If you liked Hitler's Germany you're going to love W's America. It's bad enough that we have to fight a war on terrorism against right wing, Islamic religious fanatics; now we have to fight a cultural war against the Latest incarnations of Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels in Bush, Rumsfeld and Rove. My God, when George W. Bush talks about religious fanatics trying to impose their values on others, he sounds as if he could be talking about the Radical Christian Reich which wants to impose its own peculiar brand of Christo-fascism (or, if you prefer, theo-sociopathy), on nearly 300 million Americans. And, let's remember--this is the same administration which used the terrorist attacks of 911 as an excuse to spy on fellow Americans--in much the same way that Hitler used the Reichstadt Fire to trample on the Wiemar Constitution.
First let's get something straight. When Bush and his fascist goons talk about appeasement during the 1930s, they are, in fact, talking about the America First movement, which, while widely popular at the time, was, for all intents and purposes, led by some of the most virulently anti-Semitic Republicans and right wing corporatists that the United States had ever known. Can you say Henry Ford? Do the initials IBM mean anything to you?
Second, the military situation that we saw in the 1940s was nothing like what we see in the year 2006. In the summer of 1942 Europe and Northern Africa were little more than Nazi playgrounds. Hitler's evil empire extended from France to the Southern Volga; from Norway to Egypt. German forces were threatening to overrun the Soviet Union. German U Boats were sinking allied supplies at a phenomenal rate. Imperial Japan had turnedthe Pacific Ocean into a Japanese lake. Large chunks of Asia had come under the heal of Imperial Japanese tyranny. Moreover, Japan had, only months earlier, bombed the United States Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, temporarily reducing the US to a nonentity in the Pacific Ocean.
That said, the Bush Administration, by invading and occupying a sovereign country (which according to W's recent outburst, had no link to 911) has revealed itself as a political bastard child of Hitler and Mussolini, Not Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt.
This may come as a shock and a revelation to the two or three people in this country who still support this half-baked clique of psychopaths, but Blaire and Bush are not Churchill and Roosevelt. Churchill and Roosevelt actually had a grant strategy for victory; they were actually able to plan ahead and anticipate what the enemy would do. Adolf Hitler, on the other hand, began to believe in his own greatness, and eventually made the foolish mistake of dividing and over-extending his forces during the battle for Russia. In a similar vein, George W. Bush, who thinks he has been chosen by God (read, who has come to believe in his own greatness) has over extended our troops by waging wars in both, Afghanistan and Iraq, creating a situation in which we are bogged down in the former and in which our real enemy, the dreaded Taliban, is returning in the latter.
Worse yet, we also see a demented rehash of Nazi racial theories in this administration was well. Remember how the Reich Wing pundits on Am hate radio told us that Lebanese civilians were expendable> Remember the drum beat from the Administration and the rubber stamp congress that drummed home the bigoted message that we "have to fight them over there so we won't have to fight them over there?" Translated out of the GOP Orwellian into the every day vernacular, the genocidal Republicans in Washington really DO believe that White, Western, Christians are biologically superior to brown-skinned, Mid-Easterners. Bush may not be building a modern day Auschwitz--at least not yet--but he and his warmongering supporters sure do seem to experience wargasms whenever they talk or think about the torture, suffering, and dying of non-Christians with brown skins. And we won't even mention the way they reacted--or, rather, did NOT react--when a racially mixed American city was all but washed away by a Hurricane named Katrina.
And now the kicker--their foolish obsession over people with brown skin ignores the fact that Islamic terrorists comes in all shades of color; they have completely forgotten the fact that Iraq is only one Islamic nation, remaining oblivious to the fact that terrorist cells may well be growing outside the Middles East. Yup. Real intelligence there.
All in all Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, and their authoritarian, lemming-like followers are engaging in classic projection. They know that they themselves are Christo-fascists, so they have to distract from this inconvenient fact by comparing their enemies to Hitler and themselves to Churchill and Roosevelt.
