Friday, October 23, 2009

We Are All Hitler


Bizarro is brought to you today by The Truth.

If there is one thing the children of America are learning it is that if you don't like something, compare it to Hitler. I wish I had known this when I was a kid. So many times I was told to go to my room and think about what I'd done (just like Hitler used to do to the Jews!) and even though I was angry and felt I was being treated unfairly, I did not know to compare my parents to Hitler. Live and learn.

The political discourse in our beloved U.S. of A. has become so ludicrous that it can barely be satirized. Still, I hope I've done a decent job here. The sort of things some Americans are teaching their children with the dreck they plaster on signs and march up and down the streets with is appalling, and we will all suffer the consequences of these drones when they grow up and inflict their warped sensibilities on society in more robust ways. Many will even have their own TV shows.

I think most Americans are still relatively sensible and don't equate Obama's efforts to help people other than the uber-rich with Hitler, but they don't get the media coverage. So it's the media's fault. The media are Hitler.

To be honest, I'm not sure who is Hitler, but I'm sure he's out there. Lurking, waiting to make his move. Get ready for mandatory mustaches, people.

NOTE: Good news at Bizarro Headquarters: I did not die yesterday afternoon. So there will be no theories about whether yesterday's post was a prophecy or a suicide note in disguise. I'm not planning to leave the house today, increasing my chances of living another 24 hours, so everyone can relax. If I get to feeling woozy or anything, I'll post an emergency paragraph or two before I call 911. Stay tuned.

10 comments:

L. Erskine said...

The whole Obama is Hitler thing just boggles my mind.

Not really on topic but the word Hitler pushed my babble button...

My son got in trouble in school last week because he drew left facing swastikas on his arms. He had walked around school with these symbols he had drawn all day long and when he got to his Social Studies class, in the second hour, the teacher threw a tantrum and yelled at him. None of the children around him understood the issue and neither did he. He just liked the shape. I remember drawing them as a kid (when they had no meaning to me). I used to fill pages with the ever growing shape that started as a swastika. I also filled pages with swirls and triangles, etc.

Rather than explaining to my son why that shape had caused such an extraordinarily emotional response from her, she wrote a letter to me telling me that I needed to teach my child the relevance of the swastika. My son's teacher wanted me to teach my son to associate one of oldest symbols with hatred and fear.

I brooded on the subject before I brought it up.

I asked my son... "You know who Hitler is, right?"
"Yeah, he's the guy who killed lots of Jewish people."
"Okay, well he used a right facing swastika to represent his army and the countries who were actively involved in WWII still see that symbol as representing the hatred behind Hitler's behavior..."
"Well, I'm not racist, and it was backwards why is the symbol bad?"

Ultimately, I had to explain to my son that people simply can not look past the meaning most strongly associated in their mind and that even if we think the masses are silly, sometimes we need to conform for our own safety.

We also spent some time on the internet reading about Hinduism and Buddhism and the use of the swastika through out history. I then printed up the most interesting and relevant of our reading (Hindu people in the US having the cops called on them because their neighbors think they're neo-Nazis) and sent a letter BACK to the teacher (without signing hers as she had requested) telling her that a simple sentence would had sufficed and that dumping her emotions on children will simply continue the ignorance.

I did not receive a response... but I didn't expect one. I think maybe that teacher is Hitler.

Incorporeal Bob said...

NOTE: Good news at Bizarro Headquarters: I did not die yesterday afternoon.

Of course, this paragraph will be viewed just as creepily if you happen to meet an untimely demise today. I think we need to see an update tomorrow, to address this important issue. And the next day, as well. Hm, come to think of it, the day after that too. One more the next day after that, and I think that should do it.

Dosbears said...

Most accidents happen at home! Get out!

doug nicodemus said...

you could do one on the joker face next...i do not know which is worse...but sullying images does not a political argument make...

Karyl Miller said...

Hi Dan, As usual I am loving your toons and BLOG. Disclosure from this Jewess: I think drek should be spelled drek and not dreck like the shampoo Breck. It drek was a bastardization of Enlish it could have a c, but as a bastardization of German, drek doesn't deserve a c. IMHO

Unknown said...

if you are incapable of growing a mustache, will you be forced to wear a fake one? and what if you have a beard AND a mustache? will you have to shave the beard but leave the 'stache?

seriously, though, the amount of hatred in some people is frightening. and continuing what Leigh said, the swastika symbol was a GOOD symbol before the Nazis stole it, just like the Pentagram was a GOOD symbol before it got corrupted into before some crazy people decided it meant devil worship.

i don't think i ever thought my parents were hitler, but maybe the teachers or my fellow students.

jp said...

This is such a pervasive phenomenon that it has it own entry in Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum

Anonymous said...

1. Godwin's Law

2. This site proves it all!

http://obamaisliterallyhitler.tumblr.com/

James said...

8 years ago, it was the radical left comparing Bush to Hilter. Now it's the radical right comparing Obama to Hitler. The insanity just keeps jumping between parties as the power shifts.

thomas4143 said...

Leigh - I appreciate your thoughts about the swastika debacle, but I think you need to be sensitive to the fact that regardless whether or not people should associate the swastika with Hitler, they do - this is a reality and your wishing it were not so will not change that. I quite reasonably assume that a person with a swastika drawn on their skin is very likely to be an offensive person with a warped ideology - a reasonable association given that the vast majority of swastika-wearers fit that mold. Based only on what you wrote, it sounds like your son has a grossly inadequate understanding of who Hitler was and his continuing relevance in our world - he may have dies but his hatred lives on in others. Explaining the historical basis for the symbol has far less relevance.