We've got another one of those lunatic "Bush is Hitler" pieces making the rounds of the internet- but the difference is that rather than coming from some notorious left-wing website, this one is from the op-ed page of an actual, semi-reputable newspaper, the San Fransisco Chronicle.
It's by Harley Sorensen, and he seems to really believe that because the president has pursued policies with which he disagrees, the Fourth Reich has descended on the United States. Even though Bush may very well be out of office a year from now.
As someone who didn't vote for Bush in 2000 and probably won't this year, that doesn't mean I consider the president an anti-Christ figure. I'm also aware of the USENET-derived axiom known as Godwin's Law, which states that the longer an argument goes on, the more likely it is that Hitler or the Nazis will be invoked- at which point the debate immediately ends and he who invoved Hitler loses.
Regardless, I waive the law in this one instance to bring you this. What do we do with lunatic pieces like this? We fisk them, that's what! Here we go:
Are Parallels To Nazi Germany Crazy?
Yes.
The customers always write.
Actually, they're always wrong.
I get about 400 e-mails in response to my columns every week, which might explain why I didn't answer yours. Here, slightly edited, is one of the more interesting ones from last week. It's from Herr Moellers in Germany:
"Dear Mr. Sorensen,
"I have many American friends and used to go on business travel to the U.S. a lot (I stopped doing that after even our European governments have given in to Uncle Sam's appetite for information about individuals traveling to God's Own Country), and I am shocked by the deterioration of democracy in a country that I used to love. This administration is a shame and the destabilization they have brought to the world is scaring the s** out of me.
"Deterioration of democracy"? Has she not noticed that there's a friggin' election going on right now?
"My father was a Nazi soldier and he realized during the war what he and most of his generation was led into. I have learned from him that a nation can be guilty and that we must stop the arrogance of the powers at the very beginning. To me, America is becoming truly scary and the parallels to the development in Germany of the thirties (although the reason behind it are totally different) are sickening.
A nation can be guilty? Of what, liberating Iraq? Is this daughter-of-a-Nazi really serious that she doesn't see the difference between America today and Germany then?
Herr Moellers' e-mail is typical of a half dozen or so I've received over the past year from people with intimate knowledge of Nazi Germany.
Sorensen says he gets 400 e-mails a week, which figures out to nearly 21,000 a year. And how many of them were from Germans comparing the United States to Nazi Germany? A half-dozen! An overwhelming response, to be sure!
I respect experience, so I'm inclined to believe what these people are telling me. Perhaps their memories help explain the attitude of Germans toward the Bush administration these days.
Of course, that's why the Germans are against Bush! But how do you explain the French agreeing with the Germans, when they got conquered by the Germans?
They've been there, they've done that. They know what a corrupt government smells like.
Of all the things Sorensen could possibly say about the Nazis, the best word he could come up with is "corrupt"? Is Dick Cheney fudging on who was on the energy task force now roughly the equal of the politicies of Nazi Germany?
But are they "over the top"? Are they overreacting to a normal swing of the pendulum in American politics?
The latter.
To make a comparison between Germany in the 1930s and America now, I relied on a Web site called "A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust." The passages in quotations below are taken from the site.
Quite an authoritative source, a web site that no one's ever heard of. But let's go on...
"With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."
Whether by chance or design, George W. Bush is the most powerful American president in modern history. Not only does he have both houses of Congress beholden to him, but the majority of the Supreme Court is acting like a quintet of Bush lapdogs. And it all appears legal.
But just a wee couple of differences- the Weimar Republic was about a decade old while the American republic is more than 200 years old. Not to mention that America is still a democracy, there have been mid-term elections since 9/11 and, once again, Bush may very well lose the election this year. Hitler didn't have to worry about re-election.
And the Supreme Court is Bush's lapdogs? You mean like when they upheld affirmative action and legalized sodomy?
"Domestically, during the next six years, Hitler completely transformed Germany into a police state."
Civil libertarians insist that this is happening here now, with the USA Patriot Act in force and Patriot II on the table.
A few months ago I stumbled into an anti-Patriot Act protest in Manhattan, complete with chants of "Stop the Police State." The rally was attended by no police at all; in a true "police state," such an event would have resulted in arrests/torture/permanent imprisonment. Not to mention that there's no "death camps" or "ethnic cleansing" or "Holocaust" going on America right now.
"Hitler engaged in a 'diplomatic revolution' by negotiating with other European countries and publicly expressing his strong desire for peace."
Nobody can accuse Bush of being overly diplomatic, but, like all political leaders, he is an apostle for peace, even while starting two wars during his brief tenure.
Did Bush not go to the United Nations and gain a resolution for the Iraq war, in the process delaying the start of the Iraq war for months? And Bush did not start the war in Afghanistan; by supporting and sheltering Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban started that war.
