Michele Bachmann: Americans Are Losing Their “Economic Liberty” Just As Jews Lost Their Lives in the Holocaust
May 1st, 2011 | 16 responses
In the LaLa Land for Historical Ignoramuses in which Michele Bachmann resides, the loss of six million Jewish lives — as well as millions of gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, and many other disfavored groups – is analogous to Americans’ (supposed) loss of “economic liberty” (defined by Bachmann as eliminating Medicare and Social Security for the elderly and disabled, and requiring the wealthy to pay income taxes in order to fund these, and anything else that helps what Emma Lazarus called the “wretched refuse” — although of course Lazarus was not using that term as an expression of her personal belief):
In a speech to New Hampshire Republicans, Bachmann recounted learning about a horrific time in history as a child — the Holocaust — and wondering if her mother did anything to stop it. She said she was shocked to hear that many Americans weren’t aware that millions of Jews had died until after World War II ended.
Bachmann said the next generation will ask similar questions about what their elders did to prevent them from facing a huge tax burden.
“I tell you this story because I think in our day and time, there is no analogy to that horrific action,” she said, referring to the Holocaust. “But only to say, we are seeing eclipsed in front of our eyes a similar death and a similar taking away. It is this disenfranchisement that I think we have to answer to.”
The generation of Americans just entering the work force now could eventually see 75 percent of their earnings sucked up by income taxes, Social Security and Medicare, Bachmann said. Those young workers are going to wonder what people were doing while “watching quite literally our economic liberty pulled out from under us.”
“The question comes down to this: what will you say to that next generation about what you did to make sure that wouldn’t be their fate?” she said.
Emphasis is mine. There is no analogy to the Holocaust, but taxes and social programs are analogous to the Holocaust. The woman is a birdbrain.
Digby reminds us of the Mt. Vesuvius-size volcanic eruption on the right that followed former Rep. Alan Grayson’s use of the word “holocaust” to characterize the millions of Americans without health insurance. Although I think Digby is correct that Grayson was using that word in its generic sense, he should have known that one simply cannot use the word “holocaust” in its general sense after the historic Holocaust. The generic meaning has been burned away, literally.
Grayson both phoned and wrote a letter to the Anti-Defamation League to apologize for his poor word choice, and his apology was unequivocal. So it would be appropriate, I think, for Republicans in Congress and right-wing media pundits like Erick Erickson to condemn Bachmann’s analogizing taxation to the Holocaust as strongly as they did Grayson’s use of the lower-case “h” word “holocaust” to refer to the health care situation. But I don’t really believe they will.
16 Responses to “Michele Bachmann: Americans Are Losing Their “Economic Liberty” Just As Jews Lost Their Lives in the Holocaust”
Apparently she feels the need to out-crazy Trump. Anyone know how he is polling lately?
The boundary between theater and politics is a thin one. There are those who use this fact to great advantage, using theater and drama to reveal and address fundamental human dilemmas, Shakepeare, for example.But there are others, clowns, who diminish public life, e.g. Trump and Bachmann. They seem funny but are very dangerous to the well being of the Republic.
http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/04/dc-week-in-review-theater-and-politics/
They are nothing compared to the power players that tell our political leadership what to do. As wacko as Trump may be, he is not a puppet of the teachers unions or NRA.
It is the corporate Politburo that I find much more dangerous to our Republic.
Comparing the Holocaust—the murder of more than six million innocents–no matter how obliquely, to “taxation burdens” or any other economic inconveniences shows not only appalling ignorance but, worse, a monstrous insensitivity and lack of compassion and human decency unbefitting of anyone seeking a high office.
I agree with that. It’s an inappropriate analogy that doesn’t get any more appropriate if you claim you’re not making it.
I wouldn’t use a beef with the form as an excuse to duck the main point of the message, though. She’s right that we face a big loss of choices if we don’t get our fiscal act together. A bond market cave-in and major cuts to entitlements are inevitable on our present course, but preventable if we come together. Shame on us if we can’t do that.
[...] In the LaLa Land for Historical Ignoramuses in which Michele Bachmann resides, the loss of six million Jewish lives — as well as millions of gypsies, homosexuals, Catholics, and many other disfavored groups – is analogous to Americans’ (supposed … read full article… [...]
Bachmann’s preference for fictional versions of issues and events probably means the GOP will give her serious consideration for a higher “leadership” position soon.
The TP/GOP dream ticket:
Allen West/Michelle Bachmann!!!
