On the Sunday morning talk shows, especially NBC's Meet the Press, there was a great deal of talk about the ongoing protests at health care town hall events. One of the issues repeatedly raised was the display of signs with images of President Obama as Hitler or comparing him to Hitler. To my surprise, the representatives of the political right who were generally sympathetic to the protesters largely failed to speak out and set the record straight on this issue.
One would hope that Dick Armey of FreedomWorks would know that grassroots protesters from groups his organization is allied with are not being sent out with these posters and that in many cases they are being advised not to pursue that particular line of rhetoric, but he failed to speak out to set the record straight and advocates of the health care plan keep using it to demonize protesters and attempt to discredit them as extremists.
The truth is quite a bit different. Grassroots conservatives may make up the bulk of the protest movement against Obamacare, but they are not alone. Some leftists who feel that proposed reforms are too moderate are also protesting. Many of them are followers of former Democratic presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche whose philosophy is a kind of neo-Marxism and includes a conspiratorial belief that President Obama is a eugenicist and support for fully socialized health care.
Although MSNBC's Rachel Maddow and other pundits repeatedly try to pin these Hitler posters on the grassroots protesters from the right, the truth is that they originate with and are being displayed by activists in the LaRouche movement and you can find the source image (PDF) they are using on the LaRouche website. In fact, if you look closely at the posters, they clearly display the LaRouche logo and web address at the bottom.
The objectives and concerns of the far-left LaRouche protesters and the larger body of conservative protesters are very different, and that difference ought to be obvious to politicians and media talkers. Their attempts to discredit the more mainstream protesters by associating them with the LaRouche crazies are transparently deceptive and only serve to alienate more citizens and further anger protesters who feel that the government and its media lap-dogs have declared war on the people.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Clavos
Very interesting!
Looking forward to hearing our liberal friends' reactions...
2 - handyguy
Calling Lyndon LaRouche far left is not even close to accurate. He's definitely far-out, but zero mainstream liberals would claim him, and few if any Daily Kos-style activists either.
He is from Planet X. Or perhaps, like the Coneheads, "He comes from France."
And the SS/fascist/Nazi lettering images and comparisons were not limited to that one slick poster...lotsa handmade signs at lotsa rallies. And Limbaugh was willing to run with it, for whatever nutty reasons of his own.
And Jonah Goldberg gave us a charming book, pre-ObamaCare debate, called "Liberal Fascism." One description says it "attempts to link Mussolini, Hitler, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, JFK, Hillary Clinton and eugenics."
3 - Dr Dreadful
Correct, Handy. He's no more a leftist than Fred Phelps - who's also a Democrat.
4 - BillFromDetroit
This is pretty straight coverage of the LaRouche involvement and you are to be applauded for it. Americans need to wake up from the funk that they have been lulled into by the foreign financial interests that are the real enemy here calling for the Independent Medicare Advisory Committee, and seize back their country (while there is something left to seize) while they still can. My LaRouche friends are providing the wake up call with their organizing, such as that recognized here by Mr. Nalle. This is what journalism should be about - getting to the heart of the matter without the blinders imposed on us by the many enemies of America.
5 - Dr Dreadful
Was #4 the sort of 'liberal friend's reaction' you were expecting, Clav?
Or is it even better?
:-)
6 - roger nowosielski
It's infinitely better. Mission accomplished.
7 - Dave Nalle
#4 clearly didn't read the article very closely, but he does confirm the existence of LaRoucheBots.
And Handy, LaRouche considers himself a Democrat, ran for president as a Democrat, was an avowed Marxist for most of his career and advocates mostly far-left policies. You may not like him, but you're stuck with him.
Dave
8 - Ruvy
Dave, your attempts to stick La Rouche on the left of the American chicken - which has no left wing anyway - are amusing.
You would be more accurate to say that laRouche is an extremist - he is. In all the fifty years I lived in the States, I never heard anybody call LaRouche a leftist - even the Conservatives (yes, with a capital "c") I knew. They called him a nut-case - some even agreed with his Jew-hatred. But they never called him a leftist.
Considsering what kind of trash "the left" in America has turned into, I do not mind them being stuck with laRouche - but you are not going to get anywhere with that, just as Chris Rose will not get "faithist" adopted as a word in English, no matter how much he huffs or puffs.
9 - Arch Conservative
mmmm....
Larouche? Are you kidding.
He's not even relevant enough to have his name mentioned once on BC never mind be discussed in a post and the ensuing comments.
What's the next article going to be about? Howard Stern's health care reform proposal?
10 - Bliffle
Is that Thug Dave Nalle is shilling for the Obama-Hitler goons?
Pretty clever propaganda, Dave, presenting it while pretending to condemn, even getting the picture posted.
11 - Andy Marsh
What happened to the picture? All I see is a red "X".
12 - Baronius
There's a perfect word to describe LaRouche's politics. He believes in nationalism, public/private cooperation, and strong leadership; he demonizes opponents, and relies on secrecy and distrust. He's a textbook case of a particular ideology. He's just smart enough to accuse everyone (everyone!) of being a fascist first.
13 - Dave Nalle
I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but LaRouche is self-defined as a Democrat and leftist and marxist and unionist. He's one of yours. Stop trying to deny him.
But the main point is that the LaRouche posters are not represenative of the main body of right-leaning protesters and misrepresenting them that way is a sleazy smear on the part of Pelosi and other Democrats and the media.
Dave
14 - Christopher Rose
But Dave, you're self-defined as an independent and objective thinker and that isn't correct either.
People self-define themselves in all sorts of ways but it frequently has nothing to do with reality.
Indeed, the USA and most of its citizens define themselves as freedom loving but it is in fact a very heavily regulated society.
