Stop the Madness: Right Wing Nutjob Still Tilting at Marxist Windmills
From the Anals of Congressman Paul Broun
No, that’s not a typo. U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-GA, is talking out of his ass.
Like the lone Japanese soldier left behind on a remote Pacific atoll, Broun doesn’t know the war is over. In an AP story today, this supposed public servant continues to insinuate President-elect Barack Obama has “marxist” or “socialist” tendencies. What’s worse, he trots out the age old crutch of the brain-addled in a political argument: the “H” word:
“It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force,” Rep. Paul Broun said of Obama in an interview Monday with The Associated Press. “I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism.”
Broun cited a July speech by Obama that has circulated on the Internet in which the then-Democratic presidential candidate called for a civilian force to take some of the national security burden off the military.
“That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did,” Broun said. “When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.”
Yeah, that “H” word, ‘Hitler.’
First let’s deal with the obvious – Broun’s misguided sense of history and political ideology. To conflate an alleged national security force proposal with “… what Hitler did in Nazi Germany …” and call it “signs of being Marxist,” is stupid. Hitler was as anti-communist and anti-Marxist as he was antisemitic. As part of his climb to dictatorship, Adolph Hitler used a dutch communist/Marxist sympathizer, Marinus van der Lubbe as a patsy in the burning of the Reichstag. Hitler was not yet supreme leader in Germany and the drama ensuing from the Reichstag “plot” led to a emergency decree which greatly increased his powers.
Second, there is a growing rumbling in the bowels of the internet about whether or not Obama plans to begin some sort of national security force. From Obama’s campaign website, here’s a bullet point from his “Service” policy page:
Expand AmeriCorps from its current 75,000 slots to 250,000 slots, enabling the program to establish five new Corps that address some of America’s most pressing challenges: Classroom Corps, Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, Veterans Corps, and Homeland Security Corps.
Now if you know what AmeriCorps is, these other “corps” sound like auxilliary groups. Nothing about “Homeland Security Corps” screams out Brownshirt or Gestapo to me. To the perpetually paranoid, maybe, but perpetual paranoia is a mental disorder.
Right-wingers on the Internet are pointing to comments made by Obama on the campaign trail, where according to the Associated Press story linked above, he said a civilian force may be able to handle some of the domestic security duties of the military. Well, I’m sorry, but I think we’ve just gone through a pretty thourough vetting and parsing of every word uttered by both candidates in the 2008 presidential race. If Barack Obama said anything that even resembled instituting a secret police, Obama Youth or Brownshirts he would’ve been called on it and his candidacy severely wounded.
Intellectually, the right wing is a blunt instrument incapable of nuanced thought or honest argument. It appears that what Obama said was not clear enough for them so they’ve ascribed their own dark worldview to his words.
Broun, who I guess we’ll call a poster boy now for this scary constituency said he equates what he believes are Obama’s intentions with “Marxism.” Let’s correct the record here as well. If any president instituted what the right fears most in this regard, it would be fascism, not Marxism or socialism. Broun is mixing his demagog’s vocabulary.
Finally – does any rational American believe that a movement with lofty principles – from beginning to end – and built on voluteerism, free expression and inclusion is capable of fascism – in this country with this Constitution?
Could someone please tell Congressman Broun the war is over?
Full Text: President-Elect Barack Obama, Victory Speech, Grant Park, Chicago | November 4, 2008
Click Here if You Are Looking for President Obama’s Inaugural Address.
Otherwise … enjoy the victory speech:
(Source: Fox News)
PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.
Its the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.
Its the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled – Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America. Read more
Democratic National Convention: News Coverage – Ohio and National
Filed under: Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, Presidential Campaign 2008
From the Columbus Dispatch
- Black Ohio Delegates Full of Pride
- ‘We are a better country than this’
- Obama attempts to offer specifics and inspiration
- Ohioans salute Tubbs Jones
- Corporations convene to treat Ohio delegates
- Arrested reporter got start in Athens
From the Cleveland Plain Dealer
From the New York Times
- Obama takes aim at McCain, Bush with a forceful call to change America
- In speech bringing lofty words down to earth
- Politics, spectacle and history under an open sky
- The Godfather
- On the small screen, intimacy and welcome silence for Obama’s Big Rally
- Editorial: Mr. Obama’s Party
- Op-Ed, David Brooks: A speech to the delegates
- Op-Ed, Paul Krugman: Feeling no pain
From the Washington Post
- Obama, accepting nomination, draws sharp contrast with McCain
- The message that the party wanted to hear
- A new day for King’s dreams
- Op-Ed, Tom Shales: A big moment for the small screen
- Op-Ed, Charles Krauthammer: The Perfect Stranger
- Op-Ed, Eugene Robinson: So many miles from Selma
- Op-Ed, E.J. Dionne: Rekindling the flame
- Editorial: The message from Denver
