Saturday, March 13, 2010

"Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh: Avatars of Julius Steicher"(Propagandist for Hitler's Nazis)

UPDATE: 3:54 PM March 13, 2010
NOTE: FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES
(article intended as a critiques of anti-Semitism and other racist ideologies ie Nativism, White Supremacy, anti-Immigration, Anti-Islam (Islamophobia)

Screen Shots of Jewish Virtual Library
Click to Enlarge




Photo of Propagandist Julius Streicher at Nazi gathering chatting with Joseph Goebbles (Note neonazis erroneously claim Streicher was not part of the Nazi apparatus)


Photo of Hitler, Rudolph Hess and Nazis anti-Semitic Propagandist Julius Streicher on the far right hatless- at Nuremberg he was convicted of being a War Criminal for his propaganda . Article below compares Glenn Beck's rhetoric and conspiratorial thinking to Streichers Propaganda as just as vile and nasty in his depiction of liberals, Progressives, academics, intellectuals, artists, secular humanists, feminists, homosexuals, Muslims, Arabs & non-European immigrants.



Frontpage of Nazi Propagandist Julius Streicher's vile & vicious anti-semitic German Newspaper Der Sturmer (pub. 1923-1945)


If we replace the term "The Jews " with Arabs or Muslims, or immigrants we see the same sort of attitude being expressed by Americans and Europeans who also believe Western Civilization is at a cross roads and according to their view must fight and or oust all non-European immigrants and all Muslims & Arabs. In the United States Conservatives portray America's traditions and laws and its way of life as under attack by a stealth campaign on the part of Muslim Americans who wish they believe to make America into an Islamic nation.

Similarly American conservatives are also in a panic over illegal immigrants coming from Mexico and Latin America who are characterized as disease ridden , dirty, lazy, immoral inhuman beasts who have no interest in conforming to American traditions or laws and who even refuse to learn English.



"The Jew-baiting publication, Der Stuermer, was published by Streicher's publishing firm (2697-PS). In one issue of this periodical, Streicher, speaking of the Jewish faith, said:"

"The Holy Scripture is a horrible criminal romance abounding with murder, incest, fraud and indecency."

"The Talmud is the great Jewish book of crimes that the Jew practices in his daily life." (2698-PS)

"This propaganda campaign of hate, of which the above quotations are but random samples, was too widespread and notorious to require further elaboration."


Julius Streicher Pornographer at The Nizkor Project

and : As editor of Der Sturmer, a violently anti-Semitic paper, In "Der Fuhrer" Heiden, 1944:

"His Sturmer, Streicher claimed, was the only newspaper which the Leader read from cover to cover, including the rather detailed drawings of Christian girls being raped by Hebrew voluptuaries; with his concentration on the pornographic aspects of racism, Striecher was the embodiment of Hitler's subconcious."


Streicher's rhetoric is borrowed by those sounding the alarm over controversial issues such as immigration & illegal immigration in which they characterize immigrants as a plague or infestation, a disease .

Islamophobes also borrow these vile tropes to attack Islam and Muslims-just replace the terms Talmud & Torah & Haggadah with the Qur'an & Hadith & Sharia . The current Islamophobic hysteria paints similar pictures of Islam as the Anti-Semites have of the followers of Judaism. Muslims are described as sly & deceitful who pray each day for the death of all non-Muslims as the Jews were once accused of praying death to all Gentiles or Christians.Both have been accused of being part of a conspiracy spanning the centuries to in one way or another to take control of the entire world & to destroy all who oppose them..

And in both cases those liberals who believe in tolerance , diversity, pluralism etc. are accused of being a fifth column who are helping the Muslims/ Arabs ( the Jews) Immigrants, non-whites to invade & take over America and Western Civilization.

Again replace these sacred books o & traditions of the Jews or Muslims with "Darwin's Origin of Species' and the Theory of Evolution and with the works of Karl Marx and the writings of numerous influential liberal writers from Karl Marx & Freud, Jung , to so called Muckrakers such as Charles Dickens ,John Steinbeck and others and of the influence of "Relativism". If all is relative and there is no God than everything is permissible . This is what the anti-liberal argues all liberals and progressives believe which is far from the truth.

For instance Islamophobes argue erroneously that the Palestinians & Arabs they claim do not have an historical homeland and that there is no such animal as a Palestinian. They ignore the centuries that Arabs & Palestinians have lived in the area around what is now Israel and the Holy Land .

