Democratic Underground - Bush and Hitler - Is History Repeating Itself?

Thanks for the kind words, TheGoldenRule!

Here's something that bears repeating, writting in July 2001 by Cheryl Seal, a most prescient Democrat.

Bush and Hitler:

Is History Repeating Itself?

by Cheryl Seal
Democrats.com, July, 2001

No one expected Hitler to rise to power. He had failed at just about everything he had even undertaken until he discovered politics. In the world of spin and power plays, a superficial gift of gab and bullish determination could replace intelligence and idealism without missing a beat. Hitler found that the path to the top was short: Just tell a discontent people what they want to hear and make promises you have no intention to keep.

SNIP...

THE GOP OF 1936 AND TODAY'S DIRTY POLITICS:

How the Former Gave Birth to the Latter

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., FDR was attempting to guide the nation safely through the depression. The outrageous treatment of American workers throughout the industrial era up until that point by the corporate "bosses" had become a major issue. Men and women worked 12-14 hours a day, had no unemployment benefits, no health insurance, no safety regulations - no job security whatsoever. In response to this sorry state of affairs, labor unions were forming, but they were being met with brutal resistance by the Bosses and their henchmen. Because FDR championed the workers cause and called for all manner of reforms - including the social security system - he was identified as "the enemy" of the bosses. The Republican Party, the attack dog of big business even then, was turned loose on the President with a vengeance. His every step was "dogged."

Just as corporate America saw FDR as an enemy, many of them, including IBM and G.W. Bushs grandfather, saw in Hitler a friend and treated this vicious genocidal maniac with far more respect and deference than they did FDR. The GOP was to learn many of its nastiest tactics from Hitler and Goebbels, including using communism as a scapegoat/enemy of the state to consolidate power just as soon as they had a Republican back in the White House (Eisenhower in 1952).

Another Hitler tactic learned by the GOP was the use of the smear. Hitler advised telling a damaging lie about an "enemy," then repeating it over and over, no matter what proof may be offered to counter it. The GOP poured an unprecedented amount of money into the 1936 campaign of their candidate Alf Landon. The party launched what was then dubbed the "nationwide selling campaign strategy." To do this, observed political writer Ralph D. Casey in 1937, the party was showered with the money and vigilant efforts of "a small but determined group of businessmen."

Casey says the campaign was designed to be "an intensive, subtle, highly-organized salesmanship drive to unsell President Roosevelt and to sell Governor Landon and his highly-advertised common sense." (You have to hand it to the GOP for single-mindedness: theyre still using the same buzzwords - "common sense," et al. - after 65 years!).

The GOP "sales team" identified several key points of attack, which they have used with almost no variation in every campaign since, whether appropriate or not.

, although they have gotten a bit creative and now include environmentalists, anti-gun folks, and scientists on their list of "enemies of freedom"
* Condemn New Deal (i.e., government social programs) as communistic or in some other way unAmerican
* Manipulate statistics to own advantage
* Accuse opposition of waging a class war.

Day in, day out, the GOP attacked FDR, throwing suspicions on everything he did, and said, and on everyone he had ever known. His family dog was not even exempt from political attacks! FDR had nothing but contempt for this self-righteous underhandedness. He denounced the GOP as a pack of "economic royalists" who used the flag and constitution as smokescreens. "I welcome their hatred," he proclaimed.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bush_Hitler.html

Thanks for giving a damn, TheGoldenRule!

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