Note that Hitler’s primary focus was on Germans as a *race*, not as a *nationality*.

See if they get any, and then give them a run down on a few of the basics that were present.

The details are subtle but intriguing.

Controlling Youths is something, let’s see here, Putin, Arafat, the Persians, the Chinese, and every other socio-economical system has thought of as a priority.

You don’t need his example to compare vs Obama’s. It is just that probably the only people Americans know about that would be close to Obama’s methods would be Hitler, and yet they know almost nothing about Hitler except what the Left tells them.

So essentially the country is ignorant and we should treat it as such, the same way we communicate with ordinary ignorant people. To prevent people from reaching the wrong conclusions, we have to steer them along a safe path. Hitler is too full of Leftist propaganda for that to occur. But amongst truly enlightened individuals, the case study can be a useful one.

To be a dictator, one must study other dictators. The same is true if one wishes to defeat a dictator.

There’s no difference here. Hitler had to inculcate an inferiority complex in the Germans, by speaking on about Versailles and the dishonor it brought to America, along with the economic hits.

Only by making the people hate an external enemy, France and Britain, could Hitler herd the Germans into national military conquests.

People won’t support Obama or Hitler’s policies without first being shamed by their current state. It doesn’t matter if this is Versailles or Healthcare.

The time slices are different. Hitler had his own inner circle of individuals applying idea to policy. His single greatest attribute was his fiery and passionate rhetoric.

Even the core band of Nazis that formed Hitler’s party became rather electrified.

His earlier game was fraught with imprisonment, lack of popular interest, and deal making on the part of the status quo power brokers. Things changed when he got the powers of the Chancellorship and ordered Emergency Laws into effect.

Lack of popularity didn’t stop Hitler from taking power. The propaganda media were on Hitler’s side and currently is on Obama’s side.

If obama fails, it will be because he couldn’t use specific intimidation tactics to get Parliament to vote whatever he wants them to vote. There is resistance and while the economy is bad, not quite bad enough for Obama to declare martial law. He grew up in Chicago, learned how to corrupt the system. But not how to run it.

He also doesn’t have Hitler’s ruthlessness. He plays within rules, while Hitler went extra-legal. I don’t mean laws about corruption. I mean laws about murder. Kennedy would violate such with impunity, but that’s why his chances for being President was nill.

That is the worrisome part; we don’t know.

Yes. Precisely. Hitler was a blazingly effective leader – which Obama is not.

What is often forgotten is his astuteness, and his alertness to what constituted political reality. Far more so than young Obama seems to be. Never forget: he was a superb realist. He wasn’t just a “Germans are the best” maniac cheerleader.

An example of him reacting far more realistically even than those around him was his willingness to to write off Germanic peoples and lands he didn’t want to gather allies for what he did want: an empire in the east. “Almost alone of Germans, in 1926-27 Hitler did not complain of the Italianisation policies in Alto Adige (South Tyrol).” He would stubbornly admonish those around him that: “any reconquest of the South Tyrol… [is] impossible.” (R.J.B. Bosworth, Mussolini, London: Arnold, 2002) In fact, when he took power in 1933 he was being roundly denounced by German and Austrian nationalists for appeasing Italy and abandoning Germanic people!

What this accomplished of course was to secure his southern border, and not bring him into conflict with Mussolini – who was, before they allied, perfectly willing to engage in conflict with him, as he demonstrated as late as 1934 – and as most people in this country forget.*

And also yes, the American people are not to be conflated with anyone else, but maybe most especially the Germans.

*Off the point of the immediate discussion, nothing to do with Hitler/Obama but just because it’s edifying, and because people mostly do not know it, (our terrific history education): when Hitler met with Mussolini in Venice in June of 1934, Mussolini flatly told him that any attempt at Anschluss in Austria would be forcibly resisted by Italy, which saw Austria as a buffer. Hitler knew his army at that time couldn’t fight with Mussolini’s, and figured the time was not ripe. So – six weeks later, when Austrian Nazis murdered Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss, Hitler couldn’t believe that they could be such a**holes.

He was in Bayreuth the night of the assassination, and phoned Berlin to find out what the hell was going on. He was told the German amabassador in Vienna was negotiating for safe passage for the Nazi assassins out of Austria. He yelled down the phone (literally) that the ambassador had no such instructions, countermanded the orders, and fired the ambassador on the spot. He pulled Franz von Papen out of house arrest and flew him in to meet with him – because Papen had been a friend of Dollfuss, and because Papen had warned him (Hitler) about what dangerous nuts the Austrian Nazis were.

Papen found Hitler in: “a state of hysterical agitation, denouncing feverishly the rashness and stupidity of the Austrian Nazi Party for having involved him in such an appalling situation.” (John Toland, Adolf Hitler, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976; and Ian Kershaw, Hitler 1889-1936: Hubris, NY: W. W. Norton, 1998)

Hitler was right to be nervous. Mussolini was enraged, and ordered four divisions to the Brenner. He sent word to Vienna: if Germany invades, Italy will go to war. Then he himself hopped into his plane and took off for Vienna, where he vented his disgust with Hitler and the Nazis to vice chancellor Prince Ernst Rudiger von Starhemberg.

But the lesson here, the lesson Mussolini ultimately took home with him was: he had mobilized four divisions and sent them to the Austrian border: Britain and France had done… nothing.

It’s probably safe to say that Hitler, the ultimate clear-eyed realist, might have noticed that, too.

I feel a little better, having read your posts.

My caveat to this discussion is that Obama is 1/3 of the problem and has term limits.
It is Congress and the Senate that hold the ‘red’ button without term limits.
It’s the agenda of the other two-thirds, that controls the legislation and money that may be the real issue both in the long and short term.

I don’t believe it is beyond Pelosi or Reid to diminish the role of the W.H. and press on with their power play of the day. Add to this, the approved appointments (Eric Holder and umpteen czars) and the tide comes in with or without presidential approval. It may have been the movement and thought process in bringing Obama front and center with such a weak resume – the focus on the lens has been turned to blur the background of the real power struggle and they keep adjusting the camera and the lens to suit their goals.

Having said that…I am not feeling nearly as good.

For example he’s going to give a speech to kids in school. The media cries “impressive,” “unprecedented,” and gushes all over it. Obama will then give a completely ordinary speech filled with platitudes like stay in school, work hard, and so on. I can hear the teenagers now, saying “no s*** Sherlock, like we haven’t heard that from our parents a million times.”

Similarly, he’s going to address a joint session of Congress, over health care. That just makes me laugh at his self-importance. The funnier thing is he won’t say anything new, it will be more of the same. Somehow that’s supposed to move members of Congress who are wondering if they’re going to have a job after the mid-terms?