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Behind the Obama-Hitler Slur
Jae C. Hong / AP Photo
That outrageous comparison that Limbaugh and town-hall screamers have been making? Max Blumenthal tracks its origins to cult leader Lyndon LaRouche, whose followers pushed the attacks.
The June 10, 2009 public “listening session” of the newly created Federal Council Coordinating Comparative Effectiveness Research would have been an uneventful gathering had not Anton Chaitkin seated himself before the 15-member panel and began to read breathlessly from notes he had prepared for the hearing. After describing himself simply as “a historian,” the nondescript Chaitkin quickly launched into a diatribe against President Barack Obama and panelist Ezekiel Emanuel, the head of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health and the brother of presidential chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.
According to one movement leader, top LaRouche advisers decided during the congressional debate over the stimulus package to liken Obama’s policies to those of Hitler.
"President Obama has put in place a reform apparatus reviving the euthanasia of Hitler Germany in 1939, that began the genocide there,” Chaitkin alleged. “Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and other avowed cost-cutters on this panel also lead a propaganda movement for euthanasia... They shape public opinion and the medical profession to accept a death culture… to let physicians help kill patients whose medical care is now rapidly being withdrawn in the universal health-care disaster.”
When Chaitkin was done, Emanuel calmly responded, “I think I do have a very long record of writing against the legalization of euthanasia, so the association of me and that seemed a little strange.” Emanuel then stood and excused himself from the hearing room, apparently unaware that Chaitkin had launched the opening volley of an orchestrated propaganda campaign designed to link him and the White House’s health-care reform proposals to the T-4 mass euthanasia program of Adolph Hitler.
Emanuel and his fellow panelists may have been similarly uninformed about Chaitkin’s senior role in the political empire of Lyndon LaRouche, the eccentric movement leader whose activities have confounded and outraged observers from across the spectrum. LaRouche has been accused of everything from Holocaust denial to gay bashing (his outfit introduced a ballot measure in California to quarantine AIDS patients). In 1988, LaRouche was convicted and jailed for mail fraud.
Leonard Zeskind, who studies extremist and cult groups, has called LaRouche a “crank fascist,” while Dennis King, the author of Lyndon LaRouche and the New American Fascism, went further, describing the former Marxist ideologue as a “pure Nazi” and totalitarian who tells his followers that they are members of an elite race called the “Golden Souls” who will one day rule the ignorant masses. In his investigative report on the mysterious death of LaRouche’s longtime printer, journalist Avi Klein wrote, “More than anything else… what [LaRouche’s movement] resembles is a vast and bizarre vanity press.”
While Chaitkin’s confrontation with Emanuel remained obscure and generally unreported, LaRouche’s myriad journals and Web sites promoted the incident along with reams of related material likening Obama to Hitler. At the same time, LaRouche’s ersatz political action committee, LPAC, distributed posters to movement followers portraying Obama with a Hitler moustache. According to Jeff Steinberg, a longtime LaRouche cadre who edits the movement’s political journal, Executive Intelligence Review, top LaRouche advisors decided during the congressional debate over the stimulus package to liken Obama’s policies to those of Hitler.
“We went after this thing five months ago and put everything out publicly through our magazine and web sites and decided to make a very harsh and shocking point,” Steinberg told me. “It is our view that there's a lot of people who for pragmatic reasons could be inclined to accept policies that could take us down that slippery slope to Hitler’s policies in 1939.”
When opposition to Obama’s health-care reform proposals intensified this August, mainstream Republican figures began echoing LaRouche’s paranoid warnings. Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich and Senator Charles Grassley insisted that Obama’s health-care plan would mandate the creation of “death panels” to determine which Americans would be euthanized. Rush Limbaugh weighed in by comparing Obama to Hitler, who, he said, “also ruled by dictate.”
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Thank you Max for explaining this. Misrepresenting Obama's policies and attitudes is bad enough, but these Hitler comparisons and the defamed pictures of Obama break my heart. What kind of people treat their elected leaders in this fashion. All of the rest of us must fight this and expose the people behind it. Shame on them.
pwener,
I agree. Were you saying the same thing during the Bush years with the Hitler, Joker and other defaming pictures the liberals used to throw around?
Ah, but there's the problem. Bush exhibited an undeniable pattern of anti-democracy, militaristic, ethno-centric, religio-nationalist activities and words. Obama has been militantly pro-democracy and emphasized transcending tribe and ethnic group. Now go look up fascism, go study history, and tell me honestly where the shoe fits. Anybody can throw the fascist label around... fascists better than anybody because of their guilty consciences.
mike22 is exactly right. Bush essentially stole, with the help of the Supreme Court no less, the election in 2000. It all went to hell after that. I really think that the damage, both psychologically and politically that Cheney/Bush did to the American body politic is almost irreparable at this point.
Good luck to President Obama. He is trying more than any other president to start to mend this huge divide.
Hitler and the Joker were too much the evil genius to be compared to Bush. The best one and the most fitting was the Alfred E Newman comparison.
chekov: It is now looking like Bush also stole, with the help of Tom Ridge and strategic bogus terrorist alerts, the 2004 election.
