Hitler and Jackie...

I have always loved history. Perhaps my fascination in historical research is with the idea that you might uncover something in your travels through the treasure troves of history that no one else has seen for years, decades or centuries. Sometimes those "discoveries" might be enlightening and other times they might end up being nothing more than a question on a Trivial Pursuit card.

One such piece of history relates to recently uncovered documents that highlight the Nazis fascination with a Finnish dog, Jackie (a Dalmation cross), owned by Tor Borg. It would seem that Jackie had an unusual talent of being able to mock the Fuehrer. Whenever Jackie heard the word Hitler his paw would raise in the fashion of a German doing the Heil Hitler salute.

What makes this truly bizarre is that the incident resulted in significant diplomatic traffic between Helsinki and Berlin as to how best to deal with the insult. The plan was to haul Borg in for questioning and destroy his pharmaceutical business. However, as the cables show, Borg denied the accusations, although he did admit that his wife called the dog, Hitler.

Luckily, for Borg, no witnesses could be found that were willing to testify that Borg had trained Jackie to perform the salute. So, the case faltered and never went to trial. Borg continued on his merry way and remained a successful business man with his Tamro Group until his death. Jackie led a full life and died of natural causes.

Apparently, to date, there is nothing in the documents to suggest that Hitler himself was aware of the saluting dog, but considering the documents were passed through his office it is likely that the Fuehrer may have known that he was being mocked by a dog. I would reckon the Nazis would have been besides themselves if the Downfall parody videos had been around during World War Two. To be honest, you would have thought that the Nazis would have had more important things to contemplate than a dog with a penchant for a salute considering they were fighting a war on two fronts.

Hitler and SBY...

Another parody of the German film Der Untergang (Downfall). There must be a thesis in these parody videos somewhere. There is absolutely nothing funny about Hitler, but these videos...

Obama, Hitler, and Lenin...

There must be something in the water up there in Iowa that the North Iowa Tea Party people are drinking in great amounts. Either that or they were sitting around having a few wines and thought this looks like a good idea, let's do it!

Do it they did. The North Iowa Tea Party created a billboard. Not just any old billboard, but the one here on the left.

Yes, folks, that is Barack Obama in the company of none other than Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. If it were me, I might of gone with Josef Stalin, only because he was probably even scarier than Hitler and Lenin combined. Some historians suggest that Stalin was responsible for the purging of some 10 million of his fellow Russians, his nearest and dearest colleagues. Enough on the tangent and back to the rant.

When are these people going to get it?

I am all for political debate, I am all for vocal opposition, I am all for freedom of speech. Despite the irresponsibility of comparing the current US president to Hitler and Lenin, I want to focus on how the exaggeration undermines the message. The undermining of the message is obvious. Other Tea Party members have been quick to distance themselves from the North Iowa crowd.

Obama is so clearly neither Hitler or Lenin. The last time I thought it through, I really could not see Obama taking the US down the path where he was looking at a final solution of eliminating all the Christian Right or some kind of concerted policy program of racial purification. Maybe I am missing something, but I think not! The comparison is not only offensive, it is stupid. It is stupid because it undermines legitimate grievances some US citizens have with the job that the president is doing, particularly his lack of success. Well, maybe they should have voted for the woman after all!

The point of the billboard is what? Socialism is bad? Well, if the message was that socialism is not in the best interests of all Americans then whacking Obama in the midst of these two is not going to make your point. The first reaction from most people is going to be offense at the exaggeration, and then the reaction is going to be that these Tea Party people must be a group of right-wing nutters who will next be arguing that the UN is running the show and there are black helicopters landing in the middle of the night on the White House lawn.

The message is lost in this billboard. The money would have been better spent on getting people out to vote in the November elections. Let people express their anger and disgust at the ballot box. Let them let Obama know what is important to them by voting out a whole swag of democrats at the next opportunity. The billboard is likely to create even greater apathy and inspire people to stay at home rather than head to the local polling booth.

As I said, I am all for freedom of speech. If these Tea Party people want to place a billboard like this, then so be it. I would probably argue that this is protected speech and they are free to make it. I would argue, and I am arguing, that the billboard is going to have the opposite effect to what was intended. So, in the public relations war, this was a big flop.

Once again, when are these people going to get it? Obama is not Hitler, he is not Lenin, he is not Stalin, he is not the Anti-Christ, he is just a man doing a job!

The Campaign Posters -- Offensive?

Saddam Hussein

Joseph Stalin

Adolf Hitler

These are the campaign posters (to-date) for the AIDS Is A Mass Murderer campaign being run in Germany. However, thanks to the Internet this campaign is probably going to take on a life of its own. Hopefully, bloggers and others can contribute to this campaign going a little bit viral (pun intended) to ensure that it reaches the maximum number of people.

The controversy aside, as to whether it increases the stigma on those living with HIV / AIDS, the fact that the campaign holds the potential to get people talking about the virus and our increasing complacency with respect to risk-taking behaviours, then the campaign is in my mind worthwhile.

I also remain to be convinced that the advertisements are suggesting that those people living with HIV / AIDS are mass murderers. To the contrary, I think the advertisements are saying that this killer lives among us, and 'this killer' is the virus.

That is just me though.

But on a slightly different note. Is there anything to be read into why Hitler and Hussein get brunettes and Stalin gets a blonde?

AIDS Is A Mass Murderer -- The Hitler Video...

This is one of those moments when you think to yourself, "why hasn't someone thought of this before?" The use of an Adolf Hitler lookalike having sex as a means of promoting the idea that AIDS is a mass murderer. Perhaps now a whole raft of regional based ads could be made, such as a Russian AIDS ad with a Stalin lookalike doing the deed (which has been done) or a Pol Pot lookalike in Cambodia, the possibilities are numerous.

AIDS, despite what some might have you believe, is an indiscriminate killer in the end; it does not matter whether you are male or female, gay or straight, young or old. The reality, and it is a sad reality, is that we have become much more complacent on the AIDS front. AIDS has morphed from being a much more immediate killer to a chronic illness that can be managed with the right medications. This has made us complacent and this is dangerous. Therefore, a truly confronting ad campaign might just be the way to go to reinvigorate the drive to create a viable vaccine and to find a cure.

The ad was produced by the German Das Comitee advertising agency. The primary focus according to the creative director, Dirk Silz, was to be confronting, to shake people up and get them thinking about reversing the trend in the increasing numbers of people engaging in unprotected sex. You can find the ad here at www.aids-is-a-mass-murderer.com.

AIDS has already caused the death of some 30 million people to date, and a further 6000 are dying everyday. The simple reality is that if we do not address the issue of HIV/AIDS then it will one day be the biggest killer of humans in all of our history. It will have killed more people than all of the wars we have endured as a race combined. This is a truly scary thought.

Maybe, just maybe, an ad like this one is just what the doctor ordered.

However, it is worth noting that not everyone is happy with the ad campaign. There are some who are arguing that the campaign will have the opposite effect and will actually serve to further stigmatize those with HIV / AIDS. The argument is it seems that the ad suggests that people with HIV / AIDS are mass murderers. To be honest I do not see the ad this way. In my mind the ad is indeed confronting, but it is saying the virus is a mass killer that lives among us and that we must be vigilant to ensure that we do not fall victim to it.

In any event, an ad such as this one is likely to generate strongly held opinions on both sides of the equation, yet in some way I believe if it generates debate and gets people talking about the pros and cons, not only of the ad but of the virus, then it has achieved the greater part of its objective.

Don't forget World AIDS Day on 1 December.

You can check it out here or just watch it below.

Glenn Beck -- Losing the Plot?

Glenn Beck since arriving on Fox News Channel (FNC) has really and truly lost the plot it seems. Perhaps he had lost it before and people had not noticed?

The bloke is always worth watching. This is for no other reason than finding yourself throughout his rambles shaking your head and going, "are you kidding me?", "did he just say that?", "are you serious?"

Some of his classics of late have involved calling Obama a racist and comparing Obama's health care plan to Hitler's eugenics in Nazi Germany.

These rants have resulted in advertisers fleeing in droves from his show.

Stephen Colbert, who I find to be a very funny man, had this take on it.

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Rush Limbaugh, Barack Obama, and Adolf Hitler...

I have taught a lot of advocacy classes in my time. One of the things that I teach students in those classes is to be careful using exaggerated analogies. Simply, the exaggeration ends up making the analogy sound hollow and untrue. An exaggerated analogy then serves to do nothing more than detract and undermine what may in fact be a legitimate concern.

