Most conservatives will tell you that they abhor the tragic violence in Tennessee, and that they condemn it. But they also will most likely deny that any of their actions or beliefs could possibly be the cause of it, be it their help in the emergence and dominance of hate radio by the right wing, or their seemingly endless and unconditional support for a thoroughly unconstitutional Presidency.
What they most definitely will not tell you is that we've seen this pattern of violence before. That the rhetoric they espouse was used by another regime to begin the process of exterminating millions.
In 1934, Adolf Hitler’s reign as Germany’s Chancellor was just over a year old. The red black and white of the swastika flag still felt new in Berlin, and the diminutive dictator was busy doing what dictators do best: consolidating power.
A fire in Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag, had gutted the beautiful building, and Hitler was quick to produce two patsies for the crime. Though it would later be proved the Nazis themselves started this fire, it became a convenient pretext for a brutal set of purges against any and all elements of the political left in German society. Communists, socialists and liberals were driven into camps, into hiding, into exile or simply executed. Opposition moderates were silenced by fear, and Germany itself began the long slide into night that would last eleven horrible years.
One of the cronies behind Hitler’s success at legitimizing his every move was a man named Joseph Göebbels, who headed the infamous Nazi Ministry of Propaganda. Göebbels was a genius at manipulating symbols and fear to produce blind nationalistic fervor in otherwise passive Germans. 15 million Deutschevolk, one fourth of the population, signed on as dutiful patriots of the regime and filed their names as members of the Nazi Party. This particular history is frightening in and of itself as a reminder of how easily Hitler marched his nation towards a one party state. He did this within the span of only a few years, with popular support, largely because of the passion and zeal with which Joseph Göebbels would pursue political enemies of the state.
Bush is not a Nazi, whatever his failings may be, and I am not trying to make such a comparison. But it is important to observe the language and tone of some in the conservative media, and the frightening similarities they display to Nazi Germany’s propaganda machine in both technique and message.
Consider the tone and content of the following passages:
Saving Germany from the Jewish Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture
Slander: Jewish Lies about the German Right
"And whether they know it or not, it's socialism for which they are marching and demonstrating, the reality and nature of which they know nothing. Their young impressionable minds have been appropriated and molded by their Marxist teachers and filled with intellectual garbage fed to them under the guise of compassion for the "poor and repressed."
And they have been handed over to skilled veteran communist manipulators and drawn into new front groups allegedly to protest a war..."
"Jews are fanatical liars, then as now."
"A lot of people watching the anti-war demonstrations look upon the hordes of eager young people participating in them as being what Lenin called "useful idiots," when the truth is that they are really innocent victims of brainwashing in classrooms and lecture halls dominated by rabid Marxist teachers and professors."
In most of these I have changed actual quotes, Titles and Book excerpts by only one or two words. (you'll see why)
Saving Germany from the Jewish Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture is, in actuality, Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language and Culture, a book by conservative talk show host Michael Savage. Savage, who is highly educated and has a number of degrees (including one, ironically, from UC-Berkeley), was the host of his own hate show on MSNBC, when a prank caller baited him by insulting, of all things, his teeth, and in response, Savage exploded into the following tirade:
"Oh, you're one of the sodomites. You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig? You got nothing better than to put me down, you piece of garbage? You've got nothing to do today? Go eat a sausage and choke on it."
A member of the show’s crew can be heard to audibly gasp offstage as the remark was uttered, and, to MSNBC’s credit, Savage was immediately fired. But we’re not just talking about some ignorant, homophobic hick here. Savage’s radio show is still on the air, and is syndicated nationally to 6 million listeners on 250 stations. And the website of the prankster was flooded with hate email and threats to his personal safety.
As recent events have shown, Savage is among the worst of the offenders in the wingnut onslaught against dissent, and he should know better, as he comes from a family of Russo-Jewish immigrants, but he is definitely not alone.