C'mon motrbotr,
Obama has been militantly pro-democracy, that is why "Black Panthers were stationed outside the Philadelphia polling places, and the prosecution of the voter laws this violated killed by his guy at DOJ.
That is why the ACORN institutional voter fraud is being downplayed and swept under the rug.
And look at the labeling of dissenters who disagree with him. He is so pro-democracy he wants them all labeled at nut-cases or shills. That way their vote being discarded isn't such a big deal.
He will fight for your sons right to vote ( assuming you have a son, and he is a felon)
akcita:
You're doing us all a favor. By staging a hysterical freak-out of epic proportions, the entire anti-Obama movement is being painted as lunatics. If there are legitimate arguments against Obama, they're barely getting any press thanks to the ridiculous antics of people like you. The lies and baseless comparisons make for WAY better TV. Every hitler moustache, every gun at a town hall, every single incident diminishes the Republican party and drives more independents to vote Democratic.
Enjoy the political wilderness folks. If you don't shape up and divorce yourselves from unhinged conspiracy theorists like akcita, you'll be there for a long time.
Wow, ridiculous antics! What have I done now?
I was merely pointing out the fallacy of the pro-democracy comments made earlier with anti-democratic actions that have occurred.
Keep it coming sugar pie, I await your next silly statement with baited breath!
Wouldn't it be great if the things that "have ocurred" had actually occurred? Then you wouldn't be spreading lies and/or ignorance, you'd be telling the truth. For instance, the much-reported ACORN voter fraud was actually reported voluntarily by ACORN. They pay their employees per registration, and some of those employees inevitably try to pad their wallets by turning in fake registrations. By law, ACORN has to turn those in and identify them as fraudulent. But the Republicans (and Faux news, and you as well) had no problem in pretending like it was some huge scandal, and not an example of the system working as designed to weed out voter fraud.
As to specific antics, you may notice I said people like you, not you yourself. I don't actually know what your antics are other than spreading lies on TBD, so that comment was probably unfair as far as it was directed at you. But by people like you, I mean right wingers who have no scruples about lying or are too lazy to find real facts. If you're not one of those, then I misjudged, and you'll have to excuse my mistake, but I stand by my comments about the right wing in general.
BUSH started 2 wars....................and their attitude was totalitarian wanting to establish UNITARIAN PResidency and also the PERMANENT REPUBLICAN MAJORITY
and MIKE22 said it better than me
Actually Obama is too timid to be a dictator.........he aims at bipartisanship is too democratic even for most people's taste.
The Republican party act like BULLIES
the DEMS are too polite...................and weak to be fascist.
BUT LET ME TELL YOU fascism is not 100 % bad............or it would not have been invented.
Don't you know lefty liberals can do as they want , not as they say?
Like this so called blog, run by a bunch of left wing hypocrites.
Left wingers call people assholes and i flag them, but since they are lefties they are not removed.
I voted for Obama, big mistake, came here on the advice of a friend, post a satirical response to Patricia Williams article without cuss words the left uses, and it gets removed, even after the date shows i explained the satire before they removed it.
That woke me up to the same spineless wimps that are Obamamites. But polls show people are seeing through this phoney smooth talking lawyer,and his Healthcare Deform will fail.
One Question:
Do you as an American compare our president to Hitler?
Shame on any Republican who does not categorically denounce this!
As a conservative I agree that this type of hatred is wrong. Where did you stand when Bush was called Hitler and Pelosi's comments about people like me who politely went to these meetings with their representratives) being called swastika carrying mobs? I live in SWPA and during the campaign we were insulted by Obama (guns and religion comment) and Murtha (redneck comment)...still waiting for those apologies and outrage by the left...
It isn't necessary to "misrepresent" his policies.
Obama demonized Chrysler bondholders as "greedy" before canceling their investments. Profitable,family-owned car dealerships established for generations were abruptly put out of business with his approval. Mortgages were rewritten on his instructions and mortgagee banks were ordered not to foreclose on defaulting mortgagors. Bank of America was ordered to purchase ailing Merrill Lynch regardless of shareholders' interests, other banks were bailed out with or without their agreement and yet others were left to fail.
Government intrusion into private contracts, government interference in the operation of shareholder-owned corporations and personal attacks on individuals by presidents or heads of state are hallmarks of dictatorship, whether Fascist or Stalinist.
Now that doctors are an obstacle to his plans to reform health care, President Obama is demonizing them for over-servicing. Doctors have no choice but to order every possible test and procedure or risk being sued for negligence, making lawyers very rich in the process.
Do lawyers earn too much? Will they be the President's next target for public opprobrium and government control? Who will follow?
Dictatorship has a way of creeping up on unsuspecting polities. It rarely begins with uniformed, armed militias and in recent history it has more than once been ushered in by success at the ballot box.
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"eeasyrider
Nice try, isabella. If Obama had done nothing, your precious bondholders would have lost everything.
Doctors are not an obstacle to health care reform. You are making things up about overservicing. Doctors want to be more informed about patient tests so they don't repeat them multiple times. Seems like a good idea, don't you think? Could say some money for tax payers.
Oh and now you are conserned about lawyers? Aren't republicans screaming about tort reform. Like I said, nice try, isabella. But you are either uninformed or you love to make stuff up."
To easyrider: Your post is nonsense.
