I haven't gotten used to FauxNews rhetoric and it still is "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech." These people make me, an atheist, fervently hope for a righteous God and a hot&painful Hell.

Actually, I do think Limbaugh, Beck, and their ilk are engaging in "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech,"

Yeah, I think this choir pretty much all does think that.

It's no different from watching a chimp play with its own poop. You can't expect anything else from Republicans because they're incapable of understanding why they shouldn't do what they do.

No one thinks Limbaugh, Beck, and their ilk are engaging in "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech," because we've all just become accustomed to their irresponsible rhetoric.

No. The reason "no one thinks Limbaugh, Beck and their ilk are engaging in 'the worst and most vile form of political hate speech'" is because under Villager rules, nothing repugs do is wrong or bad, including torture, murder and treason.

The corollary Villager rule, of course, is that everything Democrats, especially liberals but not always Blue Dogs, do, including rescuing small children from certain death and sacrificng themselves for their country, is horrific, un-American, satanist and on orders from bin Laden.

Go ahead, Steve - give it a test. Compare the hooligans disrupting town halls to Nazi brownshirts on Kristalnacht and count how many nanoseconds it takes for Broder to condemn you.

I think this choir pretty much all does think that.

so anandine, you think that kind of language is appropriate, then?

Remember this didn't work with Bill Clinton either. He walked out of office with very high approval ratings. There comes a tipping point where people start think, "Just shut up already." I think were getting close. The healthcare protesters don't seem to be making any inroads, their ranks aren't swelling with new recruits from different demographics. THe public will tire very quickly with this non-stop white trash tantrum. The world is passing these people by. Look at those demonstrations, angry, bitter old white bigots. That's not the face of america now.

We won't be rid of this trash, but in the end they'll just be noise. Unfortunately, I think they have the possibility of violence, so we may see some tragiic event spawned from all this. But they are a fringe group now, they're outside the mainstream and they're out of it for good.

In a related note, I've been a member of MoveOn.org almost since its inception in the late 90s. I received an email today letting me know that the documentary about the group, six years in the making, is now available on DVD. If anyone is interested, the trailer is here. Looks to be an interesting documentary.

From the Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, National Socialism is described as:
[A] Totalitarian movement led by Adolf Hitler as head of Germany's Nazi Party (1920 - 45). Its roots lay in the tradition of Prussian militarism and discipline and German Romanticism, which celebrated a mythic past and proclaimed the rights of the exceptional individual over all rules and laws. Its ideology was shaped by Hitler's beliefs in German racial superiority and the dangers of communism. It rejected liberalism, democracy, the rule of law, and human rights, stressing instead the subordination of the individual to the state and the necessity of strict obedience to leaders. It emphasized the inequality of individuals and "races" and the right of the strong to rule the weak.

Which of the two major parties does this sound most like, Republican or Democrat?

"I'm a war president."

I'm very surprised that you folks haven't figured this out yet! It's quite simple. The loony-toon fringe has has expanded like The Blob and overwhelmed the "Moderate Middle" of the Republican Party. What used to be considered extreme once upon a time, now appears mainstream - relatively speaking! And the Nazi references are truly ironic, because their media goons take their methods directly from the playbook of Herr Goebbels!

@Saint Zak My new favorite phrase "white trash tantrum" May the meme go far, sums it up sussinctly.

Under the new rules, it's very hateful of you to point this out.

Somehow these irresponsible and inflammatory references are OK for the Rethugs and wingnuts to use as they choose, but will always be unacceptable when used by Democrats or progressives.

The outrage and temper tantrums of indignation will quickly be on display if Bush or Reagan are properly characterized as totalitarian thugs. Or calling these astroturf mobs lynch mobs.

It shouldn't be too long before one of these staged outrage rallies descends into violence that then gives license to all the gun owners to go to the barricades. The Rethugs want a civil war. Let's hope they don't get one.

What the Limbaugh and the Republicans are doing is devaluing the world's experience of the holocaust in specific and of the reasons the Allies fought WWII in general.

