Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Godwin's Law Versus Photoshop

"As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1."

Earlier tonight I noticed Twitter change during President Obama's State of the Union Address. The tone turned rapidly political and snarky from one side and the other side got political and was shamelessly doing apologetics and carrying the President's water. One of my Tea Party tweeps retweeted the image above. It shows an image of Adolph Hitler with Obama's head in place of Hitler's but the cap is a fusion of the Nazi original that the Fuehrer was wearing in the original image, but part of it has been altered to show some Soviet imagery thus making this one a hybrid. I found it both superficially comical and underlyingly distressing as it is unclever hyperbole that diminishes the victims of the Third Reich and Soviet Union and grossly miscasts the President's executive powers as framed by the U.S. Constitution and ignores the fact this man was elected fair and square.... TWICE unlike Adolph Hitler's and Joseph Stalin's bloody rise to power and consolidation thereof.
Upon seeing Obama-As-Uncle-Joe I thought of all the Bush-As-Hitlers that came out and were circulated during his Presidency. That was not the first U.S. Presidency to receive such comparisons but Photoshop had made that easier to generate and dissiminate by the 2000's as compared to during previous Administrations.
Of course, Barack Obama likewise gets framed as Hitler....
.....as was George W. Bush in his time also on Time.
Here we see Obama and Hilter's visages fused together...
.... as well as Bush and Hitler's visages.
Obama's and Bush's visages fused together....
...and finally... Bush and Obama side by side shown as Adolph Hitler.
All of this is quite juvenile and sophomoric and dishonors those who suffered under Nazi and Soviet regimes.
It also grossly distorts reality suggesting either man did not get elected peacefully and non-violently and in power acts in a homicidal and genocidal fashion.

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