The bush mafia motherfuckers just took out a hit

[Babsbrain]

Two of the NYT op-ed soldiers murdered this week

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/9/12/0926/28618

[NanceGreggs]

1. Just a coincidence ...

You DO believe in coincidence, don't you? It's kinda like the coincidence that Cheney's previous employer, Halliburton, wound up with all of those no-bid government contracts.

Yeah, THAT'S the ticket - coincidence.

That's all that's happening here; pure, unadulterated coincidence.

[Babsbrain]

8. LOL..so that's why he is called coinkydinky dicky n/t

[Karenina]

13. And IIRC ALL of Jessica Lynch's comrades

met untimely deaths...

[mod mom]

20. and why has the Pat Tillman story faded from the radar? How about some investigations-

with teeth!

[raccoon]

32. !!!! nt

[moodforaday]

26. Or this:

August 27, 2007:

Witnesses In Army Trial Killed In Crash

Several U.S. Army soldiers killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq last week were to be witnesses in the homicide trial of their former superior.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2967693

Another coincidence. Could someone please compute the odds of these specific soldiers getting killed rather than others, not similarly involved?

[LeftCoast]

2. I think this is tragic enough without wrapping it in tin-foil

Their deaths make their Op-Ed even more powerful. While Bush is ultimately responsible for their deaths, it certainly doesn't serve his purposes by having them die.

[aquart]

5. Wellllll, that would be a reasonable assumption.

Little Caligula doesn't actually use reason. He uses spite. They were disloyal to him, therefore they have no right to live.

I don't know if he did anything. Given the danger, he didn't have to. BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN HE DIDN'T. He is just that crazy a bastard.

So I'll keep an open mind on the death of any Bush critic.

[LeftCoast]

6. I think it's a mistake to view these people as crazy

They're immoral. Heartless. Utterly selfish. Not crazy though.

Know your enemy. Don't let him confuse you.

I believe if you don't know your enemy you can't fight him effectively.

[aquart]

14. Agreed.

I'll qualify "crazy" then. I certainly do not mean any known disease. But the utter lack of empathy argues a defect. I don't know about other Republicans, but GW Bush fakes being a normal human. His behavior is always off. Does sociopath fit this?

He doesn't feel for other people. Which makes killing easy. And that's what you have to know about him.

[Babsbrain]

7. His purpose is to suppress ALL criticism

Do you really think a soldier will speak out against him now?

[LeftCoast]

9. Yeah...actually I do

For your theory to be correct, the vast majority of soldiers would have to believe that their Commander in Chief had two soldiers murdered because they expressed their opinion. You really think that would strengthen their resolve to stay in Iraq?

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Riktor]

11. Come on...

Comparing this administration to Nazi Germany is a slap in the face to those who survived it. The Bush Administration is nothing but an acid flashback of history, a brief revival of McCarthy era paranoia combined with Gilded Age economic policy. There are no pogroms, no "hanging judge", no concentration camps, no bans on political parties, no book burnings, and there's no one kicking down your front door for using this forum.

If you find this hard to fathom, I can refer you to a few friends of mine. They've got the tattoos to prove it.

[deutsey]

12. Fascism can take many forms. I agree, though, that lumping Bush in with Nazism

is counterproductive. Bush and his crowd are far more subtle and sophisticated in their authoritarianism, imo.

[iamahaingttta]

15. Yet.

But we have had a "Reichstag Fire," preemptively invaded other countries, held citizens without charges, and there are plenty of "Good Americans" who think I should be dead for simply disagreeing with them.

I know two people with tattoos also, and one woman who lived like Anne Frank. They all are afraid of what the U.S. has become, and believe that one more 9/11 type event could push us over into doing the things you describe.

Therefore, I don't believe that "comparing this administration to Nazi Germany is a slap in the face to those who survived it," but rather an attempt to keep that from happening. Those who don't learn from history, and all that...

[tom_paine]

17. BULLSHIT! Ask your friends who lived through it, if they see no similarities

of the Germany during the Rise of Hitler, BEFORE the really bad shit happened?

Ask them is they see no similarities between Bushies and Nazis. If they haven't seen Hannity & Colmes or O'Reilly & Limbaugh, get them to watch or listen, and THEN ask them!

Have you done that yet? "Do you see similarities between now and Germany 1930-1936?"

