"They say it's a government takeover of health care – a big lie, just like Goebbels. You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing. The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust,"-Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN).
I think I’ve been pretty outspoken lately about how we’ve reached a point in our politics where some of the public discourse has risen to the level of indecency, and I’ve also been pretty outspoken about which side’s been primarily responsible for that.
Primarily responsible, but not entirely responsible.
I note my own record calling upon social liberals to treat social conservatives with respect and not to automatically label them as bigots. I also note my condemnation of the left for their attacks on the patriotism of General David Petraeus.
Most importantly, I note my condemnation of a Democratic Assembly candidate for his use of Nazi imagery to score cheap points against his Republican opponent.
In our political discourse, the term “NAZI” has become our other “N-Word.”
However, let me be clear, as much as politicos and everyone else should proceed with extreme caution when in contact with the first “N-Word”, there are times when its use is appropriate. In rare instances (see the link we just passed), it may be the only appropriate word.
Same with NAZI.
And I must admit, I’ve actually been pretty outspoken in pooh-poohing oversensitivity about the other N-Word.
Far be in from me to defend Mayor Mike, but he was not inflaming hatred when he mentioned Neville Chamberlain when speaking of attempting to appease an implacable foe.
Nazis are pretty much the gold standard when one is talking about exploiters of appeasers. So back in 2009, when Bill DeBlasio attacked Mayor Bloomberg for an implied (not explicit) use of the other N-word for making the Chamberlain reference about appeasing Carl Kruger, I told Courier-Life’s Gary Buiso: “Wonderful: German-American Councilman Warren W. Wilhelm says Bloomberg is a bad Jew.”
That attack on Bloomberg (unlike most attacks on Bloomberg) was preposterous.
I suppose if Bloomberg had implied that one should not “appease” a particular politician because he exploited bigotry for political gain or engaged in thuggery, that might be out of bounds (even though both are arguably true in reference to Kruger) in its implications, but that wasn’t what Bloomberg was implying. All Bloomberg was implying was that appeasement of Kruger was futile, foolish and counterproductive, things which were all true as well of Chamberlain’s appeasement of the Nazis.
Nor is it inflaming hatred to point out that someone using the “I was only following orders” excuse is invoking “The Nuremberg Defense.”
When it comes to lame invocations of “respondeat superior,” Nazis are pretty much the gold standard.
I could go on. One is allowed to mention Rommel when talking about fighting in the desert.
And of course, it is not impermissible to invoke the other N-Word if someone is actually engaged in over-the-top-conspiracy mongering-race hatred, especially of Jews. When I compare Jimmy McMillan’s blame of the Jews for 9/11 with the rhetoric of the Nazis, it was totally within acceptable bounds for me to do so.
But is it not inflaming hatred to accuse one’s opponents of using “the big lie,” if they are actually doing so.
Nazis are pretty much the gold standard when one is talking about big liars.
If someone is saying it enough, repeating the lie, repeating the lie, repeating the lie, and eventually people start believing it, they are using “THE BIG LIE.”
It is no sin to say so, using those words.
Use of “the big lie” was far from the worse thing about the Nazis. If the Nazis had never knowingly engaged in the spread of falsehoods, if they had only spewed vile hatred about things they believed to be true (albeit, things they believed to be true which were demonstrably false) and then acted upon those beliefs in the exact same manner as is recorded by history, we would not find the Nazis any less despicable, only less clever.
The Nazis were liars, but that is not why we hate them.
Bill Clinton was a liar a lot of the time, and we love him.
I think Steven Cohen went a bit too far. Not as far as he‘s been accused of by writers all across the political spectrum, with liberals and moderates often being more harsh than conservatives. Viewing his remarks complete and in their context has a sobering effect. This was not a deranged attack on the level of a Beck or Michele Bachmann; viewing his remarks in their context, it is clear Cohen is not calling Republicans Nazis, or even implying that they are anything like Nazis, except in the relatively minor matter of their use of a certain method of mistruth to advance their goals.
Still, Cohen went too far.
Mentioning Goebbels may have been historically accurate, but it skims the edge of decency, and should probably have been avoided. Cohen’s mention of “Blood Libel” is virtually incoherent, and either makes no sense, or invokes the term in a manner similar to the way it was used by Sarah Palin. As a Jew, Cohen should know better–the term should be reserved solely for false accusations which contain an element of race hatred. Mainstream Republican lies about The Affordable Care Act, as outrageous as they were and are, do not seem to have met that standard.
Finally, Cohen’s invocation of the Holocaust is just out of line. At any time, it would have been inappropriate. In the context of January 2011, it is far more so.
But let’s be serious.
Cohen’s remarks are not in the same league as when Rush Limbaugh compared President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Hitler and put on his website the logo of the president's health insurance reform plan morphing into a Nazi graphic replete with Swastikas.
Cohen was wrong, but let’s stop saying his statement bears any resemblance to the Niagara Falls of hatred spewing from Fox News Network and their ilk every night of the week.
Because to say that would be a BIG LIE.