Has Senator Byrd...

[Lucifer_Carroll]

It's a bad comparison and overused for its viscera but its also fair. Liberals have been compared for how many years to Hitler because they don't like conquering other nations? Lefties and Big government are nazi fascists trampling on the American way of life is like maybe a basic machine gun in the rhetoric war. The fact that the Dems have been so late and hesitant to grasp it when the case actually blooms parallels that don't make you laugh milk up your nose is one of many reasons why they have been getting their asses kicked left, right, and center. I don't approve of the tactic, I despise its usage like many of the tactics employed in the mockery of the human condition that politics has allowed to rot itself into, but since people still allow themselves to fall for its stupid superficiality because they can't be arsed to spend the five goddamned minutes to see how they're personal beliefs are really being handled, then fuck it. Let em all use the basest filth as their medium and shred the last vestiges of their rotten Hell until no one is left who can stand the bs and become by proxy and inudation immune to it. Then I can get back to idle dreams of utopias never reached because dystopia is such a sexy beast.

On a funny sidenote, here's Ted Rall's reaction to the comparison he himself has been guilty of employing on more than one occasion: http://www.ucomics.com/tedrall/2005/02/28/ .

Bush uses fascist tactics it's true. It shouldn't have been a surprise. The stated ideology of the group that birthed him has the stated agenda of collapsing the American government (starving the beast) and has employed lethal force for it (Gordon's massacre and Timothy McVeigh) including the murder of children (bomb in a day care) in the latter example. But such is life that no one gives a flying fuck for their personal views and thus so it goes.

Sure the treason enacted might have been a surprise, but their tactics are simple rhetoric tools made publically known by scores upon scores of sociology and communication professors as well as historians and others. Its not that Bush is using fascist tactics to seize, maintain, and exploit temporary power, but that he's succeeding that's sad and heartbreaking.

And so an empty half-assed entry into the rhetoric war admist condemnation by the veterans is all the Dems can muster. Yeah, it's a cheap pointless rhetoric tool, but maybe seeing it used in the hands of such rank amateurs will wake people up to the fact that it is a tool that preys on their moral compass. That none of the bullshit is worth taking and falling for and all of the emo manipulation is just that.

And maybe pigs will also erupt from my butt and emit wondrous song.

Fuckin' politics man.

 

[justathought555]

No, Bush has not engaged in genocide, yet.

Really? You might get a different opinion if you speak to the families of the over 100,000 dead Iraqis and Afghanis.

And now Congress is more interested in prattling on about some baseball players using steroids than about doing its job - representing their constituents and serving as a check on the executive branch.

What a country.

 

[ishtat]

Superpower

Colleen may be tired of others seeing China as a super power. Ok, but did being a Superpower help the USA win in Korea, Vietnam or Iraq? Do those efforts define superpower? The problem of being a military superpower is that the exercise of that power of itself precludes acceptable post war outcomes. EG Korea or Vietnam. Mind , being a super power worked in Granada, but in Cuba!!

China still has 20 million people living in caves & dug outs (their stats) but the important point is not our assessment of their technical military capability but whether the USA 's either interested or willing to contain them.

China will take Taiwan at some point and probably not by military force but because the USA will eventually get fed up with opposing diplomatically what they know won't be backed up militarily whatever the military assessment

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Colleen may be tired of others seeing China as a super power. Ok, but did being a Superpower help the USA win in Korea, Vietnam or Iraq? Do those efforts define superpower? The problem of being a military superpower is that the exercise of that power of itself precludes acceptable post war outcomes. EG Korea or Vietnam. Mind , being a super power worked in Granada, but in Cuba!!

China still has 20 million people living in caves & dug outs (their stats) but the important point is not our assessment of their technical military capability but whether the USA 's either interested or willing to contain them.

China will take Taiwan at some point and probably not by military force but because the USA will eventually get fed up with opposing diplomatically what they know won't be backed up militarily whatever the military assessment

How was Korea not an acceptable outcome? Exactly what military history have you been studying? Prior to world War I, the status Quo antebellum was how many, if not most conflicts ended. Most brush fire conflicts, i.e. those between smaller nations still end this way. The UN, when it interceeds, almost always defines the scope of military intervention as achiveing the status quo antebellum. As in Desert storm. And Korea, which was a U.N. operation, btw.

I would say the outcome in Iraq is still being decided and it's too early to make judgements on it.

Your sole example of a failure is vietnam, I'll add the rusian intervention in Afghanistan for you. Even super powers fail when the political will is not there. So?

China cannot project power. It dosen't have the military ability to project power beyind a regional level. It dosen't have the economic ability to project power yet. While it is groing, modernizing, etc. It's far from a super power.

