In Defense of Making Comparisons of Certain People with Nazis or other Contemptible Groups

I and others are sometimes vigorously criticized for making comparisons between George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their cohorts on the one hand with Hitler or his Nazis on the other hand. Usually the person making the criticism doesn’t explain the basis of his/her criticism, but as best as I understand it, the basis of these criticisms falls into one of the three following related groups of reasons:

1. Comparing people to Nazis “makes us look bad”.

2. Comparing anyone to Nazis trivializes what the Nazis did because nothing can compare with what they did.

3. It is inaccurate to compare Bush or Cheney with Nazis because the degree of damage they’ve done is miniscule compared to what the Nazis did.

I believe that we have very good reasons for comparing Bush, Cheney and their cohorts with Nazis, but before I get to that I’d like to address the criticisms:


Comparing people with Nazis “makes us look bad”

This argument is similar in some ways to the argument that some people use against trying to impeach Bush and Cheney. These people are worried that impeachment may be seen by large segments of the U.S. population as too extreme and partisan, and therefore such efforts may hurt us badly in the 2008 elections.

I don’t want to minimize such concerns, and I will admit that sometimes it is best to withhold speaking the truth for tactical political purposes. Probably a good example of that is when Lincoln withheld the extent of his anti-slavery views during his campaign for the presidency in 1860. I believe that it’s very unlikely that he would have been elected had he made known how he really felt about slavery prior to his election. And it is also likely that had he not been elected President in 1860, slavery could have lasted another several decades in our country. It pains me to admit it, but sometimes it is best to bite your tongue and avoid saying very controversial things, even when true.

Yet, I believe that most of the time it is better to speak truth to power. Cynthia McKinney was widely lambasted for questioning the Bush administration’s response to 9-11, and she undoubtedly lost her House seat (twice) because of that and other controversial statements that she made. Michael Moore is widely despised in our country because of his controversial statements and documentaries, and he may well be assassinated because of them. Yet, to me both of those people are heroes and badly needed breaths of fresh air in our country, and I am very grateful to them for bringing issues of great importance for us to light.

Keith Olbermann is another example. His wonderful commentaries on the Bush administration have struck a chord in our country, and he seems to have survived the effort without eliciting the great hostility that Rep. McKinney and Michael Moore have elicited, while reaching and affecting the views of millions of Americans. I believe that he can be credited more than any other single person with the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections. Sometimes speaking the truth works, and sometimes it doesn’t. But as Keith has said, though he may lose his job because of his controversial statements, at least he’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that he says what he deeply believes. Thank you so much Keith for elevating the quality of corporate media journalism in our country by a few notches.


Comparing anyone to Nazis trivializes what the Nazis did because nothing can compare with what they did

The last thing I would want to do is trivialize what the Nazis did. I have been intensely interested in better understanding what they did for as long as I can remember, precisely because what they did was so terrible, and perhaps also because some of my relatives were their victims. In my efforts to understand what they did I have read more books on this subject than any other – probably around 50.

But although the magnitude of their crimes is probably the largest in the history of the world, what they did is not qualitatively unique by any means. History is full of examples of mass murders of civilian populations and other atrocities. What is different about the Nazi Holocaust is only the numbers of victims involved and the fact that it is better documented than earlier examples.

Nor is it unreasonable to fear that there will be future similar incidents. In fact, we have had a number of similar incidents in the 62 years since the Nazi Holocaust, including 200,000 dead (mostly Mayan Indians) in Guatemala between 1968 and 1996, the 1.7 million murdered by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, the 100,000 dead in East Timor at the hands of the Indonesian government between 1975 and 1999, the Bosnian genocide of 1992-1995, and the Rwandan genocide of 1994 which claimed 800,000 victims in just a hundred days. All of these atrocities were smaller than the Nazi Holocaust. But for those who say that that’s because the perpetrators were less evil, I have to say that the reason for the smaller numbers was less opportunity, not less evil. Does anyone really believe that someone who would murder 100 thousand innocent people would be incapable of doing the same to 10 million if given the opportunity?

The bottom line is this: Historical comparisons, when used properly, are not meant and do not serve to trivialize the historical events that are the most serious of those being compared. Far from trivializing those events, the comparisons are made precisely because they are so serious. The purpose is the same purpose that provides the primary motivation for all historical studies: to learn from the past so that we may have a better future. If the Nazi Holocaust was known to be a unique, one in a billion years event, there would be no reason to study it because it would be irrelevant to our future. But there is little or no reason to believe that it is absolutely unique.


It is inaccurate to compare Bush or Cheney with Nazis because the degree of damage they’ve done is miniscule compared to what the Nazis did

When I or others (I can’t speak for all others of course) compare Bush or Cheney with Hitler or his Nazis, the claim is not that they have killed as many people as the Nazis did, or that their methods have been as extreme. As I noted above, the amount of evil that any one person does is a function of how evil they are and of their opportunity to do evil. Few would argue that Bush and Cheney have thus far had as much opportunity to do evil as Hitler did. For one thing, they rule a country with a democratic tradition of more than two centuries. And that serves as some sort of brake on their ambitions.

But they have been systematically dismantling our democratic traditions by repeatedly violating the laws of our country and our Constitution, and otherwise simply putting themselves above all of our laws.

What many Americans seem not to realize is that Hitler didn’t just come to power and immediately start in with his genocidal plans. Far from it. The way was prepared gradually. It’s true that Jews and other minority groups were treated poorly from the beginning of Hitler’s rise to the Chancellorship in 1933. But the scale of atrocities was miniscule pre-World War II compared to what it was after that war got going. World War II loosened Hitler’s restraints, as he had planned, by shielding him from international intervention (other countries couldn’t effectively complain about his genocide while they were under attack or threat of attack) and by focusing the minds of the German people on the war. It can be argued that pre- World War II, the scale of atrocities in Nazi Germany was of the same order of magnitude that currently exists in this country.

Bush and Cheney have already initiated one war against a country that posed no threat to us, which has resulted in the deaths of close to a million innocent Iraqi civilians. Some argue that their intentions were to stave off a major threat to our country – but I think the evidence strongly argues against that interpretation.

Some have argued in response to my posts, “But I don’t see any concentration camps”. Without getting into a trivial argument over semantics, I ask those people what they would consider our detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, our many prisons in Iraq, our many secret prisons scattered throughout the world, and our torture outsourcing program, which is called “extraordinary rendition”.

To get an idea of the scale of these programs I suggest that people read “Ghost Plane – The true story of the CIA Torture Program.”, by Stephen Grey, which I discuss in detail in this post. According to Grey, who has extensively investigated this issue, there have probably been about 11,000 victims of our illegal detainee programs, and untold numbers of them are tortured on a frequent basis.

Unfortunately, in my opinion, too many Americans don’t take these things seriously enough. The all too common attitude in our country is that these programs are only for hardened terrorists, to protect us against a great threat to our country. But the evidence suggests that a great many of these victims, probably the vast majority, are innocent of any wrongdoing. Major General Antonio Taguba, charged with investigating the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, said that “A lack of proper screening meant that many innocent Iraqis were being detained (in some cases indefinitely) and that 60% of civilian prisoners at Abu Ghraib were deemed not to be a threat to society; and the International Red Cross said that between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq had been arrested by mistake. These figures could well be very conservative.

What about the Bush administration’s claim that these prisoners are the “worst of the worst”? I say to that, what right does George Bush have to make that claim when the vast majority have neither been charged with nor tried for a crime, and when many have been determined to be innocent of any wrongdoing? Did Hitler not make the same claims of those whom he sent to the concentration camps without charges or trial? Tell me, what is the difference between the majority of victims of Hitler’s concentration camps and ours? I ask you, what kind of man would imprison for an indefinite period of time and without trial thousands of human beings? Would such a man not do the same to millions if he had the opportunity?


Why historical comparisons (to Nazis or whatever is appropriate) are so important

When tyrants make their grabs for power they don’t go around with a sign on their chests proclaiming their intentions. On the contrary, they always proclaim the noblest of intentions. Hitler wasn’t averse to calling himself a Nazi, of course, because in those days “Nazi” wasn’t a bad name. Today “Nazi” is a bad name almost everywhere, so today’s modern Nazis call themselves something else. Bush and Cheney, of course, are just trying to fight terrorists and protect American citizens.

My whole point is that the intentions of tyrants are difficult for many people to recognize because those intentions are almost always disguised, at least in the early stages of their rise to and accumulation of power. Once their rise to power has advanced to a certain degree it is often too late to stop them without a major war; thus the crucial importance of recognizing them early.

Evil in particular is difficult for many people to recognize, when disguised (as it so often is), because it is so painful recognize. The evil of Hitler’s Nazis is easy for us to recognize today, both because it is now so thoroughly documented and because it comes from the past rather than the present. But for many Americans it is extremely difficult to recognize and admit to the presence of evil in their own country, today, in their own leaders.

A major purpose of history is to help us recognize serious problems before they get so bad that they can no longer be successfully fought. By comparing current situations to certain historical situations we can learn to recognize the danger signals, thereby giving us the opportunity to learn from our past, that we might make a better future for ourselves. That is the reason why I and others make comparisons of the type that I have spoken about.

In a previous post I have pointed out numerous similarities between Hitler’s regime and current day United States of America. In another post I quoted a prominent past Nazi and a current day Neoconservative and asked people to guess the authors of the quotes, in the hope that some would see a striking similarity between the two that they hadn’t previously noticed. And in my most recent post I quoted Thom Hartmann’s description of Hitler’s war on terror, in the hope that many people would see a striking similarity between the two that they hadn’t previously noticed.


A final comment

I recently watched a news segment in which Mitt Romney was vigorously criticized by citizens attending a campaign rally of his for his shameless attempt to compare Barack Obama with Osama bin Laden, solely on the basis of somewhat similarly sounding names.

