By JEFF SCHWEITZER - WWW.RICHARDDAWKINS.NET
Added: Tue, 14 Sep 2010 16:39:47 UTC - An RDFRS Original

Perhaps we have failed to learn the tragic lessons of recent world history. The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP) swept into power in Germany in 1933 in a wave of dissatisfaction with the devastating impacts of a deep depression following a brief period of prosperity. By 1930 the German economy had imploded. Banks failed, the private sector collapsed, and unemployment hovered near 35 percent. By 1932 industrial production in Germany fell to 40 percent of the peak in 1929. Tax revenues fell, unemployment benefits expired and personal savings were wiped out. Into this breach marched one of history’s most grotesque figures. Is history repeating itself?

The NSDAP came to power through violence, disregard for the law and sinister parliamentary maneuvering. The party generated popular support among the growing population of desperate citizens by stressing the external threats of liberalism and communism. A sophisticated propaganda campaign created a new reality for much of the country, independent of fact and history. By invoking nationalism, stoking patriotic fervor, and playing on the worst fears of a vulnerable population, the NSDAP fabricated an enemy that only the Party was equipped to suppress. This appeal to a simple idea that Germany was besieged by a determined adversary dedicated to the fatherland’s destruction resonated with the unemployed and disenfranchised who were eager to place blame elsewhere for their economic and social woes. That the designs and powers of this newly defined enemy were completely fabricated mattered not, because German society in those years had disintegrated to the point where claims and beliefs were no longer tethered to the constraints of reality. People simple believed what their leaders claimed with no critical thinking, so nationalism and anti-Semitism took root absent any compelling basis beyond the baseless assertions embedded in the fiery rhetoric of charismatic agitators.

Hitler built his popularity initially by focusing on the enemy of his creation. So to a rabid crowd chanting in frenzied unison their loving support, he said “I’ve got a quick message for Jews if you happen to be watching; you better start packing your bags; and to the weak politicians in Berlin who are soft on Jews, start packing your office, because when the enemies of the state strike, which they will, and we find out they have been here all along, we will be telling all of you to get the hell out. Jews come here to destroy us; but even if that doesn’t happen, at the very least they are attacking our culture, and our way of life; they are here for the cash.”

Ah, my mistake. In fact, that was not Hitler. In my dyslexic reading I transposed the words of another speaker, who really did say the following: “I’ve got a quick message for illegal aliens if you happen to be watching; you better start packing your bags; and to the politicians in Washington who are soft on illegal immigration, start packing up your office, because when the terrorists strike, which they will, and when we find out that they’re here illegally from some other country, we will be telling all of you to get the hell out.” And, “…at the very least (they're) attacking our culture, and our way of life; they are not melting into our melting pot; they're here for the cash.” Welcome to the world of Glenn Beck.

Beck personifies the new NSDAP, thriving on fear in an economy reeling from eight years of failed policy leading America to the brink of a Great Depression following a period of prosperity. As with earlier megalomaniacs, Beck believes himself to be a savior appointed by heavenly right, variably comparing himself to Jesus, Martin Luther King and Gandhi. His rallies are organized by divine providence. Beck is not alone his delusions. He has for company the Tea Party and Sarah Palin to help foment hate and xenophobia. Together these Messiahs of the right manipulate the masses so easily persuaded through the language of blind faith in which critical thinking is eschewed and accepting the fantastic is a given. Belief in the unproven claims of religion on nothing but faith prepares the mind to accept as true the lies of a charismatic leader. With faith any claim no matter how wild or divorced from truth can easily become dogma, for faith requires nothing but the will to believe. Faith gives unscrupulous leaders the great power to nourish those hungry to believe rather than think.

In parallel to earlier hard times, people today have gone through a wrenching period in which banks failed, the stock market lost 50 percent of its peak value, the private sector contracted, and jobs were lost at a rate of 700,000 per month. Today unemployment hovers near 10 percent, savings are wiped out, benefits are expiring and people are losing their homes. Fear and uncertainty are easily manipulated, and the leaders of the new NSDAP have stepped into the void. Not bothered by the inconvenience of reality, these leaders channel the 1930s to fabricate new enemies bent on destroying the homeland: liberalism and Islam, both perfectly represented by Hussein Obama in one evil package.