Slander: Jewish Lies about the German Right should read:
Slander: Liberal Lies about the American Right, as it is the title of a book by popular conservative author Ann Coulter. Coulter’s rhetoric is, believe it or not, more artistic and deceiving than Savage’s, and inherently more dangerous. She is also the author of Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. Despite these titles’ appeal to readers’ patriotism with terms such as "slander" and "treason," words that evoke powerful images of liars and traitors, those who are untrustable and Anti-American, the content of Coulter’s books themselves contain the real dangers. In Treason, she launches into an attack on those who believe Senator Joe McCarthy participated in a witch hunt for communists in 1950’s America:
THE MYTH OF "McCarthyism" is the greatest Orwellian fraud of our times. Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now. The portrayal of Sen. Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism. Liberals weren't hiding under the bed during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nation's ability to defend itself, while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy's name. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis. As Whittaker Chambers said: "Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does."
It’s this last phrase that strikes me most, as it is a naked attempt by the author to demonize dissent. That those Americans who spoke up against McCarthyism and the injustice of government power run amok were traitors, and because they spoke up at all, they must be guilty. Only the silent are innocent and patriotic. Anyone else is a danger to national security.
"Jews are fanatical liars, then as now," should read:
"Liberals are fanatical liars, then as now," as this is a quote from Treason as well. The skill of Göebbels was that he was able to convince ordinary Germans that the left represented a very real and immediate threat to them and their nation. A fear based, in the beginning, on the crime of arson committed by two members of the Nazi Party itself. Coulter is no Göebbels in either skill or degree, but she is intelligent, well read, and has (I will grudgingly admit) some legitimate political opinions. So why is she actively taking part in the systematic demonization of ideas and opposition, two themes that are central to the philosophy of government we like to call democracy? Think of it, the demonization of ideas, as though mere thoughts that don’t appear to be in lockstep with the legions of right wing America are deserving of labels like "traitor" and "liar."
And while Jews are still a frequent target of hateful invective and threats, where right wing radio has focused its hatred is on America's homosexual population. The language they use when talking about issues such as gay marriage, gay adoption, gays in the military, civil unions, or what have you is almost EXACTLY the words spoken by Göebbels on a number of occasions, with the word "gays" substituted for the word "Jews". Gays have become the easy target of hate radio and the Republican Party in its attempts to hold on to power, and churchgoers in Tennessee are dead because of it.
The more the scarier, I mean, merrier.
"A lot of people watching the anti-war demonstrations look upon the hordes of eager young people participating in them as being what Lenin called "useful idiots," when the truth is that they are really innocent victims of brainwashing in classrooms and lecture halls dominated by rabid Marxist teachers and professors."
"And whether they know it or not, it's socialism for which they are marching and demonstrating, the reality and nature of which they know nothing. Their young impressionable minds have been appropriated and molded by their Marxist teachers and filled with intellectual garbage fed to them under the guise of compassion for the "poor and repressed."
And they have been handed over to skilled veteran communist manipulators and drawn into new front groups allegedly to protest a war..."
These are all quotes from Michael Reagan, radio talk show host and son of former President Ronald Reagan. These are particularly frightening, as I am a liberal high school teacher, and although I am not a communist or anything relatively close, he refers to me and, well, everyone in my profession as "rabid Marxists." What’s more, unlike the other excerpts I referred to in this column, with Michael Reagan’s quotes, I didn’t have to change a word. These were terrifying enough without adding the contrast of the Nazis vilification of Jews to make my point. No, these quotes, they stood as shining examples of Cold War clichés and scapegoating all on their own.
Finally and offensively, these excerpts suggest that if anyone from the left mentions the "poor and oppressed" as part of a dissenting campaign against our government’s policies, they’re simply lying again. As though liberals hate the poor and oppressed, and would only use them as a shield to smear the "true patriots" on the right.
Adolf Hitler’s party machine led a purge of Germany’s classrooms in the 1930’s, replacing and sometimes arresting those who didn’t echo the party line, or worse, taught students to think for themselves. It’s not that we have come so close to this happening in America, as I wouldn’t go that far. What frightens me, rather, is Americans’ recent blindness at best to admit our consistent creep as a country in that direction, and their fanaticism at worst, to ensure that it happens. It reminds me of Reverend Martin Niemüller’s famous quote, one which I have not changed:
First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.
For his opposition to the Nazis, Niemüller was arrested in 1937, convicted of treason, and spent eight years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.