The opposition has become equal parts stupid and inflammatory
In scanning my Google Reader, I have some members of the opposition in there because I dislike operating in an echo chamber – in my case an echo chamber where libertarians tend to scurry in from time to time to drop links to Lew Rockwell dot com like little wordy IEDs and accuse people of theft.
In today’s episode of “dumb stuff I read lately”, I present to you “Monroe Rising”, a conservative group blog out of Rochester. It’s usually populated with the usual claptrap, currently focusing on the travails of ACORN. But this post was simply phenomenal. It not only contains a blatant violation of Godwin’s Law, it not only completely misstates and misinterprets history, it not only ignores the Stalin/Hitler (Molotov/von Ribbentrop) pact before WWII, but it draws an analogy that is fundamentally dumb.
In this analogy, the decision to remove a non-operational missile shield from Poland is just like letting Russia invade Poland in 1939!
If this analogy were to be remotely on-point, the United States is Nazi Germany, and would have executed a secret pact with Russia to invade, consume, and divide Poland. So we learn that Obama isn’t just Hitler because he wants to euthanize old people and institute universal health coverage, but he’s also Hitler because he wants to invade and partition Poland.
If Obama attends a football game, I expect some cretin to liken it to Hitler attending the ’36 Olympics. I’m not kidding.
P.S.: Make no mistake. Every comparison of a US President to Hitler helps to dehumanize him and can help some insane whacko rationalize assassination. This was true for Bush, it’s true for Obama.
The Buffalo Record 
Well, Poland and the Czech Republic aren’t worried about being invaded by Iran. They HAVE been invaded by Russia, and were occupied by them for decades. In the process of the invasion, the Nazi tactics were repeated—blown up buildings, raped women, any dissidents trucked off to the gulags, never to return.
So on the 70th anniversary of the Red Army incursion into Poland, Barry throws their asses under the bus. Defunding that 80 billion from ACORN, aka the “800 Lb ACORN in the room”, could have gone a long way to getting that defense shield done. He’s a real champ, that guy—His popularity in Israel is rising now, at 6% approval he’s above Jimmy Carter, Hitler, and Eichmann–Way to Go, Barry!
What bus?
BTW, there were no complaints from your merry band of Liberal wingnuts when Bush was being called Hitler 1000 times a day. Had that not been tolerated by the left, anyone on the right doing it would be wrong, instead of no better.
@Hank:
You say there were “no complaints from [my] merry band of Liberal wingnuts when Bush was being called Hitler 1000 times a day”.
You’re wrong.
Here’s a post I wrote in 2007.
My personal favorite is Jonah Goldberg, who was so incensed by Hitler comparisons to Bush that he wrote an entire book about how liberals are all Hitler, and is now totally ok with Nazi comparisons to Democrats.
Hank, take that bullshit you’re selling and sell it on some other liberal blog. Not mine.
President Obama scrapped a hugely expensive, masssively illogical missile defense program on the recommendation of his Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff….a program that was widely unpopular among our European allies who weren’t being threatened by Iran in the first place.
But, hey…look over there! ACORN!
Must be a slow day at the Wendy’s deep-fryer.
if commentors were allowed to post pictures here, i’d post “the nation” cover showing bush as hitler. did that dehumanize bush? of course not, you’ll likely reply, bush was never human to begin with. it’s all a stupid game for suckers.
The European Union has an economy one and a half times The size of the United States. If the EU feels they need a missle defense, they will build it. They are wealthy, they definitely have the technical capability and they have no deficits to speak of. As far a I’m concerned , Charity begins at home.
What some numb-nuts on this blog don’t seem to understand, is that the comparison of Obama to Hitler IN CONJUNCTION with the image of a BLACK MAN in the White House, is a VERY ominous image in the minds of the mindless.
I know the right wing likes to pretend this is not at all about race, but you know damn well if he was white, the imagery would not be so dramatic. By the way, Limbaugh sunk to a new low the other day: He insinuated that if anything ever happens to Obama, it’ll be Nancy Pelosi/liberals fault, because she invoked the name Harvey Milk when talking about the dangers of demonizing and dehumanizing someone. Limbaugh insists SHE has planted that seed now. So, there’s your laying of the groundwork for the spin of the century—not that it would matter, because if anything ever happened to Obama, I cannot imagine the fallout for the right wing hatemongers.
Hank, Obama is still selling them the submarines with the screen door’s, so whats your beef?
Anyway, Everyone knows the missile defense system does not work and many have said it never would work. It is a left over dopey cold war concept waste of money. The fact that it is now dead is testament to Obama’s great ability as a leader.
