The resurrection of Adolf Hitler; or are Nazi Nut-zis on the loose?

A lot of people like to take their pot-shots at our nation’s current president by making comparisons to Adolf Hitler, although I am fairly sure that the people really inclined to “pledge allegiance” to the one-time German Fuhrer think Donald Trump is as much a loony as the rest of us.

JONES: Finally making it to general election

The kind of people who really think something noble occurred during that era some 80 years ago probably think Trump is all talk, without the nerve to really act.

BUT’S LET NOT dispute the notion that there are people inclined to think that fascism or a police state would have benefits for our society – particularly if it allowed for the eliminate in some form or another of less-than-desirable people.

There was one news report out of suburban Riverside about the man now facing criminal charges because he approached three girls – ages 12 to 14 – to tell them of the evils of miscegenation and how they ought to study history to learn that Hitler was not as evil as often portrayed.

For what it’s worth, the girls took a picture of the man, told their parents, who then contacted police – where authorities actually recognized him from a previous arrest.

The man, a Berwyn resident, now faces disorderly conduct charges, although the Chicago Sun-Times reported that police said the man admits to his actions, but doesn’t believe he did anything illegal.

NOT THAT IT’S just a guy hanging around the candy store (literally, in this case) looking to talk to young girls. There also were the reports about Art Jones, who in political circles is known as the Nazi perpetual candidate.

He appears to have got himself on the ballot for this year’s election cycle as the token Republican who will challenge the winner of the Dan Lipinski/Marie Newman Democratic primary fight that most likely determine the actual election winner.

For Jones is running in the March 20 primary unopposed. And Jones is a guy who once was an activist-type whose political philosophy included wearing the swastika and touting Hitler as an example of what our society should espouse.

Nazi 'menace' arrested in Riverside

Now I know Jones has long ago quit being that extreme. I remember once interviewing him many years ago (back when I was a kid reporter with the old City News Bureau) and he said he quit being a Nazi because they were too ineffectual – not capable of getting anything done.

NOT THAT HE is apologetic in any way for his own beliefs, which include rhetoric about how the holocaust of the Nazi era in Germany is exaggerated, if not an outright falsehood.

It’s at the point where Illinois Republican Chairman Timothy Schneider and Gov. Bruce Rauner both have felt compelled to denounce Jones’ campaign and claim it doesn’t represent the modern-day GOP.

Although I find it interesting that Republican gubernatorial challenger Jeanne Ives – who wants to be thought of as an extreme conservative candidate, won’t go anywhere near Jones and his rhetoric.

I have no doubt that many Democratic candidates will find ways of bringing up Jones’ congressional bid during their own campaigns. They’ll try to tout the whole Party of Lincoln as being that way.

I’M NOT WILLING to go that far.

I’m sure that most of us will see how pathetic it is that the Republican Party couldn’t come up with a credible candidate in Illinois’ 3^rd Congressional District – the Southwest Side and surrounding suburbs of Chicago.

So the idea that a Holocaust denier (the way Jones was described in both the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times) is running for Congress, and that men are approaching young girls to tout their Nazi ideals, is a rise in fascism, is not evidence of a rise in right-wing extremism.

It just means the Nut-zis are on the loose. The bottom line? They’ll give us a good laugh with their nonsense.

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How absurd will it be next week at the humble abode of one Elwood J. Blues?

Tuesday, Wednesday and maybe even Thursday will be the time in which the nonsense level will reach new heights with relation to the Chicago Cubs – an entity in which one has to let go of all logic in order to support.

Didn't feel the need to buy this

Because while the final round of the National League playoffs begins Saturday and has the potential to be a Chicago/New York battle (although a classic Chi/N.Y. brawl would be against the Yankees), it will be mid-week of next week when the games come to the Lake View neighborhood.

IT OUGHT TO be a time when the part of Chicago that takes the Cubs seriously ought to be feeling glee. Their preferred ball club has played much better than anyone had a right to expect; and they are on the verge of making “1945” just another league championship year.

Then again, they could claim the same in 1984 and 2003 – and in both of those years came within one ballgame of winning the National League championship before blowing things.

Perhaps it is that anxiety that things could go down the drain yet again that is getting some people all worked up to complain that their ball club isn’t being given enough “love.”

What makes me apathetic about the whole National League playoff scene (aside from the fact that I’m more of an American League fan) is the idea spread by many that the Cubs are entitled to the love of the nation – and that anybody who dares not to worship Cubbie blue is somehow flawed.

Will the Cubs really win in '15?

JUST AS WHEN President Barack Obama used Twitter to offer his own support for the Cubs – even though he’s South Side oriented and a White Sox fan. There were those who wanted to immediately trash Obama for even getting involved.

There are those who did so for politically partisan reasons. Although that bothers me because I always view baseball as a way of escaping the nonsense of political griping. Those people seriously need to get a grip.

There also are the people who are upset these days because Cubs organization hitting instructor Manny Ramirez (who has worked with the minor league affiliate in Des Moines, Iowa) said he thinks one-time Cubs demi-god Sammy Sosa ought to be allowed to throw out a “first pitch” prior to one of next week’s games.

He falsified his license renewal, remember?

For all the love and affection that Cubs fans thought their team was entitled to because of all those Sosa home runs more than a decade ago, it cracks me up the degree to which they dump on him now.

A Cubs' World Series ring? Only in Hollywood

AS THOUGH THEY think they can rewrite history and pretend he’s not really a significant part of the Cubs image. Ramirez is probably correct in saying that Sosa is entitled to be a part of the festivities that occur this week.

But to read the anonymous crackpots who pollute the Internet with their whining responses to everything, it’s no, no, no, no and no!

Now I don’t know who will wind up doing the “first pitch” duties at the ball games to be played at Wrigley (where the Illinois Nazis showed up in their fruitless pursuit of the guy who drove through their rally and forced them into the river).
 

A Cubs hero, even if you won't admit it

Although if you think I’m being absurd bringing up The Blues Brothers film, keep in mind there are those who want to bring to mind Back to the Future II – where they go on and on about the scene set in 2015 where the Cubs win the World Series against Miami.

IT SEEMS THAT actor Christopher Lloyd (who played “Doc Brown” in all the Back to the Future films) is hearing talk that he will be asked to do the “first pitch” duties, and he’s all excited to handle the task.

Just as there are some who also are eager to bring up “Rookie of the Year, another film that ends with a Chicago Cubs World Series victory. Will we get people eager to see a 12-year-old whose childish antics supposedly lead the adult Cubs to victory on the playing field?

Fiction seems to be overtaking reality, which makes me wonder if the Cubs manage to lose if their fans will merely create their alternate reality and pretend they really won?

Although thinking back to those Illinois Nazis (whom we all hate) makes me think of the video I stumbled across on YouTube – one in which Adolf Hitler was talking with his leading strategists about baseball and the St. Louis Cardinals and becomes outraged upon learning of the Cubs’ victory earlier this week in the playoffs.

PERSONALLY, I FIND it ironic because of a bit of propaganda that came from the real Nazis – an English-language report intended to demoralize Allied prisoners of war about how Yankee imperialists beat up on helpless, defenseless birds.

The reality behind that report? The New York Yankees defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1943 World Series!

So the idea of a Hitler outburst in reaction to a Cubs victory? Perhaps it’s fitting in light of all the other nonsense we’re going to deal with next week.

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