who has a callous disregard for the lives of wild animals in Alaska. Goebbels attempted to pretend that all Jewish people delighted in the torture of domesticated animals. The ads about Palin sought to educate the public about policies that endangered species like the polar bear. Goebbels film was made in an attempt to give people a reason---- fear ---- to fight harder in their war to conquer the other countries of Europe.



There is another American/German Nazi link that people may not know about. Hitler compares the Germans to the Americans in Mein Kampf . In describing propaganda, he writes that one of the causes of the Germans’ loss of the Great War was the superiority of American and British propaganda.

http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv1ch06.html




And so, Hitler concludes



In other words, he wanted Nazi propaganda to be more like American propaganda. He learned how to appeal to the baser emotions of the masses from the nation which blithely exterminated most of the native peoples which inhabited the continent which it set out to conquer and which, along the way, arbitrarily enslaved one set of immigrants because their skin color set them apart. You know, I think the reason so many people in America get hot and bothered when you start comparing people over here to Nazis is because we may have showed the Nazis a thing or two about how to be fascists.

Check out this video of Goebbels delivering his famous Total War speech to re-energize the Germans after Stalingrad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXXBNyLYXas

Transcript and discussion here:

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb36.htm



And then, consider Sarah Palin addressing a crowd as she campaigns for the almost certain loser John McCain in the bluest of blue states, California.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0N0ErsKVU4



They share a love for fear mongering and dramatic hand gestures, too. And both of them were/are political allies of the Bush family. Just substitute "socialist" for "Bolshevik" and "Muslim" for "Jew" and they could have been separated at birth.

So please do not ask me to stop comparing McCain propaganda techniques with those of the Nazis. I see a lot of similarities between the current American right wing and the German Third Reich.

If there's one thing you're always allowed to do, it's compare somebody you don't like to the Nazis.

a vote to Obama for another holocaust. I'm not kidding.

... he is describing a pattern of behavior and showing it's historical analogy.

Very few statements of 'he's just the Nazis' one encounters on the internet are worth the electron it takes to push them: this one is an exception to that general rule.

An internet meme started by Godwin. A Nazi sympathizer.


Nazi Party flag flown at Godwin's house.

Godwin can go straight to hell.

Unless you are trying to Godwin this thread and shut it down by bringing up Nazi's.... Which is the exception to Godwin's Law.

it's getting somewhat tedious and unoriginal. At this point anytime anyone has a flat tire it can be blamed on the nazi influences in this country. You also shoot yourself in the foot a little, when you start off by saying that fascism had already reared its ugly head before the nazis came into power.

Also, interestingly enough, false accusations have become somewhat more multicultural just in the last month alone.

1. Palos Heights girl ---> "creepy-looking, olive-skinned man (read muslim)
2. Elmhurst student ----> short, white republican dude
3. Ashley Todd ----> big, scary black man

As far as that Obsession flick is concerned, this is the age of television and the internet. That film has been available for viewing on youtube for years now. It's rather tedious as well, and doesn't seem to have been responsible for inspiring violence any more than up-to-the-minute news reports coming from the middle east every day. People are a little more skeptical, cynical perhaps, than the average villager family huddled around the radio one day a week.

That link you provided brings us to an opinion piece filled with conjecture. Following an investigation, there isn't any reason to believe that the supposed violence at that mosque was anything other than an accidental pepper spray incident. The girl described in her police report the alleged perpetrators. If you believe her story, then you have to believe that the people who committed the crime are...

...two, big, scary black men.

ahh - that's clearly BULLSHIT and NOT what we're doing at all - there a TOO MANY valid comparisons to bunker and most all of his fellow repukes to NAZIS!

but you try to be "cute" and "oh so very cleaver" - NOT!

that mcCain is a lesser nazi, if he is a nazi at all.

But in general, I have a hard time thinking the mcCain is anywhere near the class and caliber of nazi as the germans were post WWI. Remember, the great depression was global and Hitler and his gang took advantage of it.

He's far less evil than we have dealt with in the last eight years. His running mate is about at the level of evil of the puppet Bush.

Talking about similar propaganda techniques and the encouragement of a distorted nationalism coupled with fear of others from outside the motherland (read:homeland) doesn't mean that one IS the other, but that one has the potential to BECOME the other.

Please, let's compare them.

