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by
John Chuckman
May
27, 2003
While
I find those images on the Internet of a blunt little mustache
digitally-scribbled onto President Bush's upper lip feeble and unhelpful,
still, there are parts of Bush's character and behavior that strikingly
resemble at least one major biographer's interpretation of Hitler. Ian
Kershaw's two-volume life of Hitler puts great emphasis on his being a driving
high-stakes gambler - with innate, animal-cunning about human psychology, few
gifts of statesmanship or strategy, and little systematic learning -
attributing most of his success and all of his failure to his compulsive
quality.
When,
for example, Bush waged his ferocious post-election pursuit of legitimacy
through threats and court actions, finally securing appointment to office by
America's Supreme Court, it resembled the way Hitler, never actually elected,
worked ferociously behind the scenes and on the streets at a time of great
political instability to secure appointment as Chancellor by President von
Hindenburg.
Several
observers have commented that Bush's recent stunt of flying to the deck of an
aircraft carrier in order to make a televised speech might well have been
copied directly from Hitler's flight to the gigantic Nuremberg rally, his plane
dramatically circling in descent towards a million people gathered in barbarian
tribute, his purpose being to make a filmed speech. Whether Bush's crowd
consciously followed the script set down by Hitler nearly seventy years ago
matters less than that the thinking is so similar, with the manipulation of
dramatic, militaristic props for propaganda being identical.
Bush
never goes anywhere where his stage crew has not first assembled giant flags as
background. He always wears a sizeable American-flag pin on his lapel. This
kind of totemic, obsessive use of flags was absolutely characteristic of
Hitler.
Hitler
was a troubled, difficult person, but there is no evidence of any genuine
insanity or psychosis (see Dr. Fritz Redlich's excellent study, "Hitler,
Diagnosis of a Destructive Prophet"). It is precisely this fact that made
him, and makes those like him, all the more dangerous. It is easy to dismiss a
genuine lunatic.
Given
any circumstances other than those of the unique and troubled period in which
he embraced German politics, Hitler would have been an utter failure, likely to
be laughed off the stage with his sputtering, eye-bulging speech and fantasy
claims. He had never, except for extremely brief and intermittent times, before
entering politics in the revolutionary ruin that was post-war Germany, made an
honest living.
There
is a close parallel here with Bush. Except when friends of his powerful father
made attractive, low-risk, undemanding opportunities available to him, young
Bush was a failure. He demonstrated no business acumen, no academic
application, and he did a lot of aimless drifting, much like Hitler's time in
Vienna before the First World War. There are totally unexplained periods in
Bush's early adult life, an extraordinary thing for an American national public
figure.
Even
as governor of Texas, Bush showed no skill other than the kind of animal
cunning one associates with some of the nation's shabbiest politics. Many do
not realize that the office of governor of Texas, despite sounding important,
is a relatively weak office, so the people putting Bush forward at the time
took a small risk of his doing any serious damage.
Bush
was not a national figure when he was put up for the Republican presidential
nomination. Yet, suddenly, he appeared on the national stage, pockets bulging
with $77 million in campaign contributions, an amount that could render even
Kermit the Frog a formidable opponent in America's phony, advertising- and
marketing-drenched politics. Of course, as quickly as these funds were
depleted, they were topped up again.
The
support of German industrialists was an important part of Hitler's being able
to sustain his slow rise to power. Many of these business people thought they
would heavily profit from the success of the odd, theatrical little man they
bankrolled. The one absolute certainty was that Germany under Hitler would
rearm, massively and quickly, with lots of profitable contracts coming
available. Bush's measures for defense and security after 9/11, almost
instantly swelled to tumor-like masses, offer an unprecedented opportunity for
well-positioned people to make new fortunes.
Bush's
apparent ability to be charming face-to-face has been publicized by insiders
wishing to humanize his public image. Well, that is a characteristic Hitler
possessed in abundance: on the one hand, he could intimidate people with fits
of horrifying anger, and yet, as many attested, he could be utterly charming.
He could order wholesale murder and yet have a gracious, polite tea with his
hardworking secretaries.
Of
course, the sense of charm assumed you did not have to spend great periods of
time with Hitler as did the captive members of his immediate party entourage.
For them, Hitler was reduced to a boring, repetitive self-proclaimed expert on
everything who insisted on discussing everything, endlessly. One can only
imagine the tedious conversations of a Bush comfortable with his cronies over a
charred cow down in Crawford. We actually got an unintended glimpse of this
private world when the BBC "accidentally" ran some television shots
of Bush before a big speech sharing the kind of gestures and comments to
smiling flunkies one might expect from a small-town, grade-school basketball
coach.
