In the wake of the shooting tragedy of Congress Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, hard questions have been asked about the hate-filled rhetoric spread by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Sarah Palin.
Fox News has launched what seems to be an endless attack against progressives (to include the Daily Kos) who have pointed out the record of what they have said. So it is that this diary will join the chorus to look back at what Fox News has said and to hold them accountable for their own words.
O’Reilly: Daily Kos Is “Like The Nazi Party.”
On July 16, 2007, O’Reilly said that the Daily Kos is “like the Ku Klux Klan. It’s like the Nazi party. There’s no difference here.” A day later, O’Reilly said “That website traffics in [hate], as do the Nazi websites. No difference.” On July 19, 2007, O’Reilly said of Daily Kos: “The hate this website traffics in rivals the KKK and Nazi websites.”
[Fox News, The O’Reilly Factor, 1/16/07, 1/17/07, 1/19/07]
Glenn Beck has falsely constantly berated the great social democracies of Western Europe and their investment in a social safety net as apart of ‘National socialism’. By contrast the conservative American agenda has given us 59 million Americans without health insurance, 132 million without dental insurance, 60 million without paid sick leave and 40 million living on food stamps. Whereas by contrast, everyone in modern day Germany and in the rest of the European Union has access to a full social safety net wherein everyone has universal medical coverage (which includes dental, paid sick leave) and none of Europe’s poor are humiliated by the use of food stamps. Let’s not forget that National socialism actually means Nazi. How is it possible to equate a modern day European social safety net as its found in the great social democracies of Western Europe with the Nazi party of the last century? What is Glenn Beck doing and why is Fox News broadcasting this?
Last night Glenn Beck on his show was very happy to point to the comments of Rep. Steven Cohen which can be found at this link, where upon it should be noted that Rep. Cohen did express regret for his earlier remarks. This however did not stop Glenn Beck as we see from the quote below. Additionally Glenn Beck went on to say that the Nazis learned their propaganda tactics (as broadcast by Joseph Goebbels who was the propaganda minister of the Third Reich) from progressives. To which point it has be clear that Glenn Beck and Fox News are hellbent on destroying any hope for an American social safety net which includes universal medical access. Why is Glenn Beck equating progressives to the Nazis?
GLENN BECK, HOST: I want to hear Steven Cohen speak. I’m glad he said what he did. I want to know what he thinks. I want to know that he thinks that Republicans learned their tactics from Goebbels. But does he know that Goebbels learned them from the progressives? Prove him wrong.
Full transcript: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/glenn-beck/transcript/solution-ending-violence-not-silence
Beck Says U.S. Is On The Same Course As Weimar Republic
Beck Suggests U.S. On Course To Make Same “Mistake[s] That Germany Made During Weimar Republic” On February 24, 2009, Beck suggested that the U.S. was on course to make the “scariest mistake that Germany made during Weimar Republic.”
[Fox News, Fox & Friends, 2/24/09]
Source: http://mediamatters.org/research/201101200037
This diary calls upon American politicians from both sides of the aisle in the furtherance of a call for civility to abstain from using German history of the last century. Making continued references to the Nazis which marks one of the saddest chapters in human history in order to score cheap political points is a clear statement in sadness. In the American media there is no worse offenders of this than Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly and the Fox News crowd.
The German Spiegel Magazine calls on the American Tea Party to ‘keep their hands off German history.’
Please note below is a quote from the German Spiegel magazine which is a mainstream German publication which points to the truth about what Glenn Beck is doing.
(DER SPIEGEL) Not-So-Steeped in History: US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler
A Commentary by Charles Hawley – 10/21/2010Many on the American right have developed a taste for including a bit of German history in their stump speeches. Hitler comparisons abound and the Berlin Wall even made a cameo recently. But the flippant references to the Holocaust are ignorant and offensive. And they should stop.
(DER SPIEGEL) Not-So-Steeped in History: US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler
A Commentary by Charles Hawley – 10/21/2010
Conservative talking head and Tea Party heartthrob Glenn Beck can hardly get through one of his Fox News shows without an Obama-Hitler comparison. Palin also accused Obama’s health care plan of including “death panels.” And one Tea Party candidate, Rich Iott, even enjoys dressing up as a Nazi now and then.
Please let’s remember that the Nazis employed death panels to decide who lives and who dies as part of the Holocaust. How could Sarah Palin make such a flippant reference to the Holocaust? Isn’t the German magazine Der Spiegel correct in saying that these types of actions are ignorant and offensive and in fact they really need to stop?
(DER SPIEGEL) Not-So-Steeped in History: US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler
A Commentary by Charles Hawley – 10/21/2010During his show on Oct. 5, Glenn Beck said that Obama’s science adviser John Holdren’s concern about the global population and White House health policy adviser Ezekiel Emanuel’s warnings about global warming are “the kind of thinking that led to … the extermination program that eventually led to the Holocaust.”