I have faith that our troops are not committing atrocities, such as the one in the picture, under the legitimate authority of our government, but we are no doubt VERY close to that. And, certainly there are lots of Americans who call themselves patriots who would participate in and condone such acts.

It is our job to ensure that does not happen. I think McCamy Taylor is right to openly question such distinctions as using the words fascist and nazi to describe some of the actions we are seeing in America and in the name of America in other places in the world.

YOU haven't been paying attention...

There was a build up. There was a day when the average German might have debated the danger the Nazis represented; when there may have been some question whether it was fair to compare the Nazis with some other historically dangerous, xenophobic, jingoistic movement that had led to the slaughter of innocents.

The comparison -- the evaluation of similarities and, by definition, differences between the two -- is absolutely fair. The question for me isn't whether the Neocons are the Nazis, but whether they have the potential to become the Nazis.

I am afraid that we've become the fat, park pigeons in America. That we've been able to waddle around eating popcorn for so long that we've forgotten what danger is. The Neocons may not be danger on the scale of Hitler, Goerring and Goebbles, but it is in our best interest to at least learn to cock our heads to the side, consider the level of threat and then get ready to flap like crazy to save our own asses should the need arise.

Nazism is only the most fanatical form of fascism, just as Pol Pot's ideology was the most fanatical form of Communism, but not all fascists are Nazis, just as not all Communists were followers of Pol Pot.

Democrats and leftists who are disgusted at the Bush administration like to throw the term "Nazi" around, but to the average American, that sounds like hyperbole. Thanks to the History Channel,the typical American associates Nazism with gas chambers and Hitler ranting on the podium, so as long as no one is being rounded up and sent to gas chambers, it's not Nazism, in their mind.

Calling the Republican part "fascist" has two advantages. First of all, it's a broader category than Nazism. Italy was fascist, as were Spain and Portugal and most of Latin America. Prewar Japan was fascist. It can be argued that present-day China is no longer Communist but fascist. The second advantage is that most Americans aren't quite sure what fascist means, so you get to explain it to them. :-)

Confusing Nazis with fascists is almost the same as confusing Communists with Socialists.

the word was used to compare McCain/Palin tactics specifically to Nazi tactics. There are parallels between McCain/Palin and, specifically, the actions of Nazi officials.

It is, in this context, entirely accurate.

the term Nazi does not stand for "the most fanatical form of fascism" or any form of fascism. It is nationalist socialism, with the government controlling the means of production.

America, or what America would be if Republicans get there way, is fascism, with a merger of the corporations and government. Much worse than socialism, but obviously the nationalistic, authoritarian, oppressive, close-minded part of nazism is what makes it so bad.

Businesses, both large and small, were still in private hands, and farms were also privately owned. They gave the businesses contracts to produce weaponry and thus supplied them with money and later, slave laborers, but they never actually OWNED them. Being heartless bastards, as top business executives often are, they were only too glad to accept them.

You know, we could have just as easily ended up associating "nazi-ism" with the general and "fascism" with the specific.

You could just as easily say Prewar Japan was nazi.

Read Umberto Eco on the subject.

Goebbels knew that it would accomplish their evil goal - blame the Poles and give the Wehrmacht a plausible rationale for attacking Poland.

Rove wanted to accomplish the same with B-girl. McCain and Palin BOTH called her to offer their sympathies.

That's NAZI methodology. It can't get clearer.

Thank you for another outstanding post, McCamy Taylor!

Basically.

P.S. Fine work. You're not all-the-way wrong, and anyone clarioning a warning about fascism is a de-facto hero in my book.

He's not Hitler, tho. He's Lindburgh. Henry Ford. Walt Disney. A fascist without an army...it reminds me of an old saying: what do you call a leader with no followers?

A guy taking a walk.

P.S. Vote, and get everyone you know to vote too, so it'll still be someone taking a walk on 11/5/08.