If Iran is going to deliver a nuke to Europe or the US it is not going to be by missile. It will be by container boat. Of course the right is against improving port inspections and security. Talking about Hitler invasions of Poland ans such is just nonsense.
@ Mike Hudson – but we are allowed to post links. So why don’t you post a link to that incendiary Nation cover you’re so upset about.
i never said i was upset about it. i thought it was funny. the only ones who get upset about such things are numbnuts such as yourself who seem to think that right/left politics has some impact on your life. it doesn’t. we’re still in iraq, we’re still in afghanistan, we’re still running guantanamo, we’re still broke and there still isn’t any national/universal health care coverage. that’s after nine months of a democratic president, a democratic senate and a democratic house of representatives. and rather than trying to get your own people to do some of the things they said they would do in the runup to the election, you whine and cry because someone drew a fucking picture you don’t like.
@ Mike Hudson – actually, my point was this current rush to project the worst actions of the GOP onto Democrats is often based in anything but fact. Such as you asserting that The Nation ever put a depiction of Bush as Hitler on its cover. I have serious doubts about that and would like you to provide evidence of this cover. You can either prove your point or STFU.
And to be called a numbnuts by an alcoholic, racist never-was like you is high praise.
I can’t find a cover of the Nation with Bush as Hitler on it. Doesn’t mean there wasn’t one, but I can’t find it. There is a 2004 article from the Nation where Alexander Cockburn argues that comparisons of Bush to Hitler are stupid. Mike, if you have a picture you can email it to me and I’ll post it and a link to it.
Excellent feature, BP.
May I offer a suggestion for some more “dumb stuff I have read”: a transcript of a National Endowment for the Arts conference call in August, wherein NEA seeks to enlist artists to promote the Administration’s political agenda, and thanks them for their help in the 2008 election campaign.
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/pcourrielche/2009/09/21/full-nea-conference-call-transcript-and-audio/
Yes, it’s a horror of epic proportions to have artists make art about controversial political subjects. Investigatainment.
Agitprop was such a nice, kitschy cottage industry under Uncle Joe Stalin–it will be interesting to see how it fares under Kal Penn (Kumar) of the White House.
“Yes, it’s a horror of epic proportions to have artists make art about controversial political subjects. Investigatainment.”
Actually, NEA is forbidden by law from directing or suggesting the content of the output of the artists it funds. So, enlisting NEA-funded interests in promoting political agendas is against the law. Investigation, indeed.
(Pundit, doing his very best Officer Barbrady.)
Directing or suggesting? I doubt any statute or regulation reads just like that. And direction is a very different thing than suggestion.
Apparently, the NEA was asking artists to create art about how great public service is.
Not advocating for any particular political end. Unless you think “service” in education or health care is bad, in which case no one can really help you.
there being more than 2 million google image results of bush wearing a hitler moustache, i can’t find it either. it was during the florida recoundt, as the word “florida” is what made up the moustache. the fact that there are more than 2 million images containing pictures of bush made to look like hitler or bush and hitler depicted together speaks for itself.
huorist will undoubtedly count this as a great victory and, in the childlike namecalling that passes for political discourse these days perhaps it is.
pundit, while cockburn indeed wrote a piece against the linking of bush and hitler for the nation, editor katrina vanden huevel attached a disclaimer at the beginning of it, “disagreeing profoundly” with cockburn’s position.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20040315/exchange
I don’t recall any marches on Washington with Bush Hitler pictures. Anyway, Just like Pundit said. Why waste time defending idiots who compare American presidents to Hitler.
The only victor is the truth as, yet again, another soused-up lie from the keyboard of Mike Hudson is exposed to the light of day.
what a jackass. as a matter of fact, when i haven’t been laughing at you today i’ve been busy putting out a newspaper, and arranging publication of my new book, “jetsam,” which will be available at talking leaves and other fine bookstores on october 31.
and here’s a pic of marchers somewhere with bush-hitler pictures;
and another: http://www.thomasalbert.com/politics/protest/bush_hitler.jpg
and another: http://www.rightwingnews.com/graphics/bushhitlerberk.jpg
so everyone cheer for humorous, who proved i was too busy to look up some dumb shit for him!