I do not have any living relatives or friends who have firsthand experience, but I have "asked" Victor Klemperer, who lived through it and recorded it all.

http://www.amazon.com/Will-Bear-Witness-1933-1941-Paperbacks/dp/0375753788

Perhaps you should read that book...note the hatred of liberals, the overall "normalcy" of life in Nazi Germany 1936, swelling nationalism, threat of treasons (at that time, mostly just threats...just like now).

I have explained this a thousand times: If you are waiting for the New Totalitariansim to resemble one of the old ones, you will have a long wait? Why? To provide you with the plausible deniabliliy which will keep you from noticing the similarties... until it's too late. To sell the American People on something that is the OPPOSITE of what they stood for.

Does this mean we are doomed to become American Nazism? Doubtful. Undiluted Nazism is one of the very few things BushCheney could NOT sell as a product to the Imperial Subjects of Amerika.

However, they COULD and ARE selling us a New Totalitarianism, which is in the same family (Right-Wing Authoritarianism) as the Nazis.

You say we dishonor the Nazis Victims by pointing out the similarities between Nazis and Bushies:

"The Jews are traitors to Germany. They always side with Germany's enemies."
"The Liberals are trators to America. They always side with America's enemies."

Good God, throw off your blinkers and wake UP!

Read the Klemperer book I have linked to. Read "Farenheit 451" for an idea in which the essential Nazi ideas such as perpetual conflict can be revived WITH looking exactly like Nazidom.

Or just read your morning newspaper, to notice the same...

No one knows what the future will bring. It may indeed turn out that the Bushie-Nazi connection were hysterical hyperbole. But we do ourselves, and the past victims of ALL totalitarianisms, a greater disservice when we let high dudgeon blind us to the realities.

The Bushies are at least somewhat related to the Nazis in almost ALL areas EXCEPT rascism and overt violence. Propaganda, demonization of opponents, use of war as distraction, percentage of lies told of all things said the the public...all similar or even identical. Nazi and Bushies certainly do lie with the same frequency of >98% of the time. That has been established by REALITY.

If the Bushies and their Stormtrooper Base ever reduce the difference in violence and overt rascism (and beware of another "terrorist" attack or an economic tragedy which will may serve as a trigger for this), then your folly of denial will become clear much more rapidly.

As always, I would rather you were right, and I was trapped in a haze of hyperbole.

But maybe you should ask your friends about the Rise of Hitler, and maybe you should read Klemperer (focus on 1933-37) FIRST.

Finally, I leave who with a quote from Karl Jaspers, a German Psychiatrist WHO ALSO LIVED THROUGH THE RISE OF HITLER. Take heed!

"All over the world I dread the self-deception which we have experienced - that this could not happen here. It can happen anywhere. It is improbable only where the broad masses of the population are aware of the possible menace and thus will not be lulled into security; where they know the type of totalitarianism and will recognize it in its rudimentary stages and in each of its manifestations - this Proteus who keeps appearing in ever new masks, who slips eel-like out of our grasp, who does the opposite of what he says, who distorts the meaning of words, who speaks not in order to communicate or tell the truth, but in order to numb, to distract, to hypnotize, to intimidate, to dupe - who will exploit and evoke every fear, and will promise security and utterly wreck it at the same time.

Totalitarianism is neither Communism nor fascism nor National Socialism, but it has appeared in all of these forms. It is the universal, terrible threat of the future of mankind in a mass order. It is a phenomenon of our age, detached from all the politics governed by principles of a historic national existence of constitutional legality. Wherever it comes to power, domestic politics gives way to intrigues and acts of force, and foreign policy, the conduct of relations with other states, is shrouded in a semblance of talk and negotiation, but without being tied to any rules of the game, to any community of human interests."

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jaspers02.htm

THINK ABOUT the truth of that statement, this from a man who LIVED THROUGH IT.

Put down your outrage and wake up your reason. Read. Look. Ask. Learn.

[Pacifist Patriot]

19. I felt the cold sting of ice water in the pit of my stomach when I read the post...

to which you are responding. I cannot believe this individual has truly been in communication with survivors of Nazi Germany. Their anguish right now is almost too overwhelming to bear and it is one more story being completely ignored by the media.

