Comparing Obama to Hitler
Political scientists and historians from Rush Limbaugh to Sean Hannity to Lyndon LaRouche to that woman with short brown hair who, I deduce, must be a scholar of German history, are comparing Obama to Hitler and his likening his health care plan to Nazism. Liberal bullies and freedom of speech haters like Barney Frank are trying to silence these brave Americans who are speaking truth to Nazi power just as they want to smother our grandmothers. But is it so wrong to compare the Communist-Nazi-Muslim-Jeremiah Wright-following Obama to Hitler? Does comparing health care reform aimed at saving millions of lives to an extermination of millions of lives trivialize the holocaust? I think not! They say those who don't learn their history are condemned to repeat its mistakes. Well, a quick look at the history, the facts and data analysis reveal the frightening and shocking similarities between Obama and Hitler. Will America realize this before its too late?
| Adolph Hitler | Barack Obama | |
|---|---|---|
| Hair Color | Brown | Brown |
| Looks | Dark Brown | Dark Brown |
| Gender | Male | Male |
| Facial Hair | Moustache | None (That We Know Of) |
| Number of syllables in first name | Two | Two |
| Number of white mothers | One | One |
| Height | Taller Than 5'5", Shorter Than 6'5" | Taller Than 5'5", Shorter Than 6'5" |
| Ideology | National Socialism | Nouvelle Socialism |
| Previous Job | Community Organizer | Community Organizer |
| Special Names For Jews | "Parasites" "Bolsheviks" | "Rahm" "David" |
| Rapport With German Crowds | Excellent | Excellent |
| Health Care Policy | Dr Mengele, Torture, Experimentation | Secretary Sebalias, Plug-Pulling, Innovation |
| End Of Life Care | Premature Euthanasia | Death Panels |
| Rule Countries They Weren't Born In | Born In Austria, Ruled In Germany | Born In Africa, Rules America |
| Number of people killed | 9 Million | 9 Million (Number Of People I Predict Obama Will Kill) |
Olberman compared Bush to Hitler. Did you complain about that too?
August 28, 2009 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Bush and Saddam Should Both Stand Trial, Says Nuremberg Prosecutor...A chief prosecutor of Nazi war crimes at Nuremberg has said George W. Bush should be tried for war crimes along with Saddam Hussein."
"Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime," the 87-year-old Ferenccz told OneWorld from his home in New York. He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.
link
MCB - give us the link on the Nuremberg war crimes prosecutor that said Obama should stand trial for his health reforms or anything else for that matter.
August 28, 2009 2:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Like I said yesterday - you can go fuck yourself with all your whining about "troll!! troll!" crap that we all have to read on here.
August 28, 2009 2:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You first, you pathetic shit-for-brains slag.
August 28, 2009 2:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just finished with your mom.
August 28, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you're a necrophiliac?
August 28, 2009 8:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
He usually restricts himself to performing fellatio on dead dogs. I guess he has moved up to human remains. And you screaming liberal scum said there was no hope for Middle Finger Bill. He sure showed you!
August 28, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey - Tankard makes an appearance. I give him credit for all the "mom" jokes. I learned from the best!!
August 28, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I learned from you all the vicious replies. You and Tankard are the one who taught me everything I know.
August 28, 2009 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder who was the first one to tell the other person to "fuck off and die"...I think that quote is originally attributable to you.
August 28, 2009 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Viciously malevolent troll.
August 28, 2009 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stay classy, MCB!
You're really changing minds around here with your thoughful posts!
August 28, 2009 2:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dorn - as it relates to Noble - I think I was pretty respectful. Sorry if I made a comment on here that most people don't get because it's a carryover from a prior post. But Noble gets what he deserves.
August 28, 2009 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Bill....go take your meds.
C
August 28, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did take them before writing that.
If I hadn't taken them I would have told Noble how I really feel.
But you're right, for now on I will just ignore him.
August 28, 2009 3:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hmm, I thought his response was quite respectful, informational and insightful compared to your post.
I notice you don't have a response for him on the matter of fact. You asked him to explain and he did...
