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Nazi references mask real danger By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on Oct. 8, 2009, in the Connersville News-Examiner. Last week, Alan Grayson, the outspoken freshman Democrat congressman from Florida’s 8th district, touched off a minor firestorm when he decided to disparage his Republican colleagues for standing in the way of the government’s planned takeover of the U.S. health care system.
While there was some outcry from House Republicans and the National Republican Congressional Committee, Grayson’s words were met largely with yawns. After all, Grayson’s headline-seeking words merely attempted to reinforce the notion the GOP does not have any health care reform proposals of their own. They do, actually, and have for years, but those plans do not involve government control and would seriously curtail trial lawyers’ ambulance chasing, so those plans are non-starters. When called to apologize for his remarks, Grayson assumed his spot on the floor and took another shot. “I would like to apologize,” he said on Sept. 30, “I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.” He was claiming 44,000 Americans die each year as a result of not having medical insurance. Huh, I guess if I have the right policy, I could live forever. This time, Grayson’s use of the word ‘holocaust’ angered the Anti-Defamation League for equating a lack of medical coverage to the systematic extermination of six million Jews in Nazi-controlled Europe during World War II. Grayson, himself Jewish, quickly apologized for the line, earnestly this time. His apology ended this little episode as quickly as it began, but Grayson was the second member of Congress and reform supporter who invoked Nazi imagery to assail their detractors. The first was none other than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi when she accused health care protesters at August town hall meetings of carrying swastikas. With the strong emotions raised in this debate, it’s not surprising Nazi references have come up. But is it appropriate? Unfortunately, Nazi references these days are commonly used. Few presidents — if any — since World War II have escaped being compared to Adolf Hitler. Phrases like “Gestapo tactics” are part of our modern lexicon, and on the Web, anonymous posters hiding behind generic e-mail addresses regularly throw around Nazi references — especially when the online forums on which they spew their venom changes their posting policies. This ‘Nazi mentality’ is so ubiquitous in our culture that it makes one wonder if these references have lost meaning. To the average American coming out of the public educational system, Adolf Hitler was a fascist, he took over Germany, he started World War II and he killed six million people in gas chambers. These facts are mostly true but simplified, missing Hitler’s truly diabolical plans as well as lacking the context of the time. Since most Americans alive today were born well after World War II, much of what we have learned from that time comes from edited and abridged history books, giving an impression of Hitler as a near-mythical figure who loomed demonically over Europe and the world — and couldn’t possibly be equalled today. It is difficult to read history properly already knowing the outcome, particularly when the outcome is far more dramatic than the run-up. Fortunately, working for newspaper with a history stretching back more than 120 years, I am able to get a glimpse of history in the making in the form of our yellowed, musty and brittle archives. Thanks to these accounts, I am able to read history as it was happening — in a sense — because each article was written without knowing what would happen in the years ahead. To the writers of the time, our past was still a mystery. On the front page of the Monday, Jan. 30, 1933 issue of the News-Examiner reads the headline “Hitler named as German leader.” The article reads as follows: “BERLIN, Jan. 30—(AP)—Adolf Hitler, picturesque leader of the German fascists, was made chancellor of Germany today, succeeding General Kurt von Schleicher who resigned last week. But in granting him the ambition of his political lifetime President von Hindenberg surrounded him with a cabinet of conservatives. ... The new chancellor, who is only 43, took the appointment in his stride. ‘Well, we shall see,’ was all he said to the correspondents as he returned to his hotel from the president’s office ‘now let’s eat.’ The president, in his talks with Col. Von Papen over the week-end, finally had been persuaded to overcome his last scruples against placing Hitler as the head of the government.” Clearly, there was an uneasiness to Hitler’s obtaining power, but at the same time, accounts suggest the struggle was an equal-sided contest between the Communists and the Nazis with the world watching from the bleachers. Further accounts demonstrated the world knew of Hitler’s attitudes, but at the time, he was only one actor in a macabre performance playing out on the world stage. Hitler was a small, pathetic man who succeeded by circumstance and popluar unrest, turning his temper tantrum into a quest for world domination. He was the lucky recipient of an opportunity handed to him by a world distracted by economic and political turmoil, not the clever schemer who twisted the world by his design. He was not even the worst dictator of the 20th century. That dubious distinction belongs to Josef Stalin. Treating Hitler like he is the grand villian of history and invoking his name in completely unrelated situations does us a disservice by making us blind to the possibility and the ease in which another small, pathetic individual may rise, thanks to luck and popular sentiment. • Guilmette is managing editor of the News-Examiner. He may be contacted at mguilmette@newsexaminer.com. |
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Copyright © 2009, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
Speaking on the House floor on Sept. 29, Grayson said, “The Republican health care plan is this: ‘Don’t get sick, and if you do get sick, die quickly.’”