If Obama had done nothing, bondholders would have been among the first creditors paid from the sale of assets of the bankrupt company.
I notice you did not address the problem of presidents and dictators singling out individuals for public censure.
Overservicing by doctors does not mean "repeating tests multiple times". It means following every symptom, no matter how vague, to exclusion, and performing every procedure that could possibly, even remotely, yield information or relief. It will certainly save money if a bureaucrat decides how many and which tests and procedures will be performed on you. Please write again when you have symptoms that might indicate Multiple Myeloma.
I am no more concerned about lawyers' income than doctors' or that of any other group. My concern is the behavior of governments to their citizens and the use of state power to intimidate and silence opposition.
If Obama wants healthcare reform he will have to first reform the law of medical negligence.
When your Multiple Myeloma has gone undiagnosed, you are dying when you find out, but you want treatment that will delay the fateful day AND you want to sue your physician, you'd better hope that Obama hasn't obtained universal, single payer healthcare OR capped damages.
If the first, you won't live long enough to sue. If the second, even if you do file suit, you will get so little it won't pay for your funeral.
I am not a Republican.
President Obama is well-known for accusing people of "making stuff up" when he has no answers. You have no answers either but you could at least try to be original.
Isabella, you may want to go back and check your timeline. Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch in 2008 under BUSHES watch. Remember Hank Paulson, Bush's Treasury Secy?
And Chrysler was owned at the time by Cerebrus, a private equity company that took taxpayer money to try and bail our THEIR bad investment rather than spend their own money. Talk about gall!
Nice try, but us people who actually read, check facts and have memories are not going to be fooled by such unsubstantiated posts.
EXCELLENT post isabella.
After I had read the first half dozen posts or so, I was sitting here with my mouth open, unable to believe the volume of naive statements.
eeasyrider's response to you tells me he is not an investor. You have to have some comprehension of stocks and bonds, in order to grasp the impact of Obama's actions.
Those who fail to see it, I believe do so unintentionally. The only people that Obama is capable of convincing that everything he does is for them, are those Americans who will follow blindly, and then awaken one day to face their error smack in the face.
When you put your complete trust and faith in someone, that is how you get taken. And what I continually see in these posts, are Obama supporters UNWILLING to question anything that's going on. Instead of questioning the actions/errors of those "in power", they seem to find safety in simply demeaning those who will question.
I believe that many are unable to view the ramifications, because they don't grasp the fundamentals. It's like they don't understand that mixing a bunch of ingredients together can give you either a chocolate cake or chocolate pudding. Both may be chocolate, but the end results are very different.
I learned today that the Apollo Alliance designed our stimulus package; the one that took trillions of our tax dollars, supposedly for jobs,etc., but has not given us any jobs. For those who don't know, AA is headed by avowed communists. So ASK yourselves why were they chosen to have ANY input into America's economy. Could it be that the intention is, and always was, to cause our once strong economy to implode?
Stop blindly following folks, and start asking questions.
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Obama action or inaction is irrelevant to my Fildeltiy mutual fund. And my Roth IRA is doing just fine. I hope everthing this lying mobster Obama fails.
He even has his own far left loonies mad, because he is sending more troops to Afghanistan. That hypocrite is a joke.
Wow. This was interesting and something I didn't know, not to mention terrifying.
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This comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
Don't forget Paul Krugman,Frank Rich, Tom Teepen, Mike Malloy, and i'm sure others who see through the onion layers the right set up under the tutelage of Lee Atwater.
What is truly interesting is the fact that facts are largely ignored. Most of the argument is an ad hominem piece saying that the LaRouche is a nut therefore there is no basis to the fears being voiced by the various people. This is an invalid argument.
Blumenthal is essentially being a propaganda tool himself in this approach.
He would do better to deconstruct the argument and demonstrate how the program saves lives rather than causes older people to be denied expensive life extending treatments.
Unfortunately the latter requires serious reseach and empirical evidence ( lots of work), so Max chose the ad hominem attack route instead.
OBTW, he mistates that the LaRouche "Planet" was not mentioned during the cable coverage of Barney Frank. The woman in the video clearly referenced LaRouche in the course of her question" That's when I started adding the grains of salt...too bad Blumenthal is a lazy reporter.
Easyrider, you just listed the Who's Who of leftist loons,and a sports announcer, a comedian, and a foreigner who still choses not to learn how to speak English. You defeated your own argument so brilliantly, I would be hard pressed to improve on it.
Alan, I have a newsflash for you. Bush won in 2000 before, after and including about 10 recounts.
aaahhh, reardongalt, i was waiting for the obligatory gop/douchebag backlash. Exactly what i expected, way to uphold the values of your party, with the usual mudslinging, racism, delusion, and blind arrogance.
..and you shouldn't have used the word "newsflash," instead something like "fabricated lie" or "FOX newsflash" would have been more appropriate when describing the "recounts" of 2000... :)
reardongalt: I have a newsflash for you. The only vote that was won by George W. Bush in 2000 was in the Supreme Court.
The initial Florida recount was broken up by protesters. Remarkably, these protesters were actually GOP staffers flown in from Washington.
By the time this mess had been cleaned up, Republicans had forced the issue up to the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Florida Supreme Court had by then ordered a recount of the entire state.)
