Rachel Maddow: The Right-Wing Intimidation Machine Invoking Fear Of Nazism & Provoking Assassination

[Turborama]

Run time: 07:54 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMlWm03-jJU   Posted on YouTube: August 07, 2009 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: August 08, 2009 By DU Member: Turborama Views on DU: 1812

 
Rachel recounts how the Right Wing of American politics is now stoking up the flames for political violence by using the spectre of Nazism and joking about assassination. Very scary stuff, indeed. What can be done to stop them before their dreams (our nightmares) come true?

ETA this comment posted on YouTube by "hinginator":

"Rachel is right. With all we know about Nazi Germany, killing Hilter was always seen as a justifiable act, and to compare Obama to Hilter is setting the stage for some extremist to do the unthinkable. It only takes one crazy person."

[midnight]

1. Corporate sponsered attacks on citizens who want rights is nothing

new. Look at how Mother Jones helped the citizens of the United States combate the violence against them and their families.

"There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things in life." Mother Jones

Who will step up to be the next mother jones?

[ScottLand]

2. I agree this is getting scary indeed.

And the Fox News people won't mind it one bit if one of their loyal misguideds decides to perpetrate an act of violence against the evil left.

It's no logic to say Hitler was good at making speeches; Obama is good at making speeches - therefore Obama is like Hitler.
It's like saying Audie Murphy was from Texas and he was a great war hero; George W. Bush was from Texas so he must be a great war hero too.

[scarface2004]

3. end of life program for right wing wackos?!?!?!?!

i guess we have the votes...let s do it!

[Moostache]

4. Scary is not the right word....my ONLY disagreement with Rachel!

The right wing is using "scary" in all their efforts against health care reform and Obama in general. They are invoking and stoking fear deliberately and then their more unhinged lunatic fringe is running with the lighted torches through the rooms with the powder kegs, throwing off sparks in all directions without rhyme nor reason. "Death panels"?!?!? REALLY???? "Death Panels"?!?!?!? Somewhere in the vast knowledge of the eternal universe, Lewis Carrol's contribution is smiling

"Scary" is not the correct characterization here...incitement to violence IS! It is a crime in America to incite others to violence.

From: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/inciting :
"...generally, in Criminal Law to instigate, persuade, or move another to commit a crime; in this sense nearly synonymous with abet."

God forbid someone is actually successful in a violent attack or actual assassination of ANY politician in this environment. If that unconscionable result were to occur, I would hope that the video of these people and their speeches - from Beck and Limbaugh right down to the carnival barker from the Patients First (or whatever front name they are using today) astro-turf movement are all held to account of the consequences of their words and actions! If aiding and abetting is a felony (as it is in many cases), then I would demand full prosecutions of every one of these people. Failure to do so would do what civil war could not - it would ensure that government of the people, by the people and for the people WOULD perish from the earth.

It is NOT free-speech infringement or political repression to tell people that they cannot yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater. This has become exactly analogous at this point...

[Gman2]

5. I predict, we will need more forebearance, than after Kent State.

This has been their strategy from the start. They think we havent the stomach for when it gets ugly. And in general, we dont. I know MANY lilly livered dems, that think I am vigilante for not cowering from any scene. For not hanging my head in shame, when MYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY rights are violated. To allow the system to steamroll me. Babies better grow up fast. The bluehairs think they are the great generation. They think We are children, that want to be taken care of. They think they are the parents. they think they can threaten to take a switch to us, iffen we talk back. Those are the LESS authoritarian types. The more hostile, think their children have dishonored them, and must suffer for it. By any means necessary.

[newmac]

6. The Ignorant of America will continue to drag us down

Stop calling them merely the far right. To go apoplectic over something non existant in a proposed bill, is inexcusable. Can these nutjobs not grasp complexity and nuance? Are they just victims of misinformation? Can they not think? Are the just dumb? Is Fox news to blame? Rupert Murdoch? The people who give air time to Glenn Beck? We have to keep these freaks off our airwaves.

