How does the Right's hatred for Muslims differ from the Nazi's hatred of Jews?

[Toots]

Does the Right want a "final solution" for the Muslims?

[Windy]

1. it doesnt. Read this article from the Guardian and look at the photos

They are identical to the propaganda cartoons used against the Jews in Nazi Germany.

We are living in frightening times.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/10/us-muslims-america-alienated-hatred

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. The main difference is that the Nazis were the government.

The persecution of Jews was the policy of the Nazi-controlled German government. Right now, the discrimination against Muslims is done by individuals and groups not associated with the government. If something like Kristallnacht happens again it will be done by teabagger mobs and assorted nutjob "church" groups. Let's be sure those groups don't manage to elect people who think like them.

But the attitudes and the propaganda are disturbingly similar.

[yurbud]

4. the nazis were snappier dressers than our right: all black & khaki. Our righties look like

blind people dressed by someone who didn't like them.

[mitchum]

28. What yurbud said (fascist fashion sense has really gone downhill)

[Capitalocracy]

20. Genocide isn't the only type of persecution that exists

I know a Muslim who was arrested on zero evidence and tortured in a secret prison on U.S. soil for marrying a white woman. It happened under Bush, and wasn't punished under Obama. And one could make a strong case that we are committing genocide against people in primarily Muslim countries to this day.

We may never get to an organized mass murder, but we don't have to for what we're doing to be wrong.

[mmonk]

73. So kidnappings, imprisonment without charge, torture, and shoot to kill

aren't being carried out by the US government?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

76. Apparently they are,

but it's not public, does not take place on US soil (for the most part) and is not generally known of or discussed by the media. That doesn't mean it's acceptable in any way. It's just not to the point taken by the government of Nazi Germany, which passed blatantly discriminatory laws preventing Jews from holding many jobs or owning businesses and finally stripped them of citizenship. Atrocities like Kristallnacht and the eventual internment and execution of millions of Jews, innocent civilians, were committed by the government with the approval and participation of many ordinary Germans. The acts you refer to are terrible and wrong and must be stopped. But we aren't Nazi Germany -- yet.

I think it's important to consider that stirring up hate toward a particular group and making scapegoats of them is how a government can get away with atrocities like the Holocaust, because it gives ordinary citizens permission to express and act upon their dislike for that group. There are a fair number of people in this country who are suspicious of Muslims and who are therefore vulnerable to being influenced by the kind of hate campaigns we are seeing now. If overt discrimination were to become government policy, all bets are off. That's why the Palin/Beck/Gingrich types have to be stopped now.

[mmonk]

77. The weakening of the public mindset, the weakening of laws that protected

the public from government and the weakening of the legislative branch, the creation of laws to protect "national security" and from terrorism, the ultra-nationalism and dividing groups into us and them, inspired violence from government officials and or party, etc. occurred before Kristallnacht. The table is always set before more overt action is taken. However the hate methodology can be the same.

As far as the US goes, estimates between 2,500 to 5,000 people disappeared from the streets of America following 9/11. The Center for Constitutional Rights was swamped with calls from families who's family members were disappeared. Many were found held in state jails and beaten and rights to an attorney withheld. Others were wisked out of the country.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

78. Exactly. It starts somewhere,

and that "somewhere" is the increasing tolerance by the general public of discriminatory acts and hateful behavior, whether by private citizens or the government. Once people think it's acceptable to discriminate against a particular group, it's that much easier to discriminate more and make persecution of that group official. That's exactly what happened in Germany, and it's not inappropriate to make that point now. Fuck Godwin's Law.

[mmonk]

84. Yep.

There is not a day that goes by that it does not bother me. My father was a vet of WW II and fighting the Nazis. It affected me so profoundly that when I was a boy, I use to read as much as I could on how people could allow themselves to embark on such a dark journey in Germany.

[Capitalocracy]

79. Were they all accounted for?

That sounds like something worthy of investigation.

[mmonk]

80. Not while I was following it.

I don't know now. At the time, I was listening to Barbara Olshansky talk about it and bought a book she coauthored. Information on her is here. She has written a book with Michael Ratner and others called "America's Disappeared-Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror"" which can be found at the link.