Your assertion that China will retake Taiwan is unfounded. We have intervened consistantly there and I have seennothing in the curent administration's politics to makeme believe they will tolerate loosing face over it. China knows it can't win with military might until the U.S. stands aside. I think they are pretty confident GW isn't going to stand aside. Barring another Jimmy Carter, it's quite likely no US president is going to feel confident enough in his position to allow such a loss of face.

When/if China develops the ability to project power outside it's region, then you would have to consider its status. Until it can exert influence outside it's region, you can't.

 

[rgraham666]

Personally I don't think China will ever become a super power. For two reasons.

The first is cultural. I don't believe that China will ever allow the cultural ferment that a democracy requires. Sooner or later, the people in charge are going to crack down on anything they regard as internal opposition, which will include most of the 'capitalists'. The basic nature of Chinese society is Confucian and inward looking. It prefers isolated stability to engaged balance.

The second is ecological. I believe China is too small and overcrowded to sustain the ecological damage a really productive industrial system would cause. Even with advanced technologies, there will probably be more waste than the local ecology can stand.

 

[Somme]

<sighs>..........lets bring this back to line....
I was really interested in the relationship between the neocons and their philosophical roots....specifically that of Leo Strauss..........who was a mate of Schmidt, the nazi ideologue.........; anyone read him, or studied the bloke?

 

[Colleen Thomas]

<sighs>..........lets bring this back to line....
I was really interested in the relationship between the neocons and their philosophical roots....specifically that of Leo Strauss..........who was a mate of Schmidt, the nazi ideologue.........; anyone read him, or studied the bloke?

Interesting article Somme.

I knew of Strauss, but wasn't aware his doctines had been adopted by the Neo-cons. The fit, however, seems to be too uncanny to be a coincidence. the only thing I see strikingly out of line is the alliance with big bussiness.

I was under the impression strauss was pretty myopicly fixated on the state as the ultimate expression of human endeavor, much like Ley and Rosenberg. I'm not sure how multi national corporations fit into his views.

 

[Somme]

Interesting article Somme.

I knew of Strauss, but wasn't aware his doctines had been adopted by the Neo-cons. The fit, however, seems to be too uncanny to be a coincidence. the only thing I see strikingly out of line is the alliance with big bussiness.

I was under the impression strauss was pretty myopicly fixated on the state as the ultimate expression of human endeavor, much like Ley and Rosenberg. I'm not sure how multi national corporations fit into his views.

I'm too tired to be thoroughly coherant, colly, but I've the feeling that the major factors for the 'artists' practicing this 'philosophy' is a mixture of greed, arrogance, vainglory and melogamania. The 'adepts, or 'wise', who don't fear 'looking into the abyss'......and who do not shy from using crass lies as a tool - keeping the 'vulgar' well in their place. I've also the nagging suspicion that the 'gentry' fouls the purism; if the 'adepts' get too uppity by, for example, taxing the 'gentry', then they might just shoot themselves in the foot, - the gentry being quite happy to accept the shockingly mendacious nonsense 'cause they're well paid to turn the blind eye. The emergence of the modern multi-national is also something that I've not figured out, but then I doubt that Strauss did either.

The basis of the neos seems to be that they believe that their position justifies all and any means. That they have no conscience about doing the things they've done appears to bear this out, but then I may be wrong......

 

[Somme]

feeling rather strong on the topic...

from http://the-goddess.org/blog/2004/08/yes-it-canwhy-i-wont-apologize-for.html


Sunday, August 08, 2004
Yes, it can!
Why I won't Apologize for Calling Bush a Fascist
not that anyone has asked me to...

If you haven't read Fascism Anyone? by Laurence W. Britt, follow that link and do it now. You need to know this information in this election. I'm going to take the 14 points delineated by Britt and put them in perspective here. Remember, these are his points. The commentary is mine.

If there were one point here that didn't apply to this administration, I'd back down. Now check this out:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.

Since the attacks of the world trade center, there has been an attempt to control any form of dissent, or criticism of the Administration. Expressions of pride in being an American have taken on an almost militant form, expressed in pervasive displays of flags and pro-American themes in popular music and television.


"The Bush administration's objective of establishing U.S. domination over any potential adversary led to the hubristic, tragic miscalculation of the Iraq war, a painful adventure marked by one disaster after another based on one mistaken assumption after another." Al Gore



2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.

There ought to be limits to freedom.
-- George W. Bush

"People have to watch what they say and watch what they do." - Ari Fleisher, White House spokesman 9/26/01*


Since 9/11, people who are suspected of having ties to terrorism have been held indefinitely without access to counsel, courts, and are considered by the Administration to be exempt from the protections of the Geneva Convention. In spite of a recent court decision finding that the detainees do have rights of Habeus Corpus, the Administration has expressed that it has no intention of complying with the order of the court.

