Hitler's 3rd Reich: Similarities & Differences with the Bush/Cheney Regime

[Time for change]

Adolph Hitler’s National Socialist (Nazi) regime was perhaps the most evil and destructive regime in the history of the world. By the time of its demise it had been responsible for over 50 million deaths. Yet, at the beginning of the 20th Century the conventional wisdom had predicted an unprecedented era of world peace, prosperity, and civilized behavior among nations. And following the fall of the Nazis in 1945, many or most people believed that the world had learned its lesson, and would never again witness anything so terrible. Many, perhaps most people, still believe that.

But the fall of the Nazis occurred a mere 60 years ago. And the world has not yet learned the necessary lessons. And it could happen again – if we let it.

Today, the most powerful country in the world – our country – is led by a group a people who have some similarities with the Nazis. It is crucially important that the people of this country understand those similarities, so as to better enable us to prevent a repeat of Nazi history. And it is also very important that we understand and acknowledge the differences – otherwise we lose our credibility and nobody will listen to us. This is my attempt to list some of those similarities and differences.


1. How they came to power

Hitler
Following a long series of backroom deals, in a desperate attempt by President Hindenburg to bring some stability to a failing Republic, he appointed Hitler to the Chancellorship of Germany in January 1933.

Bush
Following a series of illegal maneuvers (purging tens of thousands of African American registered voters from the voter roles based on their being a close computer match to convicted felons; Republican election officials providing illegal assistance to give Republican voters the opportunity to vote absentee; voter intimidation in Democratic precincts, and much more) to push Bush’s vote total in the crucial state of Florida barely ahead of his opponent, the Bush machine tried every trick in the book to – successfully – prevent a legal recount of the vote.

James Baker, Bush’s point man in Florida, promised blood in the streets if the controversy didn’t stop soon; the mainstream news media repeatedly called for Al Gore to concede the election, for the good of the nation; a group of Republican operatives stormed election offices in Miami-Dade County, in a successful attempt to stop the vote counting there; and finally, the Republican controlled Supreme Court ordered the vote counting to stop, in a legal decision that was so egregious that the authors of the decision stated for the first time in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court that their decision should not be used as a precedent for any future Court decisions.

Differences
Hitler was initially appointed to the Chancellorship, whereas Bush became President by means of an election, tainted though that election was. On the other hand, Hitler’s appointment was perfectly legal, whereas numerous illegal acts had to be committed in order for Bush to “win” his election.

Similarities
In both cases the threat of a de-stabilized republic contributed to pressure to appoint these men, and in both cases the threat of violence by the respective regimes was an important factor in leading to their ascension to power.


2. Maintenance of power

Hitler
Shortly after ascension to the Chancellorship Hitler began consolidating his power. By having enough opposition members of the Reichstag arrested, an “Enabling Act” was passed, which conferred on Hitler exclusive legislative powers for four years. His acquisition of new powers culminated in December of 1932, when a referendum was held in which 95% of registered voters voted, and 90% of them voted “yes” to Hitler’s complete usurpation of dictatorial powers in Germany.

Bush regime
Following Bush’s ascension to the Presidency, electronic voting machines began to replace older types of machines. The problems with the system that developed were made manifest in the 2002 and 2004 elections. Consequently, the evidence is very strong that Bush’s “victory” in the 2004 Presidential election required extensive fraud (See this summary of reasons to believe that Bush’s 2004 victory was fraudulent.) Factors that enabled extensive fraud to take place (whether or not it affected the results of the election) included: “Proprietary” voting machines and software to count our votes, meaning that these machines are not open to public inspection; absence of a paper trail in many cases, meaning that these electronically counted votes cannot be verified in a recount; ownership of the voting machines by supporters of the Republican Party; control of the election in Ohio (which determined the winner of the election) by the Chairman of the Ohio re-elect Bush campaign; and refusal to conduct a recount of the Ohio vote in accordance with Ohio election law.

Differences
Hitler’s ascension to dictatorship was blatant, whereas Bush’s re-election to the Presidency in 2004 is not yet recognized by most Americans as a manifestation of dictatorship. Indeed, to be perfectly honest about it, it has not even yet been proven beyond doubt that fraud was required to ensure Bush’s 2004 “victory”.

Similarities
The difference between an openly proclaimed dictatorship and a situation where one party counts the votes and controls the elections may be a difference in appearance only. The end result may be the same.


3. Excuse for suspending constitutional guarantees of liberty

Nazi regime
A fire started in the Reichstag (the German parliamentary building) was blamed on the Communists and years later shown to have been planned and started by the Nazis. This act was used as an excuse for the arrest of numerous members of the opposition German parties (not only Communists) and the suspension of civil liberties in Germany.

Bush regime
The bombing of the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon was quickly ascertained to be the work of Muslim extremists. While the role of the Bush regime in this event is currently controversial and not known with certainty, it is known that at the very least the Bush regime was guilty of gross incompetence, having been given numerous warnings of the event and having taken no steps to prevent it or counteract it. This event was used to justify the passage of the so-called “PATRIOT Act”, which suspended many constitutional guarantees of civil liberties in the United States, most notoriously the rights of those arrested for certain crimes (under specified circumstances) to be formally accused and represented by counsel.

Differences
The latter event was much more severe, resulting in several thousand deaths and severe economic dislocation. In addition, unlike the burning of the Reichstag, the precise role of the prevailing regime remains highly controversial at this time.

Similarities
In both instances a terrorist event provided an excuse to the prevailing regime for extensive suspension of civil liberties guaranteed by the respective constitutions.


4. Excuse for war

Nazi regime
Hitler used false accusations of Polish atrocities against ethnic German citizens of Poland and other false “provocations” to justify making numerous demands on Poland which could not possibly be met, including the accession of territory to Germany. Failure of Poland to accede to these demands served as the rationale for the German invasion.

