the n-word
November 29, 2006 6:30 AM Subscribe
Just don't say the n-word.
Oh, it's worse than all that. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of geese goose-stepping! In public!
posted by jonmc at 6:48 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by jonmc at 6:48 AM on November 29, 2006
I thought my Godwin sense was tingling this morning.
posted by fenriq at 7:02 AM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by fenriq at 7:02 AM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]
I'm still waiting to see two missing elements emerge:
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!); and
(2) A real and widespread sense of economic and social chaos that attended Europe and especially Germany in late teens through the early 30s. (Or has that been overrepresented? How bad was it for the "average" European or German, if there was such a thing?)
Given the economic polarization and closed-mindedness I've seen, the US is more apt to wind up like Argentina or Chile in the 1970s-80s than like Germany in the '30s.
Above all, I'm reminded that there's no such thing as a perfect analogy, and while history can repeat itself, it's never quite word-for-word.
posted by pax digita at 7:07 AM on November 29, 2006
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!); and
(2) A real and widespread sense of economic and social chaos that attended Europe and especially Germany in late teens through the early 30s. (Or has that been overrepresented? How bad was it for the "average" European or German, if there was such a thing?)
Given the economic polarization and closed-mindedness I've seen, the US is more apt to wind up like Argentina or Chile in the 1970s-80s than like Germany in the '30s.
Above all, I'm reminded that there's no such thing as a perfect analogy, and while history can repeat itself, it's never quite word-for-word.
posted by pax digita at 7:07 AM on November 29, 2006
No one really "comes up" to Hitler status anymore. So many enemies are labeled Hitler or Hitler lovers
that the best one can achieve now is Hitler for a Day.
posted by crispynubbins at 7:24 AM on November 29, 2006
that the best one can achieve now is Hitler for a Day.
posted by crispynubbins at 7:24 AM on November 29, 2006
There is a good article linked from this article about Carl Schmitt.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:48 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:48 AM on November 29, 2006
The road to Nazi power was paved with the apathy of the german people.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 7:51 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 7:51 AM on November 29, 2006
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!);
Christian Fundamentalism/Evangelism? Might have the potential if some kind of catastrophic economic event effectively wiped out most of the middle class.
posted by spicynuts at 7:58 AM on November 29, 2006
Christian Fundamentalism/Evangelism? Might have the potential if some kind of catastrophic economic event effectively wiped out most of the middle class.
posted by spicynuts at 7:58 AM on November 29, 2006
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!)
I initially read NSDAP as NASCAR and man, let me tell you, the sentence takes on a completely different, and completely fascinating, context.
posted by GuyZero at 8:02 AM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]
I initially read NSDAP as NASCAR and man, let me tell you, the sentence takes on a completely different, and completely fascinating, context.
posted by GuyZero at 8:02 AM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]
I'm feeling particularly wild and wooly today. Fuck your Godwins and laws, fascists!
posted by Navelgazer at 8:02 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by Navelgazer at 8:02 AM on November 29, 2006
I think the point of the article is that Nazi Germany provides some instructive parallels for those of us who are trying to understand the disaster that is the United States just now, not that Bush is Hitler.
But, then, I actually read the article.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:19 AM on November 29, 2006
But, then, I actually read the article.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:19 AM on November 29, 2006
Slate should maybe hire an EDITOR. Those pieces are always ponderous. Who has the time.
posted by wfc123 at 8:21 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by wfc123 at 8:21 AM on November 29, 2006
I think they think they're The New Yorker of the internet or something.
posted by wfc123 at 8:22 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by wfc123 at 8:22 AM on November 29, 2006
Actually, anyone interested in this topic might do well to read "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer." It was a chilling book, and what chilled me most was the utter normalcy of it all. We do like to think, as McWhorter points out, that those "good Germans" knucked under only when the jackboot was at their throat. But that wasn't how it was at all - people embraced it wholeheartedly. They accepted what they were told by the government - believing, as Mayer quotes one of his "little Germans" as saying, "that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security."
Sound a little familiar, that?
posted by kgasmart at 8:24 AM on November 29, 2006 [2 favorites]
Sound a little familiar, that?
posted by kgasmart at 8:24 AM on November 29, 2006 [2 favorites]
Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology
Only the Nazis really went that far. Most run-of-the-mill fascism, as in Spain and Italy, managed to do without. There, as in South America, a driving force was anti-Bolshevism, too.
But spicynuts is sure barking up the wrong tree. Try over here: Tancredo likens Miami to "a Third World country." See also: Katrina.
