Chain email: parallels between Hitler and Obama

[William Wallace]

I never reply to chain email. Everybody knows they're garbage, but I received one the other day that irritated me enough to respond to the original sender. The subject was "the striking parallels between Hitler and Obama." I thought some of you might this worth discussing. My reply is pasted below.

If there are parallels between the Obama administration and the Nazis, then there are just as many between the Bush administration and the Nazis. Their policies are no different. We're still fighting the same wars,  torturing prisoners and holding them without trial - American citizens included. We have laws restricting who can marry whom, restrictions on free speech, enforced by the FCC, and endless other regulations that dictate people's personal behavior. Parenthetically, Republicans like yourself typically approve of everything I mentioned above.

But could you say there are parallels between Germany in 1930s and America today? Yeah, I guess. But my point is that the party you trust to change America for the better doesn't deserve that trust. In practical terms the Republicans and Democrats are nearly identical. If nothing changes, I think America may end up a totalitarian state - but we have a ways to go.

The parallels that Kaiser discusses are tenuous at best. The misery the Nazis rained down on Germany makes the Democrats look like dedicated defenders of individual liberty. For example, if you were to distribute a pamphlet in Berlin during World War II that was anything like this email, you would have been lined up against a wall and shot, you're family and friends sent to a labor camp to work until they died of exhaustion or starvation.

The German government controlled every newspaper, book publisher, radio station, theater and museum in the country. In fact, the Nazis assigned a Block Warden to every neighborhood in German cities to make sure the population wasn't listening to or playing unapproved music in their homes.

Even looking just at Kaiser's examples it's easy to see the difference. We don't have anything comparable to the Hitler Youth, Obama can't dissolve the Congress as Hitler did the Reichstag, there are no political party militias beating up dissenters in the streets and no secret police keeping a watchful eye on the public's behavior.

There was also the attempted genocide of the Jews and mass murder of anybody deemed unfit for life. Good luck finding a parallel there.

I could provide many more examples but you get the idea. In summary, what I think you should do is eat a delicious sandwich and chill out. Though we should be informed citizens and remain critical of government, we still have a lot of freedom in this country.

[GuineaPig]

Excellent reply.  You should start forwarding the shit out of it.

[Chino]

Nice. Can you post the original email?

[73109]

Yeah, can we see the original email?

[William Wallace]

Nice. Can you post the original email?

EDIT: This wasn't written by Kaiser, according to snopes. https://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/proportions.asp

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976.. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976


He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College . He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.



Dr. David Kaiser


History Unfolding
I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus..


Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.


We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?


We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.


We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy... Why?


We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?


We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?


Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten...And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.


And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska .. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)


Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?


I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.


This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.


And that is only the beginning..


As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now.


And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,


How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... . ... change. And the people surely got what they voted for.


If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.


So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.


Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course.. The road to Hell is paved with them.


As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..


I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.


I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

[Scheavo]

Good reply, don't think I ever agreed with you more.

As for Kaiser... After reading his "argument," I'm forced to wonder if he thinks every story is a rip-off of each other since they all share the hero cycle.

[lonestar]

eat a delicious sandwich and chill out

 

I gotta hang around P&R more often.

[jmplayer]

As much as the email says what "Kaiser" thinks about the connections between two government it seems, he gotta realize that 1930s Germany was in much more trouble than 2011 United States is. Today's recession is way better than of the Great Depression! Plus it's just a major slippery slope and assumptions with some flavor of Nazism thrown in for flavor! Even Kaiser himself says that the mail is fake and spam mail!

[El Barto]

As expected: 

In April 2009, a viral email comparing Barack Obama to the rise of the Third Reich was wrongly [1] attributed to Kaiser. Kaiser has stated that the email is a forgery.[1] The email does not reflect Kaiser's actual views.[2] Snopes.com [2] traced the email content to an anonymous commenter on Pat Dollard's blog.

