Many on the Right have tried to classify the ideology of the Wall Street Protests. Glenn Beck has sounded an alarmist note, describing the ideas behind the movement as Leninist and even fascist.  It’s true there is much in the rhetoric that recalls the Bolshevik leader’s love of violence and brown-shirt style anti-semitic comments (this doesn’t necessarily separate Wall Street yellers from Leninism). However, my own experience while at ground zero of the protests gave me a different impression.

Leninists and fascists revealed some knowledge (albeit cherry picked) of history and they had read books or even a pamphlet. Lenin quoted Adam Smith, Hitler; Frederick the Great. The protestors, however, don’t even know who is being quoted (they aren’t sure whether to clap or not when Eugene Debs is cited) or who they are even wearing. I asked one masked protestor why he was wearing a Guy Fawkes’ mask and was corrected in the condescending tones of the hip that it was “V For Vendetta.”

Far from being the products of any studied ideology, they are instead the products of youtube and Comedy Central. Silence greets any invocation of Tom Mooney or Tom Joad and applause rises to a roar when Micheal Moore and Susan Sarandon do a drop-by. They do show a low animal cunning about the alternative media. Aware that the Left no longer owns it, they evince a media savviness that would make Obama envious. Asked by a reporter what system they want to replace capitalism with, a protestor was advised by a comrade not to say it. Image conscious, they know to try to block the limos that bore Sarandon and Moore to the event from camera-view. They know that slogans have consequences, so very few of them wave placards describing Wall Street as crony capitalists, which reveal an awareness that such a slogan might track pedestrians back to the president who bailed out Wall Street.

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There is a great discontent emanating from the Democrat and Progressive base regarding President Obama’s performance, a demographic he desperately needs if he is to succeed in his bid for re-election. Many in the traditional Republican circles, especially the so-called Republican strategists, argue that Republicans could run a teleprompter-reading “animatron” and win in 2012.

This is a foolish and dangerous position to espouse but one that should come as no surprise. Republicans, since their first days as a party, have honed the skill of shooting themselves in the foot to perfection. If Conservatives and Republicans don’t wake-up, evolve in their media tactics, get ahead of the message, frame their opponents and mandate the argument before the Progressives do, we could very well find Barack Obama taking the Oath of Office in 2013.

Steve Chapman, no stranger to the Chicago Progressive crowd, wrote in The Chicago Tribune:

“The vultures are starting to circle. Former White House spokesman Bill Burton said that unless Obama can rally the Democratic base, which is disillusioned with him, ‘it’s going to be impossible for the president to win.’ Democratic consultant James Carville had one word of advice for Obama: ‘Panic.’

“But there is good news for the president. I checked the Constitution, and he is under no compulsion to run for re-election. He can scrap the campaign, bag the fundraising calls and never watch another Republican debate as long as he’s willing to vacate the premises by Jan. 20, 2013.

“That might be the sensible thing to do….”

Chapman continues by submitting his choice to replace Mr. Obama for the Democrat nominee in 2012:

“The ideal candidate would be a figure of stature and ability who can’t be blamed for the economy. That person should not be a member of Congress, since it has an even lower approval rating than the president’s.

“It would also help to be conspicuously associated with prosperity. Given Obama’s reputation for being too quick to compromise, a reputation for toughness would be an asset.

“As it happens, there is someone at hand who fits this description: Hillary Clinton.”

Hillary Clinton.

Truth be told, there has been a softening among the moderate Conservatives and Republicans where Mrs. Clinton is concerned. Some feel sorry for her, and for myriad obvious personal and professional reasons. Others believe that she would have been a better choice for the nation as president than Barack Obama. Regardless of their reasons, the fact remains that there is a contingent on the Right side of the aisle who have forgotten that Mrs. Clinton is, herself, a Progressive, and by her own admission.

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From radio and film to newspapers and publishing, the Nazi regime controlled every aspect of German culture from 1933-1945. Through Josef Goebbels’ Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, the German state tightly controlled political messaging, promoting deification of the leader—the Führerprinzip—and the demonization of the ubiquitous and duplicitious “racial enemy.”

A new exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., examines “how the Nazi Party used modern techniques as well as new technologies and carefully crafted messages to sway millions with its vision for a new Germany.” Reason.tv’s Michael C. Moynihan visited with museum historian and curator Steve Luckert to discuss the role and effectiveness of propaganda in the rise of fascism and what lessons can be drawn from the Nazi experiment in mass manipulation.

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A video showing protesters outside an Americans For Prosperity event has surfaced on the internet.  It shows the protestors with signs depicting Sarah Palin and Glenn beck with Hitler mustaches and the label “Naz-Tea Party” over their pictures.  Also depicted as Hitler is GOP candidate Adam Kinzinger running against Rep. Debbie Halvorson (IL-D) in the 11th District in Illinois.

As protests go, it’s a bit limp and poorly attended, but the offensive and inflammatory signs certainly grab your attention.  Especially considering the Democratic Party and the NAACP’s very high-profile condemnation of inflammatory signs that have appeared at Tea Party events.

What makes this video so compelling is what it shows after the protest. (more…)

We owe a great favor to Mike Godwin. Those of us who have spent any amount of time arguing nonsense on the Internet are familiar with Godwins Law. Briefly, Godwins Law states: “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches … given enough time, all discussions —regardless of topic or scope —inevitably wind up being about Hitler and the Nazis.”