15 - handyguy
I will admit to not knowing very much about LaRouche except that he appears to be a long-running unfunny joke and all-around wacko. So, inspired by Dave's claims, I just immersed myself in the book-length Wikipedia entry on LaRouche.
I recommend it to all the political junkies on here, not to prove any partisan point, but because the guy is bizarre enough to be fascinating.
He did begin his 'career' in economics and politics as a Marxist, or more precisely, a Trotskyite. But by the mid-1960s he was estranged from the Communist Party, and by the 1970s his followers were using physical violence and intimidation against leftist groups often enough that Julian Bond, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others referred to the LaRouche organization as 'fascists.' The ADL has referred to him as a 'little Hitler.' Maybe that's where he got the Obama poster idea.
He is a convicted felon, having served 5 years of a 15-year sentence for mail fraud, 1989-1994. He ran for Congress and for the presidency while in prison!
He has indeed run for president as a Democrat -- not that the Democrats have wanted anything to do with him. He actually got enough votes to earn delegates in 1996 and 2000 -- but the DNC refused to seat them because LaRouche is a convicted felon and because the DNC said his political beliefs are explicitly racist and anti-Semitic. LaRouche sued and lost.
A comparison could be made to David Duke and the Republican Party. Duke and LaRouche are pariahs that no one wants to claim.
16 - zingzing
dave: "But the main point is that the LaRouche posters are not represenative of the main body of right-leaning protesters and misrepresenting them that way is a sleazy smear on the part of Pelosi and other Democrats and the media."
yeah, well, they do seem to have co-opted the posters. maybe it's just the dumb ones.
17 - Clavos
Andy #11:
What happened to the picture? All I see is a red "X".
It's still there, must be your ad blocker's fault.
18 - handyguy
And of course, if LaRouche still considers himself a Democrat [or if he ever did -- maybe he knew he could get more votes using a major party's name], why is he targeting a Democratic president [one frequently if ridiculously called a Marxist] and Democratic members of Congress?
When a [presumably] LaRouche-kyite person held up the sign at a John Dingell meeting, the room cheered. Apparently a significant number of non-LaRouche supporters liked the cheeky anti-Obama sentiment. Are they merely tolerating it, or have some of them picked up on the Hitler comparisons and repeated them?
The AP as well as Huffington Post are running an amusing video of Barney Frank confronting someone holding one of these awful signs at a town hall.
Dave understandably wants to draw a sharp distinction between the anti-tax/tea-bagger/libertarian 'grassroots' protesters and the lunatic rhetoric of LaRouche. But maybe some of it is crossing over?
By the way, here is the Wikipedia bio of Larouche.
19 - Bliffle
That thug Dave Nalle just took this opportunity to shill for the rightwing by publishing the defamatory picture of Obama.
The words and denunciation of La Rouche are just to cover the subterfuge.
Dave is a practised propagandist, it's hard to take his articles seriously.
Lately he's been using BC headlines to defame democrats, whom he hates though he won't admit he's a republican. He's a leftover from the rightist contingent that thinks it expresses conservatism just by attacking liberals.
This article is just a variation of that theme: you'll get slapped in the face by that Obama/Hitler picture every day, just like his article headlines declaring his enemies are "thugs" and "shills".
Little wonder that BC is described more and more as a hard right blog site.
How dumb.
20 - Baronius
Bliffle, are you kidding?
21 - roger nowosielski
You're right as to your last observation, Bliffle. I was thinking of inviting some of the fine minds to participate in the dialogue now and then, but to tell the truth, it's becoming more and more embarrassing.
The right leaning of most of the contributors is not so much of a problem, but the obtuseness of thought is, lack of imagination, harping on the same old, long discredited, paradigms of thought, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
Again, that's why I rarely if ever engage anymore. Why bother?
22 - Dave Nalle
A comparison could be made to David Duke and the Republican Party. Duke and LaRouche are pariahs that no one wants to claim.
David Duke has also run for office recently as a Democrat.
Baronius, sometimes it's hard to tell if Bliffle is kidding or just insane. In this case I think he's joking, though because he knows perfectly well that I'm a Republican. It even says it at the end of all my articles. In #19 he's just engaging in his usual kind of snarky personal attack, discrediting himself yet again.
As you know as well as I do, BC's reputation is for leaning too far left politically, thereby alienating more conservative participants. This based, as I've been told, on the constant harassment of right-leaning writers by lefty commenters. thankfully most conservative and libertarian writers are used to harassment and can take a certain amount of it and stick around, while lefties tend to prefer an echo chamber environment like Kos or HuffPo.
Dave
23 - zingzing
"As you know as well as I do, BC's reputation is for leaning too far left politically, thereby alienating more conservative participants. This based, as I've been told, on the constant harassment of right-leaning writers by lefty commenters. thankfully most conservative and libertarian writers are used to harassment and can take a certain amount of it and stick around, while lefties tend to prefer an echo chamber environment like Kos or HuffPo."
oh for fuck's sake. if you and yours are so alienated, why are you here? and if lefties prefer an echo chamber, why are we here to "constantly harass" you? the very fact that you would write that (given the circumstances) just proves how out of whack you are, as the very situation you describe disproves your point. sheesh...
24 - roger nowosielski
I challenge you, Dave, to make a list both of regular contributors as well as commenters. I can but won't bother.
Just to give an example how many people are checking out: Cindy, Glenn (rare nowadays), Baritone (only on Culture now, rarely in Politics), Brunelleschi (remember him), Mark, Les Slate, I too am limiting my comments. (Ever wonder why?) The only ones you guys are loosing are those who have been banned for offensive postings.
Quite an attrition, I'd say, for a predominantly Left-dominated site. But you go ahead and live in your dreamworld.
Roger and out.
25 - doug m
Don't give up the fight, Roger.