In 1992 Pat Buchanan addressed the Republican National convention with talk of great "culture war" that would be waged in America. What he didn't tell the convention was that the right wing would declare the war by attacking the U.S. Constitution.
Buchanan didn't tell his audience that his culture war would pit Americans against one another. He didn't tell America that his culture war was purely partisan. He didn't tell those not supporting that convention that they would become targets of a right jihad.
He didn't tell the nation that his culture war would be an entirely negative, destructive war that would treat citizens as enemies of the state —though they are protected by the Constitution and are, in fact, on the right and historically correct side of the Constitution.
From the psychotic viewpoint of the increasingly radical right wing, it must destroy and subvert the Constitution in order to wage this war on the American population. Put another way: under Bush, the right wing has learned how to make legal what had been illegal under the Constitution.
In a monument to backward thinking and circular logic, the GOP will justify its subversion of the rule of law because it is necessary in order to achieve the right wing agenda.
Since 1992, the GOP has waged this war on many fronts: the schools, congressional districts, the courts, and, most insidiously, the validity of the ballot box itself. It is a war on anyone disagreeing with a narrow, increasingly rabid, fanatical
Weltanschauung.
Under George W. Bush, the GOP has waged this war on fellow Americans as Hitler waged his war on the Jew, that is, by denying the blessings of Due Process of Law to anyone who dares to dissent. It is a political war that exploits the advantages of corporate power by forging a fascistic partnership with the corporate community. In alliance with big, corporate media, for example, the right wing junta slanders individuals, undermines the Bill of Rights, and, in other ways— legal and illegal —destroys the very underpinnings of American society. This is, for them, as it was for Hitler, a single-minded quest for raw power. It is total cultural war.
The mere impeachment and imprisonment of George W. Bush will not begin to address the crisis. As many bloggers have pointed out recently: Bush is —as he has said —a war President. What escapes mere words is Bush's role. He has become the impresario of a radical, right wing, fascist agenda that pits American against American, citizen against citizen. Bush's war is not against Iraq; it is against America, the American people, the Constitution, the rule of law, and Due Process of Law. We have seen the enemy and it is George W. Bush, the GOP and all their "fellow travelers"!
Revolution is not always waged with violence in the streets. But, with Bush, there seems to be a resurrection of old tactics. Among more prominent examples is the gang of GOP "brownshirts" who feloniously attacked the recount rooms in Florida. More recently in Sugar Land, TX, a gang of thugs —supporting Tom DeLay --violently attacked a peaceful rally held by DeLay's Democratic opponent. Clearly —the right wing will not be satisfied until the Constitution is overthrown and a dictatorship installed; it has shown itself capable of violence and thuggery to make it happen.
Some recent events here at home illustrate how the right wing has racheted up their practices, strategies, lies and histrionics. Recent comments by Bill O'Reilly illustrate the extremes to which they will resort. It was bad enough that Ronald Reagan paid his "respects" to the Nazi SS at Bitburg, saying that they were likewise "victims" of Hitler's right wing regime, now we are expected sit quietly while Bill O'Reilly blames Amercans —not Nazi SS —for the massacre at Malmedy.
R. Reagan Paying Homage to SS at Bitburg At a time when the GOP seems to have adopted Nazi tactics —rewriting history among them —it is more than merely suspicious when a right wing, GOP apologist gets on television and tells the nation that it was U.S. troops who massacred SS combatants at Malmedy —and not the other way 'round.
The facts are these: it was the SS —not U.S. troops —who did the shooting. The SS literally set up a machine gun and mowed down U.S. troops who had been taken prisoner during the Battle of the Bulge.
It's easy enough to dismiss O'Reilly as either stupid or ignorant. It's hard to believe, however, that he's never seen a movie —many of which accurately portray the events at Malmedy. What's O'Reilly's excuse? What's his motive for defending Nazis?
Either O'Reilly is appallingly ignorant of American history which means he is both the product and the victim of GOP public education policies. Or —he deliberately reversed the roles of Americans and Nazis during World War II. If this is the best the right wing has to offer, then we are in deep
. Interestingly, right wing "commentators" —most prominently
, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly —are mean spirited and venomous. They will bend facts, lie, and re-write history to serve the interests of right wing propaganda. Their morality is a relative one; every crime is justified if it serves the party agenda.
I rather think Ronald Reagan missed the point. The SS were not the common foot soldiers Reagan described. They were the Nazi elite; they were not the victims but the co-conspirators in Hitler's dreams of absolute dictatorship and vainglorious world conquest.