[Capitalocracy]

81. Thanks for the link

I live in Argentina, and we have a history of military dictatorships making people disappear... I'll definitely look for more info on that story, thanks

check this one out

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/american-rose-fights-for-pakistani-husband-01-sal-05

[mmonk]

82. Thanks.

[kestrel91316]

3. There is NO difference. It has become socially unacceptable to

attack the Jews and blame them for all the world's ills, so the right has moved on to another scapegoat.

[mzteris]

7. it's been Muslims before, and Christians before

and "pick your religion" before. Therefore, since history proves it will rotate back shouldn't "christians" be thinking ahead a little? Maybe about - oh - I dunno eradicating persecution? (Of course, that would involve actual THINKING. . . )

[treestar]

65. Bingo. It is politically incorrect to hate blacks and Mexicans

But with Muslims, they think they've found a group they can hate in peace.

[mzteris]

5. that's a very good question-

and a very good observation. I think I'll make that connection in conversation with others quite often. . . Thank you for that.

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. the tone of their propaganda is eerily similar and the dangerous potential is certainly there

If one looks up the notoriously anti-Semitic Nazi tract, "The Poisonous Mushroom" a Nazi children's book promoting hatred of Jews in 1930's Germany. There can be no doubt that many of the same themes and caricatures are being replicated against Muslims in America and elsewhere in the West today.

There is definitely a major wing of fundamentalist American Protestants who envision an apocalyptic world war against the Arab and Islamic world as the fulfillment of Biblical prophesy and a necessary prelude to the second coming of Jesus Christ. This is not a small marginal sect of extreme fundamentalist, but is in fact a completely mainstream view held by most of the so-called Christian Right.

[whosinpower]

8. I think it is unfair to compare the two

And quite frankly - an insult to those who suffered the Holocaust.

The Nazi's blamed the jews for their economic hardship, blamed them for losing the first world war, used them as a scapegoat to explain everything that they percieved was wrong with their society. They persecuted them - and we did too. The rot that began with Hitler's anti-semitism spread - even the US and Canada refused jewish refugees safe haven. You may not like to hear that, but it is true.

That is not to say that the right's persecution of muslims is not wrong. IT IS. But I do not hear about homes that have been confiscated, people rounded up into concentration/slave camps. I do not believe the rights persecution of muslims is hate based - I think at this time, it is politically based. From a strictly American perspective - the anti-muslim bias is also meant to polarize and divide the nation. This year is an election year -and there are a great many who want to destroy Obama. They will do whatever they can to alienate him from the populace. If that means painting him as a sympathetic muslim when radical muslims attacked on 911 - all the better. But it is a slippery steep slope that can easily slide into a blind irrational hatred. That is the powder-keg they fiddle with thinking they can control the mob, or not caring how the mob reacts.

And because we know the history of the Holocaust - and the great evil that it was, I believe we, as a human race are far more careful not to retread down that road. You, yourself are diligent enough to see the bigotry that some on the extreme right blather on with as being potentially dangerous. It is - but please do not equate it with a "final solution". The exaggeration makes a mockery of the millions who suffered and died, and lessens the strength of your critique.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Very Well Said...

I lost family members in the Holocoust and grew up with my grandmother's stories about how Russian Cossacks would pillage her little town. Systemic state sponsored terror (not just Nazi Germany but pre WWI Russia/Poland as well). No matter how bad and ugly the right wing is, it hasn't stooped to printing a Mein Kampf...the blueprint to what would follow.

In the 30s and 40s my parents faced a lot of discrimination in this country. My mother had to hide the fact she was Jewish or her employer would have fired her. My father, despite top grades was unable to enroll in certain schools. They were limited to where they could buy a house (not that they could afford one) and prohibited from joining certain clubs or social groups. That was the US, not Germany...and probably a more apt comparison of what not only American Moslems but Mexicans and other ethnic groups face.

[COLGATE4]

38. I remember still into the 1950's

when some beaches in Florida still had signs that said "No dogs or Jews", and Jews couldn't get a room in a fancy hotel in Miami.

[mopinko]

72. my irish mother couldn't get a room because she had a

big nose. this was in the early 40's.

