...from the Hitler page of the Auschwitz website and today's Star piece on Harper by Robert Benzies and a 2006 CBC article.
Before I start, I am well aware of the danger of falling into a reductio ad hitlerum trap so I am just copying and pasting without comment. (Please note that the reductio ad Hitlerum defense was coined by Leo Strauss who is a hero of the Calgary School which thoughtfully gave a platform for the ideas of Tom Flanagan, Barry Cooper, Ted Morton and others). In the interest of balance it is worthwhile including this additional quote from the Star article: "As Harper struggles to contain the national psychodrama he sparked, the amateur psychoanalysis is reaching a fever pitch." I blog, you decide.
On to the quotes:
The Star: "So says one of Stephen Harper's long-time acquaintances, wryly noting the Prime Minister has few friends."
Aushwitz: "His only boyhood friend... Hitler would only tolerate approval from his friend and could not stand to be corrected, a personality trait he had shown in high school and as a younger boy as well."
CBC: " He has few close friends but is fiercely loyal to them. He has a temper that shows itself when he believes he is being betrayed."
The Star: "In interviews with federal associates of Harper, past and present, a picture emerges of a bright and driven man who does not take dissenting counsel especially well and is prone to profane outbursts."
Auschwitz: "recalled Hitler as a shy, reticent young man, yet he was able to burst into hysterical fits of anger towards those who disagreed with him."Recommend this Post
Saturday, December 6, 2008
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4 comments:
I'm not fond of either Harper or Hitler, but there's one major difference between the two. Genocide. Harper has yet to try to kill an entire group of people. While we all know the PMO keeps a list of Jews (http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=198690d9-d9b8-4bbc-983f-d7236a2dfc8e&p=1), but they've yet to use that to the point of murder.
In other words both Harper and Hitler suffer inferiority complexes where they compensate for their feelings of inadequacy by bullying.
Shrugs. It's a very common problem.
Well there's an odd coincidence. I just posted the following at a two-day-old thread at Big City Lib's place:
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I'm coming late to this thread but I just had to comment on Paul S's characterization of Stephen Harper as a "Canadian", with the subtext that he is a "true" Canadian, whereas we who oppose him are, apparently, not.
Harper is a "Canadian" in the same sense that Vidkun Quisling was a Norwegian.
If history had been kinder to him (while kicking the rest of us in the 'nads), he would be a good little gauleiter representing Canada as a minor province in some larger neo-conservative corporatist empire, led by some sort of self-appointed ubermensch that looked a lot like Cheney.
Try photoshopping an SA cap, brownshirt and jodhpurs onto Harper's pudgy body and pasty face and you'll see he wouldn't look the least bit out of place in one of those old photos of "the boys" like Ernst Rohm or Sepp Dietrich jocularizing along with Herr Himmler and the fearless leader Himself.
Remember that he's a Straussian and a disciple of Milton Friedman. As far as I can tell, he despises this country and everything it stands for. He loathes the people he is supposed to be leading, even those ordinary voters who support him, because they don't belong to the so-called "elite" he is so desperate to claw his way into.
"Canadian"? Only by accident of birth.
/rant
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So "Stephen Hitler"? Close to the mark, but more like a satrap. A wannabe. A "man" (I use the term with reservation) who pretends to be a master but is really more a servant, a lickspittle, a toady to the truly powerful.
As a Bush toady, he supported the illegal invasion and rape of Iraq.
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