One of the persons at the rally said, “How dare you compare Osama bin Laden to any American.” That statement, which reflects the sentiments of too many Americans, is seriously misguided, and even dangerous. One could reasonably defend Obama by pointing out that it is terribly inappropriate to compare him with anybody based on the similarity of their names, and that he has never done anything to warrant such a comparison. But to say that he should be immune to such a comparison simply because he is an American is ridiculous. Such a statement implies that all Americans have some sort of immunity against a character trait that unfortunately is scattered widely throughout the world and throughout history. There is no factual basis for such an assertion. Only blind faith supports it.

What is dangerous about such a belief, especially at this point in time in our history, is that it prevents us from recognizing just how bad our leaders can be. As it is now, approximately 50% of the U.S. population approves of impeaching George Bush and Dick Cheney. I feel confident that the prevalent belief in extreme “American exceptionalism” – the belief that no American is capable of evil, or the extreme difficulty that many Americans have in recognizing evil in their leaders – prevents many more Americans from getting behind the effort to cast out the worst presidential administration that we have ever had. That kind of belief could be the ruination of our country.

Frame of reference has always been a part of communication. Also, it helps in avoiding repeats of bad events.

...Bush and Cheney are Nazis! And, the coconuts never fall far from the tree....

http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm

http://www.tetrahedron.org/articles/new_world_order/bush_nazis.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

http://www.rense.com/general43/bush.htm

http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/04/05/far04017.html

So people who foolishly dismiss the comparison are comparing the end result of the Nazis versus the overall scope of what they did. They took over power in ways extremely similar to how Bushco has. It started with erosion of civil liberties, beating the war drums, going after domestic critics and invading other countries... We have no idea how this will all end up under Bushco because they are far from through.

If they go after Iran, as they seem eager to, we could be talking about a muslim cleansing that rivals what the Nazis did to the Jews.

Again though we don't know the end result of Bush's tactics. He's done the torture, the secret prisons, the imprisonment without trial of American citizens, the domestic spying that Hitler and the Nazis did already. It IS relevant.

For those who think it is not, please stick your head back in the sand and stop bitching about the comparison.

The only reason anyone says it looks bad is a) they're part of the right wing regime or one of their defenders and they are crying foul to protect themselves from the criticisms they earned or b) they have no fucking clue what is actually going on and should go back to watching their entertainment television.

At this point they have followed very similar patterns. Both are extremist right wing regimes. We KNOW how the Nazis ended up and since we are step for step with them in this process thusfar, I think it very credible to be arguing from the left on how we need to stop the future from repeating the past.

Rp

Hitler needed a World War before he was able to really put his genocidal plans into action.

The prospect of a world war doesn't seem to bother Bush or Cheney in the slightest. They seem to look forward to it.

Yet Congress appears to feel that they have other higher priorities, other than to deal with this.

of the truth of the American MIC's "adventures" over the last 30 years. Anyone want to estimate a body count?

However, this is NOT about numbers or whose genocide is sacred. It is about the People's ability to demand accountability from their governments.

And it's another crucially important similarity between Hitler and BushCo. Both demanded that they not be held accountable for anything, and anyone who tried to hold them accountable was a traitor.

And the B(ookmarked)

There's a reason why people in their right minds balk at such comparisons and tune out anything else that comes afterwards. It's because they recognize how ridiculous it is.

And someone doesn't need to post a million word rebuttal to show why either, any more than one wouldn't be necessary to dispute the fundy creationist claims that the Earth is only 5000 years old.

Some things simply don't require long winded rebuttal since they stand on their own, and it's simply better to walk away from the person putting out the premise rather than actually think you're going to get them to understand why their logic is so flawed.

No, they're not nazis.

Hitler begins with an H and is two syllables.

You're right, the comparison is ridiculous there.

Although Cheney is two syllables, so the comparison gets much more appropriate... yeah, I think I see.

You vehemently disagree with me, but you won't say why because my logic is so flawed that there's no way I could ever understand.

That doesn't leave much room for discussion does it?

But anyhow, I think you helped make my point. Some people are so against acknowledging the possibility that their leaders might be evil that they refuse to think about it or talk about it.

The greatest source of my frustration here on this big board. The labeling and careless dismissal of fellow DU'ers with a callous wave of the hand/keystroke is incredibly irksome. But I digress...

Thank you for the OP Time for change.

and I'll acknowledge the possibility that they're nazis.

Some things can simply be dismissed out of hand without rigorous debate. I recognize that with the Nazi ridiculousness as readily as I do with the whole Earth is 5000 years old ridiculousness.

But much like the fundy creationists wouldn't possibly agree or be swayed with the obvious deductions that their logic is flawed, neither do I expect it from those thinking they're truly nazis.

So be as frustrated as you want. I'm monumentally frustrated with how reckless and illogical the premises can be here sometimes. So we're even.

either way, you are entitled to your opinion and I won't call you names for exercising your right to voice them.

But you can't or won't even bother to say why you think it's ridiculous.

Why even bother responding if that's your attitude?

Did you even read my post? Or just the title?

among us who are really sensitive about being reminded of the past. Comparing them to BushCo wouldn't arouse their ire if they didn't know that BushCo was very unpopular here. They wouldn't object if compared with BushCo on Free Republic. The comparison makes them uncomfortable here, though. It gets under their skinheads.

superior ability to figure things out.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Your admissions of being a Nazi and being on the board with us doesn't make or break my day. To each his own. Happy day.

You are oh so wise jack sprat. Oh how we all wish to be you! If only all of us had the power of intellect and deduction to just call people nazis! All hail jack sprat, ruler of knowing who's a nazi! Yayyyyyy jack sprat!

but I will just be content that you worship and adore me. You're the first and only. Again, happy day to you, OPERATIONMINDCRIME.

You've exposed me to all! I'm a nazi! Brilliant! Just brilliant! Everyone now knows who you are Mr. jack sprat! They all adore you! They all want to be you! Why, why, you're the holy keeper of determining that which is nazi! Oh how we all should hold your power of deduction. Oh if we all could expose the nazis in our midst like you can, mr. jack sprat! You're the bestest ever!

You seem very angry and frustrated. Since you hold me in such esteem, then follow my wishes. Take a cold shower, OP. Really let the cold water run over your head. Then ask yourself why you tried to control the thinking of other people. If they want to compare the Bush Crime Family to the Nazis, then what business is it of yours and why should it even matter to you. If you want to be like me, then you need to carry yourself better. Get some pride in yourself. Clean yourself up.

I'm not angry, I've never been so enlightened! I just found out I'm a nazi! Yayyyyyyy!!!!! I can finally scream it from the mountaintops! I'm a nazi! A nazi! God it feels good. I'm freeeeeeeeeeeee. Freeeeeeeeee I tells ya! I'm freeeeee!! I can say it now! I'm a nazi!

Oh THANK YOU mr. jack sprat. Thank you for using your oh so magnificent powers of deduction to enlighten me to my own naziness! Thank you thank you thank you! You're the bedrock of this community. I demand your likeness be placed high atop the DU banner! All hail jack sprat! He is the eternal ruler of all powerful deduction in determining that which is nazi! You are so so smart! So aware! So spot on! How we all wish we could be you! Yes! Yes! I'm a nazi! OPERATIONMINDCRIME is a nazi! Oh thank you mr. jack sprat! Thank you!

...just a condescending halfwit who thinks you're smarter than everyone else. And your unshakeable belief that you are right without actually articulating any argument on why you're right really reminds me of someone...who could that be now...?

In case there's any doubt as to my beliefs, backed by evidence, on this debate, look no further than my nom de DU.

Yes, it makes it readily apparent that you're not someone whose words I would ever take seriously. In fact, you're someone I'd probably laugh at often. :crazy:

is just so much ridiculousness? that it is comparable to the error of christian fundamentalism and its offshoot creationism?

you go beyond recklessness, your WORDS and IDEAS (not you PERSONALLY) betray a profound lack of insight and lack of intellectual rigor.

you can't just throw out words like "logic" and "premises" and "flawed" and not have something to back it up. some kind of knowledge, some kind of historical perspective, some kind of intellectual curiosity, or at the very least, a humility to be quiet when you don't know what you are talking about. to be smart enough to know that you don't know and that adults are speaking.

i'm monumentally frustrated with how shielded your fundamental general "error" is. and that you expound so diligently and loudly about it.

...than five thousand is like five billion.

someone criticizes something and says it's beneath there dignity to explain why? Why even bother participating on a discussion board with an attitude like that?

Glad you liked my post. :)

there are too many people who are contrary just for the sake of being contrary.

or maybe they are just plain stupid.

You can go on thinking it is reasonable to compare the administration to nazis. The just about rest of us will continue to look at such concepts and laugh our asses off at how warped and misguided some people's perceptions are.

Topics like these make DU look monumentally dumb. It's embarrassing in fact. Comparing the administration to nazis, in a serious way, is nothing short of reckless and ignorant.

okay. what's so stupid about the comparison between the bush regime and the nazi regime?

sure, it doesn't match up one-to-one, but insofar as similarities between aspects of the bush regime and the nazi regime, which particular parallels are stupid?

according to him, whatever you say is just ridiculous on its face and fails his logic test, ergo he "Defeats You."

actual logic, reasoned arguments, and examples do not matter.

in future, please stick to bloviation and utter pomposity. he'll be able to understand you better.

Pomposity that is: In post # 71:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=1454994&mesg_id=1459393

I felt bad about it, and I don't like to talk like that -- here or anywhere else -- but I was really pissed off.

Like I said, you wouldn't need to debate with someone claiming the Earth is only 5000 years old either, would ya pal.

Not everything needs to be debated thoroughly as if the initiating premise holds credibility. Sometimes, the premise is so blatantly flawed on its face, that no real counter argument is really necessary in order for it to be shown to be silly or misguided.