9 comments:
I'd be surprised to learn that W could SPELL FDR or Churchill, let alone watch someone in his administration compare themselves to such men of intellect and wisdom. The Bush gang is the one that couldn't shoot straight.
Bush is doing himself a disservice by referring to himself in the same sentence as Roosevelt. Does he really want to be compared to FDR? Bush has had a much better record that Roosevelt in nearly every regard, so why drag his own name through the mud? I mean, I understand that most Americans respect Roosevelt as a great leader, etc., but their justification for doing so flies in the face of reason! Meh..
Bush and his psychologically dysfunctional followers are doing humanity a disservice if they think for a minute that they are fully evolved human beings. If given half a chance I'm sure totalitarian leaders like bush and his mindless, authoritarian followers would track down every Muslim in america, rip them open with their bare hands, and eat the flesh in the name of social securities. MAN, I wonder what ind of trophies from iraq Bush has been collecting in the White House freezer. Probably body parts and dead children.
Thankfully nearly twenty years of conservative judicial "thinking" (and I use the term loosely in the case of conservatives) has brought us to the point where Anti Social Personality Disorder cannot be recognized as a basis a form of legal insanity in our justice system. Therefore, when Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld are finally brought up for crimes against humanity they will be deprived of this particular defense. And with genuine psychosis also being bypassed as a form of legal insanity, I would strongly suggest that these blood thirsty warmongers startt courting the trial lawyers who they detest so much because the sons of bitches are going to need them big time when their murderous hides are dragged before a legitimate court.
Ohhh how I look forward to the day when justice catches up with these fifth column Republicans. For their sake I hope they look good in orange jump suits. Just give the sons of bitches a fair trial and if you find them guilty simply confiscate their worldly possessions and exile the motherfuckers to a desert island where they can't do any harm. And if 123 wants to join them, all the better. With Rice as the only female 123 would probably make a good bitch for Chenney or Rumsfeld. Open your cheeks and say Aghhhhhhh.
Well, if you want to be objective, a far stronger case for FDR's mental illnesses could be made than the conjectures thrown out about Bush's. FDR's policies were also closer to being "authoritarian" than Bush's ever will be. Also, I wonder why you of all people, who I can only assume are a part of this blog, would even care if something as horrible as ripping apart American Muslims took place. Wouldn't that just bolster your arguments against the Republican nightmare while at the same time purifying the nation of religious zealots? Sounds like the proverbial stone killing two birds. The people on the Coalition seem to hate all followers of the Abrahamic tradition, so just say, "Good riddance!" and get over it.
And if your worst case scenario were to take place, I think I'd take you up on that offer to live in exile on the desert island. I think the conditions would be much more tolerable than the hate and fear based society you might be expected to advocate.
Not that it's going to convince any of you who can't seem to agree with anyone that doesn't unquestionably promote your opinions with exactness, but I dislike having Bush as the president as much as anyone. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to drive myself into a hate-frenzy and spew intolerant, uninformed rhetoric about the man. If he's terrible (and he is) then we shouldn't have to make up lies or exaggerations to justify our position, should we?
"Well, if you want to be objective, a far stronger case for FDR's mental illnesses could be made than the conjectures thrown out about Bush's."
That's what I like about you Chaos--you have a sense of humor!
"But that doesn't mean that I'm going to drive myself into a hate-frenzy and spew intolerant, uninformed rhetoric"
I think you're a little late, matey!
Look Mendy, I really don't mind if you feel like coming over here to vent your many frustrations, but would you at least have the courtesy to do it under your own name? Ditto to Tamara. If you have something to say to us or to a fellow commentator would you at least do the people you're criticizing the favor of providing some kind of identity that leads to a blog?
Daniel:
I wouldn't want Chaos to be getting credit for my alleged sense of humor. I don't know who that is, but give me a link to his/her blog and I'll congratulate the person on being considered in the same thought as me.
I don't have a blog, which is why I use the "Other" field. I'm much more interested in reading others' work and commenting on it than taking the time to make my own site.
