Hannah Arendt and the Canadian Conservative Movement

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

My favourite political philosopher is Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), who wrote extensively on the nature of power, politics, authority, and totalitarianism. Unlike Leo Strauss, who invokes the ancients and uses "hidden dialogue", intended to speak primarily to the intellectual elite; Arendt writes in a clearer language.

And no matter how many times I read an essay or passage that she has written, I continue to have light bulb moments.

In one chapter of The Origins of Totalitarianism (my copy, 1968), she discusses Ideology as the basis of a political movement. That is a word heard often when describing Stephen Harper and indeed the neoconservative movement as a whole, and I was able to draw many parallels between her book and our current government.

We could argue that we are not really living in a true totalitarian state, but we are moving toward a form of totalitarianism, in it's broadest definition. I'll call it "Totalitarianism Lite".

Wherever it rose to power, it developed entirely new political institutions and destroyed all social, legal and political traditions of the country. No matter what the specifically national tradition or the particular spiritual source of its ideology, totalitarian government always transformed classes into masses, supplanted the party system ... started to operate according to a system of values so radically different from all others, that none of our traditional legal, moral, or common sense utilitarian categories could any longer help us to come to terms with, or judge, or predict their course of action. (p. 158)

Arendt says that this is not the same as a one-party dictatorship, but is rather a mass movement. Harper MP Rob Anders refers to their brand of politics as "movement conservatism", which has taken over the Tory Party in Canada and the Republican Party in the United States.

And while the best opportunity for the success of such a movement is the 'failure of the traditional political forces—liberal or conservative, national or socialist, republican or monarchist, authoritarian or democratic' (p. 158), these failures can also be contrived.

In post-war Germany, the time was right for Nazism, because of the failure of the Weimar Republic to create order after the devastation of the Great War. Unemployment and underemployment was high and crime was escalating. But in Canada and the U.S., when neoconservatism first entered the political arena, there was no real crisis, so one had to be created. In it's early stages it was the threat of communism. Then it became "Deficits", "Taxes" and "Government" that had to be annihilated.

And they have spent several years building an infrastructure of think tanks and foundations, while taking over the bulk of the media, especially in Canada, to sell their message.

Arendt refers to ideologies as "isms", and following are a few points made in the book, and their modern manifestations.

Anti-Intellectualism

Not before Hitler and Stalin were the great political potentialities of the ideologies discovered ... Ideologies are known for their scientific character: they combine the scientific approach with results of philosophical relevance and pretend to be scientific philosophy. (p. 166)

It is now accepted by most, that neoconservatism is in part, an anti-intellectual movement. Things like "facts" only get in the way of the "idea". Their ruling elite has defined the premise that they will spoon feed to the masses, so "University types" are vilified and shunned.

In order to impose an ideology, transforming an idea into a premise, you must allow no contradictions or interruptions. It is a "coercion of logic" that will assume that the "idea" is "sufficient to explain everything".

Individualism

Anytime I discuss politics, whether in a group or with a friend, one of the common complaints I hear is that people are so self involved now, making mass movements difficult. Gone is the sense of community.

This is not an accident.

Though not really libertarianism, neoconservatism promotes the libertarian notion of the freedom of the individual. Everyone must take care of themselves. If the government engages in group policies, it creates collectivism which leads to socialism/communism

Individualism creates '...a situation in which I cannot act, because there is nobody who will act with me.' (P. 172)

Terrorism

Though "terrorism" has come to define a radical Islamic movement, the definition of terrorism is simply:

- the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
- the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
- terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

In totalitarian movements, terrorism is used to keep people in line. It can be state sanctioned witch hunts, brutality and mass arrests, or something as simple as the fear of losing your job or career.

In Canada it has been called the "politics of fear".

Dictatorial terror [is] distinguished from totalitarian terror insofar as it threatens only authentic opponents, but not harmless citizens. (p.20)

Isolationism

Another important element to the success of totalitarianism/neoconservatism is a sense of isolation. Canada is gradually becoming isolated from the rest of the world. This became evident when we lost our bid for a seat on the UN Security Council.

Stephen Harper's neocon Reformers, always detested the United Nations, feeling that they had become too intrusive. So while he postured over the the loss of the seat, it was actually a blessing.