The Patriot Act has effectively suspended several protections guaranteed by the Constitution. Authorities may search anyone, at any time without probable cause. They can enter and search your home without notifying you. Communications can be monitored in unprecedented ways without a warrant.

No longer a leader in the fight for human rights around the world, America has been shown committing war crimes in Guantanamo Bay, Abu Grahib, and other locations throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. Photographic and video evidence has been withheld and suppressed by the media and the government. Items leaked through the press show prisoners being sexually violated and there is a number of unexplained deaths. Sy Hersch, the reporter fro the New Yorker who broke the story, has stated that there is video of boys being sodomized. Over 100 children are currently imprisoned at Abu Grahib. The Red Cross has been denied access to prisoners, and the Administration is now known to be keeping undocumented prisoners. Reports are that most of the people being held at Abu Grahib were detained in error. The abuses have been dismissed by Right Wing media personalities as nothing more than "fraternity pranks". A few low level soldiers are being court martialed in an attempt to portray the abuses as the work of a few poorly trained recruits. Documentation exists showing White House attorneys attempted to create a legal argument to justify the torturing of suspected terrorists well before the incidents at Abu Grahib, with full knowledge of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the White House.

Protest is now allowed only in established "Free Speech Zones." Those wishing to attend political rallies with the President or Vice President are required to sign a pledge to support their ticket in the upcoming election, and provide contact information and identification. The campaign reportedly asked a reporter's race before agreeing to issue credentials to cover one event. People have been removed from events for wearing or carrying t-shirts bearing pro-choice and other messages deemed "unsupportive" by the campaign.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.


" Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." - G.W. Bush President Declares "Freedom at War with Fear"

"They are all "enemies of civilization," [Bush] said, and they share "a fanatical political ideology.1"

Frequent, nondescript terror warnings are common, usually timed to benefit the Bush Administration's polling numbers, or deflect attention from positive news of his opponent, Senator John Kerry. Former Governor Howard Dean has recently called public attention to the pattern.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.

"I'm a war president." -- G.W. Bush

The US invaded iraq in spite pleas from the UN Inspectors who wanted to continue inspections, which found no evidence of WMD's.
George Tenet of the CIA stated that there was no reason to suspect Iraq had WMD's. Bush told the American public that Saddam Hussein was an immanent threat, in spite of information to the contrary. An historical, world-wide peace march of 10 million people protesting the US invasion of iraq was dismissed by Bush as a "focus group".

Despite mounting evidence that Bush never completed his obligation to the National Guard, Bush is fond of appearing in front of military audiences. He donned a flight suit when he stood in front of a banner reading "Mission Accomplished" on the USS Lincoln and announced success in the Iraqi invasion. As of right now, 930 American soldiers have died since that announcement.

Click here to see figures on Federal Spending. and Global Military Spending. Graphics included with the permission of True Majority.org

5. Rampant sexism.

Bush has been stacking the courts with reactionary judges known to believe that women should be subservient and abortion is murder. When blocked by Congress, Bush has gone so far as to appoint an extreme Right Wing Judge by executive order when congress had recessed.

The Right Wing's hatred of competent women is evident in their treatment of Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart and Teresa Heinz Kerry.

Britt's words:

Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.


Bush's support for an amendment to prohibit same sex marriages instigated the first Senate debates on an amendment that would formally limit the "full faith and credit" protections of 10 per cent of American citizens. Several extreme presentations by Senators likened homosexuality to bestiality, and literally prognosticated the end of civilization as we know it if gays were permitted to marry.

6. A controlled mass media.

Fox News, anyone? By the way, you can buy OutFoxed for under 10 Dollars from Amazon.com.

"Gore said media who challenge Bush and Cheney's claims of a link are intimidated by the administration.

"The administration works closely with a network of rapid-response digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for undermining support for our troops," Gore said. The term "Brown Shirts" refers to Nazi supporters in the 1930s and '40s." Al Gore


October 25, 2003—US Senator Robert Byrd, on the floor of Congress, on October 17, has explicitly compared the Bush media operation to that run by Herman Goering, mastermind of the Nazi putsch against the German people.






Why does the Bush administration lie so much? It is mainly because Bush's Svengali-like political adviser, Karl Rove, has taken to heart the advice of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels: "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." When Lying Pays Off: The Fabrications of the Neo-Cons


7. Obsession with national security.


After 9/11, the government was reorganized around a new Department of Homeland Security, which has so far only served to provide vague warnings of terrorist plots when Bush's poll numbers drop. Bush constantly sates that he has made us safer, but that we are not safe.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.


Britt's words:

Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.


