Memes Happen
This week, Rep. Jodi Laubenberg (R-Texas) commented on the undercover video sting of Planned Parenthood's fetal-parts business thusly:
To find out that this culture of death is now leading to the sale – this is no different than what happened in Nazi Germany. No different than doing the experiments on the old men and old women and now doing them on the babies.
It's a sentiment echoed over at Red State, where Owen Strachan has a piece up titled "Planned Parenthood Is Our Auschwitz."
This is as close to accurate as such contemporary comparisons get. The following are American policy issues that have been analogized this month either to the Holocaust or its chief architect:
Scott Walker: University Wisconsin-Madison professor Sara Goldrick-Rab ("My grandfather, a psychologist, just walked me through similarities between Walker and Hitler. There are so many — it's terrifying.")
The Iran nuclear weapons deal: Mike Huckabee ("will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven.")
The meat industry and other abusers of animals: Russell Simmons ("There were people for slavery, remember? Almost everybody. Slavery was fine. There's people that put people in ovens…. You're asking me, do I think that people who are unconscious to the suffering they cause to 100 billion animals–the worst holocaust in the history of humankind, the suffering of animals, the abuse of animals, and yes you're all guilty in my opinion…. [Y]ou don't like the word holocaust? It's a fucking holocaust.")
UPDATE/ADDITION: Uh, Uber? Ted Rall: ("Seriously, let's walk through the parallels between the Silicon Valley startup and the genocidal right-wing totalitarian movements of the mid 20th century.") (Thanks to alert commenter Just say Nikki!)
The good news, as ever, is that Americans, with few exceptions, still really, really hate Adolf Hitler. The bad news, well, I'll let Kurt Eichenwald deliver it:
Comments