What Bernie Sanders and Leni Riefenstahl Have in Common
Read Time:3 Minute, 5 Second
by Michael B. Schweitzer
So you smugly divine that an unaccomplished old senator whose arms wildly seem to thump bongos is leading a sweeping change that will take you other than off a socialist-desiring cliff? If so, Sanders injected you with idealistic heroin. What sweeping change? If sweeping change happens, it will be fascist, not socialist. America is a center-right country.
Your imaginary friends who comprise the pro-socialist population you adore don’t exist. Sanders is only infusing you with the righteous will to destroy the Democratic Party—our one true national political mechanism to advance progressivism. What’s he up to? Not sure, but it stinks from seven counties away.
Sanders will go down in flames, of course. He won’t get nearly the delegates he needs. Perhaps idealists should look at a map. Who among you recognizes that in however small an amount, delegates come from Puerto Rico, Guam and Samoa? Do you think Sanders might tank in Guam but Samoans will love him?
Rising fear drives most people not to welcome but to reject anything new. Textbook political psychology, empirical into its innards. Retreating and even collapsing into authoritarianism is the norm. Bernie Sanders is a Pied Piper at best.
Did you notice his crazed campaign manager Jeffrey Weaver boastfully issued a news release demanding the national Democratic Party turn over to Sanders ALL of its financial records? That’s ALL records for ALL of its candidates in ALL elections. That exceeds even placating Sander’s supreme bitchiness. Sanders is apparently an unappreciated master of the dark arts. He’s calling for a political rape and Nixon’s unachievable wet dream. And people think his call-out is cool because, untutored in reality, they’ve willfully induced themselves into believing traditional progressive like myself—those who, dare I say it, are the ones who actually get results—are demons blocking the path to the Never Never Land they thought they’d never get but now assuredly must get because Sanders will deliver it! Blotslabber! (Okay, my word.)
Sanders is now running an unprecedented campaign ad. Music and images only. I’ve studied the history
of documentary and propaganda film. Sanders has just broken the one unwritten rule in American political advertising. You don’t make a Leni Riefenstahl ad! Never! It’s too effective—and deadly! Nobody does it! Its not allowed by quiet but universal consensus to protect everyone! Sanders just mixed Simon & Garfunkel music with images of joyful white middle class families passing through lawns, gardens and dining rooms. He’s telling us the results we’ll get if we vote for him. Riefenstahl created the template. The one true piece of perfect propaganda. It’s called Triumph of the Will. Joyful Ayrian children exercising and at play mixed with what are pretty much universally recognized as perfectly subliminal offerings of homosexuality for all, mixed with soothing and wonderfully supportive and compelling music. (Music that sooths or arouses is a chart-topper in propaganda.)
Bernard Sanders alone has finally entered, and alone will likely be remembered as having dwelt in, the forbidden-because-its-deadly underworld of Leni Riefenstahl.
Riefenstahl’s client, of course, was Hitler and his message was support me and you’ll get all the joy I’ve just shown you. Did I say that’s also Sanders’ message? You might reject Nazi Germany as an example. (Even Sanders in his naivety may not realize he’s courting Nazi feelings, but that only makes his naivety more damnable.) And of course the rise of Trump and Cruz is but a dream. But look at Japan. Did they always make digital products?
Michael B. Schweitzer
Attorney at law (retired)
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I’m lost. Who defamed whose reputation? We don’t do that shit over here Herr Schweitzer.
Jawohl, auch bin ich verloren. I’m lost too. this as all been about logic and semantics and techniques of discourse. There’s been no smack talk at all.
STATEMENT BY MICHAEL B SCHWEITZER, ATTORNEY AT LAW (RETIRED)
I am a veteran civil liberties litigator and would never legitimize a statement that may seem to requires a response by me. Furthermore, I stand by every word I wrote. And finally, my right to free speech is separately and more broadly protected by Article 1, Section 2(a) of the California Constitution, which states:
“Every person may freely speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of this right. A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press.”
If you believe I abused my right, I invite you to litigate in California.
Welll… Riefenstahl’s client was more Dr. Goebbels than Hitler himself. He had offered the job to Fritz Lang, but Lang refused, citing not only a disdain for Nazism, but a deep artistic rift. Hitler and Goebbels both, despised Expressionism, and Lang of course, was a huge admirer of it. Leni had already built a huge career in front of the lens, and was one of Weimar Germany’s biggest stars. She was strikingly beautiful.
That being said, your invocation of Godwin’s law is unfair on numerous levels. A commentator above stated that you never actually call Bernie a Nazi – but you do make a strong comparative case. I suppose I should call it a win, since every other anti-Bernie guy out there is busy raving about how much of a Socialist Bernie is – and we all know that Nazism is antithesis of Socialism.
But I’ll give you the same answer I give to every Godwinite out there who uses the Third Reich to prove his particular argument against religion, political slant, sexual preference, or taste in beer. Nothing – nothing compares to the horror that was Nazi Germany. Nothing. Even Stalin, who murdered 30 million of his countrymen… Mao who murdered what by some estimates exceeded 100 million of his… cannot compare to Nazi Germany. The Nazis came closer to committing an actual genocide – eliminating in entirety an ethnic group – than any other despotic dictatorship in History. The Nazis didn’t limit their tyrannical atrocities to their own borders, but in fact carried out their plans for destruction of the Jews, on a near-global scale. And finally, the Nazis engineered death factories that in one case claimed the ability to process 10,000 units per day.
Behind all that, with steam-engine-constance was Leni. I think Hitler had no greater a cheerleader than Leni. During the seige of Berlin, she became despondent and her work showed a serious decline into suicidal depression. Nonetheless, I always saw her as not only a great artist and a cinematic genius, but a young woman who allowed herself to be easily swayed by what she saw as successful or authoritarian men. She would have been Dr. Milgram’s star pupil, throwing those phony shock-switches with abandon, for no other reason than a guy in a lab coat told her to.
I write, and have even written a few pieces for our mutual friend Mad Mike. As a writer, I would say that on balance your article wasn’t terrible. But do me one favor. If you must rail against Bernie – or for that matter just rail at all – please leave Der Volk out of it. By invoking the horror that was Nazi Germany, you’re doing more of the very thing you rail against. It’s the ultimate hyperbole, and the ultimate propagandist game.
Very well said!
Citing the right to free speech, which is not in question, seems like a distraction.
Henry Thoreau and Ted Kaczynski both lived in remote cabins in the woods, you know and were critics of contemporary society. Face it – when you make odd comparisons, there are occluded implications, crepuscular insinuations. Such comparisons, when they include associations with monsters, even indirectly, do require the kind of clarification you make no attempt at.
I find it hard to believe that an attorney, trained to choose words carefully would pretend to innocence when those words are read by others.
Perhaps he merely pointed out he recognized the source of highly unique imagery. You, too, can study documentary film if you learn how to thread a projector.
I don’t damn any man who damns what I say. But I damn any monkey who defames my reputation. Chimp!
Ya know I love controversial stuff, and this article is that, but when the author is a no show then he’s a coward who doesn’t support his own words.
Where is this guy? No balls? No responses to our comments/questions? Fuck you man!! You have got to be some kind of a pussy to not even defend your shit, which I find indefensible you POS.
Godwin’s law reversed!
Good..very good.
Mad Mike, although I am aware that you and I are in friendly disagreement vis-a-vis Clinton vs. Sanders, and although I realize that it was not you who wrote this…
…you broke my heart. :'(
Not because of what it says about Sanders, but rather what it says about Riefenstahl. As you know, I am fairly knowledgeable about that period in European History from 1928 to 1945. Regardless of one’s opinion of Nazism, there is no denying that Riefenstahl was a cinematic and propaganda genius. And every political advertising director has used her techniques, since she invented them. Sanders is no different in this. If it works, don’t fix it.
Again, I’m not holding you to task for this article, for as you know, I think very highly of you.
But tell your lawyer friend…
…this means WAR.
LOL. Will do David and I am also a HUGE fan of Leni Riefenstahl’s work. And by the way Hitler was not insane 🙂
What a load of crap. Bernie Sanders a Nazi now? And you guys are always whining about the shit the Bernie Bots say…..
I am not a commenter but I feel compelled to comment here:
The author never once called Bernie a Nazi, and so far as I can tell it was never implied. As I read it the author was simply drawing a comparison to Triumph of the Will and Bernie’s commercial only so far as their propaganda power and I tell you I agree with him, and thought it was a really good article. I want to see more of this man Mike.
I’m surprised to see this here Mike. I thought you were a Sanders’ supporter like me 🙁
I’m actually a Clinton supporter Mary, and while I publish a lot of controversial articles, that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with them. I like to give folks a forum to express themselves, and, from time to time, stir a little controversy, which this post is doing for certain.
Seriously, it seems incoherent to me, apparently damning Sanders without any basis beyond the accusation itself. But other than the rank hyperbole, that dominates our politics today, comparing a campaign ad to a Riefenstahl film in support of Hitler is more than hyperbolic, it’s simply fallacious and unfair.
A did B. You did something I insist somehow looks like B, therefore you must be just like someone A once worked worked for. Huh? At best, it’s affirming the consequent, at worst it’s just slander.
Soothing music and pleasant images are used to sell everything from Jesus to ladies’ underwear. This is not a supportable argument. Just how and why Sanders is trying to destroy anything much less is a Nazi is never explained. When Sanders begins to talk about deporting minorities or sending them to camps and advertising plans to conquer the world, then you can talk about Hitler — or Donald Trump. or Ben Carson or Ted Cruz. . .
I have to agree with you Glenn. It’s a rather bizarre and twisted bloodletting that has little bearing on the politics or the candidate. I must say, however, I thought it a good read, if a bit (a lot) fanciful. I gather you disagree.
I don’t disagree that it’s an interesting read actually, but I’ve become hypersensitized, I guess. It’s not an outright accusation, but I think the implication is there, the guilt by association is there, soft though it may be. Hitler’s propaganda looks like Sanders’ propaganda? No passing thought about how this might sound? Purely a film critic here? Seriously?
“I’d Like to buy the World a Coke” looks a hell of a lot like Leni’s work too. Ive read articles explaining in a casual way how Obama just happens to look like Satan and I don’t buy that it’s only about physical appearance and comparing candidates to Hitler is too common to make me write this off as having nothing to do with smear tactics.
“Hitllery” seems to be taking off as an epithet and reductio ad Hitlerum is obscenely common in our politics. I’ve had more than enough.
So, by “guest contributor” we must ascertain you are a coward unwilling to expose your name. In addition, your mindless diatribe exposes you as a mind numbing regurgitator of right wing horsepucky. I would say “nice try”, but your poorly constructed and inane fascist puke is just basically stupid
No his name is on it Peter. At the bottom of the piece. I forgot to put it at the top and will have to correct that. Only regular authors get a standing byline. Thanks.
Your wild imaginings are just that. Wild and imaginings. You’re far too “clever” for your own good. Go play elsewhere.
I disagree there Peter. I think it’s fucking brilliant.