Drawing comparisons is distasteful only because Americans like to imagine themselves as paragons of virtue and human rights champions. Sadly, our policies are far from either and getting worse. Anyone who is offended by being compared to the rise of Nazi Germany needs to dive into some history books, preferrably into the 20s and 30s--not just the 40s, and wake up and smell the coffee.

[flyarm]

23. PLEASE READ...When rabbis liked Hitler: A tale for the Mideast

THIS IS AN OLD ARTICLE I KEPT AND HAVE POINTED IT OUT TO MANY THROUGH THE YEARS..

i find it extremely interesting ...

fly


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/EL09Aa01.html

http://www.atimes.com

Front Page

SPENGLER

When rabbis liked Hitler: A tale for the Mideast



snip:

It was not so long ago that the orthodox rabbis of Berlin liked Adolf Hitler for precisely the same reason that many Muslims do today, namely as an antidote to moral decay in the modern world. No, this is not an out-take from The Producers. The story is told in Mark Shapiro's recent book, Between the Yeshiva World and Modern Orthodoxy: The Life and Works of Rabbi Jehiel Jacob Weinberg.

Six months after Hitler seized power in 1933, several leading Berlin rabbis wrote to him pledging loyalty to Germany. The rabbis argued that they, the orthodox, shared the Nazis' moral values, as opposed to decadent Bolshevism and libertinism, as opposed to the left-wing Jews who made up much of the avant garde. The rabbis promised Hitler that they would do their best to persuade Jews around the world to end a boycott on German products. In retrospect that seems like a terrible mistake. Still, one would like to know whether these rabbis, given complete foresight, still would have preferred Hitler to, say, Barbra Streisand.

Nor was the rabbis' letter to Hitler entirely exceptional. A majority of Italy's Jews joined Benito Mussolini's Fascist party, which espoused an ideology similar to Hitler's, but without the Jew-hating. Faced with a catastrophic shift in values in the wake of World War I, many European Jews looked for a repressive government willing to impose traditional values.

[SlowDownFast]

25. Excellent response.

Thank you.

Wish I could recommend this post...

[Riktor]

28. Then call it what it is...

While you have presented a litany of parallels between Bush and Hitler, it is my contention these similarities are merely superficial. With enough time and patience, I am sure you could flip through the pages of history and find a similar litany of similarities between Bush and, say, Septimus Severan. Mankind has had almost ten thousand years to perfect authoritarianism, and it should therefore come as no surprise to anyone when two authoritarians exhibit similar tactics. However, the two parties' ethos is completely different.

First the Nazis were populists, anti-Junker, and anti-capitalist. They not only accepted the government's ability to intervene in the affairs of private business, they demanded it; Many of Germany's more progressive labor laws were drawn up by the Third Reich. In their view, the citizen should be a slave to the state, not to his or her employer. Now, compare that to the GOP's blatant crony capitalism.

Next, we have religion. For all the antisemitism of the Nazi Party, the Nazis themselves weren't too keen on religion as a whole. While Hitler did go after atheists and freethinkers, his stance on religion was moderate and decidedly anti-clerical. Now, compare that with Bush's born again bullshit.

Next, we have motivation. Nazi Germany's expansionism was rooted in a few causes. First, Hitler wanted all territories lost after the Versailles treaty returned to Germany. Second, Hitler wanted revenge on those powers that emasculated Germany after World War I. Third, Hitler wanted liebesraum (living space) for what he envisioned to be the exponential proliferation of the Aryan Race over the next thousand years. While the Bush administration may be a bit hokey, they are not THIS hokey. The primary motivation behind Bush's policies, both internal and foreign, revolve around the monetary gain of his financial benefactors. This is not national socialism. This is crony capitalism, and it is sadly not outside the normal standards of behavior of any recent president. Lest I remind you, Eisenhower had the Guatemalan government overthrown in 1954 for the sole benefit of preserving United Fruit's stock prices.

Finally, the assertion that this administration uses fear to keep people subservient and therefore has Nazi sympathies is absurd. Practically every administration this country has been host to has played this time-honored tactic to keep the masses in line. In fact, I challenge you to find a period in American history where this was not the case.

While the GOP and the NSDAP may have similar rhetorical devices and methods of stifling dissent, there is a huge divergence in terms of ethos, and it is therefore disingenuous to label them Nazis. The victims of Nazi Germany were the victims of a bizarre and outrageous social experiment orchestrated by some of the most deluded individuals the world has ever seen. The Nazi mentality dictated that their actions were justified as the morally correct method of building a state. The American government has no such pretensions. They are not moral or immoral, but amoral. They just don't care what consequences their actions may wreck on others, so long as their stock portfolios are doing well.