:toast:

Because they have stolen this government's highest office by coup--twice---broken all our laws, taken over the DOJ and used it to persecute our enemies, set up torture camps at home (Gitmo) and abroad (Abu Ghraib and elsewhere), caused the deaths and displacement of millions of Iraqis in the name of freeing them (from their oil so that the United States can acquired said oil and grow stronger, the ultimate fascist excuse for immoral acts) and started the cleansing of Muslims by claiming that their religion requires them to exterminate members of all other religions. And of course, most important of all, they have made the citizens of the US accomplices to these acts of immorality by making it seem impossible for any single man or woman to raise a voice or hand to stop the inhumanity and so the masses are left to acquiesce, reluctantly, their deep misgivings and their sense of shame and guilt so intolerable that when media whores in the press proclaim that this is all being done to keep us safe, the people sigh with relief and say to themselves "Yes, that's it. They are keeping us safe." Fear of the fascist government---Rove/Rasputin---being the ultimate fear driving all the others.

I did not realize you had to succeed with your criminal and inhumane actions in order to be a Nazi. By that definition, Hitler and Associates were not Nazis, because in the end they lost and died. Only the American fascists and their American fascist allies like Franco have been real fascists because they have lived to profit from their crimes . Bush/Cheney and their fascism by steps have been very successful indeed, and I am sure that they are already planning for the next step in the four stage coup that went 1. Nixon, 2. Reagan 3. Bush 4. Something even worse than Bush.

It's an easier process, I grant you.

:shrug:

P.S. Words matter. Your use of "Nazi" is prima facie incorrect, because Nazism was a phenomenon born out of several aspects of German culture, ancient bigotry, economic ruin, and the generalized European mayhem of the day.

"Fascist" is the word you're looking for, but I'm not sure. In my opinion, no word exists to define what these people are, besides "American" and "Free-Marketeer," but those don't carry the proper weight. These guys have fascist blood, and call themselves Republicans, and their both, but also neither. They're something new.

"Nazi" is a shortcut to thinking, a Molotov cocktail of a word, and it doesn't fit.

P.P.S. If memory serves, I paid you a compliment in my post above. Judging by your reaction to said compliment, I'd hate to see how you'd react to someone telling you to go fuck yourself or something.

;)

those propaganda links.

And making me, and at least a few of the people who've ploughed through this thread, think a little bit.

Certainly, it would be extremely difficult to argue your thesis with any member of Ann Presley's family, or anyone who knew the Arkansas Democratic Party guy murdered by that whack-job with all the Hannity/Michael Savage(Wiener) books in his house.

http://www.truecrimereport.com/2008/10/the_anne_pressly_murder_the_co.php

Is there a link?

but the one I put in my post is the best I could find.

not necessarily because of her Ann Coulter role. It's a little early to go there.

squander time that could be used for getting away, on a vicious, physical assault?

That that particular m.o. just happens to fit the "nazi/thug/ruled-by-fear" mentality was proven again, this weekend by the woman who falsely claimed to have been beaten by an Obama supporter. She was the one who carved the backwards-B into her own face, because that's how those people "think."

The peckerwood that shot Arkansas Democratic Party chairman Bill Gwatney this past summer can't be questioned about his motives, but he left behind the shelf full of books by Michelle Malkin and Michael Savage ("Wiener"), as did the *ss wad in Tennessee who shot up the Unitarian Universalist "liberal" church earlier this year:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jonathan-kim/right-wing-tn-church-shoo_b_115789.html

http://discuss.epluribusmedia.net/onward_christian_soldiers_desperate_measures

Don't bother letting facts get in the way. You WANT to believe it was THOSE people, so let's all just promote that endlessly all over the internet. Actually, stalkers do waste time viciously harming their targets, because that's the ultimate point behind their attacks.

That Muslim Elmhurst student falsely claimed recently that a white, squat, bigot attacked her. What kind of THOSE people does she belong to?

That "gassing" at the Dayton mosque has ended up being some non-story about kids playing with pepper spray. I wonder if people would have been rabidly pursuing that random incident if some irresponsible person hadn't implemented a holocaust reference, and comparison of the so-called perpetrators to right-wingers, to sell HER story all over the net. I wonder how many people would've thought twice before calling for extreme vengeance if they realized the child falsely claimed "two scary black men" did it." The OP still includes this stupid story in his post. People ought to take a good look at the pics posted up-thread to find out what the results of a REAL gassing looks like, what the violence really was like, before making incendiary comments and comparisons with nazis.

The references comparing Nazis to republicans have been around for 7 years now. We ALL get it. But only scheeple idiots get all riled up, and approach EVERY incident as some nazi/right wing conspiracy. That's fear-mongering too, in case it escaped you.

people are dead.