Bush regime
The primary excuse for the invasion of Iraq was the alleged existence of a program for the production and use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Other excuses, once the primary excuse proved invalid, were connections between Saddam Hussein and terrorists who posed a threat to the United States, and the need to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people by liberating them from a ruthless dictator.

Differences
At least the latter of the Bush regime’s excuses had some validity to it, regardless of whether or not it actually constituted a true motive. Saddam Hussein was indeed a ruthless and evil dictator, whereas Poland had done nothing whatsoever that could justify an invasion of their country.

Similarities
In both cases the regime knowingly lied to its own people and to the outside world to justify an invasion that it had desired for other reasons for several years.


5. Control of the news media

Nazi regime
By the time Hitler consolidated his powers, it was obvious to anyone in the business of journalism that the distribution of any news unfavorable to the regime was likely to be punishable by imprisonment or death. Editors and news correspondents would meet daily in the Nazi’s Propaganda Ministry to be told by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, what news to print and suppress, and how to write the news.

Bush regime
All of the main news sources in the United States today are owned by a small number of corporations. As wealthy corporate executives, it is recognized that not only do their financial interests largely coincide with those of the Bush regime, but that the writing of news unfavorable to the regime is likely to be met with punishment, such as banning of White House press privileges or worse.

Differences
After Hitler acquired dictatorial powers, his control of news in Germany was far more complete than is currently the case in the United States. In this country, alternative sources of news, some which are highly anti-Administration, still exist. Furthermore, a number of individual journalists who work for the corporate controlled news media still exhibit a high degree of independence and integrity, though not without risk to their jobs and possibly more.

Similarities
Though different in degree, both regimes exercised a considerable degree of effective control over the primary sources of news in their respective countries.


6. Appeals to racism and domestic policy

Hitler
Racism was the foundation of Hitler’s regime. It was probably also the major motivating force for Hitler himself. The result was genocide on a scale unprecedented in the history of the world

Bush regime
Racism does not appear to be a personal motivating force for George W. Bush. On the other hand, while professing concern for ordinary citizens, the Bush regime has systematically dismantled domestic programs that have protected and provided a safety net for the country’s poorest and most unfortunate citizens, under the guise of populist rhetoric. This fact was recently given high visibility when the city of New Orleans was destroyed by a hurricane induced flood that could have been prevented had the Administration acted on pointed warnings from its Army Corps of Engineers. Furthermore, the President barely made an attempt to conceal his lack of concern for the fate of the poor people killed and made homeless by the disaster, by virtue of his slow and meager response to it.

In addition, though consistently refraining from blatant appeals to racism, the Bush regime is not beyond using it when it suits their purpose. For example, in its ascension to power in 2000, the Bush campaign actively circulated rumors that his primary Republican opponent had fathered a child of mixed race, in order to help win a crucial primary in one of the most conservative states in the country. And in further pursuit of an electoral victory in the general election, the campaign resorted to massive suppression and intimidation of minority voters.

Differences
There is a large difference of degree in appeals to and committing of blatantly racist acts, between the two regimes.

Similarities
Nevertheless, both regimes used racist acts to climb to power, and the effects of their policies had severely negative effects for minority races. Whether or not the inclination of the Bush regime to stay away from blatantly obvious racism is more a reflection of some human decency on the part of the Administration or a reflection of political calculation is difficult to say with certainty.


7. Contempt for international opinion

Hitler
Hitler’s contempt for international opinion was manifested primarily in his aggressive military stance. His goal was to conquer large portions of the world, and he hid this goal from foreign leaders only to the extent that was necessary to garner their temporary cooperation with his efforts.

Bush regime
The contempt of the Bush regime for international opinion has been evident in many of its actions, including: The unilateral cancellation of its anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia; its consistent refusal to participate in world efforts to counter the potentially disastrous world wide environmental effects of global warning; its refusal to support the International Criminal Court; its refusal to abide by international humanitarian standards for the treatment of prisoners of war; and its decision to go to war with Iraq, which jeopardized world peace against the wishes of most other nations in the world.

Differences
In its contempt for international opinion, the Bush regime has made a significantly greater effort than Hitler did to hide that contempt, by frequently resorting to diplomatic language.

Similarities
Nevertheless, both regimes made it quite clear that they would not be swayed in the slightest bit by world opinion where their own perceived interests were at stake.


8. Treatment of opposition

Hitler
Opposition to Hitler was generally dealt with by imprisonment or death, to the extent possible – and those options were indeed possible to a great extent.

Bush regime
The Bush regime, though frequently expressing rhetorical desire to work with the opposition party, in fact demonstrates little or no inclination to do so. Those who express criticism are demonized at best. And sometimes they are punished by destroying the career of one’s wife, even at the expense of jeopardizing national security. Or sometimes (though infrequently) they are found dead in hotel rooms or from strange accidents, such as was the case with Bush biographer J. H. Hatfield, Raymond Lemme, the man who was in the midst of investigating charges of electronic vote switching, or Paul Wellstone, the Senator who was trying to arrange for serious investigations into the circumstances surrounding the terrorist attacks on our country, and who was about to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate. (Note: I am not claiming that the deaths of these people were related to the Bush regime – thought there are certainly many people who believe that to be the case).

Differences
In general, the Nazis treated their opponents far harsher than does the Bush regime. Of course, they we able to do so, and perhaps the Bush regime currently treats their opponents no harsher than they do only because the current climate of opinion prohibits them from doing so.

Similarities
Both regimes treated their political opponents ruthlessly – perhaps as ruthlessly as the realities of the situation would permit.