The Supreme Court. elected Bush by a 5-4 vote, with all of the majority being conservative judges. (I don't recall any Republicans complaining about their judicial activism, either.)
Contrary to the numbers you dreamed up, not one single official recount was ever completed in Florida. However, several news organizations later made their own recount:
"According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida's highest court.
"On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide."
So the truth is we will never know who really won in Florida. The Supreme Court, butterfly ballots, the illegal purging of voter rolls, and the candidacy of Ralph Nader (conveniently funded by Republicans) ensured this.
By the way, why bother lying in these threads when it is so easy for people like me to find the facts and refute you?
Bush won in 2000? What a good belly laugh to start th day. Cruella DeVille aka Katherine Harris, Airhead Queen, helped the Cubans in Miami-Dade steal their share of votes, and we all know the Jewish voters voted for Pat Buchanan. Some people , usually inheritance or rich off illegal immigrant labor, just like the fact Shrub would steal more from payroll taxes, money the real producers create, and give it to them.
Diebold, as an E mail from their executive stated, gave Ohio to Shrub in 04.
But thank Shrub for ruining our country. His accomplishment was remarkable, destroying a system that had survived over 200 years, destroyed in 8 years. Hats off to the war mongering, Bible prostituting, draft dodging drunk.
We need to bring a big bright light to shine on this story. Those who have just picked up the mantra need to know the kind of evil with which they're associating. Thanks for the article, Max.
Can we stop with the comparisons to Hitler already ?
He was a monster.
Far Right Kooks comparing Obama to Hitler,
are not unlike Far Left whackos who compared Bush to Hitler.
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The irony is actually making me giggle. My laughter is only tempered by te knowledge that Mr. Obama probably has quite a few more bites allowed on the hand that gave him the Presidency (the Media), before they turn on him for real.
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You are confusing support and getting page views and viewers.
You are in denial if you think that the media didn't softball for Obama for the entire election.
They are now reporting on things in order to get readers, sorry but it is a business after all. They do cut him slack, his press secretary is a complete rube who is getting away with "screw you media" comments all the time.
There are only a few who are willing to pressure him the way a reporter should pressure a public official who is peddling BS.
The liberal editors gave him a pass. It was obvious to everyone, except you of course.
How else would law designed to subsidize the news papers sprout after the election. wake up hon'.
You couldn't
Get into a Bush
Townhall meetin if you
HAD THE WRONG TEE SHIRT ON
Sophia-
Let's get real.
Bush didn't truck any comparisons.
Put up some proof.
The wrong t-shirt?
You couldn't get in unless you signed a loyalty oath.
Rita,
Please, the Obama townhalls are held in hangers on remote areas (of Montana airports in one case) and well choreographed with supporters, and protesters well away from the central forum. There has to be some control over the folks who are walking in the same room with the President. I guess the real issue is how much ideological control is there?
RIta, the joker photo was an idea that was made over on Obama from an earlier Bush themed version. You act as if no dissent was allowed at all. BTW, where did Cindy Sheehan go all of a sudden? Did she lose her Dem bank roll?
This response
Could be so
Much shorter
If I'd just
Typed it like a
Normal sentence,
But unfortunately for me,
This is all I know
How to do,
I wish I was a poet...
And I wish I knew
the first thing about politics
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akcita: Obama used the hanger in Montana because there wasn't another building in town that was big enough for the expected crowds.
While he was indeed separated from the bulk of supporters and protesters, he was also separated from potential assassins. Like those assault-rifle-carrying protesters in Arizona.
As I remember, aside from reservations for some of his supporters and for Montana politicians, the bulk of the seats were available to everybody. According to one local report, "Obama's town hall organizers provided about 850 general-admission tickets to the public for free, while distributing several hundred more tickets through private channels to Democratic Party loyalists and wealthy donors."
This doesn't sound like any ideological control here. Contrast this with Bush, who generally restricted attendance at his town hall meetings to Republicans.
Al, there were 700 first come first serve tickets out of 1300 distributed at the town hall. Who got these? No real accounting of them as far as I have heard.
Regarding the venue, spare me the only building nonsense. These venues are planned by White House Staff and the Secret Service. Town Halls happen in all the states. I guess this podunk in Montana doesn't have a high school or a gymnasium? BS. These can be secured as well as any of the many similar facilities the President visits all the time.
My point is this, both of these guys limit external protesters in these staged events. They are trying to focus a message.
You all are trying to say one is worse than the other for it, and I'm not.
akcita: I agree that both of these guys limit external protesters in these staged events. This has to be done for security, if nothing else.
But inside? Bush limited attendees to his events in many ways, doing his best to eliminate anyone who might be a protester. I never saw Bush taking spontaneous questions from the audience, as we have seen Obama do at his town hall meetings.
akcita: Cindy Sheehan has her own radio show, "Cindy Sheehan's Soapbox".
She is also plans to be at a protest this week in Martha's Vineyard, where President Obama is vacationing.
I suspect she's doing better than you are...
I can imagine that with some of the torture stuff people might liken bush to hitler but I find that unfair, first of all it was the VP who did most of the dirty stuff and second, these mindless comparisons like: this guy who I know little about is like that other guy who I know little about, are just plain dumb.