Bush's words:

"I've heard the call. I believe God wants me to run for president.2"

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.3"

"And this is my solemn pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity. I know this is in our reach because we are guided by a power larger than ourselves who creates us equal in His image.4"

"Our job as leaders--Republicans, Democrats, nonaffiliateds--is to rally that compassion of America, is to call upon the love that exists not because of government, that exists because of a gracious and loving God."
AP story in LA Times, Aug 4, 2000 5"

"I also have this belief, strong belief, that freedom is not this country's gift to the world; freedom is the Almighty's gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on the face of the Earth, we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom.6"

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.7"


Bush appealed to the Pope for help in getting American Bishops to support his agenda. The Bush/Cheney campaign has solicited churches to provide their member directories to the campaign. it is widely believed that there is a movement of Christian extremists who believe Bush was installed in office by none other than the Almighty.


"Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him. He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this."

"I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol,"

"the principalities of darkness. . . a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy".

"Our enemy is a spiritual enemy because we are a nation of believers. . . His name is Satan." - Lt Gen William "Jerry" Boykin, the newly promoted Deputy Undersecretary of State of Defense for Intelligence. God put Bush in charge, says the General hunting bin Laden



9. Power of corporations protected.

Halliburton. Media Consolidation. Gutted environmental protections. Rolling back regulations on media consolidation. Creating a Health Care benefit that only benefits the drug companies. Record tax breaks for the wealthy.
Secret Energy Policy meetings and a complete refusal to open the records on it.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.


Education Secretary Paige calls national teachers union a 'terrorist organization'
Administration Refuses Workers’ Overtime Pay Guarantee

from Bush's Anti-union Record by Joel Wendland


While Bush's economic policies have targeted the wages and security of working people, his union-busting efforts have tried to undermine the one tool we have available to protect ourselves - our unions.

Bush used rhetoric of "national security" to pursue the anti-union agenda he supported prior to the events of September 11th. In fact, Bush claimed that workers who wanted to preserve their collective bargaining right were opposed to national security and might be supporting terrorist efforts.


11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.



"There were many beautiful books, but as they contained nothing but superstitions and falsehoods of the Devil, we burnt them." - Diego de LANDA, Bishop of Yucatan

"Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings." - Heinrich HEINE, German poet (1797-1856) Used as inscription on memorial at Dachau concentration camp.



Disney was afraid to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11; Michael Eisner said he feared Disney would lose tax breaks for its amusement park in Florida, where the President's brother, Jeb Bush, is Governor.

Linda Ronstadt was ejected from the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas for dedicating a song to Michael Moore;

The Dixie Chicks saw their recordings burned(!) after apologizing for Bush at a concert in England; American radio stations kow towed to a boycott of their music pushed by Right Wing activists.

The publisher for Michael Moore's book Stupid White Men delayed its publication and wanted to shred existing copies the book for its criticism of Bush- it was saved only when American Librarians heard of the plan and mounted an internet campaign in its defense.

An Art dealer in California was driven out of business for displaying a painting that depicted the torture at Abu Grahib.

Media giantClear Channel fired shock-jock Howard Stern for obscenity, though Stern maintains it was because he criticized the Bush Administration.

Whoopi Goldberg was fired from her job promoting SlimFast after a Right Wing uproar resulted from a joke she made about Bush's surname at a Democratic Fundraiser.

The FCC lost its mind when Janet Jackson's nipple was accidentally exposed during half-time at the Super Bowl and sprang into action with attempts to intensify network censorship.


from 4000 Scientists Confront Bush Administration by Chris Mooney at TomPaine.com

the Union of Concerned Scientists... has announced that more than four thousand scientists have now signed their February statement on scientific integrity--including 48 Nobel Laureates. The group also just released anew report showing that the Bush administration has blithely continued to do what it was originally accused of: Egregiously politicizing science.



Attorney General John Ashcroft recently attempted to have government manuals containing information on forfeiture procedures removed from public access.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment.

Death In Texas: Bush's Pride In Executions Is Grotesque

Texas Executions: GW Bush Has Defined Himself, Unforgettably, As Shallow And Callous

A complete list of his 152 executions can be found at BushKills.com


American Military Deaths in Iraq
Total In combat
Since 5/1/2003: 1385 1067
Since war began: 1522 1177
Total wounded: 11344


I wanted to show the totals for civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq - neither of whom had any history of aggression against America, and who's ruling regimes at the time of our invasion - the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, respectively- had previously been installed and funded by the United States. Subsequent investigations have shown that their was no connection between Iraq and 9/11. Afghanistan has now become a breeding ground for al Quaeda terrorism, and the Taliban is mounting attacks against women who register to vote. Apparently, few statistics are kept on civilian casualties and they are so highly disputed that most agencies don't want to release them.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
Halliburton. Kenny-boy Lay and Enron. 'Nuff said.