The "fascist" and "nazi" routine is too cliche. It is a propagandist device used to play on people's disgust, not stimulate their capacity to reason. So why don't we just call these bastards what they are? They are the action figures of multi-billion dollar industries. Every piece of legislation they enact serves to benefit those who have, to the detraction to those who don't. Of course this administration is decidedly authoritarian, but "authoritarian" and "nazi" are not interchangeable terms, much to the chagrin of those who think "fascist" is a catch all term for "conservative".

As for your assertion that I am somehow blind and on the path of "it can't happen here", you're preaching to the choir. It can happen anywhere. However, as I flipped through Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States", I came to the conclusion that this administration's bullshit is decidedly unremarkable. I would venture to say it is no more clandestine or authoritarian than any other administration of this century, it's merely the most inept.

[tom_paine]

31. Well, I cannot deny you have made your points and made them well, but you have made incorrect assump

tions. I don't use the Nazi comparison as propaganda. I use it because it is real. As a propaganda strategy, it is a dreadful one, for all the reasons you say.

But it isn't a propaganda strategy. It is the anguished knowledge that the danger for some form of Extreme Totalitarianism originating from within America is now greater than it has ever been in my lifetime, and perhaps ever, considering the Bushie "Smedley Butler" Coup that failed against FDR in 1934 (don't tell me you haven't heard about that?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_20070723.shtml
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/morgan4.htm

In spite of your knowledge, I would still like you to read Klemperer, please.

http://www.amazon.com/Will-Bear-Witness-1933-1941-Paperbacks/dp/0375753788

I think you also make a few serious misinterpretations of history.

You said:

First the Nazis were populists, anti-Junker, and anti-capitalist. They not only accepted the government's ability to intervene in the affairs of private business, they demanded it; Many of Germany's more progressive labor laws were drawn up by the Third Reich.

I think that's VERY misleading, if not factually untrue. Hitler and the Nazis came to power with the aid of the aristocratic German Right and the Wealthy Industrialists. The key point I am trying to make is that Hitler (like Bush) had to camoflauge himself in order to gain the help of the people whom his policies would ultimately screw over.

For an "anti-capitalist" he sure had the backing of capitalism's wealthiest. Why was that? Self-hatred on the part of aristoratic Prussian Wealth? That Hitler was anti-capitalist is perhaps the most directly incorrect thing you have said, and makes me wonder if I am not arguing with a Hertiage Foundation "intellectual" - sorry, guy, you got that 100% opposite of history's reality.

So that while, once Hitler achieved power and had his 9/11 to consolidate it, his true nature became clearer. Yes and then he started acting like the Communists he said he hated, AFTER he had fooled his way into power. But that is merely another similarity to Bush, the who acts like the Soviets now, too, in matters of surveillance, habeus corpus, etc...

Your interpretation of Hitler's "progressive" labor laws is one I must STRONGLY disagree on. Hitler dissolved the trade unions...very progressive, and his workers saw a steady decline in their quality of life and salary once he had gained total power and cemented it, around 1937 or 1938.

Read up on the Story of the Volkswagon, itself an example of fake socialism (I happen to be an FDR Capitalist, just so you know...full disclosure) masking a Right-Wing con game.

I again, your repeition of the historically false Heritage Foundation NewBush NewHistory. Yes, Hitler and the Trade Unions: A Progressive Story. J'Accuse! Your assesrtion is historic hogwash. Sorry to be so harsh, but Heritage-type talking points (which I presume you do not even realize that you are parroting), steam me up because they do a judo-flip to reality andturn it into it's opposite.

You said:

Next, we have religion. For all the antisemitism of the Nazi Party, the Nazis themselves weren't too keen on religion as a whole. While Hitler did go after atheists and freethinkers, his stance on religion was moderate and decidedly anti-clerical. Now, compare that with Bush's born again bullshit.

Here you acturally made my point by highlighting the similarity between Bush and Hitler: blullshit. In fact, your oversimplification only applies to the Nazis, post-1936. Before that, Hitler presented himself as a Good Christian. Yes, look it up. Gott Mitt Uns. Our Noble and Godly Fuhrer and this picture, which says it all:



Now THAT'S antireligious, eh?

