John McCain: The Nazi Maverick?

Toward the end of August, Madonna kicked off her 'Sticky and Sweet' tour in Europe, and not surprisingly, there was a lot of controversy surrounding the show. The controversy is a result of a video that played in the background during her new song 'Get Stupid', where pictures of John McCain were flashed alongside pictures of war, destruction, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, and more importantly, the Nazis and Adolf Hitler. The McCain camp was quick to denounce the video, and Republican gofer Tucker Bounds declared the comparisons 'outrageous' and 'unacceptable'.

Republicans were up in arms about the Nazi comparisons, and appalled that someone, who is not even part of the Obama camp, would make such 'childish' allegations and comparisons. I guess they don't consider their ads comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as being childish. I didn't hear much complaint from their camp when Republican South Carolina Senator Kevin Bryant put up a picture of Obama and Osama Bin Laden side-by-side on his website, claiming the only difference between the two was 'a little B.S.'

But perhaps there is more to the Nazi comparison than meets the eye. Consider for a moment one of the many interesting points former Governor of Minnesota, Jesse Ventura, made about McCain and Republicans on Larry King Live. He commented that listening to the ideas of the Republicans during their campaign reminded him of the ideas of Hermann Göring, a former Nazi military leader convicted of a slew of war crimes at Nuremberg.

One of Göring's most famous ideas and quotes is from Gustav Gilbert's Nuremberg Diary, and reads as follows:

'It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. ...voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.'
- Nuremberg Diary

I realize that calling McCain a Nazi is a bit extreme. However, Ventura raises an interesting point in comparing the Republicans' campaign tactics to Göring's ideas. Consider how many times McCain has mentioned how he is better able to 'keep us safe from future attacks,' how he is 'more qualified to protect the country from terrorists,' more qualified and willing to 'hunt them down in Afghanistan, and get us out of Iraq,' and how he questioned Obama's patriotism when he said Obama 'would rather lose a war and win an election.'

The Republicans constantly remind us of an ominous threat to our country from overseas, and use McCain's political experience to reassure the people that he is the right man to help us. McCain himself also likes to continually bring up the fact that Obama and Democrats are 'soft' on the war on terror, even though Obama pushed for more troops in Afghanistan while McCain supported a new, distracting conflict in Iraq. They use this idea of impending attacks as a distraction from things like energy and the economy, things which John McCain has no widely respected plans to fix. In an interview with Fortune Magazine in June, McCain was asked what the biggest threat to the economy is, to which he replied:

'Well, I would think that the absolute gravest threat is the struggle that we're in against radical Islamic extremism, which can affect, if they prevail, our very existence. Another successful attack on the United States of America could have devastating consequences.'
- Fortune Magazine/CNN Money

That's forgetting that fact that McCain adviser Charlie Black said, on record, that a new attack on America would 'be a big advantage for McCain.' These 'politics of fear' tactics the Republicans are using certainly hearken back to the Nazi strategies of scaring the people and exploiting their insecurities, and we should keep a watchful eye on the way they are preying on our fears and emotions, rather than our opinions and reasoning. We should not fall victims to their scare tactics, and instead hold them accountable for the way they mismanaged this country for 8 years and demand to know their plans for this country that don't involve war or terror.