Hitler Comparisons and Media Reporting: Then and Now

[mikey23545]

Not too long ago, hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets with signs comparing our president to Adolf Hitler, painting him as “the world’s biggest terrorist,” even calling outright for his killing. Here in New York City, posters of a cartoon George W. Bush replete with simulated bullet holes began springing up around town.

It was a time when Democratic politicians complained loudly whenever they felt their patriotism was being impugned. In those days, bumper stickers reminded us that “Dissent is the Highest Form of Patriotism” and Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, declared that disruptive protests were “very American and very important.” Now that protests are directed against a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, Nancy Pelosi thinks such disruptions are “un-American.”

During the Bush era, the media looked the other way at the extremist element in the protest movement; the large number of protest signs bearing swastikas and mathematical formulae like “Bush=Hitler” just didn’t interest them. But it did interest me, and because the media didn’t want to report it, I did some reporting of my own. The videos I posted online inadvertently launched me on a second career as a documentary filmmaker.

I recently dug through my old footage and found many examples of the same kind of inflammatory speech that the media and the Democratic Party—forgive the redundancy—now decry. What follows are just a few examples.

At President Bush’s second inauguration in 2005, I visited Washington D.C. to hand out consolation prizes to crestfallen leftists. Folks got a chance to select their own action figure: one of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Michael Moore or Hillary Clinton. The resulting video, Stop Bitching, Start a Revolution, captured derogatory signs and predictions of violence. Among the highlights:

* “Us Democrats are going to get up in arms...we’ll have to come out and do what we have to do in the spirit of revolution. We’ll have to come out and kill somebody, I guess.”
* One sign had a double-digit number of swastikas: large swastikas with President Bush’s face superimposed and smaller ones replacing the letter “s” in the president’s surname
* A number of “Buck Fush” signs and stickers, which shouldn’t need explaining to the dyslexic
* “Bush=Death”
* “Karl Rove is a Nazi, and so is Bush”
* “We are in a Christian Fascist state”
* “There needs to be a revolution in this country”

In Pin the Tale on the Donkeys, I quizzed peace protesters about the various hawkish statements Democrats made about Saddam Hussein over the years. I also captured a few choice signs, including:

* A “Stop Bush” sign where the “s” in Bush has been replaced with a swastika
* A sign accusing President Bush of being both a “fascist” and a “racist”
* One that refers to President Bush as a “terrorist”
* A “Protest = Patriotic” sign (an equation that liberals no longer seem to believe is true)
* A sign with a picture of President Bush calling him “a madman”

On an unusually cold day in New York City, Al Gore delivered a speech on global warming that was sponsored by MoveOn.org shortly after that Democratic Party-affiliated organization sponsored an ad comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler. I interviewed some of the citizens I met outside the venue of Gore’s speech; they were an interesting cross-section of conspiracy theorists. In the video Gettin’ a MoveOn (The Gore Effect), you’ll see:

* Clips from the MoveOn.org ad that compares Bush to Hitler
* One person claiming President Bush is “bent on destroying the United States”
* Another saying Bush is one of the “super-villians of our world”
* A protester calling America under President Bush an “evil empire”
* One protester saying “Hitler, clearly” is the historical figure most similar to President Bush
* “I could very easily liken [Bush] to Hitler, but I’m not going to do that”
* A protester claiming Bush is a part of the “same Texas crew” that assassinated President John F. Kennedy

At a protest I filmed in San Francisco—shown here in Protesting the Protesters II—I found:

* A sign calling President Bush an “evil dictator”
* “George W. Bush is a terrorist!”
* “G.W. Bush is the AntiChrist”
* “**** Bush! I don’t support 400,000 murderers in U.S. Army uniforms!”
* “Down with the U.S. troops!”
* “9/11 = Inside Job”
* “U.S. Fascists Guilty”
* A chant: “Who are the biggest terrorists in the world today? Bush, Cheney and the CIA”
* An “Adolf Bush” sign with a picture of President Bush and a Hitler mustache drawn on
* A sign saying “Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft: The New 4th Reich” (for added effect, the “s” in Bush is a swastika, the first “e” in Cheney is a skull, and the “s” in Ashcroft is a Nazi SS logo)