Then, of course, their are the family ties to consider:


For 60 years it has been a matter of public record that Prescott Bush helped finance Hitler's rise to power and world war. Later a US Senator from Connecticut, Prescott was father to President George H.W. Bushand grandfather to George W. Bush. Because legal action was taken, Bush's deeds have been a matter of public record since 1942. They were widely covered in newspapers and electronic media at the time. The history is readily accessible8


After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.9



Similar denials have surrounded Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is a matter of public record that his father volunteered for the Austrian Nazi Party and the infamous SA, which engaged in brutal mass murder. Arnold himself has attempted to distance himself from his family's Nazi past. He has made large donations to the Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles, which has tracked Nazi fugitives. His backers now claim he attended an anti-Nazi rally at an early age.

On the other hand, he has been linked to statements admiring Hitler for his speaking ability and his ability to gain a huge following. A past indicating a strong authoritarian nature has also been cause for alarm. In 1975, Schwarzenegger yearned for his own Nazi-style rally, "like Hitler in the Nuremberg stadium. And have all those people scream at you and just being [in] total agreement whatever you say."
***
-[Karl]Rove is quoted in Bob Woodward's best-selling BUSH AT WAR as comparing the reaction of a New York Yankee crowd to an appearance by Bush as being "like a nazi rally."8


There have been rumors about Rove's family having built Birchenau, and information that Cheney, Wolfowitz and others in the Pentagon have ties to a particular brand of French fascism, but I can't find what I consider to be a reliable source for those. If it's out there, I'm confident someone will find it. For now, I have enough documentation of its roots, and we have all seen the pattern of consistent abuses of power.

14. Fraudulent elections.
Do you really want me to get started on that coup d'etat in 2000? As of right now, Black Box Voting.org says that up to 30% of the votes in the upcoming presidential elections are not verifiable and cannot be recounted if the machines fail or are subject to tampering.


The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."10



“In a way that occurred before but is rare in the United States…somebody came to power as a result of the illegitimate acts of a legitimate institution that had the right to put somebody in power.That is what the Supreme Court did in Bush versus Gore. It put somebody in power,” said Guido Calabresi, a judge on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which sits in Manhattan.

“The king of Italy had the right to put Mussolini in, though he had not won an election, and make him prime minister. That is what happened when Hindenburg put Hitler in. I am not suggesting for a moment that Bush is Hitler. I want to be clear on that, but it is a situation which is extremely unusual,” the judge said.

“When somebody has come in that way, they sometimes have tried not to exercise much power. In this case, like Mussolini, [Bush] has exercised extraordinary power. He has exercised power, claimed power for himself; that has not occurred since Franklin Roosevelt who, after all, was elected big and who did some of the same things with respect to assertions of power in times of crisis that this president is doing,” he said. 11


That's 14 out of 14. If it looks like a duck.... I know that the Anti-Defamation League has been consistent in asking that images of Hitler not be used in political campaign because they feel that to do so does not honor the victims of the holocaust. Under normal circumstances, I would agree that such imagery should be off limits. Having watched the consistent assault on American values perpetrated by this Administration, however, I am paying particular attention to anything that seems to extend the pattern. Michelle Malkin's new book, In Defense of Internment: The Case for "Racial Profiling" in World War II and the War on Terror, has alarm bells going off.


In Defense of Internment provides a radical departure from the predominant literature of civil liberties absolutism. It offers a defense of the most reviled wartime policies in American history: the evacuation, relocation, and internment of people of Japanese descent during World War II (three separate actions which are commonly lumped under the umbrella term “internment”). My book is also a defense of racial, ethnic, religious, and nationality profiling (widely differing measures that are commonly lumped under the umbrella term “racial profiling”) now being taken or contemplated during today’s War on Terror.

I was compelled to write this book after watching ethnic activists, historians, and politicians repeatedly play the World War II internment card after the September 11 attacks. The Bush Administration’s critics have equated every reasonable measure to interrogate, track, detain, and deport potential terrorists with the “racist” and “unjustified” World War II internment policies of President Roosevelt. To make amends for this “shameful blot” on our history, both Japanese-American and Arab/Muslim-American activists argue against any and all uses of race, ethnicity, nationality, and religion in shaping current homeland security policies. Misguided guilt about the past continues to hamper our ability to prevent future terrorist attacks. - -Michelle Malkin


How kind of Ms. Malkin to offer herself up as a "token torturer".(If the "oppressor" can get members of the oppressed group to do the wet work, they resent the "torturer", and thus themselves, rather than the original author of the oppression.) She's a very attractive advocate for Racism, uh, I mean, Racial Profiling. How can we criticize a "reasonable" action by the Bush administration to protect the country from the ever-present threat of terrorism when such a lovely woman says it's a good thing? Calling it Bigotry, or Xenophobia would be downright unAmerican. From there, it's a short step to locking up certain people of color - beginning with Muslims, of course- for their own protection. What the hell- we already have 2 Million people in prison for mostly non-violent crimes. Nobody that matters will miss a few followers of Islam, now will they?

