I’ve posted this to the pit because, while it’s probably more IMHO or GD material, it’ll probably end up here sooner or later anyway.
The purpose of this thread is to make public a personal gripe of mine which has been bugging me since the whole MoveOn.org Superbowl advertisement controversy, manufactured and hyped beyond belief as it was.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with that little contretemps, it goes like this: MoveOn.org sponsored a competition for the best anti-Bush commercial, the winner to be screened during the Superbowl. Somehow it came to public attention that, of the 1500 submissions, two compared George W. Bush to Hitler.
The reaction from the hysterical Right Wing pundits and the lobotomized, lockstepping, Bushboggled “culture warriors” of the valient 101st Fighting Keyboarders brigade was was nigh on apocalyptic in its ferocity. Every E.R. Department below the Mason-Dixon line was overwhelmed with the victims of thunderous apoplexies as outraged wingnuts quite literally blew their tops, infuriated beyond measure at the sheer enormity of the comparison.
We still hear about it now. “Sacre bleu!” liberals cry “The Bush Administration mendaciously cherrypicked pre-war intelligence to mislead the world to the preordained conclusion that Iraq possessed WMD’s, all the while swearing blind that the evidence for their existence was overwhelming! 28,800 civilians are dead, 2437 Coalition soldiers are dead. The long term costs could top 2 trillion dollars and, oh yeah, everybody hates our guts!. How on earth could these incompetents be re-elected?”
“Blah blah blah?” Red Staters respond, “More of the same Bush Bashing. :rolleyes: ‘OMFG!!! Яepuhblicans Я EEEEEEEVIL!!! BUSHITLERBUSHITLERBUSHITLER!!!111 MOVEON.ORG SED SO!!! OMFG!’. Yawn. Change the record, Chicken Little!”
Now, I agree comparing George W. Bush to Hitler is deeply stupid, for three reasons.
Firstly, the very idea of comparing Hitler, the embodiment of pure evil and malevolence, to George W. Bush who, if you’ll permit me a judgement call, is merely dense, incompetent, and terminally dishonest, is ludicrous on its face.
Secondly, the comparison cheapens the crimes of Hitler.
Thirdly, Hitler was a far better public speaker.
Now, the two infamous video’s which compared Bush to Hitler were undeniably stupid. The comparison was invalid and cheapened the atrocities of the Nazi’s.
However, (and this is the gripe) the gleeful way so many Republican’s have seized on the nauseating lie that all liberals think Bush is Hitler and regurgitate contemptable “BUSHITLERBUSHITLERBUSHITLER” diatribes at every opportunity is really no better. So often in the blogosphere (and on these very boards), Conservatives****** have shot down accusations leveled at the Bush Administration, not through persuasive argumentation, but merely by gumming up their caps lock key, channelling the stupefied liberal gremlins of their febrile imaginations and crying “OMFG BUSHITLERBUSHITLERBUSHITLER” like little Steve Martins enacting citizen’s divorces from reality.
The problem I have with this (skirting over the fact that endlessly referring to minor examples of liberal idiocy isn’t going to make all their many, many, problems just disappear) is that their repeated and needless evocations of Hitler as a response to criticism of Bush also cheapen his atrocities. In the same way that needless comparisons to Hitler make it easier for more needless comparisons to Hitler, unnecessarly evocations of his name to rebut criticism just opens the door for more of the same. The cumulative effect of the two is identical. Hitler’s name becomes divorced from the sickening reality of the atrocities he committed, and this is the first stage of the degredation of his atrocities in social memory.
It’s all the worse coming from Republicans because (a) they made such a bloody stink about the whole MoveOn debacle (and continue to do so. Mention MoveOn.org on any Righty blog or messageboard, and a sanctimonious condemnation of their oh-so-disgraceful support for Bush-Hitler comparisons won’t be more than 5 posts away) and (b) if we accept that earnest comparisons of Bush & Hitler (which, by the way, hardly ever happen in the real world) have the same degrading effects on public discourse as mocking “BUSHITLER” responses to serious criticism, then Republicans are causing far, far, far more damage than liberals.
So yeah, stop if with the “BUSHITLERBUSHITLER” shit, Okay?
******I’ll name no names for now, but can provide cites on request.