Many in the Limbaugh/Beck/Hannity audience do not possess the intellectual capacity to distinguish between fact and BS. No sense in even trying to appeal to them, as you will likely have the same success trying to explain calculus to a dog. (No offense to dogs)
So what is your point? That it is OK?
steel…no, it’s not all right. it’s stupid. stupid people on the right do it and stupid people on the left do it, which plays directly into the hands of those who don’t want us out of iraq, who want to escalate in afghanistan, are against universal health care, like the fact that the u.s. government can ship people to guantanamo and do who knows what to them etc.
this silly name-calling humorist and glenn beck seem to think of as “politics” serves only to distract the masses from what is actually going on, in much the same way that porn, celebrity gossip and other forms of “information” do.
The Nation – a fine political journal – has a comprehensive digital archive; you can view all of their covers from 2000-2001 here.
The only Bush caricature cover features W, not as Hitler, but as . . . Alfred E. Neuman.
Heh.
so what’s your point. is that ok?
I’m not the lying liar who distracted this thread with a bullshit claim about The Nation. For a “journalist,” you have an awfully tenuous grasp on the concept of “verifiable assertions”
The radical right wing talkers don’t know what to do with a smart, black President who threatens the status quo money train. They want him dead – Assassinated, and the best way to accomplish that to to incite thir craziest followers, the people who hear god talking to them, the certifiables who need just a little nudge, to pull the trigger. Then they would say, “Who me?, I din’t do anything.”
Limbaugh and Beck are more dangerous than Joe McCarthy. They have a bigger audience than McCarthy. Uncle Joe wanted to put commies in jail; They want to kill people. Limbaugh is a black hearted , meglomaniacal conniver and Beck is just nuts.
Yall seem to miss the point thet my pal Hank made. Them missiles weren’t never about no defense et all. They was about keepin them Russkies in line. So I guess Obama figured out he don’t need to be tussling with them Russkies if he’s a gonna be able keep attaching them ragheads in the middle east. I guess thet would get somebody a sayin thet every president since WWII wanting to rule the world would deserve some kind of Hitler reference? Now wouldn’t thet be silly?
“lying liar.” haven’t heard that one since the second grade. the reference to “the nation” wasn’t even an important point in what i said. if i’d written “the more than 2 million bush/hitler images currently available on google,” would the point that it’s stupid be any more correct? would you then say, “gosh, you know he’s right. there really was a lot of bush/hitler imagery put out during the years bush was president!”
no, of course you wouldn’t. because you are exactly the sort of moron i was talking about to begin with. the sort of moron who doesn’t really care about issues, but thinks only of gaining political advantage.
the question i raised, and you did not answer, is why, given the fact that we have a democratic president and overwhelming democratic majorities in congress, are we no closer to getting out of afghanistan and iraq, having universal health care, closing guantanamo or doing any of the other things we all thought were important 10 months ago when we pulled the lever for barack obama?
I would hardly call the majorities in congress overwhelming.
And It took the last president 8 years to mess crap up to unprecedented levels the least you could do is give this one more than a few months to fix it.
it’s not a question of me “giving” obama anything. the fact is he’s not going to have much more than a few months. a year from now, maintaining the status quo will lose him one and possibly both houses of congress, a la clinton in 94. but instead of thinking how best to not let that happen, humorless wants to argue about hitler imagery. with friends like him, obama doesn’t even need any enemies.
and the dem majority in the house is 256-178, while in the senate it’s 60-40 (once they fill ted kennedy’s seat and giving them bernie sanders). i know some here would prefer there not be any republican party at all but, jeeze, those seem like overwhemling numbers to me. if you had an election and one guy won 256-178 or won 60 percent to 40 percent, the media would call it a landslide.
Fact is, Obama is carrying on the status quo. He expended too much political capital on the supposed health care debate which fed right wing critics. Hope and change was all rhetoric as predicted. Until I see troops coming home and indictments handed down to “financial” insiders, I don’t expect much more than Bush Lite.
Thanks Steel—-Barry’s screwing the pooch, and all you can say is “Bush messed things up so bad in 8 years” Does that 8 years include the 2 when the Dem’s controlled the Congress?
Thought so
@ Hank – yes, it does include the 2 years (2007-2009) when the Democrats had majorities in both houses and saw President Bush wield his veto pen 12 times, after never unsheathed in his entire first term. Bush saw to it that the nation was protected from the scourge of:
– stem cell research
– veterans’ care
– accountability for appropriations in Iraq and setting a timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq
– recovery after Hurricane Katrina
– reauthorization for the Children’s Health Insurance Program
– appling the standards in the U.S. Army Field Manual to the entire government, effectively barring the CIA and other agencies from using tactics like waterboarding in their interrogations
– banning the use of childhood flu vaccines that contain thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that has been alleged to cause autism