9. Response by the people

Nazi regime
As noted above, only 10% of German voters voted against Hitler’s acquisition of dictatorial powers. Political opposition against him, though strong at first, diminished considerably after Hitler consolidated his powers (though it never dissipated completely, as evident by two courageous attempts to assassinate him). The lack of opposition to Hitler was due to a combination of several factors, including: Some agreement with Hitler’s racism; psychological denial that he was as bad as he appeared to be; extreme nationalism; inclination to be obedient to authority figures; and, perhaps most important of all, fear.

Bush regime
There does in fact continue to exist a great amount of opposition to the Bush regime within the United States at this time – although not enough to get rid of it. Most people in this country exhibit some degree of nationalism and psychological denial, which prevent them from realizing how bad things are. Politicians of the opposition (Democratic) party generally exhibit an exceptional degree of restraint in their opposition activities, much to the discomfort of many people, especially, for example, those who belong to the Democratic Underground.

Differences
The opposition to the Bush regime today in the United States is certainly much greater (at least its expression is) than the opposition to Hitler in Germany at the height of his powers. One reason for this may be that less racism exists in this country today than existed in Germany in the 1930s. Another reason is that there is less fear of today’s Bush regime, consistent with constitutional safeguards of our liberties that still exist in this country.

Similarities
Nevertheless, all the factors noted above, which diminished potential opposition to the Nazis, also exist in the United States today.


10. Lessons learned and summary

Nazi regime
1) Some evil regimes cannot be appeased.
2) Extreme nationalism is not the equivalent of patriotism
3) Opposition to genocide must trump national sovereignty
4) Conscience must trump appeals to “patriotism”
5) Citizens must take an active part in their government in order to preserve democracy.

Bush regime
Some of the above lessons have been learned by a large number of people. Most DUers have learned most of these lessons, and that is why they are so fervent in their opposition to the Bush regime. However, most current citizens of the United States have not yet learned most of these lessons, and that is why the Bush regime currently remains in power.

Differences
The lessons that we should have learned from the rise and fall of the Nazis have yet to be thoroughly learned by most people. Today we have a regime that resembles the Nazis of the 1930s and 40s in many respects, and yet relatively few Americans recognize that crucial fact. Their failure to recognize this stems primarily from their failure to learn the lessons that should have or could have been learned from a close study of history, as well as their refusal to believe that “it could happen here”.

Similarities
The lessons that need to be learned are very similar for the two regimes. It remains to be seen whether or not this time we will learn the required lessons in time to prevent a catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.

[EOTE]

1. Won't find any arguments from me....

You might want to put on your flame proof suit regardless.

[Time for change]

3. If there are objections to this

I'd like to hear them.

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. "Bush became President

by means of an election, tainted though that election was".

No he didn't. Bush was appointed, just like the Fuhrer.

[Time for change]

13. I didn't mean to imply that he legitimately "won" an election

Just that there was an election, which served as the rationale (in the minds of many people) for his taking over the Presidency.

[Joe Chi Minh]

14. Yes, I realise that, Tfc,

but, I've got quite a serious phobia about the slightest appearance of ambiguity on that issue.

I actually think it's important to always stress, rather, that it was precisely an "appointment" or a "selection", and not an "election". It was, after all an exercise in fraud in which the criminality was so shamelesly blatant, so variegated in the forms it took: thuggish, seemingly murderous in at least one case, low-tec, high-tec and insulting on every imaginable level; and worst of all, deliberately ignored by the mainstream media, that the very term "election" just seems too alien and anathema to the reality for it to be spoken of in the same breath - least of all because that was the term that the neocons applied to it.

In other words, the least echoing of their duplicitous charades, talking points, etc, sets strident alarm bells ringing in my scone. I didn't mean to impugn your good faith, which, of course, is very clear from your post.

It seems to me a bitter irony that, despite the seemingly immemorial crypto-fascism beneath the surface - that unhealthy robber-baron symbiosis of the military-industrial complex, organised crime and state security agencies, in the US - and despite the fact that you have had such wonderful legislators who have built up over the years that awesome panoply of checks and balances to protect the people against crooked government, it should be your country and not my own, the UK, that has eventually succumbed to such an, at least quasi, totalitarian corporatist government, in the way that it has.

Thanks, I think, to New Orleans, our political class seems to be just beginning to wake up to the mortal danger posed to our countries by this corporatism. But it is only a start, I think, a small start.

[Time for change]

21. Yes, I hear you

It is indeed hard to imagine how this can be happening to us after all those years of democracy.

I think that part of the problem has to do with complacency, and pride to the point of arrogance. In the name of "patriotism" we learn in school that we are the best country in the world. This is rubbed into our children to the extent that many get the idea that it is unpatriotic to question our leaders or to criticize them.

That kind of stuff needs to stop, but it may be too late to prevent a catastrophe. Our children need to learn instead that real patriots don't just accept what they're told because it comes from an authority figure, and that if we want to keep our democracy we have to work hard at it, and even fight for it.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. A very important insight, if I may say so.

Unfortunately(!), you have a very beautiful and stirring national anthem - which makes it is all the more important that it should not be associated with the malevolent goals of the armaments manufacturers and their patrons in government - mankind's soft underbelly: the far right.

[Time for change]

25. Exactly

The symbols of patriotism are availabe to anyone, and anyone who wants to take advantage of them can try to do so.

Same thing with religion. Probably almost all religions have some very important and wonderful things to say. That's one reason why they are so popular. But the fact that Jesus said that He would judge us by the way we treat the least among us doesn't prevent evil regimes from appropriating the symbols of the religion of Jesus to serve their own evil purposes, even while undermining Jesus' most cherished values.

The only defense against the mis-appropriation of patriotism or religion is the appropriate education of our children (that's not to say that it's too late to educate adults as well). People must learn how to look past the symbols, to the content.

If they learn how to do that they will realize that our current regime is totally devoid of any patriotic or religious content.

[Joe Chi Minh]

28. Another key similarity is that

the economic prosperity of the 3rd Reich was built on quicksand, relying on continuing conquest and colonisation/enslavement; as someone put it, his was a "triumph of the book-keeping will".