August 28, 2009 4:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Noble doesn't explain anything. He just screams "Troll!!" at anyone who posts something he doesn't like. Sorry if my lashing at him was related to another blog so you didn't have the benefit of reading that one.
August 28, 2009 10:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't ask him to explain anything...
August 28, 2009 10:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quoting MCB: Olberman compared Bush to Hitler. Did you complain about that too?
You clearly ask here for an explanation as to how this is different from Olberman comparing Bush to Hitler. To which there was a clear response from Noble as to how the actions of the two administrations differentiated and sourcing an expert in the area of war crimes. You're just like all the other point-and-shout Republicans. The ideas of sensibility and research are lost on you.
If you can't reasonably argue a point, don't expect to be respected as a notable opinion.
August 29, 2009 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
hmmmmm--- I read NobleCommentDecider's comment word-for-word and never saw the word "troll" pass his keyboard.
I did notice, however, that you descended to innuendo rather than answering his question.
So I suggest you predict which of you I am likely to take seriously in future. Care to guess?
August 28, 2009 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
You must be new to TPM. Once you've been here for a while you will learn that Noble just screams "Troll!!" at anyone that doesn't agree with him or posts something he doesn't like. You'll understand why people think he's not worth a good response.
August 28, 2009 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Icetree, thank you for your clarity. I deplore the "colloquy" between noble whoever and MiddleClassBill. It's just pollution, and I reported it as abuse.
As to comparisons to Hitler, that's a difficult one to negotiate impartially, so I have often referred to a dictionary definition that I will share:
"A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." (American Heritage, 1983)
In addition, there is a quote from Reichmarshall Hermann Goering which rings a lot of bells for me when considering the events proceeding from the catastrophe on 9/11/01:
"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
It seems to me very clear that certain interests in the U.S. have been manipulating public inputs and the media in order to induce Americans to make the fatal tradeoff of rights for (false) security about which we were warned by Ben Franklin, which in turn makes social control so much easier in American society. It also seems to me that Bush was clearly an advocate of those interests, and that Obama has failed, so far, to turn the country back onto the track of freedom which we (may have) once followed. Whether this is by design or just a weakness of character, I don't know and that may not be salient.
August 29, 2009 3:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
When the left compares an extremist from the right to Hitler, the rationale is that both Hitler and the extremist exhibit some form of fascism, such as a desire to suppress free expression of opposing views. Bush, for example, excluded non-supporters from governmentally sponsored public events and had some such opponents arrested for merely being present at such events. He also used the practice of holding individuals in political prisons with extreme (though ultimately unsuccessful) resistance to habeas corpus, although the prisoners were called terrorists, which is generally associated with tyrannical regimes (not necessarily fascist, but still the sort of thing people have in mind when referring to Hitler). While extremists from the right may object to these comparisons, these rational and factually based.
The author of this post is raising the question, what rational and factually based comparisons do the rightwingers have in mind?
August 28, 2009 2:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
So you are OK with Olberman comparing Bush to Hitler?
August 28, 2009 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now that you mention it, yes, though I suspect Cheney is a more apt comparison.
You, on the other hand, are best compared to an inflamed hemorrhoid.
August 28, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry OT. I think an inflamed boil on the armpit of the world comes closer.
C
August 28, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Still again, a troll post, but no real response to the factual information presented. I notice a pattern.
August 28, 2009 4:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why is it a "troll" post?
August 28, 2009 10:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
From Wikipedia:
In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional or disciplinary response[1] or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29
Perhaps now you understand why others apply this label to you.
August 29, 2009 4:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think I would start by comparing you to a weasel.
August 28, 2009 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well said. Agree with you whole heartedly.
Among a whole bunch of other stuff, I have read William Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" three times since I was a teenager.
This last time I read it last year, I thought the dark 8 years of Bushco had many many eerily similar earmarks of the Nazis and the other Fascists in their rise, mainly the 1920's and 1930's.
Keith and everyone else's comparisons of Bushies to the Nazis are quite appropriate.
I think a whole bunch of the baby boomers remembered these same lessons last Nov. too.