Kathy, I waited to see if anyone else would explain and you would respond in a way that indicates you understand: What Bachmann was describing was the analogy with gradual, repeat, GRADUAL, (or incremental) loss of rights that the Jews and others in Germany experienced before it reached the extremes that it did with Germany’s chosen enemies within the Reich, including the Jews.
The Holocaust didn’t happen abruptly, but happened after the rights of Germans and especially the objects of the Reich government’s persecution reached a state already close to the Holocaust.
(As so many people disenchanted with the Reich and especially Jews and other enemies of the government experienced as well as observed the gradual loss of rights and persecution earlier, they got out of Germany if they could — such as the atomic scientists. The same is true later of Nazi-occupied Europe, often before — while flight was still practical — Hitler launched the war in Poland.)
The same gradual process has been true for economic rights (and others) with the rise of the modern welfare state here in the USA (by people enamored of collectivist authoritarian and organicism in 1930s Europe), and what has happened since with regulation as well as invasion into the truly personal sphere of life. That includes health care “reform” by the federal government, even if the incrementalist strategy they attempted in 2009-10 was poor.
The trend toward greater loss of economic rights and other rights (as we see right now, with the union-boss NLRB trying to get an order by a court to force Boeing to remain in union-friendlier Washington state rather than move hands-on assembly work to economically freer South Carolina), despite perceived blocks or even temporary reversals under the “evil” Reagan and Bush. (The GOP was punished in large part in 2006 and 2008 for further eroding rights and growing the federal government, not the opposite.)
It was a GRADUAL process. The Holocaust didn’t happen suddenly. Nor has erosion of our economic rights in the USA.
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“As wacko as Trump may be, he is not a puppet of the teachers unions or NRA.”
I know there’s no National Rifle Assocation in Germany. Are there teachers’ unions in Germany, ShannonLee? Is public education better in Germany than it is in the U.S.? How do teachers do over there in terms of salary and benefits?
I don’t know much about contemporary Germany, so I just thought I’d ask.
Kathy
“A bond market cave-in and major cuts to entitlements are inevitable on our present course, but preventable if we come together. Shame on us if we can’t do that.”
I don’t know as much about the bond markets, but what would “coming together” mean specifically in the context of not making major cuts to entitlements?
I ask because I don’t think we should do anything to further increase the suffering of those Americans who are poor or working several jobs to make ends meet, or of those Americans who are over 65 and living on a very tight budget on a fixed income, or those who are receiving Social Security or Medicaid because they are disabled or low income. And the way you phrase your comment, it sounds to me like you agree that we shouldn’t those things, or that if we come together we can prevent our having to do those things. Can you tell me what you mean by “coming together”?
You know who HAS to go on a very tight budget? All of us, especially the US government.
It is so worse than most people think:
Even as the Treasury issues more and more debt, there are fewer and fewer people willing to buy it…Pimco (which has now dumped US Treasuries) estimated last month that, under QE2, 70 per cent of the US Government’s debt is being bought by the Federal Reserve.
In other words, under the 2011 budget, every hour of every day, the federal government spends $188 million it doesn’t have, $130 million of which is “borrowed” from itself.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/266107/hitting-real-debt-ceiling-mark-steyn
I think what’s needed is a combination of tax increases, some outright cuts (starting with defense, but to entitlements as well), means-testing, and reforms to improve efficiency.
Indefatigably wrote:
> You know who HAS to go on a very tight budget?
> All of us, especially the US government.
>
> It is so worse than most people think
Just with the bond problems happening already, and later risks of default and failure to have people (nations) buy our bonds later, it is also true, e.g., with the un-sustainability of Social Security and Medicare, and the effect on federal finances of deficits of these programs, which have begun already, long before “trust fund” exhaustion. I’ve tried to warn people time after time here, but…
LOL Our debt to gdp ratio is better than Canada, Japan, Italy India and Germany. Now who will default first?
GDP vs National Debt by Country
Japan is in worse shape, and their economy is in the tank since the 90′s…
Rudi, why would you choose to quote a 2009 diagram with a US federal debt of only $8.68 trillion, when we’re obviously over $10 trillion now and above a “mere” 60.8 per cent of GDP now, and have been for several months? We’re at around or above $14 (fourteen) trillion debt and in the nineties per cent debt to GDP.
Here, people:
http://www.usdebtclock.org/
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
United States $14.6 trillion 92.7 per cent of GDP
Japan $ 5.4 trillion 225.9
Germany $ 3.3 trillion 75.3
France $ 2.6 trillion 84.2
United Kingdom $ 2.3 trillion 76.7
Italy $ 2.0 trillion 118.4
Canada $ 1.6 trillion 81.7
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2011/01/28/the-10-countries-with-the-most-debt