It hasn't happened yet. Just remember - it DID happen before, and it happened HERE. It happened in Germany to the Jews, some of whom live right here, right now. If we truly want to honor them, we need to recognize the signs when we see them. 14 out of 14 is 14 too many for an American Presidency.




1 http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0418/perlstein.php
2, 3, http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/bush.htm
4 http://www.beliefnet.com/story/33/story_3345.html
5 http://atheism.about.com/gi/dynamic...://www.progressive.org/webex04/wx0413a04.html
6 http://atheism.about.com/b/a/099745.htm
7 http://politicalwire.com/archives/2004/07/16/quote_of_the_day.html
8 http://www*******journal.com/Special_Reports/102503Wasserman-Fitrakis/102503wasserman-fitrakis.html
9 http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?user_action=detail&catalogno=NN_Bush_Nazi_2
10 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0828-08.htm
11 http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/g...Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/06/21&ID=Ar00101

posted by Morgaine @ 8:38 PM

 

[3dipper]

Josef Goebbels at Nurumberg

I am from West Virginia, and I am aware that Senataor Byrd was in the KKK many years ago: but he knows the constitution far better than most of us.
I believe that his comparison of President Bush to Adolf Hitler was based on his actions and style to date. He was not insinuatting that President Bush would advocate anything like the holocaust, but that there are some actions and language allowing a comparison.

Josef Goebbels, Hitlers Propagandist, said at his trial in Nurumberg, Something to the effect that "the comman man does not want war. The leaders of a country make that decision. But if you give the comman man something or someone to fear, he will go to war. That is very much like the pre Iraq invasion rhetoric from the president and his camp.

There was this past weekend large anti-war demonstrations in many cities here and overseas, bu the Congressional hysteria over a ruling by a State Judge and hourly press releases and the constant hyperbole effectively kept that bit of news way in the background. Classic Nazi (Nationalist Socialist) tactics.

As far back as the Republican Convention several years ago, a prominent Republican in a speech raised the specter of a Culteral War between right thinking members of his party and the leftist, bible dismissing liberals, gays and others. A very similar speech was made in Germany in the 1930s, substituting Gypsies, homosexuals and jews, even using the word "culture war".

Hitler used to say one thing, then change what he said to apply to any opposition. Does any of this remind you of anything?

By the way, I am a 20 year military veteran, with an additional 25 years as a historical interpreter with the National Park Service, so I am not a flaming liberal. I am an American who believes We all have a right to speak our mind.

 

[rgraham666]

Welcome to the AH, 3dipper.

Knowledgeable and good hearted people are always welcome here.

 

[Somme]

From http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/040105J.shtml

Editor's Note: This is the third of Raw Story's series of conversations with former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. In the first installment, Ritter spoke about the situations as regards weapons in Iraq, Iran and Russia. In the second, Ritter enumerated what he saw as the failings of the US intelligence operation, calling the CIA 'terminally ill.'

In this final part of the three-part series, the former weapons inspector details his beliefs about the neoconservative movement, the American legislative process and his hopes for the future.

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Scott Ritter: Neocons as Parasites
By Larisa Alexandrovna
Raw Story

Friday 01 April 2005
Congressional Catch-22.

Larisa Alexandrovna: Paul Wolfowitz stated prior to the Iraq invasion that Iraqi reconstruction would pay for itself. It seems that Mr. Wolfowitz, now charged with handling the World Bank, miscalculated. What is going on with the oil in Iraq?

Scott Ritter: Paul Wolfowitz was a salesman; his job was to sell a war. He acknowledged this in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine, in which he acknowledged that WMDs and the threat they posed, was nothing more than a vehicle to sell this war to America. Now you [get] to the war itself and selling it to Congress and [the] questions: How long will this take? Or how much will this cost?

Paul Wolfowitz lied to Congress about the costs of war. There is not a responsible member of government who thought this would be quick and cheap. There was nobody who believed that Iraq oil would pay for itself, no one in the oil business thought so.

What about oil companies, were they for the war or against it?

No oil professional in their right mind would support what is happening in Iraq. This isn't part of a grand 'oil' strategy; it is simply pure unadulterated incompetence.

So they are concerned about their bottom lines, and chaos doesn't forward that goal.

