We talk about how history will judge BushCo, but how will it judge us?

[grace0418]

My parents both grew up during the Depression. My uncles fought in WWII and my father joined the Navy in 1945 but never left the States.

I remember hearing the stories of WWII from my parents. They told me how horrible and evil Hitler was, and how he was responsible for the deaths of millions of people who didn't fit his ideal. I asked how it was possible for one man to do that, and my parents told me that he had convinced a lot of people he was right. They told me he used fear to manipulate people. I remember asking over and over again how the German people allowed this to happen, why they didn't rise up and remove Hitler from power if he was so awful. They talked about the different reasons, but for a long time I felt like the German people were nearly as much to blame as Hitler himself.

But now look at America. We sit here and allow BushCo to perpetrate all kinds of crimes against humanity. How many thousands of people are dead around the world because of BushCo? Will it matter more when it reaches into the millions? Is that when we'll stop him?

Lest you think I'm pointing fingers, I'll admit that I'm just as guilty as anyone else. I rant on DU, I write letters, I design t-shirts, I demonstrate. But what good am I doing? I just don't know anymore.

I'm just feeling so despondant these days; like I've reached my breaking point and can't even cry anymore. And I'm feeling like I have a greater understanding of what the average joe citizen felt in Germany; like nothing they could do would make any difference. That the war machine will keep on rolling until it uses up the whole world. :(

[MadMaddie]

1. We at DU and other sites are talking about it....

even though we may not be listened to by the Media....we acknowleged Katrian, the dead and wounded soldiers...the Germans walked past the death camps and pretended they didn't exist..

I agree there are many similarities between Nazi Germany and our current administration..the main one is that they stole the election and have control of the House, Senate and Supreme Court....

We have to have such an overwhelming turnout in the November elections that there will be no doubt that Democracy is alive and well!!

The one thing that destroyed the Nazi's regime was that the lies, upon lies house of cards fell because of it's own incompetence...I believe that is what is currently happening to this administration....

Hang in there...I am tired also...I try not to get online and watch the news on the weekends!!

[C_U_L8R]

2. The way things are going

yes it does seems like we are all circa 1933 Germans...
and whatever the case.. we will get what we deserve.

Do we accept this fate or are we going to fight ??

[90-percent]

3. collectively

We're frightened, gullible, moronic, self-absorbed, unprincipled, uneducated, unsophisticated sheep.


-85% Jimmy

[FloridaPat]

4. Hitler didn't even need fear. The German economy was a shambles.

They got stuck with the bill for WW1, even though they didn't start it. They were made and broke. Hitler came in and got the economy back and ramped up the military again. Amazing how feeding starving people makes them like you a lot. Then he decided to take over the world.

I had wondered myself how Hitler got where he did. After seeing * and his buddies, I now know. I am just susprised it took only 2 years to bring down the USA. I'm suprised after everything we went through with Vietnam that the attitude " my gov't right or wrong" is still a major mind-set. I am suprised how fast people will support war instead of peace.

What to do now? Prepare for the worst. There is no opposition party. The corporations have control of the gov't. The people only count during elections, and with Diebold we count less and less. At least Hitler did everything right until he decided to invade Russia. These creeps in Washington have done nothing right - at least for the good of the country. They've raided the treasury and are getting rich off the proceeds.

[coalition_unwilling]

10. While technically true that Germany didn't "start" WWI, they gave

the Habsburg Empire a "blank check" to intervene in Serbia, in response to the assassination of Crown Prince Ferdinand by members of the Serbian nationalist organization The Black Hand.

Most historians of World War I, while agreeing that the Versailles treaty imposed unjust punishment on the German people, agree that Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany bore principal responsibility for World War I.

[Richard D]

5. I don't think history will judge any of us . . .

. . .well. In fact, I think that the future generations, if they are so lucky as to exist, will hate our generations with a deep passion and look upon us with far greater disdain than we do for the "good Germans" of hitler's germany.

Why? Really little to do with *, but with the pattern that has been destroying our environment. In a little over a hundred years we have made most natural sources of water undrinkable, covered the planet in toxins that will be around in hundreds if not billions of years, destroyed a large percentage of the planets life forms, used up all of the oil for things like making stupid plastic toys and driving to walmart, plundered the earth's oceans to the point where vast areas that were fertile with life are now deserts, plundered vast ranges of jungle, turning what was once the place of greatest bio-diversity into desert wastelands, wasted trillions of dollars on weapons when it could have been used to elevate our species into exploration of the rest of the universe (not to mention so much else), . . . and I could go on and on and on. But the worst thing that future generations will curse us for is doing nothing to stop global warming. The changes that are coming will be (without some miraculous event) horrendous beyond our current idea of horrendous. And we are all, republican or democrat, left, right, center, etc. part of this.

I know that this did nothing to take way your despondency. For this I apologize. It's just what is so.

I'd love it if someone would make me wrong on this. I'd love it if there was some glimmer of hope that it all could be fixed.

