Last time I checked, Candidate A didn’t go around wearing a “Sponsored by the government” t-shirt. Nevermind the fact that the government is legally mandated to hold elections. Nevermind that government elections != a private organization’s contest.
The government is a neutral party in an election. MoveOn is a partisan organization, which is why they don’t give equal consideration (or any consideration) to pro-Bush ads. If you want an analogy, then ask “Is the Republican Party responsible for its candidate’s views?”
And yes, it is.
You never answered Ry’s question:
I didn’t see the bush->hitler ads, but did they say “Bush slaughtered 10,000 Jews during his four year term,” or did it make comparisons based on real facts about Bush?
Neither of the ads is particularly specific–one says that Bush is like Hitler because both men have strong religious convictions underlying their ethical choices. Of course that’s true of most politicians in Washington. I’d still say the ads were defamatory, since the clear implication is “Bush is as bad as Hitler,” rather than “Bush and Hitler are similar to each other in this one trivial way, but not necessarily in any other way.” That’s sort of like saying that Jason McCullough is like Hitler, because both he and Hitler like lemon pie*. That may be factually true, but Hitler isn’t infamous for liking lemon pie, and saying that “Jason is like Hitler” carries implications above and beyond pie preferences.
[size=2]*I have no idea whether or not Jason likes lemon pie.[/size]
Well it sounds like a poor ad then, but I wouldn’t call it defamatory as long as it’s factual.
Who fucking cares? Your point and Jason’s point and Anaxagoras’ point is that it doesn’t matter what the ad says, because as long as MoveOn didn’t write it, they have no responsibility just for posting it on the Net for the world to see. It could say anything, according to you guys. It’s totally irrelevant.
Mine?
You’re right, it’s just Jason and Ani. I apologize.
You’re right, it’s just Jason and Ani. I apologize.[/quote]
Ok, thanks. No offense, guys.
You can read the scripts here: http://www.rnc.org/moveonvideo.htm
To answer your question, no, neither said “Bush slaughtered 10,000 Jews during his four year term.” Both used video, audio, and graphics of Hitler over which text is overlaid.
In one, the text is simply “A NATION WARPED BY LIES | LIES FUEL FEAR | FEAR FUELS AGGRESSION | INVASION | OCCUPATION | WHAT WERE WAR CRIMES IN 1945 | IS FOREIGN POLICY IN 2003”, which I guess when you think about it, does say that Bush has instigated his own Holocaust.
The other has the following text “We have taken new measures to protect our homeland, | I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator, | God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, | and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did. | SOUND FAMILIAR?” From the script, it appears that the text is intended to be interpreted as subtitles for Hitler’s speech.
I have to admit that I don’t think that Hilter’s appearance in an ad inherently makes it inappropriate. Had an ad appear that said, “Yes Hitler made the trains run on time and built the autobahn, but he also launched an unjust war. And even though our Army has found Saddam Hussien, Bush has still led America down a reckless path.” while I would roll my eyes, I wouldn’t be writing these rants. But the direct comparison, by saying that Bush’s forgein policy is the same as Hilter’s war crimes, or by putting Bush’s words in Hilter’s mouth is amazingly inappropriate and the height of hyperbole.
I’ve got news for you. Bush is neither Hilter nor Satan. Dean is neither Stalin nor Pol Pot. Clinton is neither Machiavelli nor Jack the Ripper. And Reagan is neither Franco nor Pope Pius XII. But this rankling of the rancor of the populous is poison. It is a corsening of debate that leads whoever is in the minority to demonize the majority. This is bad policy because the minority then loses whatever hope of compromise they might have been able to reach with the majority for two reasons. First, the majority has no reason to deal with the minority when they’ve been getting ripped by the minority. Secondly, the minority itself will restrict itself from dealing with the majority that they have cast as evil incarnate. By raising their rhetoric, the minority is shutting their mouth.
So no, the ads didn’t said “Bush slaughtered 10,000 Jews during his four year term”, but both made direct comparisons between Bush and Hitler. That is inappropriate and demeans the memory of those lost in the horror of the Holocaust.
For the record, I’m not trying to distort your argument, I just either misunderstand it the first time around, or it changes the second time around. I now understand your argument to be “The RNC is bad because they implied that MoveOn posted a few ads, when really MoveOn posted a ton of ads from other people. Joe Average would think the former is much more of an endorsement than the latter.” If that’s your argument, the problem with it (as people have pointed out already) is that the RNC makes clear that MoveOn was running a contest with hundreds of entrants. So maybe I misunderstood your argument, but in my mind it was just kind of giving you the benefit of the doubt. I mean, the argument as I now understand it is just manifestly factually untrue, so I don’t think it gets you anywhere.