No, they are much more alike in the very wide gap between their False Christianity and their murderous actions, as well as the lying face they put to it. Yes, Hitler threw his mask off more quickly, but that was because he was able to gain deeper power more quickly. Further, Bush may never drop his mask at all, but maintain the lie right up until the end of his life.

I did not say Bush was IDENTICAL to Hitler, nor nearly as bad or evil (at least for now), but that the similarities are now too great to ignore.

You said:

Next, we have motivation. Nazi Germany's expansionism was rooted in a few causes. First, Hitler wanted all territories lost after the Versailles treaty returned to Germany. Second, Hitler wanted revenge on those powers that emasculated Germany after World War I. Third, Hitler wanted liebesraum (living space) for what he envisioned to be the exponential proliferation of the Aryan Race over the next thousand years.

Again I say, you are looking in the wrong places for your answers. Yes, the detailed desires of the Bushies and Nazis differ. Of course they do. None of those things you said can even apply to Amerika 2007, which makes that a non sequitur.

As in, "Yes I am well aware that the specific goals of the Nazis are different from the specific goals of EVERY OTHER TOTALITARIANISM. Ok, so what does that prove?"

However, you missed one key motivation to achieve these goals the demonization of people who gave the "stab in the back" in WWI and the decadent Liberalism (you better not try to tell me THAT isn't true, because it is by God a 100% fact cdorroborated in eyewitness accounts and thousands of histories!) that was dragging Germany down.

I will also add (if I haven't said it in another post), that there is precious little difference between the concepts of Fuhrerprinzip and the Unitary Executive. I cannot see how you could argue the central philosphies of Hitler and Bush could be merely cosmetic similarities, but feel free to do so. Just don't expect me or anyone to buy it.

Once again, it comes down to the fact that you believe that this is but another of the gyrations of American History. I maintain that, even if the next Nazis and Hitler haven't come, then Caesar and the Imperials are here.

I also maintain that those parts of the Hitler-Bush similarty break down, they can be explained by the Caesar-Bush similarity (really, that analogy is actually more relevant than the Hitler analogy).

We must continue to agree to disagree. The similarities are NOT cosmetic only. You cannot make me accept Heritage Foundation NewBush Conventional Wisdom...do you realize that is what you are embracing here? You cannot make me accept, in the face of thousands of books, articles, and testimony, that Hitler was anti-capitlaist, except after he had total control and then he was anti-EVERYONE.

Although, what a happy day it will be for humanity and the world if you turn out to be correct about this being just another iteration of American history. I'll be quite happy, myself.

Finally, and I will say it again, the Bushies will do everything THEY have to do to camoflauge their ultimate goals, which remain unclear in terms of Final Solutions. We will get to see, in no more than 50 years and probably less than 30. It depends on how much of the Old America they keep around as window-dressing to their ambitions.

And if you haven't noticed that BushCheney and their henchpersons aren't IN THEIR OWN WAY (not as murderous nor obviously outfront as the Nazis, but in their own Amerika-2007 way) "some of the most deluded individuals the world has ever seen", then I can only suppose you have not been watching very closely.

Of course BushPutinism isn't National Socialism, itself a lie of a name meant to fool German Workers to fall in line. ANY philosophy, as Jaspers said, can be used to advance authoritarian totalitarianism, that's the point.

You keep focusing on the "cosmetic" dissimilarities of economy. I'll keep focusing on the larger picture, such as the similarties of asuthoritarian pyschology, mentality and propaganda that run straight to the core of the soul of BOTH these groups.

Please click on the link in my sigline. That will give you a deeper understanding of why I and many believe that the Bushies and the Nazis are related much closer than people think.

[Riktor]

35. Rebuttal

I don't use the Nazi comparison as propaganda. I use it because it is real. As a propaganda strategy, it is a dreadful one, for all the reasons you say.

But it isn't a propaganda strategy. It is the anguished knowledge that the danger for some form of Extreme Totalitarianism originating from within America is now greater than it has ever been in my lifetime, and perhaps ever, considering the Bushie "Smedley Butler" Coup that failed against FDR in 1934 (don't tell me you haven't heard about that?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/document/document_2...
http://american_almanac.tripod.com/morgan4.htm

In spite of your knowledge, I would still like you to read Klemperer, please.

http://www.amazon.com/Will-Bear-Witness-1933-1941-Paper...