These are the local threats -- we don't have anything like Europe's conflicts with its Muslim minority. Thus that threat is external and remote by comparison, which neatly explains why Malkin is desperate to label anything weird that happens here the work of Islamofascists (even when it never turns out to be the case in the long run).
I don't think the torture bill quite equates with the Enabling Act, either. Something American along those lines would say that Executive Orders per se are not subject to judicial review. Note that Congress came uncomfortably close to squaring the circle in this regard but didn't quite.
posted by dhartung at 8:31 AM on November 29, 2006
Only the Nazis really went that far. Most run-of-the-mill fascism, as in Spain and Italy, managed to do without. There, as in South America, a driving force was anti-Bolshevism, too.
But spicynuts is sure barking up the wrong tree. Try over here: Tancredo likens Miami to "a Third World country." See also: Katrina.
These are the local threats -- we don't have anything like Europe's conflicts with its Muslim minority. Thus that threat is external and remote by comparison, which neatly explains why Malkin is desperate to label anything weird that happens here the work of Islamofascists (even when it never turns out to be the case in the long run).
I don't think the torture bill quite equates with the Enabling Act, either. Something American along those lines would say that Executive Orders per se are not subject to judicial review. Note that Congress came uncomfortably close to squaring the circle in this regard but didn't quite.
posted by dhartung at 8:31 AM on November 29, 2006
Bush's name is often used in Godwin-esque ways.
posted by honest knave at 8:37 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by honest knave at 8:37 AM on November 29, 2006
Slate should maybe hire an EDITOR. Those pieces are always ponderous. Who has the time. I think they think they're The New Yorker of the internet or something.
It's 1800 words. New Yorker pieces can run to ten times that. Maybe you need to hit Wal-Mart and buy an attention span.
posted by dhartung at 8:38 AM on November 29, 2006
It's 1800 words. New Yorker pieces can run to ten times that. Maybe you need to hit Wal-Mart and buy an attention span.
posted by dhartung at 8:38 AM on November 29, 2006
I hear Wal-Mart brand attention spans are made by 8-year-old in Togo. They get paid twenty cents per hour.
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:55 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by Astro Zombie at 8:55 AM on November 29, 2006
Huh? What?
posted by stinkycheese at 9:14 AM on November 29, 2006
posted by stinkycheese at 9:14 AM on November 29, 2006
But because I've been reading Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler; Richard Rubinstein's explanation of the Holocaust, The Cunning of History; and various studies of the Third Reich for a book in progress, I've acquired a vivid picture of the real thing.
When Bush's brain trust pushed through its executive-enhancing stratagems, I happened to be reading about brilliant German legal theoretician Carl Schmitt, who codified Hitler's führerprincip into law.
I'm glad that Diane McWhorter's smugly informed us what her bedtime reading "happens to be," because she certainly isn't telling us anything else that's new.
posted by blucevalo at 9:30 AM on November 29, 2006
When Bush's brain trust pushed through its executive-enhancing stratagems, I happened to be reading about brilliant German legal theoretician Carl Schmitt, who codified Hitler's führerprincip into law.
I'm glad that Diane McWhorter's smugly informed us what her bedtime reading "happens to be," because she certainly isn't telling us anything else that's new.
posted by blucevalo at 9:30 AM on November 29, 2006
NSDAP/NASCAR, heh.
Well, Tancredo's got a point: Compared to Littleton, which might have a few a them Meskin wetbacks in it doing some carpentry and gardening but that's all, folks!, Miami surely would seem like World Party.
All we need is some runaway hyperinflation and Mr. Netanyahu's point might be made for him, pretty starkly. It'd be dead easy for the PTB to say "It's the Islamofascist turrists and their fellow traveler Dems!" And yeah, I forgot about Spain and Italy when thinking about the more pragmatic sorts of Fascists. dhartung, you point out an interesting contrast between the US and Europe.
I'm still wondering when there's going to be a Kristallnacht in Dearborn.
posted by pax digita at 9:35 AM on November 29, 2006
Well, Tancredo's got a point: Compared to Littleton, which might have a few a them Meskin wetbacks in it doing some carpentry and gardening but that's all, folks!, Miami surely would seem like World Party.
All we need is some runaway hyperinflation and Mr. Netanyahu's point might be made for him, pretty starkly. It'd be dead easy for the PTB to say "It's the Islamofascist turrists and their fellow traveler Dems!" And yeah, I forgot about Spain and Italy when thinking about the more pragmatic sorts of Fascists. dhartung, you point out an interesting contrast between the US and Europe.
I'm still wondering when there's going to be a Kristallnacht in Dearborn.
posted by pax digita at 9:35 AM on November 29, 2006
They came first for the Communists, and I snarked because I wasn't a Communist...
...Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to snark.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:46 AM on November 29, 2006
...Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to snark.
posted by The Card Cheat at 9:46 AM on November 29, 2006
Here's another N word that comedian Paul Mooney wants us to stop using.
I myself have never personally used that word in any context, ever, and I'm totally behind him on this one.
posted by dropkick at 10:10 AM on November 29, 2006
I myself have never personally used that word in any context, ever, and I'm totally behind him on this one.
posted by dropkick at 10:10 AM on November 29, 2006
As I recall, pundits and others had no problems claming that Saddam and Ahmadinajad were like Hitler, and that others.
In any event, if something is fascist or totalitarian it you ought to be able to call it that.
Another major problem is that the Nazis in 1935 were not nearly as bad as the Nazis in 1944. It wouldn't be that unreasonable to compare shrub with the Hitler of the 30s, at a time when Hitler hadn't even really killed anyone. Politically, very different, but the amount of "patriotic correctness" was very troubling a couple years ago.
posted by delmoi at 10:14 AM on November 29, 2006
In any event, if something is fascist or totalitarian it you ought to be able to call it that.
Another major problem is that the Nazis in 1935 were not nearly as bad as the Nazis in 1944. It wouldn't be that unreasonable to compare shrub with the Hitler of the 30s, at a time when Hitler hadn't even really killed anyone. Politically, very different, but the amount of "patriotic correctness" was very troubling a couple years ago.
posted by delmoi at 10:14 AM on November 29, 2006
I myself have never personally used that word in any context, ever, and I'm totally behind him on this one.
In the hood and down with his n-words.
posted by y2karl at 10:27 AM on November 29, 2006
In the hood and down with his n-words.
posted by y2karl at 10:27 AM on November 29, 2006
I think the point of the article is that Nazi Germany provides some instructive parallels for those of us who are trying to understand the disaster that is the United States just now, not that Bush is Hitler.
But, then, I actually read the article.
Exactly. It's not that the Bush administration is adopting Nazi policies. No. It's that they are using the Nazi playbook. The Nazis were masters of manipulation and repainting public short-term memory. We should call it what it is... Fascist Media.
Sure Bush isn't the first or the last to employ these techniques. But he has been the most audacious in his use of the "Big Lie told often enough." The most frightening similarity to the Third Reich is the lock-step nature of his party abandoning facts, reason, and principle for short term power.
SIDE NOTE:
Y2karl and any other Seattleites I urge to go to A Square is a Circle a talk by Serbian designer Aleksandar Macasev who examines contemporary media culture through the strategy of Goebbels. Henry Art Gallery, December 7 (7pm).
When this guy first started his project people SCREAMED Godwin at him. There were members of Seattle AIGA (hosting the talk) who decried him as "hysterical" without even giving his research a fair hearing. Cooler heads prevailed and they are hosting the talk. The guy is fascinating.
posted by tkchrist at 11:21 AM on November 29, 2006
But, then, I actually read the article.
Exactly. It's not that the Bush administration is adopting Nazi policies. No. It's that they are using the Nazi playbook. The Nazis were masters of manipulation and repainting public short-term memory. We should call it what it is... Fascist Media.
Sure Bush isn't the first or the last to employ these techniques. But he has been the most audacious in his use of the "Big Lie told often enough." The most frightening similarity to the Third Reich is the lock-step nature of his party abandoning facts, reason, and principle for short term power.
SIDE NOTE:
Y2karl and any other Seattleites I urge to go to A Square is a Circle a talk by Serbian designer Aleksandar Macasev who examines contemporary media culture through the strategy of Goebbels. Henry Art Gallery, December 7 (7pm).
When this guy first started his project people SCREAMED Godwin at him. There were members of Seattle AIGA (hosting the talk) who decried him as "hysterical" without even giving his research a fair hearing. Cooler heads prevailed and they are hosting the talk. The guy is fascinating.
posted by tkchrist at 11:21 AM on November 29, 2006
pax digita wrote:
I'm still waiting to see two missing elements emerge:
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!); and
(2) A real and widespread sense of economic and social chaos that attended Europe and especially Germany in late teens through the early 30s. (Or has that been overrepresented? How bad was it for the "average" European or German, if there was such a thing?)
[. . .]
I'm still wondering when there's going to be a Kristallnacht in Dearborn.
You're on the right track, pax, but you compromise too easily. Me, I'll only entertain comparisons between the Bush Administration and the Nazis after they annex the Sudetenland. Or Cheney fucks Eva Braun.
