Filed under: Lefist Thought, Nazis — Marc Schulman on October 16, 2007 @ 8:49 pm CEST
At The Moderate Voice, Shaun Mullen writes that “I have broken what for me has been a cardinal rule in recent days in using Nazi analogies when writing about the Bush administration’s embrace of torture as well as a deafening lack of response from most Americans to this and other outrages not unlike the Germans who failed to speak out about the excesses of the Third Reich.”
Here’s the comment I appended to his post:
Because both of my wife’s parents were survivors of Nazi death camps, I’m particularly outraged by your decision to sink to the Bush-Nazi analogy.Yes, it is true that the Bush Administration has violated international norms on torture, and, yes, it sickens me. But to leap from that fact and that opinion to a comparison with the Nazis is to seriously overplay your hand.By using the analogy, you understate — by a huge margin — the qualitative and quantitative differences.
The Nazis were far, far more brutal and used torture against millions of people (genocide is torture, isn’t it?)By mentioning the Bush administration and the Nazis in the same breath, you lessen the unique evil of the Nazi regime.
If you are truly upset about human rights violations, you should be venting your spleen about Darfur, Zimbabwe, Iran, and others. Aren’t those regimes more Nazi-like than is ours? And wouldn’t their inclusion serve to show the vast distance between Bush and Hitler?
If Mullen and others who make this comparison (2.4 million “Bush-Hitler” hits on Google) had made similarly inflammatory remarks in Nazi Germany, they would have been tortured and/or murdered. Quickly.
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1 Michael van der Galiën
October 16, 2007 @ 9:26 pm CESTAgreed - way-out-there. These comparisons are used increasingly more and that’s quite a sad thing.
2 Jason Steck
October 16, 2007 @ 9:50 pm CESTThere is almost an addictive style to the thing. It’s like some people keep continually escalating their rhetoric in an effort to recapture some previous glory or provoke some remembered reaction.
It is reminiscent of the same thing from the other side during the Clinton administration. The anti-Clintonistas began with the corruption issue with Whitewater and escalated right up the charts, going to “rape” and then later to tall tales about massive numbers of murders supposedly committed by and for the Clintons.
Nowadays, the escalation from the anti-Bushies leads inevitably to talk of “brownshirts” and “Nazis”.
Yours was a very calm and measured response, Marc.
3 Xel
October 16, 2007 @ 10:02 pm CEST“By using the analogy, you understate — by a huge margin — the qualitative and quantitative differences.”
I can actually agree that it is not analogous, and that no analogy is needed for a significant level of outrage. Bush and, transitively, other torture-supporters, are vile enough without having to smother the debate with hot tasty Godwin.
4 mikkel
October 16, 2007 @ 10:26 pm CESTI didn’t see Shaun’s writing as saying that Bush is a Nazi or is trying to create a Nazi state.
Statement: Bush/Republicans/insert group here are Nazis or want to emulate them. False and stupid for all the reasons that everyone writes.
Statement: There are political/sociological elements present in the US now that historically have led to brutal dictatorships, with the Nazis being the most obvious. I’m not sure that is obviously false and think it is worth arguing about.
Whatever they are, the White House are not anywhere close to brutal dictators, however I find the reaction of the populace to the admitted torture, eavesdropping, propaganda and political drivers to be extremely worrying. Bush couldn’t be Hitler (or take your pick) even if he wanted to, and it’s clear that he doesn’t. But I think that they have helped create an environment where somewhere down the line we could rip each other apart enough that a dictator could emerge.
Of course from my viewpoint the irony is that the people that are screaming Nazis are doing just as much to foster the degrading environment as the people that they oppose. Personally, I don’t think that Nazi Germany is the best comparison or even anywhere close to the best. I think the transition from Republic to Imperial Rome is much better off the top of my head.
I also don’t think it’s a right/left issue, because ultimately either side could be the one that takes over. For instance, whatever you think about Hillary’s competence, there are growing number of reports of threats about purges if people go against her — and that’s against long time Democratic insiders. I am not confident she won’t lash out against the “Right Conspiracy” once in power. [I don’t think she will become Hillter either, just possibly degrade the environment more.]
5 C Stanley
October 16, 2007 @ 10:33 pm CESTYou just gave me an idea, Mikkel- on your meme of ‘degrading the environment’, maybe blogs that attempt to clean up the environment can sell hyperbole offsets!