Why does it really matter if some idiots on the left went into crazy comparison land? RIght now its the right and its bad for our country. Anyone truly patriotic should be against it whichever side it comes from.
Let's at least get one thing straight: Hitler was a Leftist. You know, the side of the political spectrum that likes things like Socialized Medicine.
Hmmmm.
It is always funny to me when people compare the verbal abuse of Bush with that of Obama. People who criticized Bush couldn't even wear an anti Bush t-shirt in his majesty's presence, and I didn't see open gun toters at Bush events. This country has a not too distant history of open violence and death against people of color. That's the missing component in all of these Bush-Obama comparisons. A huge missing component.
I do remember signs on the marquee of churches in PN that read, Vote for Jesus. Vote Bush.
Guess God wanted Obama, since he won fair and square, without a 1 vote Supreme Court decision. Vince Bugliosi's book on the stolen election hit the nail on the head.
But i do hope the right wins back both Houses of Congress in 2010, and Obama loses in 2012. After voting for Obama,then seeing the attitude of the crybabys who can't take a joke,the Obama supporters here, i could not care less. I am set for life, so you crybaby's fend for yourselves and eat crow when the Republicans get power restored to their far right agenda.The blog of a board that let's the right post all things vile, but removes satire they are too stupid to comprehend. Journalism died with the advent of this blog garbage.
LOL @ BullMoose
Oh no what will we do without you to protect us. It seems the babies aren't the only ones crying here. Maybe if you were a little more eloquent in your writing it would actually seem to be satire.
crngdnmwhatever First you need a brain, of which you are devoid of to discern satire. Time flies and i can't wait to rub in the Republicans retaking of Congress, then the Presidency in 2012. I take you Tina Brownites with a grain of salt.
Lyndon Larouche is alive? Still out there? I recollect the Larouche fanatics with their tables set up in the airports.
Nobody bothered to identify the fair skinned woman who waved the moustchioed Obama picture at the Barney Frank town hall. This is excellent reporting.
Hats off to Max!
michaelslevinson dot commie
She referenced LaRouche in her diatribe...excellent reporting of erroneous info.
go to 1:06 if you just want to hear her reference Larouche.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjF4YjvJLe4
I'm actually a great fan of the Hitler comparisons - but only because of how counter-productive they are. Those who deserve no credibility are standing up and demanding not to be taken seriously by anyone with a glimmer of a mind.
It's karmic poetry and evolution at its finest.
hah, well-said
Well written article. I would have liked to have known the crazy "Nazi policy" protester's political affiliations last week when she was plastered across the Boob-Tube 24/7, but better late than never. Thanks!
I thought that she was just a crack addicted woman of ill repute who hadn't bothered to read over her Freedom Works script and was clueless about where she was or with whom she was speaking. I was sure that she wasn't a constituent that was going to be showing up at the local grocery with the individuals she had so deeply offended.
So she was then, a crack-addicted woman of ill repute, clueless about the where and the whom, AND a LaRouchie. That's pretty good, xlntcat, 2 out of 3 is very good.
Sounds like 2 crack addicts talking about each other.
Interesting article. More interesting is the lack of the usual comments here that attack Obama and his Presidency. Perhaps because the facts are so painful.
Hmm, the RWNM at work using Fox News sloppy protocols at sourcing their propoganda and yet the MSM hasn't reported that the GOP is using stuff from a fringe right wing group....
La Rouche is well known in the political theatre as an extremist and anything he does reflects and validate those views. The surprise news is that the NYT this week-end did
a piece announcing that the seniors will be the group that
will be "theoretically" eliminated for health care under the
current "reform bill" pending house and senate approval.
put the link up. I'd love to see what senior citizens are unhappy about and the basis for those fears. Everyone else here wants to focus on LaRouche rather than the justifiable fears that seniors have in losing health care.
The Hitler rhetoric is bullcrap. Unfortunately it is being used by both sides to highlight AND divert attention from the real painful issues that need to be discussed. Too bad folks on this site can't figure out that if you defund medicare and take away treatment, some old people die.
Some might give a damn if they have an elder parent, otherwise forget about it until your parents are old enough to be impacted. Of course, by then it will be too late.
maybe you didn't notice the part about Medicare?
We seniors (over 65) have the premium deducted each month from our SS checks for our Medicare health care coverage. This is the coverage that even the wackos at the Town Hall meetings don't want the government to mess with.
In that effect, we are therefore, as a group, "eliminated" from having to go out and find insurance. We get it automatically. We are covered.
Surprise! Surprise! jrldev.
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The comparisons to Hitler are horrible and unjust, however, where was the outrage when the same remarks were hurled at Bush? I'm no cheerleader for Bush, but what's good for the goose ................................
Right. There's far more vitriol on the Left than on the right. Plus it gets under their skin more....HA!
Hey, you want to know how you can tell what the Left is doing to the Public? Just listen to what they accuse the Right of. They "project" their evils. It's quite fascinating. Example, if they accuse the Republicans of trying to steal an election, it's because THEY STEAL ELECTIONS all the time. That's what happened in 2000. They went down there to Florida to steal the election, but when it didn't work they said, "hey that's not fair, you guys stole the election." Just like 12 year olds.
