[QUOTE=Biggirl]
As is simple critical thinking, apparently.
He did not make any post war plans. The guy who works for him threatened to fire anyone who did. What kind of education leads a man to make that much of a stupid of decision?
[/QUOTE]
Please remove one of the 'of’s in the last sentence. Thanks.
I’m growing really tired of the refusal to even begin to compare Bush to Hitler. It’s not as if it’s impossible for a similar figure to ever rise to such power again, nor is it impossible for an organization like the Nazis to ever dominate a country again. It’s not as if the concentration camps were the only thing the Nazis did in their reign; merely one of the worst. It is possible to draw parallels among the lesser but no less real things they’ve done in their early years to the things that are happening now in the US. It is possible to extrapolate what could potentially happen next, using history as precedent.
If the only thing that Bush could do that would permit such comparisons to be made would be to create concentration camps, it would simply be too late by then. The party would have too much power to rise up against it at that point.
Dismissing such comparisons out of hand simply because Hitler was evil and it’s not nice to imply anyone else is that evil (and I’m not just talking Bush, I mean anyone) only ensures that history will repeat itself. I admit I haven’t studied enough history and current events to be able to say one way or the other regarding Bush himself, but it’s cowardly, fallacious, and ultimately enabling to dismiss and insult someone for offering a cogent analysis (which has been made, if not in this thread, and gotten similar reactions) comparing a current figure in power with Hitler in his early years of power simply because said current figure is not currently as bad as Hitler was at the peak of his reign. After all, who says Bush’s administration has reached its own peak yet?
Feel free to dismiss me as another frothing-at-the-mouth pinko liberal commie. I’m sure this will be the only political thread I ever post to anyway.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
What’s worse is seeing the Chaplain, mere moments from being squashed by a jumper. Remember the radio call “get under the portico”?
[/QUOTE]
[Aside]Is that how he died? from watching the 9/11 docu make by the two French guys it looked like he was killed when the 1st tower collapsed and those including himself in the other one ran for cover.
The cameraman and a few firemen got to an escalator and then were engulfed. When the dust clear they found his body close by.
[/Aside]
I posted a thread about it in MPSIMS, but I think linking to Keith Olbermann’s 9-11 anniversary speech is again appropriate:
Some relevant exerts:
To people like Captain Amazing and El Cid Viscoso-how can you call yourselves Americans, when you spit on the very ideals this country is supposed to be about? Fuck you.
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
Some relevant exerts:
[/QUOTE]
When come back bring maturity.
Possibly grammar.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
We didn’t bring to them anything they’d not’ve done to themselves when Saddam finally died.
[/QUOTE]
That’s not a good justification, as it’s not true. I’ve said this before: when Saddam died or otherwise lost power, there would have been a very brief (and very bloody) struggle at the top. Whether his son or someone else in the high echelons of the Ba’ath party won this struggle, the changes in the lives of ordinary Iraqi citizens would have amounted to seeing a new face on the billboards. That’s all.
[QUOTE=BayleDomon]
I’m growing really tired of the refusal to even begin to compare Bush to Hitler. It’s not as if it’s impossible for a similar figure to ever rise to such power again, nor is it impossible for an organization like the Nazis to ever dominate a country again. It’s not as if the concentration camps were the only thing the Nazis did in their reign; merely one of the worst. It is possible to draw parallels among the lesser but no less real things they’ve done in their early years to the things that are happening now in the US. It is possible to extrapolate what could potentially happen next, using history as precedent.
If the only thing that Bush could do that would permit such comparisons to be made would be to create concentration camps, it would simply be too late by then. The party would have too much power to rise up against it at that point.
Dismissing such comparisons out of hand simply because Hitler was evil and it’s not nice to imply anyone else is that evil (and I’m not just talking Bush, I mean anyone) only ensures that history will repeat itself. I admit I haven’t studied enough history and current events to be able to say one way or the other regarding Bush himself, but it’s cowardly, fallacious, and ultimately enabling to dismiss and insult someone for offering a cogent analysis (which has been made, if not in this thread, and gotten similar reactions) comparing a current figure in power with Hitler in his early years of power simply because said current figure is not currently as bad as Hitler was at the peak of his reign. After all, who says Bush’s administration has reached its own peak yet?
[/QUOTE]
Hitler was made Chancelor in Jan of 1933. In February of 1933, habeas corpus was suspended for German citizens. In March of 1933, the Enabling Act was passed which gave Hitler’s cabinet legislative authority (effectively eliminating the Reichstag). When the president died in August 1933, that authority was rolled into the Chancelor’s (opposition political parties had already been banned). So, in about 6 months Hitler went from elected Chancelor to absolute Dictator. There were no “early years”. Did you mean early weeks?
Bush had better hurry up if he wants to live up to these comparisons-- he’s got about 2 more years before he’s unable to run for president again. Not to mention that fact that in 2 months we’ll hold Congressional elections in which his party is likely to lose the House.
