Supporters of the Bush administration seem to not be able to dissociate between having Nazi-like ideology, and having Nazi-like methodology.
The Bush white house regardless of whatever anyone else claims definitely like the Nazis. Power grab, refusing accountability, etc.
The bush white house however has not professed any intent to exterminate specific ethnic groups.
The scary thing about having Nazi-like methodologies, is that once you've stripped away accountability, whoever is in power can feel free to import whatever sort of ideology they want. Which is exactly what the nazis did.
The Bush admin floated their goals and policies on the trust of the American people. I can't emphasize strongly enough how poorly they've proven to us that they should be trusted.
Seriously, i'd like to know, who actually trusts the bush administration? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in 2000. His first strike was rescinding on his environmental campaign promises, and it's been a dramatic and vertigo inducing fall from that point. Weapons of Mass Destruction, Haliburton, the Cheney Energy Task force, Bush's duplicity on support of the military, the bush FCC, the No Child Left Behind Act, really the list goes on and on. Justify it for me. Why should i trust the bush administration?
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quote:The bush white house however has not professed any intent to exterminate specific ethnic groups.
Gay and lesbian folk might disagree. While today's times aren't as open to obliterating people outright in this country, by villifying them and marginalizing them and doing their best to outlaw them using the nearly sacred Constitution...well, that is close.
posted
Really what is going on here is that it is politically expedient to wrap oneself in symbols like "patriotism" or "piety" and so one finds politicians throughout the ages doing just that.
I don't believe Adolf Hitler truly thought of himself as a Christian fighting for Christ. I think he knew that his message would play better if it was cloaked in religious terms and/or patriotic terms. And so he did it.
What does it say about US as a nation that GWB's message plays so well when cloaked in patriotism and religion? I don't think that makes us ripe for fascism, necessarily. But it DOES give me pause. I think that many people substitute these feelings of "God wants ____" or "America: Love it or Leave it" for real thought on issues.
And because of that, they make themselves vulnerable to someone who is willing to take on the mantle of God or the flag as their symbolic rallying points.
That's not to say, of course, that religious people might not simply be voting their values, as they see them. But I do think that some people don't look past the "he's saying the right things" to think about the longer term and what supporting this administration says about our national character.
And I fear very much that our hangover after this binge is going to be long and painful.
quote:According to Godwin's law, if you begin an argument with Nazis, is the first person to not mention them the loser?
Mike Godwin is often misquoted. He said that the probability of a Usenet discussion mentioning Hitler tends toward 1 as the number of posts goes to infinity. It's an observation (like Newton's Laws), not a causal "you said X therefore you lose" (like criminal laws).
[ July 05, 2004, 03:08 AM: Message edited by: Richard Berg ]
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The Bush administration is the hangover from the Clinton administration. Now in this election we have the opportunity to stick with the headache or hit the bottle again.
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Pooka, that all depends are what you see as America's current problems. The way I see it, Dubya's problems are entirely of his own making.
It was Bush not Clinton that approved policies that lead to the tortures in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. It was Bush, not Clinton who has shamed the US in front of the entire world. It was Bush, not Clinton who has rolled back decades of progress toward clean air and water in our country. The budget deficit he's has run up can be largely attributed to his excessive tax cuts and dramatic increases in military spending. Under Clinton, not only was the economy growing but the gap between the richest and poorest Americans was also closing. Under Bush, that gap is at a record high. The 911 attacks might have been stopped if Bush II had implimented the anti-terrorism plan put together under Clinton, but Bush dropped the ball.
It is no longer only liberal peace activists who are blaming Bush for his problems, there are scores of conservative retired officers, military, diplomats who are saying that Bush's response to 911 has been a dramatic error and has made the world far less safe.
It is far more logical to believe that the economic growth during the 90's was a result of lower interest rates which were possible because of a decreasing national debt than it is to link it to Reagan's tax cuts. The decreasing national debt can be directly related to tax increases started under Bush I and continued under Clinton coupled with restraint in military spending after the end of the cold war. I am continually baffled by the fact that conservatives continue to claim that Reagan is responsible for the roaring 90's and that Clinton was the source of all our current problems. I think we must be living in different universes.
[ July 05, 2004, 02:54 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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