It was inevitably doomed, in very principle, because of this, and also, and more seminally, because Hitler was a half-wit. Not simply in terms of good sense, which is actually a function of the heart, but also in terms of his head, his worldly intelligence. He repeatedly over-ruled his generals, who would have forgotten more about strategy, logistics, even tactics than dumkopf had ever learnt.

Much is made of the undoubtedly spectacular success of Germany's conquests in the early years, but there are at least two key factors which need to be taken into account:

a) he had an extremely bitter, highly motivated and focused general populace to lead into wars of conquest, not to speak of the normal plethora of industrialist-warmongers and worldling professionals, who thought they could use him and then take over.

b) this was in marked contrast to the French and the British, who though winners of WWI had had more than enough. Not that the way the surviving veterans were treated in the UK at least would have inspired them to trust their leaders under normal circumstances. Little wonder then, than the wermacht were able to slice through Europe like a knife through butter. And of course, it only encouragd him in his maniacal dreams.

But the bottom line of his signal, catastrophic failure was a country in ruins, and a starving population, many of its womenfolk raped mostly by the Russian troops, and doubtless many others selling their bodies for little more than dross. So, Hitler like Bush, led his country to economic ruin, although evidently very much more so.

On top of that - and even though,as someone pointed out, Hitler never won more than 40% of the electorate - the shame has stayed in some degree and wholly undeservedly, I might add, with subsequent younger generations of Germans. As a matter of fact, Hitler had actually been impressed by the some of the vilest and most brutish aspects of British rule over its empire - not least the concentration camps.

So, I think, all in all, you expressed a rather more rosy view of Hitler's egregious failure of his nation than than the reality, to put it mildly.

[Time for change]

29. It's true that Hitler led his country to ruin

And it's also true IMO that Bush very well might do the same, given his contempt for international opinion, his propensity for war, his lack of any concern for the environment, and his economic policies which sacrifice the welfare of future generations by plunging the country into a massive debt just to make the wealthy wealthier.

But I don't understand why you say that I expressed a "more rosy view of Hitler's egregious failure of his nation than the reality." I don't think that I expressed a view at all of Hitler's failures. I was rather commenting on the similarities of his policies to Bush's policies.

[Joe Chi Minh]

30. I'm sorry Tfc. I'm glad we're on the same page.

But you can see my earlier point, can't you. Once an election is tainted to the point where the result is affected, it ceases to be an election, any more than a ham sandwich is an election. The appearance of an election proves to have been a chimera. Worse than a straightforward coup.

[Time for change]

31. I most certainly agree

You and I just used a slightly different choice of words to express very much the same thing.

I believe that the 2000 and 2004 "elections" were both highly fraudulent, and that the fraud in each case determined the results of the election.

And yes, this is worse than a straight forward coup, because with a staright forward coup, at least U.S. citizens would know what they are dealing with.

I think that this all gets to the heart of what I think is the biggest differenc between this regime and Hitler's regime. Hitler was much more blatant about what he was doing, whereas this regime must take great care to hide what they are doing. The difference IMO is that the two regimes find themselves in very different political climates. This regime knows that straight forward dictatorship will not be tolerated -- we have too long a history of democracy for that. Yet it also knows that many people are willing to close their eyes to what is really happening.

[Joe Chi Minh]

34. Spot on.

[TankLV]

2. There are too many to list them all here.

We've had 5 1/2 years at it and there's still more.

It does get closer every fucking day, doesn't it?

[Time for change]

5. My goal was to list just enough to clearly show the similarities

So that even Republicans might be able to see it.

[aion]

4. Ashkenazi

Cochran et al hypothesize that in this environment the social selection for intelligence was strong enough that mutations that created higher intelligence but created disease when inherited from both parents would still be selected for, which may be responsible for the unusual pattern of genetic diseases, such as Tay-Sachs and other sphingolipid diseases, that is found in the Ashkenazi population. Some of these diseases, for example, have been shown to correlate with high IQ, and others cause neurons to make relatively many connections with neighboring neurons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi

[Time for change]

23. Sorry, I don't understand the point you're trying to make

That is, how it relates to this post?

[chelaque liberal]

6. Also, claiming they were doing God's work.

Saved this (don't remember the source) and don't have time to edit it but maybe you can incorporate some of the points.

Excellent work, BTW.

Adolf Hiter and God

I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews I am fighting for the Lord's work. -Adolph Hitler, Speech, Reichstag, 1936

There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the Fatherland. -Message, signed Hitler, painted on walls of concentration camps; Life, August 21, 1939

Woman's world is her husband, her family, her children and her home. We do not find it right when she presses into the world of men. -Adolph Hitler, quoted in Lucy Komisar, The New Feminism

Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without a religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith . . . we need believing people. -Adolf Hitler, April 26, 1933, from a speech made during negotiations leading to the Nazi-Vatican Concordant of 1933

I have followed (the Church) in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism, or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it. -Adolf Hitler, from Rauschning, _The Voice of Destruction_, pp. 239-40

My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed. -Adolf Hitler, speech on April 12, 1922, published in My New Order, quoted in Freethought Today April 1990

I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 46]

What we have to fight for...is the freedom and independence of the fatherland, so that our people may be enabled to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Creator. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 125

This human world of ours would be inconceivable without the practical existence of a religious belief. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.152

And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.174

Catholics and Protestants are fighting with one another... while the enemy of Aryan humanity and all Christendom is laughing up his sleeve. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp.309

I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so -Adolph Hitler, to Gen. Gerhard Engel, 1941

Any violence which does not spring from a spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. It lacks the stability which can only rest in a fanatical outlook. -Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 171

I had excellent opportunity to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the brilliant church festivals. As was only natural, the abbot seemed to me, as the village priest had once seemed to my father, the highest and most desirable ideal. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 1

