From: New Liberation News Service <nlns@igc.apc.org>
Subject: NLNS: Fascism with a Friendly Face
Nf-ID: #N:cdp:1483600108:000:9540
Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!nlns    Apr 14 20:42:00 1993
Lines: 164


From: New Liberation News Service <nlns>
Subject: NLNS: Fascism with a Friendly Face

/* Written  8:33 pm  Apr 14, 1993 by nlns@igc.apc.org in igc:nlns.news */
/* ---------- "NLNS Packet 3.11 *** 4-14-93" ---------- */

Fascism with a Friendly Face: Does Rush Limbaugh Remind You of 
Anyone?
Daevid Bornhuetter-Machen, The Madison Edge

"The main difference between Adolf Hitler and Rush Limbaugh is that 
Hitler was original and showed initiative." 
--Mort Sahl on The Tom Snyder Radio Show, ABC Radio Network, 
October 27, 1992.

(NLNS)--Believe it or not, I was planning this comparative review of 
Mein Kampf and Limbaugh's transcribed rant, The Way Things Ought to 
Be before Sahl issued his comparative review. As usual, Sahl's was 
independent and sharp as a scalpel.
	My effort can only dream of comparing favorably to Mort's. At 
least it has a fairly popular orginating premise; everyone I'd mention the 
idea to thought it was either divinely inspired or at least past due for 
delivery.
	Those reactions are based on parallels that should be obvious to the 
most peripheral observer of the Acts of those False Prophets. Both are 
noted for their galvanizing oratorical skills, which they both used with 
passion to generate a political cult of massive numerical proportions (in 
fact, Limbaugh claims to have an audience of just over 12 million, almost 
identical to the number of votes cast for Hitler in the April 1932 German 
election). Both used a myopic social perspective to build the cult, and 
enthusiastically amputated facts from the record to fabricate their 
ideological quilt.
	The last point is glaringly documented by passages in the opening 
pages of both books. Hitler's example is when, on page 5, he claims the 
German nationalist terrorist Leo Schlageter (he bombed part of a railway 
line between Dusseldorf and Duisburg, being caught in the act, in 1923) 
was "betrayed to France by a representative of his government" when 
there has never been any factual foundation for such a statement.
	In fact, the governments of both the Reich and Prussia, as well as 
the Vatican, actively intervened to save him from execution, and almost 
succeeded. Limbaugh follows suit by making the hysterically sarcastic 
claim in his introduction that "in a school or during a commencement 
ceremony or many other public places... God is unconstitutional." Of 
course, it's not God but the official imposition of particular concepts of 
God against an individual's will that's unconstitutional. But Limbaugh is 
too gleeful in his talent for distortion to want you to know that.
	Of course, one would assume that, by comparing the two books, 
my main point would be that The Way Things Ought to Be is the modern 
American Mein Kampf. Not really. At the time of the first German version 
of Mein Kampf, Hitler was just four months out of prison (June, 1925), 
and trying to reorganize the Nazis. He used the book to build his dozen 
million followers. Limbaugh, on the other hand, came up with his book 
after building his dozen million. Twelve million went a longer way in 
Weimar Germany that it does in the Republicrat United States.
	Thus, the more accurate parallels would be that Limbaugh's daily 
three-hour radio show is the American Mein Kampf, the primary 
propoganda tool used to pump up the angry volume; and that The Way 
Things Ought to Be is actually the American Triumph of the Will, a 
translation of the same fascist message into a different medium. Also, the 
printed word was the more important medium in Weimar Germany, since 
radio was still being thought of by impoverished Germans as a medium of 
luxury in 1925. Today, on the other hand, Americans are more likely to 
spend a few seconds to tune a radio dial at no monetary charge than drop 
$22 for 304 pages of transcripts of the same words.
	But, as Mort Sahl also observed on the radio the other night, some 
cloutmeister of the radical right wants Limbaugh to be a focal point of 
their propoganda. (And remember, Sahl is an Al Haig conservative these 
days.)
	Mort might not know exactly who Rush's equivalent of Rodolf 
Hess is (the book itself suggests Ed McLaughlin, the former president of 
ABC radio and now Limbaugh's partner in EFM Media, the radio 
program's production company). But Mort himself is a veteran of the talk 
show, having hosted them in New York, Washington and Los Angeles. He 
knows what evil lurks in the hearts of major market media men. He knows 
that Limbaugh could not have collected his audience had not the 
opportunity been placed on a silver platter and handed to him. Limbaugh 
earns his money just as honestly as Al Capone did; it's almost worthy of a 
RICO indictment.
	On questions of social issues, there is an overabundance of 
material in the Limbaugh book that seems to echo Hitler's venom. For 
example:

On Their Own Qualifications to Control Society
	Hitler: "Out of the host of sometimes millions of people, who 
individually more or less clearly and distinctly guess the truth, partly 
perhaps understand it, one man [author's emphasis] must step forward in 
order to form, with apodeictic force, out of the wavering world of 
imagination of the great masses, granite principles, and to take up the fight 
for their sole correctness, until out of the playing waves of a free world of 
thought a brazen rock of uniform combination of form and will arises" 
(page 577).
	Limbaugh: "Who needs the media when they've got me? ... The 
show is devoted exclusively to what I think ... [the phrase "with half my 
brain tied behind my back to make it even"] denotes the egress of mental 
aptitude I require to engage and demolish liberals and others who disagree 
with me ... It might take four or five years, but I'm convinced The Media 
will slowly and reluctantly come around to my way of thinking, kicking 
and screaming all the way." (pages 266, 21, 299 and 273, respectively.)

On Religion as the Basis of a Nation
	Hitler: "In this world human culture and civilization are 
inseperably bound up with the existence of the Aryan. His dying-off or his 
decline would again lower upon this earth the dark veils of a time without 
culture ... He who dares to lay hand upon the highest image of the Lord 
sins against the benevolent Creator of this miracle and helps in the 
expulsion from Paradise." (Page 581.)
	Limbaugh: "America was founded as a Judeo-Christian country ... 
But our intellectual and political elites are often either hostile or 
ambivalent toward religion ... People for whom belief in God is at best a 
charming superstition have managed to ban prayer from the public schools 
for the last thirty years. Is it only a coincidence that the quality of 
American education has declined ever since?" (pages 274-5.)

On Popular Culture as a Reason for Social Collapse
	Hitler: "The fight against the poisoning of the soul has to set in ... 
One has only to look at the menus of our movie houses, vaudevilles and 
theatres; and one can hardly deny that this is not the right kind of food ... 
Theatre, art, literature, movies, the press, billposters and window displays 
must be cleaned of the symptoms of a rotting world and put into the 
service of a moral idea of State and culture." (pages 346 and 348.)
	Limbaugh: "Today, Hollywood is in trouble. The reason [is] that 
Hollywood has forgotten who its audience is ... They make fun of people 
who believe in God. They ridicule the traditional family, heterosexuality 
and monagamy. They disparage American heroes." (page 254.)

On the News Meida
	Hitler: "The activity of the so-called liberal press was the work of 
gravediggers for the German people and the German Reich. One can pass 
by in silence the Marxist papers of lies ... it's task is only to break the 
people's folkish and national spine, in order to make it ripe for the yoke of 
slavery of international capital and its masters, the Jews." (Page 331.)
	Limbaugh: "Elements of The Media have jumped on the 
bandwagon of leftist causes. The cynical journalist of the past has been 
replaced in many cases by an enthusiastic cheerleader for causes ... During 
the Gulf war, CNN correspondent Bernard Shaw [said] CNN is a global 
network. We can't take sides. Cant take sides? --- --- ---! ... If they don't 
realize that their freedom lies in the United States of America and that 
therefore they should defend this nation, they are hopelessly misguided 
and, may I suggest, flirting with megalomania." (pages 270 and 268.)

*     *     *
	
To continue these comparative excerpts is certainly possible, but 
ultimately too depressing to take in one reading.
	After putting these books down, there is one undeniable fact that 
haunts me. In the 1920s, Adolf Hitler fed depressed and frightened 
Germans the opiate of hatred of those around them; in turn, it allowed 
Germans to hand their collective national power to the Nazis. In the 1990s, 
Rush Limbaugh is doing the very same thing: distributing hatred to 
depressed and frightened Americans; in turn, it is helping the American 
radical right to maintain its power base as the 12-year nightmare of the 
Reagan-Bush era comes to an end, hoping to rebuild it into their hopes for 
The Fascist States of America.
	And if Limbaugh is not as repellant a Hitler, it is only because the 
radical right utilizes Limbaugh as its own gateway opiate. One can only 
wonder what the ultimate drug is they plan to hook America on.

The Madison Edge can be reached at PO Box 845, Madison, WI 53701-
0845; (608) 255-4460.

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