August 28, 2009 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Get yourself a copy of the Nuremberg trials - specifically the Judges Trial - and the similarities are as close to identical as you can find.
August 28, 2009 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's completely hypocritical for someone to say it's OK for Olberman to compare Bush to Hitler but NOT ok to compare Obama to Hitler.
Neither one comes even close.
August 28, 2009 10:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
No it's not. Both were demagogues who drew their support from fascists and ignoramuses like you. Both tortured people. Both invaded other countries.
Now, sure, Bush was only a small-timer, whose policies only killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. A better comparison would be to Mussolini. Would that make you happy?
August 29, 2009 4:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
How am I a fascist? You are really crazy if you think Bush is in the same league as Hitler or Mussolini.
August 29, 2009 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting that you've taken exception to the word fascist and not ignoramus. MCB you are showing an advanced level of self examination, those sessions with the shrink must be working well for you.
August 29, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
We could debate whether or not I am ignorant. But fascist was so over the line that I started with that one first.
Still waiting for his reply
August 29, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
You could debate whether you are an ignoramus with yourself, but there's no way after your trail of messages littered here on this page by you that anyone else could reach any other possible conclusion than the fact you are an ignoramus.
If you debate it with yourself, it's quite revealing that it seems to take you a while to catch up with reality, and that's only if you ever come to the same conclusion about you that everyone else here has.
You are the ultimate of ignoramus' if you can't see the difference between the comparisons of Bush and Hitler to Obama and Hitler. It reveals a deep seated ignorance of political science and history. The Bush comparison is valid because there are similarities in their governing styles. The comparison using Hitler to Obama is just plain ludicrous.
August 29, 2009 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hitler and Bush: both far-right extremists.
Winston Churchill, an enemy of Hitler: Socialist.
You really should learn the accurate facts, instead of swallowing the far-right freedom-hating swill pumped out by such as Limbaugh and the FOX Fraud.
Britain: Socialist.
August 28, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Who said anything about Limbaugh or Fox?? I simply asked a question about Keith Olbermann
August 28, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, we know:
Whenever you trolls get caught with your hands in your pants, your pretend you were just checking to remind yourself whether you are circumsized.
Or whether you maidenhead is still intact.
A fascinating paradox: You are simultaneously so all-knowing and more-moral-than-thou, and as wholly innocent and ignorant as a newborn babe.
You never have any sort of scurrilous motive; that's only true of those you immorally hate and smear.
August 29, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
No - I simply asked a question about Hitler and Bush. You went on and on about things I didn't even bring up.
August 29, 2009 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
I did, because -- jackass -- there's a side you always omit: that which REFUTES yours.
Hitler instituted torture. The Bushit criminal enterprise instituted torture. What bothers you is not only that in both instances the word "torture" is spelled:
t-o-r-t-u-r-e.
It's also that We the people REFUSE TO FORGET IT. And REFUSE to pretend all of that is legal so long as one can lie and bullshit and distort in effort to make it appear so.
But let's go to the beginning of that you defend and refute it at its roots:
The Bushit criminal enterprise bullied and stole its way into office, in 2000, with the assist of an SC five who not only voted twice in the same election -- which is ILLEGAL -- but also subverted the Constitution itself in order to unconstitutionally appoint that America-hating gang. And where it based Bsh v. Gore on "fact" other than tnon-existant law, those "facts" were laws:
"Drop-dead date," as example: slates from several western states were submitted to Congress AFTER the so-called "drop-dead date" were accepted by Congress without objection or controversy.
The reasonable and sane -- those who don't hate Constitution and rule of law -- do not put the resolution of democratic ELECTION matters into the hands of the UNelected. Thus the Constitution gives EXCLUSIVE authority to resolve election disputes such as that in 2000 to CONGRESS. If We the people don't like the resolution, we can diselect Congress.
But it wasn't that which so much bothered activist extremist Scalia -- all he need do is ignore the Constitution, and "original intent," as he subsequently did with Heller. What bothered him was the COURT-ordered vote-counting which was showing that Bush's "win" was being overtaken. So for the first time in our history, the SC intervened in an election, and ordered the legal court-ordered vote-counting stopped because the losing candidate was being "harmed" by being the losing candidate.