I don't really expect you to comprehend this simple concept. I really don't. But I'm not sure it's anything but laughable for you to preach about actual logic or reasoned arguments, when you're standing on the side of a premise that has neither.

Yes, calling the administration Nazis is ridiculous on its face. Don't like it? Well awwwww, too damn bad.

i see many people COMPARING the administration to nazis.

what is it about comparing the administration to nazis that bothers you so much? the TRUE reason. spare us the bloviation and sophistry.

Seriously, are you just pretending to be this ignorant or is it really this much a waste of my time to be talking to you? :shrug:

what exactly is thick headed about my statements?

Right, that's why you've put forth the same stupid argument 30 times on this thread.

Don't fool yourself into thinking that OPERATIONMINDCRIME has any motive other than to play a demented game of incessant dissidence. He did not even read your OP, in all probability.

And rather than answer the question he just spewed forth more venom. I think you're right.

:rofl:

You didn't actually refer to anything in the OP in all of your 30 or 40 posts. All you ever referred to was the title. I'll bet you read it.

What, we gotta wait until the death toll in in the millions? Nope.

Mrs. Hitler's little boy was not a mass murder from day one. It took him some time. He was a Nazi long before he racked up his count.

They're either nazis or they aren't. There is nothing more laughable then seeing the whole "well, they're like the nazis were in the beginning!" argument.

All of the emotions, circumstances, realities and atrocities that are associated with the term 'nazis' are associated BECAUSE OF WHAT THEY DID LATER. If the nazis had stopped in the beginning, as you are trying to compare to, there wouldn't be NEARLY the connotations associated with the word as there are. So to still use the term to describe others, but defending it by saying "well, like in the beginning", is amazingly deceptive and of misguided premise. There is no 'nazis in the beginning'. There's just nazis as they were, as they are remembered, for all they did and all the suffering and atrocities they caused. If you are to use the term as comparison, then the ONLY way in which it is applicable is if the target of the comparison is guilty of the same. When absent of that, the term is then used recklessly and ignorantly.

:shrug:

:wow:

your perception is so warped on this issue that you can't read something so straightforward objectively enough in order to comprehend what it's saying.

But I stand behind the post. It was a thorough refutation of the ridiculousness before it. That stands whether you were able to 'get it' or not.

Goodnight.

:rofl:

... who has ever heard that somewhat shopworn phrase about forgetting history/being doomed to repeat it... well, your whole premise is absurd.

You've completely erased the 1930's, and the Nazi's many machinations on the way toward the Holocaust and all its attendant horrors. You've declared off-limits the drawing of any parallels between today's creep toward fascism and the core tragedy of the Nazi era: the denial. The years and years of refusal to acknowledge that a society was descending into horrifying madness.

"Mind Crime," indeed. :eyes:

If you want to say that it is unfair to compare someone with a Nazi until he's murdered 10 million people then go ahead.

But the point is to recognize the symptoms BEFORE they do incalculable damage, so that people will be stirred to do something about it before it's too late. Because Hitler was repeatedly appeased BEFORE he murdered tens of millions of people, we was thereby enabled to start the worst war in world history and carry out the worst genocide in world history as well.

Hitler doesn't have a monopoly on evil, and there will be others in the future unless people recognize them in enough time to stop them.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


That's why it's not even worth debating this with you or those who'd be like minded. To call that a technicality is such a sign as to why I give no credit to your perception on this issue. Technicality... What a joke!

It would be akin to walking around stating you have a brain tumor cause you woke up with a headache. I mean, it wouldn't be unfair to classify it as being rooted from a brain tumor right? Gotta recognize the symptoms right?

So laughable. So completely and utterly laughable.

Now if your argument was that the administration appears evil enough to some day go to extremes to the length that the nazis did, and we should recognize that now and make sure it would never get that far (which of course we wouldn't), well then that would be a bit different of a discussion. But to skip through alllllll the points inbetween the beginning and the end, and go straight to calling them nazis, is just, well, ignorant.


And with all due respect...
"If you want to say that it is unfair to compare someone with a Nazi until he's murdered 10 million people then go ahead. "

...That's gotta be one of the most ridiculous statements I've ever gotten in reply from anybody, ever.

"Now if your argument was that the administration appears evil enough to some day go to extremes to the length that the nazis did, and we should recognize that now and make sure it would never get that far (which of course we wouldn't), well then that would be a bit different of a discussion."

That's exactly my point -- except for the part "which of course we wouldn't" -- that remains to be seen. Everyone else on this thread got it, and maybe you finally did. Congratulatons.

It happens here too often: Posters say bush is a nazi, or this one is a nazi, or that one's a nazi. For the reasons I've shown, such uses of the term are reckless and ignorant.

Furthermore, you have already declared that you are comparing them to nazis. I've already stated that unless what the administration has done thusfar is EQUIVALENT to the atrocities done by the nazis, then any comparisons to them is misguided and of false perception.

The part you copied of mine IS NOT what your OP was stating, so please don't twist my premise into one that would now seem to be in agreement with yours. In mine, there would be no comparison to 'nazis' at all, it would be a warning about things we're seeing that could some day enable someone else to draw that comparison, if and when the time came. But that ISN'T what your OP was saying. Your OP was already making the comparison, which as I stated is quite misguided and flawed in premise. You and others have gone on to say "bbbbut they're like them in the beginning!", which is one of the weakest things towards this debate I've heard. It's monumentally silly to use that as a defense.

So spare me the 'you finally got it!' garbage. I've gotten it from the beginning. But it appears you still have some deduction to do prior to getting it.

There is a difference between saying A=B and saying that you are making a comparison between A and B. If you can't grasp that then I guess that there's really nothing more to talk about.

that they mean it as shorthand, as a colloquialism?

it's shorthand for "bush is a fascist with delusions of tyranny" or something like that.

do really think people actually mean that "bush is a national socialist?"

So it appears you may be the dense one pal.

You can say what you want. But to rational people hearing others calling the administration nazis, or calling other things nazis, it comes off as monumentally stupid and they will tune out anything afterwards. Trust me; they roll their eyes and think "how pathetic".

a rational person would be able to make draw conclusions on the basis of comparing varying sets of information to other sets of information.

But don't be left wondering why the people you're talking to are rolling their eyes and thinking you a complete fool...

doesn't it matter that many people HERE roll their eyes at you and think you are a complete fool?

and those are just the ones that don't have you on ignore.

The fundy creationists roll their eyes at those claiming evolution as well. I don't get bothered by the opinions of people of which I consider to be unwise or foolish. I just get humored by them.

if you aren't concerned about opinions.

I said I wasn't concerned with the opinions of logical fools, such as those you asked me about. I do, however, care about the opinions of people who are sane, rational, intellectual or wise.

I'm amazed this simple concept flew over your head. (no I'm not)

what's a "logical fool?"

the funny part is, i think you are actually teachable.

A class on "how to get rid of that pesky critical thinking ability that keeps you from looking like an utter ignoramus" isn't exactly my cup of tea.

But from some of the replies in this thread, it would appear that your class is already full anyway. :rofl:

i'm starting to think you are a parody taking the piss out of us here.

Actually Mr. Crime, may I suggest, if we are going to use medical analogies, that it's much more akin to early stage cancer.

You wouldn't suggest, would you, that someone just diagnosed with cancer not go around claiming they have the disease because it would be an unfair comparison to those who had already suffered and died of it?

You wouldn't claim they were, to use your words, skipping "through alllllll the points in between the beginning and the end", and going "straight to" claiming to have cancer, would you?

After all, that would be "just, well, ignorant".

Ah, a lucid analysis, how refreshing.

do you realize that no one is saying that the bush cabal are actually post-weimar republic era National Socialists?

you do realize that once you go beyond community college freshman phil 101, you can gaze upon the width and breadth of actual knowledge and apply comparisons among different eras that are not supposed to fit within an "either/or" framework.

i really don't think anyone is saying that there is a one-to-one relationship between the Nazis and the bush regime.

i think many people are saying there are PARALLELS. but the two cannot be the same, because they are simply NOT THE SAME.

so making false dichotomies is intellectually dishonest at best or glaringly ignorant at worst.

Using it in reference to the administration or some other things, just shows a sign of utter ignorance and warped perception on the part of the person seriously thinking so.

Americans..we read our history and fucking learned from it.

You've purchased exactly what they wanted you to buy. And it's a nice fit.
:nuke:

It's ridiculous because you say so. Good job countering the excellent points raised in the OP with your own counterpoints. You are a bastion of Logic and Reason, OPERATIONMINDCRIME.

Uh huh. I see it now. They're all just a bunch of nazis. You and the others impeccable logic and powers of deduction has totally turned me towards the light. I see it all so clearly now! Nazis for everyone!

:bounce:

...there I've gone and done it again...couldn't help myself...another blowhard dipshit on "Ignore!" :crazy:

:hi:

/ -.. . -.-. --- -.. . -.. / - .... .. ...

:applause:

Hitler's rise was studied extensively after WWII, in order to prevent the rise of another fascist tyrant.

The signs are all there.

There may be more books on this subject than any other.

Historians have a very good reason for the large amount of time they spend on this.

there are dangerous parallels between the Bush Administration and the Hitler regime which are more than coincidental. Eventhough Bush has not enjoyed the popularity of Hitler, nor the initial success, it is important nonetheless to note these parallels. As far as the ruthless extermination of racial classes of people, these numbers are piling up, and if and when we begin bombing Iran it's very possible this number could begin climbing into the millions.

... was allowed to die through neglect. It was easier than building ovens, and a "lucky strike" for Bush.

Germany started out with laws that simply diminished the citizenship status of Jews, and took away their means of livelihood. It took some time before the trains started running.

