Really, that is such a serious charge, and it seems that people make those kinds of comparisons these days at the drop of a hat.
Case in point would be this article, where neocon personality and commentator Glen Beck is shown to have compared five different people to Nazis, including Obama with Hitler. Here is the article, by Tim Molloy of The Wrap, that talks about how absurd and knee-jerk these comparisons tend to be with Beck. The link can be found below, under the article. .
5 People Glenn Beck Has Compared to Nazis
By Tim Molloy | The Wrap – Wed, May 8, 2013 10:30 AM PDT
Glenn Beck is accused of likening New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (who is Jewish) to a Nazi at an NRA event, but it's only the latest case of what "The Daily Show" once called Beck's "Nazi Tourette's."
The conservative commentator has a long record of comparing Nazis with people who -- to put it lightly -- aren't. He is willfully dumb about history, or thinks his fans are. At best, he's a hilariously clumsy propagandist.
First, let's take a moment to consider how off-the-scale hellish the Holocaust was, because it's easy to forget in a time when we casually throw around phrases like "grammar Nazi." The Holocaust, by the most conservative estimates, included Germany's state-led murder of 6 million Jews. The Nazis also murdered millions of people whose crimes included being gay, mentally ill, or Polish.
Since the numbers may be too large to wrap our heads around, survivors have strived to give us visuals to understand how atrocious the Holocaust was. Here's the most effective I've ever seen: The Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland has an entire room full of artificial limbs that belonged to Jews who were murdered there. Many of them got those artificial limbs by fighting for Germany in the first World War. Two decades later, their country killed them. (Auschwitz also has rooms full of luggage, shoes, and other items to drive home the scale of the horror.)
Why am I telling you something so awful? So you'll comprehend how innaccurate Glenn Beck was when he compared Nazis to the following things:
1. A mean flight attendant: In September, Glenn Beck said a flight attendant offended by his conservative beliefs refused to make eye contact with him, barked the word "breakfast," and slammed a soda down on his tray. He said he was made to feel "subhuman" and noted that the flight attendant was Israeli, wondering "if he had any friends and family in the dark years of Europe that made them feel less productive. I wonder if his friends and family ever felt like they were less than a welcome member of society because of their faith or who they were or what they believed."
Beck also wondered what the flight attendant would do if he and his friends were in power, and whether they might force Beck to march through the streets wearing a sign mocking him. Beck didn't make the comparison explicitly, but that was one thing Nazis did to Jews in Germany as Hitler rose to power.
2. Al Gore. In 2007, Beck compared the former vice president to Adolf Hitler and Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels, saying Gore used the same strategies to fight global warming that they used to fight Jews. We'll let him try to explain.
3. President Obama: In 2009, Beck noted that both Obama and Hitler have used "empathy" to justify their decision-making. Obama wanted Supreme Court justices to have empathy. Hitler, Beck said, used empathy to justify euthanasia. Beck has a point: Both Obama and Hitler did use the word "empathy." Both have also used the word "the."
4. The Peace Corps: Also in 2009, Beck said Obama's plan to expand the Peace Corps was "what Hitler did with the SS."
5. Mike Bloomberg. Speaking at an NRA convention Saturday, Beck showed an image of Bloomberg giving what appeared to be a Nazi salute. Jewish groups were appropriately appalled. A source close to Beck told ABC News the image was actually comparing Bloomberg to Vladimir Lenin, and Beck said Jewish groups owed him an apology. It's true that it appears possible the Bloomberg image was superimposed over a shot of Lenin. But in the original Lenin image (left), Lenin doesn't have a Nazi-like armband. (We could go into how many Russians died fighting Nazis, but you get the point already.)
Beck has said that he used one of "the worst analogies of all time" when he compared Reform Judaism to radical Islam. That's pretty bad, true. But I'm going to go ahead and call the mean flight attendant-Nazi analogy his personal worst.
https://www.thewrap.com/tv/column-post/5-things-glenn-beck-has-compared-nazis-or-holocaust-90026
Now, again, I feel quite uncomfortable with these kinds of extremist, and far too lighthearted, comparisons to prominent members of the worst government in the history of the world. I mean, let us be real here for a minute, shall we? The Nazis not only based their ideology on an extreme interpretation of some half-baked notion of racial superiority, but they killed in the millions in order to pursue this notion. That included setting up death camps (not just concentration camps where people happened to die). These places were created specifically to kill people en masse.