They were senselessly, brutally murdered; in Tennessee and twice in Arkansas.

Those are crimes.

That's a pattern of violence.

It's senseless to me to blow gas back and forth, about the rhetorical propriety of when it's OK to use the "N" word, and when it's not, when there's a body count. In all three of the crimes, there's evidence to suggest the victims were targeted on the basis of their "lib'rul," or "democrat," values, or what someone thought they stood for.



I get it that there are some people who have a particular sensitivity to holocaust references, but I don't think it's "incendiary" at all to look at what's been happening in this country, in just the last few months, and talk about the mindset of the perpetrators -- and the wingnut AM radio squawkers, constantly repeating the same talking points, over and over again, that may have played a role.

You forgot to mention Tawana Brawley and the alleged rape hoax some years ago. There's a black high school student in West Bend, WI, too, who recently felt compelled to go to the media about bigotry she was experiencing.

Sure, there's "fear-mongering" and the whole Culture War back-and-forth that's been going on in this country since the 70's.

I wasn't talking about...



I was talking about the Americans who are no longer with us, because they were murdered, in Tennessee and in Arkansas.

In Rwanda, Philip Gourevitch wrote about the direct influence of the radio stations:

http://www.wce.wwu.edu/Resources/NWCHE/reviews/rwanda.shtml



What's the point of recording and remembering history in books, if you don't take the book down from the shelf, once in a while, and have an honest discussion?

...another conversation.

The OP was asking why he shouldn't compare the repubs to nazis. Like some people have posted, my thoughts are, these comparisons have been ongoing for 7 years, so nothing groundbreaking there, not to mention, it's overdone, exaggerated, and many times used to sensationalize a nothing incident or story. Plain old vanilla Fascism is a much more apt description of what's wrong, but it doesn't have the sexiness of evoking visuals of rune-worshiping, decadent, over-the-top-flashy nazis.

I suppose you could make the same comparisons with our situation during the '50s, or the Vietnam days. Our lives seem to be a constant, never ending struggle of holocaust proportions.

And it comes from the other side as well. Like this judge who passed around an email saying Obama was the coming of the next holocaust. Oh brother.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/10/27/politics/main4549733.shtml

everything i have read over the years certainly leads me to believe that the forces of evil will come with different names and leaders but their goals always remain the same. the difference betwen them is the severity of their cruelty to mankind

But the comparison is used so often it has lost a great deal of meaning.

The left says that Bush 1, Bush 2, Reagan, Palin, Mccain are all Nazis. Heck I knew the Republican nominee was going to be a Nazi two years ago. I bet anything the Nominee for 2012 will be one as well.

The right is already saying Obama is, and they continue to repeat it about Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton and any other Democrat they disagree with. Jimmy Carter does seem to get a pass though.

Add in, that mean 10th grade history teacher, that asshole cop, those ass wipes at the DMV and that bastard ex-boyfriend, and hell, this country is overran with Nazis!

SO, we're all allowed to call someone a Nazi, but don't be suprised if it doesn't get the response you hope for.

compare away, I say.
fwiw

Many tactics overlay well.

Right on target. Our leaders would bring us to riot. But this time, to paraphrase Burke: good men are not doing nothing.

Good men are standing up. This time will be different, no matter how much demagoguery we are exposed to. The Republican "brand," a loose coalition of unreasonable repressive Christian conservatives, lawless international corporate mobsters and their bipartisan Congressional tools have succeeded all too well. "Decent working people" are more united than ever before, and we have more to fear from our subversive leaders than from each other. I am optimistic that riots will not break out, no matter how crazed the skinhead militias, no matter how many Ashley Todds try to foment disorder.

A good friend told me that he thought Obama may be the antichrist. I was shocked that he could buy such claptrap. But I have been talking to him about the "Obama is a Muslim" rumors and the other KoolAid that loyal Republicans are being asked to drink. I have tried to explain Democratic progressivism to him, and he soundly rejects health care for all, thinking it is a privilege to be earned. But I would no more question his rabid Libertarian patriotism than he would question mine.

We have both grown up in a racially integrated world where our futures are tied together with those around us in society as a whole. In some ways, he is rightfully fearful of Muslim radicals. In the shadow of what was once the World Trade Center, our conversation ended, we agreed to disagree about our political preferences. We have both been fortunate and done more in our lives for the rightness of racial fairness and equality than we ever set out to do. So, we are brothers in many ways - more ways than we can easily separate. And that, in effect, will prevent us from the fearsome outcome you seem to predict.