The only way, troll, for you to defend that, and the hell and destruction unleashed by that subversion, is to LIE against your own country. And that includes your usual praciticews of avoiding the issue -- lying by omission.
August 30, 2009 7:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Look fuckface - I am not avoiding the issue. We did not torture as you accuse us of doing. There were certainly some instances of excessive force, but it wasn't widespread the way you think it was.
Whatever DID happen is not even close to what Hitler did in Nazi Germany. And that was my original point - that comparing Bush to Hitler is ludicrous. That's about as logical as saying that I am just as good as Derek Jeter because we both wear #2 on the backs of our jerseys.
August 30, 2009 9:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Look fuckface - I am not avoiding the issue. We did not torture as you accuse us of doing. There were certainly some instances of excessive force, but it wasn't widespread the way you think it was."
"A system of laws, and not of men." -- John Adams.
"Justice and the rule of law are to be above politics." -- John Adams.
Trtuh matters. The standard by which we determine whether an act is torture is not Dick "Dick" Cheney, or even Obama and Holder. The standard by which that determination is made is L-A-W.
Therefore, dipshit, waterboarding is torture. Sexual humiliation is torture. Throwing a person against a wall is torture.
Shall I continue with the obvious?
The L-A-W calls it TORTURE, not "excessive force," America-hating weasel.
As for "wasn't as widespread as you think it was": I go by the reports, and with the evidence that it was much more widespread than we so far know.
How many times did the three who it is admitted were subjected to waterboarding -- which is defenid IN LAW as TORTURE -- undergo torture? Ove 100 times in one case? How horrendous must the behavior be before you view it as legitimately subject to criticism?
"Whatever DID happen is not even close to what Hitler did in Nazi Germany."
I submit that waterboarding is waterboarding is waterboarding, regardless who does it. Can't stomach that? Then keep your head buried up your lying ass.
"And that was my original point - that comparing Bush to Hitler is ludicrous."
He may not be as evil as Hitler quantitatively; but qualitatively -- which is the point -- waterboarding is waterboarding is waterboarding, regardless who does it.
"That's about as logical as saying that I am just as good as Derek Jeter because we both wear #2 on the backs of our jerseys."
I suspect "our" methods of torture are much more sophisticated -- and therefore harmful -- than Hitler's, what with the evolution in technology.
And subjecting a "detainee" -- who has neither been charged nor convicted of anything, merely labeled, a practice identical to that of the Nazis under Hitler -- to sensory deprivation, combined with hallucinogenic drugs, is probably worse than anything the Nazis could come up with.
August 31, 2009 12:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is completely ludicrous to equate what happened under Bush to Hitler's killing of millions of innocent people.
August 31, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Torture is torture is torture, whether one tortures one or 1,000,000:
It is ILLEGAL in EACH AND EVERY instance.
August 31, 2009 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
So someone who tortures and kills one person should get the same sentence as someone who does it to a million people?
August 31, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Asshole:
1. Waterboarding is TORTURE.
2. Waterboarding is the same CRIME regardless by whom imposed, or on whom imposed, or how many on whom imposed.
Shooting one person in the head will kill that person. Shooting 1,000,000 in the head will kill that 1,000,000. In every instance of the 1,000,001 those shot in the head are EQUALLY DEAD.
August 31, 2009 5:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes they are equally dead. But you didn't answer my question - should both of those people get the same sentence? Both the same number of years in prison? Both the death penalty?
August 31, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I tried to resist calling you a name but...
No you dumbsh*t. He's saying both of them should be TRIED AND PUNISHED, PERIOD.
Let the courts decide their sentence. That is, after all, the essence of democracy. Checks and balances, remember?
August 31, 2009 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm trying to see his opinion on whether Bush was as bad as Hitler. He won't respond. Just b/c they both did something (ie torture) doesn't mean they're equally guilty if one did it alot more than the other one.