However, I view it as more along the lines of this message board. The Entity aren’t responsible for what’s posted here. Even if they had to manually click a Validate button before any post made it onto the board, I still don’t think they’re responsible. They’re merely providing a forum for free speech.
I don’t think the situations are comparable. Running a relatively obscure message board that has no point other than as a meeting place is a lot different from running a nationally recognized political group that actively solicits negative ads about Bush and advertises their availability to the public. And that’s not even counting the fact that at least one of the offensive ads says “Sponsored by MoveOn.org” and they viewed it and posted it.
And I think you might underestimate the responsibility of the Entity. For example, I remember when they took pains to say that they had nothing to do with the QT3 WASTE network that sprung up. Smart move on their part, if you ask me. To swipe an example of Ben’s, what if I run a kiddie porn website with nothing but third-party content? Can I just say that hey, I didn’t write it?
Because remember: the crux of your and Jason’s argument is that the content of the posts is irrelevant. According to you, a web host who posts entries in a contest simply cannot be responsible for what those entries contain.
I don’t know about that. “What were war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in 2003” and using Bush’s quotes as translations for Hitler’s speech are both pretty specific to me. And neither is factual. Bush’s forgein policy is not the same as Hitler’s war crimes, and Bush’s quotes are not a direct translation for Hitler’s speech.
You can read the scripts here: http://www.rnc.org/moveonvideo.htm
To answer your question, no, neither said “Bush slaughtered 10,000 Jews during his four year term.” Both used video, audio, and graphics of Hitler over which text is overlaid.
In one, the text is simply “A NATION WARPED BY LIES | LIES FUEL FEAR | FEAR FUELS AGGRESSION | INVASION | OCCUPATION | WHAT WERE WAR CRIMES IN 1945 | IS FOREIGN POLICY IN 2003”, which I guess when you think about it, does say that Bush has instigated his own Holocaust.
The other has the following text “We have taken new measures to protect our homeland, | I believe I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator, | God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, | and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did. | SOUND FAMILIAR?” From the script, it appears that the text is intended to be interpreted as subtitles for Hitler’s speech.[/quote]
I have no problem with either of those. They both point out very real, important and substantive similarities between Bush and Hitler, and neither is slanderous. The first one is pretty lame, but the second one isn’t bad. I don’t find either inappropriate for television… a little bit gritty, maybe, but it’s not like they made it up.
Let me put it this way: if comparing Bush to Hitler is inappropriate, why isn’t it inappropriate for Bush to act like Hitler enough to make those ads viable?
Alright… I’m correcting you. It is reasonable to think that "post and “endorse” are the same thing… Rywill provides a good argument in favor of that. However, I don’t agree with it, because I think MoveOn posted a whole bunch of ads without sifting for which ones truly represented their views. They provided a forum for people to express their ideas. “Screening” never comes into it. I looked at their web site, but the most explicit thing I could find about “screening” was that they wouldn’t post any ads inappropriate for TV. It’s entirely possible to post an ad appropriate for TV that you don’t necessarily agree with. Therefore, MoveOn was not inherently endorsing all the ads they posted on their web site. Their “screening”, which seems to be a term you’re really stuck on, was nothing more than them saying they’ll throw out certain types of entries. It in no way implies that they endorse the remainder of the ads.
It seems reasonable to assume that MoveOn would screen out any ads that it would not be willing to endorse before allowing people to vote on them.
People didn’t vote on them. A small, select panel of judges judged the ads. MoveOn could afford to include ads they didn’t necessarily endorse, since they knew their judges simply wouldn’t select those ads. However, this does raise an interesting point. You can’t even conceive of an organization opening up a forum for discussion without heavily censoring it. You really do belong in Bush’s America.
As for Ry claiming that I think the content is completely irrelevant, that’s not quite true. The content is mostly irrelevant. To be honest, I couldn’t find the infamous Hitler ad, either, so I don’t really know what it said. If it really did say something like BUSH KILLED 7 MILLION JEWS (I think that was the number killed… not sure about the exact statistic) then it was inappropriate for TV and should have been thrown out from the beginning. However, if the ad compared Bush with Hitler’s jingoistic nationalism, his censorship, his unhealthily cozy relationship with Germany’s big business, the ad is appropriate for TV. It doesn’t necessarily represent the organization’s views, but it’s appropriate. Hitler was a BAD MAN ™ for other reasons in addition to the holocaust. To forget the other lessons that Hitler taught us is foolish in the extreme… and yet, because we can’t fucking digest the evil that was the holocaust, we’re forgetting all the other things that Hitler did… and we’re seeing many of them repeated with Bush.