In 1992 Pat Buchanan addressed the Republican National convention with talk of great "culture war" that would be waged in America. What he didn't tell the convention was that the right wing would declare the war by attacking the U.S. Constitution. Buchanan didn't tell his audience that his culture war would pit Americans against one another. He didn't tell America that his culture war was purely partisan. He didn't tell those not supporting that convention that they would become targets of a right jihad.He didn't tell the nation that his culture war would be an entirely negative, destructive war that would treat citizens as enemies of the state —though they are protected by the Constitution and are, in fact, on the right and historically correct side of the Constitution.From the psychotic viewpoint of the increasingly radical right wing, it must destroy and subvert the Constitution in order to wage this war on the American population. Put another way: under Bush, the right wing has learned how to make legal what had been illegal under the Constitution.In a monument to backward thinking and circular logic, the GOP will justify its subversion of the rule of law because it is necessary in order to achieve the right wing agenda.Since 1992, the GOP has waged this war on many fronts: the schools, congressional districts, the courts, and, most insidiously, the validity of the ballot box itself. It is a war on anyone disagreeing with a narrow, increasingly rabid, fanatical Weltanschauung.Under George W. Bush, the GOP has waged this war on fellow Americans as Hitler waged his war on the Jew, that is, by denying the blessings of Due Process of Law to anyone who dares to dissent. It is a political war that exploits the advantages of corporate power by forging a fascistic partnership with the corporate community. In alliance with big, corporate media, for example, the right wing junta slanders individuals, undermines the Bill of Rights, and, in other ways— legal and illegal —destroys the very underpinnings of American society. This is, for them, as it was for Hitler, a single-minded quest for raw power. It is total cultural war.The mere impeachment and imprisonment of George W. Bush will not begin to address the crisis. As many bloggers have pointed out recently: Bush is —as he has said —a war President. What escapes mere words is Bush's role. He has become the impresario of a radical, right wing, fascist agenda that pits American against American, citizen against citizen. Bush's war is not against Iraq; it is against America, the American people, the Constitution, the rule of law, and Due Process of Law. We have seen the enemy and it is George W. Bush, the GOP and all their "fellow travelers"! Revolution is not always waged with violence in the streets. But, with Bush, there seems to be a resurrection of old tactics. Among more prominent examples is the gang of GOP "brownshirts" who feloniously attacked the recount rooms in Florida. More recently in Sugar Land, TX, a gang of thugs —supporting Tom DeLay --violently attacked a peaceful rally held by DeLay's Democratic opponent. Clearly —the right wing will not be satisfied until the Constitution is overthrown and a dictatorship installed; it has shown itself capable of violence and thuggery to make it happen.Some recent events here at home illustrate how the right wing has racheted up their practices, strategies, lies and histrionics. Recent comments by Bill O'Reilly illustrate the extremes to which they will resort. It was bad enough that Ronald Reagan paid his "respects" to the Nazi SS at Bitburg, saying that they were likewise "victims" of Hitler's right wing regime, now we are expected sit quietly while Bill O'Reilly blames Amercans —not Nazi SS —for the massacre at Malmedy. 
8 comments:
Storm troopers kicking doors in the middle of the night doesn't seem near as frightening as the neighbor vs. neighbor thing that appears to be growing exponentially in this country. These right wing fruitcakes keep harping about family values while destoying all sense of community with their total intolerance of any original thought.
I see the classic Larry Flynt argument:
"Which is more obscene, war or masturbation?" These ignorant shits will pick masturbation every time.
Sadly and for all that talk about "love of freedom" the potential has always been with us. The "Alien and Sedition Acts" passed during the Adams administration were the first "Patriot Act" and were sold with the same fallacious rhetoric.
You are right: neighbor ratting on neighbor is a symptom of totalitarianism. The reign of Nero who succeeded Claudius must have been somthing like our own McCarthy era. Slander, Seneca was forced to live in exile but when he was allowed to return, he was accused of being part of a plot to murder Nero. Despite his assurances to Seneca, Nero ordered Seneca to commit suicide. There is an account of all this in Tacitus.
Some things never change and Bush exhibits many characteristics of Nero, Richard III, and Adolph Hitler.
Zarcaoui, bien sûr!
Lunacy, just plain lunacy. I read the US is still doing 25 air strikes a day in Afghanistan with most of the inevitable victims being women and children. As Paul Craig Roberts says: "America is drowning in the shame of war crimes."
What is it going to take to wake up people to these atrocities committed under the fiction of bringing peace? Do we have to do the Cambodian bombing runs all over again? This is nuts.
fuzzflash, Americans will never grasp the global obsession with "football" which we insist upon calling "soccer". Real "football", in America, is what Tom Landry and Vince Lombardi coached.
But —I suspect we've missed out something when "football" was turned into bread and circuses. Players are gladiators. Football became fascist when it was corporatized and even baseball went down the steroid path. Even that last bastion of real "sport" in America is in the process of selling out —College football. There haven't been any real student players of the game for some time now. At some point they will just drop the pretense and these "grunts" won't be expected to get passing grades in Calculus, Physics, or Economics.
"Scholarship" is the term used in college "football"; "Huge Contract" is the term used in pro sports. If anyone hadn't noticed —America lost its innocence a long time ago. Welcome to Rome!
dante lee and damien: Indeed! With regard to Afghanistan, I wonder if rurikid's rule of of thumb might be extrapolated to include "losing a war" as correlating factor with the rise in atrocities.
Len Hart:
Watch and marvel at the sordid history of rightwing denial of the Malmedy atrocity, complete with genuinely ugly eruptions of American homegrown anti-semitism.
Len, aside our homegrown anti-semitism and other Japanese immigrant nightmares lived onto the American soil during WWII, you miss another very big point the "greatest generation" ommits to remember: Roosevelt himself passively embraced the apartheid style segregation within the military - and we'd had to wait for Truman to strike Jim Crow segregation from the military three years after the war.
The racism and other abuses encountered by black American soldiers by their white sergeants and other officers, not counting the hostility of the common people surrounding training bases would have probably shocked even our good old Buffalo Soldiers!
Excellent take on the American gridiron. It was the triumphalism of the whole thing that began to turn me off early on...even though I may have had the makings of a good quarterback; I was quick, maneuverable, and could throw a neat spiral.
I had fewer problems with the game itself than with the attitude that festered around it —both players and spectators. George Carlin did a funny but accurate contrast with baseball. An example: "In football you strike deep in enemy territory to make a touchdown in the endzone! In baseball...you just wanna go home. Football is played on a GRIDIRON; baseball is played...in a park."
Now, alas, even baseball —that idyllic afternoon spent with peanuts and crackerjacks is now a teeth grinding excercise of fascism on steroids and other cheats.
American sport sucks and FOX is only partly to blame.
Broadway Joe! He was a great one. But please don't tell me it was the panty hose. Please leave one the unsullied memory of a sport that was at one time —if not perfect —at least a helluva lot better than it is now : )
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