September 1, 2009 12:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
BULL....
August 29, 2009 10:39 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am simply pointing out the hypocrisy where people complain about the Obama/Hitler references but they're perfectly fine with the Bush/Hitler references.
August 29, 2009 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
No hypocrisy. Rather, on your extreme is the slinging of the "communists/socialist/liberal/fascist/marxist" string at Obama, without any awareness that "communist/sociliat/marxist/liberal" are LEFT of center, and fascist is RIGHT of center.
Wholly unhinged illiterates slinging hate encompassed in nonsense. And carrying deadly weapons while being unhinged and doing so. While you talk irrelevant horseshit as if none of that is happening.
August 31, 2009 12:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bush:
Started an illegal, aggressive war against a country that never attacked us (killing one million people, all of which would not have attacked us, had we not attacked and occupied there country, and making another 2 million refugees),
Started illegally spying on american citizens,
Started preemptively arresting people before they could protest,
Started segregating protestors away from where he would appear,
Started "moling" his people in to all government career positions,
Started weddding religion to government.
Started throwing away the Bill of Rights.
So did Hitler.
Obama has done none of these things.
So, the real difference between Bush and Hitler? Hitler was smarter, more potent. Morally? About the same.
August 31, 2009 7:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
You must write for the NY Times
August 31, 2009 11:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
This blog is ridiculous! Obama is not Hitler.
Have you ever seen him in lederhosen? Certainly not.
August 28, 2009 2:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Plus, Hitler wouldn't be caught dead eating a cheesesteak...I'm pretty sure that under the pressure of the Pennsylvania primary, meat was publicly consumed.
August 28, 2009 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
They both drank beer, is that good enough?
August 29, 2009 7:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Obama in lederhosen? It could happen!
Plus, you've probably already forgotten about the gerbilgate scandal.
August 29, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Can we all agree that the establishment which strongly influenced both Bush and Obama has some increasingly fascist tendencies, as Obama's embrace of many of Bush's most unconstitutional power grabs suggests?
Bush actually secretly declared himself dictator, without exercising some of the powers he secretly claimed.
Obama is doing everything in his power to keep most of Bush's Executive Branch power grabs in place, continues to funnel our money and future into the hands of the wealthiest interests, and Obama's White House refuses to give a direct answer on the Brownshirt/Blackwater guys with extensive ongoing government contracts.
Is it at all possible that the uneducated right wingers who we instinctively oppose might actually be onto something, even if their Bush-love blinded them or made them indifferent to the fascist slide under Bush?
August 28, 2009 2:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
In a word, no.
August 28, 2009 2:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Basically I see no Earthly reason to try and find a nugget of truth in a mountain of bullshit.
August 28, 2009 3:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Our democracy has never been healthier, eh?
August 28, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
No it's sick as a dog...but I don't see anything productive in contorting myself to agree with an insane statment like Obama = Hitler.
August 28, 2009 4:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The comparison was more to a Good German in the '30s, with some Brownshirt support thrown in.
One thing I think you'll agree with, Obama is leaving the door wide open to a future president to declare martial law, utilize the Haliburton built detention camps, employ the Posse Commitatus defying soldiers already assigned to Fatherland soil, and send in Blackwater and their ilk to do the dirtier work.
Does Obama really think this country is immune from another Bush-type presidency? Why does he insist on being an accessory to dictatorship before the fact?
The best you could speculate is that he's worried about being fragged.
August 28, 2009 4:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
It's called picking your battles. Those are good points but he's not doing "everything in his power to keep them", he's doing nothing in his power to stop them. The simple reason being it's just more fuel for the fire.
That said, I'm not happy about it either.
August 28, 2009 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree with oyeahthatsright. But looking at the historical context, when does power EVER beget power? That was the danger all along with Bush's power grab for unitary authorities. If they were kept on the books even after the abuses of power Bush made, then there was no chance of ever getting them off the books.
I still have hope in Obama that he is addressing issues the most important to him, that he wants to accomplish before getting to the other stuff. If he were to close the loopholes of the GWB unitary power grab, pragmatically (and he is a pragmatist) it would make the most sense to do it at the end of his terms, so that he has access to the levers while in control.
