From 1918 until 1933 Germany had a democratic constitution. It had very high standards when it came to personal liberties and free speech, even if the words were wielded to harm and ultimately destroy the first functioning Republic in Germany.
Enemies of any democratic order started to throw doubts on the legitimacy of the Government right at the beginning. Eschewing policy discussions, they used taunts, false allegations and ridicule to demean the Republic’s representatives, institutions and symbols, thus shattering the already weak support for the Republic. Add to that the economic woes of the 1930′s and you see the foundation for the dictatorship that followed and the loss of any civil liberties Germans has had before.
What I have seen in your blogs and newspapers lately leaves me concerned for the prospects of the Obama Presidency. It is not mainly the ever loonier ravings of the clueless. There are absolutely inane and insane claims out there, from the birth certificate to the death panels to the indoctrination of your children. Some of the screaming mob of the right are hardly eloquent enough to order a one course meal in one sentence. Some are more than a few cards shy of a full deck, like Glenn Beck or Ann Coulter. Their pathetic appearances tend to make us cringe or laugh or both. However, we should never underestimate the power of their vile propaganda. Grain by grain the very fabric of your President’s standing will erode. All criticism from the right aims at discrediting the person and not his policies, thereby destroying the trust in the office of President.
What concerns me most is the institutionalized disrespect for your President. The heckling during President Obama’s speech is only one indication for that. Officials from Congressmen to school district supervisors are working hard to show that they neither respect Barack Obama as a President nor respect him as a man. They pick up the blathering of the crazies and disguise it in a more acceptable language to be made more palatable for the middle classes.
Let us not, due to intellectual disdain for the clearly anti-intellectual, underestimate the danger they pose. Many German intellectuals did it during the Weimar Republic and paid a very high price for it.
Just sayin’.
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Yup. Welcome to Weimar Germany 1923….
History might not repeat but it sure rhymes.
TtT, God forbid that it would repeat itself. It’s the upside of knowing a little history that one can see the parallels.
Well EV you’ve probably seen a couple of my outbursts on this:
1. ‘stab in the back’ reasoning for demonizing people who were against the war-de-jour – 1918 and 2006 (lets lump in Vietnam too as that war was still being fought here in 2004) – check
2. weak economy thanks to war effort creating anger and crises (at least in part) and large scale corruption – check
3. government prints money like mad leading to economic chaos – check
4. opposition to weak government spend time attacking the institutions of government with brown shirt tactics – check
5. downhome, folksy demagogue waiting in the wings – check
TtT, I realized you know history perfectly well. That makes your “outbursts” so interesting!
EV,
As long as the United States is able to put down the extremists waves from within that crop up from time to time, it will be successful. In my short existence we have survived WWII, Korea (the war), the Cold War, McCarthyism, the Contract for America and PNAC (Still a problem in the Near and Middle East.). Now GnOPe has surfaced to threaten the very fabric of our nation.
Enemies of any democratic order started to throw doubts on the legitimacy of the Government right at the beginning
Didn’t this also happen after BOTH the 2000 and 2004 elections to Bush as well?
false allegations and ridicule
Again, the entire Bush administration
All criticism from the right (or left, as the case may be) aims at discrediting the person and not his policies
Trigg is really Bristols son.
Bush is a recovering alcoholic and drug user.
McCain is too old.
Joe the (wanna be) Plumber isn’t a plumber.
Both sides play the politics of personal destruction.
school district supervisors are working hard to show that they neither respect Barack Obama as a President, nor as a man.
Nor are they required to.
Some of the screaming mob of the right are hardly eloquent enough to order a one course meal in one sentence.
I’ll have the tossed salad, Chateau brion, and strawberry cheesecake.
We have been the Weimar Republic for quite some time, not just since January.
EV,
regarding the “institutionalized disrespect”;
IMHO the insane demagogic ‘blather’ ISN’T being “disguised in more acceptable language” by GOP officials GOP but is actual being used by them verbatim.
Those Republicans that have avoided such extreme demagogic verbiage have simply stayed silent or even defended their colleagues using “more acceptable language” (basically re-interpretation and revisionism.
The corporate media has treated all the insane ranting as legitimate ‘concern’ on the part of a political opposition—totally ignoring the content or lack thereof and meaning of the vehement rhetoric.
The Republicans lost their control of the Government, but the corporations that favor the GOP and drive governance with campaign contributions and favors haven’t lost an inch of ground.
The corporatist media hasn’t changed a bit and what we called the 28-per-centers in early 2008 may now be down to 22% but there’s still the 10-15% of ‘independents’ and the 45% to 50% of those who NEVER VOTE..
All that’s needed is for the ‘Chaotics’ to destabilize the public faith in government, and they can claw back the ground they lost–aided by the brain dead corporate media owned by the mega-corporations.
It’s not a perfect parallel to the Weimar Republic, but it doesn’t have to be.
The media is controlled by corporations instead of the government.
The government is controlled by the corporations.