But facts are useless against the rhetoric & myth-making of the racist and the bigot. Just by repeating the same lies the propagandist is able to reshape the mental landscape of ordinary people . Sometimes the propaganda is subtle other times vicious and crude.



Davidson Loehr points out the similarities of the tone and style of the rhetoric used by uberconservative media personalities Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh & Ann Coulter; as very much like that of one of the most notorious of the propagandist for Hitler & the Nazis Julius Streicher " editor of "Der Steurmer" amongst other projects in the 1920s to 1940s. He concludes that given this style of rhetoric they the media propagandist for the Conservative Movement are to be taken as serious as a heart attack because they are having a dangerous influence on a large number of Americans.

"Beck, Coulter and Limbaugh: Avatars of Julius Streicher" Wednesday 10 March 2010 by: Davidson Loehr, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Making fun of demagogues like Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh has become a kind of parlor game, an escape valve to let out some of the frustration of impotent rage. This was brought home again when I read "Defying Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner.
Writing between 1933 and 1939, he came of age during Hitler's rise to power. His observations are so searing it's still hard to believe that someone could see this clearly while the spirit of his times was morphing into a broad and deep spirit of evil. Once the Zeitgeist had changed, all kinds of murderous and insane actions became logical means toward transforming German culture into its Nazi metastasis.

"Avatars of Julius Streicher" doesn't sound quite sober - hardly anyone recognizes his name today, but Streicher's spirit is alive and well in Beck, Coulter and Limbaugh. Streicher was one of the 11 Nazis sentenced to hang by the Nuremberg Trials on October 16, 1946.

Of the 11, Streicher was the only one who was not in the military, not in any significant position to command anything regarding the treatment and execution of millions of people who didn't fit the Nazi mold. But Streicher may have been the person most responsible for implanting the spirit of anti-Semitism that let Germans dehumanize and slaughter millions of people. Between 1923 and 1945, Streicher published "Der Stuermer" ("The Stormtrooper"), and spoke wherever he could to instill this deadly spirit into everyone he could reach. He especially liked to address schoolchildren, and would get them so conditioned that when he asked if they knew who the enemy of Germany was, they would shout, "The Jew! The Jew!" Streicher was hanged with the Nazi leaders for publishing this fact-free newspaper that did more than anything else to prepare the way for the Nazi death machines. A typical issue of "Der Stuermer" was described as "nothing but an incitement to the people of Germany who read it, an incitement to murder. It is filled with pictures of murder. It is an encouragement to all who read it to avenge themselves in the same way."

At his trial in Nuremberg, the prosecution said that while Streicher was not directly involved in the physical commission of these deadly crimes against humanity, "his crime is no less worse for that reason.... It was to the task of educating and poisoning the people with hate, and of producing murderers, that Streicher set himself. For 25 years, he continued unrelentingly the perversion of the people and youth of Germany. He went on and on as he saw the results of his work bearing fruit. In the early days, he was preaching persecution. As persecution took place, he preached extermination and annihilation and, as millions of Jews were exterminated and annihilated in the Ghettos of the East, he cried out for more and more.



Update from Bob Cesca at Huffington Post on his thesis that just below the surface of the Tea Party movement is simmering racism which is being stirred up with the use of coded racist phrases or Dogwhistles by some of its leaders including the cheering gallery made up of Glenn Beck, Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity & Fox News:
The Tea Party Is All About Race, Part 2 by Bob Cesca March 10, 2010 at Huffington Post

Last week, I wrote a piece about the tea party movement and the obvious through-line of race, race-baiting, racism and the use of the Southern Strategy within the movement. The responses were mostly positive and supportive, while the responses from the far-right and tea party people were predictably obnoxious, contradictory and fact-free.

The dominant theme throughout the most outraged responses was, essentially: We're not racists, but here's why we're pissed about blacks and immigrants. For example, here's a particularly illustrative e-mail, reprinted as it was received:

The Tea Party is NOT about race, it is about me paying taxes to support every non contributing individual that has the ability to pro create. It is not my/our fault that the majority of NON contributors are minority. It is not my/our fault some refuse to learn English, thereby limiting their employment opportunities. Hell, the whole race thing is nothing but bullshit for losers such as Garafolo and yourself to capitalize on. Rest assured Booby Boy we no longer give a damn about what you think do or say The main reason the Tea Party exists is Obama's Marxist/Socialistic COMMUNISTIC leanings that will ultimately cost me, part of the 50% that pays taxes, as opposed to the 50% that DON'T PAY!! An ideology that will transform this Country into a third world nation. Try having some honest debate Booby and you might gain cred. Until then you're shining Garafolo's shoes. Sounds to me like you may be an immigrant yourself with an axe to grind. Is that the case Booby? If so you can always go home! Careful moron that light you're looking at is a train not the end of the tunnel......