August 29, 2009 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
"When does power beget power?"
Excellent quote. Wish I'd thought of it.
August 30, 2009 7:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would say the establishment within which each work(ed) has certainly become more fascist.
Each, ironically through their weak leadership, have allowed the fascist tendancies of the establishment to flurish (in the case of W), and remain entrenched (in the case of O).
As a fan of Obama, I have HOPE that he will begin to reign in some of the powers of The State.
Fore example : despite obvious short-comings and illegal activity, our taxes are still paying Blackwater (XE) handsomly for their "work".
That sort of thing tends to diminish my expectations.
August 28, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought the idea of having Hitler being accused of being the new Obama did OK at showcasing the insanity of that comparison,
August 28, 2009 3:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
ò¿ó
..|||..
––--
(wot?)
August 28, 2009 3:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Adolph Hitler Barack Obama GEORGE W. BUSH
Hair Color Brown Brown BROWN
Looks Dark Brown Dark Brown LIKE ALFRED E. NEUMAN
Gender Male Male MALE
Facial Hair Moustache None (That We Know Of) NONE
Number of syllables in first name Two Two ECONOMICALLY ONLY ONE
Number of white mothers One One ONE
Height Taller Than 5'5", Shorter Than 6'5" Taller Than 5'5", Shorter Than 6'5" CLOSER TO HITLER
Ideology National Socialism Nouvelle Socialism CATR TO THE HAVE-MORES
Previous Job Community Organizer Community Organizer BANKRUPTING COMPANIES
Special Names For Jews "Parasites" "Bolsheviks" "Rahm" "David" ARI FLEISCHER, LEWIS SCOOTER LIBBY, JACK ABRAMOFF
Rapport With German Crowds Excellent Excellent NECK RUBS FREELY GIVEN
Health Care Policy Dr Mengele, Torture, Experimentation Secretary Sebalias, Plug-Pulling, Innovation NO MONEY, YOU DIE
End Of Life Care Premature Euthanasia Death Panels DID NOT CARE, FLEW RIGHT OVER NEW ORLEANS
Rule Countries They Weren't Born In Born In Austria, Ruled In Germany Born In Africa, Rules America BORN IN CONNECTICUT RULED TEXAS
Number of people killed STILL COUNTING
August 28, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought Hitler was the Great White Hope for the 20%ers.
August 28, 2009 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
hee hee hee!
The first 7 on the list and number 9 could be attributed to hundreds of thousands of Americans.
as to the rest-- this **ahem** human is joking, right?
as in including her "prediction" [# 15] as a "fact", for instance.
It would be so lovely if people would, before spouting gibberish, do even the tiniest amount of fact checking.
Here's somewhere to start -- assuming this person would like a nodding acquaintance with the facts before parading her ignorance in public:
http://www.factcheck.org/
This site even has the added benefit of being non-partisan. I know -- I know -- it's hard to believe that such a thing exists anymore. But there it is for anyone to see. Amazing.
August 28, 2009 5:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your snark meter is on the fritz.
August 29, 2009 8:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why is a raven like a writing desk?
Happy days.
August 28, 2009 5:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Duh. Be. Ja!
Only elite-corpist southpawists could fail to understand that because Vietnam hero George W. Cheney got straight As studying history, he of course realized that since Osbama Hussein tried to commit genocide with box cutters of mass destruction, he must have been Hitler reincarnated. And with Osbama Hussein himself forced by the Willing of the Coalition to flee from Ohmama Beach at Normandy and eventually executed using a mission accomplished cruise missle at Tora Tora, who other than Biraq Hussein Osbama could now possibly be the new Hitler Reincarnated?
August 28, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just curious --
Which do you consider Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity -- political scientists, or historians? Because they actually are both undereducated boobs who just have the talent (?) of being able to inflame other undereducated people with their fear-mongering and childish taunts.
August 28, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suspect the blog is a satire.
August 28, 2009 10:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nice post, Ms Halper. It looks good on Barney Franks' dining room table.
