Paul Krugman notes the ongoing use of Hitler/Nazi/Third Reich analogies by conservative politicians and commentators in the USA. His statement about the change in the media’s willingness to report extremist rhetoric is interesting:
The point is that extremist rhetoric on the right — even the allegedly moderate right — has been the norm for many years. The only difference now is that news organizations aren’t as diffident about reporting it.
In contrast, it seems that only certain World War II analogies are considered worth commenting on by some of our media personalities.
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At the risk of invoking Godwins Law.
Checking the Political Compass …
http://www.politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif
… Margaret Thatcher is placed not too far from, in the same quadrant as, Hitler.
Considering the Howard Liberals are Australia’s version of Thatcherites, are not they too edging towards Hitleria?
It certainly looks that way!
Google result of “Bush is like hitler” – 762,000 results from such publications as the Telegraph, The independent, Democratic underground….
The U.S. has seen bucketloads of this for a long time. What Krugman notes is only because he is looking across the ideological divide. One always sees the worst in ones ideological opponents.
Very interesting links Tobias. In the comments to Krugman’s article there is a particularly interesting link from the commentator Ten Bears.
I’d recommend to anyone interested a book I read recently called “Nemesis: the last days of the American Republic” by Chalmers A Johnson. Things are getting pretty scary in America.
I must confess the truly terrifying thought entered my head just before the last U.S. elections that Bush and his cronies might seriously attempt a coup d’etat. I really wouldn’t put anything past those creeps.
Christ, Krugman is a hypocritical bearded twerp. This is the partisan hack who suggested CO2 emitters are creating crimes against humanity or some similar stupid thing a few weeks ago.
Obviously he’s bi-polar, as his economics of the early to mid 90’s was first class. This partisan hack just brings his illness out and makes it worse for him.
I agree to some extent with the analogies used by some of the right wingers about their opponents.
You only have to look at Coote’s comment on this very site yesterday alluding to the idea that the Nazi’s weren’t really that bad as they had a green environmentalist streak about them which he said he discussed with a Greenpeace activist friend of his and reached the obvious conclusion they were ok.
Is there extremist thinking on the left?… You bet there is and it’s denialism to ignore it. In any event it has to be, as the ideology is basically statist.
Look, over there! A Unicorn! Yes well done tee. Only it didn’t work.
Tee, you are now an official yawn, and one with deep-seated aggressive tendencies. Go away.
Oh, Yeah, Fox News’ Glenn Beck’s Right In There, the cheap right-wing shithead.
Hey monkeywrench – I have wrote at this site before how balance is achieved with FOX in the U.S.
So here’s Kieth Olberman doing the same thing!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTP2gs-NUtc
Tee, you are now an official yawn, and one with deep-seated aggressive tendencies. Go away.
Oh, Yeah, Fox News’ Glenn Beck’s Right In There, the cheap right-wing shithead.
filthy pot calling kettle black.
monkeyshine, you go away.
Anyone see Bernie Ecclestone’s remarks about Hitler, Thatcher, Sadam and the Taliban in last weekends Times? (sorry linking too hard from iPhone). Must have had all the RWNJs cringing
holla from Barcelona
Tee, I respect your right to be heard even if I feel that your arguments are a bit shite….Monkey wrench….your arguments are rght shithouse….back them up with some facts eh wilt…..
@ monkeywrench: Glenn Beck is truly delusional, as are O’Reilly, Hannitty, Fox&Friends and when it comes to reporting *acurrately* about Palin, van Susteren. For people to hold up one ‘leftist’ equivalent as some kind of balancing out is both crazy and inaccurate.
Incidetnally, i saw Olberman interviewed once about his time on Fox and the rumours about how he and Hannity had tense relations. He said hannity was reported as saying “people think our on air relatioship really was tense, but they should realise this is all just television.” Olbermann’s response? “the views i have I’ve had for a long time, i actually believe in my ideals. I can’t imagine going on TV and saying stuff i don’t believe in.” Fox isn’t about news or reporting, it’s about the bottom line and the bottom line only.
Confess.
Olberman was fired from Fox when at the time he was a sports announcer.
In 1998, Olbermann joined Fox Sports Net as anchor and executive producer for The Keith Olbermann Evening News, a sportscast similar to SportsCenter, airing weekly on Sunday evenings. While at Fox, he again hosted the 2000 World Series as well as Fox Broadcasting’s baseball Game of the Week.
According to Olbermann, he was fired from Fox in 2001 after reporting on rumors that Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns Fox, was planning on selling the Los Angeles Dodgers.[30] When asked about Olbermann, Murdoch said: “I fired him…He’s crazy.
Poltics doesn’t seem to form any part of Murdoch’s decision to fire Olberman when he was in sports. He fired him because he’s deranged.
I don’t watch those stupid American political shows like you seem to. Frankly I’m not surprised you would be cuddling up to a lunatic like “Doberman”,
tee: yes, but was he wrong? Less than three years later, the Dodgers were sold, and I imagine that extended negotiations and delays from adverse publicity (read: Olbermann outing them) were involved.
Or in other words, his ‘derangment’ was that he had the unmitigated gall to think that truth was important.
You and Murdoch obviously differ with him there.