In 1933, the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, was burned to the ground. Nobody knows for sure who set the fire. The Nazis blamed communists. "This incident prompted Hitler[,then Germany's chancellor,] to convince [German President Paul von] Hindenburg to issue a Decree for the Protection of People and State that granted Nazis sweeping power to deal with the so-called emergency."
The Reichstag fire parallels the Sept. 11 attacks here, and Hindenburg's decree parallels our USA Patriot Act.
Is Sorensen, with a straight face, calling the events of September 11, which resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Americans, a "so-called emergency"? Does the precedent of the Reichstag fire mean that no country should ever react to a terrorist attack ever again?
Soon after Hitler took power, the concentration camp at Dachau was created and "the Nazis began arresting Communists, Socialists and labor leaders ... . Parliamentary democracy ended with the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag."
With Bush leading all branches of government around by the nose, there's a question whether parliamentary democracy still exists here. Certainly, concentration camps exist, if we're willing to call the lockup at Guanténamo Bay what it really is. And the USA Patriot Act allows the president to effectively take citizenship rights from any American-born criminal suspect.
This is the most nonsensical passage of the piece: Is he actually comparing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters imprisoned at Guatanamo to the the innocent Jews of the Warsaw ghetto? Is he not aware of the conotation that the phrase "concentration camp" has, for Holocaust survivors and those descended from them?
Article comments
1 - ???
ya well all that is shit bush is two big of a coward to ven compare to Adolf my great grandfather was a Nazi, he loved Adolf as did most, sure a few didnt agree with him but thats true everywhere. now germanys anti nazi laws are bull sh** they have the same freedom of speach as us and yet if u say u suport the nazis bam you end up in jail. theres no stoping the nazis or the Klan or any other hate group, its inevitable worse comes to worse they'll fight like terrorists. so i think anti-nazi laws infringe on freedom of speech.
2 - Rob
>>"Deterioration of democracy"? Has she not noticed that there's a friggin' election going on right now? <<
With all your knowledge about the Nazis and all, you'd think you might realise that HERR Moellers is a man, dummy. Plus he probably expected that the recent election would be rigged by Dubya like the last one. Turns out it wasn't, but it was a reasonable guess.
>>Of course, that's why the Germans are against Bush! But how do you explain the French agreeing with the Germans, when they got conquered by the Germans? <<
Oh, of course, that would obviously make them LIKE Nazis, wouldn't it? I am bowled over by the strength of your argument.
>>Quite an authoritative source, a web site that no one's ever heard of.<<
Making a rimshot out of a Holocaust information site for schools to cover up your pathetic lack of arguments? Would you be so rude about it if it was a holocaust denial site? I think your agenda is showing. Incidentally, I'd never heard of you or your site until half an hour back, but it doesn't seem to stop you mouthing off. We can't all be famous.
>>But just a wee couple of differences- the Weimar Republic was about a decade old while the American republic is more than 200 years old.<<
And this is relevant how?
>>Did Bush not go to the United Nations and gain a resolution for the Iraq war
<<
No.
>>And Bush did not start the war in Afghanistan; by supporting and sheltering Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban started that war. <<
Yeah, yeah, and the wicked Czechs made Hitler invade them by having German-speakers in their population. Do you really believe that rubbish?
>>Is Sorensen, with a straight face, calling the events of September 11, which resulted in the deaths of 3,000 Americans, a "so-called emergency"? <<
I guess so. What, you think nobody ever got attacked by terrorists before Sep 11 2001? Try talking to a few Israelis, or Europeans. (If you don't know where Israel and Europe are, I expect the Holocaust website you so loathe has a map you can look at).
>>This is the most nonsensical passage of the piece: Is he actually comparing the Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters imprisoned at Guatanamo to the the innocent Jews of the Warsaw ghetto? <<
Er, no, because they didn't go to Dachau and at the time he refers to were still alive and well, since Poland hadn't been invaded. And the word 'innocent' applied to the Guantanamo inmates as well since not one of them has been tried, let alone convicted, of a damned thing except maybe looking too Arab-ish. I recently visited Dachau, and to judge from the museum there it was several years before the place surpassed current Guantanamo standards of brutality (though of course it did eventually).
>>Is he not aware of the conotation that the phrase "concentration camp" has, for Holocaust survivors and those descended from them? <<
Should he be? What, he can't use the phrase because you've patented it, or what? I'm a Brit, and we invented the things back during the Boer war, so let me say whether you like it or not, Gitmo is a concentration camp.
