Meditate for a moment on this latest manifestation of mental unbalance by prominent Conservative lunatic Dr. Ben Carson:
Ben Carson: No, I'm Not Sorry I Compared U.S. To Nazi Germany
Conservative Ben Carson isn't backing down from his previous statements likening progressives and Obama supporters to Nazi sympathizers.
The topic was broached and reported on in a profile of Carson in The Washington Post.
"You can't dance around it," Carson told The Washington Post's Ben Terris. "If people look at what I said and were not political about it, they'd have to agree. Most people in Germany didn't agree with what Hitler was doing…Exactly the same thing can happen in this country if we are not willing to stand up for what we believe in."
In February Carson suggested that liberals could turn the country into Nazi Germany...
Well of course Ben Carson is not sorry. Conservatives don't do sorry. No matter how despicable or insane what comes out of their pie-holes may be, the only thing Conservatives do anymore is "Say it again, only louder."
So meditate on that for a moment, and then consider that the clowns who believe that Ben Carson is the savior of the GOP are the same fucking clowns who said that Scary Negro Barack Obama was automatically disqualified from being President of these United States because he was in the zip code as Scary Negro preacher Jeremiah Wright who said an intemperate thing that one time (and was, of course, taken wildly and deliberately out of context by the entire Conservative Noise Machine, forever and ever, amen):
But you know what? I actually agree with what Dr. Carson said, although not in any way that would make him happy.
The despair and rage and paranoia of post-WWI Germany that made the rise of Nazism possible -- an overpowering sense of betrayal and lost greatness... an obsession with race and purity... a berserk hatred of impure outsiders and immigrants... a willingness to believe the most paranoid conspiracies about fifth columns and internal enemies ... the relentless scapegoating of (among others) minorities, foreigners, intellectuals, unions and Liberals ... the round-the-clock raving of demagogues -- are precisely the same toxic conditions which prevail within the Republican Party and the Conservative Movement today.
And, just as in Germany, all of it is being purposefully orchestrated and bankrolled by wealthy industrialists, propagandists, amoral opportunists, con men and various other psychopaths and scumbags.
All of which is plainly, terrifyingly obvious...
...to anyone who isn't competing to lead the American Fascist Party's torch-lit parade back to the Dark Ages.
16 comments:
Do the Ben Carson!
It's a shuck to the right,
and a jive to the far right.
When your mission is to replace representative democracy with oligarchy, you need as many shills as you can get. And they can't all look the same, either.
Here's a little equation I threw together earlier to determine how much someone is willing to sell themselves for.
If:
LoI x APL
______ < $X
CD
Where:
LoI = Lack of Integrity
APL = Ability to project onto Liberals
CD = Cognitive Dissonance
X = Amount payed to own someone.
Ben Carson's $X value is likely higher than some, and lower than others. The actual $X value is irrelevant, most of the time anyway.
It's just a mathematical equation to show ownership. A mathematical lease on a person's soul, if such things exist.
Regardless of whether the person is an actual believer or not, they are just as guilty as the true believers. I'd personally argue that in some ways, it's even more obscene because its done out of greed, the love of money and all that.
What is it with doctors and conservative insanity?
Not just Carson, but Bill Frist, Broun in Georgia, Tom Coburn, etc. Conservatism is the triumph of the power of money over all other values (that's what that "FREEDOM!" nonsense is about).
So I guess these guys just identify absolutely with their, uh, economic class.
Good morning, Mr. Glass.
Barack Obama...the mouse that, for whatever reason, terrifies elephants.
"The reason that is so horrible is because the only way that you have harmony and reach consensus is by talking. But if, in fact, people are afraid to talk, you never reach consensus. And instead you grow further and further apart. And that’s exactly what’s happening, creating a horrible schism that will destroy our nation if we don’t fix it."
Oh! So we can fix everything in this country if people just TALKED! Golly, why did nobody think of this sooner?
Enjoy your day.
---Kevin Holsinger
DG, you should be required reading.
@bowtiejack
...By-and-large, I've noticed that people don't become doctors in order to help others anymore - they become doctors for the bags of filthy lucre that the elite of the medical profession can command.
Since conservativism is in part or whole money-driven, it's a natural fit.
Going to have to disagree with you, DG. While you (correctly) note many parallels between the US today and Weimar, one crucial difference that has struck me again and again in my studies is the utter indifference (and even disdain) great swathes of the political center possessed toward democracy at the time. I realize this can sound like I'm saying, "they didn't lurve freedum!!" but you have to recall this was a society where most had lived under autocracy--republicanism (small "r") was regarded at best as a bold experiment.
