Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Godwin's Law overdrive

From Orcinus, reports on the recent right-wing surge in 'leftists are Nazis' rhetoric. Sara describes how this is a two-step process: first, sever fascism from its right-wing roots; second, redefine it as a phenomenon of the left.
If the right can pull off this semantic trick, they win in two ways. First, we will no longer be able to have serious conversations -- like the ones we've had here for the past four-plus years -- about the very real ways in which American conservatives are pulling us toward genuine fascism. They'll have stolen away the language that will allow us to convict them of their crimes against democracy. We won't be able to measure their deeds by holding them up against those of previous right-wing authoritarians -- the comparisons will be simply impossible, because the definitions of the terms will be too murky to be useful. Or worse: they'll now mean something else entirely.
And evidently Oprah is a Nazi, according to radio host Bryan Suits, because she supports someone of the same race for president. So I guess by that logic all white people throughout American history are racists too?

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