Thus when word definitions and examples becomes valueless, it's easier to lie to the population using those same words. "WE ARE NOT Nazi's," says a FUTURE Limbaugh as he and shoves everyone he does not like into the furnace, "Obama was a Nazi and he did not kill a single Jew, Gay, or Liberal."

Because one anonymous liberal blogger went "there," the Republicans' modus operandi is to compare any Dem who's EVER in power to Hitler. If they own the rights to Hitler comparisons, then it'll never even be a blip on the radar when one of their big boss men do something that truly resonates as something a fascist dictator would do. Which is inevitable.

PROOF that Obama is like Hitler!!

Hitler was not born in Germany, Obama was not born in America
They were both community organizers
They both were great dancers
They both loved their mothers
They both put mustard on their hamburgers
They both have dark hair

Every time you repeat Rush Dopeheads words you double his power and his audience. There is nothing worse then turning on the morning news and hearing all about what some unfunny dumb shit like Rush Limbaugh or Jimmy Fallon said.

It's no better on-line either.

No one thinks Limbaugh, Beck, and their ilk are engaging in "the worst and most vile form of political hate speech," because we've all just become accustomed to their irresponsible rhetoric.

That's not entirely correct. Many of us consider Limbaugh, Beck, and their ilk are guilty of the worst and most vile form of racist political hate speech. Of course if any of us dare to point out that they survive because they have a loyal audience who are also entirely Republican and then draw the connection between their racist/homophobic crap and the Republican party, we are accused of vile hate speech.

But what are you going to do? They have a slavering audience of millions of listeners/viewers who just eat it up with a big spoon. Advertisers love that, so they will stay on the air no matter what we do. That's capitalism -- something I am generally in favor of. The only way to get to them is through their sponsors. If is starts to look like it will cost more money than they can bring in to keep backing them, their sponsors will drop them like hot doo doo. But all that takes a lot of organization.

If someone in the MSM would regularly run clips of their crap and then a list of their sponsors with contact info, well...

But that will never happen because a lot of the same companies will be sponsoring the MSM talking heads too. There is money in conflict.

America's Ultra-Rich Ruling Class, Inc. has many means of undermining public confidence in and support for a popular liberal Democratic president.

It has propaganda like the subject of this article, that is focus-group tested, scripted and targeted at the so-called "conservative" base, delivered through the corporate-owned "conservative" media, by corporate-owned "conservative" mouthpieces like Limbaugh and Beck.

And it has other propaganda that is focus-group tested, scripted and targeted at a more general audience, delivered through the corporate-owned so-called "mainstream" media, by other corporate-owned mouthpieces who communicate in a more reasonable-sounding manner.

The soft-spoken, polite but quite blatant and utterly dishonest corporate propaganda that I hear every morning on NPR's Morning Edition is just as offensive to me, if not more so, than the Ditto-Head bait that Limbaugh and Beck throw around.

But all of it is aimed at undermining political support for Obama's agenda and proposals.

And the corporate aristocracy doesn't necessarily have to completely defeat those proposals, which are in actuality pretty corporate-friendly to begin with -- it just needs to create the political environment in which Obama and the Congressional Democrats will be forced to water down their proposals and make them even more corporate-friendly in order to gain enough "conservative" support to pass them.

And the other thing the corporate aristocracy has, is time. They aren't going anywhere, and every day the status quo continues, the profits keep rolling in. So delaying health insurance reform, or cap-and-trade (for example) is a victory for them, even if those measures are eventually passed (in a very watered-down form that puts corporate profits ahead of human well-being).

Every time you repeat Rush Dopeheads words you double his power and his audience. -Ned Pepper

Asinine reasoning. Perhaps it's better if you liken Rush to cancer; neither are cured through ignorance.

What pisses me off so bad about crap like this isn't the spew Beck, Limbaugh, Malkin, et al vomit forth on a daily basis. Yes, that's infuriating, but that's who they are and will always be, no matter what since they have mental issues.

What really, really makes me mad is that the corporate media never says a word about this crap when the GOP does it. Never. Ever. At any time.

As pointed out, some random, anonymous asshat on the Internet posts on video that's removed in hours, and it's all "OH MY GOD DID YOU SEE THAT?!?!?!?21one!!11"

But if a Republican does it? Well, the media can't point that out. Doing so would be partisan, donchyaknow?

