Not-zi's

If you have read my blog, you know I don’t like labels; “Elite”, “Activist Judge”, “Country Music”. I don’t like it when a complex issue is simplified to a one word sound bite. This is most apparent in the 24 Hour News Punditocracy when ideologues settle for name calling instead of informed debate.

Recently, Chairman of Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes had some angry words about NPR. NPR recently fired Juan Williams for claiming that he felt uneasy about seeing people dressed in Muslim garb at airports and on airplanes.¹  Here is what Ailes said,

They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don't want any other point of view. They don't even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive.

First of all, Stop claiming you are ‘Fair and Balanced’ Fox, because you obviously are not. Fox gave Juan a $2 million three year contract because Fox thinks it needs to fight a war on liberalism.

Secondly, stop calling everyone you disagree with a ‘Nazi’. Ails has apologized to the Anti-Defamation League (a Jewish lobby group against discrimination)² for his use of the word ‘Nazi’. I am so sick and tired of seeing a Hitler mustache on Bush and Obama (as Jon Stewart said, “Why not a Stalin mustache? It’s like Super Mario’s, but with Wario’s personality”). Nazi’s are hate filled people who tried and continue to try to murder those they deem racially inferior. Political Correction is not the same as Nazism. I think it was stupid to fire Juan Williams, but I don’t know how that makes everyone at NPR a Nazi. People who have suffered at the hands of actual Nazi’s don’t like that word thrown around meaninglessly. It makes their suffering more trivial. One sign at the "Rally" (Before attacking NPR, Ailes attacked Jon Stewart) highlights my point: "Hitler was Hitler".

On a lighter note, talking about Nazi’s, there is a label, or more or less a phrase, that drives me up a wall: “Battle of the Bulge”. It is often used to describe controlling weight loss in the media. To think that the sacrifice the Allies gave in 1944-1945 to stop a last ditch attempt by the Nazi’s into retaking Western Europe has become synonymous with lazy Americans trying to lose weight is appalling. 19,000 American men died in that battle. It was the bloodiest battle of the war. It is not the same as people who let themselves go and are trying fad diets.

 

 

It is their memory you dishonor every time you use the Battle to refer to weight loss.

                                                                 

¹In my opinion, he shouldn’t have been fired. It was his opinion and I’m sure many good people share his opinion. It doesn’t help when the media fills our heads with negative stereotypes. If a Muslim man threatens to beat his wife in the US, it’s news. However if a Christian man does the same thing, nobody cares.

²The Anti-Defamation League can overreact a little now and then too. They actually sued a Rabbi for his criticism of Israel claiming it was anti-Semitic. I do give them a big thumbs up for supporting the “Ground Zero Mosque”.