But I think all the defamation of Obama is more about sending a message to liberal neighbors than really anticipating Obama is going to herd grandmothers into concentration camps.
The logic of the Beck set parrots the world view of Jonah Goldberg and his book: Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. The overall thesis of that book is that what many "progressive" Liberals imagine is a desire to make things better is actually a wish to be directed and validated by a central authority.
The right wing glossolalia about Obama's motives is code for the message: "Liberals are zombies. Spread the word. Clean your gun."
August 28, 2009 7:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Glossolalia" -- got me thinking.
What we need is a Bakhtinian heteroglossial analysis of "dialogics" -- the mix of high and low forms of language in a culture -- as it plays out in contemporary American politics.
Is the form of un/undereducated right-wing speech parodistic of elite left-wing speech pragmatics -- that is, a Rabelaisian, medieval carnival mocking of the wonkery exhibited by the powers that be?
August 28, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have heard of but haven't read Mikhail Bakhtin You have piqued my interest in him. It sounds like his approach is more like Ellison and less like Lakoff.
August 28, 2009 9:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
whoops. I didn't mean "piqued", I meant "aroused"
August 29, 2009 8:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're aroused by Ellen? Shame on you. What will we tell our children?
August 30, 2009 11:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
That rapport with German crowds shows them out every time, don't it. No matter how hard they try to hide those Nazi tendencies they just can't hide it once they get to their true home!
August 28, 2009 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Rapport with German crowds." I almost hyperventilated!
August 28, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are neither scientists nor historians.
August 28, 2009 9:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think it is misguided to spend much time analyzing every absurd or outrageous thing that the ultra-right comes up with.
To enter into rational dialog with them is to miss the entire point of their discourse.
I wrote at length here a few weeks ago about right-wing demagoguery. Pardon me for copying and pasting the following bit from my previous post:
A couple of general rules of thumb when considering demagogues:
1.) The people who follow demagogues aren't interested in thinking, they are interested in feeling: demagoguery is a form of political pornography: up and on, who cares about the "plot"?
2.) The rational people who use demagogues do plenty of thinking themselves. However, they don't want anybody else to think very much at all.
In fact, that is the whole point of demagoguery, to eliminate rational thought.
That is the whole point of fascism for that matter, to replace objective, individual thought with mass emotion.
We are talking about well-informed and intelligent people who are using primitive emotional levers so as to manipulate ill-informed and unintelligent people into doing something against their basic interests, in order to benefit the interests of the manipulators. This is just like convincing people that something that causes cancer like smoking will make them sexually attractive.
August 29, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
welcome back
August 29, 2009 12:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here is this from Patricia J. Williams in "Nation":
August 29, 2009 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
And war is peace. And this decrease in chocolate rations is an increase.
Simplifying Orwell, the drive to believe the obvious lie is to say otherwise would mean that I would have to re-examine everything I believe, every premise on which I base my political conclusion and actions. And since their religious faith is so intertwined, it would mean they would have re-examine their very relationship with God and Jesus. In the end, they would have to re-examine the world in which they lived, admitting their fallacies, the lies and misinterpretations, that indeed the earth revolves around the sun and is not flat.
Socialism and especially the Nazis are carved in stone in their minds as "bad" and "evil." If one believes one's opponent is a Nazi, one doesn't spend time reflecting on whether what is being said is true or has merit. Whatever a Nazi says is bad and evil. No need to reflect, no need to see that maybe one's understanding of socialism was entirely correct, etc. etc.
And of course, as Orwell stressed, it helps if one simplifies the language in which these people understand the world. We really have to worry when someone in the town hall meeting shouts, "insurance companies are good good!"
August 29, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I AM NOT A RACIALIST!"
What makes the Bush Gang more Hitlerific than Team Obama is Corporatism. A lifelong devotion to it that really underlies everything else that Bush Cheney etc. did or are purported to have done. They were baldfaced privatizers and profiteers, from Halliburton to their Social Security debacle. Clinton bought into some of this as well, but never with the missionary zeal that was the hallmark of Bush. Obama may be too chummy with Wall St. but you don't get the sense that he's made it his life's work to choke government in the bathtub. With Bush, it got so bad that I felt like he wanted to just choke everybody in whatever bathtub would fit, just to choke them and then see what happened, big government or not. Dude was crazy.
