ENOUGH WITH THE NAZIS ALREADY.
This morning, after kill-switching the BBC World Service with disgust at the level of its propagandizing, I tried to listen to Scott Simon on NPR's Saturday Morning Edition. I've been listening to Scott Simon for decades. However, in recent years I have listened much less. Why? Well, something happened to Scott and to me along the way.
Simon used to be a quick-witted punster whose glib reactions to the news were refreshingly spontaneous. I could perceive an independent mind behind his broadcasting persona. I noticed a difference after he became a father. He began telling me ad nauseam that he was a father, for one thing. He went all puppies and kittens for some years. His edge blunted, then turned to cotton wool.
This morning, Scott Simon committed the unpardonable journalistic sin, in my view. He hosted an author of an apologist book about Germans and their Nazi past. This author, granddaughter of a German immigrant, should be congratulated on her timing. And I do not mean that as a compliment necessarily. Simon coaxed and led his witness like an ambulance chaser in front of a sleepy jury. He gradually drew from her a limp insinuation that these political times are somewhat reminiscent of 1930's Germany. I turned the dial to my classical music station. I was hoping they would play Beethoven or Wagner as antidote. Instead I was soothed by classical Spanish guitar.
The USA is not closely analogous to 1930's Germany. If you think it is, I recommend you read more about post-WW-I Germany and politics in general. And I recommend you use that knowledge to grow up a bit by honing your skepticism, if not also your active participation in the electoral process.
I do not dismiss valid Nazi analogies. One of my two grandmothers was the descendant of German (Bavarian) Jews. As a gay man, I have skin in the Nazi-vigilance game. Gay rights and gay culture in the developed world were set back 100 years by the Nazi persecution of organized Leftist homosexuals of the Weimar Republic. Homosexual academics and political leaders were purged after the rise of Hitler. Many gay men died in labor camps, a fact which is often contested (denied?) by those with vested interests in Holocaust exploitation for religious, social and political reasons. As a gay man today, I see the bulk of Nazi-wannabes in ANTIFA mobs and cadres of transgender-obsessed pawns of demented college professors.
Simon's insinuative leading of his radio guest smacked of the current Progressive Left media's lockstep propaganda against the Trump presidency. I suggest they look elsewhere for Nazi sympathizers. For example, George Soros, a major Jewish-born patron of the Progressive Left, worked for the Nazi regime in Hungary in his youth. His revelation of this on U.S. broadcast television in the 1990's came without the hint of remorse from him or reaction from others. The Progressive Left might also look to the Jewish Rothschilds, owners of the Bank of England. Their forebears actually funded the Third Reich. Finally, one might look more closely at Angela Merkel, whose father, Horst Kasner, was a troop leader of Hitler Youth in high school. Perhaps Nazi-guilt, combined with her Bilderberg-Group credentials, has a little something to do with Saint Angela's politics.
I think dredging up the specter of Nazi Germany belies anyone's ignorance of the dynamics of European history in the 19th and 20th centuries. The same airheads who gush over Queen Elizabeth and her offspring overlook the fact that their ancestors were entirely responsible for WW I. They ignore the support of Hitler by King Edward VIII, who was forced to abdicate but remained a popular royalist figure. Their fans ignore the fact that British royals live an exalted lifestyle on the backs of millions of dead soldiers and Jews due to their alliance with the Rothschilds' Bank of England. And they ignore the fact that the economic and social devastation of WW I by these bankers was largely responsible for the rise of National Socialism in Germany, alongside the utter incompetence of Left-Liberal leadership in the Weimar Republic.
Trump is an elected POTUS. His conflict with Congress and the US courts is a healthy sign of the Constitutional process of governance. He is not a fascist. The fascists in our midst are those so-called Progressives who would censor dissent from non-Progressives because they are angry that Hillary Clinton did not win. Their fantasies about how this nation would be significantly different under Clinton are just that ... fantasies, bordering on delusion.
Many of those howling "Nazi" at Trump today have been smugly silent during 16 Obama-Bush years of American invasions abroad which have killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, mostly Muslim, and displaced millions more. They cheered our invading and internationally destabilizing military. They thanked soldiers in these invasions and occupations for their service. Who among us are more likely to resemble the crowds who cheered on Hitler as he invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia? I suggest we all stop pointing and complaining. This country and our entire planet are falling apart on a purely physical level. All this political wrangling is distraction from real hard work that needs to be done, while it might still make a difference in the fate of the human species.
Simon's guest must have been Jessica Shattuck. She had a hand-wringing op-ed piece in the NY Times about her grandmother being a Nazi. The personal part of the piece I found confused and confusing, and I was left with the feeling this was a very worked on "poor me" bit of drama.
ReplyDeleteBut why was it there just a few days ago when her grandmother died in 2011? Guess. It ended on the same oh-oh! note that your essay is about.
Personally, I think President Trump is a popularly elected first class jerk, but I see no signs that his right arm is trembling to flash a "Heil!" sign. I would be more worried that the physical world will cross some never-to-return line before before we see neon swastikas on Trump Tower.
We have been a militaristic nation for most of our history. Hell, people want guns and more guns. Pointing at "Zee Germans" (one of the catch-phrases from the movie "Snatch") is pretty disingenuous.
ReplyDelete