And in my very first web video, Protesting the Protesters, you’ll see:

* A man with an intricately drawn sign showing Adolf Hitler in front of the burning Reichstag building, and George W. Bush in front of the burning Twin Towers. Both Hitler and Bush are saying, “Follow Me”
* A “dead or alive” sign with the name “George W. Bush”
* “George W. Bush is the worst terrorist”
* “Bush = Nuclear Terrorist”
* “Team Bush: The True Axis of Evil”
* “Bush the Baby Killer”
* “Buck Fush”
* “**** You Bush”

I didn’t like people comparing President Bush to Hitler, and I don’t like it when it happens to President Obama. There are many ways to argue against Obama’s planned health care takeover without invoking Godwin’s Law. An argument about contemporary American politics that’s strewn with Hitler comparisons is hard to take seriously, especially if you know anything about Hitler.

My real complaint is with the media, however. After years of ignoring the prevalence of violent sentiments at “peace” protests, the media has picked up the Democrats’ talking points that the town hall protesters are dangerous lunatics. (A small minority of them might be, such as the Lyndon LaRouche followers—neither conservatives nor Republicans—who have been showing up with Obama/Hitler signs. If the media were doing its job, the LaRouchies would be properly identified so they could receive the derision they deserve. Of course, if the LaRouchies were singled out, it’d undermine the impression that the media wants to convey: that the town hall protests are illegitimate, and the protesters extremists.)

Next time you see a media report that unfairly paints town hall protesters as extremists, send this page to the editor, the ombudsman, or whatever contact you can find. Show them this documentation and ask them where all their outrage was when the target was a Republican president, not a Democrat.



Please click on the link so you can avail yourself of some of the excellent links the author embedded in the article!

http://brain-terminal.com/posts/2009...er-comparisons

[Jenson71]

It's not the media's job to find the most ridiculous fools in a little parade in some back alley of LA and declare the country to be in a serious threat from leftist protestors.

I thought that the right's mantra was that the mainstream media ignored the tea parties and protestors. Well -- which is it? Did they ignore them or did they paint them out as evil threats? You can't have both.

[Taco John]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

It's not the media's job to find the most ridiculous fools in a little parade in some back alley of LA and declare the country to be in a serious threat from leftist protestors.

I thought that the right's mantra was that the mainstream media ignored the tea parties and protestors. Well -- which is it? Did they ignore them or did they paint them out as evil threats? You can't have both.

As far as I've seen, they've done both. I'm not sure why you believe that these tactics are mutually exclusive.

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by Taco John

As far as I've seen, they've done both. I'm not sure why you believe that these tactics are mutually exclusive.

Because painting them as evil threats implies not ignoring them.

[Taco John]

Aren't you being college educated or something? You're familiar with the concept of time? I do one thing today, and it doesn't work out for me, so I try something else tomorrow. Just because I tried something else doesn't mean the previous thing didn't happen.

Get it?

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by Taco John

Aren't you being college educated or something? You're familiar with the concept of time? I do one thing today, and it doesn't work out for me, so I try something else tomorrow. Just because I tried something else doesn't mean the previous thing didn't happen.

Get it?

Well, it's only reasonable that we look at this in it's entirety, as a general whole. This is a commentary about the general whole of 'the media' -- usually, the mainstream media. The article argues that the media has made the protestors out to be dangerous lunatics. The article is not talking about at this moment, or at this one paricular news station in Oregon. And so neither am I. I'm talking about the general whole. Overall, the protestors can not be viewed by 'the media' as dangerous lunatics and at the same time, ignore them.

[Taco John]

So we're supposed to suspend the concept of time when taking in your point?

[JohnnyV13]

Interesting intellectual disconnect here by Jenson.

To analytically handle "the mainstream media" as a concept, he anthropomizes it to one entity. Only in this way, can his assertion, "you can't have it both ways" make sense.

Of course, Jenson, has seemed to forget that "the mainstream media" is not an individual or a single entity, but is simply a categorical term which is actually composed of multiple individuals who, in reality, have conflicting goals.