6 Chris
October 16, 2007 @ 10:40 pm CESTMikkel,
We should be fighting to maintain the American republic, and end torture, restore habeas corpus, etc.
Bush doesn’t have to be Hitler for these issues to be pressing problems. And if history is any judge, they won’t resolve themselves. How often do governments relinquish power?
7 Jason Steck
October 16, 2007 @ 10:48 pm CESTYou’re absolutely right on this one, Chris. Bush doesn’t have to be Hitler for there to be real problems that need addressing. But calling Bush Hitler tends to get in the way of coming up with those solutions.
8 Michael van der Galiën
October 16, 2007 @ 10:49 pm CESTThe issues of wiretapping, abu, gitmo, etc. are very serious. They need to be addressed, indeed, but comparing Bush to Hitler is simply completely out of line. People who do that are, actually, making a joke out of themselves and they’re downplaying the degree to which people suffered during World War II. By comparing Bush to Hitler one makes clear that one really doesn’t understand just how evil Hitler was and just what kind of suffering he caused.
Furthermore, as Xel pointed out, there’s no reason to compare what happens to what happened under Nazi rule. You can make the anti-torture case without making the comparison.
9 C Stanley
October 16, 2007 @ 10:50 pm CESTIt gets in the way, as you say Jason- but also, as Marc pointed out, it belittles those who’ve suffered at the hands of real Nazi’s. If we use hyperbolic rhetoric to describe things that aren’t the worst cases, then what language is left to describe real evil and tyranny?
10 Chris
October 16, 2007 @ 10:54 pm CESTBy not allowing the comparison you also belittle those who are suffering at the hands of the same techniques now. It goes both ways…
11 C Stanley
October 16, 2007 @ 10:59 pm CESTHow so, Chris? Why can’t those currently ’suffering’ be acknowledged without an inapt comparison being made?
And who exactly are you referring to here?
12 Michael van der Galiën
October 16, 2007 @ 11:00 pm CESTNo you don’t. You’re still saying “it’s terrible” but without going way overboard by saying that Bush is quite comparable to Hitler.
You don’t ‘belittle’ their suffering by not making the comparison.
13 Michael van der Galiën
October 16, 2007 @ 11:02 pm CESTChristine: that’s clear and should be clear to all. We’re not saying to a person, when that person was waterboarded, “but ahh, don’t complain, at least you’re not a Jew in a concentration camp” are we?
No, we’re not. We recognize that torture is bad, that enhanced etc. is bad, but we also recognize that this is something we can reject on its own merits, or faults better.
14 Jason Steck
October 16, 2007 @ 11:16 pm CESTDo you have some kind of evidence that the U.S. government is taking massive shipments of Zyklon-B, Chris?
Come on. Everyone is conceding that your core concern about torture, mistreatment, and civil liberties is legit. No can’t you meet halfway and agree that going overboard with the BushHilter rhetoric is too far?
15 Chris
October 16, 2007 @ 11:28 pm CESTIf it’s true that the U.S. is using techniques employed by the Nazis, is it unacceptable to point that out?
16 Jason Steck
October 16, 2007 @ 11:39 pm CESTI don’t know where you get this “unacceptable” and “not allowing” bit, Chris. No one is claiming to have the power to “allow” anything. The only thing they are claiming is the right to criticize rhetoric that they see as unnecessarily inflammatory, provocative, abusive towards dissent, and disrespectful towards the suffering of those who were actually tortured and murdered by the millions under the Nazis.
When every politician that you happen to disagree with gets equated with the Nazis (and the comparisons invoked between the Nazis and various Republicans unfortunately long predate 2001), the whole comparison gets reduced to cheap political theater. I can’t believe that anyone’s hatred is so strong as to actually defend it.
17 Chris
October 16, 2007 @ 11:52 pm CESTMaybe it’s because I see so many inappropriate Nazi comparisons that it’s refreshing to them invoked properly.
Do we have a counter for how many times Bill O’Reilly compared the DailyKos community to Nazis?
18 Chris
October 16, 2007 @ 11:53 pm CESTAs for unacceptable, I remember being banned from this website at one point for comparing certain Israeli tactics to that of the Nazis
19 Interested
October 17, 2007 @ 1:10 am CESTI couldn’t expect anything better out of Mullen personally. He is what he is.
I think that is pretty spot on in generality as well as specifically.