It would be hard to find someone on this side of the Atlantic who wouldn’t cringe at the ignorance of that statement. Leaving aside the question as to whether or not one should be concerned about climate change and an overcrowded planet, the kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust was a different one. Hitler wanted a racially pure Germany. People with handicaps didn’t fit. Neither did Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, blacks, Asians, Arabs or homosexuals.
Why is Glenn Beck trying to mislead his audience? The truth is the Hitler Youth was not a children’s choir but rather training ground for the SS.
(DER SPIEGEL) Not-So-Steeped in History: US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler
A Commentary by Charles Hawley – 10/21/2010Not a Children’s Choir
back in June Glenn Beck said that children singing for Barack Obama was “out of the playbook … of the Third Reich ….This is Hitler Youth.” One can assume that not all of Beck’s listeners and viewers know what the Hitler Youth was. Beck himself, an astute, if cynical, student of history, certainly does. The Hitler Youth was the ideological training grounds designed to prepare German boys for a glorious career in the SS murdering anyone who stood in the way of the Führer’s dream of a vast and racially pure German Reich. It was not a dictator’s private children’s choir.
How can the Tea Party compare President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler?
What happened in Nazi Germany is one of the saddest chapters in all of human history which must be strongly condemned and never repeated. As such isn’t it completely ignorant and offensive to the memory of those who were murdered at the hands of the Nazis, for the Tea Party to continue to call the first Afro-American president, Adolf Hitler?
(DER SPIEGEL) Not-So-Steeped in History: US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler
A Commentary by Charles Hawley – 10/21/2010One can forgive those like Glenn Beck and his Tea Party followers for hating Barack Obama. The liberals, after all, were passionately opposed to George W. Bush and rarely shied away from hyperbole in their expressions of loathing. But it is hard to imagine even the most hard-bitten Tea Party activist sincerely believing that President Barack Obama wants to systematically murder over 6 million people like Adolf Hitler did.
(DER SPIEGEL) Not-So-Steeped in History: US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler
A Commentary by Charles Hawley – 10/21/2010With Germany’s 20th century crimes fading into the past, that is a dangerous path to take. It is a path that all politicians, whatever their leanings, should avoid.
The Tea Party should keep their hands off German history.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,724418,00.html
———————————————–
At every turn why is the Tea Party calling the first Afro-American president, ‘Hilter’?
(Guardian.co.uk) Ailes, Murdoch and Nazis
Posted by Michael Tomasky – Friday 19 November 2010Calling Obama a Nazi has already been made normal. I read a couple of days ago how many times Glenn Beck has used words like “Nazis” and “Hitler” and “communism” and “fascism” in the last two years. I can’t find the link now, but it was a lot; enough that if you added them up and made a rough calculation of the number of shows he’s done in that time, that it’s an everyday thing for him. He’s the highest profile, but he’s not alone. All over the country on the AM radio dial, his imitators and wannabees are doing the same thing.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/michaeltomasky/2010/nov/19/rupert-murdoch-ailes-nazis
40 year old lawyer turned Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly isn’t just talking out both sides of her mouth, she is completely distorting the truth with absurd claims. To that end, please consider the quote below from Media Matters.
Fox’s Kelly Absurdly Claims Fox Personalities Do Not Invoke Nazis
January 20, 2011
Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly responded to her guest’s statement that Fox News figures regularly invoke Nazi imagery by claiming “I watch our programming every night and you’re wrong.” In fact, several Fox News, particularly Glenn Beck, have a long history of smearing President Obama, Democrats, and progressive figures by invoking Nazi and Holocaust imagery.
Here below is a quote from Roger Ailes who falsely called the progressive media outlet NPR a US taxpayer supported Nazi propaganda instrument.
Fox News chairman Roger Ailes is characterizing executives at NPR as Nazis.
Posted by Brian Montopoli – November 18, 2010“They are, of course, Nazis,” Ailes told the Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz. “They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20023247-503544.html
America has to build a European style social safety net with universal medical care as its center piece. While we can all be proud Americans, we don’t have to be proud of the broken American social safety net. There we can do better. One way to start doing better today is for us all to understand that the Fox News propaganda machine is wrong in saying that a European style social safety net will bring America closer to National socialism. It’s just a lie, plain and simple. Today 59 million Americans don’t have access to medical care, 132 million don’t have access to dental, 60 million Americans don’t have any paid sick leave and 40 million Americans receive food stamps. America needs a European style social safety net with universal health care at its center piece. Clearly what happened in Nazi Germany was one of the most tragic stories in all of human history and must be strongly condemned and never be repeated because it led to World War 2 and the Holocaust and the murder of millions of innocent people. Isn’t it time for Fox News to stop calling American progressives and members of the Democratic party Nazis?
(Cross posted by author from the Daily Kos.)
