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The GOP and the Nazis
The GOP and the Nazis
There are similarities and, no, I will not apologize
By Wayne Madsen
Online Journal Contributing Writer
[Excerpts]
In a number of columns written after George W. Bush's
extra-constitutional seizure of powers post 9-11, I
pointed
out a number of similarities between Bush's GOP
and
Hitler's Nazi Party. The bombast from the usual
suspect
circles was swift and predictable. Writing in
the
neoconservative National Review, Byron York bemoaned
the
fact that "Wayne Madsen wrote that Bush is
'borrowing liberally from
Hitler's play book.'"
Following the same line, The New York Post's
editorial
page
editor, arch-neocon propagandist John Podhoretz, in
his new
book, Bush Country, whined that when I wrote
about
Hitler's oratory skills being light years ahead of
Bush's, I was somehow praising Hitler. This is so
typical
of the right-wing attack dogs ignore the main
point
and fire off a broadside of false innuendo. No
reasonable historian would deny that Hitler's
speechmaking abilities were far ahead of the
syllable-challenged Bush's. Contrasting the policies of
Bush and Hitler following terrorist attacks in their
countries
is a legitimate area for historical
comparative analysis. Although Hitler was behind the
burning
of the Reichstag, he and Bush virtually tore up
their
respective constitutions and began viciously
denouncing their political enemies. Both Bush and Hitler
failed
in every business venture they started, until, of
course,
they became leaders of their countries in
questionable elections.
The neocon spin machine
continues to defend Bush against
charges
that he practices the same sort of reactionary
politics
embraced by Hitler. On Fox News' Hannity &
Colmes,
I was asked to defend my comparison. Guest
Co-host Michael WolffBut
you don't see a legitimate
distinction between Adolf Hitler and George Bush?
Madsen: Well, look, if you look at some of the
policies,
preemptive warfare, we know that Hitler did that against
Hitler did to the
Sean Hannity: Don't you see
how you're alienating the
majority
of the American people with your rhetoric?
Madsen: I don't think so. The way to combat terrorism
isn't
to take the United States Constitution and the
Bill of Rights and shred it like Mr. Hitler did after
the
Reichstag fire.
The exchange on Fox was prompted by two television
advertisements likening Bush to Hitler that were
submitted
in a contest sponsored by MoveOn.org. Cathy
Young, writing an op-ed on behalf of Reason, a
so-called
libertarian magazine whose motto is Free Minds and Free
Markets, said comparisons between Bush and Hitler
should
be
retired. It is interesting that a magazine like
Reason would use the phrase "Free Minds and Free
Markets." Considering that Reason champions the
so-called
rights of companies over the Lilliputians of
the
working class, that motto is not much different from
the
sign over the main gate of the
concentration camp, "Arbeit Macht
Frei" (Work
Liberates).
Recently, radio shock jock Howard Stern said the real
reason
why the pro-Bush and Dallas-based Clear Channel
dropped
his nationally-syndicated morning program from
its
stations was not because the company was trying to
placate
the Federal Communications Commission over
offensive
material on the airwaves, but was in response
to his
attacking the Nazi and Taliban-like policies of
Bush.
Stern also suggested that the fundamentalist
right-wingers supporting Bush were organized into
Nazi-like cells. Stern is just one more in a long list
of
people who have disagreed with Bush and have faced
the
wrath of the Bush storm troopers. Let us not forget
what
the creepy management of Clear Channel did when The
Dixie Chicks spoke out against Bush. They banned
their
songs
from their radio stations and sponsored compact
disk
smashing events in the same manner that Hitler's
minions
banned books and burned them in huge bonfires
around
John Ashcroft's Gestapo-like Justice Department has
engaged
in definite selective prosecutions of those who
have
openly opposed Bush's policies or have contributed
money
to the Democratic Party's coffers. Take former
Illinois Republican Governor George Ryan: Ashcroft's
right-wing prosecutors indicted him after he commuted
the
death sentences of
Ryan cited police and prosecutorial misconduct in
reason
for his decision. Ashcroft and Bush, both
self-anointed born-again Christians, are in love with
the
death penalty and championed executions while
serving
as governors of their states of
Haman, the evil vizier of the Persian
King Ahasuerus.