The 22-per-centers follow their leaders.
Instead of the Hitler Youth we have Jesus Camps, home schooling, and militias.
And we still have a remarkably complacent and ignorant section of the electorate with much to fear from chaos.
It’s all close-enough for me, to 1933 Germany.
hackerbob,
On September 12, 2001, the entire nation stood forward in support of George W Bush. Party lines vanished in an instant. The entire world, including Iran and Iraq, quickly followed suit.
That scarcely describes the situation today.
And it’s “Chateaubriand”, “Château Brion” or “Château La Mission-Haut-Brion” refers to a fine French burgundy. You misspelled “Château” as well.
Hey Walt, I said I could order it, not spell it. Hell, I can even prepare it if you like
. But can I still have the wine?
But really, the party lines vanished in an instant? Is that why we heard from many on the other side of the aisle that Bush was selected, not elected, for 8 years? OK, minus the couple of months after 9/11.
The short point to my post was that neither side has the market on the things in EV’s post. It is all political gamesmanship.
I agree that those that attack the PERSON and not the POLICIES are wrong. And both sides are wrong when they do it.
Hmmm…..
The difference between the things you cite as opposed to insanity being spouted right now (birthers, death panels, etc..) is that the current craziness just isn’t true, and has been proven to be completely false and baseless.
Big difference. No comparison. The Republicans are just making this stuff up as they go in order to create fear and confusion and they can’t back any of it up with facts or evidence.
Bush IS a recovering alcoholic and drug user. (True)
Joe the (wanna be) Plumber ISN’T a plumber. (True)
McCain probably IS too old. He demonstrated it a number of times throughout the campaign with his confusion. That is just subjective.
I’m not touching the Trigg thing.
Why would you even want to use those as examples..?
And there are entire BOOKS written in great detail with tons of facts and numbers about how the results of the 2000 and 2004 elections come into great question and why. Just because you can’t accept it doesn’t make it not true.
hackerbob,
Bush had the support of the world and nation (both parties) until about mid-year 2003. At that point, it became apparent that he was shooting from the hip from an empty holster.
Over the years, I have had to deal in six languages beyond English. The Japanese has entirely escaped me, because my amah in China was in daily contact there when I was an infant, I do understand some Mandarin when orders are barked in Chinese restaurants.
hackerbob,
as nwmuse points out your comparisons aren’t equal.
By your methodology there is no difference for example between hitting someone and murdering someone, because the lowest common denominator is an act of violence.
If that is the level at which you discriminate then I have to wonder how you make your choices in this world.
“Enemies of any democratic order started to throw doubts on the legitimacy of the Government right at the beginning
Didn’t this also happen after BOTH the 2000 and 2004 elections to Bush as well?”
Certainly in 2000 with the sole fact that William Rehnquist voted twice in an unprecedented, not precedent-setting ruling with questionable legal jurisdiction and certainly disenfranchising those Florida voters whose vote was *never* counted.
I would say that at least in 2000 and with half of the Ohio voting board under investigation for 2004, probably again in 2004, that both Bush ‘elections’ were as dubious a Mohammed Karzai’s (though not quite up to Ahmadinnerjacket’s recent joke).
NO comparison hacker Bob, no questions of any substantiation (or are you a ‘birther’?) on the Obama election.
Sorry your ‘I know I am but what are you’ is a baseless argument.
“school district supervisors are working hard to show that they neither respect Barack Obama as a President, nor as a man.
Nor are they required to. “
The same school supervisors who wouldn’t show the Obama speech but are bussing their students to a Chimpy address?
http://eideard.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/texas-schools-ban-obama-speech-bus-students-to-hear-bush-wtf/
WTF? So if respect is not their obligation, why the rush to rank hypocrisy?
Well it is Texas, I suppose taking Obama out for a ‘drag’ is more in keeping, eh?
EV, excellent post. I’m always interested in Europe’s take on what is going on here.
5th, thanks for mentioning the media angle. This is most important, of course. The Hugenberg press was playing the role Murdoch has these days. And corporations, mostly those profiteering from war were financing the lot then as it is today.
It is, however, the psychology of the masses, the dwindling support for your democracy and the emergence of what calls itself the “Real America” that gives me the willies.
hb, I have nothing to add to what has been said in answer to your post. You’re comparing apples to pears.
Since I’ve been alive, the disrespecting the President has been an important American tradition. History amply demonstrates that we’ve been loudly dissing the Prez since the foundation of this country. So comparing the quintessential example of American freedom of speech (one which has been celebrated for centuries) to a short-lived and outlying decade in Germany just isn’t fair.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with these idiots at all. Whether they’re intentionally trying to unravel the moral and social fabric of the U.S.A. or they’re just the idiotic dupes of those who do, the fact is they’re basically the enemy of everything that America stands for.
But one of the things that America has always stood for is the practice of completely abusing the person we elected to run the joint.
elbruces,
But, not to the point of sedition or threats on the life of the president. If the flames are fanned enough, some idiot will think that an issue can be solved with a bullet. That was also part of America’s past, starting with John Wilkes Booth.
