Posted on 09/05/2003 5:51:17 AM PDT by Pan_Yans Wife
Check out the bucktoothed spelling, grammar and punctuation abounding, next time you wander over to said site for a quick, cursory look-see.
Honestly. Is there anyone at DU who isn't manning the third shift fry vats at Hardee's for a living...? :)
When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
by Thom Hartmann (on commondelusions site)
The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.
Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion...
The article continues on extensively looking for any economic factors, political factors, shoe size, swimming stroke, any irrelevant factoids that might somehow be common between Nazi Germany and the US today.
Completely lacking is any reference to the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis during the holocaust. Zip. Nada. Don't want to think about that.
Truly the liberals have entirely lost sight of what Hitler and the Nazis actually did. No one alive today, not even Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, did the kind of things the Nazis did to the Jews. No one. Saddam may employ cruel and sadistic tortures and has gassed his own civilians, so he probably comes closest to a modern day Hitler, but even so his crimes pale in comparison with the holocaust. How can anyone compare Bush to Hitler with a straight face? Are liberals really that shallow and out of touch?
Jonahs not my favorite author, but this might be a timely re-read.
Interviewing Tom Ridge, Couric intoned: "Some countries, as you know Secretary Ridge, are furious at this new policy [fingerprinting foreign visitors], specifically Brazil which has started to do the same to U.S. visitors to that country. A Brazilian judge said, compared the new security plans to Nazi horrors saying, 'I consider the act absolutely brutal, threatening human rights, violating human dignity, xenophobic and worthy of the worst horrors committed by the Nazis.' How do you respond to that?"
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.