>>But even if it did- is that somehow the equivilant to the slaughter of six million Jews? <<
Clearly not, though all of a sudden you're taking an interest in Holocaust information? Anyhow, Bush has been in power for four years. Hitler didn't begin systematic persecution of the Jews (i.e. more than of any other group) for at least another year and didn't reach even his first million Jews killed until much later. I don't suppose Bush will try anything similar, but my point is that Hitler hadn't by this stage either.
>>Huh? Because we have sports, we're like the Nazis? What was Sorensen smoking when he wrote this? <<
I'd have to agree with you there! Weird.
>>Sorensen, without realizing it, is actually arguing in favor of US intervention, as the terrorist nations that he mentions are less likely to be afraid of us if we exercise our military power.<<
OK, what were YOU smoking? They'll be LESS afraid of you if you attack them? Huh? Or was it a typo?
>So what's he advocating, mass emigration? <
Would anyone with any sense want to stay there now? Arab or not? Get out while you can, and leave it to Bush and the theocracy.
>>If you're not committing genocide, if you're not putting people in concentration camps, if you're not taking over entire continents, and you're not pushing for extermination of entire races, you're NOT JUST LIKE HITLER. PERIOD. <<
What, Bush has to score 100% on the whol etest, AND have a moustache, before people can get a little bit alarmed about him? He's done the concentration camps, and he appears to wish to invade an area of the Middle East equivalent to all Hitler's conquered territory. Me, I'd find it scary to have a President even about 30% like Hitler. Period.
>>I wonder why they chose to side against America and fight for Islamo-fascism.<<
Something which might be brought out at their trials, if they ever had them. And I just love the way that it's unacceptable the Republican neocons as Nazis but OK to label Muslims as 'fascists'. Because of course they aren't individual human beings, just a generalised hate group like....who were the ones Hitler banged on about?
>>A Nazi regime would have killed all of them by now, but America has killed none of them<<
And you'd know that because of your inside track to the details of precisely who is held incommunicado where, would you? For all you or I know, America could have killed hundreds of them. No messy records, no Congressional oversight: just a bullet in the back of the head. I can't prove it's happened, but you sure as hell can't prove it hasn't, so don't pretend to certainty you don't have.
>>No they're not. Because none of the important comparisons are actually apt. <<
More accurately, none of the apt comparisons is actually important (to you).
>>...he can't un-liberate Afghanistan or Iraq. Or would Sorensen like for him to do just that?<<
I don't know about Mr Sorensen, or about Afghanistan, but when a woman whose husband was murdered by Saddam Hussein's thugs is reported (last week in The Guardian) as saying that life was better under Saddam than it is now, you have to wonder.
Of course Bush isn't a Nazi. But he has consolidated his political power in a remarkably similar way to that in which Hitler consolidated his, and to an observer from this side of the Atlantic it looks ominous. I don't anticipate that Bush will launch into a campaign of exterminating Muslims, or even of gays (though that seems less ludicrous, and of course there's a Hitler precedent there too). However, I anticipate nothing but evil consequences from another four years of unbridled power for the guy.
Still, majority of the popular vote and all that. Truly you have the President you deserve. Enjoy. Glad I don't have to visit your country. Feel free to keep out of mine.
3 - Eric Olsen
Rob, I believe Steve voted for Kerry - does that change your perspective at all? And what country are you in and what makes you feel it is superior to the US?
4 - Rob
I'm not too bothered which way Steve voted, his posting was still laced with garbage. I don't have a personal problem with the guy, and how he voted is up to him.
. Right now, particularly so because it is INCONCEIVABLE that anyone like George W Bush could have been elected, let alone re-elected, over here. It's a whole different political climate, and I suppose it's a question of what I'm used to. But the US right now seems gunuinely scary and I wouldn't feel at all comfortable about working there, even on a short contract (I work in IT).
I'm from Great Britain (Scotland, specifically) so naturally I'd think it better than the US
Blair is quite bad enough!
Rob
5 - AP
Do you know what Rob, I'm Scottish too and just recently I had bloody Goodwin’s Law evoked on me in an online discussion on you guessed it, and American website. They can try and censor us but will never silence us. Freedom of speech, ha, freedom to speak as long as you don't question our authority. To highlight why I was censored I was in a debate as to whether the birth control pill is moral or not. I was pro birth control and as such was challenged that birth control had incited racial hatred because Margaret Selengor had advocated it (ludicrous statement!), I responded saying that that was like saying that because Hitler favoured people with blue eyes anyone with blue eyes was automatically affiliated with him, a statement I felt was just as ludicrous as the afore mentioned, BOOM admin closed the thread down citing Goodwin's Law like a petulant with it's fingers in its ears. If I had made a comparison using the 9/11 terrorists and the planes used to fly into the twin towers, apparently that would have been ok (until of course some pleb makes up a law for that)!