**bangs head on desk**

It's simple: Without them being held to account, why would they stop? They still have their advertisers*, their millions in salary, and their delusional and deranged viewers/listeners.

Until companies refuse to advertise on these shows and take away the cash, stuff like this will continue.

(*Three companies have actually dropped their ads from Beck's show: Procter and Gamble, Progressive Insurance [which I find fitting given their name, if not their actual company], and Lawyers.com. So at least that's something.]

conservatroll:
"Correlation is not causation" refuted in fewer than 100 words. What genius!

Didn't Dick Durbin make some relatively innocuous reference to Hitler during the Bush years only to be thrown under the bus by Repubs, media, etc? Forced to apologize. Maybe I'm thinking of the MoveOn thing....

The soft-spoken, polite but quite blatant and utterly dishonest corporate propaganda that I hear every morning on NPR's Morning Edition is just as offensive to me, if not more so, than the Ditto-Head bait that Limbaugh and Beck throw around.

I stopped listening to Nice Polite Republicans when they had on Mara Lieasome in 2006, and, during a "hard" news segment, not an opinion piece, said, "John Kerry, that wind surfing flip flopper ... " And the host (can't remember who) actually giggled.

As pointed out in another thread, NPR is SUPPOSED to be EVERYONE'S radio. Instead, thanks to GOP cuts, it now has to rely on corporate money.

The product we hear now is the result of that.

I suggest finding a station that plays "Democracy Now" newscasts if possible. It's leftist as all hell, but at least it's honest about it and clearly -- and I mean CLEARLY -- delineates its pieces between news and opinion.

It is a well documented fact that Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot.

SecularAnimist:
You're not the only one who's noticed and feels that way about NPR's Morning Edition (of wing propaganda). When Bob Edwards left, he had a reason.

They need psychological help and the MSM are their enablers.

Can't we all just get along?

The right wing is so stupid today they would be laughable, except the Nazi's also believed in a lot of stupid things (they tried to reject quantum physics and relativity as Jewish science, their racial/genetic theories were equally inane), and it took 20,000,000 dead before we were rid of them.

Do these assholes not even remember who actually defeated Hitler? A conservative British PM. A liberal Democrat president. And a freaking communist. How can they say Obama is a liberal commie who is just like Hitler without being laughed off the air?

Oh yeah. Their Fascist audience.

I'm glad you mentioned Rush, actually, because it gives me an excuse to air my favourite Rush Limbaugh quote once again. Ready? Here goes: "...there are people in this White House (speaking, naturally, of the Bush administration) who could blow you away with their intellect, and the President is one of those, if he chose to speak to you in that way".

Got that? If Bush appeared stupid to you, he simply chose to appear stupid, because he could tell that his intellect would be wasted on you. Therefore, he was not stupid - he only appeared stupid to you because you were too stupid to appreciate him. Presumably he appeared clever and intellectual to some, and I think we could make a pretty good guess who they were, because they still think so.

Rush apparently didn't think it was necessary to explain why Bush so often appeared stupid to a large television audience whom he could not see, and vet for stupidity. I guess there were two simultaneous messages, and stupid people got the dumbed-down version. Diabolically clever, you have to admit.

That's really all you need to know about Rush Limbaugh - that Bush "blew him away" with his intellect.

Mark, that is the funniest thing I've read all week. Thanks.

Pretty far fetched to compare Obama to Hitler, who had a dream of a white master race of blue eyed blondes.Beck and Limbaugh would have made very good nazis. Seriously, everytime I hear them throwing the Hitler word around I wonder, what do these idiots really know about Hitler. I know (as someone who is in the high 70's) what it is like to be hiding from Herr Hitlers bombs night after night.We really learned a lot about the man!