And what causes people to deny the parallels between then and now? Fear? Ignorance of history? A closet admiration of the efficiency of it all, the "order" involved? A belief that we're living in too-enlightened an age to repeat the darkness of less-evolved forebears?

they both worked from the same blueprint. There's a very good reason why the genocide increased by several orders of magnitude after WW II started. That gave Hitler the cover he needed to proceed with his plans unhindered.

God knows what will happen in this country if and when we go to war with Iran. :scared:

I also, when learning about the Nazis in high school, thought it be much more productive to teach young people about the underlying attitudes that promote cruel treatment of others, how it begins, and develops and warning signs. Instead we were treated to this seeming anomaly of what happened to the Jews in Germany. Of course these were human beings who did this, and humans still have the same psychological make-up now as then.

I learned fairly recently about the history of Dracula, that he was a real person from Hungary who became ruler and was responsible for mass deaths. This kind of treatment of people reappears through the ages, as you say.

I read a lot of history, and historians try to look for danger signs at high levels.

I've never read a good study of what individual factors lead to the production of an Adolf Hitler, a George Bush or a Dick Cheney.

looking at general people. For instance how did the average German citizen come to be involved in these atrocities, or the scientists. If it just remains victim and perpetrator, you really learn nothing from that. I suppose it comes down to how we treat each other, and that is only addressed in sermons.

I have known a few holocaust survivors from places I worked as a teenager. I also worked with one man, a professor who had been a child at the concentration camps. He was a very large personality, very aristocratic. I think he came from a very prominent family in Hungary originally. Anyhow it became apparent at some point that he felt superior and not an egalitarian type of person at all. So even though he had been a victim, I think his use of being superior was a similar character flaw that many of the Nazis probably had.

Albert Schweitzer foresaw serious problems for modern civilization because of the materialism without balance of the spiritual.

It's kind of hard to compare bush to that horror and get people to take you seriously, IMO.

Now, if you want to get into nitty gritty details I'm sure you could find similarities between Bushco and the Third Reich, but as a whole, you'll lose the argurment as soon as you say the word 'Nazi'.

Just my two cents for what it's worth.

They were STILL Nazis before the Holocaust. How many would have been saved if the German people and the world had called them on their shit and stopped them earlier?

That old saw about people who refuse to learn from history....

What, we gotta wait until the death toll goes from tens (probably HUNDREDS) of thousands to millions before we call a Nazi a Nazi?

bush's grandpappy: Nazi sympatherizer and enabler at the very least.
bush is just a mentally ill puppet of men with the same mind set as those who killed millions. Just because they have not YET racked up the body count of the gang in charge of Germany back in the 30's and half the 40s doesn't make them less evil. They are working on the numbers daily.

they came into power in 1933.

As I said, the argument will be lost as soon as the word 'Nazi' is mentioned no matter which side uses it.

And I don't believe in the use of his grandpa as a way of turning bush into a Nazi. Doing that makes me a Nazi, too. My grandfather was one who helped murder men, women and children. It's wrong to do that.

THAT is something more people might do well to keep in mind.

doomed to repeat it.

who made the bush family fortune which helped get his son and grandson in the WH. Okay, gotcha. Will have to watch out for other rich folks who might be assholes.

Why?

It brings about horrendous images of the Holocaust. It's very difficult for some to take the contention that bush and his minions are Nazis seriously with that kind of comparison.

Now, if you get into the details such as the Nuremberg laws and such you could highlight some similarities that might get a person to thinking. But it won't happen in a general sense otherwise.

Just what I think.

That's the point. If a person has a small cancer, say one mm in diameter, and the doctor tells him he has cancer, horrendous images may arise in that person's mind. That's good if it causes him to get the cancer removed before it kills him.

As far as details, here is a link from my OP:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=2069007

And I did not say that Bush and his minions ARE Nazis. I made certain comparisons in the hope that they would be useful in getting people to see similarities which would lead them to take things like impeachment a lot more seriously before things get a lot worse.

... that led to disaster for Europe and the whole world. Those who forget the past (or try to deny it and its language) are bound to repeat it.

I am not heroic because my father landed at Normandy and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. I am simply more aware of those events than some people, especially our younger generations, because I had a personal attachment to them as a result of my father talking about his experience.

You are not tinged with Nazism because your grandfather was a Nazi. But I would find it hard to believe that you have not given a great deal of thought, and perhaps soul-searching, to that fact. The very need to protest against what someone we are related to has done is in itself problematical.

Turning from something that is abhorrent to us is not done without some kind of residual feeling. I very early (at age five) turned in my mind from what I thought of as fanatical fundamentalist Christianity. I left it as soon as I could get it out of my life. But I'll never be completely free of being identified by others with my mother's poisonous brand of Christianity. And I still feel anger and disgust at some of the things I experienced growing up with "the wrong crowd." I tell myself I'm free of it all, but memories linger, and I'm much more reactive to the right-wing Christian takeover of this country than some people I know because I know what "Christian" fanaticism is about.

It is this personal issue of yours (which I don't intend to highlight at your expense and discomfort) which I often comment on, in a general way. A whole generation of Germans have borne the stigma of being German for many years after the end of WWII. The world has questioned their basic humanity, their character, even though many, maybe most, simply did what we are doing now as Americans: They tried to stay alive and waited out the terror in hope of returning to normal life. And the sins of the fathers should *not* be rested on the generations. It's good on paper and in therapy, but it's not entirely an accomplished fact in this world, which still has citizens who have intact memories of WWII.

The word "Nazi" has a necessary place in our vocabulary, and when people are doing in current time things very similar to what has already played out on the world stage, we need to pay attention.

I will agree that people sometimes hurl the term "Nazi" at someone inappropriately, and that the word should not be used without a great deal of forethought. I think this OP displays that thoughtfulness perfectly. And I think that the thousands of movies and television programs which have revolved around Hitler's regime have tended to desensitize younger people, and that WWII becomes one more video game with the bad guys and good guys fighting each other.

I remember taking a psychology class years ago, and writing a paper about Anna Freud and the Blitz in London. As I was reading it to the class, a young woman raised her hand and said, "Like, uh, what's the Blitz?" I was only about 35, but I realized that the world moves on and, but for those who write and talk about the past, we truly do live in a constant replay of what has gone before.

It is not my intention to be argumentative with you, and I mean that sincerely. I just think we must not engage in censorship at this serious juncture in our history.

I agree that Bush cannot be called a Nazi (or someone who embraces similar principles) just because of his blood ties to his grandfather. But when we consider the eerie similarities between the Nazi era and what is happening in America now, it is impossible -- unless one is really determined -- to deny that we are going down a similar path. As many have said, we're back in the 1930s right now, in terms of similar timelines and proposals for destroying our democracy. That Bushco has not committed crimes on the scale of what the Germans did does not mean that he will refrain from doing so in the future. The lives of our troops, and the larger numbers of lives of Iraqis, are much more than statistics, and we need to keep firmly in mind that Bush is not done yet -- unless and until we rein him in.

Whether it is a genetic tendency, or simply an opportunistic grab for power, Bush and his family are carrying on the tradition of the grandfather who is finally getting attention today, owing to the Internet and individuals who are bothering to explore Bush's family history. He could have been a foundling, left on Barbara and George's doorstep, but if he were, he certainly is fitting right in with the past history of the family he grew up with. It matters little whether it's nature or nurture we're dealing with with GW, he is, to borrow a well-known tale, an evil pied piper who is leading this country over a cliff and into fascism.

and I'm not trying to keep others from using it. That's their choice.

But like I said before...generally speaking using the term doesn't help unless a person is willing to engage in details with another who is willing to listen. I know plenty of people who would roll their eyes and walk away if I said that George Bush was a Nazi or that we had a fascist government. I wouldn't be taken seriously and I prefer not to use that kind of rhetoric in order to persuade someone to my line of thinking.

Military socialism or national socialism was the origin of the Nazi Party. There were also national socialists in the United States before the turn of the 20th century, one of whom invented the Pledge of Allegiance (without the term "under God" which got added later). Originally the salute to the flag consisted of a military salute followed by an outstretched arm:



Our origins may be closer to the Nazis than we care to admit.

thinking I don't know what Nazism is.

And I don't know what school you went to, but we didn't outstretch our arms when we saluted the flag. :rofl:

Historically speaking...our origins are nowhere near the Nazis...especially since they didn't come to power until 1933. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf not long before that. We're a little older than the Nazis.

Now, if you had said the Roman Empire...I probably would have taken you more seriously.

but that is when we first saluted the flag with a military salute ending in an outstretched arm. In fact historians claim that the Germans got the idea from us. (We also fictionalized the use of such a salute in early movies about the Roman Empire).

One historian claims that Richard Bellamy, who wrote the pledge of allegiance and wanted a flag in every school, wanted government schools to create an "industrial army" in order to nationalize the entire economy. It is also claimed that this is how ideas for the modern military-industrial complex came about. The military-industrial complex is a common central theme in Hitler's Germany as well as the Cold War and the Bush family's New World Order.

well, in a previous life maybe that I don't remember. :)

I stand corrected and I apologize for being sarcastic. It's late and I should be in bed.

A question: Are there any books about the history of the military industrial complex? I think it would make for some good reading.

Thanks for informing me and not slapping me around too much over my ignorance. :hi:

Here is a good link:

http://pittsburgh.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/16899_comment.php

The Rex Curry website seems to have its own agenda so it would be good if other historians could back this up. Unfortunately much of this American history seems to be scrubbed from our history books!

On edit: Rex Curry's "agenda" may be to demonize all of socialism. I don't think it is necessarilly fair to compare socialized medicine or socialized education with military socialism and racism.

nazism flourished for a quite a few years before that.

the problem isn't with the person making bush/nazi comparisons, the problem is with the person who might be offended by it. they are probably historically and politically ignorant.

because I disagree I'm ignorant. I hate seeing discussions taken to such levels because of disagreement. I don't agree and that automatically means I'm ignorant in your eyes. It's a poor way of engaging someone in discussion and only serves to build bigger walls.

