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Posts Tagged ‘ADOLF HITLER’

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SCIENCE VS. SUPERSTITION

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on April 22, 2013 at 12:01 am

Bureaucracies are not made up of robot-like machines. They are comprised of flesh-and-blood men and women.

That includes even the most important bureaucracies–such as those of the House, Senate and White House.

And as much as Americans like to believe their elected leaders always behave rationally and intelligently, they don’t. In fact, they can’t.

In a democracy, those who hold public office reflect the values of those who sent them there.

Consider the following:

On the eve of the 2012 Republican primaries in Alabama and Mississippi, a Public Policy Poll survey revealed a series of startling truths about the voters in those states.

Among the Republican voters of Alabama:

  • Only 26 percent believe in evolution.
  • Sixty percent don’t believe in it.
  • Thirteen percent aren’t sure about it.
  • Twenty-one percent still think interracial marriage should be illegal.
  • Twelve percent aren’t sure whether it should be.
  • Forty-five percent believe President Barack Obama is a Muslim.
  • Fourteen percent think he’s a Christian–although he’s always attended a Christian church.
    •Forty-one percent aren’t sure.

Among Republican voters in Mississippi:

  • Only 22 percent believe in evolution.
  • Eleven percent aren’t sure.
  • Fifty-four percent think interracial marriage should be legal.
  • Twenty-nine percent believe it shouldn’t be.
  • Seventeen percent aren’t sure.
  • Fifty-two percent think President Obama is a Muslim.
  • Only 12 percent think he’s a Christian.

These are among the voters who vilified a black, Harvard-educated, rationalist Obama–first as a Presidential candidate, and then as President.

And they aren’t going to change. It’s easier–and more comforting–to believe we are fallen angels instead of risen apes.

Just as it was easier for Germans in 1920s Germany to deny they had been defeated on the battlefields of World War 1.

It was far more satisfying to believe–and assert–that they had been “stabbed in the back” by Jews and “slackers” and Communists at home. Out of this denial of reality came the Final Solution.

Now, fast-forward to the 21st century.

The winter of 2011-2012 was the 4th warmest winter on record, behind 2000, 1999, and 1992. Winter temperatures have increased by about 1.7°F per century.

Despite ever-mounting evidence that global warming is indeed a reality, millions of right-wing voters refuse to accept it. The largest portion of these are concentrated in the South.

In April, 2010, America suffered its worst oil-spill disaster. For the next three months, 4.9 million barrels worth of crude oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico from a BP oil rig.

BP tried one oil-capping method after another–and the country feared that nothing might work. Those who had cheered on Sarah Palin in her chant of “Drill, baby, drill” during the 2008 Presidential race suddenly fell silent.

The second anniversary of America’s worst environmental disaster–April 20–is fast approaching.

And the country’s oil- and coal-producing conglomerates are flooding the airwaves with billions of dollars’ worth of lying propaganda.

“Clean coal” ads promise that America can meet its needs for energy and protect the environment. These ads never mention that the technologies for supposedly doing this are still in the experimental stage.

But most of the people watching these ads take them at face value. They want to believe they can have all the cheap gas they can get–and not feel guilty about destroying the world for their children.

Once again, millions of Americans–including those who live in the still-damaged Gulf of Mexico–are loudly demanding that President Obama “unleash America’s energy resources.”

President Obama is easily one of the best-educated men to occupy the White House. Like John F. Kennedy, he believes in rationalilty as a problem-solving tool.

But smarts at the top cannot make up for irrationality at the bottom.

During the 2008 Presidential race, Obama made a near-fatal mistake: He said that many Americans “cling to their guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

The fact that this was–and remains–absolutely true did not help Obama.  In fact, it threatened to cost him the election.

When an educated leader who believes in rationality must persuade a largely uneducated and irrational electorate, he must reshape his message accordingly.

That strategy must be the product of rational planning.  But the arguments aimed at such an audience must appeal to emotions rather than reason.

Republicans learned the lessons of emotion-driven politics decades ago.  Consider the words they routinely use to describe their political opponents:

Liberals…radicals…traitors…subversives…terrorists…socialists…communists.

In Mein Kampf–“My Struggle”–Adolf Hitler outlined his principles for the effective use of propaganda:

“…All effective propaganda must be confined to a few basic essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in sterotyped forumulas.

“Those slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”

Rationalistic politicians like Barack Obama believe they can attain their goals by appealing to the rationality of voters.  They forget–or ignore–the bitter truth that most people decide with their emotions, not with their intellect.

