I'm getting a bad feeling about things lately, is a scary way

[kuozzman]

Our Senate ratified an Attorney General who supports the use of torture. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Our Pentagon blitzkrieged Baghdad. 100,000 people are dead. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Our hearts and minds are constantly brainwashed by pro-war propaganda machines. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Our dissidents are hauled off to secret jails, free speech is in deep dog dookie, the Bill of Rights is a relic of the past, U.S. citizens are denied lawyers and held for years without being charged and PTECH and PROMIS invade people's computers and data-mine people's lives. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Election fraud is rampant, corporations own our country, labor unions are hounded and all our country's money is being siphoned off to feed the war machine. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Education is being de-funded, teachers are fired for expressing opinions, books are being burned, libraries are being closed and our leaders appear at Nuremberg-style rallies where the average citizen is banned. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Freedom of religion is being systematically eradicated, people are being persecuted solely on the basis of their religion, women's rights are being replaced with "Kirche, Kueche, Kinder" and racism is alive and well. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Our leaders feed us outrageous lies like Iraq has WMDs, Social Security is in trouble, the voting machines weren't tampered with, Saudi Arabia is our friend, unemployment is at a new low, our treasury isn't bankrupt, Tom DeLay didn't commit ethics violations, Gulf War Syndrome doesn't exist, Bush actually won the 2000 and 2004 elections, Palestine isn't a reinactment of the Warsaw Ghetto, liberals are the enemy, outsourcing is a good thing, flipping burgers is a manufacturing job, the dollar hasn't dropped 40% in the last four years and SYRIA is the cause of all our grief. SYRIA? As Hitler used to say, "No one believes small lies but tell Big Lies and everyone will believe you because they simply can't grasp the fact that anyone would lie that outrageously." And we, the Queens of Denial, swallow all these Big Lies and beg for more. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Our brave young troops are taught how to torture prisoners and our doctors perform "medical experiments" on them. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Our government gets its way by using threats, intimidation, propaganda, bribes, secrets and lies. We as citizens live in constant fear of saying something that might get us in trouble -- rubber bullets if we protest, no-fly lists, website closures or getting fired for speaking out. The midnight knock on the door is an actual possibility. So is the mysterious plane crash. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

There are rumors everywhere that 9-11, like the burning of the Reichstag. Does that make us Nazis? Nah.

Is it odd that this is the description that is given for a piece of art in a popular park on U.S. government property?

Taking over its corner of the park with gleeful abandon, Tom Otterness´s whimsical sculptural installation, entitled The Real World, is one of New York´s most popular public artworks. Cast in bronze, the sculptures feature Otterness´s signature cartoonish figures: animals and people, bankers and robbers, laborers and pilgrims, predators and prey, all rubbing shoulders in his delightfully loopy narrative world. There is an entire bustling society in miniature, including frogs wrestling over a moat, a tilting tower, and diminutive workers rolling giant pennies toward a multi-armed idol. Scattered nearby are a giant fist and feet, and a bulbous-nosed creature seated on a bench, pondering a bound animal that may be a meal. Yet even as his characters erect their monuments and enact their wiles, they remain oblivious to the giant viewer. Mixing levity and discord, biology and social commentary, Otterness´s fanciful world is always vividly entertaining.

Something's going on.......

[Robbien]

1. Also add students raising money for snipers based on a no remorse

campaign.

[Career Prole]

2. "teachers are fired for expressing opinions"

Won't happen in my school district.
The music teacher had the students in the third grade cross out the word 'gay' and write in the word 'happy' in each occurrence of it in their "Christmas" program.
Today as a fifth grader she told me that her science teacher has told them that volcanoes are the biggest culprit in global warming...unedited Pigboy Limbaugh disinformation.
They won't get fired for those opinions because the PTO and the school board agree.

[Old Mouse]

3. Don't think Nazis...

think Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in a highly technological society.

If it's any solace, we dissidents will be able to laugh between whatever teeth we have left in our stress positions in Gitmo when the coming environmental catastrophe finally convinces Bush that it really does not listen to FOX news.

[prairierose]

4. Thanks for this post....

I have been feeling the same thing and I often wonder if I'm going crazy when I meet so many people who think eveything is "just fine"

I have been teaching Plato's "Allegory of the Cave" this week. Most of my students want to stay chained in the cave.

[libodem]

5. I'm thinking like you

seems very scary that this administration and their party are acting like the Nazis. I get the feeling that despite all the hype about 'democracy' they want a one party system. It already feels like a one party system. They get to be the 'good' guys and we get to be the example of any crappy excesses or life-styles they want to ridicule or sneer at. I'm sick of the GOP holding up the flag and God as an excuse to destroy democrats. I hate them.