No respected historian would ever be so outrageously shallow.  He's absolutely right about a lot of the points he makes, but attributing them to only 3 of the last 11 years of governing goes way beyond silly.  If he'd made a generalization about America heading down the same road without pointing the finger at Obama,  we'd all be saying he's a bit melodramatic but still quite reasonable.  In this he just comes across as yet another infantile ditto-head. 

[Scheavo]

Woops, I missed the "wasn't" that WW originally mentioned when he linked to scopes.

Has anyone ever done studies of the effect of chain emails like this?

[El Barto]

Actually,  looking at it within the proper context, it's not that bad.  It's pretty easy to read the author's extreme Obama hatred and think that he's pinning this whole thing on Obama.  This was actually written within 10 days of Obama's election, and the author's expressing concern that Obama will be the final nail,  for reasons that aren't altogether insane;  not that he already was.  With that in mind,  I'll take the stance I alluded to earlier.  He's being a bit melodramatic, but not particularly unreasonable. 

[William Wallace]

Actually,  looking at it within the proper context, it's not that bad.  It's pretty easy to read the author's extreme Obama hatred and think that he's pinning this whole thing on Obama.  This was actually written within 10 days of Obama's election, and the author's expressing concern that Obama will be the final nail,  for reasons that aren't altogether insane;  not that he already was.  With that in mind,  I'll take the stance I alluded to earlier.  He's being a bit melodramatic, but not particularly unreasonable. 

I agree. But like I said, we have a ways to go before totalitarianism is a fact of life in the US, thankfully.

[Scheavo]

Actually,  looking at it within the proper context, it's not that bad.  It's pretty easy to read the author's extreme Obama hatred and think that he's pinning this whole thing on Obama.  This was actually written within 10 days of Obama's election, and the author's expressing concern that Obama will be the final nail,  for reasons that aren't altogether insane;  not that he already was.  With that in mind,  I'll take the stance I alluded to earlier.  He's being a bit melodramatic, but not particularly unreasonable. 

I'm no fan of our government, but the comparison is ridiculous, on any level. There is no massive social "enemy" upon whom everything is blamed, and that is a massive distinction. Our government is corrupt to it's fucking core, and that's a whole different problem than Nazi Germany. I think some people tried and try to make the war on terror such a cause, but it doesn't seem to be taking any actual hold (a recent poll found Muslims were more favorable in American eyes than the Tea Party). Also, as the author seems to allude to, the problems we are facing are built up over a long period of time, and largely self-inflicted. He brings up how quickly Germany changed into something different, but also brings up how we've been doing things for decades now. Another major difference.

I mean, the most telling sign is that the last line mentions voting in the next election. That's clearly the entire point of this, to try and scare people early and often about how bad Obama is, so that Republicans can try and capitalize on the fear. If things we're truly as bad as the author tries to make it out to be, your vote in the next election probably wouldn't matter much. He's not asking for people to go out and protest, but to wait and vote. This if fear-mongering, which is at least what my generation calls ironic considering it's a letter comparing us to a tyrannical fear-mongering regime.

[Perpetual Change]

As expected:  

In April 2009, a viral email comparing Barack Obama to the rise of the Third Reich was wrongly [1] attributed to Kaiser. Kaiser has stated that the email is a forgery.[1] The email does not reflect Kaiser's actual views.[2] Snopes.com [2] traced the email content to an anonymous commenter on Pat Dollard's blog.

Ouch. If that's not a reminder to first properly source the argument your discussing, I don't know what is  

[El JoNNo]

I once responded to a retarded chain mail about evolution. I hate stupid crap like this.

[El Barto]

Actually,  looking at it within the proper context, it's not that bad.  It's pretty easy to read the author's extreme Obama hatred and think that he's pinning this whole thing on Obama.  This was actually written within 10 days of Obama's election, and the author's expressing concern that Obama will be the final nail,  for reasons that aren't altogether insane;  not that he already was.  With that in mind,  I'll take the stance I alluded to earlier.  He's being a bit melodramatic, but not particularly unreasonable. 