Until Obama and other Democrats learn this invaluable lesson–and start applying it–they will continue to lose to their Republican enemies.

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A LIE TOLD BY BULLIES

In History, Politics, Social commentary on April 16, 2013 at 12:05 am

Ernest Hemingway said it best: “Fascism is a lie told by bullies.”

And right-wing pundit Ann Coulter best illustrates the truth of this.

Let’s start at the beginning: On April 7, Martin Bashir, host of MSNBC’s Martin Bashir program, wondered if a personal experience were the only way to get Republicans to drop their threat to block a vote on the gun control legislation that Newtown families were begging them to vote on.

Martin Bashir

After all, United States Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) recently announced his two-year conversion to accepting same-sex marriage after his own son “came out’ as homosexual.

“Nobody is suggesting that the law should only be defined and developed by the victims of crime,” said Bashir.  But also pointed out the overwhelming public support for universal background checks.

“Are these senators simply too frightened of the NRA to do the people’s bidding?” Bashir asked.

Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Maryland) responded: “Martin, I never thought it would happen to me, but on a Friday at 12:00, it was 2 years ago, I got a call my nephew had been killed.  Shot to death at 5:00 in the morning, and he’s dead at 21 years old.”

Cummings’ nephew, Christopher Cummings, was shot and killed in 2011 at his off-campus apartment in Norfolk, Virginia.  His murder has not been solved.

“But Congressman,” Bashir said, “is that what needs to happen to move these senators to stop threatening a filibuster? Is that really what needs to happen? That you need to have a member of your family killed in order for you to do what the American people want you to do?”

“I hope not,” Cummings replied. “I don’t wish this pain on anybody.”

Of course, that was not how the exchange went down in Ann Coulter’s version.

Ann Coulter

In an April 10 column entitled “Liberals Go Crazy for the Mentally Ill,” Coulter offered this tem of a proposal:

“MSNBC’s Martin Bashir suggested that Republican senators need to have a member of their families killed for them to support the Democrats’ gun proposals. (Let’s start with Meghan McCain!)”

Needless to say, Meghan McCain–the daughter of Arizona United States Senator John McCain–was not amused.

“Apparently Ann Coulter made a joke about me being killed in a recent column,” McCain tweeted on April 11. “I should expect nothing less but disgusted regardless.”

And, in another Twitter posting, she wrote: “My father is a very famous politician. My family gets a lot of threats. Joking about me being killed really isn’t funny or appropriate.”

Meghan McCain

She and Coulter have been at odds ever since McCain dared to pen a column entitled, “My Beef With Ann Coulter” in 2009.

In that column–published in The Daily Beast–McCain wrote:

“It is no secret that being a Republican isn’t the most hip political stance a person can take right now….

“To make matters worse, certain individuals continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Republicans. Especially Republican women. Who do I feel is the biggest culprit? Ann Coulter.

“I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity. I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time….

“Coulter could be the poster woman for the most extreme side of the Republican Party…. Is she for real or not? Are some of her statements just gimmicks to gain publicity for her books or does she actually believe the things she says?

“Does she really believe all Jewish people should be ‘perfected’ and become Christians? And what was she thinking when she said Hillary Clinton was more conservative than my father during the [2008] election?”

The most effective way to hurt an enemy is to tell the truth about him.  Or, as in this case, her.

It’s a “crime” that aggressive venom-spewers like Coulter can never forgive.  And, like most bullies, she refused to accept any responsibility for her action.

“I was making a joke,” Coulter told Sean Hannity on his right-wing The Sean Hannity Show.

“For one thing … that heinous thing Martin Bashir said, nobody knew about that until I added a joke, which is known as hyperbole.”

Of course, Bashir had not called on anyone to kill the members of Republicans’ families–as Coulter had “jokingly” called upon others to kill McCain.

(It was Adolf Hitler who, in Mein Kampf, laid down guidelines for the successful use of propaganda–rules such as “The Big Lie”:

Adolf Hitler

“And thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds [people] more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”)

“You were being sarcastic,” said Hannity.

“I think the exclamation point made it clear,” Coulter said with a smile. “And the fact that everyone laughed when they read it.”

Thus, Fascists like Ann Coulter use the same tactics in the 21st century as Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler used in in the 20th century: Believe what we say or prepare to die.