I agree about the changes in NPR, it's really disgusting. I check out NPR Check to read what others are saying about the demise of NPR.

http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/

I cannot understand why Dems are not hitting back harder! When Reprobates (why can't we call them what WE want, if they can call us what THEY want?)say they have a "better idea" for health care, why don't we immediately remind them they had six years to take care of it and never tried. When they bitch about the deficit, why don't we immediately recite the Reagan and Bush records? When they say tax cuts make jobs, whey don't we point out that Clinton raised taxes and made MORE jobs? When a Dem is asked about why they aren't bi-partisan, why don't they jump on the fact that it's the R's that want to make our country fail for their political gain? Why don't they quit being mr nice guy and grow a pair? And for that matter they need to call out newspeople who spout the R talking points?

"Didn't Dick Durbin..." Wes @ 5:29 PM.
The Senator referred to the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as something the citizens of the US expected to read about being done by the SS or KGB, NOT US soldiers.
Of course, since what he said was correct, it was immediately called unpatriotic and defaming to the US military.

I just heard a promo spot on the radio for, and by, Rush. He says, and I kid you not, "with talent on loan from god..." And since god made Nazis, he must know one when he sees one.

"Pretty far fetched to compare Obama to Hitler, who had a dream of a white master race of blue eyed blondes."

I was going to say the same thing. Nothing like putting the dude with African heritage in the same camp of folks that thought the Slavic people were a little too exotic for their tastes.

this is an incredible comment thread some spectacular stuff. Secular Animist maintains his 1.000 batting average with his dead on comment and Mark's comment might boil down the essence of the Republican/Right wing mind into 2 concise paragraphs.

The comment about the intent of dumbing down and stripping language and words of their meaning is what gives me the most pause and cause for reflection. It's truly frightening when history can become so devalued through some crypto post modern game of constructing false equivalences.

As an aside, can anyone tell me why we are not fighting for a public option?

Can't we all just get along?
Posted by: David Broder

Touche!!

What I find particularly ironic is that these idiots really are following a Lyndon LaRouche script! No, really--look it up!

I guess that the best I can hope for is that you can learn, Steve.

If you want to be thoroughly amused at the utter absurdity of the efforts of so many to compare US Presidents to Hitler, google 'obama hitler ' and use 'comparison' or 'similarities'. That is just a starter course. 'bush hitler' also offers the same kind of high intellect and propaganda. You can get links for 'roosevelt hitler'. Same for Clinton. Same for even Reagan. With Carter, you have to work harder, but someone decided to compare Obama to Carter and by extension, of course..

In my incomplete search, even Lincoln gets a little Hitler smack. Harding is spared. Hoover and Taft, too. Kennedy, apparently also, at least through my superficial look. But then I ran across some research by a student at the illustrious UCSB who sought to find Hitler comparisons to US Presidents in the venerable NY Times among other sources. Paraphrasing her first line, it's just not that unusual for US Presidents to get the Hitler comparison.
http://www.history.ucsb.edu/faculty/marcuse/classes/33d/projects/media/AnalogiesNYTJenn.htm

Honestly at this point, I think you could have a cable or radio show that consisted of nothing but a continuous loop of an angry fat white guy saying "I can't get a hard-on or hold a job and it's all because of the goddam n*ggers, feminists, foreigners and queers." and it would have MILLIONS of loyal viewers/listeners.

lobbygow, that is the second funniest thing I've read all week. Thanks.

I wear my tinfoil hat with pride.

I myself have been castigated for pointing out that the party of fascism in this country calls itself the Republicans. That the Bushes are a fascist family. That various Bush actions were autocratic in the manner of Germany's fascists.

Some little knowledge of history enabled me to instantly recognize the recent corporate-sponsored mob scenes at town halls as right out of the Hitler playbook. Google "Brownshirts" and tell me that this phenomenon can be allowed to continue.

Because of the "gentleman's agreement" by the left not to "go there" with "extreme" but entirely accurate attacks regarding actual fascist actions and comparisons, many teaching opportunities were missed, leaving the general public so ignorant of the actuality of fascism that Obama's mildly socialist policies can plausibly be called both communist and "Hitleresque" - often by the same commentator and in the same paragraph.

This also makes it impossible for us now to warn of the Brownshirt tactics - too confusing and too much like "So's your mama." If the government manages to dismantle Blackwater/Xe (mark my words), we will have the disgusting irony of watching right wing commentators make more accusations of "Hitlarian" tactics as the incipient fascist Stormtroopers are destroyed by justice and democracy.