In the meantime, they aggressively pursued a policy of territorial expansion for their empire, so that the "master race" could have some "lebensraum" (living space).
What the Nazis did was essentially allow all of the worst instincts in humanity not only to flourish, but to be officially sanctioned. That is not some every day regime.
Yet, we kick the "Nazi" label around whenever it conveniences our political arguments of the moment.
I remember during the Bush years, when I first saw this comparison between George W. Bush and Adolf Hitler made, when I went to protest the war in Washington. As much as I did not like the man, Bush is not, was not, Hitler. I strongly disagreed with what he was doing. Hell, with almost all that he was doing. But Hitler? Really? It seemed a bit absurd, and an extremist argument that would serve to ultimately discredit one's own argument, rather than enhance it.
I was even more shocked and appalled when the Barack H. Obama and Adolf Hitler comparison was made. The first time I saw it was in response to the health care law. I mean, really! Like Obamacare or not, he was trying to make sure that more people received affordable healthcare. It is an issue that has been plaguing the United States for decades, with a very unfair, and frankly elitist, healthcare system that is the shame of the Western world. Literally every other advanced country other than the United States has some form of universal care that makes it affordable and curtails skyrocketing, out of control profits by corporations, and because he wanted to try and make things a little bit (and I stress a little bit here) more fair, he is Hitler? Come on, now.
More recently, he has been compared to Hitler because of the whole gun legislation thing. The extremists themselves assume the worst systematically, and that by pursuing background checks and limiting the capacity of the most dangerous weapons, that the next step automatically would be government agents knocking at your door and taking all of the guns of citizens away.
Really now.
He is accused of "politicizing" tragedies such as the shootings at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater, or the more recent shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary, in Connecticut. Yet, he is the President of the United States, and is supposed to give voice to his main fears and concerns for the nation. What would the NRA and it's advocates have him say and do, anyway? He sees a problem, and he is pursuing a commonsense solution - one that an overwhelming majority of Americans are in support of. For this, he is compared to Hitler?
It is ridiculous. It is absurd.
It is also a reflection of the times that we live in.
The White House used to be a place that symbolized a higher idealism, and strove for the best that America had to offer. It was assumed, to the point of being taken for granted, that the occupant undeniably wanted what was best for the country. think of some of the enlightened, perhaps even inspired, individuals that have lived there, and served as beacons for the people. The refrain of Washington, who probably could have been a king or a dictator had he wished it. The brilliance and eloquence of Jefferson. Theodore Roosevelt, even, who first promoted conservation and stood against a too powerful corporate threat against the nation. Franklin D. Roosevelt, who led the nation out of crushing poverty during the Great Depression, and through the deadliest war humanity has ever faced (to date, at least). Eisenhower, a statesman who oversaw the flourishing of the "Golden Age" of America, or Kennedy, who injected some youth and idealism into that America, and who's eloquence inspired millions around the world. True, maybe we would not agree with everything that each of these presidents said or did. But they were real presidents, who truly wanted the best for the nation they led and represented, and defended against all threats, foreign and domestic.
No longer. Lately, we have people like George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama in office, and they have continued policies that have been in place for decades. Policies that effectively are selling what was once a strong and independent democracy, in favor of an extreme economic system that used to be called capitalism, but is now more often seen as "free enterprise". The economy means everything here, and nothing else really matters. These advocates of corporate supremacy are the ones who's footsteps now echo in the marbled halls of government, and who occupy the White House presently (as they have for decades now).
Hitler does not, and has not, ever resided in the White House. We have had blatant racists in the office (as well as honored on our $20 dollar bills). We even allegedly had a member of the Ku Klux Klan occupying the White House. Racism has always existed in the United States, and the election of the first ever black president did not reverse all of that.
But although neither Bush nor Obama could fairly be compared to Hitler, neither can they be fairly considered great Presidents.
George W. Bush advocated the "Ownership Society", by which, he apparently meant that the wealthiest individuals and corporations should essentially own everything. There were countless corporate scandals, from Enron to Halliburton and Blackwater and "no bid" contracts in illegal wars that he thrust the nation into, and a huge bailout for corporations that were deemed "too big to fail". His trickle down policies ruined the economy. He claimed that he would be en environmentally friendly president, but within months of taking office, he insulted the intelligence of the American public by claiming "new research" proved that carbon gases did not contribute to the global warming "theory". Later on, after an enormous storm (Katrina) that underscored his failed presidency, he reversed this, and said that global warming was apparently real, although the environmental policies coming out of the White House after this were hardly any friendlier. They remained friendly to businesses that did damage to the Earth by plundering it's resources and maximizing the short term profits of the CEO's and the board members, then claiming this as a huge contribution to the economy, although most Americans saw none of the benefits of this. Bush failed the American people time and again, and his buffoonery was truly the stuff of legend.