Those I disagree with...I respect a lot more because we disagree without having to resort to insults than those who use them as a way to knock people down.

:D

Great minds think alike.

I swear a picture really is worth a thousand words :thumbsup:

More here: www.swamp-rat.com

And a brand new one: :D

:rofl:

Otherwise good post.

-Hoot

... might read it in their usual attention span?

But that doesn't make them special, which is what I think it a major problem of perception regarding history's current favorite boogeymen.

When we studied WWII in school, I spent extra time on reports, reading extra material, and questioning my teachers. We were still deadlocked with the USSR, so in many ways, I didn't see how the Nazis were different from the "Reds," and that led me to question a teacher about how the Nazis were in some way regarded as different from previous and current murderous thugs.

The teacher looked at me strangely, since I wasn't seeing how horrible they were supposed to have been by the simple stating of such. After some thought, the teacher said it was their efficiency in killing people. The sheer inhumanity of their clockwork system of round-ups, trains, camps, gas chambers, stripping the dead of even their gold teeth, and finally boiling them down for soap.

I've been told more than once that my comparing * to Hitler won't be accepted by them until the ovens get reused, which I think is a disservice to all the people in the camps...especially the ones we don't talk about. Bad enough that the Jews were made the scapegoats of the Reich, but little time is devoted to the Gays, the Gypsys, the disabled and all the other "undesirables" that didn't have a place in the "new order"

Our regime uses the same tactics, and even the same terms, which should scare people.

Herr Hitler, Der Furher
Mr Bush, The Decider

Dictionary.com:

Na·zi

a member of the National Socialist German Workers' party of Germany, which in 1933, under Adolf Hitler, seized political control of the country, suppressing all opposition and establishing a dictatorship over all cultural, economic, and political activities of the people, and promulgated belief in the supremacy of Hitler as Führer, aggressive anti-Semitism, the natural supremacy of the German people, and the establishment of Germany by superior force as a dominant world power. The party was officially abolished in 1945 at the conclusion of World War II.

Now, let's substitute a few terms:

GOPer

a member of the Republican Party of the U.S., which in 1999, under George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, seized political control of the country, suppressing all opposition and establishing a dictatorship over all cultural, economic, and political activities of the people, and promulgated belief in the supremacy of Bush as "The Decider," aggressive anti-Muslim sentiment, the natural supremacy of the American people, and the establishment of the U.S. by superior force as a dominant world power. The party was officially abolished in ______ at the conclusion of World War III.

anyone else scared out of their boots? :scared:

(updated because german isn't intuitive for me :))

Hitler was evil in the sense that he actively worked to kill people. Bush, on the other hand, is just the epitome of selfish. He won't actively work to kill people but he will sit there and do nothing to save them because he doesn't care.

He loves putting on a good show about how he's a putz, but as he was once quoted as saying, "I'm not as stupid as the people who vote for me."

:mad:

I get so angry when people buy into that "incompetent slacker" bit. NOLA was not incompetence- all his cronies got all the money, everyone he wanted dead or screwed is currently so, and he somehow ended up making political gains there. In the same way, 9/11 and even the CA energy crisis appear to be quite deliberate, but still the "it was out of our hands" and "incompetence" keep getting used as excuses.

As I told the pagan woman who said I was crazy to call * the new Hitler, "Count the bodies after this is all over and tell me I was wrong."

Also, he works very hard to maintain his torture privileges, even going so far as to nullify a Congressional law against torture (passed 90-9) by issuing a "signing statement". And also, he vigorously defends is right to detain prisoners indefinitely without charges or trial. To me, that's active evil, not passive.

I think that his evil is a lot more active than many people realize. But even if its passive, and Cheney is the one pulling all the strings, the combination of the two is deadly, and it could get a lot worse than it is.

I lived in post-war Germany as a teenager, and remember studying the good people I met, who had taken up their lives again, looking for signs that they might have engaged in Hitler's evil. I had a German girlfriend (remembering Helga) whose father was a high-level Nazi during the war, and who was simply operating a radio/television shop ten years after the end of the war, and wagging his finger at her about not staying out after curfew. Back then, I couldn't spell "cognitive dissonance," but I was experiencing some.

It is so hard to look at other human beings, especially when they may be good looking and charming, and allow in our minds the possibility that they could commit murder on a massive scale.

I hope you know that you are doing this world a great service by continuing to write on this most important subject. That you may stir in some a sound and a fury, signifying nothing, should not discourage you from continuing to write!

(Further comments to others, below.)

A totally monstrous example, written in blood, destruction, fire, pain, and 30 million dead, of everything that a civilized nation should "never again" allow itself to become.

"Never Again"...meant...Don't Ever Let It Happen Again...it's up to the American people to say no to fascism. The Germans failed to do that in Hitler's case, but they never had the example that Hitler left us, so we "Good Americans" will not have an excuse for our stupidity, like the "Good Germans" had.

If "never again" means anything it means learning from what happened. Now the American people are being tested, as the Germans were in the 1930s. And you're right, there will be no excuse for us if we fail.

I don't believe that I deserve such a compliment, but I appreciate it anyhow.

I often have wondered what causes people to be evil, but never have figured it out. Some say that there is at least a little evil in all of us, and that may very well be true. I've even read about some who belonged to the Nazi Party and yet tried to help Jews escape whenever they could do so without too much risk to themselves.

One of the most interesting and I believe informative books I've ever read on the subject is Scott Peck's "People of the Lie". He was a psychiatrist who wrote from a Christian perspective kind of.

Self-interest on steroids
cruelty let off its leash
paranoia run wild
megalomania without bounds
all-consuming terror
insatiable hunger

all those petty little emotions gain a new meaning when given the closest thing to absolute power that there is currently- the rulership of a compliant nation. Abstractions become actions, actions become policies, and policies make the streets run red with blood.

There are few who can handle absolute power...and most who have gotten it have been the wrong types of people.

He was virtually offered unlimited power on a silver platter, and he simply said that he'd had enough after two terms as president. He could have been supreme ruler for life without even making an effort.

I like to think that most people would act reasonably honorably if given absolute power -- but I doubt that anyone knows whether that's true or not.

I like George, but there are some things that get glossed over, and the whole constitutional convention was nothing near a smooth thing.

If he hadn't balanced so carefully, the fledgling gov't would not have survived. He favored the federalist POV lead by Hamiliton(Who I think shares a good deal of the blame for the trouble we're in right now), and most of the 13 colonies were not interested in a centralized government and the assorted things that go with that. The Bill of Rights was the concession that was required for the Constitution to be ratified, and that illustrates in itself how wary the common people were of of these rich landowners.

In short, we'll never know how our 1st president would have handled absolute power, and I can say that of the potential candidates for 2008, I would only trust a few of them with the power Hitler, Stalin, and now * so throughly abused.

In fact, it nearly broke up a number of times, and numerous compromises were required to keep it together.

I was referring in my post about GW not to the Constitutional Convention, but to his decision after 8 years of office to retire. I think it's fair to say that he was virtually offerred absolute power at that time, and he refused it. At least that's what happened according to the books that I've read on the subject. Perhaps there are others that have a differing point of view, but I haven't seen them.

He could have stayed in office, but if the legend is true, he never wanted it in the first place.

All of the founders were busy men, and gave huge chunks of their lives to various endeavors, both personally based and socially so. I imagine that after having to execute his own men during the revolutionary war, as well as having to keep the peace on so many occasions, he was just plain tired by the time 8 years of being the first prez was done.

My point though was that even by the time he was in office, things weren't anywhere near stable, so he never had access to the kind of power that complacent citizens grant these days, so we'll never know if he truly could have handled it or not.

... and told a story about a Japanes officer kicking him, shouting at him, and reaching down to insert a vial of quinine in his pocket, which saved his life.

In every war, there are people who are swept into things they don't want to do because they are torn between trying to stay alive and protect their own families, and attempting to remain moral human beings.

We must hope it won't come to such a pass in this country.

I'll check out Peck's book. I've seen it, but have resisted reading it because of his Christian leanings (to be quite honest).

but I don't mind Christian talk as long as it is thoughtful and intelligent.

Part of the reason I liked the book so much is that I've always be fascinated by the subject of evil and wanted to understand it better. I've read a lot of books on the subject, but his was by far the one that impressed me the most.

He also wrote another book called "The Road Less Travelled". I think it was a number one best seller like for about ten straight years. A lot of people who have had troubled lives said that it turned their lives around. I wouldn't go that far, but it did help me.

Very well done...you nailed it.

America 2007 is Germany 1930

by Norman D. Livergood (a former department head at the US Army War College)

We who live in the post-World War II period possess an immensely valuable symbol, even if we don't understand it or use it effectively: the example of Nazi Germany.

"The German experiment, except to those who are its victims, is particularly interesting, and, like the offer of a strong man to let himself be vivisected, should make a great contribution to political science. For the Germans are the most gifted and most highly educated people who ever devoted the full strength of a modern state to stopping the exchange of ideas; they are the most highly organized people who ever devoted all the coercive power of government to the abolition of their own intellectual life; they are the most learned people who ever pretended to believe that the premises and the conclusion of all inquiry may be fixed by political fiat."

Walter Lippmann. (1936), The Good Society

snip

The cabal that controls America has moved as rapidly as possible to bring about the same conditions of dictatorship and fascism in the U.S. as it did in Nazi Germany in the 1930s. The first major thrust toward fascism began during the Bush takeover of the Reagan presidency. During Bush Senior's (second) presidency he pulled off the Iran-Contra drugs-for-weapons crime, the savings-and-loan heist, the illegal use of U.S. military force to protect Bush's criminal collaboration with Manuel Noriega, his man in Panama, and many other crimes of state.