Just as the German propaganda machine manipulated the masses with falsehoods and outrageous claims about a fabricated enemy, we now hear again a growing chorus of rants against an adversary that exists only in the minds of the deluded. Here is a sample of what the NSDAP looks like in the year 2010:

“I think the president's problem is that he was born a Muslim. His father was a Muslim. The seed of Islam is passed through the father like the seed of Judaism is passed through the mother. He was born a Muslim. His father gave him an Islamic name. Now it's obvious that the president has renounced the Prophet Muhammad and he has renounced Islam and he has accepted Jesus Christ. That's what he says he has done. I cannot say that he hasn't. So I just have to believe that the president is what he has said.” Franklin Graham (on CNN, August 20, 2010).

"So here you have Barack Obama going in and spending the money on embryonic stem cell research. ... Eugenics. In case you don't know what Eugenics led us to: the Final Solution. A master race! A perfect person. ... The stuff that we are facing is absolutely frightening." Glenn Beck (on his radio show, March 9, 2009).

"The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." Sarah Palin (message posted on Facebook, August 7, 2009, fabricating the existence of death panels which would kill her baby).

“I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concern is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.” Michele Bachmann (on KTLK-AM, April 6, 2009, in response to funding the AmeriCorps program).

"We have a President, perhaps for the very first time since the founding of our republic, who doesn't appear to believe that America is the greatest earthly force for good the world has ever known." Sarah Palin (Facebook note, June 30, 2010).

“Some people thought Jesus was evil; they nailed him to a cross.” Bill O’Reilly (December 11, 2008, NPR interview, in which he noted that his detractors consider him evil, going on to compare himself to Jesus, keeping up with Glenn Beck in the megalomaniac category).

“Our nation was created in ways that allow human potential to prosper, and it created the greatest nation for people in the history of humanity. Now Obama is dismantling it, because he has no appreciation for our greatness. In fact, he resents it. He blames this country for whatever evils he sees around the world.” Rush Limbaugh (on radio; date uncertain).

"Guess what? Faisal Shahzad is a registered Democrat. I wonder if his SUV had an Obama sticker on it." Rush Limbaugh (on radio, May 4, 2010, fabricating a story about the failed Times Square car bomber, who is in fact not registered to vote).

“The fact is that there's no -- no relationship to Iraq and -- and 9-11 -- nobody ever said there was.” Rush Limbaugh (on radio, November 8, 2004; after Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly claimed a direct connection between Iraq and the World Trade Center attacks).

"Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots." Ann Coulter (p.16, Treason)

"While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines American security." -- Ann Coulter (p. 203, Treason).

"When you call us, ladies and gentlemen, just so you know, we do have your phone number, and if you say anything untoward, obscene or anything like that, Fox security will then contact your local authorities, and you will be held accountable." Bill O’Reilly (on radio, 2007; this from the self-appointed champion of free speech).

"It doesn't say anywhere in the Constitution this idea of the separation of church and state.” Sean Hannity (Hannity and Colmes, August 25, 2003, either ignoring or being ignorant of the First Amendment).

“On the question of so-called torture, we don't do torture. We never have. It's not something that this administration subscribes to. Again, we proceeded very cautiously. We checked. We had the Justice Department issue the requisite opinions in order to know where the bright lines were that you could not cross.” Dick Cheney (December 15, 2009, on ABC News Interview with Jonathan Karl on World News, blatantly lying about torture, which Cheney personally authorized).

Followers of the megalomaniacs of today are no better than their leaders. Tea Party demonstrators in Washington, D.C. on March 20, 2010, yelled the “N” word at Representative John Lewism, an icon of the civil rights movement who was nearly beaten to death in a protest march in Alabama forty years ago. These same protestors chanting the “N” word were then outraged when former President Jimmy Carter suggested that racism was a major factor driving hostility toward Obama’s policies. The crowd angrily screamed “homo” at Representative Barney Frank, all the while claiming the movement was neither racist nor homophobic.

