Who’s Your Daddy?
The GOP is dumping barrels full of cash into Congressional races around the country with the intent of carpet-bombing the electorate between now and Election Day with negative ads filled with distortions, fabrications and outright lies. That is what they do, we shouldn’t be surprised, and although I don’t think their efforts will win them any votes at this point, I do think there is a very real danger (and the point of the ads) that they could be successful in turning off voters from politics altogether and convince them to just stay home. However disgusted we may be with the whole lot of them in DC, we must remember that doing nothing (meaning not voting or voting for a Republican) this November will surely be the death knell of our democracy. We cannot take another two years of a do-nothing Congress that happily rolls over, allowing the Executive Branch to amass powers not granted by our Constitution.
For all of you conservatives and moderates out there that are prone to believing the GOP smear merchants, let me assure you that those of us on the left are confident that the Democrats will not be radical once in control of Congress (much to our chagrin). They have given no indication that they will impeach this President. In fact, they have gone out of their way to state clearly that they will not (however appropriate that remedy may be). They also won’t be able to change this President’s course in Iraq, only public pressure has even the slightest chance at doing that, but they will be able to hold this administration accountable for the mistakes they make, for the money they waste (steal) and they may even begin to challenge the extra-constitutional usurpations of power that this President is prone to. It’s what the Republican led Congress should have been doing all along, but what they are so clearly incapable of.
You don’t have to think that Democrats are the answer to vote for them this November, you just have to love this country enough to want to save it. Absolute power has corrupted the GOP absolutely! The only answer is to strip them of as much power as possible and restore some semblance of checks and balances to our government. The pendulum has swung as far to the right as we can allow it to go and still call this country a democratic republic. We have reached the point where just on the other side of this election, if the GOP manages to hold onto power, is fascism. That is not an overstatement, just look at the groundwork they’ve laid over the last six years! The infrastructure is there, just read the Patriot Act (although most of our representatives didn’t) and the new Torture Bill signed by the President. All they need now is a reason to use it.
We must stop begging for authoritarian rule out of a disproportionate (irrational) fear of terrorism. There was a time when part of our national psyche was the idea of the rugged individual, what has happened to that? The GOP, for many years, attracted that type of personality, the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” crowd, the “keep the government’s prying eyes out of my personal business” folks. Where have you gone? The Republican Party and its manipulative, marketing managers have turned you into a bunch of yes men, willing to take your authoritarian leader’s word for everything and they have trained you to never even question what you are being asked to give up, never mind why you are being asked to do so.
I may not believe in the myth of America, but if you still do, by all means, get off your ass and show some spine! Prove to the world that you don’t need a tough, strong daddy to tell you what to do and what to believe in. Over the years I have heard many conservatives ask the question, “How did the German people fall for the authoritarian crap that Hitler spewed?” Rest assured that we are asking the same question of you right now. Please, I beg of you, prove us wrong.
(And before anyone freaks out, I am not comparing Bush to Hitler. That would be unfair and inflammatory. But I am comparing the tactics employed by both to gain and hold onto power. Bush is peddling fear, using divisive rhetoric, consolidating his power, as well as changing our government and how it functions in fundamental ways that run contrary to our history and our constitution. Bush has told us that he would prefer to be a dictator, simply because it's easier that way. All I'm saying is that we should look at that impulse and believe our own eyes when we see the signs of legalizing dictatorial rule after the fact.)
posted by The (liberal)Girl Next Door @ 10:48 AM
12 Comments:
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And before anyone freaks out, I am not comparing Bush to Hitler. That would be unfair and inflammatory.
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Inflammatory? Sure. Unfair? How so?
I know, I know, every time two people argue on the internet, one person compares the other to Hitler, and the person doing the comparing thereby forfeits the argument. I get it.
But this does not automatically invalidate any THOUGHT-OUT, REASONABLE comparisons with Hitler -- and the similarity between Bush's rise and use of power, and Hitler's, is startling.
People need to remember that even Hitler didn't START OUT "as bad as Hitler" -- he slowly amassed ever more power, and use it ever more secretly, for ever more evil purposes, until he finally had to be stopped by outside forces.
Bush has already taken us shockingly far down the same path. Is there ANYONE left who doubts that, given the opportunity, Bush would take us further?
Has Bush shown ANY sign, whatsoever, of saying "You know what? I have enough power. I don't need more."...?
Bush is very much like Hitler was AT ONE POINT IN HIS RISE, and we shouldn't be afraid to say so. He's already invaded other countries without cause, founded secret prisons in other countries, defended spying on our own citizens, and legalized torture.
And didn't I read somewhere recently that he's having several enormous prisons built IN THE UNITED STATES -- ostensibly for "illegal aliens"?
At what point is it OK to state the glaringly obvious?
Personally, I think that the GOP is hoping for a Democratic takeover of the House--gives 'em the opportunity to start blame-shifting while Bush coasts through his next two years.
"By means of shrewd lies, unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven is hell -- and hell heaven. The greater the lie, the more readily it will be believed."
A quote from Hitler's book, Mein Kampf
Sounds kind of like what we have been listening to, for way too f***ing long. It's hard not to compare Bush to Hitler.
What really gets my hackles up is that Cheney gets way too little press in all this. Cheney, who pulls the strings, Cheney who wants US world domination, Cheney that thinks of Cheney first, last and always.