Beginning in 2000, the cabal forced their chosen puppet into the U.S. presidency and have now put in place a mechanism to steal all future elections in America. As they did in Germany, they have now destroyed the bedrock of democracy, the right of citizens to vote for their leaders.


American Citizen Complicity in the Current Fascist Dictatorship

The 2004 election revealed that many American citizens are as intellectually and morally incompetent as the Germans in 1930. Such incompetence and ignorance always lead to tyranny. The United States is exactly at the same point in national degradation as the German nation in the 1930s when Hitler assumed absolute power and began his regime of mass murder and war crimes against the people of the world.

http://www.hermes-press.com/germany1930.htm

I hadn't thought of the start of fascism in our country as being Bush senior's presidency, but he may have a point there.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL02Ak02.html

Fallujah is the new Guernica. The residents of the Basque capital in 1937 were resisting the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco. Fallujah in 2004 was resisting the dictator Iyad Allawi, the US-installed interim premier. Franco asked Nazi Germany - which supported him - to bomb Guernica, just as Allawi "asked" the Pentagon to bomb Fallujah. Guernica had no air force and no anti-aircraft guns to defend itself - just like Fallujah. In Guernica - as in Fallujah - there was no distinction between civilians and guerrillas: the order was to "kill them all". The Nazis shouted "Viva la muerte!" ("Long live death") along with their fascist Spanish counterparts before bombing Guernica.

Marine commanders said on the record that Fallujah was the house of Satan. Franco denied the Guernica massacre and blamed the local population - just as Allawi and the Pentagon deny any civilian deaths and insist "insurgents" are guilty: after all, they dared to defend their own city, hiding inside their hundreds of formerly intact mosques.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1471011,00.html

Warnings of the onslaught prompted the vast majority of Falluja's 300,000 people to flee. The city was then declared a free-fire zone on the grounds that the only people left behind must be "terrorists".

Three weeks after the attack was launched last November, the Americans claimed victory. They say they killed about 1,300 people; one week into the siege, a BBC reporter put the unofficial death toll at 2,000. But details of what happened and who the dead were remain obscure. Were many unarmed civilians, as Baghdad-based human rights groups report? Even if they were trying to defend their homes by fighting the Americans, does that make them "terrorists"?
<snip>

In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity.


http://www.alternet.org/story/15027/

But destroying Baghdad will not uncover hidden chemical, biological or nuclear weapons (if, in fact, any exist). Destroying Baghdad will not capture, topple or kill Saddam Hussein. Shock and Awe's expressed goal is simple: in the words of Harlan Ullman, to destroy the Iraqi people "physically, emotionally and psychologically."

Ironically, this was also the goal of the Nazi strategists who destroyed Guernica. The town had no strategic value as a military target, but, like Baghdad, it was a cultural and religious center. Guernica was devastated to terrorize the population and break the spirit of the Basque resistance.

our news media and our schools spent a good deal of time discussing them. We would learn a lot from that.

Don't vote another Hitler into office! Vote DEMOCRATIC! Death to tyrants!

Prescott Bush's treachery is well documented. Wasn't there a neo Nazi in GHW Bush's campaign? What influence did the ideology of Prescott have on his son and grandsons? The saying "the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree" has a lot of truth to it. Nature and Nurture make the whole person.


''If this were a dictatorship, it would be a
heck of a lot easier — so long as I'm the dictator.'' —George W. Bush

"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." GW Bush

The Hitler Project

Bush Property Seized--Trading with the Enemy

snip...

By Oct. 26, 1942, U.S. troops were under way for North Africa. On Oct. 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.@s2

U.S. forces landed under fire near Algiers on Nov. 8, 1942; heavy combat raged throughout November. Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S. partners to carry on the business.@s3

These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were, tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with their well-known results.

The facts presented here must be known, and their implications reflected upon, for a proper understanding of President George Herbert Walker Bush and of the danger to mankind that he represents. The President's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project. The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which later boosted him into the Central Intelligence Agency and up to the White House, were his father's partners in the Hitler project. Much More at the links...

http://www.tarpley.net/bush2.htm

http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm#4%20--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

From the AP
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5002.htm

Trading with the Enemy: The Nazi-American Money Plot 1933-1949
by Charles Higham

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?r=1&ean=9780595431663

German Industry and Global Enterprise: BASF: The History of a Company

http://books.google.com/books?id=PbzUAgp3yKQC&pg=RA1-PA206&ots=GqoTPtjqPn&dq=history+of+IG+farben&sig=2LatrfI1GL40pAqgxcC4sHC0zLI#PPA180,M1

Auschwitz: A New History

http://books.google.com/books?id=LgdSdwWaz_UC&pg=PA32&ots=4mIga5ytWs&dq=history+of+IG+farben&sig=3ljHQOShz-_HUDOfRwwmu4NQiJs#PPA58,M1

The Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial, 1963-1965: Genocide, History and the Limits of the Law

http://books.google.com/books?id=BUKGSlqKUkMC&pg=PA152&ots=IiBdGmwGDv&dq=history+of+IG+farben&sig=ilomKnu5bHS75GhjSSjhynE3LK0#PPA152,M1


IG Farben

http://books.google.com/books?id=dWM1AAAAIAAJ&q=history+of+IG+farben&dq=history+of+IG+farben&pgis=1

Another good book...

The Arms of Krupp: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Dynasty that Armed Germany at War

http://www.amazon.com/Arms-Krupp-Industrial-Dynasty-Germany/dp/0316529400

Most of the corporations/families that made Hitler and the Third Reich, never were punished other than a tiny slap on the wrist. Most are still making tons of money today.

an example of the bush family legacy.

In fact, I think GW went there too.

and to protect one another while building their empire. There are no "ideals," however misguided, behind what they're doing. In other words, they don't give a fat rat's ass about their fundamentalist Christian base; that's just a convenient vehicle for the money grab. The Bush administration is incestuous to the core, not unlike the mafia, which is an everyday reality in the part of Europe where I live (ie "If you want to get along, ya go along.")

On the other hand, I don't really care whether the Bush regime is compared to Nazis. My main concern is that we reclaim our country and our constitution.

It seems to me that the main difference is the scale of the damage that they are capable of doing.

And Bush's capability of doing damage, I'm afraid, is closer to Hitler's Nazis than it is to the mafia.

"Escape to Wisconsin-like Nazis, neocons, organized crime and black ops did" (started 7-27-2007)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=186x21683

it is all to easy to repeat it!!

or have it repeated on us!!

I too believe the comparrisons are too bold to ignore!

Thank You!!

as a flight attendant, and a mom...i took my son to all the places the attrocities to human beings have taken place,( or as many as i could through the years) so he would understand history..so he would understand the fragility of our democracy and how important it is to fight for...

we would discuss the Holocaust and we would share tears..and we would read books while he was a young man.

we must never forget what history teaches us..

we are doomed if we forget..and if we do not look closely within our own country for warning signs..

after all our forefathers left us that responsibility!!

we the people...

fly

A lot of the ideas that have been expressed on this thread can be found in this archived thread from 2004:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1700429

I wrote the linked piece in that original thread, and, over the last three years I have seen the comparison to the German experience grow more plausible month by month.

At the time, I did not say that Bush was "like" Hitler -- and the threat he poses to world peace and the rule of law is different in many particulars. The point of the comparison has to do with how we, as American citizens, react to a government that lies to us about its intentions. If they start wars and usurp powers in violation of the Constitution for false reasons, how are we to know how far they will go? If their true intentions are completely different from their propaganda, what is their final aim? Will it go all the way to global war and a police state at home?

A smug dismissal of these questions is outrageous, in my opinion -- a willful ignorance of what the original poster in this thread is saying, and of what I was saying in "That Nazi Moment."



Both this thread and the old one provoked a lot of pendantic discussion of the historical record in Germany, trying to "prove" what the Average German must have felt about the Nazi project. This effort misses the point of the comparison by a mile. Hitler never told the German people that he was going to destroy their society by engaging in wars of aggression and genocide. Yet that is what he did. So, obviously, there was a moment when each person realized that Hitler was a madman on a suicide trip -- and that we was bringing everybody else along with him.

How do we know that is not where Bush is going? The world-weary dismissal of this question betrays a complacency and a kind of ostrich ignorance that we cannot afford.

who LIVED through the Third Reich, begin whispering or shouting (RIP Herr Faßbender, I WON'T FORGET) that the Amis are behaving like Nazis, it's time to PAY ATTENTION.

I have done a lot of thinking in my life about what led the German people to support Hitler. My views have changed over the years, but in the past few years the American tolerance for George Bush has caused me to see that we Americans may not be much different than the Germans who followed Hitler or who acquiesced in his plans.

We have more than two centuries of democracy behind us, as well as a lot of history to learn from. I hope that makes the difference.

when a bus load of Germans came ..while we were going through the museum..the French people were so kind to us ..and were explaining everything to my son..just so sweetly and so kind..

and i could see a horrible dislike they had for the German tourists..it was so obvious..the French people were downright ugly to them..that pain was still evident..extremely so.

everywhere my son and i went we were kissed..and hugged..and the Germans were treated with great distain..

and i was left wondering..how many of those Germans were just like us ..they didn't know until it was too late..by the time they realized how evil Hitler was ..they were filled with fear..that was systematically taught to them..just like this fear shit that * KEEPS filling our airways with..

they didn't have computers ..they had it happen to them without much fore knowledge..

we have the example of how evil a goverment can be by the Hitler history..they didn't have that foresight.

they had wispers in the night..but what could have prepared them for what was to come?? no one would want to believe their own government..their very own government could be that evil..but governments are made up by people..and power corrupts..and kills their own...

we are not so blind ..unless we do not look..unless we do not study what has come before us.

it would be ignorant and foolhearty to not see many comparisons that exist today to the early days of hitler!

fly

...by a comparison of x and y, as in "There were 50,000 US troops killed in Vietnam, and only a few thousand in Iraq." Guess what, dumbass? That's a very good comparison.