Another example is when Pelosi accused the protesters of "astroturf". Hell, the Left invented it.
Another example is when MSNBC called the Tea Party protesters "teabaggers". Now, I've lived my whole life, and I never heard of that word, and yet Maddow, Schuster, and Anderson were all quite familiar with the word. Hmmm, could it be.......
Ah yes, you gotta love it. Just listed to what they accuse other of to find out what they're doing.
It was surprising to see a term that has blatant sexual connotations thrown out so casually. I cringe at the thought of more such rhetorical gifts from liberal commentators. Will the lexicon of the pornography industry now become the norm for political discourse?
Unbelievable.
What you say is so true. It happens all the time on these posting sites. I particularly love the way that anything critical of Obama is countered by a response that essentially says "Well Bush did the same thing."
Why the libs spend so much time comparing Obama, to someone they hate, tells me that Obama's actions cannot stand on their own. In addition, if everything that Obama does, was also done by Bush, and the libs hated what Bush did, then one can conclude that the libs also hate what Obama is doing.
When the movement first started, they were calling themselves teabaggers. I heard it on TV and saw it in the papers The term changed to Tea Party in a very short amount of time.. I only learned recently that it has sexual connotations. I've asked a few people and they didn't know either. I guess they're not as blatant as Akita states, since the original members of the groups were using it for a while.
The fact that you do not know what "tea-bagging" is and used that as your slogan w/out doing any research...just shows that you live under a rock. Don't blame others for what you do not know.
david, that's one of the silliest things I've ever heard someone say. Don't you think it makes more sense to know what a tea party is? The Boston Tea Party was fundamental to the founding of our country.
It makes much more sense to question the integrity (and sexual behaviour for that matter) of what's supposed to be mainstream news anchors and reporters who use the term in derogatory manner while they are addressing it at Granny and Granpa?
I've gotten into it at a few message boards with GOPers who try to claim that these people are actually Democrats! Up is down, left is right; that's their thinking on any and everything.
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Would you be happier if the poster was one of Robert Mugabe? Would that be a more accurate depiction of President Obama?
Where was all the outrage when we found out there was no WMD's at all in IRAQ? We have our son's & daughters mother and fathers and some cases grandparents dying over a LIE..............We as a country need to wake up. I want one senator or congress person with NO INSURANCE to go to any ER with a serious problem and see how they will be treated....I work for the goverment and they pick our insurance and we have no say in the matter. As well as if you work for any company or if you have Medicaid or Medicare........all government run...........Fake outrage........It is about having a Black President that you don't want in office and want to fail at any cost............That is what all this rowdy behavior at the Town hall are all about...........
The outrage was everywhere. Where were you? Even though Hussein did all he could to convince the world he did have these weapons, when it was discovered that he did not, Bush's approval ratings declined. This has been weekly news for years.
Yea the outrage was everywhere, but it's sad cuz what can you really do? I thought the president should have been impeached, he committed a serious crime. But what am I gonna do, sue him?
When a powerful leader doesn't really care whether his people hate him for lying to them, he removes from himself any need to be vindicated. I kinda interpreted bush's attitude as "yea, I lied. What are you people gonna do?"
If the president makes a statement that turns out to be erroneous, is it a lie?
If so, just about every President is a bald-faced liar...I guess you may be right indeed...
BTW, if the outrage is fake, I guess there is no reason for a change?
These are the same people who compared Bush to Hitler. Ignore them,
flyoverland: You do, of course, have sources to confirm your statement?
I await them with bated breath.
Right. cuz having sources for that would, like, totally be possible!
It's "baited" breath. You need Scope.
Speagle: Actually, "bated" is considered correct, even though you often see "baited" used instead.
Google it for yourself. Have fun!
speagle You did not know AlanD2 is the head lefty here besides Tina Brown's extreme left leaning brain?
He follows me around , like some other lefty i don't bother to remember, but their silliness runs off like water over a duck's back.
As for his google comment, they are not God. leave that for Tina Brown. The old i before e except after c is now being accepted either way, because it was never written in stone to be correct anyway.
speagle Sorry he is stalking you, but at least it eats his time, and i can post without his , well whatever it is he says, since i do not read then except when he attacks others and i forget to see who it is. He really has no life.
This and worse was done to Bush. Where's was the outrage over that? The media totally ignored that. More liberal hypocricy and media bias.
It's valid to call this behavior out but it needs to be done when either side does it.
This and worse done to Bush?!? based on what? let's hear some facts because most us liberals would disagree since Bush dragged us into wars with lies, while Obama is trying to implement change to our healthcare system, but I have yet to hear any fear-mongering lies.
repub please read the above...
"since Bush dragged us into wars with lies, while Obama is trying to implement change to our healthcare system, but I have yet to hear any fear-mongering lies"
The liberal media had a Mantra that read "Bush Lied, People Died"
I won't argue the merits of getting into a war we didn't have to be in, but Presidents make decisions about the resources of the country based on their adviser's briefing. Intelligence reports all said that Hussein had a program, Hussein put out his own intel that said he had a program, guess what, Hussein was lying, not Bush.
You need to read a little about how executive decisions are made, and understand that right now Obama is getting briefed on AL Qaida and whatever nasty stuff they are trying to do to us. Guess what? his briefings may also be wrong, and he sanctions a whole village for destruction because of it.