Let us summarize, then, what we learn from our modern NSDAP. Obama is a Muslim who hates America; Latinos are taking over the country; all Muslims are terrorists. Obama is a socialist, born in Kenya, hell bent on creating a one-world government designed to destroy our human and civil rights. Obama is dismantling our country. Liberals hate American and are traitors. Obama intends to set up re-education camps to corrupt our youth. Obama promotes eugenics. All liberals are un-American. Homosexuality is corrupting our nation. God’s wrath is seen in hurricanes and earthquakes around the world. The federal deficit and debt, ignored when ballooning under a Republican president, is now suddenly a threat to our existence.

These are not the mad mumblings of a homeless schizophrenic suffering the most devastating consequences of that disease. No, these are the words and ideas of people who are supposed to be responsible leaders. As outrageous, as despicable, as astonishing as these claims are, they have all been uttered by prominent Republicans with a national audience. In the world of NSDAP propaganda rules, and reality, facts, reason, sanity are seen as nothing but irritating obstacles to overcome.

In the face of a rising NSDAP, we find ourselves facing an odd consequence of democracy. Through misguided deregulation, blind faith in market forces, an obsession with tax cuts with no commensurate spending limits, a disdain for diplomacy, a distrust of science, reliance on prayer and the instigation of two wars, George Bush nearly destroyed the economy and reputation of the United States. A majority of Americans voted for Obama to reverse these declining trends. He has done so on every front. Yet not fast enough for an impatient population. Instead of losing 700,000 jobs per month, we are now gaining, ever so slowly as the economy inches toward recovery. So as mid-term elections near, Americans are poised to vote in the very people who created the mess that Obama has been “too slow” to clean up.

Sure, let’s bring back the fox to eat more of our hens because the farmer who just built a fence to exclude the fox is not producing eggs fast enough. Of course his egg production is severely curtailed because the hen population was decimated by predecessor who let the fox run wild. But our perverse solution is to blame the farmer and bring back the fox.

We have collectively lost our minds. Just substitute “eggs” with “jobs” and “farmer” with “Obama” and “fox” with “Republicans” and you arrive at the sadly surreal conclusion that our political system has gone haywire. The politicians opposing Obama because he is not creating jobs fast enough are the same leaders who created the problem of unemployment. Think about this: Obama is unworthy because he is not cleaning up at an acceptable pace the mess caused by Republican greed, corruption and incompetence, so the solution is to stop progress toward a recovery and vote in politicians who vow to pursue the same failed policies leading to the crisis. Just as Obama gets us to the top of the rim of the hole dug by his Republican predecessor, voters are going to bring back the team that buried us so deeply. Such is the power of demagoguery; facts and reason hold no sway against fire and brimstone. Only in such a world of fantasy could we be told that we can solve our problem by bringing back the cause of our woes.

Saving the country from a Great Depression is a difficult story to sell when people still suffer joblessness. In the face of great personal suffering, you cannot effectively point to the horror averted, the millions upon millions of jobs saved, the global crisis avoided by precipitous and decisive action in the face of a global meltdown. No, it is easier to criticize the rate of recovery instead of recognizing the awesome accomplishment represented by an economy growing, no matter how slowly, instead of contracting toward disaster.

This maddening gap between a complicated reality and the simplicity of misleading sound bites is where we find our modern version of the NSDAP. Beck, Palin and the Tea Party make outrageous claims, fabricate news, blatantly lie, self-contradict, and foment hate. Racism, bigotry, xenophobia and intolerance are their life blood. They have a distinct advantage in being free from the annoying limits of truth. They feed on fear in an atmosphere of economic uncertainty. These people are dangerous, imperil our future and threaten democracy. We have seen this before. Perhaps 2010 really is the new 1933.

TAGGED: COMMENTARY, POLITICS, RELIGION