[QUOTE=joemama24_98]
Yes - go stick your head back in the sand
[/QUOTE]
My head’s not in the sand, I just refuse to sound like a shrieking bird. Educate yourself, debate, work hard. Stop making noise just because you can.
[QUOTE=Frank]
That’s not a good justification
[/QUOTE]
I never mean it as a justification, I hope you always understand that. We haven’t been right so far, we’ve just been powerful enough to get by.
Turkey is essential; a free Kurdistan threatens the world. An Iraq minus Saddam threatens the world.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
My head’s not in the sand, I just refuse to sound like a shrieking bird. Educate yourself, debate, work hard. Stop making noise just because you can.
[/QUOTE]
I have, and I do every day. Instead of summarily dismissing my point of view, why don’t you pay attention to the lessons the world has taught us?
Namely, that there are people that hate us, but waging war against a false adversary due to pre-disposed political notions and objectives (cite: PNAC) and incurring a such significant opportunity cost in the mean time that our real enemies can only regroup to hit us (again)…
…is called a clusterfuck. Thank you for voting for the voice of reason last election. Sleep well at night.
What I’m ever impressed by is the sheer tenacity of the Apologist. For essentially 6 years, they’ve been wrong on almost every issue, and particularly on the big ones. They’ve argued, justified, waved fingers and flags, mocked, shouted, defended… and have been routinely proven wrong by the ravages of reality.
Yet they are undaunted. They march forth from each devastating torrent of actuality without missing a single step. They are Romero’s undead and the Terminator and Ann Coulter all rolled into one. Yet, one presumes, unlike Ann Coulter or Karl Rove or George W. Bush, they are getting nothing out of it! Think about that - they aren’t getting rich or powerful, but they can be counted upon to bend over and take it with a smile on their face. Even Armstrong Williams got his cash to pimp the bullshit of the right. What do the Captain Amazings and El Cids of the world get out of it?
[QUOTE=John Mace]
Hitler was made Chancelor in Jan of 1933. In February of 1933, habeas corpus was suspended for German citizens. In March of 1933, the Enabling Act was passed which gave Hitler’s cabinet legislative authority (effectively eliminating the Reichstag). When the president died in August 1933, that authority was rolled into the Chancelor’s (opposition political parties had already been banned). So, in about 6 months Hitler went from elected Chancelor to absolute Dictator. There were no “early years”. Did you mean early weeks?
[/QUOTE]
That is more persuasive than the flippant cries of balderdash I’ve seen so far, although two things need not be purely identical for a comparison to be valid. Still, I’m not convinced the current administration has done its worst yet (and if it has, its worst is still pretty damn ugly, even if not approaching Nazi levels). I don’t think I’ll be convinced of that until Bush leaves office, willingly or unwillingly, and his successor isn’t an ex-crony.
[QUOTE=BayleDomon]
That is more persuasive than the flippant cries of balderdash I’ve seen so far, although two things need not be purely identical for a comparison to be valid. Still, I’m not convinced the current administration has done its worst yet (and if it has, its worst is still pretty damn ugly, even if not approaching Nazi levels). I don’t think I’ll be convinced of that until Bush leaves office, willingly or unwillingly, and his successor isn’t an ex-crony.
[/QUOTE]
What I find most dismissable about comparison between Bush and Hitler is not even so much the man-to-man comparison, but the lack of understanding about the situation in Germany that gave rise to Hitler in the first place. Who knows-- maybe Bush secretly does want to be an American Hitler. But even if he did, he couldn’t because he has to opperate within the constraints of the US government as it exists today, not the Weimer Republic of Germany in the 1930s with it’s weak governmental structures, its political chaos and its horrible economic conditions. Perhaps the US will be in such a position sometime in the future, but it isn’t remotely like that now.
And the idea that Germans were somehow huddled in fear as Hitler rose to power is nonsense. Germans cheered him into power and cheered him even more once he gained absolute power. He was, to many Germans, the prime reason that Germany went from basketcase to powerhouse in a few short years.
Bush has been a terrible president. He led us into a completely unnecessary war and left us arguably less secure than we were prior to 9/11/01. I’ll be happy to see him head back to Crawford in a few years. But we’re not “fucked”. Iraq, unfortunately for that country, is “fucked”. We’ll survive just fine. We can only hope the Iraqis will find some way out of the mess we brought to them.
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
When come back bring maturity.
Possibly grammar.
[/QUOTE]
Shouldn’t that be spelling? :smack:
[QUOTE=Guinastasia]
Shouldn’t that be spelling? :smack:
[/QUOTE]
In the case of the Bushapologists, it should be “ethics”. Or perhaps “dignity”. Can’t figure out which, at this point.
[QUOTE=jayjay]
In the case of the Bushapologists, it should be “ethics”. Or perhaps “dignity”. Can’t figure out which, at this point.
[/QUOTE]
Well, good point.