Isolation is, as it were, pretotalitarian; its hallmark is impotence insofar its power always comes from men acting together, [it] presses masses of isolated men together and supports them in a world which has become a wilderness for them. (P. 172)

Under George Bush the American people became extremely isolated, in a "you're with us or against us" climate. They soon learned that most of the world was against them, but 9/11 gave the neocons the necessary "crisis" that allowed the majority of Americans to be OK with this, at least for a while.

And it allowed them to accept unheard of measures to suspend civil liberties, creating a "fertile ground" for totalitarian measures.

It bases itself on loneliness, on the experience of not belonging to the world at all, which is among the most radical and desperate experiences.

And that loneliness was filled with unbridled patriotism and an unnatural sense of superiority.

Totalitarian government does not just curtail liberties or abolish essential freedoms; nor does it, at least to our limited knowledge, succeed in eradicating the love for freedom from the hearts of man. (P. 164)

Though personal freedoms were all but abolished after 9/11, many Americans believed that it was actually their enemies: Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Islamic fundamentalists, who were trying to destroy their freedoms.

And this mindset created what columnist Dan Gardner recently called a bigger threat to liberty than terrorism.

On Sept. 12, 2001, George W. Bush said something he had avoided saying the day before. “The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror,” he told reporters. “They were acts of war.” The decision to frame the response to 9/11 as a “war” was a fateful one.

Before that moment, Western democracies would never have sent their soldiers to fight endless battles in distant and obscure deserts. Imprisonment without charge or trial would never have been advocated by leading politicians. Torture would never have been supported by much of the population. And calls for the assassination of a man who leaked documents would never have been heard from leading journalists.

This beating of the war drum became the means of isolating the American people, not only from the rest of the world, but from the truth.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction and the distinction between true and false no longer exist. (P. 172)

Arendt reminds us that the threat of totalitarianism as a movement, did not end with the deaths of Hitler or Stalin. It's potential is too phenomenal to ignore.

That's why it's important to recognize that this is not a traditional political party, but is a radical movement, that stands to drastically alter the traditional legal and moral foundation of our just society.

Nothing Takes Away Our Freedom Quite Like War

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

I have a confession to make. I visibly cringe every time someone in the media uses the term 'freedom' when justifying war.

Because history has proven time and again that there is nothing that destroys freedom more than the act of war.

We lose our freedom to choose our enemies. Our freedom to think rationally. Our freedom to care about those we are told we should not care about.

The Loss of Freedom as a Political Reality:

What is astounding to me is how easily people are willing to relinquish their freedoms for the sake of war. When the Bush administration first decided to invade Iraq and established the Patriot Act, the majority of Americans when polled agreed that it was “both necessary and appropriate”.

And when that same administration authorized the National Security Agency to engage in electronic spying, without warrants, on Americans suspected of supporting "terrorism", there was little public outcry. They were told that their nation's sons and daughters were killing and dying for their freedoms. The same freedoms they were in the process of willingly surrendering.

Besides only criminals and terrorists would object to having their phones tapped, so if you've got nothing to hide, why object, right? Yet the very safeguards that were put in place to protect citizens from their government, were now being used to to give the government more control over it's citizens.

And I'd be willing to bet that the majority of the people involved in the Tea Party movement with their signs demanding 'liberty', are the same ones who supported their government's removal of their most basic liberties in the name of war.

This could be attributed to propaganda and brainwashing. That's certainly true to a certain extent. However, Hannah Arendt, an authority on totalitarianism, disputes much of that claim.

She was the first after WWII, a time when the Nazis were called "monsters" by most in the press, to remark on how normal they were. "Unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking". And that was what she found frightening. When covering the trial of Adolf Eichmann at Nuremberg:

Others may have hoped to see Bluebeard in the dock, she wrote, but for her, the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal." She was one of the first to refute the "monster theory" of less-than-human Nazis. (1)

And while many suggested that the German people were not aware of what was happening, or were simply brainwashed into complacency, Arendt writes:

No doubt, the fact that totalitarian government, its open criminality notwithstanding, rests on mass support is very disquieting. It is therefore hardly surprising that scholars as well as statesmen often refuse to recognize it, the former by believing in the magic of propaganda and brainwashing, the latter by simply denying it ... A recent publication of secret reports on German public opinion during the war (from 1939 to 1944), issued by the Security Service of the SS (Meldungen aus dem Reich. Auswahl aus den Geheimen Lege-berichten des Sicherheitsdienstes der SS 1939-1944, edited by Heinz Boberach, Neuwied & Berlin, 1965), is very revealing in this respect. It shows, first, that the population was remarkably well informed about all so-called secrets—massacres of Jews in Poland, preparation of the attack on Russia, etc.—and, second, the "extent to which the victims of propaganda had remained able to form independent opinions". However, the point of the matter is that this did not in the least weaken the general support of the Hitler regime. It is quite obvious that mass support for totalitarianism comes neither from ignorance nor from brainwashing. (2)

We watched with horror the scenes from Abu Ghraib, and listened for weeks, to the accounts of the torture of Afghan detainees. But what has changed? Did we rise up? Did we demand an end to the war that resulted in such inhumanity? Do we even know if the torture has stopped?

Are we brainwashed? I don't think so. We go about our daily lives, having relinquished all authority for this war to the government.

Who Needs Totalitarianism When the Populace Restricts our Freedoms?

The other phenomenon that is disturbing to me, and perhaps the best argument for the propaganda theory, is the attitude of the populace. Our government doesn't have to restrict our freedoms, because they are being restricted by those around us.

"If you don't stand up for our troops you should stand in front of them". "Taliban dupe". "Lefties". All apparently valid arguments in challenging anyone opposing the war.

In 2006, there was a rally on Parliament Hill, sponsored of course by lobbyists for military contracts. There was a lone NDPer carrying a sign "Support our troops. Bring them home". He was knocked to the ground and his sign broken in two.

His freedom of opinion was removed by his fellow citizens.

And we see the same attitude in the House of Commons. When Michael Ignatieff asked what was being done about the detainee issue, Stephen Harper said he wished that he had as much concern for our troops as the Taliban. When Jack Layton stated that he was appalled by Rick Hillier's statement that our military were not public servants but their job was to kill people, he was dubbed "Taliban Jack".

The media ate it up.

What makes ordinary, intelligent, compassionate people accept this?

Fear, I suppose.

Fear of a Jewish Conspiracy helped to fuel Nazism. Fear of Communism allowed Americans to give up basic rights under McCarthyism. Fear of terrorism, turns citizens against each other, and allows them to accept inhumane acts.

And that fear is eating up the space necessary for compromise. You're with us or against us. All those who "support terrorism" on that side of the room.

This doesn't mean that I don't support our soldiers. They are doing a job. You can support the troops and not support the war.

And it doesn't mean that I don't respect our veterans. I very much do.

But as Ceasefire asks: Is Remembrance Day too much about war, and not enough about peace?

... this militarized focus on Remembrance Day is not shared by all. One of the most prominent examples of this is the white poppy campaign, which dates back to 1933. This poppy is meant to symbolize the need for peace and to commemorate the war-related deaths of both civilians and service men and women.

And Sharon Fraser sees Remembrance Day as a tool of propaganda:

Those of us who speak against wars are shushed, especially on November 11, or we're told that it is these wars (even the one in Afghanistan!) that have guaranteed our freedom to speak openly. As many others are, I am moved by the faces of the elderly veterans on November 11 and that's a little sentimental. I really dislike the false equivalency that tosses all the wars in the same basket and I am not at all impressed by antics such as the recent one at an Ontario Legion, which puts a bit of tarnish on the veterans' organization.

Let's just say that, to me, the observance of Remembrance Day has been appropriated and turned into a tool of propaganda and I have come to resent its tone and what it has come to represent.

How can we pay homage to those who died to protect our freedom, and then dishonour them by allowing those freedoms to be taken away?

Sources:

1. Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, By Erna Paris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, ISBN: 0-676-97251-9, Pg. 318

2. The Origins of Totalitarianism, By Hannah Arendt, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1968, Introduction v

How Important is Adolf Hitler's Bloodline?

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

News this week is that DNA samples taken from Adolf Hitler's family prove that he was of both Jewish and African descent.

Does this really matter?

I guess in some ways it might destroy the hero worship of Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups, though I'm sure many will deny that the findings are true.

What is more important about this story, however, is the fact that Hitler is still given so much importance in world history. Because if we continue to believe that he alone engineered the Holocaust, or even instigated the Holocaust, there is a mistaken belief that now that he is gone, that evil has gone with him.

