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.