[Karenina]

83. I wish I had the whatever it would take

to disabuse you and the previous poster of the false belief that what happened in the Third Reich is beyond comparison. It's a type of "supremacy." Many Germans suffer the same affliction ie. No atrocity committed against another people can compare to ours. I frankly find it narcissistic.

"Never Again" at its CORE means being VIGILANT and paying close attention to the indications that all is NOT well in River City and SOLIDARITY with the newest targets. Fortunately, some of our clerics have stepped up to the plate. American-style Islamophobia is WAY TOO SIMILAR to anti-semitism and those of good conscience REALLY NEED TO SIT UP AND TAKE NOTE.

IT CAN HAPPEN in the good ol' US of A.

[KharmaTrain]

87. I'm Ever Vigilant...

Growing up Jewish one is taught to be that way. I have grown up with the Holocoust...lost family in it, my father walked through liberated camps and I've encountered my own forms of anti-semetism. Thus I feel I can look at this issue straight on and separate the reality from the hyperbole.

I have also seen a lot of what is now called "Islamophobia" among my Jewish bretheren (as well as other forms of racism) and have found it to be the ultimate in hypocrisy. It's easy to marginalize and demonize people...and this is and will always be a political tool by the power-craven.

While this country is very politically polarized and I have many criticisms of the abuses of power of the government, we're seeing the systemic hate being ripped off the right wing that had operated in stealth for decades. It's been the vigillence of folks like MediaMatters and Crooks and Liars and many other groups and watch dogs that not only have exposed this raw side but have helped others see it as well.

Right now we have these beasts contained...but that means keeping up exposing the wedge games used by the right wing and to fight against it becoming a viable political weapon.

[Karenina]

88. My dearest KT

I share your experiences and respectfully disagree that "Right now we have these beasts contained..." The beasts are running wild and loose in the streets! (I hope you recognize the reference coming from one with stakes in multiple camps. ;-) )

Forget MM and C&L for a moment. Mensch zu Mensch, I want to communicate that Godwin's Law is BULLSHIT. It is up to the intellectual capacity of each to separate the wheat from the chaff. That process is not an insult. Most are just stupid BUT SOME are sirens and klaxons. Unfortunately may legitimate dots that NEED TO BE CONNECTED are erased by the triumph of the emotionally arousing over the cognitive. Clinging to the notion that one's group's suffering is the be-all-an-end-all inhibits our ability to be TRULY VIGILANT and to react in time.

[KharmaTrain]

89. Your Insight Is Truly Appreciated...

I think we're looking at a glass half full/half empty. I agree with you concerns as we are seeing the byproducts of a generation that has regressed...growing up in the Raygun era they are far less tolerant and easily decieved than my generation of the 60s and 70s and I will also include my children who also show a strong degree of tolerance and acceptance. I can recall when the "n" and "f" words were casually thrown around but how through education and communications those views have changed. No not eliminated but a lot more tolerant in this society and among our peers than they had been in the past. Thus I do see good things that separate this country from the totalitarianism and state-sponsored prejudice that was prevelent in Eastern Europe and in too many countries today.

I definitely don't subscribe to the Godwin theory...I've been very outspoken and upset at the xenophobia I've seen in recent years and how it's being used as a political weapon. Could it lead to a systemic progrom? I would like to think that a majority of people in this country are from one "minority" group or another and that we all share experiences of intolerance that led our parents or grandparents or great-great-great ones to come here for just the opportunity of a different life. I'm determined to keep that vision alive and surely you are as well. Thus I do share you concerns, but I see the rabble (and they'll always be there) being used for political gain...a noisy minority whose ongoing hatred and intolerance is more a turn off for a majority of this country's electorate than it incites. We'll see in November...

Cheers and many thanks for your always thoughtful responses...

:toast:

[OneGrassRoot]

12. I hear what you're saying, yet my experience, unfortunately, says the OP is correct...

I do, personally, believe it is about racism and bigotry, and is simply being used and exploited politically. The core issue, again in my experience, is very much about worldview, and most neocons and right-winger types (and there are more than I think we'd like to admit) want a white, Christian America.

To me, the hatred and anger concerning the mosque debate, the Koran burning issue, illegal immigrants and so forth is -- in large part, though not always the case -- about racism and bigotry and a fear that "The Others" are "taking what belongs to me."

As to the final solution comment in the OP, I can't tell you how many times I've heard over the years the comment: "Let's just nuke the Middle East and all muslim countries and make it a parking lot."

I don't share this to ever make a mockery of the millions who suffered and died; rather, I say this to share that I do, personally, believe the same mindset is in play in both cases.

And it's very dangerous because if the overt racists/bigots in our country gain more and more control, it will push the ones who aren't aware of their own racism and bigotry to allow evil deeds to occur. It's the silent, subtle racism that allows the evil to fester, IMHO.

With respect....:hi:

[Capitalocracy]

23. Of course it's hate-based.

Even if it's not hate-based for the people propagating it, what they're taking advantage of politically is the hatred felt by the people in their political movement. Taking advantage of hatred makes you just as bad or worse than those who hate.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. But this is how it starts.

In the '20s, German Jews were considered full citizens. They had businesses, lived in neighborhoods with other Germans, taught at universities. There was discrimination, of course, but it wasn't until Hitler became Chancellor and the Nazis assumed control of the government that the real persecution began. The discrimination that still existed under the surface became official government policy, and we know what happened after that. Ordinary Germans who never bothered their Jewish neighbors before, either became persecutors or allowed the persecution to happen.

Muslims are not subject to the same kind of mistreatment now for the simple reason that it is not sanctioned government policy. However, there are people in this country who, if they acquired power, would either do it or at least allow it to happen. The cruddy little collection of teabaggers and Palinites, the Becks and the Limbaughs and the Pastor Joneses and all the despicable slobs who deface mosques and taunt Muslim women wearing hijabs can't do anywhere near the damage the Nazis did. But what might happen if enough of these knuckledraggers actually got themselves elected to Congress? Or, God help us, the Presidency?

[Capitalocracy]

57. They're laying the foundation for discrimination and worse

with such arguments as "Islam is not a religion"...

[WillyT]

55. No... It Is Not

Do you for one moment believe that the Nazis were a fully formed movement that came out of nowhere and started killing millions of people with the blessings of the country they ran?

DID NOT HAPPEN THAT WAY!

Read this:



And this:



Just sayin...

:shrug:

[Violet_Crumble]

60. It's not unfair at all to compare it to 1930's Germany...

The hatred and persecution of Jews didn't just start all of a sudden with people being sent to concentration camps. It didn't go from zero to the Holocaust as quite a few here seem to think. Have you heard of Der Stermer? It was a virulently antisemitic newspaper by Julius Streicher (Pamela Geller is the modern day equivalent) and its readership was at a peak during the mid 1930's, before war broke out and the Holocaust. The same tactics were used as I see being used by the Right in the US now - saying that the target group aren't loyal to their country, that they need to 'compromise' and accept the discrimination against them or they'll be the ones causing the trouble, attempts to separate them from the wider society, accusing them of having sinister funding for their groups, emphasising crimes carried out by members of that group and portraying all of that group as being the same.

The Holocaust was the result of what happened when hatred and persecution was encouraged and legalised by a government. The lesson we should learn from it is not that it stands alone and any reference to it in relation to things that happen now are an insult to those who died, but that if hatred and intolerance is left unchecked, that is what can end up happening. It happened in what was considered to be an enlightened and modern European country, so I don't think people should be complacent...

[Blue_In_AK]

10. It doesn't. n/t

[WinkyDink]

11. There IS the little matter of hyperbole.

Railroad tracks, ghettoes, camps, slaughters, industry co-operation, Zyklon-B, ......

[jdp349]

45. yeah but when has that ever gotten in the way of DU?

[backwoodsbob]

13. umm

they haven't rounded them up and cooked them in stoves by the millions?

:shrug:

[entanglement]

17. The OP asks a question about hatred, not actions. That's how it starts - hatred.

[backwoodsbob]

30. I haven't heard anyone on the right..

claiming we should herd Muslims up and gas them by the millions?

[calimary]

35. Yet.

[NoGOPZone]

36. Spend some time on Yahoo message boards nt

[backwoodsbob]

42. can you pull a direct quote

from yahoo saying we should final solution the Muslims? And show that it is such a prevalent feeling that they could get away with it?

[NoGOPZone]

54. Sure, here's one I found in less than two minutes

'Kill all the rag heads'

Here's others

'every time they burn a flag we need to burn a city full of them'
'this is a good start... next they should have a burn an islamic day...'
'burn 'em all. I can't stand sand n'gers'

The last didn't specify books or people, though I have a feeling either would have been OK.

Now what's this about 'such a prevalent feeling that they could get away with it'? You said you hadn't heard anyone on the right advocating Muslim genocide. I answered with a source where it could be found.

[WinkyDink]

50. If your argument is that there are stupid people around the world who can post on the Internet,.....

[NoGOPZone]

52. My 'argument' is that there are people who advocate genocide of Muslims

and that 'anyone' would include stupid people around the world who post on the Internet

[treestar]

66. We're talking about how it starts, how it gets there

In the years before the gas chambers, when the Jews were just being discriminated against? That was OK? It was only wrong when it went to far as concentration camps?

[WinkyDink]

49. Well, then: How does it differ from Muslims' hatred towards Jews?

[entanglement]

58. Of course that's wrong too, though your statement is rather broad brush

The real issue is why such hatreds are stoked in times of capitalist crises. For the masses, spewing hatred and vitriol provides emotional catharsis. For the ruling class, it is a powerful tool to achieve their goals - justify wars of aggression, distract attention from a ruinous economy and so on.

[Violet_Crumble]

64. Way to go with the ugly broadbrush generalisations...

Muslims don't hate Jews, no more than Christians, Jews, or Hindus hate any other group. Don't you realise how wrong and ugly it is to make sweeping broadbrush generalisations about an entire group of people the way you did?

[Snotcicles]

14. Same hate, different teams. nt

[lunatica]

15. The only difference is that it hasn't become a Government sanctioned official hatred

yet.

[EFerrari]

37. I don't know. There was a round up of Muslims after 9/11.

A number of them were abused and tortured. They were released and deported before they could file a suit against the government.

Our government has been torturing Muslims around the world and every today some are being held at black sites.

Muslim men are fair game, just not in numbers at this point. Maybe that's the "yet" here.

[WinkyDink]

48. "Round-up" where? ONE link is all I ask.

Crock.

[Capitalocracy]

53. Here are a few

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/american-rose-fights-for-pakistani-husband-01-sal-05

‘I was told that I was a criminal, a fugitive and a terrorist. I kept telling them that I had done nothing wrong, but they wouldn’t listen,’ he remembers.

‘I was put in a cell and told to strip. While I was undressing, the taser came out. The agent kept zapping me until I passed out. When I woke up, I was lying on the floor naked and wet. He then started hitting and zapping me.’

Pulling his shirt up, Hasan reveals torture marks that remain visible after four years. His front teeth are missing due to heavy beating and he informs that his left hand remains numb. ‘They kept asking me, what do you know about the 9/11 attackers? Who do you know in Al Qaeda? How much money did you send to the terrorists? What are your plans for bombing the nuclear plants in the US?’

Hasan also recalls being chastised for marrying a white woman and being told by a federal agent that he would ‘make a career’ on Hasan’s case. ‘I kept pleading with them that you’ve got the wrong guy, but they never stopped,’ he adds.

http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/appeals-court-rules-case-challenging-racial-profiling-muslim,-arab,-south-as

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-shadow_war3dec04,0,3217360.story?page=1

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CEFDB1331F934A2575AC0A9609C8B63

“Like hundreds of Guantánamo detainees, I was never a terrorist or a soldier. I was never even on a battlefield. Pakistani bounty hunters sold me and 17 other Uighurs to the United States military like animals for $5,000 a head. The Americans made a terrible mistake.”

http://www.thenation.com/article/americas-secret-ice-castles

These links contain examples both on U.S. soil and abroad, in the Middle East, Africa, and elsewhere.

[EFerrari]

75. Ashcroft rounded up immigrants starting on 9/12 right in New York.

Hundreds of them, and the White House denied doing it. Their treatment in New York foreshadowed the abuse of prisoners and the denial of their human rights in Afghanistan and in Iraq. BushCo started mistreating prisoners on 9/12.

[EFerrari]

74. Held in 9/11 Net, Muslims Return To Accuse U.S.

By NINA BERNSTEIN
Published: January 23, 2006

Hundreds of noncitizens were swept up on visa violations in the weeks after 9/11, held for months in a much-criticized federal detention center in Brooklyn as ''persons of interest'' to terror investigators, and then deported. This week, one of them is back in New York and another is due today -- the first to return to the United States.

They are no longer the accused but the accusers, among six former detainees who are coming back to give depositions in their federal lawsuits against top government officials and detention guards, at a time when the constitutionality of part of the government's counterterrorism offensive is under new scrutiny.

As in the cases of all the Muslim immigrants rounded up in the New York area after the terror attacks, the six were never accused of a crime related to 9/11; officials eventually cleared all of them of links to terrorism. A report by the inspector general of the Justice Department found systemic problems with immigrant detentions and widespread abuse at the federal detention center where the six had been held; several guards have since been disciplined.

But as the six return to the city -- four of them from Egypt, one from Pakistan, one from London -- the conditions imposed by the United States government include the requirement that they be in the constant custody of federal marshals.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F03E1DB133FF930A15752C0A9609C8B63

The reason we know about this is because a lawyer for one of these people -- who were hidden so that they would have a hard time getting lawyers -- requested that a judge order the prosecution to turn over the VIDEO TAPES. No one knew that there were video tapes. But they went into the prison and found hundreds of hours of tape. A couple of these lawyers wrote a book about it, which is how I found out. Can't remember the title. But here is an article:

Justice Dept. Finds Evidence of Abuse of Sept. 11 Detainees
Inspector General Says VideoTapes Show Physical, Verbal Abuse by Prison Officials

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2003; 1:03 PM

The Justice Department's inspector general announced today that investigators had found hundreds of prison videotapes that were not turned over by federal prison officials during an earlier investigation and that the tapes confirm reports of serious physical and verbal abuse of immigrants detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A11865-2003Dec18

Definitely not a crock and you're welcome. :hi:

Here's another: Traces of Terror

TRACES OF TERROR: THE DETAINEES; U.S. Deports Most of Those Arrested in Sweeps After 9/11
By SUSAN SACHS
Published: July 11, 2002

As legal challenges to its policy of secret detentions advance slowly through the courts, the government has managed to deport most of the Sept. 11 detainees at the center of the lawsuits.

Some 1,200 South Asian and Arab men were arrested in sweeps after the terrorist attacks, and 750 of them were ultimately detained on immigration violations, the Justice Department said. As of four weeks ago, when the latest head count was released, all but 74 had been expelled to their home countries or, in a handful of cases, released to resume their lives in the United States.

The government, citing national security concerns, has refused to disclose the names of those foreigners it held in detention, including the vast majority who were never charged with anything other than overstaying a visa. It has also banned the public from the deportation hearings of ''special interest detainees'' once it has finished investigating them.

The secret detentions and secret hearings have been attacked in federal lawsuits filed by civil liberties groups in Washington, D.C., New Jersey and Michigan, and those cases continue to wend their way through the judicial system.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E7DC1230F932A25754C0A9649C8B63

eta links

[Codeine]

16. Does everything always have to be so over-the-goddamned-top around here?

The teabaggers suck, but they're not Nazis. Read about the Holocaust, read about the Eastern Front, read about Kristalnacht, read about Zyklon-B and the Einsatzgruppe and Treblinka and Anne Frank and the whole of WW2 in Europe and then sit back and get a sense of friggin' perspective.

[pintobean]

19. It's a competition.

[Capitalocracy]

25. Self-delete

Oops, posted twice somehow.

[Capitalocracy]

26. Are we suddenly ignorant of how many people we've killed in the Middle East

because of this racial/religious blame game? Do you seriously think Bush would've gotten away with starting a war in Iraq and killing untold numbers of people without exploiting anti-Muslim sentiments following 9/11?

The mass murder has actually already happened and could continue to get worse in the future if this keeps up.

And if you want some perspective, look up DU. Not this DU, the other DU, depleted uranium.

[Karenina]

43. HALLO!

:hi:

[Imajika]

29. It's Godwin's law of Nazi Analogies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1. In other words, Godwin put forth the sarcastic observation that, given enough time, all discussions—regardless of topic or scope—inevitably wind up being about Hitler and the Nazis."

The Nazi's are the worst thing most people can think of, therefore someone will inevitably compare a political opponent or adversarial idea to Nazi's. In this case, the thread author went Nazi straight out of the gate. Usually they take awhile, but it is kinda fun to make guesses as to how long. We actually do that at the office, pick a fresh "gonna need popcorn for this" thread off almost any politically themed message board and guess at what post number the Nazi card will get played. I've been told that right wing forums often cycle through some Stalin analogies first, but ultimately Godwin's law will still kick in.

[Gecko6400]

71. Thank you Codeine. I wasn't

going to chime in on this until I read the last few comments (61 & 67, for example). I agree, way over-the-top. In my opinion speech like this drives the wedge between our citizenry even deeper.

[Forkboy]

85. I've read all about each of those, in depth. I see similarities.

It scares me that you don't. :shrug:

[The Straight Story]

18. Does the left's hatred of Christians differ much? (nt)

[Codeine]

21. Does Gargamel's hatred of Smurfs differ much? nt

[Initech]

24. We're not violent toward Christians. Big difference.

[B Calm]

68. When the christian Taliban stop shooting abortion doctors, blowing

up federal buildings and stop their hatred towards Muslims, maybe then our hate will stop!

[Initech]

22. The propaganda is eerily similar.

[JCMach1]

31. Is it okay to call hyperbole on this?

However it is more of the same warm welcome given to new immigrant groups to this country.

Anyone ever look at some of the anti-Irish tracts?

We have our own traditions of xenophobia and discrimination in this country. We don't need to borrow Germany's .

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JCMach1]

62. Did you actually read what I said? America has its own tradition

of hatred, we don't need to look to Germany.

Sheesh!

It's just we often forget in our romantic memory of our own past.

[Iterate]

33. Spelling

Majdanek is a hard word for some. I doubt you'll see it on tea bagger signage: too much hard work. That other bunch, however, wrote it at least 1,380,000 times on paper, plus the sign at the entrance. That doesn't seem like trivial difference.

[Nye Bevan]

34. Please read some books on the Holocaust before posting such stupid, ignorant hyperbole (nt)

[Violet_Crumble]

59. I've studied the Holocaust and there are eerie similarities in the attitudes...

Clearly yr not familiar with attitudes towards Jews in pre-war Germany. The demonisation and dehumanisation of both groups are very similiar. The big difference is that while the Nazis were in power and able to make the hatred legal, those peddling the hatred in the US towards Muslims aren't currently in power. It's scary to think what would happen if they were, and trying to deny there's a real problem (as you and at least one other in this thread has) isn't what anyone who is opposed to hatred and intolerance should be doing. History has taught many lessons, and one of them should be that ignoring such things only helps them flourish...

[proteus_lives]

39. American exceptionalism

"Our right is just like the Nazis! Maybe even worse!"

:eyes:

[austin78704]

40. Easy

Nazis were decent spellers.

(edit: damnit, that joke was already in the thread)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

41. Most Germans had met a Jew...

...and probably knew how to spell it.

[Curmudgeoness]

44. The Right has more of a superiority complex than the Nazi's. nt

[AnArmyVeteran]

46. They are of the same mindset.

[AnArmyVeteran]

47. They are of the same mindset.

[hughee99]

51. Godwin in 1. Nice work!

[Bragi]

70. I agree completely /nt

[riderinthestorm]

56. In every poll, on virtually all topics, atheists fare worse than Muslims.

So being objective, I'd say the right wingers are definitely NOT on par with the Nazis or their current hate would extend to being far more vocal about those they "hate" more - atheists.

Godwin's law abounds. Ridiculous, and this is just for starters on your OP.

[Rochester]

61. The difference is the Right doesn't have enough clout to put the Muslims in the ovens. Yet.

I'm sure they want to, along with anyone else who doesn't have a place in their ideal society.. hmm. could that be you and me??

[The Second Stone]

63. The Nazis outnumbered the Jews by at least a 10 to 1 margin worldwide

Whereas worldwide the Becktards are outnumbered by Muslims by 1000 to 1.

[B Calm]

67. Republicans would like to tattoo them and paste yellow stars on them.

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Forkboy]

86. It differs in scale, and not much else.