Will you then say "Obama Lied, People Died!"
I didn't think so....
error, reason: citation needed.
wow. right-wing idiocy shining bright again. There was outrage when ppl did this to bush, from fools like you who hate dark skin and like for your president to lie to you...
Liberal hypocrisy? yeah, the only difference is that bush is a war criminal, and obama is... black? (that is the reason you people really hate him isn't it?)
And the old 'liberal media bias' argument is sooo tired! Stop crying about the media, jesus, you sound like a toddler still hung up about some toy he/she didn't get. Some people in the media like Obama so they portray him favorably. Some liked Bush so they helped to cover up his lies and genocides. This very article is evidence that there's plenty of reporting going on about anti-Obama sentiment, so wtf are u talking about?
I think some people don't know how to contribute constructive thought to anything so they just repeatedly resort to verbal (or in this case written) diarrhea.
Irony Alert! Irony Alert!
The left loonies did much worse to bush, they just lie and deny. It is in their DNA.
Obama is a socialist! No wait, can't be because he is a corporate stooge! No, no, no, truth is, he is a foreigner, perhaps even a fascist Nazi! Throw enough mud, see what sticks. You know what, most of us are going to go about our daily lives and struggles, then come the next election, we are going to compare where we were, with where we are at, and vote accordingly. The rest of you can go take a hike.
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Never heard of it, yet I heard of this repeatedly? What does that tell you?
Furthermore, it is a confirmed fact and a matter of historical record that the Bush's had direct financial ties to Hitler.
Certainly didn't see any coverage in the US of this, did you?
Guardian: How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
cue right-wing idiot: "Of course the biased, liberal left-wing-controlled media would say this. Obviously the person who wrote this article is an Obama supporter. The fact that I hate our current president more than any other liberal politician, and the fact that he's black, are of course, totally unrelated! Hey, you can't get an abortion, it's my choice not yours!"...and on and on..
Business ties, 20 year church relationships, Collegial board memberships with terrorists,....they can all be brushed under the rug if the media lets you slide...
Obama didn't kill hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims and thousands of American soldiers over greed and/or a lie to go to war. Bush did. If any recent president warrants this description it should fall the the shoulders that it came from.
Not long ago a group of younger LaRouche accolytes (I dunno what else to call them) assembled in front of a supermarket in the east SF bay area. There were five or six of them and they boasted to me that they'd made the long drive from Seattle just to come down here and make trouble.
I'm in my mid-forties and I've (somewhat) got a grip on accepted history, the correct context in which to frame it and "the facts" regarding history as we generally understand them.
These kids might as well have been talking about the NBA. Hitler and Nazism are not real to them in the slightest. They're too young to have even witnessed Geraldo getting clobbered by Nazi skinheads on TV. I've been beaten up by skinheads and it's not something I'd joke about.
If you want to be scared or offended, consider just how little empathy a person must have for other living beings in order to manipulate minds by reducing fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust into an old-wives tale.
"Eat your vegetables kids, or Hitler will gas you."
Anyone feeling me here? If we are going to euthanize old people with no redeeming social value...let Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and these LaRouche people be the first to go.
(If you're a right winger and that just offended you...please call my toll free complaint line at 1-800-F*CKOFF)
Isn't this LaRouche clown and his rumor machine the same jerk who started all the anti-Clinton myths about Whitewater, et al back in the 90's? Big surprise. And the irony of his bunch painting Obama as Hitler and a fascist would be laughable if the mess we're in weren't so critical.
Whitewater wasn't a myth and people were indicted, tried and conficted by a jury due to the "Whitewater" scam due to the FBI investigation into Whitewater.
Mellonscaife and his right wing rag The American Spectator started all the Clinton era lies.
Whitewater was the same as Neil Bush's scam,Silverado S&L, for which he never was indicted due to his daddy and their friends pull.
The Republicans were as nuts when Clinton won the election, they started the already decade old "case", and the hicks in Arkansas were duped by Starr and i believe even paid off, in my opinion.
You should never under estimate the evil of these rich right wing zealots. They are paranoid as hell with greed, which is a paradox since they are all so holier than thou. But you can not worship God and Mammon, and the Repugs choose Mammon.
Weird coincidence: two young Larouche-ees had a table set up on the street on Clement St. in San Francisco (hardly a bastion of the right). The strange thing was the two kids manning the table were black.
WTF?!? So I engaged the kids in constructive dialog (I believe the term "f*ckface" was used). Actually, a lot of people called them names like that. Eventually, they left the field when the police came to give them a parking ticket. Which is weird in itself...generally, tickets are given by meter-maids in SF.
Who are these kids?!? I believe they see themselves as martyrs for "the Cause." The take-home lesson is that kids who abused at home become abusive.
Obama is no Hitler. He is well-intentioned, though an inexperienced bumbler. In fact he may be unable to recognize the evil in such dictators as Hu, Putin, Chavez.
But there is one thing that bears comparison to the days of Hitler - the treating of Obama as cult leader, whose followers are filled with rage at any criticism of him and ready to take revenge on any critic. I hope he can control them.
It's not a matter
Of recognizing evil
Penscott-
It's all about deciding
How you deal with it.
