Wednesday, March 1, 2017

Nazi echoes

Well-dresssed nazi as the BBC envisions him (Richard Lintern as Charles Lucas)
Suppose I told you a politician gave a speech and that the principle themes were

1. economic autarky

2. huge expansion of armaments

3. denunciation of unfair treaties

4. hypernationalism and xenophobia

5. denunciation of 'enemies of the people'

Suppose further that I asked, was this speech given by Hitler or Trump? Could you decide which it was?

No, you couldn't, because Trump's speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference was a purely Nazi speech. And the brownshirts leapt to applaud as eagerly at the Gaylord National Center as they used to do at the Kroll Opera House.

I recommend an episode from the final season of the BBC series "Foyle's War," which was first shown in 2014. The writer, Anthony Horowitz, bases his plots on real events and they are carefully researched. The episode "Trespass," which concerns the British attempt to keep Jews out of Palestine in 1946, has a character called Charles Lucas who is based on Mosley, the British fascist.

Lucas gives a speech, which takes only 90 seconds or so,  which is a concentration of fascist rhetoric of the '30s and '40s. It is brilliantly done. And it sounds exactly like Donald Trump.




16 comments:

  1. Why is it you don't link to the speech, or pull quotes that demonstrate your "points"?

    Oh, silly me. The answer is obvious: you were a journalist.

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  2. If you wish to comment, address the post.

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  3. I did. There's nothing there except your unsubstantiated excrescences.

    May I take it that's all there is?

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  4. Why are you pretending to be stupid?

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  5. Harry, you took extremely broad bullet points, completely untethered from what Trump said, and used them as a vile means to equate Trump to Hitler.

    Instead, if you had any honor, which you don't, you would have compared Trump's speech to a Hitler speech.

    Your post was completely untethered from reality. Therefore Trump = Hitler.

    I don't think you are pretending to be loathsome.

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  6. Economic autarky?

    Clearly, you have no earthly idea what that word means, as proven by using the word "economic" right next to it.

    That is some superpowerful ignorance you have going on there.

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  7. Up to you to rebut the comparisons if you can. They're your crickets

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  8. Up to you to rebut the comparisons if you can. They're your crickets

    Your comparisons are a hard vacuum. You define nothing, you don't even know how to use "autarky" in a sentence.

    Read this. But since I know you won't, here are some pull quotes:

    “This Donald Trump Rally Looks Like a Scene from Nazi Germany,” intoned the Huffington Post. “In Trump’s America, echoes of Weimar. Pay close attention,” warned the New York Daily News. “It was funny for a little while. But the guy is Hitler. And by that I mean that we are being Germany in the ’30s. Do you think they saw the shit coming? Hitler was just some hilarious and refreshing dude with a weird comb-over who would say anything at all,” said comedian Louis C K. “When I saw [the] gathering of the Republican party retreat,” said former Mexican president Vicente Fox, “Trump being there reminded me of Hitler addressing the Nazi party.” Instances of this mass hysteria have been appearing on a weekly basis, revealing an historical illiteracy so vast that it could contain 1,000 books on the Holocaust.

    You and Lois CK and Vicente Fox: pea's in a foul pod.

    The balance of the book review shows how the book described the travails of the Jews in three cities: Minsk, Bialystok, and Krakow.

    It is the outro you really need to pay attention to:


    These facts are documented online, in countless films, in grade-school textbooks, in voluminous histories, in contemporary accounts, and in biographies. Those who refuse to acknowledge the truths of these works we know as Holocaust deniers, but those who persist in comparing Adolf Hitler with any U.S. politician reveal themselves as members of a group just to the side of the Holocaust denier—the Holocaust trivializer. There are no lower categories.


    Well done, Harry.

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  9. You claim to know a great deal about the Nazi movement, though you have never shown any sign of it. If you take a calming pill and read what I wrote you might notice that all my comparisons of Trump with nazi administration and speechifying refer to the '20s and '30s.

    Nothing that happened in Russia in 1941 applies to that, does it?

    Until you can show some sign -- any sign - that you have studied Hitler's career and the development of his party, I request you to stop commenting on it on this blog, ecase, you knw, I dislike holocaust trivializers like you.. (If you would like a useful suggestion for further reading, there have been many reviews here atRtO.)

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  10. [Harry:] If you take a calming pill and read what I wrote you might notice that all my comparisons of Trump with nazi administration and speechifying refer to the '20s and '30s.

    Compare this with your post:

    Lucas gives a speech, which takes only 90 seconds or so, which is a concentration of fascist rhetoric of the '30s and '40s.

    Behold the power of the direct quote!

    Nothing that happened in Russia in 1941 applies to that, does it?

    But a great deal of what happened in Russia in 1941 applies to nazi rhetoric of the fascist rhetoric of the '30s and '40s.

    Behold the power of the direct quote!

    Until you can show some sign -- any sign - that you have studied Hitler's career and the development of his party, I request you to stop commenting on it on this blog ...

    Until you can show some sign -- any sign -- that you have any idea what you posted on your own damn blog, then maybe you should stop commenting on your own damn blog, on account of self inflicted wounds are pathetic.

    Oh, and in addition to not being able to use "autarky" correctly, and having inordinate difficulties with plural nouns, reading comprehension is definitely a festering wound with you.

    Anyone with even glancing familiarity with the blindingly obvious would have quickly taken on board the obvious point: only odious people such as yourself, and a great many other progs, so promiscuously traffic in Godwin's Rule.

    Pro-tip: the only one you are fooling is yourself.

    Pro-tip 2: You need to learn The Power of the Direct Quote! Doing so would go leagues to preventing those ever so embarrassing self inflicted wounds.




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  11. You have yet to demonstrate any knowledge about the operation and development of nazism and until you try I will not be remarking about anything you write on this topic as I have no use for anyone who trivializes the nazi/fascist political phenomenon

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  12. Harry, who the heck do you think you are fooling?

    You don't know what you wrote, and your reading comprehension is abysmal.

    Behold, once again, the power of the direct quote:

    ... those who persist in comparing Adolf Hitler with any U.S. politician reveal themselves as members of a group just to the side of the Holocaust denier—the Holocaust trivializer. There are no lower categories.


    Has nothing whatsoever to do with the nazi/fascist/communist political phenomena, but rather fools that, like you, promiscuously sling "nazi" about is if it was akin to choosing the wrong wine with fish.

    There have been many candidates for peak Ranting the Odious; your foul spew here could well be the winner. You are hoist on your own petard.

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  13. Re-read your comment and see if you can spot your glaring constitutional ignorance.

    As you continue your foul spew.

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