Administration Fails to Meet Nazi Benchmark

[MelissaB]

Administration Fails to Meet Nazi Benchmark

On the eve of the CAFTA vote, Brown sounded like a man who didn't want to use all of his rhetorical bullets on Ohio. When I asked him about Ken Blackwell, the Ohio secretary of state who has come under fire for his conduct during the last election, Brown chose to speak in generalities rather than refer to the specific charges laid out in the report issued by his colleague Conyers.

"Some of the things Blackwell did undoubtedly hurt turnout," he said. "And turnout traditionally aids the Democrats. Part of the Secretary of State's job is to get people to vote. I think what we saw with Blackwell was that he never encouraged more people to vote."

I asked him if he thought anyone would ever be able to tie Blackwell's numerous indiscretions to the Bush campaign.

"I doubt it," he said. "I doubt we'll ever know."

Well, shit, I thought. This is depressing.

...snip

But I get the sense that even if I'd had all the time in the world with those few Democrats still on the record as being interested in the Ohio story, they wouldn't have had much to say. The party in general has been so effectively marginalized that its elected officials now seem to be rationing political capital the way men in lifeboats ration rainwater.

The aforementioned Conyers, the leader of the congressional effort to reopen Ohio, is in the middle of a desperate struggle to preserve his relevancy on the House judiciary committee, where he is the ranking Democrat. Last week, while attending a committee hearing, I watched as Conyers struggled repeatedly to get blimp-shaped committee chairman F. James Sensenbrenner to recognize him. In the hearing I watched, Conyers and other Democrats (especially our own Jerrold Nadler, who appears to inspire Sensenbrenner's particular loathing) had to shout out "Mr. Chairman!" four, five, or even six times before Sensenbrenner would open the floor for their remarks. In the current Congress, Democrats have to fight just to force the Republicans to respect normal legislative procedure.


More: http://www.freezerbox.com/archive/article.asp?id=360

[Fly by night]

1. Brown who?

[Land Shark]

2. It's often more than just "procedure" it's checks and balances

the admin has "gone nuclear" not just on the check and balance of the filibuster, but generally. this is the clearest and most disturbing trend of our present political situation.

[Peace Patriot]

3. I don't understand the subject line. What "Nazi benchmark" has the

Bush Cartel failed to meet? (--seems to me they're right on schedule.)

[Peace Patriot]

4. Okay, I read it to the end, but I still don't quite get the article title

(and subject line of this post): "Administration fails to meet Nazi benchmark."

After listing the ways that Congressional Republicans disallow Democratic witnesses, shut off debate, miscount votes, and commit slander and libel, and how the regime in general hides behind secrecy, continues to lie outrageously about the Iraq war, and "has convinced the country and even themselves that there is something immensely clever, and even principled, about the way that it lies, cheats and bends laws and rules to get what it wants," the author says the following (i.e., Nazism):

"In recent years it has been fashionable to compare these current Republicans with the Nazis and other totalitarian monsters. I've tended to resist those comparisons, but we've reached a point where it's looking more and more appropriate to describe the neoconservative attitude toward the rule of law as having many things in common with those other revolutionaries. These neocons may not have the authoritarian bent of the German fascists or the Russian communists. They're far more interested in stealing and deregulating than in controlling, censoring and governing. But it is more and more clear that, like these other notorious movements, they view adherence to rules and to the law as a failure of will and a political weakness.

"That is why we in the media need to reexamine the 2004 election. If they really did steal it, we can't just let it slide. Because they'll do it again. And forget about the Democrats being able to do anything about it. They have their own problems."

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He lists all the modes of Nazism--I was going to say, except for the death camps, but then, the 100,000 Iraqis slaughtered by our bombs alone, in the initial invasion, was the equivalent of a death camp (disarm a country, eliminate its air force, hit it with 12 years of economic sanctions, then bomb and invade its nearly helpless people, and imprison and torture thousands of its citizens--not a "death camp"?)--but then, while listing and describing the Bush Cartel's Nazi-like behavior, he takes some pains to distance himself from this charge.