Bush
has demonstrated his capacity for vicious anger a number of times, despite his
handlers working very hard to hide this from the public. His response to the
nomination challenge of John McCain was manic. His response to the rightful and
fitting challenges of France or Germany to his Iraqi policies has been ugly,
with pathetic factotum, Colin Powell, given the job of announcing various gibes,
slights, and threats in the aftermath (Harry Belafonte's description of Powell,
I regret to say, has proved devastatingly accurate).
The
closest parallel to Hitler's behavior was in Bush's approach to Iraq. It is
clear that he was determined - despite all facts contrary to his claims,
despite the heroic efforts of weapons inspectors, despite the voice of most of
the world's diplomatic community, and despite demonstrations by millions - to
invade Iraq. The litany of false and even irrelevant claims made over and over
combined with his lack of shame or embarrassment when found out time and again,
closely mimics a behavior pattern of Hitler who more or less invented the
"big lie" technique.
Even
more closely resembling Hitler was Bush's insane rush towards a huge,
high-stakes gamble on quick success in Iraq. He displayed not an ounce of
statesmanship. It mattered not at all that he put the UN, NATO, and the EU
through a crisis and embarrassed longstanding allies to get what he wanted. Had
the invasion bogged down into bloody street-fights and large numbers of
Americans been killed, Bush could not have survived the political results. This
was the purest obsessive, go-for-broke gamble.
What
we witnessed leading up to the invasion bore uncanny similarities to the Munich
crisis of 1938, but not the ones so many American commentators point to about a
weak-willed Chamberlain appeasing a brutal dictator. People seem to forget Bush
was making the threats, not Hussein.
Hitler
was going to invade the Czechs, and that was that, but he was willing to toy
with war-weary Western statesmen, to gain a bit of time or psychological
advantage, and to appear open to argument before hurling his divisions over the
border. So, too, Bush paused in invading Iraq, allowing Western statesmen to
argue their case a bit and make various proposals, but he never listened to
them, only hoping he might gain a few more allies, a shred of legitimacy, or a
bit of psychological advantage.
This
provides a very good example of how we do not learn from history. We are most
of us always looking for exactly the same lesson from a vaguely similar
historical situation, much as generals are said always prepared to fight the
last war. But history, as has been accurately observed, is a flowing river
which is not the same when touched a second time. Current events are never
quite parallel with those of an earlier time despite superficial similarities.
However, human character, patterns of behavior, and human interactions are
things that may be profitably studied, being constant enough to make valid
comparisons over time.
Here,
too, is an example of how history can be manipulated to abuse political
opponents. Critics on the left, in opposing the invasion of Iraq, have been
accused of supporting a dictator. This is nonsense, of course, but like many
bits of propaganda that become lodged into day-to-day understanding through
endless repetition on television and in newspapers, it is nevertheless a powerful
nonsense.
Too
many people do not understand that the preponderance of forces in Germany
before the Second World War were for peace. Hitler sometimes spoke of peace
eloquently, but, as we now know, he had a rather odd definition of the word.
When it looked like Germany was on the brink of war, great waves of despair
went through Germany. All the bands and panoply of Nazi propaganda could not
cover up people's sullen reaction displayed even under dictatorship.
But
when Hitler quickly defeated Poland and then quickly defeated France, the mood
in Germany immediately changed. Hitler had achieved a relatively bloodless
victory of stunning proportions. He became a hero, a national savior. And so
with Bush's massive, high-tech assault on pathetic little Iraq. Anti-war
feelings and demonstrations did not rise so suddenly at the start of the much
greater conflict in Vietnam, but with a quick, safe victory (safe for
Americans, that is), Bush has become something of a shining figure. So much so,
that at a recent dinner, a single dinner, Bush raised $18 million in campaign
funds.
Hitler's
manipulation of the idea of peace is paralleled in Bush's manipulation of the
idea of justice. Both are complete distortions. Bush's genuine feeling for
justice was perhaps best captured during the election campaign with his smug,
joking response to a question about a soul on death row in Texas. For those
with acute perceptions, still not dulled on a steady diet of synthetic emotions
and cardboard ideas from television and Hollywood, there could be no surer sign
of how potentially dangerous this man is.
John Chuckman lives in Canada and is
former chief economist for a large Canadian oil company. He writes frequently
for Yellow Times.org and other publications.