Point taken. I'm sorry if I jumped to any conclusions about you, but you cannot deny that a large portion of our progressive brethren will always fall back on referring to conservatives as "fascists" or "nazis" merely as a hyperbole for their authoritarian leanings.

While I am current wrapped up in Richard Hofstadter's "The American Political Tradition", I'll take your suggestion into consideration.




I think that's VERY misleading, if not factually untrue. Hitler and the Nazis came to power with the aid of the aristocratic German Right and the Wealthy Industrialists. The key point I am trying to make is that Hitler (like Bush) had to camoflauge himself in order to gain the help of the people whom his policies would ultimately screw over.

For an "anti-capitalist" he sure had the backing of capitalism's wealthiest. Why was that? Self-hatred on the part of aristoratic Prussian Wealth? That Hitler was anti-capitalist is perhaps the most directly incorrect thing you have said, and makes me wonder if I am not arguing with a Hertiage Foundation "intellectual" - sorry, guy, you got that 100% opposite of history's reality.

So that while, once Hitler achieved power and had his 9/11 to consolidate it, his true nature became clearer. Yes and then he started acting like the Communists he said he hated, AFTER he had fooled his way into power. But that is merely another similarity to Bush, the who acts like the Soviets now, too, in matters of surveillance, habeus corpus, etc...

Your interpretation of Hitler's "progressive" labor laws is one I must STRONGLY disagree on. Hitler dissolved the trade unions...very progressive, and his workers saw a steady decline in their quality of life and salary once he had gained total power and cemented it, around 1937 or 1938.

Read up on the Story of the Volkswagon, itself an example of fake socialism (I happen to be an FDR Capitalist, just so you know...full disclosure) masking a Right-Wing con game.

It was stated very early on (as early as the mid 1920s), that the NSDAP rejected what they referred to as "Marxist Socialism". That is, they refused to nationalize most industries. However they did impose strict wage controls, production quotas, and regulated industrial access to natural resources. The GOP agenda has proven to be the exact opposite. They oppose raising the minimum wage, they dole out billions in corporate welfare to failing companies, and they refuse to enact resource conserving legislation.

The abolition of labor unions should come as no surprise, as workers may wind up owing more allegiance to their unions than the government. To compensate for taking away collective bargaining and the right to strike, the government eliminated unemployment and undertook various welfare programs, such as Kraft durch Freude. Furthermore, the Nazi government instituted the Four Year Plan, a larger, more effective version of FDR's New Deal. Again, the GOP's position is clearly to the contrary. The Republicans maintain unemployment is necessary and that welfare programs drain revenue. The only thing the two have in common here is that they both have a thing for hating labor unions.

While it is true the average German's real income dropped by nearly a quarter between 1933 and 1938, most didn't see it as a set back. The Great Depression ended in Germany, everyone was employed, and the average worker no longer needed to worry about how he was going to put food on the table. The GOP's answer to unemployment is "Get a job", and their answer to starving citizens is "Let them starve".

Again I say, you are looking in the wrong places for your answers. Yes, the detailed desires of the Bushies and Nazis differ. Of course they do. None of those things you said can even apply to Amerika 2007, which makes that a non sequitur.

It's not a non sequitur, as the point I was making is Nazi expansionism was driven by revolutionary rhetoric; they believed themselves the architects of a new, better world. American neo-imperialism is nothing of the sort. America uses proxies or invades other nations for the purpose of lining the pockets of rich industrialists. They didn't blow the shit out of Grenada to build a better world, they did it to maintain the status quo.

However, you missed one key motivation to achieve these goals the demonization of people who gave the "stab in the back" in WWI and the decadent Liberalism (you better not try to tell me THAT isn't true, because it is by God a 100% fact cdorroborated in eyewitness accounts and thousands of histories!) that was dragging Germany down.

No, I didn't. I explicitly stated that every generation of Americans is told they have to be afraid of some contingent of their fellow citizens. "Liberals" are just what's on the menu at the moment. Over the course of American history, we've already persecuted the Irish, the Italians, the Germans, the Poles, the Asians, the Hispanics, the Blacks, the Native Americans, the socialists, the communists, the atheists, the Masons, the Catholics, the Hippies and the Yippies, rock music, video games, labor unions, and drug users. Every SINGLE president this country has survived has told us there's people in this country trying to fuck things up.