I was not in agreement with the sharp anti-Semitic tone, but from time to time I read arguments which gave me some food for thought. At all events, these occasions slowly made me acquainted with the man and the movement, which in those days guided Vienna's destinies: Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Social Party. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 2

...the unprecedented rise of the Christian Social Party... was to assume the deepest significance for me as a classical object of study. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

As long as leadership from above was not lacking, the people fulfilled their duty and obligation overwhelmingly. Whether Protestant pastor or Catholic priest, both together and particularly at the first flare, there really existed in both camps but a single holy German Reich, for whose existence and future each man turned to his own heaven. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

Political parties has nothing to do with religious problems, as long as these are not alien to the nation, undermining the morals and ethics of the race; just as religion cannot be amalgamated with the scheming of political parties. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

For the political leader the religious doctrines and institutions of his people must always remain inviolable; or else has no right to be in politics, but should become a reformer, if he has what it takes! -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

In nearly all the matters in which the Pan-German movement was wanting, the attitude of the Christian Social Party was correct and well-planned. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

It (Christian Social Party) recognized the value of large-scale propaganda and was a virtuoso in influencing the psychological instincts of the broad masses of its adherents. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

The anti-Semitism of the new movement (Christian Social movement) was based on religious ideas instead of racial knowledge. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3

If Dr. Karl Lueger had lived in Germany, he would have been ranked among the great minds of our people. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 3, about the leader of the Christian Social movement

Even today I am not ashamed to say that, overpowered by stormy enthusiasm, I fell down on my knees and thanked Heaven from an overflowing heart for granting me the good fortune of being permitted to live at this time. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5

I had so often sung 'Deutschland u:ber Alles' and shouted 'Heil' at the top of my lungs, that it seemed to me almost a belated act of grace to be allowed to stand as a witness in the divine court of the eternal judge and proclaim the sincerity of this conviction. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5

Only in the steady and constant application of force lies the very first prerequisite for success. This persistence, however, can always and only arise from a definite spiritual conviction. Any violence which does not spring from a firm, spiritual base, will be wavering and uncertain. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 5

I soon realized that the correct use of propaganda is a true art which has remained practically unknown to the bourgeois parties. Only the Christian- Social movement, especially in Lueger's time achieved a certain virtuosity on this instrument, to which it owed many of its success. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 6

Once again the songs of the fatherland roared to the heavens along the endless marching columns, and for the last time the Lord's grace smiled on His ungrateful children. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 7, reflecting on World War I

The more abstractly correct and hence powerful this idea will be, the more impossible remains its complete fulfillment as long as it continues to depend on human beings... If this were not so, the founders of religion could not be counted among the greatest men of this earth... In its workings, even the religion of love is only the weak reflection of the will of its exalted founder; its significance, however, lies in the direction which it attempted to give to a universal human development of culture, ethics, and morality. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 8

To them belong, not only the truly great statesmen, but all other great reformers as well. Beside Frederick the Great stands Martin Luther as well as Richard Wagner. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 8

The fight against syphilis demands a fight against prostitution, against prejudices, old habits, against previous conceptions, general views among them not least the false prudery of certain circles. The first prerequisite for even the moral right to combat these things is the facilitation of earlier marriage for the coming generation. In late marriage alone lies the compulsion to retain an institution which, twist and turn as you like, is and remains a disgrace to humanity, an institution which is damned ill-suited to a being who with his usual modesty likes to regard himself as the 'image' of God. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10

Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin. Our whole public life today is like a hothouse for sexual ideas and simulations. Just look at the bill of fare served up in our movies, vaudeville and theaters, and you will hardly be able to deny that this is not the right kind of food, particularly for the youth...Theater, art, literature, cinema, press, posters, and window displays must be cleansed of all manifestations of our rotting world and placed in the service of a moral, political, and cultural idea. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10, echoing the Cultural Warfare rhetoric of the Religious Right

But if out of smugness, or even cowardice, this battle is not fought to its end, then take a look at the peoples five hundred years from now. I think you will find but few images of God, unless you want to profane the Almighty. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10

While both denominations maintain missions in Asia and Africa in order to win new followers for their doctrine-- an activity which can boast but very modest success compared to the advance of the Mohammedan faith in particular-- right here in Europe they lose millions and millions of inward adherents who either are alien to all religious life or simply go their own ways. The consequences, particularly from a moral point of view, are not favorable. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10

The great masses of people do not consist of philosophers; precisely for the masses, faith is often the sole foundation of a moral attitude. The various substitutes have not proved so successful from the standpoint of results that they could be regarded as a useful replacement for previous religious creeds. But if religious doctrine and faith are really to embrace the broad masses, the unconditional authority of the content of this faith is the foundation of all efficacy. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 10

Due to his own original special nature, the Jew cannot possess a religious institution, if for no other reason because he lacks idealism in any form, and hence belief in a hereafter is absolutely foreign to him. And a religion in the Aryan sense cannot be imagined which lacks the conviction of survival after death in some form. Indeed, the Talmud is not a book to prepare a man for the hereafter, but only for a practical and profitable life in this world. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11

The best characterization is provided by the product of this religious education, the Jew himself. His life is only of this world, and his spirit is inwardly as alien to true Christianity as his nature two thousand years previous was to the great founder of the new doctrine. Of course, the latter made no secret of his attitude toward the Jewish people, and when necessary he even took the whip to drive from the temple of the Lord this adversary of all humanity, who then as always saw in religion nothing but an instrument for his business existence. In return, Christ was nailed to the cross, while our present-day party Christians debase themselves to begging for Jewish votes at elections and later try to arrange political swindles with atheistic Jewish parties-- and this against their own nation. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11

....the personification of the devil as the symbol of all evil assumes the living shape of the Jew. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 11, precisely echoing Martin Luther's teachings