As for my joking about FDR, well, I wasn't. If I remember correctly, wasn't FDR in denial about his health conditions during his tenure as president? And weren't his relations with his wife/cousin something we might call incestual? As for his presidency, he also saw the country through some of its worst times, exacerbated by some rather poor policies and personal flaws. His policies for alleviating the Depression didn't have their desired effects, his appeasement policy in the 1930s with regard to Nazi Germany is arguably the worst foreign policy the country has ever seen, he undermined the citizen's civil liberties, in the most well-known and documented act of racism by a U.S. president he rounded up Americans of Japanese descent and locked them away in internment camps, he had no clear strategy for winning World War II for the majority of our involvement in it, etc., etc.
So, while I do dislike Bush (and I can't seem to understand why you would question that, given his limitless, nameless shortcomings) I'm also level-headed enough to know that just because FDR is the dead poster child of the modern Democratic party, doesn't make him some saintly superhero that mustn't dare be compared to our current head of state.
"his appeasement policy in the 1930s with regard to Nazi Germany is arguably the worst foreign policy the country has ever seen, "
The problem with this, and the part that has raised a few eyebrows is that it is factually incorrect. While you may have a point about his detainment of the Japanese and fewer numbers of Germans and Italians, and while his policies didn't exactly help alleviate the Depression, he was on the other hand, NOT an issolationist. He wanted to get into the war to fight Adolf Hitler. As it turned out he more or less had it right in that regard.
Of course he ended up wanting to fight in WWII. It was the only realistic thing to do after the Pearl Harbor attacks. Imagine if the president had said, "It would be better to just forgive the Japs and let bygones be bygones." The country would have had his head!
The point isn't that he remained an isolationist, for quite clearly, as you point out, he didn't. He did, however, choose to appease the growing threat in Germany for nearly ten years before doing anything about it. And by the time he finally decided that it would be best to oppose Germany, he did it in such a way that only worsened the situation for the United States.
I imagine that if the Republicans win the White House again in two years and we're lucky enough that it's a good enough president that can fix the messes we're in now and tie up the loose ends, Bush will similarly be remembered as one of the great American presidents. We'll see in time.
Yes, but you're leaving out an important part of the equation. The issolationist movement that was led by the Republicans and followed by both sides of the political spectrum. Roosevelt was dead set against the issolationist movement. But you also have to remember that you had a very bitter Republican Party that was still stinging from the severe defats that it suffered in the 1932 elections. Anytime Roosevelt so much as mentioned something that reflected badly on the Hitler regime he was condemned for trying to drag America into another European War. Granted, World War I had been a study in savagery, but Roosevelt and Churchill also knew their Hitler.
In answer to another point--one you didn't make but which I received on the side--I'd like point out that America HAD been attacked by Germany prior to December 7, 1941. As a part of their justifictaion for our/their invasion and occupation of Iraq, certain individuals on the right claim that Germany had not attacked America. BUT...Germany and Japan had been allies for some time prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Moreover there had been physical attacks on American ships by German U boats prior to December 7, 1941.
In September 1941, a German U-Boat fired two torpedoes at the American destroyer GREER, which had been tracking said U boat for several hours. In October, 1941, German U-boats fired on and badly damaged the American destroyer KEARNY, killing eleven Navy men. The worst incident involved the sinking of the American destroyer REUBEN JAMES with a loss of one hundred-some men. Of course, you might argue that the United States had been aiding Britain's war effort against Germany through the Lend Lease Act, but that doesn't change the fact that the first shots had been fired by Germany. Ironically, this point has been made repeatedly by pro war hawks who insist that Hitler is a proper analogy for Saddam Hussein.
The upshot to this is that it tends to undermine your claim of Roosevelt's issolationism, because the Lend Lease program was a way to help England when the issolationists were dead set against getting involved in a European war.
As for your earlier remarks about Roosevelt concealing his paralysis. The obvious question is SO WHAT? The man had a physical defect.
On the other hand I have to add that I really liked Roosevelt...ELEANOR Roosevelt, who I think was actually more intelligent, more dedicated, and more open-minded than her husband.
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