The triumph of Nazi propaganda in this period is the subject of a remarkable exhibit at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum....
Ah, yes ... let’s start with the Nazi comparison, shall we?
[I]n the course of a few years, a fringe party was able to define a national community by scapegoating internal enemies; elevate a single, messianic leader; and keep the public docile with hatred....This obviously doesn’t apply to the Democrat party, right?
But it was radio that proved the most powerful tool.... “You were bombarded by information that you were unable to verify or critically evaluate. It was the Internet of its time,” [says Steve Luckert, curator at the HolocaustAh, yes, the “poor dumb masses” trope.
Museum]....
It is a disorienting atmosphere in which information is difficult to verify or critically evaluate, the rules of discourse are unclear, and emotion -- often expressed in CAPITAL LETTERS -- is primary. User-driven content on the Internet often consists of bullying, conspiracy theories and racial prejudice.... It ... allows hatred to invade respected institutional spaces on the Internet, gaining for these ideas a legitimacy denied to fringe Web sites.And “professional-driven” content doesn’t? (cf. “teabaggers”.)
Legally restricting such content ... is impossible. In America, the First Amendment protects blanket statements of bigotry. But this does not mean that popular news sites ... are constitutionally required to provide forums for bullies and bigots. As private institutions, they are perfectly free to set rules against racism and hatred. This is not censorship; it is the definition of standards.
And the standards should be set by?
Some online institutions, such as The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, screen user comments ... to identify objectionable content.... [H]atred must be confined to the fringes of our culture -- as the hatred of other times should have been.
And just the Obama administration is full of “thin-skinned whiners”? Oh, ... never mind.
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