One of the examples that I use is: "the conditions of the jail where my client is incarcerated are as bad as Auschwitz!" The reason that this is an exaggerated analogy is abundantly clear to anyone who has read anything about the concentration camps that Nazi Germany used as part of the Final Solution. It is highly unlikely, for example, that a modern day prison in Australia, the US, the UK, or even Abu Ghraib, resemble the abhorrent conditions of Auschwitz.

So, as I was reading about Rush Limbaugh comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Obama's health care policies to the policies of the Third Reich and Nazi Germany, I could not help but think that any real points that Limbaugh may have been making would be lost in the brouhaha that was going to come with the analogy equating Obama to Hitler.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper wrote a short and interesting piece on the injection of Nazi into the debate and the dangers that this poses to American democracy.

For me, the points that Limbaugh is trying to make have been lost. I am sure that there are legitimate arguments to be made for and against the Obama health plan. However, labeling Obama a Nazi and trying to equate the health care symbol as one previously favoured by the Third Reich, the Reichsadler, is absurd.

The whole idea of equating Obama to Hitler and the Obama health policy to a policy of Nazi Germany and the Third Reich reminds me of my favourite Forrest Gump quote, "stupid is as stupid does!"

Freedom of Speech Under Attack?

I am an advocate of free speech. I have never considered free speech to be an absolute right but rather one that is modified by defamation laws and protected by an ability to prove what one says.

However, it seems that this freedom of speech is slowly but surely being whittled away as vilification and hatred laws are introduced to the regulatory framework and discourse is restricted to agreed truths that cannot be questioned.

This is a direct attack on the freedom of speech! The cartoon is a statement about the Canadian Human Rights Commission system and it can be found here at the FreedomSite Blog.

I have always wondered for example why it was wrong to publish a cartoon of Muhammad, or more specifically how that was any more wrong than say publishing a cartoon of Jesus or Buddha or some other religious icon?

I have always wondered why there cannot be academic debate say on the holocaust or why saying that the numbers of Jews killed under the "Final Solution" might not have been six million. To my mind there is no doubting that Nazi Germany as led by Adolf Hitler adopted a policy known as the "final solution" and that the purpose was to rid Europe of the Jews.

Yet, I do not understand the fear of having to defend this position. If someone questions whether the gas chambers were capable of poisoning the number of people claimed, then they are labeled anti-Semitic and threatened with jail. Where is the free speech in that and who is protecting the rights of these people to exercise their right to free speech?

Or is it the case that when you want to talk about Muhammad or Israel or other things you can only do so within the "agreed" discourse and to stray from this very limited path makes you a criminal?

Whatever happened to the idea that I might disagree with what you say but I will fight for your right to say it.

How can we ever live in a truly functioning democracy if the narrative and the discourse is dictated by the few? Many vilification and hatred and denial laws are used purely for the purpose of stifling legitimate debate. And, this is a sad development and sets back our ability to live in peace and harmony with each other as these laws foster the ill-will and hatred that they seek to overcome.

It is time that we started behaving like adults rather than allowing our politicians to regulate us like we are children.

The freedom of speech must be a freedom to disagree, a freedom to challenge, and a freedom to question. Anything less makes a mockery of the freedom of speech as a legitimate human right.

Thus endeth the sermon!

Adolf Hitler -- Wax On, Wax Off

Berlin's Madame Tussauds Wax Museum displays wax likenesses of some of Germany's most famous and infamous citizens past and present. The most infamous of these being none other than Adolf Hitler. Critics of the display say that any representation of Hitler is offensive and that he should not be honoured or remembered in any way.

The other side of the argument is that Hitler cannot be ignored and written out of history. History is what it is and ignoring the truth of history does not change that history. My personal view is that the evil that Hitler perpetrated against the Jews and against Europe in a more general sense must never be glorified but equally it must never be forgotten. Hitler was just a man and we must never forget the evil that ordinary men (and women) can do.

The waxwork was hardly a glorification of the man. It depicts him as defeated and sullen.

However, this was obviously not enough to appease some. A man ran into the exhibit and ripped Hitler's head off earlier today. I would reckon there might be plenty of people who wished someone had been successful in ripping the man's head off way back in the 1930's.