Faith is harder to shake than knowledge, love succumbs less to change than respect, hate is more enduring than aversion, and the impetus to the mightiest upheavals on this earth has at all times consisted less in a scientific knowledge dominating the masses than in a fanaticism which inspired them and sometimes in a hysteria which drove them forward. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12

The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12

The greatness of Christianity did not lie in attempted negotiations for compromise with any similar philosophical opinions in the ancient world, but in its inexorable fanaticism in preaching and fighting for its own doctrine. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12

All in all, this whole period of winter 1919-20 was a single struggle to strengthen confidence in the victorious might of the young movement and raise it to that fanaticism of faith which can move mountains. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 1 Chapter 12

Thus inwardly armed with confidence in God and the unshakable stupidity of the voting citizenry, the politicians can begin the fight for the 'remaking' of the Reich as they call it. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

Of course, even the general designation 'religious' includes various basic ideas or convictions, for example, the indestructibility of the soul, the eternity of its existence, the existence of a higher being, etc. But all these ideas, regardless of how convincing they may be for the individual, are submitted to the critical examination of this individual and hence to a fluctuating affirmation or negation until emotional divination or knowledge assumes the binding force of apodictic faith. This, above all, is the fighting factor which makes a breach and opens the way for the recognition of basic religious views. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

Anyone who dares to lay hands on the highest image of the Lord commits sacrilege against the benevolent creator of this miracle and contributes to the expulsion from paradise. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 1

A folkish state must therefore begin by raising marriage from the level of a continuous defilement of the race, and give it the consecration of an institution which is called upon to produce images of the Lord and not monstrosities halfway between man and ape. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

It would be more in keeping with the intention of the noblest man in this world if our two Christian churches, instead of annoying Negroes with missions which they neither desire nor understand, would kindly, but in all seriousness, teach our European humanity that where parents are not healthy it is a deed pleasing to God to take pity on a poor little healthy orphan child and give him father and mother, than themselves to give birth to a sick child who will only bring unhappiness and suffering on himself and the rest of the world. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

That this is possible may not be denied in a world where hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people voluntarily submit to celibacy, obligated and bound by nothing except the injunction of the Church. Should the same renunciation not be possible if this injunction is replaced by the admonition finally to put an end to the constant and continuous original sin of racial poisoning, and to give the Almighty Creator beings such as He Himself created? -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

For the greatest revolutionary changes on this earth would not have been thinkable if their motive force, instead of fanatical, yes, hysterical passion, had been merely the bourgeois virtues of law and order. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

It doesn't dawn on this depraved bourgeois world that this is positively a sin against all reason; that it is criminal lunacy to keep on drilling a born half-ape until people think they have made a lawyer out of him, while millions of members of the highest culture-race must remain in entirely unworthy positions; that it is a sin against the will of the Eternal Creator if His most gifted beings by the hundreds and hundreds of thousands are allowed to degenerate in the present proletarian morass, while Hottentots and Zulu Kaffirs are trained for intellectual professions. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

It may be that today gold has become the exclusive ruler of life, but the time will come when man will again bow down before a higher god. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 2

Christianity could not content itself with building up its own altar; it was absolutely forced to undertake the destruction of the heathen altars. Only from this fanatical intolerance could its apodictic faith take form; this intolerance is, in fact, its absolute presupposition. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5

For how shall we fill people with blind faith in the correctness of a doctrine, if we ourselves spread uncertainty and doubt by constant changes in its outward structure? ...Here, too, we can learn by the example of the Catholic Church. Though its doctrinal edifice, and in part quite superfluously, comes into collision with exact science and research, it is none the less unwilling to sacrifice so much as one little syllable of its dogmas... it is only such dogmas which lend to the whole body the character of a faith. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 5

The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 10

In the ranks of the movement (National Socialist movement), the most devout Protestant could sit beside the most devout Catholic, without coming into the slightest conflict with his religious convictions. The mighty common struggle which both carried on against the destroyer of Aryan humanity had, on the contrary, taught them mutually to respect and esteem one another. -Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf Vol. 2 Chapter 10

For this, to be sure, from the child's primer down to the last newspaper, every theater and every movie house, every advertising pillar and every billboard, must be pressed into the service of this one great mission, until the timorous prayer of our present parlor patriots: 'Lord, make us free!' is transformed in the brain of the smallest boy into the burning plea: 'Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle!' -Adolf Hitler's prayer, Mein Kampf, Vol. 2 Chapter 13

The Government, being resolved to undertake the political and moral purification of our public life, are creating and securing the conditions necessary for a really profound revival of religious life -Adolph Hitler, in a speech to the Reichstag on March 23, 1933

I go the way that Providence dictates with the assurance of a sleepwalker. -Adolf Hitler, Speech, 15 March 1936, Munich, Germany.

Today Christians ... stand at the head of (this country)... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity .. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the *poison of immorality* which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of *liberal excess* during the past ... (few) years. -The Speeches of Adolph Hitler, 1922-1939, Vol. 1 (London, Oxford University Press, 1942), pg. 871-872

Atheist Hall Converted
Berlin Churches Establish Bureau to Win Back Worshippers

Wireless to the New York Times.

BERLIN, May 13. - In Freethinkers Hall, which before the Nazi resurgence was the national headquarters of the German Freethinkers League, the Berlin Protestant church authorities have opened a bureau for advice to the public in church matters. Its chief object is to win back former churchgoers and assist those who have not previously belonged to any religious congregation in obtaining church membership.

The German Freethinkers League, which was swept away by the national revolution, was the largest of such organizations in Germany. It had about 500,000 members ... (New York Times, May 14, 1993, page 2, on Hitler's outlawing of atheistic and freethinking groups in Germany in the Spring of 1933, after the Enabling Act authorizing Hitler to rule by decree)

[EOTE]

7. Great post.....

Good ammunition to use against any freeper who would try to say that the Nazis were socialists. If there was any doubt that the far right today resemble the Nazis of yesteryear, they should be quelled now.