20 Tully
October 17, 2007 @ 1:53 am CESTFor instance, whatever you think about Hillary’s competence, there are growing number of reports of threats about purges if people go against her — and that’s against long time Democratic insiders.
She does have the old gang back together.
21 sashal
October 17, 2007 @ 5:07 am CESTI think the comparison with totalitarian Stalinists is more appropriate…
22 kritter
October 17, 2007 @ 6:23 am CESTJason-What’s interesting is that Shaun never said Bush was like Hitler- he just said that the Nazis used similar techniques for torture and the good Germans did nothing.Why is it that abusive when used in such a narrow sense? When you start expanding the post to include the actions of the entire administration it gets obviously ridiculous- but Shaun didn’t do that.
23 Jason Steck
October 17, 2007 @ 3:12 pm CESTKim, I don’t want to discuss the specific elements of this case. I rather maintain that, generally speaking, use of Nazi analogies is so inflammatory as to be exclusive of reasonable conversation and that such usages, generally speaking, arise in contexts that indicate that provocation of outrage is the intended result.
24 grognard
October 17, 2007 @ 6:13 pm CESTHey, there is an upside to this, the civil unrest of Weimar Germany started in the beer halls. Lets all get drunk and fight each other in the streets! Posts like this are why I no longer take Mullen seriously.
25 kritter
October 17, 2007 @ 8:10 pm CESTThen how are we supposed to learn from history? If everything that outrages us is off limits how can we prevent its recurrence? Remember how touchy it was to call the Iraq war a quagmire or compare it to Vietnam? And now it is a quagmire.
Besides this was one of your comments-
‘But calling Bush Hitler tends to get in the way of coming up with those solutions.’
This might be outrageous if Shaun had said it but he didn’t. Then you say you don’t want to discuss the specifics of his post??
26 C Stanley
October 17, 2007 @ 8:49 pm CESTKim,
Do you really think there’s nothing wrong with comparing one aspect of a person’s behavior with a heinous person, when the other aspects don’t apply? If I said that you were like Jeffrey Dahmer because you and he had both gotten speeding tickets, then even if that similarity proved to be true it still wouldn’t be a fair analogy, now, would it?
27 C Stanley
October 17, 2007 @ 8:55 pm CESTAnd yeah, that was touchy because it wasn’t true. And maybe if those who opposed the war from the start had used more honest tactics, discussing the real problems with the war instead of invoking the spectre of Vietnam, things could potentially have turned out a bit differently (and no, I’m not saying that the administration should thus be absolved of responsibility for the inept prosecution of the war, or that the GOP Congress should be absolved, but that there was a more productive course of dissent that could have been taken and wasn’t).
So that actually supports our side of the argument here- using hyperbolic rhetoric tends to be extremely counterproductive because you don’t convince anyone who’s not already convinced and you write off any potential allies for your cause.
28 kritter
October 18, 2007 @ 5:44 am CESTCS- Maybe it wasn’t true at the time, but it was a warning from the past that the situations were similar enough to have a good chance of becoming true. Anytime you get US forces involved in a conflict with no clear exit strategy and no clear parameters for victory, you risk a quagmire. Also, in both situations we had very little understanding of the enemy and underestimated the insurgency.
And, if you are fair about it- Bush and the neocons were even more dishonest
- they wouldn’t allow an occupation plan to be developed, denied Shinseki’s claim that at least 300,000 troops would be needed, fired Larry Lindsay for saying that the war would cost hundreds of billions, denied the insurgency existed even after commanders on the ground insisted it was developing, claimed Mission Accomplished prematurely, claimed the insurgency was in its last throes, claimed the Iraqi army under Casey was making steady progress, and denied there was a civil war.
And the Dahmer comparison? If I had a freezer with some body parts in it, I think it would be apt. The ticket comparison seems a little weak. Torture is a little more serious than that.
29 kritter
October 18, 2007 @ 2:29 pm CESTJason, If you are going to condemn the paranoid comparisons on the left, would you also condemn this comparison?
‘Clinton] believes in big government and bigger taxes, if you will, big brother making life better for everybody,” Romney said. “She’s described her economic philosophy by contrasting it with what we’ve known for the last couple hundred years. She said we’ve always been an on-your-own society…we should be a we’re-all-in-it-together society, a shared responsibility society. So it’s out with Adam Smith and in with Karl Marx.”’