Der Fuhrer Obama?

My 88 year old mother believes Obama is this century’s Hitler. I don’t argue the point with her…well, that’s not exactly correct. I have attempted to take issue with her conclusion but very quickly realized I was hurling jello at concrete. However, I did ask and she was quite willing to tell me why Barack and Adolf are kindred spirits. She only gave me one reason, but she claims to back that reason up with first hand validation, as she lived in Germany until 1937, leaving just before she turned 16:

“I heard Hitler speak.”

“Yes, and so?”

“Obama speaks too well, he’s too smooth…just like Hitler”.

Funny, but in old newsreels I don’t recall Hitler’s style looking like something one might call smooth. Regardless, he was obviously an effective communicator and from that standpoint I suppose commonalities might be found. Still, to mom it appears content doesn’t carry much weight. Maybe something else is going on. Perhaps when she looks back she feels duped. Isn't that the result of listening to smooth people?

When she made the comment that “Hitler wasn’t all bad” I began to think she was struggling with the history. Well, she left Germany in 1937 at a time when Hitler was immensely popular with the great majority of the German people. He had been Fuhrer for almost 4 years. She mentioned such things as trains running on time, full employment, mandatory sports, and his frequently quoting the Bible (something I wasn't aware of) among others. There was a new, generally pervasive feel-good factor that replaced the Depression (both economic and mental) which had plagued the German people since WWI and new enemies in their midst. That was most of what she remembered as a young girl. Still, hindsight is 20-20 and I can’t see the badness of a larger than life malevolence such as Hitler charted out like some kind of bell curve. But I didn’t live it either. Still, the bad stuff, the phantom enemies, had started long before she left and I wondered just how it could have remained so transparent.

There are things people have difficulty seeing when they’re living in the middle of it. Most of us know this, but it appears the knowing doesn’t help much. Those situations or attitudes that might seem logical now can appear like a collective insanity when reviewed historically. In most cases it involves the desire to protect and preserve identity. No one today disputes that the Communist panic of the late 40s and early 50s, which ruined careers, lives, and resulted in some unattractive executions (both public and private) was a bit of collective insanity…but not so at the time. Communists were seen as a direct threat to how Americans viewed themselves and their way of life…but that threat didn’t exist. Now take the recent simple event where an Islamic organization wants to build a community center two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center tragedy. What is insane and what isn’t?

When I first heard about a local city official protesting the construction I thought why the hell is that guy getting any press? His point seemed petty. Now it is a national and political controversy, and fodder for 20 million blogs such as this one. A televised poll has (supposedly) 67% of all Americans opposed to the proposed construction. Harry Reid, the dynamic and swashbuckling titular head of the Senate majority, came out against it without giving much reason, hoping to nudge himself slightly to the right no doubt, and Sarah Palin blamed it on Muslim insensitivities (Reid & Palin - strange bedfellows). Newt Gingrich pointed out a Neo-Nazi cannot hang a swastika outside the holocaust museum, making an obvious comparison. Conservative talk show celebrities are viewing this controversy like Homer Simpson views doughnuts. None that I’m aware of have publically commented on similar public efforts to thwart the construction of Muslim mosques and other buildings around the country over the past few years, which has been the case.

To tie the controversy to the World Trade Center tragedy and its many direct victims is a travesty all by itself. The political and economic powers that have used the World Trade Center attack as a reason to wage “war” have, by necessity, created an enemy to enact policy, perpetuate power, and extract profit. Were the policies that have resulted in the deaths of 4000 US soldiers in Iraq, 106,000 Iraqi civilians, 1900 coalition troops in Afghanistan, and 28,000 Afghan civilians (with many, many more injured) really all about just Al Qaida? Much of our leadership, which so stealthfully draws a distinction between a good faith and a bad faith serves up that insanity like it was health food. I shouldn't wonder that the number of people in our beloved, free democracy who would gleefully pack up every person of Islamic faith in the country and ship them off to the Middle East is probably in the tens of millions…or perhaps frighteningly more.

Even Obama has taken a stand, making an eloquent speech during a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan where he supported the Islam center, but he rests his position on the heritage and constitutionality of religious freedom in America. Religious freedom has nothing to do with the issue. Those tens of millions of good Christians who are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder against the Islamic horde carry no animosity toward Muslims practicing their faith. They believe they’re all going to hell anyway. Rather they simply perceive Muslim people as a threat to the sanctity and security of their Christian/American identities. They have taken the motives and actions of a few terrorists, extrapolated that rationale to Islamic extremists, and then finally applied Islamic extremism to every one of the Muslim faith…baddest, badder, and just plain bad. The tragic irony is, of course, that is precisely what the Al Qaida terrorists were hoping to accomplish.

Sorry mom, Obama is no Hitler, but no matter. The powers that guide public policy and private opinion don’t need a Hitler. They can extend fear and hatred so skillfully that even something as innocuous as building a religiously sponsored civic center can rally the troops nationwide. Perhaps it can’t be seen now, but I somehow think we’re in for a world of feeling duped in a couple of decades or less.

I wonder, what would happen to the terrorists if we collectively refused to be terrorized? Perhaps feeling good about a new civic center in lower Manhattan would be a small step in the right direction.