Kowtowing to a US-hating dictator like Chavez is not a good way to deal with it.
As regards Iraq and Afghanistan and Gitmo, he is dealing with it by continuing the Bush policies. China and Russia? Seems to be pretty much a continuation of the Bush policies, with slight changes in nuance.
It's both Rita. There are a lot of ad hominem attacks these days. Business as usual, but with one difference. The ad hominem attacks are being waged on everyday citizens who ask tough questions ( and no i'm not talking about the La Rouche people, but the normal people who have real questions and are being thrown into the LaRouche bin.) That would torque me off.
What they are is classic smear tactics used by every oppressive regime around the world.
You hope he can control his well mannered orderly supporters, but have no problem with rightwing extremists trying to intimidate veteran's at the town hall in Phoenix?
Are you referring to those well mannered orderly supporters who have physically attacked conservative speakers and forced them to stop speaking, or who have created such disruption that a speaker gave up and left?
You are a comedian. On this very website there is a leading story about how liberals are pissed at their great leader.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/big-fat-story/2009-08-23/will-obama-lose-hi s-base-/?cid=hp:mainpromo7
What you accuse liberals of, blind, unyielding loyalty, is the exact issue I have with conservatives where group think is the mode of operation (exactly what this author points out). Conservatives can't even disagree publicly with Rush Limbough without getting a public spanking, while Liberals are ready to revolt because Obama is compromising their values too much.
"I hope he controls them"- You control people who show up to public forums with loaded handguns, you don't need to control people who show up to debate.
The irony is that this article is a smear attack linking any dissenter to LaRouche. Implying that the mainstream media isn't telling people that those that are upset about the President's policies are La Rouche followers. The natural message is that ALL of them might be...and this is ridiculous.
There are many retirees that are very worried. For the first time, I have heard young people refer to the "Greatest Generation" and "Baby Boomers" as a burden, rather than the builders of the greatest economic machine in history.
Generational warfare, interesting stuff, but definitely not the way the discussion should be framed. Is it too much to ask for a reasoned discussion of the key issues?
The fundamentally bad decisions by Congress in building these entitlement programs is never discussed, just whether LaRouche is behind the dissent.
What empty headed reporting and empty headed responses....
thank you for saying what we're all thinking. Right-wing hypocrisy LITERALLY has no limits. It's disgusting, and it's more similar to fascism than anything Obama has done, and probably ever will do.
@akcita
i'm not sure what artical you read but I read the one that links the Obama Hitler slurs to LaRouche. ALL the people using these slurs are LaRouche follwers by extension.
"What empty headed reporting and empty headed responses...."
empty headed reporting maybe, empty headed responses definitly
Since he's a "cult leader" he deserves to be compared to Hitler. You wrote that.
really.
A lot of Bush's policies reminded a lot of us of National Socialism and Germany during the 30's where people chose to follow blindly behind a fascist and allow themselves to be drug into needless wars and bad policies. But, saying Obama is only makes them look like what they have become....absurd! They have already discredited themselves in so many ways. Let them continue down that path until they become irrelevant.
Told you the Nazi's would be calling Obama a Nazi. Lee Atwater lives through death.
Cancel that. God Bless Lee Atwater, saved us from the left for a while.
The smartest white supremecist I've ever met (not that I in any way agree with him) did some Federal Prison time for growing pot in the late 80's - early 90's. He served his time with Lyndon Larouche and tells stories about how they (he and his fellow Aryans) referred to Larouche as Mr. President and would often Seig Heil him. Basically tormenting the squirrelly little nutcase. I wonder if there is any connection...
Every president, since at least Lyndon Johnson, has been compared to Hitler. LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush II -- all Hitler! This is just too plain silly. These guys were all wimps compared to the genuine article. Besides, Hitler had much better costumes.
His "Death Panel" was more effective, too. (I know - sick joke.)
bad alan! bad!
"wimps compared to the genuine article"
That's just wrong. Hitler was not courageous (assumed opposite of "wimp"), he was a bigger coward than anyone. (he killed himself you know)
Is this supposed to be a joke? if so, not very good
"Courageous" is not the opposite of "wimp." I would say "ballsy" is the opposite. Plus, I tested my joke and it received 100 on the jokeometer.
It does seem that our form of government shares many similarities with the Fascist policies of Mussolini and Franco without the insane race hatred of the Hitlerites. Massive collusion between the State and what amounts to monopoly or cartelized Capital along with our doctrine of pre-emptive war and the massive propaganda and distraction efforts of the mainstream media, lobbyists, and Madison Avenue are but a refinement of the old Oligarchical script. To say that Obama is a Nazi is close to insane. To say that he is fascistic is a reasonable, though arguable, point.
"To say that he is fascistic is a reasonable, though arguable, point."
No it isn't. Not even close. This cool site called wikipedia will do the explaining for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism
What a cop out.
Why don't you go read some of the socialist policies that Hitler used to rise to power. They are not unlike some of the Obama policies. Remember the Nazis were the National Socialist German Workers' Party and got there by lulling a significant part of the population into supporting them. The similarities between Wiemar politicians and our own wall street driven politicians is also interesting.
It's better to make a point yourself.
Thank you.
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