If anything, we would riot against the Wall Street tycoons who my friend and I agree have ruined our economy. So far, we have left our ploughshares, pruning hooks and pitchforks at home, but they better resolve our mortgage crisis soon. The violence that McCain Palin would foment may very well crash their own gates.

Nazism took its tactics from the Fascist movement.

Don't know much about Nazis, eh?

It's your opinion... and yes, my mother and family did know nazis. And they agree that the current GOP leadrship is run by those who do use nazi political tactics.

The notion that Republicans = Nazis is silly, wrong, incorrect, and simply ignorant.

Where have you been the last 30 years? Republicans (especially those today in power which are the religious right wing) USE politic tactics just as the Nazis did... did I say they had to throw liberals in an oven. You do realize nazis had more dimension than just heinous murderous acts against Jews, Gypsies and those they felt were not pure enough to be considered German. Their tactics demonstrated, spying, torture, invading countries for geo-political reasons, while politicizing the whole justice system to form a permanent unitary executive... I could go on. I think you are naive and quite ignorant yourself. I think people like you are the reason nazis and right wing racists get into our government...

PS - look at foreign policies the republicans have condoned and orchestrated.... look at how they helped right wing factions wipe out "leftists" in South America.... nevermind what happened in ABu Gharaib. Go look at Iraq and how many innocent civilians have been indiscriminantly blown off the face of this earth. There's your Death Camp.

You think a human that is foreign means anymore to these whackjobs than an American Liberal like me. If they could, they lock my ass up on the slighest excuse, just because of my political persuasion as they did to a fucking Governor.

Please watch Bachmann's slip-up in the media about Anti-Americanisms, and how their staunchest right wing supporters condone terrorism (abortion clinics, muslim churches), racism and even murder on people like me. If they could, I know they would be as sick and twisted as the Nazis because they already do some of this shit to people they love claiming as being the "other", terrorists without a court!

All they need is more power.... but they won't get it, not from me.

The GOP does use political tactics the nazis used in Germany. Family members in Germany know nazisand fascists when they see them.

I also notice the uniform of the 21st century fascist is RED White and Blue!





Supporters, wearing red, white, and blue, sing the National Anthem before the arrival of Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and vice presidential candidate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to a rally of supports at the Green Memorial Field of Green High School in Uniontown, Ohio, Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008.
(AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)


No where near as tony as the SS officers uniforms but it still has the same effect. What will the comrades be wearing next year?


K&R!

And don't forget some 15th century monk had a razor, too.

The world is a complicated place, and one should not imprudently subtract entities from the explanation.

Seriously. Some of the very early Hitler/Goebbels propaganada, when they had no power except words to influence average readers/listeners, consisted (at least in part) of well-crafted arguments which eloquently led an "average" audience from a reasonable common-ground to the absurd.

Have you read the anti-Semitic argument in Mein Kampf? It begins with something like, paraphrasing, "I was, like all civilized people, tolerant of religious differences", "I have always abhorred religious prejudice", "I am a reasonable man who rejected anti-Semitic literature as uninformed nonsense, not worth the trouble to read". Then he carefully lays out his evil argument, step by step.

I don't think the McCain/Palin camp has the intelligence to attempt that level of reasoned argument, much less pull it off. (Not that most people in our nation even have the attention span to bother with reasoned argument anyway -- we're already dumbed down to 30 second visceral "sound bites".)

in Minneapolis who were kicked, beaten, gagged, jailed, and interrogated, then charged with being terrorists.

... jack booted thugs ran free and attacked anyone they wanted to. If you weren't dressed right or happened to turn the wrong corner you were toast. St. Paul STILL smells like pepper spray.

The GOP has outlived its usefulness by about 28 years. It is now a dire threat to democracy and the Constitution of the United States.

The United States is a LIBERAL Country.

:dem:

-Laelth

It's important to talk about both the similarities. While 9/11 may not have been an inside job, it presented the same opportunities as the Reichstag fire. As you pointed out, some of the tactics are the same, the rhetoric is the same, the concerted control of the message is the same.