Political scientist and one time girlfriend of Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, covered the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann for the New Yorker, and surprised everyone, including herself, when she did not find an "exception to humanity". She wrote to her husband that Eichmann was "not even sinister". Instead she called him banal, "unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking".

Hannah Arendt's conclusions about Adolf Eichmann's banality crystallized into enduring controversy. Others may have hoped to see Bluebeard in the dock, she wrote, but for her, the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal." She was one of the first to refute the "monster theory" of less-than-human Nazis (however, if banal meant "common," there was much to argue with: among the defendants at Nuremberg were eight jurists and a university professor). (1)

Arendt was not the first to refer to the Nazis as banal or common. In fact the name Nazi was coined by journalist Konrad Heiden in the 1920's. He would often march with the "fascist brown shirts" to get his story and dubbed them 'Nazis', a Bavarian term meaning "country bumpkin" (2). He did not see evil then either, but a group of uneducated street thugs.

What eventually gave them legitimacy was the enormous amount of money and power that backed them up. The Nazis were free marketeers who supported top down commercialism. They were also in support of the monarchy and believed in the supremacy of the German race. Not just the white race as a whole, but the Germanic races, as defined by Houston Stewart Chamberlain.

And they would eventually tap into the pan-German sentiment, or nationalism, to gain support for their wars. But the man Adolf Hitler had very little to do with any of it. He was a narcissist who believed in his own greatness, and fed off the illusion.

An illusion originally created by the German Workers Party to draw in the occultist and monied Thule Society, who had been running seances to conjure up the Antichrist, to help Germany out of the dark post-war years. And the Antichrist of their vision was that described by Vladimir Solovyov, and found as the forward to some copies of the fraudulent Elders of Zion. Members of the party were drawn to Hitler when he showed up at one of their rallies, sporting the most unusual mustache. From Solovyov's image: "He is an absolute genius, and he may wear a small mustache." (3)

When Adolf Hitler joined the German Army, he wore a large mustache. But later, when the German troops were provided with respirator masks, in response to the use of mustard gas by the British, he was told to shave it, so that the mask could be worn properly. (4) Instead he trimmed it back, and that trimmed mustache became his trademark.

Thule member and playwright Dietrich Eckart, directed Hitler's character, and drew out his seductive power of speech. Thule member Rudolf Hess helped him to write Mein Kampf, and a former university professor of Hess's Karl Ernst Haushofer, is credited with the development of Hitler's expansionist strategies. "While Hess and Hitler were imprisoned after the Munich Putsch in 1923, Haushofer spent six hours visiting the two, bringing along a copy of Friedrich Ratzel's Political Geography and Clausewitz's On War." (5) The Thule Society would also be responsible for the Nazi flag, the Swastika, 'Sieg Heil', the Nazi salute and their anthem.

Hitler himself was not a member of the Thule Society because he did not have the pedigree.

And in 1930, when members of the Fascist Brown Shirts (Nazis) finally had a strong showing in Parliament or the Reichstag, they were not interested in working with the other parties, but instead made a mockery of the entire process.

In mass formation, with military tread, eyes front, the 107 new Fascist Deputies entered the Reichstag. When it last met they numbered twelve. Flushed with their great election victory they marched in coatless, each swelling out his Fascist "brown shirt," each flaunting the Fascist swastika on his left arm, each in khaki flare-pants, swank black leather boots—all proud that they had flagrantly, successfully broken the Prussian State ordinance forbidding "public appearance in political costume." Saluting the Reichstag and each other, the Browns roared: "Hail, Hitler! Wake up Germany! Down with the Young Plan." (6)

This prompted a response by the Communist Party and there "... were times when everyone seemed to be yelling .... "Is there anybody older than I in this house?" shrilled 82-year-old Deputy Karl Herold above the tumult."

At women's names the Brown Shirts crowed. "Kikeriki! Kikeriki! Kikeriki!" —German equivalent to Cockadoodle-doo! (Fascists both German and Italian, hold that women are respect worthy as hens, jeer worthy when by entering politics they try t0 be roosters.) On the first day of the Reichstag session absolutely nothing was done except to call and jeer the roll. (6)

And when Hitler came to power in 1933, any notion of democracy was gone, as Nazism and the German state became one.

Who Benefited?

Despite the illusion of Hitler as being the supreme power of Germany during those years, the truth is that the industrialists and the bourgeoisie, directed the actions of the Nazi Party, from the Holocaust to the World War. And a lot of people became filthy rich because of both.