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BUSHITLER AND WARS OF SHAME: PART TWO (END)

In History, Politics on March 26, 2013 at 12:01 am

Naturally the common people don’t want war, neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany.  That is understood.

But, after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorshp, or a prliament, or a communist dictatorship….

All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger.  It works the same way in any country.

—Rcichsmarshall Hermann Goering

March 19, 2013 marked the tenth anniversary of the start of America’s war against Iraq.  And the national news networks have been dutifully noting it.

Yet none of these networks has dared to point out there is a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war.  A parallel that has its roots in Nazi Germany.

ADOLF HITLER

Adolf Hitler knew that Poland’s government could never accept his demands for the Polish city of Danzig.

GEORGE W. BUSH

So, too, did George W. Bush make a demand he knew could never be accepted.  On the eve of launching war on Iraq, Bush issued a humiliating ultimatum to Saddam Hussein:

“Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing.”

ADOLF HITLER

Hitler never regretted his decision to invade Poland–-even asserting in his “final political testament” that: “It is untrue that I or anyone else in Germany wanted war in 1939.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Bush never regretted his decision to invade Iraq, which occurred on March 19, 2003.

Adolf Hitler

ADOLF HITLER

When he announced his attack on Poland before Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag, Hitler–a decorated World War I veteran–said: “I am from now on just first soldier of the German Reich. I have once more put on that coat that was the most sacred and dear to me.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

On May 1, 2003, Bush–who hid out the Vietnam war in the Texas Air National Guard-–donned a flight suit and landed a Navy jet aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.  A banner titled “Mission Accomplished” was displayed on the aircraft carrier as Bush announced–wrongly–that the war was over.

The effect–and intent–was to portray Bush as the triumphant warrior-chieftan he never was.

George W. Bush

ADOLF HITLER

In 1970, Albert Speer, Hitler’s former architect and Minister of Aramaments, published his bestselling postwar memoirs, Inside the Third Reich.  In a striking passage, he revealed how the Fuehrer really felt about German soldiers who were suffering and dying in a war he had provoked.

One evening during the middle of the war, Speer was traveling with Hitler on the Fuehrer’s private train.  Late at night, they enjoyed a lavish dinner in the elegant rosewood-paneled dining car.

As they ate, Hitler’s train slowed down and passed a freight train halted on a side track.

From their open cattle car, recalled Speer, wounded German soldiers from the Russian Front–starved, their uniforms in rags–stared across the few yards to their Fuehrer’s dining-car window.

Hitler recoiled at seeing these injured men intently watching him–and he sharply ordered an adjutant to lower the window shades.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Bush showed his contempt for the soldiers suffering and dying in his own unprovoked war.

On March 24, 2004, at a White House Correspondents dinner, he joked publicly about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs).

To Bush, the non-existent WMDs were nothing more than the butt of a joke that night.  While an overhead projector displayed photos of a puzzled-looking Bush searching around the Oval Office, Bush recited a comedy routine.

“Those weapons of mass destruction have gotta be somewhere,” Bush laughed, while a photo showed him poking around the corners in the Oval Office.

“Nope-–no weapons over there!  Maybe they’re under here,” he said, as a photo showed him looking under a desk.

In a scene that could have occurred under the Roman emperor Nero, an assembly of wealthy, pampered men and women–-the elite of America’s media and political classes–-laughed heartily during Bush’s performance.

Click here: Bush laughs at no WMD in Iraq – YouTube

In writing about the significance of human character, the ancient historian, Plutarch, said it best:

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men.

Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.

So add it all up:

  • Two all-powerful leaders.
  • Two nations lied into unprovoked wars.
  • Hitler’s war costs the lives of 4.5 million German soldiers.
  • Bush’s war costs the lives of 4,486 Americans.
  • Germany’s war results in the deaths of millions of Europeans and Russians.
  • America’s war results in the deaths of an estimated 655,000 Iraqis, according to a 2006 study in the Lancet medical journal.
  • Hitler is literally driven underground by his enemies and commits suicide to avoid capture, trial and certain execution for war crimes.
  • Bush retires from office with a lavish pension and full Secret Service protection.  He writes his memoirs and is paid $7 million for the first 1.5 million copies.
  • Hitler is branded as a symbol of demonic evil.
  • Bush becomes a target of ridicule for comics.

Who says history is irrelevant?  Or that it doesn’t repeat itself?

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BUSHITLER AND WARS OF SHAME: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In History, Politics on March 25, 2013 at 12:01 am

March 19, 2013 marked the tenth anniversary of the start of America’s war against Iraq.  And the national news networks have been dutifully noting it.

Yet none of these networks has dared to point out there is a dark historical parallel to the events leading up to the Iraq war.  A parallel that has its roots in Nazi Germany.

ADOLF HITLER

When Germany’s Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, wanted to invade Poland in 1939, he mounted a sustained propaganda campaign to “justify” his ambitions.

Adolf Hitler

German “newspapers”-–produced by Joseph Goebbels, the club-footed Minister of Propaganda–-carried fictitious stories of how brutal Poles were beating and even murdering their helpless German citizens.

In theaters, German audiences saw phony newsreels showing Poles attacking and raping German women living in Poland.

For a time, Hitler not only deceived the Germans but the world.

Just before German tanks and troops invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, members of Hitler’s dreaded SS rounded up a number of prisoners from German concentration camps.

They inmates were dressed in Polish Army uniforms and driven to a German radio station at Gleiwitz, on the German/Polish border. There they were shot by SS men. Then Polish-speaking SS men “seized” the station and broadcast to Germany that a Polish invasion of Germany was now under way.

Hitler, addressing Germany’s rubber-stamp parliament, the Reichstag, dramatically asserted: “This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5.45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.”

Leaders of Britain and France were taken in by this ruse. They had pledged to go to war if Hitler attacked Poland.  But they didn’t want to take on Germany if Poland had been the aggressor.

By the time the truth became known, Poland was securely in German hands.

On August 22, Hitler had outlined his strategy to a group of high-ranking military officers:

I shall give a propagandist cause for starting the war.  Never mind whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked, later on, whether he told the truth or not. In starting and waging a war, it is not Right that matters, but Victory.

GEORGE W. BUSH

American President George W. Bush followed a similar strategy while he prepared to invade Iraq: He ordered the topmost members of his administration to convince the American people of the war’s necessity.

Among those members: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice; Vice President Dick Cheney; Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Condaleeza Rice, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld

Among their arguments-–all eventually revealed as lies-–were:

  • Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had worked hand-in-glove with Osama Bin Laden to plan 9/11.
  • Saddam was harboring and supporting Al Qaeda throughout Iraq.
  • Saddam, with help from Al Qaeda, was scheming to build a nuclear bomb.
  • Iraq possessed huge quantities of chemical/biological weapons, in violation of UN resolutions.
  • Saddam was preparing to use those weapons against the United States.
  • American Intelligence agencies had determined the precise locations where those weapons were stored.
  • The war would be self-financing via the oil revenues that would come from Iraq.
  • Invading American forces would be welcomed as liberators.

ADOLF HITLER

Hitler intended Poland to be only his first conquest on what became known as “the Eastern Front.”  Conquering Poland would place his powerful Wehrmacht on the border of the country that was his ultimate target: The Soviet Union.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Vice President Dick Cheney–the “power-behind-the-throne” of the Bush Presidency–had his own ambitions for conquering Iraq.

According to former Bush speechwriter David Frum: Cheney longed for war in Iraq to gain reliable control of that nation’s vital oil resources.

ADOLF HITLER

Despite efforts by the British and French governments to resolve the crisis that Hitler had deliberately created, he refused all offers of compromise.

“I am only afraid,” Hitler told his generals at a military conference on August 22, 1939, “that some Schweinehund [pig dog] will make a proposal for mediation.”

GEORGE W. BUSH

Similarly, Bush made it clear to his closest aides that he sought a pretext for invading Iraq.

On the evening after the September 11 attacks, Bush held a private meeting with Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism advisor to the National Security Council.

“I want you, as soon as you can, to go back over everything,” said Bush. “See if Saddam did this. See if he’s linked in any way.”

Clarke was stunned: “But, Mr. President, Al Qaeda did this.”

“I know, I know,” said Bush. “But see if Saddam was involved. I want to know.”

On September 12, 2001, Bush attended a meeting of the National Security Council.

“Why shouldn’t we go against Iraq, not just Al Qaeda?” demanded Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense.

Vice President Dick Cheney enthusiastically agreed.

Secretary of State Colin Powell then pointed out there was absolutely no evidence that Iraq had had anything to do with 9/11 or Al Qaeda. And he added: “The American people want us to do something about Al-Qaeda”-–not Iraq.

On September 22, 2001, Bush had received a classified President’s Daily Brief intelligence report, which stated that there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to 9/11.

The report added that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda.