And of course, it should have been “excerpts”. Oy.
Dammit, it’s all Bush’s fault! 
[QUOTE=Giraffe]
Does it really make a difference if it was done out of incompetence instead of malice? Would you be able to dismiss so many deaths so easily if the shoe were on the other foot?
[/QUOTE]
It makes a difference when somebody says, “Oh woe are the people in Iraq whose country is in a civil war, whose citizens are being murdered by the thousands, all for the sake of this fucking power-hungry administration’s political gain.” (bolding mine)
I’m not saying the Iraq war was right or wrong, and I’m not saying anything about the planning for the war, or even about what moral culpability the Bush administration might have for poor planning. And I think you’ll note that I’ve said from the beginning that the Iraq war was mishandled.
But that’s different than what she was saying…she was saying it was out of malice…that it was part of some conspiracy to sieze power…that we’re turning into Nazi Germany.
Don’t you see how dangerous this kind of rhetoric is? Don’t you see how fundamentally destructive it is to democracy when our political opponents stop being seen as our opponents and start being seen as our enemies? This is no different than when Republicans say that Democrats support terrorism. It’s just both sides of the same coin. In both cases, there’s the emotional hysteria, the failure to accept a middle ground.
And when you start comparing Bush to Hitler, and making implications that America now is like Germany on the cusp of the Nazi era, you just demonize the administration and trivialize the Nazis.
[QUOTE=Biggirl]
Still, I live in Brooklyn so I have no idea what is on the minds of those who voted for Bush the second time around. It seemed obvious to everybody here where this administration was heading. Being smackdab in the middle of blue, it is hard to judge what makes others so red.
[/QUOTE]
To my certain knowledge, I am the only member of my immediate family who did not vote for Bush in either election.
We don’t even understand each other when we discuss the issues, so now we don’t discuss politics because we only end up screaming at each other in frustration. I can’t understand why they’d vote for someone who has led us so badly, and they can’t understand why I’d vote for someone who’d “cut & run” and probably got his medals fraudulently, dontcha know.
Sad, isn’t it?
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso]
We haven’t inflicted anything, we just opened the sluice. You know, took the finger out of the dike. Violated Pandora’s Box?
We didn’t bring to them anything they’d not’ve done to themselves when Saddam finally died.
[/QUOTE]
What’s hilarious here is that you’ve just echoed, almost exactly, the punchline to the comic you were sneering at a few posts earlier. I guess that’s why you didn’t think it was funny: the responses of the Enablers in the comic actually sounded like reasonable justifications to you.
You know what got the US out of Vietnam? Pressure from the voting public.
Have you ever seen any of the footage of college students and protesters being tear gassed at demonstrations? That was demonstration, the kind that makes headlines. That was people with belief and conviction laying it on the line to press home a point they BELIEVED in.
Today you have a bunch of fucking MySpace bloggers waxing eloquent over the illegal Bushista regime and you have Cindy Sheehan. Bless her heart, at least she’s taking the fight to them, not just keyboard warrioring them into submission.
You get some ORGANIZED, LEGAL war protests, get them on the national news nightly, and you will do more to sway public opinion than using excerpts from Daily Kos as your sword.
I don’t know how many of you were even alive in the 60s/70s to see what real war protests were like. Kent State? Yeah, 4 innocent people died. Stupid deaths. But you fucking well know what Kent State means when you hear it. Protest. REAL protest, not some messageboard touchy-feely bullshit.
Have any of the posters in this thread taken the time to organize a REAL war protest? Do all your protesting from behind a keyboard? Doing much good? Any of your posts ever made the nightly news? I remember Chet Huntley and David Brinkley (Night Chet, night, David) on the news every night. I remember protesters being hauled off and tear gassed. I don’t see this today. Were those protesters more passionate about their convictions? Maybe if they had MyFuckingSpace we’d STILL BE in Vietnam?
As passionate as many of you seem to be about the topic, surely, surely you will not disappoint me and say that you have never orgainized a real, legal, large-scale, 60’s-style WAR PROTEST!
I think the war is bullshit. I thing GWB invaded Iraq because Hussein dissed his dad and used 9-11 as the jumping off point. I’m about to the point where I’m ready to do some protesting. But you fucks, you are bent totally out of shape over it and I haven’t seen PROTEST ONE out of you, for all your bluster, save for some keyboard banter.
Election time is approaching. I’ve seen the mid-term elections used as justification for arresting terrorists, Mid East cease fires, 9-11 grandstanding, every goddamned thing under the sun, but I haven’t seen one fucking large scale election timed WAR PROTEST! Fuck, fuck, FUCK! Why? You want to stick it to the Republicans? Get a hundred thousand protesters in the streets in a few major cities, being gassed by The Man, in the nightly news cycle a few times in the weeks before the election and make some ground!
I don’t know what else to tell you, I guess bitching and moaning on the internet is about as much conviction as you have, I sure haven’t seen much else.