Haman,
like Hitler, plotted to annihilate the Jews and
the two
are often compared in Jewish liturgies.
And then there is Martha Stewart, a past generous
contributor to Democratic candidates and causes. She was
indicted
by Ashcroft's
about
dumping her Imclone stock in an insider trading
deal.
Never mind the fact that Enron's former chairman,
Kenneth Lay (affectionately called "Kenny
Boy" by Bush)
still
walks free despite the fact that he ripped off
billions
of dollars from stockholders and employees. It
was
hallmark of the Hitler regime to accuse political
opponents
of the Nazis of committing economic crimes
against
the state. The Nazis charged a number of
non-Nazi
business leaders with contributing to
hyper-inflation following World War I. Many were later
arrested
and had their property seized. The Nazis
allowed
only a few large corporations to flourish,
particularly those that generously contributed to the
Nazi cause. Arms manufacturer Gustav Krupp was won over
to the
Nazi cause in 1933 when the Nazis told him that
they
would increase defense spending to record levels.
For his part, Krupp led an
industrial fund called the
Adolf
Hitler Spende. The fund collected money for
Hitler's election coffers in return for special
treatment
for German industries. Ken Lay, meet Gustav
Krupp.
On the subject of Enron, it was Lay and his buddies
in
Houston who financially raped
conspiring to raise the state's electric utility rates
to a
usurious degree. Who paid the price when
was
plunged into financial ruin? Democratic Governor
Gray Davis, who was recalled in a right-wing financed
election
after having served less than a year of his
second
term.
And who replaced
Nazi, and Kurt Waldheim
admirer Arnold Schwarzenegger,
the new
Republican Governor of
congressional soul mate, Senator Orrin Hatch of
wants
to amend the US Constitution to allow an Austrian
immigrant
like Schwarzenegger to run for president.
Where before have we seen national laws changed to
allow
a
right-wing Austrian to run for political office in an
adopted
homeland?
But the neocons still
continue to attack those who draw
comparisons between Bush and Hitler. Shamefully, the
neocons keep silent as Mel Gibson releases a big screen
version
of the Passion plays that were historically used
throughout
Many religious experts have pointed out that Gibson's
The Passion of the Christ will only further
exacerbate
tense
relations between Christians and non-Christians.
Not so, say the evangelical Christians and their neocon
allies,
especially those affiliated with the Catholic
right-wing secret society Opus Dei and the New American
Century/American Enterprise Institute crowd. Shamefully,
they
mimic the capos of Nazi Germany's concentration
camps
and keep silent as Gibson's movie fans the flames
of
religious intolerance. Worse, the hallelujah chorus
for the
extreme right failed to urge Gibson to condemn
his
father Hutton's historical revisionist comments that
know
what it takes to get rid of a dead body? To cremate
it? It
takes a liter of petrol and 20 minutes. Now, six
million
of them? They [the Germans] did not have the gas
to do
it. That's why they lost the war," the elder
Gibson told a
that
many Jewish victims of the Holocaust had actually
emigrated
to the
Yet, GOP radio and television mouthpieces like Sean
Hannity,
Laura Ingraham, and Rush Limbaugh defend Mel
Gibson's movie while, at the same time, deride those
who
would
compare what is happening in the
to what
occurred in
They feel we should just ignore Arnold
Schwarzenegger,
Hutton and Mel Gibson, and the foaming-at-the-mouth
racists
and xenophobes of evangelical Christendom and
right-wing Catholicism. I, for one, will not ignore what
are
indisputable signs that the right wing in the United
States has made a sharp turn into the netherworld of
fascism
and racial and religious xenophobia..
..During the 1930s, the famous writer H.G. Wells was
rebuked
by the conservatives of his day for comparing
Hitler to Caesar and suggesting that Hitler was a
"certifiable
lunatic." Wells turned out to be right on
the
money. Those of us who see a creeping fascism with
Bush and his cronies will, one day, be vindicated by
the
muses
of history.
Wayne Madsen is the co-author of
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