Right. Oil company executives are businessmen and they are in a business that requires long-term stability. They love dictators because they bring with them long-term stability. They don't like new democracies because they are messy and unstable. I have not run into a major oil company that is willing to refurbish the Iraq oil fields and invest in oil field exploration and development. These are multi-billion dollar investments that, in order to be profitable, must be played out over decades. And in Iraq today you cannot speak out to projecting any stability in the near to mid-future.

OK, so now to Congress. They approved the war. I know we have discussed the post-9/11 reality and the pressure of not seeming unpatriotic.

Yes, but they also approved the war because Congress had been locked into a corner by the neocons in 1998. Our policy in Iraq since 1991 has been regime change.

How many times did G. H. W. Bush have to say 'we will not remove sanctions until Saddam is removed from power?' Bill Clinton inherited this policy of regime change, but the Bush policy was not an active policy, it was a passive policy to strangle, as it were, Saddam. It was not our policy to take him out through military strength. Saddam, however, was able to out-maneuver this policy, he did not get weaker he got stronger. The neocons played on the political implications of this, to box the Clinton administration and Congress into a corner.

When you declare Saddam to be a threat with WMDs and then do nothing, you have a political problem. The neocons played on this. In 1998, the Heritage Foundation, Paul Wolfowitz and the American Enterprise Institute basically drafted legislation [that] became the Iraq Liberation Act. This is public law. So when people ask why did Congress vote for the current war in Iraq, it is simply that they had already voted for it in 1998, they were trapped by their own vote.

So your implication is that in our current foreign policy the neocons have set the tone via thinktanks or supposed thinktanks?

Yes. Look at who funds the American Enterprise Institute, and the Heritage Foundation, and I think you'll have your answer.

The American Heritage Leninist

What do you think these institutions are trying to achieve? I know the public claim is conservative values, but there is a some speculation regarding what appears more like Leninist, even Trotskyite values, especially given the current domestic government involvement and control or attempt at control of almost every facet of society, economy, family, etc. Even the term 'Leninist' was used by the Heritage Foundation to describe their approach to Social Security during the 1980s.

A high-level source, a neocon at that, within the system has said to me directly that 'John Bolton's job is to destroy the UN, Rice's job is to destroy the State Department and replace it with a vehicle of facilitation for making the Pentagon's national security policy.'

And what of Karen Hughes' appointment?

Hughes - she is a salesperson; she will sell the policy. She is irrelevant. She is nothing. Her appointment means nothing. Rice has already capitulated to the Pentagon and the White House, and Hughes' appointment is but a manifestation of that larger reality.

The neocons are parasites. They build nothing. They bring nothing. They don't have a foundation. They don't stand for business. They don't stand for ideology. They use a host to facilitate and grow their own power. They are parasites that latch onto oil until it is no longer convenient. They latch on to democracy until it is no longer convenient.

Rice's appointment to the State Department is simply to reshape it into a neocon vehicle.

Why the State Department? Why Rice?

The State Department still has free thinkers in it. Rice is a dilettante. Anyone who was there during the Reagan era and her advising on Soviet policy knows how inept she is. She is not there because she is a brilliant secretary of state.

The media has bought into this, because the neocons cleverly put a woman, an African-American woman at that, into this position. So when Rice goes abroad, people do not look at the stupid things she says, they look at what she was wearing and such.

'Godless people who want power, nothing more'

So you believe the neocons are elitist parasites?

Yes, elitism is the perfect term.

Do you consider it localized or global elitism?

The neocons believe in what they think is a noble truth, power of the few, the select few. These are godless people who want power, nothing more. They do not have a country or an allegiance, they have an agenda. These people might hold American passports, but they are not Americans because they do not believe in the Constitution. They believe in the power of the few, not a government for or by the people. They are a few and their agenda is global.

You suggest the Republican Party is simply an organizational host. Is there any vestige left of the host or has the entire party been devoured?

The Republicans have been neutered by the neocons.

Your concept of neocons seems confusing because, using your host/parasite paradigm, they cannot tell between the host and the parasite which invades it.

I know people who have worked for George H. W. Bush, both when he was vice president and president. Bush Sr. called the neocons the 'crazies in the basement.' I think it is dangerous to confuse the two, because there are Americans who love their country and are conservatives who do not support what is going on. Until the host rejects the parasite, it is difficult to separate the two. Brent Scowcroft for example is not a neocon, yet people call him one. Scowcroft worked hard to reign in the 'crazies in the basement,' as did Reagan.

Many have defined the neocon movement based on the highly intellectual, albeit warped, musings of Strauss and Bloom. Yet one could hardly call the current leadership intellectual or even capable of digesting this philosophy. Even neocon thinkers are jumping off the ship. Do you believe this is simply trickle-down Machiavellianism in much the same way that Communism trickled down as an aberration of its original intent?