And, even if "the mainstream media" were to have a common goal, the many component individuals might adopt conflicting strategies to achieve their end (which in this case, the author of the peice presumes is to marginalize conservative views).

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a yahoo with a molecular biology degree and a law degree. I'm totally clueless when it comes to postmodern deconstructions of right wing media perceptions. But, maybe I'd have a clue if I spent more time spraying intellectual semen around the ole Ivory Tower.

[Jenson71]

Originally Posted by JohnnyV13

Interesting intellectual disconnect here by Jenson.

To analytically handle "the mainstream media" as a concept, he anthropomizes it to one entity. Only in this way, can his assertion, "you can't have it both ways" make sense.

Of course, Jenson, has seemed to forget that "the mainstream media" is not an individual or a single entity, but is simply a categorical term which is actually composed of multiple individuals who, in reality, have conflicting goals.

And, even if "the mainstream media" were to have a common goal, the many component individuals might adopt conflicting strategies to achieve their end (which in this case, the author of the peice presumes is to marginalize conservative views).

But hey, what do I know? I'm just a yahoo with a molecular biology degree and a law degree. I'm totally clueless when it comes to postmodern deconstructions of right wing media perceptions. But, maybe I'd have a clue if I spent more time spraying intellectual semen around the ole Ivory Tower.

Johnny, you're crazy. My language is no different than the article's or the right's everlasting tirade on the mainstream media.

My real complaint is with the media, however. After years of ignoring the prevalence of violent sentiments at “peace” protests, the media has picked up the Democrats’ talking points that the town hall protesters are dangerous lunatics.

All I'm doing is taking two general accusations by the right "The media ignores us" and "The media reports that we are danerous lunatics" and asking if these two can really stand byside eachother as both true.

Here's a CBS report about the protestors:


Watch CBS News Videos Online

Would this be ignoring the protestors or showing them as dangerous lunatics?

Here is a CBS report on protestors for Bush:

CBS/AP) President Bush welcomed new U.S. citizens at a swearing-in ceremony for naturalized Americans at Monticello this morning, but was also on the unwelcome receiving end of calls for his impeachment.

Our nation's newest citizens, pledging their allegiance to the United States on the 232nd anniversary of the colonists' Declaration of Independence from King George III, witnessed an object lesson in free expression Friday on the grounds of Thomas Jefferson's home.

Mr. Bush said he was honored to be present for the naturalization ceremony, saying "I'll be proud to call you a fellow American."

However, throughout the president's remarks, protestors in attendance one by one got up and shouted statements like "Defend the constitution" and "Impeach Bush."

"That man is a fascist!" one man yelled. "He has brought fascism to this shore!"

At one point the president responded: "To my fellow citizens-to-be, we believe in free speech in the United States of America."

Seventy-six men and women from 30 countries became Americans today.

Mr. Bush mentioned neither the war in Iraq nor the battle against terrorism in his speech, other than to say that "we pay tribute to the brave men and women who wear the uniform."

For those assembled at the naturalization ceremony, he said: "When you raise your hands and take your oath, you will complete an incredible journey. ... From this day forward, the history of the United States will be part of your heritage.

"Throughout our history," he said, "the words of the declaration have inspired immigrants around the world to set sail to our shores. ... They made America a melting pot of culture from all across the world. They made diversity a great strength of our democracy.

"You all have one thing in common - and that is a shared love of freedom ... and this is the love that makes us all Americans.

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)(Left: A protestor is confronted by Secret Service agents during remarks by President Bush at Moticello's 46th annual Independence Day celebration and naturalization ceremony on Friday, July 4, 2008 in Charlottesville, Va.)

"The principles that Thomas Jefferson enshrined in the Declaration became the guiding principles of the new nation. And at every generation, Americans have rededicated themselves to the belief that all men are created equal, with the God-given right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone; they belong to all mankind. And he looked to the day when all people could secure them."

Some 150 or so demonstrators, from a variety of groups opposing Mr. Bush's policies on the war in Iraq, also rallied along the path of the president's motorcade to Monticello.

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Jenson71

Because painting them as evil threats implies not ignoring them.

It's still the act of dismissing them