...The flimsy and contradictory policy arguments only make the winking racial subtext more obvious.

For instance, the president cut taxes for the middle class. According to the CBO, a full third of the projected national debt -- $3 trillion over the next 10 years -- is due to the president retaining middle class tax cuts and rolling back the alternative minimum tax so it doesn't absorb middle class earners. Tax cuts. So how, then, can the tea party reasonably claim that President Obama is all about taxing the middle class "to death," as some e-mailers argued?

For the tea party leadership, it's all politics, and politics is power. It's about saying "join us" so we can oppose "them" and their taxes to pay for the poor (wink, we mean blacks) and their health care handouts (for reparations to blacks, wink). Consequently, tea party organizers and their PR wing at Fox News and on talk radio are able to consolidate political and financial power.

Glenn Beck, this week, was at it again, suggesting that the U.S. Census was scheming to give lopsided representation to minorities. This on top of his ongoing line that President Obama hates white people and that health care reform is all about reimbursing black people because of slavery. Yeah. He's not so "abstract," as Lee Atwater once said.

In Beck's case, sure, he spends a considerable amount of time talking about freedom and something about red phones and assembling acronyms that spell out non-words like "OLGIARHY." But the race argument is ever present. As obvious as it is, he doesn't say outright that his viewers should hate black people or immigrants. But he's clearly stoking white resentment for ratings and financial gain. Beck, like it or not, is a major player in the tea party movement, as is Fox News Channel. Together, they've spent countless sums of cash promoting tea party rallies and endorsing tea party causes. They are inextricably linked. And the Southern Strategy is right out there in plain view.

...And finally, no. I'm not implying that everyone who disagrees with President Obama is a racist. Hell, I disagree with him on a number of issues. And no, not every member of the tea party movement is an outright racist. There are surely some earnest, decent (though politically misguided) people who are unaware of the race-baiting that's happening around them, and it's reasonable to suggest that there are more than a few people who simply don't recognize racism when they see it. But it's clear that a major component of the tea party movement -- the movement -- is the use of race, anti-immigrant sentiment and abstract racism as a strategy. Naturally, it wouldn't be used if there wasn't anything to gain. Sadly, however, the target demographic for the tea party movement is low-information white middle class voters who have a tendency, no matter how subconscious, to respond to political dog whistles.


Update on Glenn Beck declaring "Social Justice" is just code for Communism and Nazism and says that Christian Americans should leave any church in favor of "Social Justice" . But Glenn Beck is not in his view criticizing Jesus he is criticizing what he calls the "liberal Churches" who have misinterpreted the Bible . He claims Jesus was all about the wealthy , the successful, materialism & financial goals to be in debt is a sin, to be poor is a sin etc. It infuriates him and John Hagee & others to hear such drivel and heretical views about Jesus .

So Once again we get the image of Jesus as either a King leading his army or as, a tough minded CEO who has no time for the poor , the lame , the sick, the homeless even those Vets who sleep under bridges . Jesus Beck tells us would be again Health Care Reform and be on the side of the wealthy & the Insurance Companies . He sees Jesus also as a warrior. This rings a bell everytime I hear it because this is very much how Adolph Hitler portrayed Jesus and referred to the story of Jesus going to the Temple and getting so angry at the moneylenders & those selling livestock as a business. Jesus even picks up a whip and lashes out madly . This is what Hitler admired about Jesus for being a no-nonsense leader & a warrior . Christain Evangelical Fundamentalist also tend to play up this trait rather than the Jesus of the Beatitudes.Evangelicals talk incessantly about Hell Fire , Armageddon, the Last Days , the rise of the Anti-Christ and so the need that Christians do what they are supposed to do and that is take up their swords and a few other weapns just to be sure such as M17, guns, Napalm , Cluster Bombs, Landmines
.
The added irony is that this is exactly what they say the Muslims are up to according to their view that Islam is a religion which prays to Satan and not God & is "the religion of the sword"-as Cenk Uygur would say Project Much ?? and as Tom Paine said "These are the times that try men's souls."