[davidhilton]

7. i hate to say this...

but i think rachel is preaching to the choir
i love her show -its honest with integrity -
but how many of the town hall screamers are going to listen to her message?
well i have hope...and maybe her message/honest reporting of facts will make
it to some of these ill-informed americans...

[PatrynXX]

8. and republicans wonder why Jews usually vote Democrat??

Well this BS is bound to bring even more over to the Dems. Outright belittling what the Jews went thru in Nazi Germany.

Frankly if Hitler met Obama, Hitler would have him shot on site because he's black. And left wing. Probably would torture him first.

Anybody who took a political test during high school would know Fascism is right wing. And technically even Democrats at the time were right of center.

Socialism and Communism is left wing and the Dems are no where near that. But Since people don't mind Socialism right now, gotta call Obama a Facest (sp) because thats what the Republicans are.

As for Obama's health care symbol looking like Hitler's symbol. There's these construction semi's around that look more like that than Obama's. Bout as absurd as when Obama had this flag behind him and Fox cried foul that Obama corrupted the American flag to look like his O. Hello it was the Ohio state flag. Whoops.

[kwolf68]

9. The Right

Is trying to move the Nazi/Fascist tag to the Left, because they know they kowtow to much of Fascist principles:

-Nationalism
-Obsession with military
-Imperalism
-Global Hegemony
-Racism
-Purity of Blood

The only FASCISTS running around this nation right now proudly vote for the Republican Party (or are an active member therein).

They are already calling us Socialists and/or Commies...EVERYONE, even people who don't know anything, have an idea that the Dems are 'closer to Socialism' than the Repukes.

So how can the Repukes get away with calling Dems Fascist? BECAUSE WE HAVE NEVER USED THAT AGAINST THEM. For 30 years (or more) the Democratic Party has been systematically called 'socialist'...the word resonates, but not like it once did. In other words, they've called Carter, Clinton, Kerry, Obama, etc...socialist SO MANY times, people don't care anymore.

So they have now trotted out calling the Dems Nazi and/or Fascist, monikers that should clearly be stuck on the Republicans (if you wanna use extreme rhetoric). Republicans SO MUCH don't want people to know the extreme of their ideology is fascism. The Nazi Party in Germany was called "The National Socialsts..." though Nazism had nothing to do with socialists (other than turning them into soap). It's a clever move, but in my view, it's the move the Repugs are now taking...we're no longer socialists/commies, but rather both commies and fascists...and the only good, god fearing 'Muricans are the freedom loving Republicans, who are not extreme at all.

[bjobotts]

13. "...Honest to Hitler fascism begins now and this is our last chance to stop it".Read this:

8/07/09...From Facism: are we there yet, at Crooks & Liars:

“…That description sounds eerily like the dire straits our Congressional Republicans find themselves in right now. Though the GOP has been humiliated, rejected, and reduced to rump status by a series of epic national catastrophes mostly of its own making, its leadership can't even imagine governing cooperatively with the newly mobilized and ascendant Democrats. Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity.
When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage -- the transition to full-fledged government fascism -- begins.

Snip

“…the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."
This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding.
This is the catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it..."

[bjobotts]

14. This is about stopping the democratic agenda even if they have to overthrow the gov to do it.

[bjobotts]

15. They don't want the democratic majority to succeed and will destroy our democracy to prvent it

[bjobotts]

16. Hitler talked like Beck and Rush condemning and hating everything

[Douglas Carpenter]

10. kick and recommended for the truth !!!!

[JournalistKev87]

11. Something bad is coming

From day one of Obama's presidency I was fearful of the big A word. Not only am I concerned of Obama's safety, but of other democratic senators. These vile people of the right wing should realize that if any assassination happens--especially Obama's--that there would be riots in the streets. People of all race and color would be overcome with blood lust. In other words, it would start some kind of Civil War/Revolution.

[Turborama]

12. I don't think they'll stop until they're forced to, because Civil War/Revolution is their end game

These are the kind of loonies Rachel is talking about: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...