Anything less is just a clumsy analogy.
posted by gompa at 11:55 AM on November 29, 2006
I'm still waiting to see two missing elements emerge:
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!); and
(2) A real and widespread sense of economic and social chaos that attended Europe and especially Germany in late teens through the early 30s. (Or has that been overrepresented? How bad was it for the "average" European or German, if there was such a thing?)
[. . .]
I'm still wondering when there's going to be a Kristallnacht in Dearborn.
You're on the right track, pax, but you compromise too easily. Me, I'll only entertain comparisons between the Bush Administration and the Nazis after they annex the Sudetenland. Or Cheney fucks Eva Braun.
Anything less is just a clumsy analogy.
posted by gompa at 11:55 AM on November 29, 2006
I know, I know: I forgot Poland.
posted by gompa at 11:55 AM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by gompa at 11:55 AM on November 29, 2006 [1 favorite]
Could someone tell me again why impeachment proceedings haven't started yet? or is the plan to just let him hang around for his last two years while we all silently wish that things will be better (or can't get worse)?
posted by Artful Codger at 12:48 PM on November 29, 2006
posted by Artful Codger at 12:48 PM on November 29, 2006
"There is a good article linked from this article about Carl Schmitt.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:48 AM"
that is a good article indeed, but I think goes wrong on how the (european) left is recieving Schmitt. I think it is more a curiosity on how the political enemy is thinking, what is the driving ideology behind nazism and not a common hatred of "the liberal". I think that sounds like a very simplifying totalitarism theory.
"Another major problem is that the Nazis in 1935 were not nearly as bad as the Nazis in 1944. It wouldn't be that unreasonable to compare shrub with the Hitler of the 30s, at a time when Hitler hadn't even really killed anyone. Politically, very different, but the amount of "patriotic correctness" was very troubling a couple years ago.
posted by delmoi at 10:14 AM"
I don't think Hitler himself killed that many people after his participation in WW1, but his SA henchmen surely did.
Like the "Köpenicker Blutwoche" (Bloodweek of Köpenick):
"June 1933. 500 socialists seized, transported to the SA HQ ( a former Reichsbanner office) and prison. Tortured and 91 murdered . Their bodies were thrown into the River Dahme."
or the ("Night of the Long Knives")"
It is not clear how many people fell victim to the vicious street violence of the SA thugs before the NSDAP's rise to power in 1933, mostly opposing antifascists from the KPD (Rotfrontkämpferbund or SPD/USPD
posted by kolophon at 1:20 PM on November 29, 2006
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:48 AM"
that is a good article indeed, but I think goes wrong on how the (european) left is recieving Schmitt. I think it is more a curiosity on how the political enemy is thinking, what is the driving ideology behind nazism and not a common hatred of "the liberal". I think that sounds like a very simplifying totalitarism theory.
"Another major problem is that the Nazis in 1935 were not nearly as bad as the Nazis in 1944. It wouldn't be that unreasonable to compare shrub with the Hitler of the 30s, at a time when Hitler hadn't even really killed anyone. Politically, very different, but the amount of "patriotic correctness" was very troubling a couple years ago.
posted by delmoi at 10:14 AM"
I don't think Hitler himself killed that many people after his participation in WW1, but his SA henchmen surely did.
Like the "Köpenicker Blutwoche" (Bloodweek of Köpenick):
"June 1933. 500 socialists seized, transported to the SA HQ ( a former Reichsbanner office) and prison. Tortured and 91 murdered . Their bodies were thrown into the River Dahme."
or the ("Night of the Long Knives")"
It is not clear how many people fell victim to the vicious street violence of the SA thugs before the NSDAP's rise to power in 1933, mostly opposing antifascists from the KPD (Rotfrontkämpferbund or SPD/USPD
posted by kolophon at 1:20 PM on November 29, 2006
All you need to know about this troubled article: that symbol the self-censoring 'American' is standing in front of has nothing to do with Nazis. It's the Maltese Cross (or perhaps the cross pattée), a symbol used by many groups and still used by the German Army Now, an extended Bush America-Knights of Malta comparison, that would be something.
posted by MarshallPoe at 2:12 PM on November 29, 2006
posted by MarshallPoe at 2:12 PM on November 29, 2006
There is a good article linked from this article about Carl Schmitt.
In fact, it doesn't require many steps to get from the ex-Nazi Carl Schmitt to today's neoconservatives. Leo Strauss, the intellectual godfather to the neoconservative movement, wrote his thesis on Carl Schmitt.
posted by jonp72 at 9:53 AM on November 30, 2006
In fact, it doesn't require many steps to get from the ex-Nazi Carl Schmitt to today's neoconservatives. Leo Strauss, the intellectual godfather to the neoconservative movement, wrote his thesis on Carl Schmitt.
posted by jonp72 at 9:53 AM on November 30, 2006
(1) Something akin to the NSDAP's quasi-mystical appeal to a notion of racial purity based genetics, eugenics, and Nordic mythology(!)
