Bush-Hitler or Obama-Hitler?

There is no resemblance between honest progressives who compare Bush to Hitler and dishonest reactionaries who smear Obama as one; no “shared incivility or inappropriateness” between those progressive and reactionary critiques. That argument could only be made by brazenly double-dealing Republicans and Democrats scared of their philosophical shadow.

Every time a Republican is caught lying for-the-record for the fifteenth time, cheating on his taxes and stealing someone else’s, the first thing out of his mouth will be the first line of defense of every five-year-old caught red-handed: “But he did it first!”

The most excruciating example of this false similarity is the one whereby any Republican Yahoo may accuse Obama of being a Nazi Communist Socialist Kenyan-born Muslim, because some progressive dared to compare Bush to Hitler previously. Like me. Enthusiastically. Besides, for anyone with a basic education in history, those Obama insults cancel each other out. You cannot be a (God fearing) Muslim and an (atheist) Marxist at the same time; but never you mind… as Republicans, imbecility suits you.

The match the Tea Party and Republicans have made, between Obama and Hitler, is ridiculous; it confirms their ignorance and stupidity, unless it’s their passion for lies and cons. However, no Democrat or progressive can dismiss parallels between Hitler and Bush with mere expressions of good will and good wishes, and retain a pretense at honest historical analysis. Such a dismissal is nothing more than moral cowardice.

As for Bush and Hitler:

Both were elected to the Presidency using questionable methods, with disputed electoral returns not subject to impartial audit, without an electoral plurality, and in violation of their respective Constitutions.

Both were upheld by Supreme Courts packed with Party Loyalists.

Both initiated wars based on publicly broadcast lies.

Both ran their wars (and the rest of their Administration) with inexcusable incompetence and no improvement over time.

Both made use of public disasters (the Reichstag Fire and 9/11) to further their belligerent agendas.

Both placed Party Loyalists in positions of judicial responsibility, when those jobs should have been entrusted to apolitical professional bureaucrats.

Both created new, anti-Constitutional prison systems independent of judicial review.

Both created anti-Constitutional police states based on illegal intelligence gathering.

Both instituted sadistic systems of deliberate torture and mistreatment beyond the law that were eventually applied to the citizens of their country, supposedly under Constitutional protection.

Both used the Nation’s judicial system to persecute their political opponents.

Both had browbeaten media critics and gotten them fired, thus encouraging the rest to cringe respectfully and submit to a long series of Administration swindles and lies without a whimper.

Both appealed to the ignorance, stupidity, fear and greed of the most bigoted minority of the population (their ‘political base’) to justify their immoral policies. Both used the sense of self-entitlement, the paranoia, xenophobia and persecution complexes of ignorant masses to mold their opinions to favor evil.

Both violated the Constitution they were sworn to uphold (our Constitution’s definition of High Crimes and Misdemeanors – so far unpunished in Bush’s case).

Both Presidents surrounded themselves with criminal advisors (later condemned).

Both sneered at global diplomacy and other world leaders, pronouncing themselves superior to them and independent of their requirements, even though they obviously were not.

Both ruined the country placed in their care: Bush economically, Hitler militarily.

No German Right-Winger apologized for German Nazis ruination of the German State, even though they supported them with all their might. No American Right-Winger apologized for Bush and his serial corruption and incompetence ruining America, even though they voted for him through two fraudulent elections. Apparently, right-wingers never feel the need to admit their errors: the giveaway sign of a sociopath.

The U.S. government & media’s concerted effort to sweep this diabolical likeness under the rug has created a lethal precedent for the next set of wannabe Republi-fascists not too distant on the political horizon. “After all, Bush got away with a pseudo-Nazi Administration, and was never punished for it; why not do it Right, next time, and go all the way?”

I can’t tell what is scarier: Bush’s fascistic high crimes and misdemeanors, or the cowardly refusal of his replacements, from Obama on down, to inflict an exemplary punishment on him and his co-conspirators, and thus head off their fascistic successors’ rotten misdeeds. Instead, the sharp wedge of fascism was spiked into the heart our Constitution. We have established a legal precedent behind which every future American tyrant and tyrant lover may find refuge.

The similarities listed above, between Bush and Hitler, are clear and straightforward; no such one can be listed between Obama and Hitler. However, a much more subtle and shifting resemblance does exist, between the Obama Administration and Hitler’s immediate predecessors: the liberal democrats of the German Weimar Republic (1919-1933, from just after the end of World War I until Hitler took over).

As for Obama and Weimar democrats:

Both groups were in the Opposition, until they took over from a Far-Right that had wrecked the Nation.

Both groups paid lip service to liberal democratic principles while betraying them at every opportunity. “Liberal”: formerly a term of respect denoting grace and charity; now corrupted into its corporate opposite.

Both groups honored elite-countersigned treaties that bankrupted the Nation and destroyed many of its jobs to pay off international corporate interests.

Both groups oversaw massive transfers of wealth (a large chunk of GNP) upwards to corporate elites, and oversaw the pauperization of the middle class and the bankruptcy of the Nation.

Both groups supported Capital over Labor, and corporate elites over the People.

Both groups were infamous for shielding criminal banking and financial activities, and hiring the perpetrators to dictate financial policy for the Nation.

Both groups aggravated the militarization of civilian police functions.

Both groups disempowered and trivialized their progressive base in favor of corporate, right-wing policies.

Both groups introduced job-creation programs with the utmost reluctance and at the last possible moment – thus surrendering propaganda credit for those new jobs to the fascistic government that wound up taking their place.

Both groups wasted away their initial popular support through ceaseless cooperation with right-wing elites and cooptation by them.

Both groups were criticized and parodied by increasingly popular and politically ineffectual comedic troupes (the only media announcers anyone could have trusted, eventually, who wound up cracking their last jokes behind barbed wire).

Eventually, the Weimar democrats were left flat-footed and powerless by their fascist replacements. The most popular, powerful and honest Weimar politicians wound up serving time in concentration camps, without a clue what had happened to their famous and classical Western representative democracy, and how they could have prevented its dissolution into Nazi tyranny. After all, they had slavishly done everything their corporate masters had told them to do. What could possibly have gone wrong?

Here in America, that is more or less everything we have to look forward to, quite likely.

Please note: Obama could have taken an entirely different path than that of Weimar Germans after World War One. He could have adopted the progressive policies that Franklin Roosevelt adopted after he took over from the Right-Wing (as usual) ruination of the Great Depression, and garnered all the popular support that Obama has lost, since he has chosen to embrace the same corporate corruption that has always landed us in this mess, before and since. Obama has failed his mandate and wasted his electoral advantage; there is nothing more to expect from him, than his Weimar-style surrender to the fascists.

So, if I anyone accuses you of calling Bush a fascist and tells you that designation is just as inappropriate as calling Obama a Nazi Communist Socialist Kenyan-born Muslim, please refer this Republican Yahoo to my written rebuttal – assuming he can read. And, if that accusation comes from a so-called progressive or liberal, ask that invertebrate where he mislaid his backbone.

It’s time to replace all those corporate puppets, Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, ad nauseum: the best Republican money can buy and that Democrats will hold their nose and vote for. Let’s start looking for the first of a long line of Franklin Roosevelts and their Administrations of unrivaled honesty for the 21st Century, why don’t we?