Beck finds the common thread between Nazis and commies (and Catholics and Jews)
March 03, 2010 12:37 am ET by Brooke Obie
In his latest frenzied game of connect-the-dots, Fox News' Glenn Beck compared the philosophies of Nazism and communism, finding common ground in their advocacy of "social justice" -- the crazy idea that people should have equal rights and opportunities:
BECK: Both the communists, who are on the left -- they say -- you know, these are communists. And the Nazis are on the right. 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.
But don't stop there, Glenn. You know who else supports social justice? The Catholic Church. Yes, the Catechism of the Catholic Church deals specifically with "Social Justice," noting: "Society ensures social justice by providing the conditions that allow associations and individuals to obtain their due, according to their nature and their vocation. Social justice is linked to the common good and the exercise of authority."
Meanwhile, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism has a section of its website devoted to "Social Justice," detailing positions on topics such as "Judaism and Health Care Reform" and "Jewish Community Budget Priorities." ("We have long been involved with the annual budget process, advocating for policies and programs that assist the most vulnerable people in our nation.") And the Union for Reform Judaism's Commission on Social Action "seeks to apply the insights of Jewish tradition to such domestic and foreign issues as human rights, world peace, civil liberties, religious freedom, famine, poverty, intergroup relations, as well as other major societal concerns"; its website cites Rabbi David Saperstein's statement that "the thread of social justice is so authentically and intricately woven into the many-colored fabric we call Judaism that if you seek to pull that thread out, the entire fabric unravels."
Oh, Glenn. Questions have been raised about your sanity after you called yourself a clown, barked like a dog on national TV, and entertained the fringe right with your manifold conspiracy theories. But if you really want to go so far down the nutty trail that you inadvertently end up linking Jews to subscribing to Nazism, you will have removed all doubt.
____________ and __________ are working together to supress ____________.
and fill in the blanks by randomly choosing three of the following: "Catholics," "progressives," "Jews," "Nazis," "Communists," "leprachauns," or "Senate Republicans," Beck will link them in some kind of conspiracy.
They aren't very hard too find. Nazi flags figure prominently in thousands of movies and television programs, and probably appear ten times a day on the History Channel. Soviet flags were on prominent display in awards cermonies at many Olympic Games, and in quite a few movies and television shows themselves.
And the Nazis are on the right.
Many people on the right, either through ignorance of basic political extremism or through acute embarrassment, make the impossibly loony claim that Nazism belongs on the left side of the spectrum. Next time that happens, we can tell them to take it up with Beck.
Granted, he immediately qualified it with:
That's what people say.
as if there were any doubt among those that are both knowledgeable and sane.
I guess we can give him partial credit.
He's rallied his supporters by co-opting their faith, and nationalism.
He constantly revises history to suit his needs, with the help of FOX, which operates as a right wing propaganda channel.
He's picked his scapegoat: Progressives and the Left. And just as Hitler with Jews, Beck blames progressives for all of society's ills.
He's exploiting the poor financial climate, just like Hitler, and saying that, again, Progressives are to blame for the recession. He states that if we were just to elect someone like...say, Sarah Palin, all of these problems would go away.
Both the communist and American Nazi movements of the '20s and 30's came out of the progressive movement.
Progressives work towards total government...the end result being totalitarianism, be it communist or fascist varietals. You can call one "left" and the other "right", but these are meaningless terms.
The true political continuum is not communism at one end and fascism at the other. It is total government ( be it fascism or communism) at one end...and zero government (anarchy) at the other. The Founders initially created a weak confederation (closer to anarchy) with essentially no central government. It failed and had to be replaced in 1791 with our current federal republic and a Constitution which guarantees a republican form of government.