Check out the nativism of Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, etc., which is found all over the contemporary American right.
Here's an example:
Western civilization is committing suicide. But you are not supposed to realize it. Not until it’s too late to do something to reverse the tide.
That is why the new book "The Death of the West.” by Patrick J. Buchanan will ring alarm bells in the precincts of the opinion molders who fear that it might jolt Middle America out of its complacency. ...
Instead of the defensive response to charges of "discrimination,” "bigotry,” "pollution,” and "patriarchy,” the author cites irrefutable facts and figures showing that collapsing birth rates, unchecked immigration, and the debasing of popular culture are de-westernizing and de-Christianizing the advanced industrial societies of Europe and North America. ...
If enough grassroots Americans awake to the fact that the United States is becoming "a nation within a nation” or if the "First World” overseas understands that Europe will be inundated by an Islamic-Arab-African invasion, there might be a "backlash” at the polls of the western world. That is the one thing the so-called liberal establishment cannot allow to happen. ...
[9/11] clearly demonstrated that among those who have entered this country, millions illegally, tens of thousands are loyal to regimes with which we could be at war, and some are trained terrorists sent here to murder Americans.
"For the first time since Andrew Jackson drove the British out of Louisiana in 1815,” Patrick Buchanan observes, "a foreign enemy is inside the gates, and the American people are at risk in their own country. In those days after September 11, many suddenly saw how the face of America had changed in their lifetimes.”
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:43 AM on November 30, 2006
Check out the nativism of Pat Buchanan, Lou Dobbs, etc., which is found all over the contemporary American right.
Here's an example:
Western civilization is committing suicide. But you are not supposed to realize it. Not until it’s too late to do something to reverse the tide.
That is why the new book "The Death of the West.” by Patrick J. Buchanan will ring alarm bells in the precincts of the opinion molders who fear that it might jolt Middle America out of its complacency. ...
Instead of the defensive response to charges of "discrimination,” "bigotry,” "pollution,” and "patriarchy,” the author cites irrefutable facts and figures showing that collapsing birth rates, unchecked immigration, and the debasing of popular culture are de-westernizing and de-Christianizing the advanced industrial societies of Europe and North America. ...
If enough grassroots Americans awake to the fact that the United States is becoming "a nation within a nation” or if the "First World” overseas understands that Europe will be inundated by an Islamic-Arab-African invasion, there might be a "backlash” at the polls of the western world. That is the one thing the so-called liberal establishment cannot allow to happen. ...
[9/11] clearly demonstrated that among those who have entered this country, millions illegally, tens of thousands are loyal to regimes with which we could be at war, and some are trained terrorists sent here to murder Americans.
"For the first time since Andrew Jackson drove the British out of Louisiana in 1815,” Patrick Buchanan observes, "a foreign enemy is inside the gates, and the American people are at risk in their own country. In those days after September 11, many suddenly saw how the face of America had changed in their lifetimes.”
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 11:43 AM on November 30, 2006
I wish there were a way to throw this Godwin's Law bullshit off a cliff along with all the assholes that think that the employment of any comparison anywhere to Nazis and/or Hitler should be snarkily dismissed with smarmy invocations of Godwin's law.
Yes, it's of course wrong and ridiculous to frivolously call someone a Nazi and make comparisons to Hitler to just to inflame an argument. But there are also valid comparisons as well. Better to use your fucking judgment, than to knee-jerk your way through life.
What this does is to elevating Hitler to the level of something sacred that cannot ever be used as allegory. It, in effect, sanctifies him. Even worse, that leads to a belief that the Holocaust was a fluke that can never happen again (because Hitler was so historically unique). This premise is ignorant beyond belief.
posted by psmealey at 8:08 AM on December 2, 2006
Yes, it's of course wrong and ridiculous to frivolously call someone a Nazi and make comparisons to Hitler to just to inflame an argument. But there are also valid comparisons as well. Better to use your fucking judgment, than to knee-jerk your way through life.
What this does is to elevating Hitler to the level of something sacred that cannot ever be used as allegory. It, in effect, sanctifies him. Even worse, that leads to a belief that the Holocaust was a fluke that can never happen again (because Hitler was so historically unique). This premise is ignorant beyond belief.
posted by psmealey at 8:08 AM on December 2, 2006
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posted by Meatbomb at 6:35 AM on November 29, 2006