It is already common knowledge that the Bush family made their fortune when Prescott Bush financed the Nazis, but there were many others in the Corporate world who gained, including IBM who wrote the program for annihilation.

IBM’s machines were used at all stages of the persecution of the Jews. They collected the necessary information to identify the Nazis’ victims, first to enforce the bar on Jews working in certain academic, professional and government jobs and later to carry out mass evictions from their homes and into the ghettoes. IBM technology was used to organise the railways, so that millions of Nazi’ victims could be transported to the concentration camps, where they were immediately led into the gas chambers .... IBM was involved in virtually every aspect of the Third Reich’s operations. (7)

After taking over the punch card technology from Deutsche Hollerith Maschinen Gesellschaft, in 1922, IBM monopolized the industry, and "... when Hitler came to power, [Thomas] Watson had transformed the formerly ailing German company into IBM’s flag ship—producing more than three times above its quota."

Watson was not a fascist, but a ruthless profiteer. The strong German state under an authoritarian leader offered great potential for moneymaking, and that was what Watson identified with. In fact, as the chairman of IBM, one of the most prestigious companies in the USA, Watson was a well-respected businessman, a supporter of Roosevelt and special advisor to the president. Watson was elected chairman of the Foreign Department that also made him chairman of the American section of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC).

This, in essence, made Watson America’s official businessman to the rest of the world. He became installed as president of the entire ICC in 1937 and arranged the organisation’s next conference in Berlin. Right from the start, IBM developed business solutions for the Third Reich. (7)

But not only corporations benefited from their alliance with the Nazis. Many of the German middle class also prospered. According to Gotz Aly, when discussing the initiatives of Stuart E. Eizenstat, to recover damages from the Swiss and German governments on behalf of victims of persecution during World War II.

Eizenstat was, of course, entirely right to demand compensation for the stolen gold and confiscated bank accounts of those murdered in the Holocaust, as well as for the slave labor performed by survivors. Nonetheless, his highly public negotiations gave rise to a distorted picture of history. The fact that the names of large Swiss and German banks—together with those of world-famous companies like Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, Allianz Insurance, Krupp, the Bertelsmann publishing group, and BMW—were constantly in the news gave the impression that prominent German capitalists, occasionally in alliance with major Swiss banks, were the main culprits behind the terrible crimes of Nazi Germany.

There is no question that many leading German industrialists and financiers were complicit in Hitler's regime. But it would be wrong to conclude that primary responsibility for the Holocaust or other Nazi crimes lay with the elite of the German bourgeoisie. Eizenstat's efforts, as well as those of the Jewish Claims Conference, indirectly, if unintentionally, encouraged such a conclusion. And indeed many Germans had a stake in seeing the public's attention focused on the captains of industry and finance, since it shifted the burden of blame for Nazi barbarism to a handful of individuals. (8)

There was also an epidemic of widespread satisfaction:

Precisely because so many Germans did in fact benefit from Nazi Germany's campaigns of plunder, only marginal resistance arose. Content as most Germans were, there was little chance for a domestic movement that would have halted Nazi crimes. This new perspective on the Nazi regime as a kind of racist-totalitarian welfare state allows us to understand the connection between the Nazi policies of racial genocide and the countless, seemingly benign family anecdotes about how a generation of German citizens "got through" World War II ... "We were well off during the war ... Food deliveries always went smoothly." (8)

And being constantly told that they were only doing better because the government was eradicating the country of Jews, who they believed had been the source of all their problems, why would they protest?

So You Don't Think it Could Happen Again, Huh?

When I compare Stephen Harper to Adolf Hitler, it is not because of the Holocaust, but because they are both "images" of a political leader. Hitler made few decisions, but was presented to the German people as a Messiah. They adored him. Or I should say they adored who they thought he was.

Had they known the real Adolf Hitler at the time, they might not have been so smitten. He was a bully, and while called a dog lover, actually beat his dogs mercilessly. He was not a vegetarian as suggested, but loved sausages and cavier. He was not a strong leader but was actually a coward. His best friend during his Vienna days said that when he was in their room, raising his voice over some political matter, the landlord would bang on the wall and Adolf would cower into a corner.