[Jamison]

8. Good point.

I don't get how FReepers think that national socialism = socialism. I guess they slept through history class. Hitler had a vicious hatred for socialism/bolshevism/communism and all it stood for. This hatred was so extreme that it was probably the major contributing factor to Germany's loss of the war. He sacrificed his whole 6th army because he was too proud to retreat and back down to these communists.

The OP has a lot of similarities to today's regime. The main difference I see is that this time the "vermin" of society that needs to be exterminated is the poor instead of the Jews.

[Time for change]

9. I think another difference is that Bush's rhetoric is much more restrained

He doesn't actually refer to the poor as "vermin". He merely dismantles long standing programs designed to help them, while espousing populist rhetoric.

This makes the evil of his Administration much less obvious to those who don't closely follow the differences between his rhetoric and his actions.

[Time for change]

11. Good point, thank you

Yes, Hitler and Bush were both very opportunistic -- they'd do or say just about anything to improve their political position.

[aion]

10. Praising guþ whilst passing the a(d)monition

payer.de/religionskritik/postka48.gif

[AndyTiedye]

15. I Think A Lot of Us Know, But What Can We Do?

[Time for change]

17. Great question

I wish I knew for sure.

I think that one of the great values of the DU is that we throw ideas back and forth, and by doing that we have a better idea of how to explain the situation to other people. Yes, it is true that a lot of us know, but most people in this country don't. The MSM hasn't done anywhere near the explaining that they need to do, so we need to do it.

With that in mind, here is a discussion of evidence that I put together for making the case that the 2004 election was stolen: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=2052179&mesg_id=2052179

And, look at what I just found here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x392728

[Toronto Ron]

16. I was discussing something similar yesterday:

I was telling my wife that garbage like Cheney, Rumsfeldt, Frist, Hannity, O'Reilly, etc. would have been excellent SS commanders back then, since they utterly lack any trace of compassion or empathy. W might have cleaned their latrines.

[Time for change]

18. So true

I see them as SS commanders

I believe that corruption and lack of compassion are very highly correlated.

[truedelphi]

19. Thanks for this work.

Very well stated. Cohesive and covers most of the bases.

Does make a person think, doesn't it?

Now t add to some of the dissimilarities.

When Hitler first came upon the scene, Germany was at its lowest ebb in terms of the country's economy. People were unemployed, many were hungry, the feeling was grim.

When Bush came into office, our country had an amazing surplus. Although Bush can in no way be blamed for the dot com crash's aftermath, he can be blamed for squandering the hundreds of billions of dollars of surplus that Clinton had left.

Hitler improved the lot of the average German. For the first time ever, working class Germans had two weeks vacation, which they could spend touring the country in the Volkswagon (a car whose idea of affordability and gas economy Hitler had promoted.)

Millions became employed who previously had been unemployed. Granted many of these jobs were in munitions factories and many Germans were not happy working in those plants (on any given day - 15 to 25% of the work force might be out sick.)

Under Bush in the good ol' USA, our jobs are overseas. A great deal for those living on the Pacific Rim countries. Not such a good deal for us (if you are working class.)

Hitler's popularity makes sense on some levels. He was a gifted speaker who had mastered the drama inherent in the psyche of his countrymen. People who heard him speak were moved to tears. The economy improved under his watch. His initial forays into warfare were huge successes.

I suppose there is a facet of Americana that enjoys Bush speak. I have not personally met anyone who is riveted by Bush. He stumbles over the most basic phrases, as if brain-damaged. And even if you should manage to enjoy Meally Mouth speak, you still need to be worried about the economy and about the poorly run war in Iraq, which was a victory only for a very few short weeks way back in 2003.

Hitler attempted to make everyone equal to everyone else (unless of course you happened to be Jewish.) Working class people who previous to Hitler had to stand and basically salute the upper class professionals (doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc.) now could remain seated. The "heil Hitler" salute replaced the previous ridiculous requirements of making the lower and middle classes fawn over the
higher class.

Under Bush, we are more divided than ever. Bush showers one advantage
after another to the rich, forcing most average incomed people to feel inferior.

Yesterday you knew you were screwed by the Bush tax code. Today you know that had you been living in poverty in NO, you would have been so much road kill or flood water kill or starving person in the AstroDome kill.

In no way do I mean to suggest that I personally approve of Hitler. But before 1939 the average German's life improved. So it makes some sense that he would be embraced by the populace.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how anyone who is not rich would be for Bush. But whoever IS FOR him, they certainly are not for him because he has done anything for the middle and lower working classes.

[Time for change]

20. Very interesting points

And I basically agree with what you say -- though it wasn't just Jews who aroused Hitler's hatred, it was numerous other groups of people, including gays, Gypsies, the handicapped, Slovaks, Poles, Communists, just about anyone who wasn't "Aryan", whatever that was supposed to be.

I think that another significant difference is that we speak of Hitler on the one hand, and the "Bush regime" on the other hand. That's because Bush is essentially a creature of his handlers and our mainstream media. While it is true that some people do like to hear him speak (for reasons that I can't imagine), he has been propped up all the way, from the MSM silence on the wiring that he needed to get through the debates with Kerry, to failing to explain his tax plan to the American people, to pushing his lies about our reasons for going to war. Bush is just plain incompetent. I also believe that he's a spineless greedy bastard, but without his massive support structure he would hardly have the talent to win a mayorial race.

And on the other side of the coin, the Bush regime has a tougher time of it than Hitler did, because they're working against a tradition of Democracy that goes back more than two centuries. That may be what saves us in the end, it enough people realize that if they want to keep our democracy they will need to work very hard to do so.

[truedelphi]

26. I truly apologize for leaving out 3 million (and more)

I truly do.