There has been many religious conservative revolutions that have wrought dysfunction. When they are all based on superiority of a few, the bidding of the few. Imagining that their efforts will distinguish them in the eyes of the few for the future of themselves and their children.
One of these religious conservative efforts comes out of the Old Testament.
Believe me when I tell you as one who grew up in the 60's and 70's. That there use of Deuteronomy 21 was put into effect and I am here to tell you I survived And it made me stronger.
I became efficient getting off the ground.They so polluted the ground it was not pleasant to be on. So much so I was able to rise above the tree tops and see out beyond the forest thicket..!
---Deuteronomy 21
18 If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
19; Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
20; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
21; And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
I withstood their stoning.....
and my own.
I'm not going to lie. I find a more than mild irony that Dr. Carson belongs to the party that has also lately been trying to sell the "But slavery really wasn't that bad or even really bad at all. It was just like a long term contract job that didn't leave you an opt out for mid contract termination!"
So all I can hear from the wingnut-o-sphere bubble is "Obamacare is the worst thing since slavery! But remember folks, slavery wasn't that bad."
Oh the fun mental images you can come up with when you stop caring to segment the different venn diagram areas of the wingnut-o-sphere.
@bowtie:
I've read various things on cognitive dissonance and one of the latest studies has shown that the smarter someone is, the more likely the person will be able to devils' advocate away any and all evidence contrary to their own beliefs.
But mainly you're talking about cognitive dissonance. Here's a great article that discusses it in relatively decent length and has plenty of links.
http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/
Anonymous at 10:29: I've come to realize that a lot of people on the left throw around the word "fascism" with a very weak historical sense of what classical European fascism really was. It wasn't "liberal" as the verbal diarrheists of right-wing talk-radio would have you believe, and it wasn't "conservative" as the college-campus hotheads on the left would have you believe.
Rather, it was totalitarianism from what you might call the radical center. I recommend Archdruid John Micheal Greer's three-part treatment of the subject for a much-improved understanding of how to define fascism as it truly existed in its heyday. To read them in order, you need to start with the second-from-bottom post and work your way up, as the link is to a monthly-archive blog-page. :-)
Mister Roboto - Since we're musing on nomenclature, I appreciate your reference re fascism but also would note a different but similar throwing-about of the term totalitarianism. I'd suggest that nearly everywhere it's used (including in your comment) the term should be authoritarianism. The controlling impulse of totalitarianism needs to arise from outside of human control, or it's not "total." There is no political form, whether Communism, Fascism or Obamacare, that is totalitarian. I'd reserve the term for the ineluctable endpoint of capitalism a la Debord's "Society of the Spectacle."
Driftglass,
I was in the local wine bar the other day and one of the local conservatives started talking about this same meme, about the USA now being like Nazi Germany. I started blocking out the conversation after about the second sentence. And that leads me to the word of the day from the online dictionary: Ursprache – “a hypothetical reconstructed parent language, as Proto-Germanic…” Its usage could go something like this: “You might as well be speaking Ursprache, for all that I understood about what you just said.” This will now be my new response to all my conservative acquaintances when they start talking about the latest bullshit meme/talking points of the day. Because, as we all know, there is not a discussion to be had with conservatives any more.
Added bonus of the day: Have you heard about the folks in Modoc and Siskiyou counties on the California/Oregon border wanting to create a 51st state called the “State of Jefferson.” This is the quoted reasoning: “We don’t need government from the State telling people in a county what to do with their resources and their children’s education. You are better equipped to educate your children than the state or federal government.” Hence my response would be “You might as well be speaking Urspache, for all I understood about what you just said.”
Please feel free to indulge yourself in the obvious circular firing squad idea about wanting to become a state government because you hate the state government. And the cherry on top is the idea of becoming another state of the United States which usually implies that “…a region or territory is so aligned, supportive, and conducive with the United States that it is like a U.S. state.” (Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/51st_state)
@Mister Roboto - both sides! Really? We know the right are full of shit when they say "Obamacare" is fascist but campus-college hotheads declaring "conservative" to be fascist - I don't think so. Unless you have a specific instance in mind of course - I would be glad to see it.
@Pinkybum: Well, at the very least, I can tell you didn't go to college in Madison! :-D
PS WRT to the Cabaret clip: Good clip, but it always seemed terribly unlikely to me that a random Hitlerjugend would have such a brassy and classically-trained voice. And having him sing English lyrics with a German accent ("....but zoon zere's a vhisper, ahrise, ahrise....") takes away rather than adds to the effect. If you're going to be that over the top, why not also have him wear a monocle and carry a bullwhip, for fuck's sake?
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