Writing about Glenn Beck Tana Ganeva asks " What’s the business strategy behind alienating everyone but gun-hoarding, Ayn Rand-loving conspiracy freaks?"

Glenn Beck Thinks Jesus Was a Nazi Communist? by Tana Ganeva March 11, 2010


Last week, Glenn Beck introduced his listeners to a previously overlooked menace: nazi, communist Christians. You know, the ones who’ve forsaken all the worthwhile parts of religion, like sexual shaming, violence and prejudice, and embraced its most pernicious aspect: helping the needy.

“I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church website. If you find it, run as fast as you can! ” said Beck on his radio show.

On his TV show that day, wielding what appeared to be hammer/sickle and swastika coasters, he expanded on his opposition to the fight for social justice:

“Both the communists, who are on the left — they say — you know, these are communists. And the Nazis are on the right,” Beck said. “That’s what people say. But they both subscribed to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. One had the hammer and sickle; the other was a swastika. But on each banner read the words, here in America, of this — ’social justice.’ They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly — I love this — democracy.”

Clearly grumpy that Beck had revealed their plans for communist/fascist takeover, churches and other religious organizations have been hitting back. Bread for the World, which is following in Hitler’s footsteps by trying to feed the hungry, has launched a petition telling Beck, “Economic and social justice are central to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Quit using your bully pulpit to spread misinformation and fear by comparing faithful Christians who care “for the least of these” to Nazis and communists.”

New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good is using Beck’s latest attention grab to raise money and fund a video explaining that Jesus was really into helping people.

Looks like they’ll have more fodder. On his radio show today, in response to a caller who is outraged that his church (Catholic) is promoting health care, Beck said that even individuals who ascribe to his faith (LDS), have fallen into the trap of preaching social justice. “It is a perversion of the gospel” said Beck. (To be completely fair, Beck then goes on to make some convoluted argument about how Jesus would not have approved of the government’s role in health reform, which doesn’t have much to do with Church efforts to help the needy.)

Will Beck’s Christian bashing help alienate a whole new group of fans and supporters? It’s one thing to tar truly liberal churches that advocate for LGBT and women’s rights. But even many conservative churches have at least some pretense of responsibility to the world (the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good is hardly liberal, listing “protection for the unborn” as one of their goals).

Beck has already lost more than a hundred advertisers, thanks to several long-running campaigns alerting sponsors to how batshit crazy he is. According to StopBeck.com, the U.K. broadcast of his show has run without advertisers for a month now. I’d love to see churches and conservative groups linked to churches get cracking on some advertiser boycotts (something they’re really good at when it comes to boobs on TV)

What’s the business strategy behind alienating everyone but gun-hoarding, Ayn Rand-loving conspiracy freaks?


END NOTES: Julius Steicher's anti-Semitic Propaganda essay "The Way Of Slavery"
(For Educationl Purposes Only)

Anti-Semitism it can be argued was embedded in Christianity from the time of the Gospels and was continued by The Church Fathers and was rooted in the Church til after the Second World War. Even when the great schism took place under Martin Luther he referred to Judaism as "The Synagogues of Satan". So sadly Protestants kept the tradition of Anti-Semism.

Islam on the other hand for the most part was free of rabid on going anti-Semitism up until the 19th century when it began to take hold in Islam. Unfortunately Anti-Semitism has now spread among Muslims as they take seriously the idea of a World-Wide Jewish Conspiracy. So anti-Semitic works and Holocaust Denial literature and theories are now very popular in some Muslim countries and communities including works such as the infamous forgery "The Protocols of the Elders Of Zion".

Whereas in the West anti-Semitism has been replaced with Islaophobia and anti-immigrant movement . Islamophobes & Muslim bashers just replace Jews with Muslims ,Arabs or Palestinians it is the same sort of bogus conspiracy theories which for the Jewish people was deadly and can be used with deadly consequences when used against other religious groups or nationalities etc.

Islamophobes also contend that Islam is evil ,in their view the Qur'an is a vile piece of propaganda or written to honor Satan etc.They characterize Muslims as invading Europe and America in a stealth campaign to remake Western Nations into Islamic Theocracies.

and so it goes ,
GORD.

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