I'm no fan of our government, but the comparison is ridiculous, on any level. There is no massive social "enemy" upon whom everything is blamed, and that is a massive distinction. Our government is corrupt to it's fucking core, and that's a whole different problem than Nazi Germany. I think some people tried and try to make the war on terror such a cause, but it doesn't seem to be taking any actual hold (a recent poll found Muslims were more favorable in American eyes than the Tea Party). Also, as the author seems to allude to, the problems we are facing are built up over a long period of time, and largely self-inflicted. He brings up how quickly Germany changed into something different, but also brings up how we've been doing things for decades now. Another major difference.

I mean, the most telling sign is that the last line mentions voting in the next election. That's clearly the entire point of this, to try and scare people early and often about how bad Obama is, so that Republicans can try and capitalize on the fear. If things we're truly as bad as the author tries to make it out to be, your vote in the next election probably wouldn't matter much. He's not asking for people to go out and protest, but to wait and vote. This if fear-mongering, which is at least what my generation calls ironic considering it's a letter comparing us to a tyrannical fear-mongering regime.

I don't think that we're comparable to the Nazis just yet, and the author's argument that we are is flawed on numerous levels.  "We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving."  I believe the Nazi's took the opposite approach, for example.  That said,  though not particularly related to Nazism,  the author's points about America are generally pretty valid. 

[Scheavo]

That we're headed in a bad direction? That's about the only thing that's valid, and it's so vague and general in the given context that it's sorta pointless to actually admit that he's right about something. "no longer teach.... why we are exceptional" Bull shit we don't. Our entire culture is centered around how exceptional we are, that we're number 1, FUCK YA.  In fact, if anything, this is why the second part of his sentence is also true: "Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate." They have such an ego about them that they don't realize they cant' do these things, or don't care because, hey, they're American and they're the best.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

[Perpetual Change]

Eh, to 2/3rds of the world, we might as well be Nazi's. Unfortunately, most Americans will never realize that it's actual people who live in those places that get carpet-bombed or have been graced with the presence of our new military drones.

[kirksnosehair]

These idiotic comparisons of Obama to Hitler are just that:  IDIOTIC

If you don't agree with his politics, that's fine and understandable, but comparing Obama to a mass murdering fascist megalomaniac asshole who killed millions of people just because of their ethnicity is beyond fucking stupid.  And the people who spread those chain emails are fucking intellectual midgets who, instead of thinking for themselves and presenting reasoned arguments against Obama's politics, would rather let someone else speak on their behalf.  I find, in general, it's because they're too fucking stupid to make a reasoned argument of their own.

[slycordinator]

Eh, to 2/3rds of the world, we might as well be Nazi's. Unfortunately, most Americans will never realize that it's actual people who live in those places that get carpet-bombed or have been graced with the presence of our new military drones.

As dumb as a lot of people are, I HIGHLY doubt your claim that most don't even realize that the bombs used in combats kill people.

[El Barto]

Eh, to 2/3rds of the world, we might as well be Nazi's. Unfortunately, most Americans will never realize that it's actual people who live in those places that get carpet-bombed or have been graced with the presence of our new military drones.

As dumb as a lot of people are, I HIGHLY doubt your claim that most don't even realize that the bombs used in combats kill people.

In a manner of speaking, he's probably right.  I suspect the majority assume that it's only terrorists who get killed, and they don't count.  We're trying to blow up a small number of terrorists, and we're bombing 2.5 countries to do it. 

[Perpetual Change]

Eh, to 2/3rds of the world, we might as well be Nazi's. Unfortunately, most Americans will never realize that it's actual people who live in those places that get carpet-bombed or have been graced with the presence of our new military drones.

As dumb as a lot of people are, I HIGHLY doubt your claim that most don't even realize that the bombs used in combats kill people.

In a manner of speaking, he's probably right.  I suspect the majority assume that it's only terrorists who get killed, and they don't count.  We're trying to blow up a small number of terrorists, and we're bombing 2.5 countries to do it. 

This. I read somewhere that we're allowed to kill 25 people or so collaterally if we think we have a good chance of killing one terrorist in the process.