I'm just saying be careful, a) about identifying both dangers and the opportunities, and b) about spreading fear in a way that disempowers rather than empowers people.
For instance, I don't think it's as important what powers Bush is seizing (with a 30% approval rating, no less!), or the inevitable Bush "pod people" in Congress rubber stamp he gets, as HOW these people--Bush and his lapdog Congress--achieved power, because I think that HOW they achieved, or rather, retained, power in 2004, is still CHANGEABLE--by election reform at the state/local level--and the situation still reversible by that means.
There is absolutely nothing we can do to stop the Bush junta from spying on us, using spying for political repression, torturing people, arresting people including Americans without charge and detaining them indefinitely without access to the outside world, throwing out the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, openly breaking the law, invading more countries, looting us blind, destroying our common good programs such as FEMA and Medicare, or whatever else we would like to stop. There is nothing we can do about it--nothing! We are helpless. That is very apparent. Bush and his puppetmasters have control of every branch of government; the "balance of power" is gone; and they are ruthlessly using their power to suppress dissent within the US political establishment and within the ranks of US government professionals (military, intelligence, scientific communities, etc.).
In that sense, the new Third Reich is upon us. There is no question about it. The parallels are stunning. BUT...
This is NOT Germany circa 1930s. This is a significantly different country, and one that is much harder to control, and--very important, I think--much harder to fool! For instance, where are the 'Nazi youth groups' parading around the streets in uniforms, bullying people and sieg heiling to Hitler and the Fatherland? There is no evidence of that kind of devotion to Bush except in a tiny minority who almost never show their faces. We hear those types on radio call-in shows sometimes, and see evidence of them on the internet--but they remain largely anonymous. Why? Because that kind of mindless devotion to "the Leader" is disgusting to Americans. We are a population that is very sensitive to Nazi-like behavior, in our workplace, in our personal lives, among our children, and in the stories/myths that get played out in the entertainment and sports activities that we prefer. We like the underdog, not the overdog. We admire innovation, not lockstep dogmatism. So the minority fascists who are running things now--who have control of the public airwaves and federal powers--have to work us over in subtler ways. One of their masterstrokes, in my opinion, has been convincing the great progressive American majority that it is the minority, and that it 'lost' the 2004 election.
Get used to it. We are a country of lockstep Bushites now. People think Bush is likable. They'd like to 'have a beer' with him. They like his war. A little "collateral damage" on Arab babies and old grannies doesn't bother them. They think like he does--in blacks and whites, good vs evil, 'you're either for us or against us.' They don't mind torture, if it's just Arabs. They may grumble about $8 trillion deficits and trebled gas prices and 30% credit card interest rates and $2,000 prescription drug bills, but they don't really mind, all in a good cause. Just give them 0% financing on a new SUV and they're happy.
Never mind that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies' own opinion polls say otherwise. 63% of Americans oppose torture "under any circumstances." 58% opposed pre-emptive war by Bush BEFORE the invasion (Feb. '03). 90% are worried about, or wildly worried about, the deficit. Etc.
It MUST be that, SOMEHOW, people must SOMEHOW have put all of these HUGE ISSUES aside, because they just don't like gay marriage. And "the churches" must SOMEHOW--in some mysterious way for which there is ZERO evidence--have countered a 60/40 blowout success for the Democrats in new voter registration in 2004. Maybe Dick Cheney was right that it was their "invisible" voter registration campaign. It MUST be, because...look at the result!
Hidden behind all of this--the truly invisible thing, because it has made invisible--are the following facts:
Two rightwing Bushite corporations gained control of 80% of the nation's vote tabulation in the 2001-2004 period, and put in place new electronic voting systems that use "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--an election system brought to you by the two biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney, with their $4 billion "Help America Vote Act" boondoggle; an election system with no paper trail requirement, no requirement of transparent open source code, no controls on private company personnel who are convicted computer fraud felons writing the code, no controls on private partisan vendors, no controls on secret industry 'testing' of the machines, no controls on lavish lobbying and "revolving door" employment, basically no transparency and accountability, and underfunded regulation by a Bush-appointed commission.
The two corporations that took over most of our election system in that period were: Diebold, whose CEO, Wally O'Dell was a Bush/Cheney campaign chair, and major fundraiser, who promised in writing to "deliver" Ohio's electoral votes to Bush/Cheney in 2004, and ES&S, a spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), which was initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave a million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which, among other things, touts the death penalty for homosexuals). These two companies have an incestuous relationship--they are run by two brothers, Tod and Bob Urosevich.
These are the people who counted most of our votes behind a veil of secrecy in 2004.
It is a no-brainer that they used their secret programming power to keep the Bush junta in office.
A no-brainer that much of the Democratic leadership didn't and doesn't seem to get.
A no-brainer that the American people largely don't know about.
A no-brainer that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies NEVER report on.
And, in fact, on election night 2004, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, acting in concert, through one polling organization (Edison-Mitofsky) shut down the election reporting system (a supposed "computer glitch"), and FALSIFIED their own exit polls (Kerry won) to force them to 'FIT' the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won)--thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud, and squelching protests and calls for investigation. (See www.TruthIsAll.net.)
Many good people (but not all) pretty much decided, at that point, that the country had gone nuts, and gave up on our democracy--depressed, demoralized, and disempowered, thinking they are now the minority (despite even the closeness of this so-called election).
THAT is the point. Not to convince anyone of anything--as with Hitler's true-believer "Nazi youth" parading around about "the Fatherland," or as with millions of people cheering and sieg heiling Hitler's speeches. That won't work here. But what WILL work, and DID work, was making YOU feel that YOU are all alone, isolated and powerless in your true-blue American progressive values, when the truth is just the opposite. You are by no means alone. AT LEAST 60% of the American people agree with you on all basic, progressive and democratic values--including on Bush and his war--and 20 million MORE people came out to vote on these things, than had ever voted before in history, in 2004, with the anti-Bush voters having a 60/40 edge in new registrations. In addition, independents and former Nader voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. Bush vs Gore in 2000 was a draw, with Gore having the edge in the popular vote. Where did the Bush/Cheney '04's margin COME FROM?
Out of thin air, is where it came from. Electrons spinning around in 'trade secret' programs run by Bushite corporations. And since the electronic election theft system was not entirely smooth and fully 'tested' yet (they likely had to pre-program the percentages in 2004--and changing them on election day, with Kerry's win bigger than expected, was not so easy), they added on Plan B, massive, blatant, illegal vote suppression in Ohio and other places.
They had the script written BEFORE the election. Gay marriage. "Invisible" church vote. The 'tight' race. (It wasn't even close--Kerry won by at least a 5% margin--despite his 'flip-flopping.') Bush's "mandate" (remember that?).
So, wheras Hitler appealed overtly to German pride and nationalism, a message that was resonant in crippled and demoralized, post- WW I country, Bush only PRETENDS to appeal to American pride and nationalism, while he destroys a powerful and prosperous country, mainly for the purposes of major LOOTING by his corporate puppetmasters (for now anyway--I think the precedents he is setting of executive tyranny are actually for a future scenario, 4-6 years down the line).
State and local jurisdictions still hold some power over election systems--power that the so-called "Help America Vote Act" is fast eroding (as intended). We have a window of opportunity, now and for several years, to restore election transparency, and, with it, our right to vote, and with that, our democracy, which has been taken away from us. We must seize back control of our election system, at the state/local level, as step one of getting our country back.
Hitler's "brown shirts" and 'Nazi youth' literally stuffed ballot boxes by violent means. We saw a bit of that--a crucial bit--in the 2000 election in Florida, and more of that kind of tactics in Ohio in 2004. But that just doesn't work, in the long run, here. We are too democratic--and too big, and too diverse, a nation. Subtler means had to be devised. And WE have to get subtler in our analysis, to figure out what's going on and to strategize successfully against it.
Although protesting the war, and sending thousands of letters to Congress about their 'rubber stamp' on Bush/Corporate tyranny, has educational, and certainly moral, value, it is largely useless as to influencing what happens. We have zero power to change anything--the opinion of the majority of Americans simply doesn't count--with fascists controlling the tabulation of our votes. Our vote is our sole means of exercising our sovereignty as a people. Our right to vote, our power to influence our government, and our very sovereignty have been taken away and SOLD to unfriendly and anti-democratic entities, who now hold sole control over who represents us, with 'TRADE SECRET' vote tabulation.
But we DO still have the power to change this--if we act quickly--by intense pressure on state/local officials, at levels of government that are still somewhat accountable to ordinary people.
-------------------------------
Some resources for American Revolution II:
Breaking news:
Californians sue the state over Diebold:
www.VoterAction.org--just announced--suing the state of California and 18 Calif county registrars on behalf of 25 California voter/plaintiffs, on the illegal Diebold "certification".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2180496Maryland rejects Diebold:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418263Florida - anti-trust accusations against Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2183630www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.votetrustusa.org (news of this great movement from around the country)
www.UScountvotes.org (statistical monitoring of '06 and '08 elections)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.bradblog.com (also great, and devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)*
Sign the petition (Russ Holt, HR 550, great bill-has 169 sponsors).
http://www.rushholt.com/petition.htmlwww.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)
www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.johnbonifaz.com (running for Massachusetts Sec of State on strong election reform and antiwar platform)
*Some tributes to TruthIsAll, who is very ill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417007http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417231http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x675477Also of interest:
Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy!)
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk
Bob Koehler's latest: "Take this box and stuff it" (3/16/06)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htmAmaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340
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Throw Diebold, ES&S and ALL election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!
:think: :patriot: :woohoo: :patriot: :think:
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"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."--Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence
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