It’s too late and I’m too tired to go back and reply to everything I’d like to comment on, but this I have to reply to. . .
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
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]
Bullshit. Bull SHIT. Expressing my abject fear created by the actions of this arrogant, law-breaking, torture-endorsing, prisoner-hiding, lying, war-mongering, power-hungry administration has nothing whatsofucking ever to do with “trivializing the Nazis.” ESPECIALLY as a Jew, I deeply resent that implication. The fact that people didn’t speak out against Hitler’s regime before it became a living fucking nightmare is EXACTLY the kind of mistake I never, ever want to see repeated, which is why I think it’s vitally important that we stop this administration before they go too fucking far.
And they’re well on their way to already going there. George W. Bush and his cronies, are our enemies as far as I’m concerned. They are enemies of every fucking thing they arrogantly profess to be champions of. George Bush is the enemy of democracy when he declares himself the DECIDER, and he’s got the UNCHECKED POWER to actually act on that declaration. And with a minority representation in every other branch of government, those who oppose his tactics are literally impotent to stop him, and by extension, the wing of their entire party and the political Machine they have built that could keep them in power in perpetuity.
NOT speaking out and calling this administration exactly what they are is what’s dangerous! What’s fundamentally destructive to our democracy is how this administration has crapped all over our constitution, and when we voice our dissent over the wrongs they are committing in the name of “Freedom”, they call us goddamn traitors and terrorist supporters!
There can never be a middle ground when people are being held captive without charges or legal representation in-fucking-definitely. There can never be a middle ground when innocent people are dying by the thousands in a war that was pre-planned with some kind of agenda that had nothing whatsoever to do with the made-up bullshit they told us it was about. There can never be a middle ground when the goddamn Secretary of Defense puts out a memo outlining the authorization of allowable torture techniques.
I don’t give a shit if you’re offended by my hysteria. I have damn good reasons for being hysterical. This isn’t about a disagreement over fiscal policy, the minimum wage, estate taxes, affirmative action, abortion rights, gay marriage, or any other national item where Republicans and Democrats might reasonably disagree.
This is about life and death, about my government creating secret prisons that we citizens are kept in the dark about, much like the average German was unaware of the existence of the concentration camps. And I’m not saying they’re the same exact thing – but they’re close enough to terrify me when I learn that people are being secretly subjected to them, given this administration’s propensity to authorize torturing people! And it’s about so much more that I just don’t have the energy to itemize anymore tonight.
Some day, I hope history doesn’t look back on us as a nation during this time and say about our citizens’ role in this mess, “[Americans] cheered [George Bush and his Religious Right Republican Regime] into power and cheered [them] even more once [they] gained absolute power.” I want them to remember that there were a hell of a lot of us who fought back, who spoke out, who voted against these bastards, and who tried to take our country back from those who are systematically destroying it and everything it stands for.
), are not to be ignored.
), are not to be ignored.