Yet on November 21, 2001, only 10 weeks after 9/11, Bush told Rumsfeld: It’s time to turn to Iraq.

George W. Bush

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WHEN FASCISTS WEEP

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 11, 2013 at 12:03 am

It’s natural for a losing political party to look for scapegoats.  As political columnist Mark Shields said on the PBS Newshour on January 25:

“As far as the Republicans are concerned, they are simply going through the terrible stages that every defeated party does.

“And one side says we lost because we didn’t stick enough to our principles. And the other side we lost because we were too dogmatic and didn’t reach out to the undecided.

“And so the first inclination is always to blame your own candidate. You blame Al Gore if you are a Democrat in 2000, or John Kerry in 2004. You blame John McCain.

“The Republicans want to blame Mitt Romney. That’s fine. But Mitt Romney is more popular than the Republican Party. I mean, he got 47 percent. The Republicans are dead in the water right now.”

Consider the reaction of Ann Coulter, the Republican version of the Miss America Nazi.  Speaking on the November 6 defeat of Mitt Romney, Coulter whined:

“People are suffering. The country is in disarray. If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it’s over. There is no hope.”

And what did she hope to see Romney do as President?

“Mitt Romney was the president we needed right now, and I think it is so sad that we are going to be deprived of his brain power, of his skills in turning companies around, turning the Olympics around, his idea and his kindness for being able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts.”

Note the chief reason for her regret: Romney would have been “able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas.”

Or, as the Original Nazis would have put it: “You vill love it–or else!”

Unfortunately for Coulter, a majority of Americans rejected this mentality–and the repressive measures that would have accompanied it.

So, naturally, Coulter and her fellow Rightists feel dejected.

Comedian Bill Maher, appearing on the November 7 edition of “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” offered his own explation for the Romney defeat: The Republicans fell victims to their own lies.

MAHER: But, you know, I think it gets to a bigger point, Chris, which is that Republicans have to start getting their information from a better source than FOX News. I’m not kidding about this….

They believed it right up until the end. They were shocked by this election.

They have to somehow fix the way they get information, because they only talk to each other. And they don’t know what’s going on in the real world.

And they were rudely awakened last night.

MATTHEWS: What do you think it was like to be in that bubble with Mitt Romney in that time after it really–I called it the knockout, like the sixth round?

MAHER: I mean, I think they were still saying, “Yes, Mein Fuehrer, you have 12 divisions on the Eastern front.”

MATTHEWS: Anyway, Donald Trump took to Twitter last night, trashing the election returns. Here’s what he said.  On Twitter, in real time, to use your phrase. “He lost the popular vote by a lot.”

He’s talking about the president and won the election. “We should have a revolution this country.”

“This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy.”

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided.”

MAHER: I mean, it doesn’t deserve thoughts because these aren’t thoughts….

This guy only two years ago was like apolitical, right? I don’t even know what party he was. I don’t know if he knew what party he was.  Now he wants to march on Washington?  This is democracy–so it’s not democracy when your candidate loses?

* * * * *

Sixty-eight years ago, another fanatical, right-wing woman concluded: “There is no hope.”

She was Magda Goebbels, wife of Joseph Goebbels–Propaganda Minister for the rapidly-collapsing Third Reich.

Magda and Joseph Goebbels, with their six children and a uniformed friend

“I do not wish to live in a world without National Socialism,” she said.

And to make certain her six children didn’t, either, she gave each of them a powerful sleeping tablet.  Then she crushed a cyanide capsule between their jaws.

Finally, she and her husband died by their own hands–he shot her, and then himself.

Fortunately, Ann Coulter has no children.  Nor even a husband who would willingly shoot her.

So if she truly believes she cannot live in a world where fascists don’t rule absolutely over America, perhaps it’s time for history to repeat itself.

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FASCISM: THEN AND NOW

In History, Politics, Social commentary on February 8, 2013 at 12:00 am

JANUARY 30, 1933:

EIGHTY YEARS AGO,

ADOLF HITLER (LEFT)

WAS APPOINTED

CHANCELLOR

OF GERMANY

BY ITS THEN-PRESIDENT,

PAUL VON HINDENBURG (RIGHT).

FIFTY MILLION CORPSES LATER….

Arlington Cemetary

FOR MOST,

THIS ANNIVERSARY

IS

A WARNING

TO REMEMBER–

TO ENSURE

THAT SUCH

A CATASTROPHE

NEVER HAPPENS AGAIN.