In addition, I believe that Germany has been around for slightly more than one decade. The period of the Third Reich in Germany was the result of conditions that closely match those in the US today. That is the point of this thread.
Direct threats against the life of the President are currently illegal.
The status of seditious speech is technically indeterminate at present; there is a law still on the books outlawing it, but that law has been all but neutered by SCOTUS rulings. So seditious speech is effectively legal in the U.S. right now.
… and has been since 1957.
elbruces,
I perfectly remember the time when Clinton was President and of course Bush II is very present in my memory, too, as are Bush I and Reagan. All have been dissed a lot, I agree. But that was not my point.
The point is never to accept and never to underestimate the dynamics of populism, never mind how stupid you think its propagandists are. Once in a while some populist knight in shining armour comes along and rallies the dissatisfied, scared and angry. And it mostly starts with the kind of disrespect for government institutions I mentioned in my post. Those people mix simplistic views with myths and lies turned into snappy slogans designed to scare you away from reason. It works. My point in a nutshell: Take care of your democracy. If you don’t, you may have reason to regret it.
As walt correctly pointed out, the conditions in the US of today are a fertile ground for anti-democratic sentiment.
Direct threats are a gimme. In fact in the past when I came across even a hint of a direct thread in a blog I advised the owner or staff. I still do.
As to provisions on seditious actions – they are threaded throughout The Patriot Act of 2006.
EV,
Are you watching the late night show?
walt, I can’t, I don’t have it over here.
I guess I missed alot of the disrespect thing growing up, but I don’t remember it ever being at this level. I guess hackerbob means Chevy Chase falling off a ladder is equal to bringing a gun to an Obama town hall.
As Olbermann said last night, no house torn assunder will survive half stupid and half smart… or something like that.
It’s pretty clear what he’s refering to.
Well, between Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and now Obama, we’re into the 6th consecutive term of the Presidency without any major assassination attempts. That’s probably a record, considering a full half of the previous six Presidents have been shot at. So I think we’re doing all right right now.
I am concerned that the current crop of dissidents do seem to be pretty much advocating a fascist overthrow of government, more so because they consistently say the opposite of what they do. But for all the free the media attention that they’re getting, they don’t actually seem to be getting the polling support that would be necessary to pull such a thing off. In fact, they’re still shrinking even as they grow louder and louder. Furthermore, if the last election is anything to go by (and it’s really all we ever have), a greater portion of the electorate is paying attention to politics than ever before, which further helps to inoculate democracy against takeover by a violent minority.
Welcome to the Zoo, El Bruce!
Sorry I can’t stick around right now, but I hope we’ll see you again soon.
elbruces,
I hate to bring up clichés, but it takes but one rotten apple to spoil the barrel.
WaltTheMan,
Many of the darkest moments of American history have been brought about by (or at least enabled by) an attempt to “crack down on sedition.” My answer to this sort of cure is the same I have for wingnuts – there’s just no point in abandoning what America stands for in order to save America from any threat, no matter how dire.
Just because you’re on the “winning side” at the moment doesn’t mean that the tools that you help to authorize might not be used against you in the future. I’m reminded of 1996, when the Republican Congress gave the next President a temporary line-item veto, expecting Bob Dole to win. So they ended up giving Clinton the line-item veto for his second term. Oops! Much of the reason that wingnuts are so afraid of fascism right now is that so many “tools” (habeus corpus, wiretapping, etc) have been placed in the hands of their enemy. Oops! They sure didn’t think about that when Bush was in office and they were pushing for more and more executive authority every day. Now imagine what the next Republican President would do to us if armed with effective anti-sedition laws. Because that would eventually happen. And that’s exactly why “limited governnment” is a core American principle.
Also, clichés ain’t arguments.
I know this is way after the fact and won’t be read but:
TerrytheTurtle
September 10, 2009 at 8:11 pm
No, I am not a “birther”.
No, the districts that wouldn’t show Obama’s speech should not have been bussing kids to a Bush speech. If politics are going to be left out, they need to be left out completely.
nwmuse
September 10, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Bush IS a recovering alcoholic and drug user. (True)
Joe the (wanna be) Plumber ISN’T a plumber. (True)
And these facts are both relevant how? Does the fact that Joe is not really a plumber somehow invalidate his question?
Does the fact that Bush is a recovering drunk and former drug user instantly make him a liar? If that is the standard then Obama is a liar because he has admitted to drug use. Ted Kennedy was (by all indications) a functional alcoholic. Does that make them liars as well?
I am not advocating for either side. I see both sides playing the same game.
Again, long story short, both sides do it. It just hurts more when your side is the target.
elbruces
September 11, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Well said!
EV
September 11, 2009 at 2:27 pm
As walt correctly pointed out, the conditions in the US of today are a fertile ground for anti-democratic sentiment.
Or pro-democratic, depending on the stronger will of the people.