Hitler represents of one of the most atrocious periods in the history of the entire world.  His twelve year reign had a profound impact on the lives of many.  Throughout the years of 1933 and 1945, Hitler invaded ten countries , including Poland, where one side of my stepfather’s family lived until 1940, when they were forcefully removed and put into concentration camps.  The first husband of his mother was a Polish officer, and shortly after Hitler and Stalin signed the Nazi Soviet Non-Aggression pact, he and other Polish officers were taken from their families, brought into the Katyn Forest, and summarily executed – simply for being Polish officers.

Under the Nazi regime, it is estimated that as many as between 11 million and 17 million civilians were killed – nearly 6 million of those exterminated solely for being Jewish.  It’s been only 78 years since Hitler and the Nazi regime’s rise to power, and their reign remains an open wound  – in the context of history, this is still a very recent occurrence.  Survivors of this period are still with us today, as are first and second generation family members , many of whom are right here in the United States.

That’s why on May 18^{th ,} when I saw a post in the Guardian titled Andrew Breitbart’s ‘Electronic Brownshirts’, my hair stood on end.  Who could write such a title?  The author turned out to be none other than Amy Goodman, who hosts the famously popular daily progressive news program “Democracy Now“, and is also frequently referred to as a respected “progressive journalist“, investigative reporter and peace advocate.  It was a post in defense of the controversial labor studies course that was the recent focus of a BigGovernment expose.

As someone who writes and conducts research for Andrew Breitbart, I could not immediately move past that title.  Here, it brought back conversations I’d had with family members about this period in history, people who lived through that time.  And reading the title back, it just seemed so repulsive, so disrespectful – as though I too was just smeared as a “Brownshirt”.  Granted, I have no connection to the story about the labor studies course, but if Andrew is associated as a Brownshirt, we’re all associated as Brownshirts. At least, that’s how the title alone read.

Why would someone like Goodman, who is supposedly respected in her profession, go to such extremes to draw a modern day comparison to such horrors ––she is obviously intelligent enough to know that her actions and words demean the experiences lived by real victims and remaining survivors.

As I trudged through her post, I realized that the headline was not just selected by Ms. Goodman, but that the phrase “electronic brownshirts” was actually muttered by Judy Ancel, director of the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s institute for labor studies.

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Below is the full length speech Andrew Breitbart delivered to CPAC 2010. We have also taken the liberty of breaking out some of the best soundbites from the speech.

1. Mr. Podesta, we are watching you!
2. What I learned from Kurt Cobain
3. E Pluribis Unum
4. The Frankfort School roots of multiculturalism and political correctness
5. Big Education
6. MSM – You are not on the American team!
7. CPAC cuts Breitbart short

From the New York Observer: