What does any of this mean?
Groping and molesting women… expressing admiration for Hitler’s rise from humble origins to dictatorial power… what does it mean?
Well these two aspects of Ahhnuld’s personality tell us some very definite things that dovetail with everything we already know about him, and no, neither of them has anything to do with anti-Semitism.
The fact that Ahhnuld has felt – and acted on those feelings many, many times over a period of three decades, something that goes beyond a mere “pattern” of behavior or phase of maturity – that he can openly and verbally suggest sexual acts (along the lines of “let me lick your ---hole,” or to a waitress: “put your finger in your [pussy] for me”), grope, molest, and publicly humiliate others says to me that he has little regard for the feelings of others, that he feels he can uses other people (particularly smaller, less powerful females) as “playthings” on which he can act out his desires for attention and fantasies of power and control tells us a lot of why he wants to be governor of California. (Say anything you want about Clinton, everything he did was consensual whereas with Ahhnuld the whole “thrill” came from it being nonconsensual, from his ability to force himself on others.)
The same impulses that led him to humiliate and engage in virtual-rape – the desire to appear powerful, in control, the center of attention, and above the rules of society – are also manifest in his openly expressed admiration for Hitler. He didn’t say he admired Hitler because of his anti-Semitism, he said he admired Hitler basically because he was powerful, above the law, the subject of mindless hero-worship with whom people “agreed with” no matter what he said or did.
Is this the sort of mind-set one wants in any political leader? And yet the continuities with this mind-set and his current campaign are clearly obvious: he is not campaigning out of some deep devotion to the principles of democracy or political beliefs – indeed, as far as I can tell he has no core political beliefs. He is campaigning for office in order to feed the bottomless pit of his ego, to prove once again that he can “win” without playing by the rules and that in fact the rules don’t apply to him. He doesn’t plan to give anything “back” to California, California just happens to be the biggest “bodybuilding” stage yet for him to strut and preen and stroke his own ego. Evidently, from his point of view, we are all just guests in his world.
And yet powerful interests are willing to put him forward as a front-man in order to extract favors from him later, just like another Austrian who was continually underestimated . . . 70 years ago. The comparison to Hitler has nothing to do with hating Jews and everything to do with contempt for “ordinary” people and contempt for democratic norms.
California has a governor who was democratically elected, who was last elected less than a year ago, who was recalled by a small fraction (at most 15%) of the voters (and what politician doesn’t have 15% that are opposed to them), and who is likely to get hundreds of thousands of more votes in his favor than Ahhnuld in the recall – and yet still lose because of the purposely undemocratic nature of the recall ballot.
Hitler would be proud.
If you’re a Californian, stand up for democracy and vote against the recall.
Women say Schwarzenegger groped them
Schwarzenegger Admired Hitler, Book Proposal Says
Arnold’s New Battle
Schwarzenegger: ‘I Cannot Remember’ Expressing Admiration for Hitler
Arnold Apologizes for 'Bad Behavior'
LOS ANGELES - Entering his final campaign push, Arnold Schwarzenegger shifted into damage-control mode, apologizing for "bad behavior" toward women and saying he couldn't imagine ever telling an interviewer that he admired Adolf Hitler.
New reports that the former bodybuilder had groped women and once said he admired the Nazi leader surfaced Thursday as he began a four-day campaign bus tour. Schwarzenegger's popularity had surged in the polls, and his entourage was met by cheering crowds, but the focus had shifted to his past.
Stories by ABC News and The New York Times said the actor told an interviewer during the filming of the bodybuilding documentary "Pumping Iron" in 1975 that he admired Hitler's rise to power from humble beginnings.
Schwarzenegger, with wife Maria Shriver at his side, told a late-night news conference Thursday that he didn't recall making the remarks.
"I don't remember any of those comments because I always despise everything that Hitler stood for," Schwarzenegger said, calling the Nazi leader a "disgusting villain."
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), a Democrat who opposes the effort to recall Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites), said of the reported comment, "I think it's appalling."
"Your personal behavior does affect you in public office," Feinstein said on NBC's "Today" show. "I like to believe and hope that we elect the best among us, not some of the least among us."
Earlier in the day in San Diego, Schwarzenegger addressed allegations in the Los Angeles Times, which reported the claims of six women who accused him of sexually harassing and groping them between 1975 and 2000.
"Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right, which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I offended people," Schwarzenegger said. "Those people that I have offended, I want to say to them I am deeply sorry."
Asked about the groping allegations, Shriver referred her to husband's remarks: "As I say to my children, it always takes great courage to stand before anybody and apologize, and I think that's what Arnold did today," Shriver said.
Recent polls have shown a majority of voters ready to oust Davis in the Oct. 7 recall election, with Schwarzenegger as the front-runner to replace him, followed by Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante.
ABC and The New York Times obtained copies of an unpublished book proposal with quotes from a transcript of the 1975 interview, in which Schwarzenegger allegedly said, "I admired Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power."
He also allegedly said he wished he could experience addressing a crowd at a huge political rally.
"The feeling like Kennedy had, you know, to speak to maybe 50,000 people at one time and having them cheer, or like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium," he said, according to the transcript. "And have all those people scream at you and just being in total agreement with whatever you say."
The author of the book proposal, "Pumping Iron" director George Butler, told ABC the quotes needed to be seen in context to be understood. Butler told The New York Times he stood by a recollection of Schwarzenegger playing Nazi marches and mimicking S.S. officers, but said Schwarzenegger was an immature young man involved in the bodybuilding culture of the 1970s.
Schwarzenegger campaign spokesman Sean Walsh called the story "the worst kind of political smear, the worst."
Schwarzenegger grew up in Austria where his father was a member of the Nazi Party. He has faced charges of Nazi sympathizing before but has worked hard to refute them and has donated to the Simon Wiesenthal Center, an international Jewish human rights organization.
Davis said he found Schwarzenegger's reported comments about Hitler "particularly offensive."
"I don't see how anyone can admire Adolf Hitler. Any decent American has to be offended by that phrase," Davis said in an interview broadcast on ABC's "Good Morning America" Friday.
He declined to discuss the groping allegations, saying, "The voters will determine how significant that story is."
During a debate Thursday evening among the other top replacement candidates — Schwarzenegger was absent — state Sen. Tom McClintock said he was skeptical of what he called a "last-minute character assassination." But after the debate, he said Schwarzenegger should drop out if the allegations were true.
The Times said none of the actor's political opponents put reporters in touch with the women and that none had come forward on their own. None had brought legal action against Schwarzenegger, the newspaper said.
Representatives of several women's organizations, including California NOW, planned a press conference outside the first stop on Schwarzenegger's bus tour Friday to call upon the Los Angeles County district attorney's office to launch a criminal investigation into the groping allegations.
Some analysts said the revelations could change voters' minds about Schwarzenegger.
"This is not just philandering or adultery — this is stuff that people get fired for pretty regularly," said Bruce Cain, a political scientist at University of California, Berkeley. "If Arnold is saying he can grope women because people on movie sets play by a different set of rules, I don't know that people will buy that."
But given the timing and other considerations, Cain said it was unclear whether the controversy would help Davis. "I have no doubt this will cost Arnold votes among women, but I don't know how men will react."
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