LaRouchians: So gosh darn polite about comparing Obama to Hitler

LaRouche volunteers push their Obama - Hitler comparison near an El stop in Chicago, Ill.

Several times in the past month, the LaRouche Movement has staked out space at an El stop down the street from my apartment. Leaning against a wall that’s no doubt been urinated upon, and nestled between the guy selling incense and a curbside evangelist, the LaRouche-bags (as my roommate has roommate has taken to calling them) are still towing the “Obama is Hitler” line. And, as if their campaign wasn’t insulting enough, they’re promoting it in the President’s hometown.

Yawn.

People wittier and smarter than me have already torn their comparison to shreds so I won’t bother to rehash it here. (Personally, I buy into the fact that Obama’s  health care reform isn’t um, you know, MASS GENOCIDE. Which I think is a pretty solid argument.) So instead I’m limiting my comments to other funny little aspects of the LaRouche movement that I haven’t seen in the mainstream media yet — quirks that you only discover when you have to walk past them multiple times a week to and from your poli sci class.

Quirk #1: For complete whack-a-doos, they’re surprisingly polite

It almost took me aback the first time I passed by the LaRouche movement’s booth, and spoke with one of their supporters for the first time. While trying all sneaky-like to snap these covert pictures for the True/Slant post I instantly knew I wanted to write, one of the young men handing out information stopped me and asked — with a completely straight face and warm tone of voice — if I had heard our President’s agenda was slowly transforming into that of Adolf Hitler. And that I was welcome to take all the pictures I wanted.

Photoshop nerds, let me remind you that with great power comes great responsibility. Wield your clone stamp tool for the good, not for the bat-shit crazy.

Huh? The words spewing out of his mouth were ten shades of crazy, but he was as inviting as the Greenpeace kids trying to get me to sign petitions against baby-seal clubbing. Hell, I used to be a Girl Scout and I’m sure not all of my cookie-pitches measured up to how friendly these complete nut-bags were. To top it all off, one of them actually ran after me to let me know that, in fact, a high-res version of the photoshopped Obama-Hitler was available on their Web site, in case I wanted to spread the word. Never have I witnessed a poisoning of the marketplace of ideas that was so … polite.

Quirk #2: Nobody challenged them.

Or at least not that I saw. Which is perhaps the saddest aspect of this entire situation. Here the LaRouchians were, spreading blatantly false propaganda just steps from the gates of a social justice-loving, left-leaning institution of higher learning with an undergrad population topping 10,000, and not once did I see any students, faculty, or anyone at all attempt to argue against their lies.

Which brings me back to the whole “marketplace of ideas” concept. Yes, yes, it’s a very “1st year of J-school” way to interpret the situation, but when someone’s poisoning the well, so to speak, isn’t it the obligation of the rest of society to speak against them and promote accuracy and truths over distorted manipulations? After all, when gay-bashers showed up two years ago on campus to pass out hate-filled pamphlets, students readily confronted their lies and hate speech and ran them off campus. So the question is why not for healthcare? Why not now?

The sad truth is that when I flat out asked my colleagues this very question, their answer was that they didn’t know enough about the health care reform debates to feel confident in mounting an attack. From what I’ve seen, it seems like even students who follow the news are being turned off of the topic all together because of the noise and confusion — the tea baggers and the Congressmen shouting, and the death panel scare tactics. And it’s when people stop listening the hallowed market places loses the most.

Case in point: My roommate was so incensed at the LaRouche-bags that he tried to organize a counter-demonstration. Mind you, he owns a seven-foot-tall homemade puppet of Barack Obama (don’t ask — it’s long story, involving traveling thespians from Connecticut). The plan was to gather a group of friends and, Avenue Q style, mount a defense of Obamacare via puppet. But sadly, it never materialized — he couldn’t find enough students who were confident in their arguments against the LaRouchians.

So at the end of it all, I’m left wondering which is more disconcerting: that crazies are falsely comparing Obama to Hitler, or that my generation may not know enough to check them? I have to say, I’m drawn towards the latter — smackdown via puppet would have been breathtaking.