I am not predicting doom here, but we barely escaped a complete fascist takeover when Obama took office. If you think that means we are out of the woods, think again. There are plenty of "Eric Princes" in the Pentagon and the rest of the active military. The "Brooks Brothers rioters," who already have one successful coup d'etat to their credit are still at it with the latest Brownshirt tactics.

I forget who said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, but never was that more true than now. There is treason and insurrection afoot.

Because they have been politically marginalized does not make them harmless. Because the stupidity of the followers draws our well-deserved scorn does not mean that all the "movers and shakers" behind the scene should be underestimated.

Just sayin...

Yes, but, but, but...this guy is BLACK!! So anything goes...and for those who want to continue pretending that the "tea baggers" and all too many of our elected representatives (read Southern bigots) are living in TERROR that people of color (read that NOT WHITE) will be taking over the world...I have news for them...they WILL...learn to live with people on some basis other than their skin color. Not that I'll live long enough to see that! I agree with Paul Krugman that more of the RAGE one is seeing from rightwingnut television personalities and their sheeple at these meetings is driven by the fact that Ameica elected a man of color...HOW DARE WE!!!

A lot of what UnEasyOne is saying makes eerie sense. Look at the hoopla the "rioters" are able to stir up over healthcare. It's a case of the filthy rich tricking the ignorant poor into doing their bidding. Shouting and creating a disturbance and getting on television are wildly popular pastimes in our culture right now, especially with young people. Just as the promise of good old violence was all the brown shirts needed to gin up some rowdy kids, the promise of shouting down reasonable public discourse attracts these dittoheads, makes them feel powerful, and gives them the erroneous sense of being "right."

When was the last time you heard a legitimate debate on Rush, Beck, O'Reilly, etc.? It never happens. And so, to these people, polite point-counterpoint is, well, pointless. The loudest person [or the person who hangs up on a caller and then calls them names] is always the winner.

Comparing them to Nazis is not helpful, though, and here's why. It's just too easy. And it makes them seem stupid, easily identifiable and defeatible. The problem is that there is a lot of brain power behind these actions. And money. The Republican party may be down right now, but they are not out. They are not Nazis. They are what's next — corporatist overlords with yokel foot soldiers literally shouting down badly-needed healthcare reform and demanding to see the president's birth certificate.

If that's not utterly frightening, I can't imagine what is.

how long, do you think, before these commentators have to distance themselves from an assassination attempt?

A small google exercise:

“bush nazi” gets 843,00 results, “obama nazi” gets 4,980,000 results.

A google search of “bush hitler” generates 1,160,000 results, “obama hitler” 6,070,000.

The results for both searches related to “bush” are inflated by the fact that “George Bush’s grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar

The numbers for bush/hitler/nazi are, of course, for an EIGHT YEAR PERIOD. Obama has been president for six months.

Make no mistake. The FauxNews army cannot be argued with. They are out for blind hatred and mayhem. There's no pussyfooting around this. No need to debate them at all. These people are more wrong than a broken watch. They're wrong 100% of the time. And attempt to fix them does nothing, they will not retain facts that contradict their world view and they'll start repeating their crap in under 5 minutes.

There is no point in reasoning with them. Treat them like the hysterics and wannabe criminals that they are. Tell your Birther family members/ex-friends exactly what you think about them and then cut them off. These people won't learn anything from the experience, but at least you'll have the satisfaction of flipping them off for good.

The best a sensible person can do is to starve the beast. Boycott the companies that finance their masters. Cut off the DINOs and so called mainstream media outlets that lets them get away with the crap. Do some citizen's journalism that will hopefully land some of the beastmasters behind bars and/or paying back taxes.

Even if these conversation destroyers succeed, driving this country into fascisium, we can still enjoy the fate of the rape-public-can stooges that are causing the failure of open government. The intellegent people at the top of this treasonus endevor, having no further use for these thugs will disband them just like Hitler did with his brownshirts. Night of the long knives; when the SS killed the SA (brownshirts) on orders from the top.