Auschwitz: “Work Makes You Free”

FOR OTHERS,

IT’S

AN ANNIVERSARY

TO

CELEBRATE–

2012 Republican candidates for President

–IN HOPES

OF

“GETTING IT RIGHT”

THE

NEXT TIME.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

–Edmund Burke, father of modern conservatism

                                            

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TEARS FOR THE MISS AMERICA NAZI

In History, Politics, Social commentary on November 13, 2012 at 12:15 am

History seems to be repeating itself.

Joachim C. Fest, author of Hitler (1973), writes of the surprise that awaited Allied soldiers occupying Nazi Germany in 1945:

“Almost without transition, virtually from one moment to the next, Nazism vanished after the death of Hitler and the surrender. It was as if National Socialism had been nothing but the motion, the state of intoxication and the catastrophe it had caused….

“Hitler’s propaganda specialists had talked constantly of invincible Alpine redoubts, nests of resistance, and swelling werewolf units, and had predicted a war beyond the war. But there was no sign of this.

“Once again it became plain that National Socialism, like Fascism in general, was dependent to the core on superior force, arrogance, triumph, and by its nature had no resources in the moment of defeat.”

The same appears to be happening with the would-be dictators of the Republican Party.

Consider the reaction of Ann Coulter, the Republican version of the Miss America Nazi.  Speaking on the November 6 defeat of Mitt Romney, Coulter whined:

“People are suffering. The country is in disarray. If Mitt Romney cannot win in this economy, then the tipping point has been reached. We have more takers than makers and it’s over. There is no hope.”

And what did she hope to see Romney do as President?

“Mitt Romney was the president we needed right now, and I think it is so sad that we are going to be deprived of his brain power, of his skills in turning companies around, turning the Olympics around, his idea and his kindness for being able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas. It is interested in handouts.”

Note the chief reason for her regret: Romney would have been “able to push very conservative ideas on a country that no longer is interested in conservative ideas.”

Or, as the Original Nazis would have put it: “You vill love it–or else!”

Unfortunately for Coulter, a majority of Americans rejected this mentality–and the repressive measures that would have accompanied it.

So, naturally, Coulter and her fellow Rightists feel dejected.

Comedian Bill Maher, appearing on the November 7 edition of “Hardball With Chris Matthews,” offered his own explation for the Romney defeat: The Republicans fell victims to their own lies.

MAHER: But, you know, I think it gets to a bigger point, Chris, which is that Republicans have to start getting their information from a better source than FOX News. I’m not kidding about this….

They believed it right up until the end. They were shocked by this election.

They have to somehow fix the way they get information, because they only talk to each other. And they don’t know what’s going on in the real world.

And they were rudely awakened last night.

MATTHEWS: What do you think it was like to be in that bubble with Mitt Romney in that time after it really–I called it the knockout, like the sixth round?

MAHER: I mean, I think they were still saying, “Yes, Mein Fuehrer, you have 12 divisions on the Eastern front.”

MATTHEWS: Anyway, Donald Trump took to Twitter last night, trashing the election returns. Here’s what he said.  On Twitter, in real time, to use your phrase. “He lost the popular vote by a lot.”

He’s talking about the president and won the election. “We should have a revolution this country.”

“This election is a total sham and a travesty. We are not a democracy.”

“We can’t let this happen. We should march on Washington and stop this travesty. Our nation is totally divided.”

MAHER: I mean, it doesn’t deserve thoughts because these aren’t thoughts….

This guy only two years ago was like apolitical, right? I don’t even know what party he was. I don’t know if he knew what party he was.  Now he wants to march on Washington?  This is democracy–so it’s not democracy when your candidate loses?

* * * * *

Sixty-seven years ago, another fanatical, right-wing woman concluded: “There is no hope.”

She was Magda Goebbels, wife of Joseph Goebbels–Propaganda Minister for the rapidly-collapsing Third Reich.

Magda and Joseph Goebbels, with their six children and a uniformed friend

“I do not wish to live in a world without National Socialism,” she said.

And to make certain her six children didn’t, either, she gave each of them a powerful sleeping tablet.  Then she crushed a cyanide capsule between their jaws.

Finally, she and her husband died by their own hands–he shot her, and then himself.

Fortunately, Ann Coulter has no children.  Nor even a husband who would willingly shoot her.

So if she truly believes she cannot live in a world where fascists don’t rule absolutely over America, perhaps it’s time for history to repeat itself.