And again, I apologize. It's not in my nature to be negative like this. I have always been optimistic, and would welcome a return of that. Unfortunately, I can find no answers nor solutions, yet.

[anarch]

7. yeah...in a couple hundred years,

I'm thinking it will basically be a sort of baffled resentment...like "how could those people have been so blind and stupid?"

It's sad, but I don't have any answers either.

[grace0418]

9. No need to apologize.

I didn't expect to find a solution to what I'm feeling right now. I guess, if nothing else, misery loves company, eh?

I too hope to be proven wrong. And I hope that, if our planet survives what BushCo has wrought, future generations will realize that some of us cared, some of us knew what was going on, some of us tried to stop it.

[maveric]

6. It depends on how we handle Bu$hco.

We might be viewed as "Great Patriots, or "Good Germans".
This aint over yet.

[90-percent]

8. Richard D speaks for me

You nailed it, dude.

it's pathetic when I take solace knowing I'll be dead by the time global warming and other environmental atrocities cause WW4.

And I produced no children that will be forced by my generation to fix these screw ups or die trying. Of that I'm sadly thankful.

-85% Jimmy

[coalition_unwilling]

11. I want to be able to say to my progeny that I did

everything within my power to stop the war machine.

[grace0418]

12. So many of us want that, but the machine keeps

rolling anyway. How do we make it stop?

[coalition_unwilling]

18. It may be time for a "general strike" (aka "Moratorium")

I don't know how to make it stop, but I think the strategy must embrace tactics on a multitude of fronts. For example, I vigil at least twice a week in small groups. I'm also involved in Marcy Winograd's primary campaign against war-pig Jane Harman. Finally, I email Boxer and Feinstein constantly about the war, war profiteering, and so on. Finally, I am unemployed (unwillingly); one silver lining to that cloud is that none of my labor is funding the BFEE.

[Jade Fox]

13. We have had a huge impact....

The media wouldn't report the truth, so we took to the internet to get the truth out, and the mainstream media is now watching their numbers go downhill. We have hammered away at every Bushco lie and outrage, and the Neocons get less and less able to fend off the truth with their smears and bag of tricks.

One thing to remember: our enemies have UNIMAGINABLE money at their disposal, and yet they are losing. I know it's been two steps forward and one step back all the way, but the progress is undeniable and remarkable given the force and funding we are up against.

I learned a long time ago not to discount the impact I am having. Sometimes it is literally years before you can see what you did. There is a wonderful story in Paul Loeb's book "Soul of a Citizen" about how the Anti-Apartheid forces in South Africa were so empowered by demonstrations and boycotts in this country in the 1980s. Our actions here and in Europe were a powerful force in ending Apartheid, but we often felt what we were doing was futile. Not to the South Africans!

Those letters and t-shirts and demonstrations of yours have had an effect.

[grace0418]

14. Thanks Jade Fox

I wish I shared your optimism. I will try. :hug:

[foreverdem]

15. I was thinking the same thing recently

How will future generations judge us? I think they will wonder how we could have let this happen, let a certifiable madman run our nation into the ground and do so much damage to our planet. What was wrong with us? Why did we sit back and do nothing?

I know how you feel, I feel as despondent and hopeless as you do. Surprisingly, when I speak to others about how horrible * is, and how he should be removed from office, I get the same answer, "I'm just one person, what can I do?' It's amazing to me how many times I hear that. Too bad they don't realize that they are not alone, and just one person, even as much as I try to point them to liberal sites like this that are taking action. Sorry, I got way off topic.

[grace0418]

16. No you didn't get way off topic.

Although it's not necessarily that I feel alone. All I have to do is come to DU to find 80,000 more people like me. And luckily, since I'm an artist, 99% of my coworkers and friends are liberals. So I don't really feel alone at all, in fact I don't even feel like I'm in the minority. But maybe that's what is making me feel even worse; that I'm in the majority but the fucking evil warmongers are *still* in control. How is that possible?

[Armstead]

17. Good News/Bad News

Look at progress in larger terms -- and in collective terms. And take the long view.

As individuals, we can only influence a tiny little sphere. But multiply that out by millions and millions of otehrs who share your concerns and frustrations and yopur more positive goals for restoring sanity.

Personally, I see Bush as merely a symptom of something much larger and deeper and longer-lasting. What is happening now is merely the culmination of a collective stupidity and self-centered cluelessness that has been ocurring for about 30 years.

Americans were sold a bill of goods with the notion that we should turn society over to the corporate elite, and let the values of accountants define our social and economic attitudes and direction.

That was a fatal mistake, and the Chickens are now Coming Home to Roost as a result.

That's the bad news. The good news is that more and more peope are finally waking up from this collective coma. That sets the stage for real and positive change. The pendulum that enabled the current situation is finally starting to turn in a better direction.

You re a part of that larger shift in consciousness, whioch has to occur on many levels and on many fronts. Your actions may seem insignificant, but if it makes a few people realize that they are not alone, that adds to the larger momentum to make things better.