But really, with Hitler it was all about giving power to industrialists and non-Jewish bankers. Sure he had some Big Government but most of it was going toward hyper-militarization, which was a big money-maker for the Industrialists and Bankers. Euthanization not so much. In fact, the mass euthanization he proposed for the elderly and the infirm never really panned out, because it COST MORE TO RUN A MASS EUTHANIZATION PROGRAM THAN TO JUST PROVIDE CARE FOR THE OLD AND SICK:
http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/certain-lives-are-not-worth-living-certain-people-we-should-not-spend-the-money-to-keep-them-alive/
So anyway, it seems pretty uncontroversial that Bush is a Rightist Corporatist who embraced the Lobbyist vultures of the Beltway, and Obama is more like a guy who has to wrestle with and cajole these same vultures to get them away from the barely breathing body that is our democracy.
It's a gross fact that vultures can projectile-vomit their own digestive acid as a defense mechanism. I think I would say the Hitler baiters, Teabaggers and Birthers are the Corporatists' version of projectile vomit.
Duck.
August 29, 2009 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Pass the bill and let us live with the consequences. I believe it will be the end of the liars. Jah walks
August 29, 2009 3:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
How did this woman get a column here?
August 29, 2009 6:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Relax. It's snark. You never figured it out?
August 29, 2009 11:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
This satire is so well written I almost believed this person was this stupid.
August 30, 2009 7:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Part of the point of this pivots on the word 'compare'.
The first part, and there's some relevance to the 'Olbermann did it too!" in that regard, is that bringing it up at all is inflammatory and not conducive to discussion. (This is really only relevany when there is discussion, but I'll let that pass.)
But the second part, that Katie speaks to, is the part that happens when you say "X is like Hitler and here's why." The Patriot Act, the hysterical propaganda in support of a war of expansion, and the inflation of the Unitary Executive are substantive arguments, even if you think they're wrong.
Arguing that X is like hitler because he attracts crowds at speeches, wants to set up socialism in the country, wants to take away our guns, hates a certain ethnic group, or supports science because other scientists once supported eugenics--are just plain stupid, and wouldn't last five minutes in an actual discussion.
And 'actual discussion' is just what we don't have.
August 30, 2009 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can't begin to tell you all how long I have waited to participate in a really serious discussion here, where things of great importance are thoroughly hashed out, and all of us emerge wiser, for having done so. It happened tonight, thanks to Josh for hosting it. Now, I just feel cleansed and really smart.
August 30, 2009 11:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is completely ludicrous to equate what happened under Bush to Hitler's killing of millions of innocent people.
August 31, 2009 5:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
How many innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, and Americans have been killed by Bush?
Almost all estimates have that number as being well over one million.
While neither person was directly involved in the killing, the policies they set in place were responsible for those deaths.
How many people does a politician have to kill to be considered a statesman rather than a killer?
.
August 31, 2009 7:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Innocent people unfortunately die in every war
August 31, 2009 10:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Perhaps a politician should be considered as a psychopath after a few hundred thousand dead? That works for me anyway, and there is plenty of supporting evidence.
August 31, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many politicians actually meet the clinical definitions here. Psychopath is too broad of a term though; it's used to describe many different pathologies.
August 31, 2009 11:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
You're blogging on TPM so I'm pretty sure you're being facetious, but you should be careful. There are some really, really stupid people in the US. I will bet you a tootsie roll pop that some portions of your comparison will be used on some of the right wing blogs. You may even hear some republican politicians quoting you.
August 31, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is helpful to read the bio for new featured posters here. A lot of the comments above would very likely not have been posted had their authors read that bio.
August 31, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't the blogger doing exactly what she intended?
Pointing out the absurdity to incite the absurdity of the absurd?
August 31, 2009 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink