Hitlers! They're all over the place!

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And I thought with his way too late suicide he's out of this world. No. His reincarnations still spawn all over the world.

U.S. officials become angry and indignant when someone compares the Bush administration’s policies to those of the Hitler regime. The anger and indignation felt by U.S. officials about it, does not stop U.S. officials from comparing foreign leaders to Hitler. Or, for that instance, their antagonists from comparing Hitler with them, causing anger and indignation again.

• Bush is worse than Hitler, sais Chavez. Kim Jong Il agrees: Bush is worse than Hitler. Of course, they're wrong:
• Chavez is a Hitler, said Rumsfeld.
• Kim Yong Il is a Hitler sais this columnist
• Ortega is a Hitler, sais Ollie North.
• Saddam the new Hitler, Bush tells Europeans. Students-for-war explain why (you'd need to invent them, if they weren't real).
• Ahmedinejad is a Hitler.
• Milosevic is a Hitler, and
• Bin Laden is a Hitler, too ...
• ... and for good measure that imbecile Bill O'Reilly "Hitler would be a card-carrying ACLU member. So would Stalin."

What a merry-go-round. My opinion on all this Only Hitler is a Hitler. Only Stalin was a Stalin.

Hitler, in connection with the name of an arbitrary political leader, usually one you don't like, is for me as tiring as these horrific threads that have in their title 'homosexuality' and 'religion' ...

The Hitler label has been so overused that it lost any meaning. If those invoking that name would make the effort to use it as an adjective, like 'Hitler-ish', or maybe 'Hitler-esque', but, no, they conflate. The big conflation is first of all only doing one thing: Belittling what Hitler did.

What's the use in comparing Pinochet to Castro to Hitler to Stalin to Ahmedinejad to Saddam to ... ugh? A murdering dictator is a murdering dictator is a murdering dictator.

The second side-effect is about as bad. Once you have labeld your enemy, you stop thinking about him and start believing your own propaganda. It stales down public discourse. Only that allowed Saddam to be inflated to the extent he was.

The only reason Hitler is invoked is because of the strong emotional label of absolute evil attached to the name and deeds ordered by him. It doesn't contribute anything to a discourse. Ultimately it is about demonisation, and nothing else. It's pure propaganda. Bleh.

/rant

PS: We need a throw-up smiley.

 

If someone starts making comparisons to Hitler or Stalin or Mao or Jesus (one of these things is not like the others...) chances are they're either not interested in honest debate or not interested in critical thinking.

 

Fools, the whole lot of them! Some things just roll off the tongue far too easy if one hasnt to live in the shadow of the Nazis. What do they know. :/

... tho I wonder what has gotten into Däubler-Gmelin back then...

 

This plain and simple doesn't even make since in the terms of political ideology. Way to go Bill.

 

Ah, the old Hitler card again. You know, it's time to come up with another demon incarnate to invoke.

Though he was a pretty serious one.

 

And propaganda doesn't win wars. If that was the case, Iraq would have been broken long before the US invaded. If anything, the nation buying into its own propaganda blinds it from the real problem at hand--which usually is very real (even if they did just make it more real than it was before) and needs a very real solution instead of more soundbites from Washington.

 

One could look to the unofficial corollary of Godwin's Law for that; once Hitler has been mentioned, it becomes much less likely for any useful debate or information to be contributed to the discussion.

I whole-heartedly agree with the sentiment of the OP - it's 'lazy debating' to resort to this, even if the analogy is somewhat applicable.

Thanks for restating something that needed it.

 

And now Helge Schneider is Hitler too!

(ich bin der telefon mann... ich geh ans telefon ran...)

 

Let us not forget the cats!

 

Es gibt Reis, Baby

 

"Bad news ma'am, you have a Hitler infestation"

I can't help but think of a "pop goes the weasel" game. By the looks of it we'd have little Hitlers popping everywhere in a matter of months, so I'm starting to work out and save for a sledgehammer Mind you, if we get any more Hitlers, I wonder if we could find a spiritist to contact the Austrian Painter himself for a talk-show in which he comments on the "new generation." I think that'd be a ratings hit, but it's best kept in a time range where there aren't that many children watching/listening. So what if it may be considered racial hatemongering, I think as long as he comments on the "bad people" of the day no one'd bother. I've heard worse on Bulgarian TV, and we're supposedly a tolerant nation .

"Osama? That ....... Arabischen idiot? Pfft. Clown. Back in mein day, it took a lot more than a few planes and a s..tload of luck ein world enemy to become. Und diese Taliban? We had like true Menner fought, not like children, to hit and to run. Bah, what can you expect from ein Araber. They can't even of the Jews take care, and they have half a century had."

He could also have guest commenters to help give him that extra punch, or just to interview them. Imagine Hitler and Stalin dissecting Saddam. Mind you, the spiritists should get more for the possible dangers, and I'd think a few counceling sessions now and then can't go wrong. Catching off some of the body language - a Nazi salute - can be quite embarassing in some situations.

[ January 13, 2007, 16:58: Message edited by: The Shaman ]

 

I remember one literary class where we had to study some of Hitler's speeches because of his oratory power. We also had to watch a movie of a Japanese version of Hamlet.

My own personal reaction to this Hitler/Stalin name calling is that it is ridiculous. Hitler and Stalin were products of their time. Using their names to try and stigmatize some one is just down right dirty pool.

 

Offtopic:

Was it "The Bad Sleep Well" by Kurosawa?

 

Ouch! Your teacher is a new Hitler.

 

I'm sure Kurosawa's Hamlet version was Throne of Blood.