You are so very right about this statement of yours "though it wasn't just Jews who aroused Hitler's hatred, it was numerous other groups of people, including gays, Gypsies, the handicapped, Slovaks, Poles, Communists, just about anyone who wasn't "Aryan", whatever that was supposed to be."

In fact when Robert Koehler of the Chicago Tribune wrote an article wherein he cited the damage that Hitler did, he cited 25 million people as victims of the Holcaust. (I think he was taking into consideration everyone who had sufferred and died in the Germany-Italy end of the axis of WWII.)

But Bob's editor at the Tribune reduced that figure to SIX MILLION, stating that only Jewish people could be counted in the Holocaust...
something I strongly disagree with. But the lobbyists with strong Zionist credentials have warped so many people's idea of "holocaust"
that now people think that only Jewish tragedy is rightfully termed that.

My belief is that any large scale slaughter of people that is contrived and anticipated and in which the perpetuators rejoice is a "holocaust." This includes the "Native American Holocaust" of the Eighteen Hundreds, "The Armenian Holocaust" of the nineteen-teens,
the Cambodian "pol Pot" rampage leaving millions dead, the Rwandan Holocaust and others.

If you died in a Third Reich-sponsered concentration camp - you were a victim of the Holocaust.

Hitler targeted the Jews because there was a millenia long prejudice against Jewish people that he could tap into. At the time of the thirties and forties, the ideas of eugenics were very strong and not
often questioned. Hitler would in his speeches point out about the
Jewish "rape" of the German economy - and because of the way that the European culture worked, many of the bank and influential money market families were Jewish. (Sidebar -When I visited Norway in 1979, I was astonished by the fact that I could walk into a shop where glass-blown creations were for sale and find out that the owner of said shop was the descendant of that original line of glass products -that since, say 1789, someone had been blowing glass and handing the business down to their sons.. America has never worked that way, at least not so intensely.)

Since the bankers in Germany and Europe had devastated the German economy, in the 1920's, causing hungry and starvation and illness, and since most were Jewish, it was not hard for him to build up anger and hatred that had already been seeded in the average German Christian by the age-old notion of "Christ-killers." (Let me point out that American bankers are just as likely to be WASP as Jewish and
that in the near future, should interest rates here finally start to soar, we might face the same hunger and illness and poverty Germany did in the twenties - this banking-relating devastation can occur whether or not the executives in that field are Jewish or not.)

Hitler also wanted to stamp out the genetic traits that he believed were inherent in the Gypsie population - scam games and petty thievery.

He wanted a strong and healthy race line, so the disabled and mentally infirm were eliminated. (We don't do that here in America - we just give them $ 600 a month to live on, and so what if it means that they end up with a grocery cart on Market Street in San Francisco, sleeping unsheltered on the concrete at night. Funny that we think that so much more humane.)

And he was homophobic - so gays had to go to.

I doubt anyone on this board does not understand why he needed to stamp out dissidents.

Carol

[Time for change]

27. You're absolutely right about that

The killing of innocent people for racist or similar reasons is abhorrent in all cases -- whether it be Jews in the 1940s or Native Americans in the 1800s, or whatever. Regardless of what name we give to it.

[NoBushSpokenHere]

22. Nice Work........n/t

[redtapeblues]

32. Wake up,

your nightmare will be over in 3 years. On the other hand, 6 million + never woke up from Hitler's nighmare.

[Time for change]

33. I think it's a big stretch to say that our nightmare will be over in 3 yrs

This isn't a one man show.

Whatever powers are behind the theft of the 2004 election aren't just going to feel that they've had enough power by 2008. Maybe we'll get 8 years of Jeb Bush -- or someone just as bad.

There's no evidence that I see that this is going to be over in 3 years -- unless we make that happen.

[McCamy Taylor]

35. Main difference: GERMAN people vs. AMERICAN people

Americans are still frontier people, our biggest right wing extremists, in the west and south, are also our most rugged individualists who will NEVER, EVER goose step. Look at how fast Joe Scarborough has turned on the administration when he didnt like the way they were treating his corner of Florida?

Americans also are much quicker to embrace immigrants than Europeans. Yeah, I know it looks like we are evil rat bastards, but our prejudice is dwarfed by that of Europeans who will treat Pakistanis like they just came off the boat three or four generations later. Look at how quickly the refugees from Viet Nam got assimilated into our culture. If you fill an economic niche here, then you settle right in.

Also, we are not homogeneous like the Germans, there is so much variety here that there is no "Normal" and therefore, it is very hard to persuade people to be afraid of that which is different, cause how much different is too different? When you are living on a fronteir, physically or mentally, you have to love the exotic and adventure, right?

Europe was a perfect breeding ground for fascism. America just isnt, not on the scale of Nazi Germany. Maybe in pockets.

[Time for change]

36. Yes, I agree that we would not be susceptable to the rantings of a Hitler

The Bush regime is very different from the Nazis at a superficial level. They don't rant about other races, they don't advocate extermination of physically handicapped people or gays, or anybody else.

But what if they take over our country while espousing democratic and other uncontroversial values, such as "compassionate conservatism", while all the while doing things like leading us into war on the basis of noble but false pretenses, and stealing elections while the MSM tells us to "get over it"?

What if, through their wars and domestic policies, which make their friends wealthier than they already are, they lead our country into economic ruin and our world into environmental ruin? And what if, through their new found ability to electronically control elections (which not too many people seem to be very upset about) there is no end in sight to their remaining in power?

These are some of the things that I'm very concerned about.

Yes, there are a number of differences between this regime and the Nazis, and I tried to be fair about pointing many of them out in my original post. But one similarity that I think we all need to be very cognizant of is the ability of people to make themselves believe that things are a lot better than they really are. I don't think that we're any more immune to that the the German people in the 1930s.