"Don't call them Nazi's..it makes us look foolish" Well guess what? The right-wing already says we're foolish. f we don't call them Nazis because they might not take us seriously, than not only are we foolish, we are weaklings for caring what the right wing says. So why not call them Nazis? It makes me feel good to insult them this way, so that's why I do it. As for the idea that calling someone a Nazi belittles the Holocaust, well pay attention to Israeli politics. Israeli politicians often call their opponents Nazis. I remember a poster of Yitzak Rabin paraded around Jerusalem with him dressed as a Nazi, because Likud supporters disagreed with his peace plan. They didn't literally mean he was a Nazi; it was just the most insulting thing they could think of.

So, I will proudly continue to call the right wing Nazis whenever they piss me off. Or just fascists, when I feel in a more conciliatory mood.

Hitler did X
A did X
Therefore, A is the same as Hitler

Nazis did X
B did X
Therefore, B is the same as the Nazis

It's flawed logic and a flawed analogy.

Hitler did A,B,C,F,H,I,Q,R,S,T,V, and X

A did A,B,C,F,H,I,Q,R,S,T,V, and X

Furthermore, A has a tremendous amount of destructive power at his fingertips.

Therefore we would be wise to consider the similarities between Hitler and A, and take steps to limit his power and avoid going down the same path.

A did ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO

Hitler did ACEFIJL

Stalin did CDGHLNO

Mussolini did ACHIMNO

Pinochet did IJKLMNO

Franco did FGHIJKL

Therefore, A is the same as Hitler

He may have a lot in common with Hitler, but he has a lot in common with all power mad dictators. People only select Hitler to make an analogy because of the emotional connection attached to him and the Nazis. It's used to stir emotions not because it is accurate.

Or did you just read the title and make your conclusion from that?

... you don't actually discuss the point of "Comparing people with Nazis “makes us look bad”". You mention the point then you start talking about Lincoln, Cynthia McKinney, Michael Moore, and Keith Olbermann. All which are non-analogous and do nothing to actually dissect or refute the actual argument being made. You don't actually discuss why it does not make people that make the comparison to Nazis look bad, you just change the subject.

In the section labeled "It is inaccurate to compare Bush or Cheney with Nazis because the degree of damage they’ve done is miniscule compared to what the Nazis did ". You artificially narrow the argument of those that disagree with the label. There are far more reasons to disagree with the comparison to Hitler or the Nazis than just the amount of damage done. Just to name a few, there is not a master race component to the Bush Administration's ideology, they have not abolished political parties, they have not abolished trade unions, they have not abolished a free press, there is no program forcing Muslims visibly identify themselves, and there is no reason to actually believe that they plan to do any of this.

As I stated in my previous post, there are things in common, but there are things in common with almost every strong arm ruler throughout history. So why single out Hitler and the Nazis out for comparison? Is it because of the accuracy of the analogy? No, I would say Bush has more in common with Pinochet than Hitler. Is it because the people making the comparison are ignorant of history? Probably not, since they draw so many historical comparisons.

The reason to make the comparison is because to the emotion it draws. There is no concept that equates to evil in peoples minds more than Hitler and the Nazis and that is the response people using it want to elicit. It also has a side bonus. Anyone that disagrees with the term is automatically put in the position of defending the Bush administration and,in the minds of the casual listener, the Nazis as well. This stifles debate where there should be a vigorous one.

Now, please explain to me where my last post was inaccurate.

First, I don't see why it's a big deal whether the comparisons are made with one murderous tyrant or another. But the comparisons with Hitler ARE more accurate than the others you bring up. Hitler was the head of a democratic government, and little by little he turned Germany into a genocidal murderous dictatorship. The Communist takeover in Russia was nothing like that. They came to power in a coup, in a country that had experienced democracy for less than a year. The Communist dictatorship in Russia was a dictatorship, and a murderous one, from the very beginning. Pinochet came to power suddenly when our CIA engineered a coup. I believe that Franco did too, but I'm not certain about that one.

I certainly don't claim that there are no differences between Hitler and Bush -- I'm just making the point that there are many similarities. And I even note that the damage that Bush has so far done can't compare with Hitler, but that it is important to recognize how dangerous he is now, while we can still do something to stop him, before he does much more damage.

You note some differences, but as I say in my OP, the damage that a tyrant does is a function of both his evil intentions and of his opportunity. Hitler eventually had much more opportunity than Bush to do great damage, but it may not stay that way. In that sense and others, the differences you note are superficial. Bush hasn't abolished labor unions, but he's done as much as in his current power to limit their ability to act.

The fact that he hasn't forced Muslims to identify themselves is especially a superficial point. They don't need to identify themselves. He's managed to identify thousands of them, round them up, throw them in prison, and give them no rights with which to contest their imprisonment. What's the difference if he hasn't mandated a program for them to identify themselves?

My point was not to say that Bush and Hitler are exactly the same. The point was to point out many similarities that should give us cause to worry and take some steps to halt his abuse of power before it gets so bad that we can no longer stop him.

... that the only comparisons the aren't superficial are the ones that have the most tenuous similarities. All the dissimilarities no matter how material to an accurate comparison are irrelevant.

I don't think the Muslims that haven't been forced to wear crescent patches or haven't been forced to live in Muslims ghettos would call the difference superficial.

I don't think the teachers, auto-workers, miners, plumbers, carpenters, etc. that depend on their union for their livelihoods would think that the difference is superficial either.

The idea of a free press is far from superficial in fact it is a requirement to have a democracy. The argument that Bush has tried to control what they report could be made, but it could also be made about any president in the political spectrum from FDR to Reagen.

It think the fact that the Democratic Party hasn't been abolished is a pretty significant difference. Especially, since we control the congress and senate and are in control of the legislative agenda.

Cherry picking and then crying Nazi is a childish move that only makes us look foolish. It is not necessary to use loaded comparisons to lambaste Bush. His treachery and fuck ups speak for themselves. With a 26% approval rating not too many people are going to disagree with you.

You act like I'm trying to make a case that the magnitude of what Hitler and Bush have done is similar. Yet I make it perfectly clear in my OP that I don't believe that at all.

So you make a big point of noting that Bush didn't pass a law making Muslims have to identify themselves, while ignoring the fact that there's no need for that because he violates their 4th amendment rights through his warantless spying program, and you ignore the fact that he rounds up thousands of them and throws them in jail based on his say so alone that they are "enemy combatants".

And you note that we have a "free press" without noting the numerous ways in which the Bush administration has made our press considerably less free than it previously was:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x1135072

Pointing out the many ways in which Hitler's regime was more repressive than Bush's does not counteract my point -- part of which is that Bush and Cheney have made their regime every bit as repressive as they could. Our government is a lot more repressive now than it was in 2000. Just like with Hitler, it is becoming more and more repressive, and every time we have our constitutional rights violated and Bush and Cheney are not held to account we progress another step towards tyranny -- just like Nazi Germany did, until it was too late.

... where you carefully and dispassionately compare and contrast the Bush administration with a brutally racist regime responsible for the deaths of millions upon millions. And, anyone that reads the "Never forget(s)" and "Never again(s)" and thinks that someone is trying to draw a parallel or equate the immorality of the two is getting the wrong idea.

The Nazi label is like a gun, you don't pull it unless you mean for the absolute worst to happen. You can't throw "Nazi" out and expect for anyone to not take it to mean ALL that it implies. You can't say "If they had they power they would be just as bad as the Nazis" without expecting people the think of the death camps, book burnings, storm troopers, etc. That is why the comparison is disingenuous. It's not meant for an actual compare and contrast. It's not even meant for a rational critique of our government. It is meant to induce an irrational fear of a second holocaust at Bush's hands.

The "it can happen here" line is not grounded in reality. The public is almost monolithically against the Iraq War. Bush has a 26% approval rating among the public, and a 38% approval rating in the military, so there is no reason to believe that he will appoint himself dictator. The Democrats control both houses of congress making it impossible for him to abolish political parties. And, Bush is weaker politically than he has ever been. None of the elements that Hitler had in his rise to power are in place. So it does us no good to drag out the Hitler comparisons, especially anywhere in public, because no matter how it is used it will look like hyperbole by someone that should not be taken seriously.

I didn't at all say that I'm looking at this as a strictly academic endeavor. Quit putting words in my mouth. I'm saying that there are many similarities that we should take very seriously if we want to prevent a repeat of what happened under Hitler. Can you see a difference between that and simply "lambasting" someone?

People SHOULD think of the death camps when they think of Bush. How many people do you think we've killed at Guantanamo and other of our detention facilities around the world, where we hold and torture thousands of people without even bringing charges against them? Our CIA goes around the world kidnapping people and taking them to those places. You don't see a similarity between that and the storm troopers you mention?

You talk about how weak politicaly Bush is. What does a low approval rating mean when he's able to unilateraly nullify any law he chooses with a signing statement, he refuses to cooperate with Congressional efforts to investigate his crimes, he nullifies the prison sentence of one of his administration's major players in order to further cover up his crimes, he illegally orders his justice department not to investigate contempt charges against his administration, he continues to violate our constitutional rights, he continues a war that the good majority of the American people are against, and he continues to "stand behind" an Attorney General who is not attorney general at all, but only a corrupt extension of the Bush administration itself?

Not 6+ million. And, there isn't any rational reason to believe that there ever would be.

