On Misuses of the Holocaust (again)
So, the GOP has decided to deploy the Obama=Hitler comparison to stop Health Care Reform. The ADL has responded calling the comparison “outrageous and innapropriate.” Jewish Dems are calling for the GOP’s Eric Cantor to repudiate Rush Limbaugh, who is, as always, leading the hateful pack. Plenty of people are coming out against these statements, thankfully, but the constant “n=Hitler equation” that comes up in disagreements (the left has done this too) does a great disservice to the real survivors of the Holocaust and of the recent and ongoing genocides of the 20th and 21st centuries. The Hitler comparisons cheapen the act of exterminating an entire race of people and all dissenters into a flourish, a way to score political points and get your picture in the paper.
Right now, in the world there are some very apt comparisons that can be made to Hitler, those leaders in Sudan, in the eastern Congo, in Burma, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in Sri Lanka who are trying to exterminate their fellow countrymen for political gain. Until recently, I would have argued vociferously against the Iran comparisons, but given the regime’s current behavior toward its own subjects (but not, I should add, the Jews specifically as Jews), even that comparison is more apt than the Obama=Hitler nonsense.
Republicans and Democrats, Jews and non-Jews, and any people of conscience have a duty to focus on the real acts that are “like Hitler,” mass-murder that is very real and ongoing, and not try to score cheap points off of survivors. Limbaugh has no shame, but the GOP leadership should at least pretend to, and distance themselves from this cruel absurdity.
