Breakdown in decorum

Just in case there wasn't enough invective from our lawmakers in Congress over the health care bill, U. S. Post Office customers in Birmingham got served up even more rancor this weekend: posters and leaflets depicting the President of the United States as Hitler.

Welcome to the breakdown of political decorum, where yelling "You lie!" "baby killer" and calling senators homophobic names now includes invoking comparisons to Hitler.

Last Friday, a group that identified themselves as a Lyndon LaRouche political action committee set up a small, if not crude information table outside the post office calling for impeachment and showing posters with President Barack Obama wearing a Hitler-like mustache.

The largely ideological extreme LaRouche political movement has been around for decades. Founder Lyndon LaRouche, now 87, is a self-styled economist and activist, well known for his strange, if not frightening, conspiracy theories and cult-like following.

In part, the literature reads: "Public evidence alone demonstrates that (Obama) is leading a conspiracy to subvert constitutional government and to impose measures which would result in the mass death of Americans and the destruction of the nation."

"This is nothing but hateful," one woman said to the two representatives, a man and a woman manning the literature table. "You are just inciting anger!"

The two said nothing in response. When a reporter asked for comment, the woman referred the reporter to PAC headquarters.

Margaret Betts of Birmingham was so rankled by the posters, she went home to get her camera and returned to document the scene for her blog: birminghammarge.blogspot.com.

"I'm just a senior citizen, but I find this highly offensive," she said. "Just seeing the picture of our president with a Nazi mustache absolutely disgusts me. I told them they should be ashamed of themselves."

Several post office patrons went inside to complain to postal workers. But the postal workers told them the group was entitled to be on public property.

At least one onlooker noted the irony of LaRouche's conviction and sentencing in 1988 for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and tax code violations, especially amid the backdrop of the post office's American flag on the unseasonably cold first day of spring.

Pretty soon a Birmingham police officer, Cpl. Jerry Hall showed up. He said residents had "tweeted" the police department with complaints about the malicious nature of the posters. "As much as people may not like their lovely literature," Hall said, "they have a right to be here. I'm trying to quell people's suspicions that they shouldn't or couldn't be there. They are protected by free speech."

But for many, comparing our president with the man responsible for the extermination of six million Jews was reprehensible. After talking with the two LaRouche representatives, Birmingham resident Greg Thrasher said was enraged.

"I wish I had the courage to toss their table over," he said. "Then I got into an argument with a couple of residents who signed their petition. They were saying how they felt Obama was socialist. About five minutes into the chat, the words 'you people' and 'n-----' finally emerged. Rather than coming together, we're yelling nasty insults at each other. I guess that's where we still are in 2010."

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