I say compare all you want. Labeling them Nazis may be a bit of a stretch, but drawing comparisons is a perfectly admirable, maybe even necessary pursuit.

Yeah, you allowed to say it. It's all true.

while Nazism is normally associated with extreme brutality, the roots of Nazism may spring from sources closer to home than any of us would like to consider. No less than the cousin of Francis Bellamy, who created the Pledge of Allegiance, started a "Nationalism" movement with militaristic and authoritarian overtones. The Nazi salute was actually borrowed from the manner in which Americans were saluting the flag at that time. Notice how the German National Socialist program of the 1920's evolved from a folkish, democratically-orientated movement to one of authoritarian dictatorship under Hitler: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program

If the fact that McCain and Palin so easily stir up violent feelings and a potentially brutal political movement doesn't send shivers down your spine, then perhaps you should understand better how Nazism actually evolved. Could Palin become the next Hitler? I don't think so, but they may be setting the stage for something much more terrifying.

Scary.

I kinda stole that from George Carlin, talking about drivers that drive either faster or slower than him.

from Nazis. Republicans are 'Der Vierte Reich'

Rightist whiners have overused the terms "socialist" and "communist", to the point where those terms are meaningless when they use them.

Certainly we do not want to emulate their model. Do we?

I like Godwin's Law. It makes a lot of sense. When rightists spew their bullshit it is a better strategy to calmly and patiently pick apart their positions and stuff it back in their faces. They invariably get frustrated and go over the top, and when they do they lose.

but then, I'm probably more tinfoily than most.

From my crypto-historical perspective, McCain belongs to the exact same movement which has called itself "Nazi" in the past and in other countries. They may change the name, but you can't change the Macchiavellian modus operandi.

However, they scraped the bottom of the barrel to get him to run. They were already finished for this generation. Too many had recognized and rejected them.

They need to recover youth and vitality for a few years before they come back fresh, nasty, and with a new name. Let's see: what's more ironic and diabolically attractive than "compassionate conservative?"

Because you know they don't go away forever. Though the members may be old, the movement--motored by hatred, racism, sexism and greed-- is just too powerful.

because I can't think of a single thing...

the repukes remind me more of nazis with each passing moment...

We've watched in horror as we have descended into fascism & been called "loony," "extremist," or worse when we try to call it by its name. Perhaps the phrase was overused, perhaps lack of understanding kept our fellow citizens from heeding the warning signs but you have done an excellent job of explaining your use of the word here & I thank you. NOW can we call it what it is? Please.

It's been feeling to me like something I heard long ago: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing people he didn't exist." I hesitate to use a religious reference considering what the Christianists have done to spirituality but that phrase has been kicking around in my head every time I've heard criticism for use of the word "fascism"--so thank you for all the work you've done here. Apparently I'm not allowed to recommend yet but I've told people to look this post up.

And by comparing it to the nazis' you're making all liberals look overreactionary. That and the holocaust.

The fallacy that absolute evil (Jews) and absolute good (Aryans) exists and that it is possible to create a perfect world by excising the evil portion is what informed the Nazi Party. This dualistic fallacy dates back to ancient Persia and it lead to the Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch hunts, the extermination of many of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. The dualistic fallacy allowed European colonialism since the descendants of the Vikings and other marauding tribes could conquer the rest of the world, enslave its people, steal its wealth and convince themselves that they had a right to do so.

The dualistic fallacy also kept Europe divided into many tiny nations with different cultures and languages, even when it should have been united by its single religion, Christianity. However, the form of Christianity that was selected in Europe was a dualistic form.



http://www.witches.net/germanwitchcraft.htm



The Nazis were a predictable though unfortunate result of a combination of ambitious men who had no conscience, a nation that was desperate and a culture that had a long history of redemptive violence.

The Holocaust could have happened under a theocracy, a monarchy or even under a democracy.

Your claim being that the Nazis were no worse than today's American Republican Party.

Of course you are allowed! Has the government come to your door to silence you? Have you been the target of any federal investigation? Have you been arrested or jailed or otherwise punished?

Here's the answer to your question: YOU ARE ALLOWED! This is America where we have the right to free speech. But -- important distinction here -- that does not guarantee you the right to an audience or the right to be free from criticism. Personally, I think you sound like an idiot to compare McCain to the Nazis. But hey -- it's your opinion and you are free to express it.