The most wonderful aspect of Godwin is that “there is a tradition in many newsgroups, and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically ‘lost’ whatever debate was in progress.”

Now there are exceptions to Godwin, for instance when discussing Jesse James affair with Bombshell McGee, it would be quite difficult to not bring up Nazi references. As a student of Hayek, a personal beef I have, is that sometimes a political argument requires a comparison.

Friedrich A. Hayek believed, the infringements on Liberty caused by programs like National Health Care, or any other central planning, will inevitably lead to a totalitarian government that is indistinguishable from National Socialism, save for the logo on the armbands. However being held to Godwin is a rigorous discipline that forces me to plum the depths of my intellect, for an alternate metaphor when discussing issues with liberals.

I believe that Godwin also applied during the years of the Bush Administration. Their argument was lost when Code Pink and MoveOn started with the BusHitler remarks, and I think images of the current President sporting a Charlie Chaplin moustache should probably be discouraged as well.

But I think we should add another corollary to Godwins Law. I think that if you call your opponent a Racist, you have also lost the argument.

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Holocaust Day (Yom HaShoah in Hebrew) is today. I, for one, am sick and tired of the fetishism of dead Jews and the endless memorials to Holocaust victims, while the world rubs its hands in gleeful anticipation of “Holocaust — the Sequel.” I am sick of the false narrative. The role of and that of the Muslim leader of the ummah, the Mufti of Jerusalem, was pivotal to the extermination of the Jews during World War II, and yet his role and that of jihad was scrubbed from the history books.

And here we are 60 years later, and Islam is back in full bloom, with Muslims sharpening their machetes for the beheading of the Jewish state — much the way Muhammad annihilated the Qurayzah tribe, beheading all the men of the last Jewish tribe of Arabia (after he exiled the other two). Sixty years after the Mufti Hajj Amin al Husseini sent 400,000 Jews to their deaths in Poland, we have Ahmadinejad and every Islamic leader, imam, and cleric calling for the death of the Jews.

Now a new survey shows that 2009 was the worst year for anti-Semitism in at least two decades. Anti-Semitic attacks and events around the world more than doubled in 2009. The European Jewish Congress (EJC) and The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University say that part of this increase came from an “orchestrated and concerted attempt to delegitimize the Jewish People and Israel” in Western Europe. There were “mass demonstrations and verbal and visual expressions against Israel and the Jews, with “the worst offenders” appearing in “Western Europe, particularly in the UK and France, followed by Canada.”

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The LA Times has a piece out today that is entirely worth reading, about a brave and crazy Englishman who, contrary to all self preservation instincts, sneaked into Progressive Socialist death camps during WWII.

Bearing witness to Nazi horror

Reporting from Bradwell, England – The men in stripes came in looking like boxers and ended up like skeletons. Denis Avey could see them wasting away in a place so evil that even nature had abandoned it, without a bee or butterfly in sight.

They were the Jewish inmates housed in the ghastliest part of Auschwitz, subjected to brutalities and atrocities that Avey, an English prisoner of war confined to another section of the camp, could barely imagine.

But then, he thought, why only imagine them? What if, somehow, he could see those horrors for himself — see them, remember them, bear witness to the world about them?

So the then-25-year-old pondered and plotted, soon hatching a plan so audacious that, more than 65 years later, he shakes his head at its absurdity. While so many Jews and others held at the infamous extermination camp were desperate to get out, Avey was actually devising a way to sneak in.

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Instapundit points to this video interview of a Berkeley student representative explaining why it’s okay for students to riot in the streets in the name of their cause.

We posted the raw video of the rioting here.

What’s so interesting about this interview is that during two separate moments, the student representative displays an astounding level of liberal-Progressive hypocrisy.

We have taken the liberty of transcribing these two sections below.

Moment number 1 – (2:00)

HOST: Describe to me what exactly what you guys are going through that just absolutely causes this outrage.

STUDENT: Absolutely. Well um in the fall the UC regents voted in a %32 fee increase to over 10000 a year for in-state tuition. This at a time that they are cutting classes, letting in fewer student from in-state and more students from out of state. Um, so effectively we are closing off the campus, making it less accessible to people, and those who are here are getting less out of their education.

That complaint doesn’t sound too immigrant friendly. Is she saying that Berkeley students only want immigrants from other states and countries just as long as they go to private schools?

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Let’s give the Progressives a rest today. Judging by the 700+ comments on yesterday’s Big Government thread: Media Matters Attacks Beck – Ignores Progressive Roots Of The Klan And Holocaust, it looks like they could use a breather.

Today, we would like to focus on Hitler’s other little helpers: IBM and GM/Opel.

Edwin Black, who authored War Against The Weak, a forensic examination of the Progressive-Eugenic movement, also has written extensively on the role IBM played prior to and during the Nazi Holocaust. From the introduction of War Against The Weak.

From the IBM and the Holocaust website:

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Media Matters is attempting to attack Glenn Beck over his exposé of Progressive violence and crimes against humanity in the previous century.

Media Matters can spend all year trying to deny the blood soaked roots of the progressive movement, but that’s a little like Democrat Robert Byrd arguing that there was no such thing as slavery, let alone the KKK.

Case in point, one topic Media Matters and other progressive groups don’t want to deal with is how Progressive Eugenics inspired the Master Race holocaust of WWII.

I have covered this here before, and the facts are truly damning as well as irrefutable.

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