In any case, I’m not really defending MoveOn… I’m trying to puncture holes in the arguments presented here, whether the argument is of Rywill’s (reasonable) or Sones’. (ridiculous) Depending what the actual ad was, it’s possible that MoveOn really was wrong to put it on their web site… but the RNC’s denunciation of it didn’t take into account any of these issues. It was self-righteous outrage of “How dare you compare our glorious president to an evil man!”, while they didn’t raise a peep when a Democrat was compared to bin Laden.
[edit] I’ve just read the scripts in the link provided. Those ads both seem very appropriate for TV. It highlights the very frightening parallels between Hitler’s rhetoric (and actions) and Bush’s.
Now then, can a reasonable comparison be made between Hitler and Bush? Perhaps history does repeat itself. Here’s some quotes from a GERMAN website. (Yup, they are biased.)
Hitler: Providence intended the Germanic (Aryan) race for the world domination and made Hitler its leader.
Bush: God chose the American people and selected Bush to his god-like president.
H: Hitler is so much superior to all others, that he may disregard International Law at any time.
B: Bush is so much superior to all others, that he may disregard International Law at any time, e.g. resolutions of the UN and the International Criminal Court.
H: Hitler curtails civil rights substantially.
B: Bush curtails civil rights substantially.
H: Political opponents are stylized to traitors of their home land.
B: Political opponents are stylized to traitors of their home land.
H: In occupied countries, art collections are robbed and brought home into the “Reich” (empire).
B: The Iraqi national museum is systematically looted. Officially, nothing is known about the whereabouts of the articles.
H: Already during his early rulership, Hitler has the concentration camp Dachau established. Prisoners are held there divested of all their rights and are totally at the mercy of the Nazis.
B: Bush has prisoners brought to Guantanamo. With pride, the Americans announce that these prisoners do not have any rights, neither from agreements over prisoners of war nor fundamental human rights. They are totally at the mercy of the American gentlemen.
Also for American citizens, basic rights are destroyed: “Suspicous people” may be detained for unlimited time, without any proofs.
H: In occupied France, Hitler installs a Nazi-friendly government: the Vichy regime.
B: In occupied Iraq, the USA install a Bush-friendly government which is called “Iraqi civil administration”.
I bet there’s a 30 second political ad in there somewhere.
People sure as hell voted on them. People like… me. They setup a system where each person that registered for MoveOn (for free) could vote on ten ads a day.
The top 15 from the “public” voting were then passed onto the small select panel, which has yet to pick the finalists.
The 2 “Hitler” ads got poor reviews from the public.
Who fucking cares? Your point and Jason’s point and Anaxagoras’ point is that it doesn’t matter what the ad says, because as long as MoveOn didn’t write it, they have no responsibility just for posting it on the Net for the world to see. It could say anything, according to you guys. It’s totally irrelevant.[/quote]
Correct. More specifically, it’s like…you know how the Kiwanis club will sponsor those essay contests on citizenship, patriotism, etc.? Would you criticize the Kiwanis club’s fault for not screening out some guy who submitted an essay calling for “invading Islamic countries, killing their leaders, and converting them to Christianity?” I’d laugh and ignore it, the same as here.
:shock: You have no problem with equating Bush’s forgein policy to the Holocaust? I’m going to have disagree with you there.
The problem is, those ads are viable only to those that have blinded themselves behind so much partisen hatred that they can’t comprehend that Bush actually isn’t the Anti-Christ.
:shock: You have no problem with equating Bush’s forgein policy to the Holocaust? I’m going to have disagree with you there.
[/quote]
Those ads make no mention of concentration camps or genocide.
To me, about the only Hitler-esque thing is that Bush’s pretenses for the invasion of Iraq very much smacks of a neo-Lebensraum type of policy, especially since they’ve turned out to be mostly based on bull. Babelfish helps me come up with the term Sicherheitsraum, “security room”.
The erosion of civil liberties, the corporate welfare excused as economic stimulus for the people, the fostering of a climate where dissent=anti-America, and whatever else, is just run of the mill fascism. And even though I don’t speak German and can’t make a real comparison, Hitler had to have been a better orator.