I'm a little ashamed.
I have a history degree after all, and while I wouldn't call myself a World War II expert I'd like to think I have at least a lay knowledge of the basics of the Holocaust.
But in all the years I've been teaching, I don't recall ever covering that really what the Nazis wanted was universal health care.
Today's Greenwald provides the clip of Limbaugh comparing Obama and Pelosi to Nazis.
Moreoever, the article and this one, by Joan Walsh place in context the sheer volume of the Nazi talk that has existed about Obama coming from the right since the end stages of the campaign (and the lack of mainstream media interest in that talk) with the mainstream firestorm when a random entrant in a contest equated Bush with Nazis a few years ago.
You're allowed to be against a national health care system. I disagree and disagree strongly.
But neither one of us is a Nazi because of it.
Obama doesn't hate white people (quoting Glenn Beck, who to make a reference to the movie Tropic Thunder, has apparently gone "full retard". I may start calling him Simple Jack. I don't have any idea what a "Glenn Beck" + "Simple Jack" search would yield, but I'd like to see it grow with the speed of my "Michael Jackson" + "William Appleman Williams" google) because he timidly offered that maybe we don't arrest black professors in their homes for arrogance.
Since the last days of that dying, absolutely blown out in the popular vote McCain/Palin campaign, the voices on the right have been yelling socialism, and secret Muslim, and not born in this country, and now racist, Nazi, who wants to use this health care program as cover to murder old people.
It is madness.
I've referred multiple times to the Mike Judge film Idiocracy, which is largely crappy, but increasingly prescient about our increasing level of collective duh-ness.
I just made that up this second by the way. Duh-ness. Feel free to trade with your friends.
Here was Sarah Palin, just today, on her facebook page. Now, this is not a joke. This is from last year's Republican candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the United States:
The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama's "death panel" so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their "level of productivity in society," whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
I get a lot of mail from the left. Obama. The DNC. Moveon.org. Robert Greenwald. Michael Moore.
I've read Chomsky and Zinn and Barbara Ehrenreich.
I don't like organized religion. I don't like the Electoral College. I think Ronald Wilson Reagan was a terrible president.
I don't like the Star Spangled Banner.
I don't believe in Jesus. If it ever came up for a vote - I'd take your guns away and raise your taxes.
I'm full on lefty, pro gay marriage and animal rights. I'm most of the things you don't like.
There is no death panel. Someone would have sent me an email. Or a tweet.
@deathpanel: "Kill the babies. And the grandmas. Especially the white ones. Who heart Jesus."
It's made up. Fully and totally. 'Cause that's all they got. Crazy ass made up stories. That's what's left of the Republican Party. Its Vice Presidential nominee says Obama wants a death panel to decide to kill babies with down's syndrome. That's where we are in 2009.
Unrelated - 50 games left in the MLB season - here are my playoff picks and the current WARP3 All-MLB Team for the season:
P Dan Haren (NL) Zach Greinke (AL)
1B Albert Pujols (NL) Justin Morneau (AL)
2B Chase Utley (NL) Ben Zobrist (AL)
SS Marco Scutaro (AL) Hanley Ramirez (NL)
3B Evan Longoria (AL) Casey Blake (NL)
OF Matt Kemp (NL) Ichiro Suzuki (AL)
OF Ryan Braun (NL) Adam Jones (AL)
OF Shin-soo Choo (AL) Jayson Werth (NL)
C Joe Mauer (AL) Yadier Molina (AL)
My MVP votes are Pujols and Longoria/Mauer
AL East - Yankees
Central - White Sox
West - Angels
WC - Red Sox
NL East -Phils
Central - Cards
West - Dodgers
WC - Rockies (I mean, Giants! Go Giants! Grumble.)