But I don't see any benchmark that has not been met. By 1934, Hitler had consolidated his control of the executive, the legislature, the courts, the military and the news media. And he hadn't even invaded Poland yet. Seems to me that the Bush Cartel is well ahead of that curve.

There are many important differences between Germany and the USA. Two big ones are the vast size of our country and the great variety of our people--all colors, all cultures. These are strengths against a fascist coup--but they also mean that the METHODS of control have to be different--for instance, consolidating all news reporting into the hands of a few rightwing, billionaire war profiteers; and, gaining control over elections with two Bushite companies counting all the votes using secret, proprietary software (and gaining that power through bipartisan corruption of state/local election officials and other public representatives, in the new billion dollar industry of electronic voting).

They've tried to keep the Nazi part of it--the torture of Arabs and Muslims, indefinite detention at places like Guantanamo, "extraordinary rendition", the private contractor death squads in Iraq, etc.--out of the American public eye. The "round-ups" of the opposition ARE occurring, just not here (for the most part). (--yet.)

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I also want to argue with the phrase, the Bush Cartel "has convinced the country..."

i.e., "...has convinced the country and even themselves that there is something immensely clever, and even principled, about the way that it lies, cheats and bends laws and rules to get what it wants.'

We on the left OFTEN make the mistake of equating the ILLUSION of our country, as depicted by the war profiteering, corporate news monopolies, with the country itself. The Bush Cartel has NOT convinced "the country" of ANYTHING. The opposition to every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, is across the board, on all issues, and way up in the 60% to 70% range. You name it. The Iraq war (way back to Feb. '03, when nearly 60% of the American people opposed the war, before the invasion). Torture policy (63% against, May '04). The deficit. Social Security. Women's rights. The country is OPPOSED to Bush, in big numbers. And that is not even to mention Bush's dismal approval ratings--so low over the last year that Zogby said he couldn't win, and at 40% and sinking today.

The war profiteering, corporate news monopolies, put so-called "commentators" on TV who might COMMENT that, gee, those Bushites are clever people, they're getting everything they want, with a 40% approval rating, and they're dominating the lapdog, monopoly press, there must be something virtuous about them, maybe it's Jesus inspiring them to torture prisoners and kill Arabs, but, by God, you gotta hand it to 'em, they got the votes, nobody cares about their lying and cheating, the American people are sheep.

A parody. But you get my meaning. The people who think the Bushites are clever are the lapdog commentators themselves. To them, successfully dominating others and getting everything you want by lying, bullying and violence, is "clever."

We really have to beware of the ways that these monopolies are wheedling things into our brains--like "the country" being "convinced" that cheating and lying is "clever." The news monopolies are NOT "the country." They create an extremely distorted, lying, self-interested, and mostly FALSE picture of what the war profiteering, corporate news monopolies want us to THINK is true.

I think the author is correct, however, in saying that the Bushites are more interested in thieving than in governing. And I think that that is a significant difference from the Nazis, and provides something of a ray of hope. But we also should be aware that Germany's ruined economy was the chief condition necessary to Hitler's rise--and the Bushites seem to be a wrecking crew in that regard. They seem to be deliberately destroying our economy. It appears to be short term (but major) looting by the rich. Is it just that? Or are they deliberately destroying the American middle class, America's manufacturing base, and its strong worker protections, in order to create slaves and cannon fodder?

And when they have recreated the Great Depression II, is THAT when the Guantanamo Bay's and the Abu Ghraib's are going to start turning up in Arizona and Mississippi? (--and, actually, our prison conditions and justice system are so bad now, we don't have that far to go).

It's a different situation now than in 1934 in Germany. But the parallels are horrifying. Personally, I think our one last chance to turn it around is election system reform--restoring transparent, verifiable elections, and getting rid of the Bushite electronic voting companies (mostly Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia), and their "trade secret," proprietary counting of our votes. It's a no brainer. And it could change things for the better pretty fast. Trouble is, the Democratic Party seems to have no brain.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Don't get me wrong. This is a VERY GOOD ARTICLE. Read it!

And recommend it.