Well, unfair in that Bush isn't quite yet directly responsible for millions of deaths (he's still only in the hundreds of thousands), but he's working his way there at a pretty rapid pace. Once he reaches a death toll comparable to Hitler and once he starts jailing as many dissenters as Hitler did (the laws are in place, he just needs to start using them), and once there is credible evidence made public about the concentration camps being erected, courtesy of Halliburton no doubt, then I will start with the unabashed comparisons to Hitler.
I disagree LGND. When WWII started Hitler was responsible for fewer deaths than Bush is now.
And the John Hopkins estimate of 600,000 Iraq deaths since the invasion puts the lie to all upbeat propaganda. (Statistically, if Saddam had continued his tyranny, he's not likely to have murdered more than 40,000 during the same period.)
And what we need to call Bush on is his war rhetoric. If he could, he'd invade Iran. He might still. And the deaths from war, famine, disease, and the collapse of civilization will give Hitler's record a good run for the record.
And lest we allow those who would never have been like Chamberlain, the Republicans were largely pro-Hitler in the 1930s. Eugenics was an acceptable practice in American psychiatric hospitals & prisons. Jews, Blacks, Asians, and aboriginals were subject to the most outrageous racial discrimination.
Civilization, as the collapse of the land of Beethoven & Goethe showed, is but a few wrong turns away. And the first step for Germany was the demonization of the opposition parties, then the elimination of basic human rights. After that it was easy to lead and mislead a nation of well-educated, middle class white Christians into a Crusade against Godless communists, perfidious Jews, morally degenerate Americans. (yeah, Hitler didn't think to much of the mongrel American race.)
Could the Germans have stopped the madness? Sadly, part of civilization is marked by deference to lawful authority. By the time the average German was able to question Hitler's "lawfulness" it was a crime to do so. Much like it seems to be a crime to criticize the White House now.
Come on. Why not call a Nazi and Nazi? Bush and his Republican stormtroppers have no problem calling Democrats godless degenerate traitors. Those are lies. BIG LIES. And if that's what Hitler recommended tyrants tell to their subjects, well, don't let Bush get away with following him.
"Come on. Why not call a Nazi and Nazi?"
Because the minute you do, you lose all credibility and sound as ludicrous as the Republicans calling the Democrats "commies" and "traitors." Plus, from a moral standpoint, equating ANYONE with Hitler because "he might grow up to be Hitler" is asinine. Once Bush calls for the extermination of all Jews and starts building gas chambers, THEN you can call him a Nazi. Until then, it invalidates your point, allows Republicans to deflect blame by focusing on their hyperventilating opponents (like Clinton did with the GOP after '94), insults the memory of the real Nazi's victims, and renders the term essentially meaningless, when it could in fact be truthfully applied to, among others, Slobodan Milosovic and the gov't of Sudan, to cite two recent examples.
Is there ever gonna be a time where you vary your post. I dislike the GOP as much as you do, but bring somewhat of different view to the table once in awhile.
Local Crank,
I mostly agree with you. Everytime I read someone comparing Bush to Hitler I think: "Wow this person needs to have his/her head examined." Mostly what I read on liberal web sites is hate speach.
As far as calling Democrats traitors, well, what do you call a party that elects a man into power who provided aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war? Seriously, I don't understand this way of thinking at all.
It is time for the country to stop the nonsense and come together to provide for the common good.
AN
Yes, those self-loathing Democrats! Curse them!
Perhaps you'd rather we compare Bush to Nero or Mussolini or Generalissimo Francesco Franco?
Just how tyrannical does one have to be to be compared to a tyrant? And where's the genocide line drawn? Old Slobo was charge with genocide in Kosovo, but the numbers murdered there were much smaller than those innocents killed by America in the War on Terror.
Reread the Declaration of Independence and ask yourself: Would you defend King George or the Inalienable Rights of Man? It's your choice. Perhaps it's mad King George we should compare W to. I dunno.
And since when were the Vietnamese the enemy? I seem to recall it was never officially a War.
"Local Crank, I mostly agree with you."
Please don't do me any more favors.
"As far as calling Democrats traitors, well, what do you call a party that elects a man into power who provided aid and comfort to the enemy during a time of war?"
You mean as opposed to a party that elects a man into power who used family connections to avoid serving in combat 'during a time of war' and then failed to complete even the cushy safe state-side assignment he got? Or a party that elects a man into power who holds the Constitution in sneering contempt?
"Seriously, I don't understand this way of thinking at all."
On that point, we can agree.
"It is time for the country to stop the nonsense and come together to provide for the common good."
Right, and clearly the quickest way to accomplish that would be to label anyone who disagrees with you a traitor. That certainly makes me feel all warm and bipartisan inside.
Local Crank,
"You mean as opposed to a party that elects a man into power who used family connections to avoid serving in combat 'during a time of war' and then failed to complete even the cushy safe state-side assignment he got? Or a party that elects a man into power who holds the Constitution in sneering contempt?"
Only liberals could still believe that line of balderdash, or perhaps you just have Clinton confused with Bush.
"Right, and clearly the quickest way to accomplish that would be to label anyone who disagrees with you a traitor. That certainly makes me feel all warm and bipartisan inside."
Disagreement is okay. Providing aid and comfort to the enemy is not. As far as I am conscerned, anyone who votes for someone who engages in that type of activity is making a clear statement that they support that activity.
A.
Hey Crank,
"You mean as opposed to a party that elects a man into power who used family connections to avoid serving in combat 'during a time of war' and then failed to complete even the cushy safe state-side assignment he got? Or a party that elects a man into power who holds the Constitution in sneering contempt?"
Since you brought it up, here is the way I read it. Bush completed his military obligation and was given an honorable discharge. Clinton pulled a con job on the draft board and never served at all.
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