Once again, it comes down to the fact that you believe that this is but another of the gyrations of American History. I maintain that, even if the next Nazis and Hitler haven't come, then Caesar and the Imperials are here.

I find that to me a more compelling comparison. Our Gaul is the Middle East. Our Rubicon is Iraq.

We must continue to agree to disagree. The similarities are NOT cosmetic only. You cannot make me accept Heritage Foundation NewBush Conventional Wisdom...do you realize that is what you are embracing here?

I certainly realize condescension when I read it.

Finally, and I will say it again, the Bushies will do everything THEY have to do to camoflauge their ultimate goals, which remain unclear in terms of Final Solutions.

I think the PNAC makes their despicable goals alarmingly clear.

And if you haven't noticed that BushCheney and their henchpersons aren't IN THEIR OWN WAY (not as murderous nor obviously outfront as the Nazis, but in their own Amerika-2007 way) "some of the most deluded individuals the world has ever seen", then I can only suppose you have not been watching very closely.

I really don't think the Bush Administration is in any way fooling themselves about what they are doing, and thus I don't find them quite as deluded as those with, say, messianic complexes. Again, their problem isn't that they are immoral, it is that they are amoral.

[Niccolo_Macchiavelli]

33. nice post, just a little detail

it would be

LEBENSRAUM (living space)

Liebesraum would be (loving room)

[Riktor]

34. D'oh

While I admit my German's a bit rusty, that was a pretty colossal error on my part. Further proof of what may happen when one types too quickly in another language.

[Pacifist Patriot]

18. I can refer you to a few friends of mine.

They have the tattoos and are desperately trying to sound the alarm that the course our country is on is eerily and chillingly all too familiar.

It's a slap in the face to those who survived Nazi Germany to ignore the warning signs we are getting now.

[backscatter712]

24. The Bushies are Nazis.

The scale of death isn't quite at the level of Nazi Germany, but that isn't through lack of effort. Bush and his ilk have already killed a million people. As for concentration camps, what do you think Gitmo is, a Club Med resort?

Go read Conservatives Without Conscience, or Bob Altemeyer's The Authoritarians. There you have it. Bush and his ilk think exactly like the Nazis did - the same authoritarian mindset, the same willingness to do anything to further their power with absolutely no thought about the human price.

I don't wish to diminish the crimes of Nazi Germany, but I'm sorry, Bush and Cheney are that bad - he just hasn't gotten around to half of what the Nazis did, yet...

[Lucinda]

4. Interesting comment from someone at Kos

"I Was Just Watching a replay of the Petraeus /Crocker testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I think it was Biden who brought up that op-ed and mentioned those soldiers. He told Petraeus 'who are we to believe?' - that the sevens account of the surge was much different than Petraeus'.

Later in questioning by Feingold when asked about American deaths Petraeus mentioned that we just lost two more soldiers in a vehicle accident.

Then I come here and read this. It had to be the same two that Petraeus mentioned. It took me back more than a little when I read this diary having just viewed what I did...."

You'd think Petraeus might have mentioned that it was two of the op/ed people....

[mod mom]

22. "might have mentioned that it was two of the op/ed people" in front of Feingold

et al? I think he wanted to wait until he was out of enemy fire.

My heart breaks for the families. I can't imagine losing a child.

:(

[orleans]

10. K&R n/t

[malaise]

16. If this is true it's quite pointless

since soldiers are facing death in Iraq 24/7. This won't silence these brave men and women.

[Pacifist Patriot]

21. I'm curious about the statistical odds.

Not that they necessarily prove or disprove anything, but I find numbers intriguing. What are the odds that these two individuals out of the numbers deployed would be killed this week?

[PinkyisBlue]

29. We should keep an eye out for the other five soldiers who wrote the opinion piece.

If any of them are also involved in a tragic accident, it will be more than a coincidence.

[LaPera]

27. They want everyone to know...You expose & fuck with us you DIE!

This is typical thuggery of the mob Bush/Cheney & their crime family now in complete control of our government.

[Ilsa]

30. Isn't the cause of the "accident" still undetermined? IOW, there is plenty

of reason to be skeptical about how these people people died and who was responsible for it. Just like the helo accident.