After the Beer Hall Putsch, he wanted to commit suicide, and the wife of a friend who was hiding him, had to talk him out of it. And he was also a sexual deviant. But so long as they could keep his ego fed, he would behave.

And I don't think I need to go into 'Mr. Photo-op", and the illusion of strong leader, who actually hides whenever his government is receiving bad press, allowing others to take the fall.

But more importantly, we have to look at who is now being blamed for all of our ills. Not the Jewish people, but the Muslims.

Look at the uproar over the so-called ‘Ground Zero Mosque‘.

Islamic investors want to build a community centre for Manhattan Muslims in a derelict coat factory two blocks from the site of the World Trade Centre. This community centre is intended to be a bit like a YMCA – containing an auditorium, a gym, a swimming pool, a basketball court, childcare services, art exhibitions, a bookstore, a culinary school and a food court serving halal dishes, as well as some prayer space. It is to be run by a famed moderate – Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf – a Kuwaiti cleric who has written about how to integrate Islam with the West.

It should be nothing more than a local zoning issue, and not a problem. Not a problem, that is, until a few prominent far-right demagogues noticed it and seized upon it. Sarah Palin tweeted about it to her hundreds of thousands of followers and then the usual cavalcade of Teabaggers, opportunist election hopefuls and Fox pundits dogpiled the issue.

Suddenly, the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ is no longer a local zoning issue; it’s a ‘desecration’ of ‘hallowed ground’, a slight to the heroes and victims of 9/11. The ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ label makes it sound to the public like the place is being built at the actual Ground Zero – which could maybe be construed as insensitivity. This is not the case: it is to be built hundreds of metres away in a damaged, vacant building on a dilapidated side street.

Fox News went nuts, and polls were everywhere, suggesting that Obama was a Muslim, like it was some kind of disease. He's not. He's a Christian, but should that matter? He did not blow up the World Trade Center, nor would he or the vast majority of Muslims ever condone such a thing. The issue was Western aggression, not religion.

I watched a bit of CNN (before I started screaming and shut it off), and one of their media people asked if, since Tim McVeigh was Catholic, would it be appropriate to build a Catholic church two blocks from the site of the Oklahoma bombing? He was besieged with emails accusing him of being anti-Catholic and anti-Christian.

And even those defending Obama, made it about the religious issue, and defending his Christianity. It should have been a non-issue, but it shows how low the Republicans have sunk.

One of my favourite columnists, Haroon Siddiqui, wrote a great piece: American anti-Muslim prejudice goes mainstream.

Gingrich equates the proposed Islamic centre there to a Nazi display next to the Holocaust Museum in D.C. or a Japanese warrior monument at Pearl Harbor. (The analogy would be fine if Osama bin Laden was the one building a mosque at the World Trade Center and not a Manhattan couple, devoted to interfaith work, proposing a Muslim Y.)

“Gingrich is too smart to be that stupid,” says John Esposito, professor of Islamic Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., by way of illustrating how anti-Muslim bigotry has become so acceptable that “mainstream politicians, including two potential Republican presidential candidates (Gingrich and Sarah Palin), media commentators, hardline Christian Zionists and a large number of Americans feel that they can say anything about Islam and Muslims with impunity.

We wince at the things said about Jewish people back in the day, and yet barely bat an eye, when we hear the same things said about the Islamic World. They are all 'Taliban' or 'Al Qaeda', despite the fact that the majority are not. They are ordinary people who want the same things that we do for ourselves and our families.

We are no better than the Nazis, if we are not appalled by this. And remember the words of Hannah Arendt, when covering the trial of the Holocaust organizer, Adolf Eichmann. "... the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal."

Antisemitism is horrific, but so is this, and when left unchecked, can result in the unimaginable.



Sources:

1. Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, By Erna Paris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, ISBN: 0-676-97251-9, Pg. 318

2. Books: Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 7, 1944

3. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944, Pg. 100

4. Total Power: A Footnote to History, By: Edmund A. Walsh, Doubleday & Company, 1949, Pg. 14-15

5. The Unknown Private - Personal Memories of Hitler, By: Alexander Moritz Frey

6. GERMANY: Br, Time Magazine, October 27, 1930

7. IBM and the Holocaust, By Edwin Black, Little Brown, 2001, ISBN 0-316-85769-6

8. Hitler's Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State, By Gotz Aly, Metropolitan Books, 2005, ISBN: 10-0-8050-7926-2, Pg. 1-2