I’m not suggesting that Bush’s political agenda in any way resembles the extreme racial suprematism and doctrine of Lebensraum-by-force associated with Nazism, but I’m not the first to have noticed a spooky resemblance between several Bush administration terms and terms used by the Nazis. Sorry to disappoint certain alarmist liberals (I don’t identify as either Left or Right, btw) but Bush is no Hitler and I’m not suggesting here that his ideology resembles the extremes of Nazism. At the most, he’s an extreme Rightist and militarist of the Goldwater/Kissinger type. But consider…
“Homeland” (“Homland Security”;“We must protect the Homeland”, etc.) When this term was first introduced many people even vaguely familair with the history of Nazi ideology immediately cringed. There was an extremely long article in The Nation on the subject and I think one in Harper’s. “Homeland” or Heimat, was a key ideological term for the Nazis, one connected with other key terms of national identity such as Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil). Essentially, the Heimat was a sentimentalized notion of the purely Germanic, meant to bring to mind the rolling hills of the Black Forest and the slopes of Austria. Visually, the Heimat was usually represented in kitschy propaganda posters and films as an idylllic land, full of peasants in plus-fours and Lederhosen and apple-cheeked, blonde Aryan youth. All, of course, free from dreaded sub-humans such as Jews and Gypsies.
The current use of this term doesn’t seem as invested with racial suprematism, but it has retained some of its key aspects: the notion of a country as pure and monolithic and free form foreigners (those outside the Homeland); the rather kitschy, sentimental notion in this age of globalism of one’s country as a pure Home (“home” signifies goodness, safety, idyllic purity); the use of the term to signify total group identification.
It’s true that the extreme Right in America has a long history of xenophobia, isolationism and obssession with racial purity (lynchings in the South were nearly always provoked by fears of miscegenation) from Father Coughlin to Strom Thurmond to Trent Lott. But I can’t remember a time when quasi-Nazistic terminology was so wholeheartedly embraced.
The other Nazi term was only used for a limited period but it did manage to raise a few eyebrows. The recent Operation Iron Hammer was taken directly from a key Nazi military operation, “Eisenhammer”.
So, my question for any posters familiar with the intricacies of this administration: who’s the Nazi buff in the Bush administration and how the hell did he manage to slip these terms into the national discourse?
Lumping Shrub and his administration in with Barry Goldwater is appalling and an insult to Goldwater as the two have nothing in common, other then both are “Republican.”
That Goldwater swipe (hell, most of your post) is utterly ignorant and mean-spirited with a thin façade of rationale observation and even-handedness. I do not predict a long and fruitful life on the SDMB for you.
Geez, the Nazis didn’t invent these words and it’s not like they hold a copyright on them or anything. What’s next? A parallel between Bush and Hitler because they both like hot showers? (oh, wait, can I say “showers”?)
Personally, I thought the single most misused word in the Bush administration was “crusade”, accompanied as it was by plans to invade and conquer two Muslim nations. Fortunately, he dropped it quickly enough.
Well, the term Homeland is older than either Bush or Clinton…I mean, FDR used it in 1942 in his Washington’s Birthday message:
"Though their homeland was overrun, the Dutch people are still fighting stubbornly and powerfully overseas. " (He’s not referring to the US, but still…)
Well, it’s not really the exclusive domain of fascism, it is certainly used by totalitarians regardless of their politacal stripe (the Motherland in Russia, the Fatherland In Italy and Germany).
Anyway, the basic response so far has been something on the order of “The Nazis used many terms! The fact that Homeland was also used by them doesn’t mean anything!” One problem: the term Homeland had no currency in America until it was used by the Bush administration. Perform a simple mental experiment and try to think of a single instance when you’ve used or heard this term in your lifetime. Heimat, Heimatand, Homeland, when used to define national identity, are terms irrevocably associated with Nazi usage, as any historian will tell you. That’s not to say that the Nazis had a monopoly on the use of Heimatland. It was commonly used in Germany and Austria long berfore WWII. You guys act as though this were some outrageous statement. Simply google Nazi+Homeland+Bush and you’l find dozens of sites with the same concerns (most of them full of conspiracy quacks but some pretty reasonable), but no explanation as to how the term came to be used by the Bush administartion. Hence this post.
As far as Goldwater goes…My naming him in connectiuon with Bush was hardly “ignorant”. I’m pretty familiar with Goldwater’s ideology and, in parts at least, it resembles Bush’s. It’s also an ideology that has come to define a particular group of Neo-conservatives who came of age in the 60s and who now hold power. “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice” could be the slogan of this administration.
Anyhow, answer, don’t answer, whatever, I’m through with this site.
There may be just a nugget in the OP that is worth considering. Some people have leaped to the defense of the display of the Confederate Battle Flag, the red job with the blue St. Andrew’s cross, as a symbol of Southern courage and endurance while ignoring its association with the opposition to the extension of civil rights, the KKK and the White Citizens Counsel. Some of us saw a parallel between the Defense of the Homeland and the Watch on the Rhine and any number of fascist slogans. As the poster noted, that does not make the present administration fascist but it sure starts up some unpleasant vibrations in the collective memory. You would think that an administration as sophisticated on public relations as this one would have picked a name that was a little less likely to dredge up unpleasant associations. I suppose we can be thankful that no one has opted to call the new outfit the Secret State Police (Geheimnes Staat Politizi)
So… wait. You’re saying the Dutch, whilst being occupied by the Nazis, were actually Nazis themselves for letting an American use the term “Homeland” to describe their native land? This is so confusing.