No plan survives initial contact with the enemy. The neocon ideology was always hypothetical in its pure application until now. What we are seeing today is what happens when theory (bad theory at that) makes contact with reality. You get chaos, through which the neocons are now trying to navigate.

Is Karl Rove a neocon?

Karl Rove is not part of the neo-conservative master group; he is a host.

Then who is steering the ship?

An oligarchy of 'public servant' classes who are drawn from business, and serve naked economic interests. This is true whether you are Democrat or Republican.

Patriot Enactment

Several insiders have expressed concern over possible oil shortage riots. Would the Patriot Act be put to use, in your opinion, to address such riots?

[The Patriot Act] is simply the neocons putting their judicial agenda in place by other means. It was a compilation of all of the conservative initiatives, not neocon initiatives, which the conservative Republicans have been pushing for, including a more conservative law enforcement element.

This is not unhealthy as long is it is done properly, through legislation, proper channels of debate and discourse. A lot of this had been submitted in the past, but was rejected. After 9/11 all of these initiatives were lumped together.

There are some things in the Patriot Act I agree with, but the Patriot Act requires a responsible society. The neocons have no interest in a responsible society; they simply used the conservatives as a vehicle to push an agenda to assault individual civil liberties.

As the Patriot Act is now, how it came about, is entirely un-American. It is extreme legislation that does nothing to address the issues it professes to, but moreover, it is, as an existing law, un-American. What makes it un-American is that no one read it before they voted for it. So the process was un-American, and the motivation behind it was un-American. We cannot have a nation that is governed by fear. The Patriot Act is un-American simply because it exists.

So how do citizens address this situation since the very means of addressing it via Congress seem to have been closed off?

Congress has ceased to function as a viable tool of government. What is needed is for leaders of honor to resign in protest.

I have had this conversation with some in Congress and have asked about their thoughts on shutting down Congress and cleaning house. Their counter is that they are afraid to 'leave the crazies in control.'

They are already in control. If the people want to heal this country, the people have to purge the failing of this country. Vote them out. It might take two or three cycles, but it will happen and it will take time.

Everyone who voted for the war in Iraq should be voted out of office because it violated article six of the Constitution. Everyone who voted for the Patriot Act needs to go because they did not represent the people by voting on legislation they did not read. They have to go, regardless of party. They have through their actions decided who stays and who goes.

Hope, and worries, for the future

You suggest Americans vote out all who voted for these measures. If New Yorkers voted out Hillary, who voted for both the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq, and who is also leading the pack of the Democratic Party for the 2008 nomination, what then?

Hillary is the manifestation of all that ails the Democratic Party. She stands for nothing. She has been compromised by her voting record ... how can she stand for anything worth supporting? And yet she will be the Democratic nominee in 2008, thus guaranteeing another neocon/Republican victory. 'Dump Hillary Now' would be the smartest move Dean could make as the new Democratic National Committee Chair. ... Like I said, it might take two or three cycles, but it will happen.

What about Dean?

Dean has to be part of the process of rebuilding and that will take time. Dean cannot run for president, because Dean cannot run as a Democrat - the party is not set up to sustain someone like him. He is one of the exceptions in a corrupt party. He is also not corrupted by his voting record. He is someone who represents something, he did not vote for the war in Iraq, for example.

We talked about this current social crisis as a closed loop during the second installment. Have you ever seen a loop like this throughout the history of the US? What does this mean?

The American experiment is much too complex to be destroyed by the neocons. In the end, the neocons will lose. It may take ten to twelve more years, and the costs will be horrific, but America will survive. There will be one hell of a mess to clean up, though, after the fall of the neocons.

Where do you see America, should things continue as is, five years from now?

At war, bankrupt morally and fiscally, and in great pain ... and only half-way through the nightmare. Ten to twelve years is what we will have to get through, but we will get through it.

 

[rgraham666]

Goddamn! I haven't the words available to express my admiration of Scott Ritter.

Well done, Marine!

 

[Somme]

Goddamn! I haven't the words available to express my admiration of Scott Ritter.

Well done, Marine!

amen.

 

[bg23]

i'm just here to express surprise at miles' presence
and also to say hi to somme.

hi!

 

[Somme]

hi back.

 

[mack_the_knife]

Fascism - A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

That does NOT include bedding down with the church and big business. One of Hitler's first moves was to marginalize the church and nationalize most major businesses.

If you're implying that Bush is using similar POLITICAL tactics to what Hitler used in the beginging to gain power, I would present that all people seeking power use similar tactics. Almost by definition, anyone who seeks to be president probably shouldn't be allowed to run.

Tons of out of context quotes from either side won't put Bush on the level of Hitler, and history won't either. The comparison is hyperbolic and a bit silly. Bush is neither as evil, nor is he as clever as Hitler.

 

[bg23]

two months?

it took you two months to say hi?

oy.