Man, if only the Democrats would align exactly with my own particular political beliefs, they’d win! (repeat a nasuem with about 80 different people with contradictory viewpoints).
For my money, it would be nice for my views to be fully represented, but I’d much rather make sure that we have Democrats who will clearly align with their own views, without fear or trepidation. See, that’s the thing about strength of conviction - if you can clearly and compellingly articulate to me why you hold position X, I’ll be able to respect you, and be more willing to go along with you.
My point is just that I want the Democrat to dictate what his or her position is and how he or she talks about that position. I don’t want the Republicans, or fear of the Republicans, to dictate those things.
Can I borrow your thesaurus to find a better word to describe those that rig elections, torture their enemies, incarcerate people indefinitely without charges, spy on their own people, try to control the media, and invoke hyper-patriotism as the answer to any and all questions about their tactics?
Democrats?
Ask FDR and LBJ about all of that stuff.
How’d we get onto Page 3 before the first lame, partisan tu quoque attempt?
Because we spent the first two pages on lame “the Democrats would win if only they felt exactly like I do on the issues” stuff?
All that is in reaction to the OP. Evil One started this thread, apparently, to persuade Dems to tack to the right. If I didn’t know better I’d suspect he/she were, for some reason, scared of the Dems tacking to the left . . .
Did the military under either of these two conduct torture? Was there an equivalent to FOX news when FDR was around? Did the Democratic Party seek control of NPR under LBJ? Did LBJ mention the Gulf of Tonkin in every single speech he made for 5 years? Did LBJ wiretap citizens without a warrant?
Yes. Read up on My Lai, on World War II interrogation staff, and how the U.S. tried to reclassify German POWs so that they wouldn’t need to be treated by the Geneva Convention.
Depends on what you mean by “an equivalent”. Certainly, the newspapers of the time knew plenty of dirt on FDR, JFK, and LBJ (affairs for all three, health problems for FDR and JFK) that they didn’t bother to reveal because it “wasn’t done”. And certainly all three had newspapers that were friendly to them that they favored, and unfriendly newspapers they worked against. (Re: FDR’s feud with the Chicago Tribune, LBJ trying to destroy the careers of newspapermen who came out against Vietnam)
I have no idea what you mean by this. If you’re falling back to the canard “FOX news is controlled by Republicans who sell Republican propaganda as news and suck Karl Rove’s dick and eat, drink, and shit Republican”, then you’re just lame. Especially if you think that there weren’t newspapers just as driven by Democratic propaganda in the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s. (And there were those driven by Republican propaganda, too.)
No. Has George Bush mentioned 9/11 in every speech he made for the last 5? You wanna lay money down on that?
How about this - has George Bush referenced 9/11 in as many speeches as FDR referenced World War II, or LBJ referenced the fight against Communism? I’d heartily agree with that.
Well, he had the FBI wiretap David Brinkely and other reporters who talked against the Vietnam War. Whether he did it “without a warrant” I can’t say, because I believe it was done in the timeperiod before FBI wiretaps required public warrants.
Tell you what John- you give me a dollar for every time a Bush speech included a reference to 9/11 and I’ll give you two dollars for every time he didn’t. I might not be able to retire on it, but it should be good for a big screen TV.
Back to the NPR, or more generically the CPB. The White House appointments to the boards are pushing public broadcasting to the right.
I regret mentioning NPR instead of PBS, since most of the focus seems to be on steering PBS rightward. But there is an undeniable push from the GOP to remove objectivity from public broadcasting.
To be clear: I am not saying that George Bush is a good president, that any of the things he is doing is a good thing, that any of the things done by FDR and LBJ referenced above were good things, or that FDR and LBJ’s actions somehow make Bush’s actions acceptable or good.
What I am saying is that refering to George Bush as a “fascist” for the above-referenced tactics is absurd unless one is also willing to describe every president for the last fifty years as “fascist”. And while I’m positive there are people on this board who would do so, I do not feel that BobLibDem is one of them.
Except that to most Republicans, there never was objectivity in public broadcasting to begin with; it (and much of the MSM) was always a bastion of liberal thought, so by making it more conservative, you’re creating the balance that was never there to begin with.
Nope, I am not willing to call every president fascist since none of them presented a threat to democratic government to the extent that Bush has. “Landslide Lyndon” was no choir boy, but I cannot lump in with Bush. And since “every president for the last fifty years” includes Jimmy Carter, then it would be patently absurd to call them all fascists.
Perhaps this should be its own thread, but I am by far the first to consider Bush a fascist. Here is an interesting article outlining 14 points of fascism. How many of these seem familiar now?
1- Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2- Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3- Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4- Supremacy of the Military
5- Rampant Sexism
6- Controlled Mass Media
7- Obsession with National Security
8- Religion and Government are Intertwined
9- Corporate Power is Protected
10- Labor Power is Suppressed
11- Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12- Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13- Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14- Fraudulent Elections
Lawrence Britt made that list in 2003 with the intent that people would link all 14 points to the Bush administration.
To some Pubs, perhaps; you, of course, are intelligent enough to know that’s all bullshit.
Those might be features of fascism, but that doesn’t mean fascism is what we’ve got now. I might as well define a duck, not unreasonably, as “an aquatic bird with webbed feet” – and then insist that goose over there is a duck.
Fascism is, among other things, something that results from a particular kind of social-revolutionary mass movement coming to power. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany were fascist states; Imperial Japan of the same period was not. And neither is our present government.
An excellent source is Fascism: A History, by Roger Eatwell.
No comment, Evil? 
I’m not Evil*, but my response to “Are you scared of the Democrats moving left” is “don’t throw me in that briar patch, B’rer Fox.”
Honestly, there’s no bad response from me. If the Democrats move left and win because of it, then congrats to them for winning on principles and giving the American people what they want.** If the Democrats move left and get the electoral equivalent of Roshambo (which is what I expect), I got little problem with that.
As for PBS and bias, I doubt it, but I really haven’t studied the issue at all. But years of watching Sesame Street and being told to share and play nice didn’t prevent me from becoming a Republican, so I can’t believe that it’s a particularly effective bias.
[sub]*YMMV.
** And they better hope it’s what they do want, 'cause it wouldn’t be the first time the American people voted for something that two years later they decided was a really stupid idea.[/sub]