Barack H. Obama has more or less continued these policies of his predecessor. He has continued to give the very wealthiest corporations and individuals every single advantage that he can, at the expense of the rest of us. This is where he can be accused of being more totalitarian. After all, he will be remembered as the president who got rid of habeas corpus (and I don't want to hear that he had been opposed to this measure, or signed the bill reluctantly). Ultimately, he put the pen to paper on that one, didn't he? Also, he went out of his way, timing the signing of the Monsanto Protection Act so that it hardly made any waves whatsoever. He promised to pursue sweeping environmental legislation to finally do right by the spirit of preserving what we have left of a healthy environment, yet this too seems to be fading into the background, shoved aside by the obviously more important economic considerations (namely, allowing corporations to have their way and do as they will with little to no oversight or accountability. History has shown us what that means.
What is Obama's Presidency? Is it really the rise of another Hitler, as some (hysterical extremists of the Faux News Nation like Glen Beck) would have us believe.
No. More like more of the same. Business as usual in Washington, just like always.
Anybody wanna place any bets that we'll get more of the same following the 2014 congressional elections or, further down the road, the 2016 elections?
The only real similarities that can be made to Nazi Germany would be in terms of the power the nation has (and we have far more than Nazi Germany ever did), as well as the sheep mentality of the people of the time, who follow the line of thinking of their leaders, and simply accept whatever they seem to say about things. Oh, sure, there is opposition. Those on the left howled and cried fowl during twelve long years of Reagan and Bush I. Their answer? Clinton. Those on the right howled and cried foul during the Clinton years. Their answer? Another Bush in the White House. Those more on the left howled and cried foul with everything that Bush did. Their answer? Obama. Now, the right are howling and crying foul, and who knows what their "answer" is going to be. If Romney is any indication, not much. I understand that Jeb Bush is considering a run. Another Bush. Swell. The nation can hardly contain it's enthusiasm.
But that's just it. We look for people and things to point the finger at. To blame. But it is not Bush or Obama that really deserve all, or even the bulk, of the blame.
The failure is not in the resemblance of these leaders to Hitler. They are not Hitler. But we are, collectively sheep. A misinformed public that seems to want to remain in our self-imposed cocoon of ignorance as our greatest source of comfort, because we are collectively too cowardly to face what we have created.
That is the problem of our nation and of our age. And until we do confront it, it is not going to simply go away because we choose this Republican in this election cycle, and then switch to the Democrats in the next election cycle, and conveniently place all of our frustrations and fears at their doorstep, as if these problems suddenly appeared.
No, the problems will only begin to resolve themselves when we accept responsibility of all of these long running problems that we have helped to create, and allowed to grow far beyond any reasonable measure. that goes for the failure to protect the environment that sustains life around us. That goes for the failure of the education system. That goes for the offensive national debt that we keep passing on to future generations, because far too many of us simply do not want to believe that lowering taxes and increasing tax benefits and incentives for the very wealthiest among us is hurting, not helping, the overall standard of living in particular, and the country in general. that also goes for the wars which we get tangled in, because the American mindset is one that assumes a sense of superiority and entitlement that has most Americans in favor of going to war for resources, whether we are honest about it or not.
Those are the problems of our time, and they will not be resolved with knee jerk reactions of anger to anything and everything that does not cater to our political passion of the moment. What is required is thinking critically and objectively, and assessing where we are. That takes listening to other viewpoints, and I don't just mean the two major parties listening to one another. That means listening to scientists. That means listening to people of other countries. That means refraining from simply, instinctively pursuing all of our selfish desires and ambitions.
And that will take a lot more than anything Bush or Obama have to offer. Nor should we think that Glen Beck, or other like-minded folk, have anything of worth to tell us. More is needed than simple solutions and soundbites to solve our staggering, and increasingly overwhelming, problems. That requires people to do the most sacred of patriotic activities that they can engage in, far more patriotic than flag waving and chest thumping. That means we need to start thinking clearly and objectively. For the betterment of America, sure. But for the betterment of the world. the only one that we've got.
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