It's a joke to say that you aren't trying to equate the two and then make statements like this "I'm saying that there are many similarities that we should take very seriously if we want to prevent a repeat of what happened under Hitler." Explain that. Will there be death camps? Who will be in the death camps? When will we invade Canada and Mexico? Who is the master race? Which races will be deemed "unworthy of life"? When will "degenerates" be sterilized to keep from passing on their genes? When will political parties be abolished? Which books will be burned by the state? Who will be forced into ethnic ghettos at gun point? What bizarre medical experiments will done on "inferior races"? How will Bush go about any of this?

"What does a low approval rating mean when he's able to...", it means that we have the legal and political means to remove him from office. He cannot appoint himself "chancellor" and take unilateral control of the government as Hitler did. Without that power, and without the ability to appropriate himself funds, Bush is not capable of rising anywhere to the level of Hitler. All the hyperbole in the world won't make it so.

I've already admitted that -- repeatedly -- and I never implied otherwise.

It's like someone makes the point that it's important to identify a cancer when it's very small, so that it can be removed before it gets very large and kills you -- and someone argues against that by pointing out the myriad of differences between the very small cancer and a very large one.

We've already had a totally unnecessary war in Iraq leading to the deaths of close to a million civilians. Oh, but that's not ten million, so we can't compare it with Hitler's war. How many innocent deaths do you think we'll have if we nuke Iran?

Ok fine, you don't see the similarities. Lots of people do, and lots of people don't. I just hope that we have enough of the former to stop this before it gets a whole lot worse.

... in an attempt to add weight to doomsday prognostications. Instead of picking out the obvious crimes and treachery of Bush and then attacking them on their own merits, you attempt to make a Hitler analogy and cry "Never again!" in hopes that emotion will sway someone in earshot. It's cheap, and it cheapens a debate that should be taken very seriously.

If you hope to stop Bush, hyperbole about Hitler and the Nazis is not the course to take. The only people that are going to listen are the ones that are already convinced. The rest will dismiss it for the exaggeration it is.

What's the point of studying history? It just prevents us from viewing things on their own merits.

Because ANYONE who is paying attention can connect the DIRECT dots between the Nazi regime and the Amerikkkan gubmint from 1933 to 2007.

I can't believe Jimmy Carter actually got elected with all his heiling and talk about the master race.

And, we know what LBJ really meant by "The Great Society".

that Operation TIPS will have to affect you personally for you to get it.

I am not getting involved with the central question, as I see some
similarities and some differences, but here is one tidbit that all
sides to the discussion might find interesting/amusing/scary:

A couple of decades ago, some far-right Germans from Bavaria wanted to
found an extremist right-wing party in Germany. The Nazi party is
forbidden in Germany, the only one that is. So, they couldn't call
themselves that. They looked around for an appropriate name, and found
their inspiration right in the good old USA. They couldn't call themselves
the NSDAP (Nazi Party), so they called themselves: DIE REPUBLIKANER
They split off from the CSU (the one mainstream party in Germany that
approaches our Republicans, though doesn't usually get as extreme), as
it was not "conservative" enough (why does THAT sound familiar?).

I promise I am not making this up. Go to www.rep.de if you understand
German, look them up in Wikipedia if not. Die Republikaner usually get
less than 1% of the vote in German elections. Too bad their American
namesakes get so much more. Too bad, also, that when a neo-Nazi party
in Germany goes looking for a name, that the name they find the most
inspiring is "Republicans." I wish that someone in the GOP would ask
the question as to just what a bunch of nut-case neo-Nazis in Germany
found so inspiring in our GOP that they adopted the same name.

It seems to show that the Germans learned more from their experience with Hitler than we did.

My daughters went to an elementary school there.
During the second world war, it used to be the Gestapo
HQ for the town. After the war, when it was made into
an elementary school, it was named the Anne Frank Schule,
and all the kids who go there learn about her, what happened
to her and why. Not too many of those Stateside.......

too new.
Kicked and recommended for speaking truth to power!:kick:

but that was a great post. I'm glad that was said, and said so well.

And welcome to DU Beerboy !

this is (to me) one of your best posts, and that's really saying something.

:thumbsup:

The national conversation about good vs. evil has been commandeered, and restoring sanity to it is not a simple, two-dimensional task.

But I do believe that the decency of Americans can be counted on, and that what you are saying is the native sentiment of Americans when they are not subjected to the specters of terror by their own government.

can be counted on to overcome this crisis and restore our democracy.

They resisted the Nazi's and eventually to save their lives escaped Nazi Germany. They were academics in the law and medicine and while they were Catholic living in Bavaria, they saw the rise of the Nazi's, saw what they were doing and the dangers and then when they saw what was being done to the Jews following Kristallnacht, decided it was time to leave Germany. They up and left with the clothes on their back and because they had money outside of the country, were able to get out, pay off who they needed for safe passage and to start anew. They eventually came to the US with my Grandfather helping the War effort against Germany. My grandparents are dead, but I spent a lot of time talking to them about how they left, why they left and how it all came to be. I grew up in my childhood in Germany till I was a teenager and then later on as an adult moved back for several years working for a US company in Munich. As a child, I lived about 15 miles south of Dachau a concentration camp and when I worked in Germany as an adult in the Munich offices of my US based company, I would pass the town of Dachau daily on my way to work. I asked the hard questions about "how did it happen". The one consistent answer I got from my grandparents was that over the course of a decade period, the Nazi's slowly (or quickly, depending on your interpretation) gained power and influence. Slowly they chiseled away the laws and rights that the German citizens took for granted. They controlled with fear and economically, because most of Germany was hurting and Germans were just trying to make ends meet day to day, they didn't have the time to be paying attention to the what the Nazi's were doing behind the scenes. It is that way that they rose to power and by the time most German's were awake to what was going on, it was too late. My grandparents always warned me that we must NEVER FORGET or it will HAPPEN AGAIN. That doesn't just mean remembering the horror of the image that you posted above of the Holocaust, but of HOW THE NAZIS ROSE TO POWER IN THE FIRST PLACE. My grandparents, like many on the DU read alot, were academics and they immediately saw the threats early on. Many of their family members and friends thought they were crazy as they would warn about the dangers. (Just as I am sure so many of us have experienced over the years, especially early on when we have talked of the dangers of the Bush Administration or spoke out against the War and Invasion of Iraq). My grandparents said that if people don't pay attention early and speak out, then its too late. That is precisely why people like myself speak out on a daily basis in our lifes and why I will not ever hesitate to make the Nazi comparison because the comparison is not of "the Holocaust itself" it is of the manner in which the Nazi's (and Bush Administration) came to power and rose in power, what they are doing with the powers and the imminent threat that they posed and then committed (or could commit).

I think that Hitler and the Nazi's did unthinkable and horrific crimes, of which there has been since never as horrific crimes in that magnitude. But why do people think that it could never happen again or be done as horrific (or worse)? That I think is the biggest mistake right there. It can happen again and the only way to ever prevent something like that is to remember how it happened before and to take action. Can you imagine if Hitler and the Nazi's as they decided to invade the various neighboring countries and as they used the technology and tools available to them had the technologies and tools available to Bush? (ie. surveillance technology, database technology, arms technology etc)

That is what actually opens the potential to an administration like the Bush Administration that claims "unitary executive powers" and allows for torture, rendition flights, enemy combatants who can be "disappeared", ending of habeas corpus, ending of posse comitatus, warrantless wiretapping, domestic spying and data mining etc. etc. - to be possibly more dangerous than the Nazi's ever were. Doesn't mean he will be, but the point is to be AVOIDING that possibility, and that can only come in making people aware of the dangers and stopping them from growing.

Hitler was once a little boy and then he grew up. The Nazis and the Brownshirts etc. were at one time just groups of thugs, gangs meeting locally in the local Biergarten or Bierstube. My grandmother used to laugh them off as nothing more than a bunch of crazy losers and she and others referred to Hitler as "der Verueckte (the crazy one)" not too unlike how many Bavarians (still to this day) would refer to "Crazy King Ludwig of Bavaria". But the reality is that little Adolph grew up and so did those thugs that were meeting in the Bierhalls and they started getting more and more people believing their propaganda and having others who might not have "joined them" atleast not stop them or interfere with them and ultimately to fear them. Thank the Universe and whatever divine entity that Hitler never did have the technology that exists now. But that brings me to Bush and his "rule". Here is a man who has that power and that technology. You and I and every person better pray this man is stable, that he isn't crazy and that he won't ever use that power and technology for harm. And meanwhile, it is every and each and every one of us responsibility that we point out where the dangers are and hope to avoid something bad from every happening again. That is why the Nazi argument is not a losing argument or that the comparison is wrong or inaccurate. It's why I will never stop speaking out and will never refrain from using the comparison.

It's in my DNA.

the Nazi's (and Bush Administration) came to power and rose in power, what they are doing with the powers and the imminent threat that they posed and then committed (or could commit)."

That says it all in a nutshell. Maybe if I would have added that statement I would have avoided some of the harsh attacks on this post.

As soon as you mention Hitler, a certain type of person shuts down thinking and starts scolding -- no matter how carefully you limit the reference.

I appreciate your post. Thanks.

I disagree with you for three reasons

1) It makes us look bad

2) It trivializes what the Nazis did

3)Any crimes commited by BushCo pale in comparison to Nazi atrocity

1) It looks like you Amis aren't so dumb afterall and are learning from history.
2) If one takes but a cursory glance at your MIC's 250 "adventures" since WW2 "trivializing" the nazi horror is a moot point.
3) NO THEY DON'T. They're using the playbook and have learned not to leave incriminating evidence within easy reach.

knows there are many similiarities. :scared:

and thought out argument for comparing the bushits to the hitler nazis.

I thought it just felt right to correctly label them budding nazis..they certainly have their own joseph goebbels in tony snow, all faux noise led by the big propoganda catapulter himself, rogerboy alies.

Lest we not forget to mention cnn, msrnc(except for a notable expection) limpestofballs, & all the lyin' hate radio in America.