Hmmm....
Backing it all up with the opinions of former nazi's who 'know' the truth about America under President Bush.
Does this mean we get to annex Canada and Mexico? These are the only two "nearby territories" to us.
Why is the "sudden flexibility of Iran, Pakistan, Syria and Libya" a bad thing? Does Sorenson want them to continue to be hotbeds of terrorism and WMD production? Sounds like the President did a good thing. I think Sorenson is just distraught that it is a Republican President getting all these positive (for the world, not just us) results in so small a time frame.
We haven't seen anything like that here, nor does it appear to be one the horizon, yet one must wonder about the hundreds shut away in Guanténamo Bay and in other lockups in the United States and throughout the world.
The comparison fails in that the Jews never attacked Hitler, nor did German Jews join the "enemies" of Germany against it in a war. I think "one" is wondering a bit too much, possibly with the aid of psychoactive pharmaceuticals.
Among rank and file Dems, the standard reaction is to assume a defensive posture and deny that the Bush=Hitler nonsense is actually prevalent, as when they harp on the alleged insignificance of 2 ads among hundreds at MoveOn.org.
Of course, these denials are obvious nonsense, and it is equally obvious that the Bush=Hitler trope has become a complete obsession among the Lefty elite. As a result, more and more rank and file Dems are realizing what many have known for years: the real leadership, the ideologues and celebrities, live in a fantasy world and are utterly oblivious to that fact.
For instance, I've been talking to one hard-core Dem (a former ACLU officer) about this for some time. He went through several stages; first supporting the Hitler trope when ideological trend-setters initially compared 9-11 to the Reichstag fire, then denying its significance with the MoveOn ads and offering fatuous tu quoque defenses ("the right-wingers 'Hitlery' name-calling is just as bad"). He has finally thrown in the towel and declared, "you're right doc, it's everywhere and it's nuts."
How it might affect his vote is anyone's guess, and a lot depends on the attitude of the Dem nominees toward this Bush=Hitler obsession. Personally, I think the left's ideologues are filtering the response through their own fantasy worldview and will remain entirely ignorant of the damage "Bush=Hitler" does to their own goals.
Even in San Francisco.
Yet during every one of the MANY times in modern history when the Democrats controlled the White House, the SCOTUS and both houses of Congress all at the same time for years on end, well, that was just the natural order of things!
(I especially like how it only "appears" legal to this guy.)
What does this mean, "by chance or design?" Bush, like any other normal politician, wants to win elections, and he wants his fellow partymembers to win elections. What does the author mean by "design?" Is he insinuating that Bush perpetrated elections fraud, or that he was behind the 9/11 attacks?
Not only does he have both houses of Congress beholden to him, but the majority of the Supreme Court is acting like a quintet of Bush lapdogs. And it all appears legal.
Why wouldn't it be legal for him to preside during the time of a Republican-majority Congress? Why would this appear to be anything other than legal? Again, the author hints at something that he won't back up (in perfect Chomskyian form).
"Domestically, during the next six years, Hitler completely transformed Germany into a police state."
Civil libertarians insist that this is happening here now, with the USA Patriot Act in force and Patriot II on the table.
This is an extremely lame method of argumentation. To paraphrase: "I'm not saying the US is a police state, but civil libertarians (none are named) insist that this is happening here." He gets to say this country is turning into a police state without actually saying it (and defending it). The Reichstag fire parallels the Sept. 11 attacks here, and Hindenburg's decree parallels our USA Patriot Act.
And now he has more directly hinted that Bush could have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen. At best, he is accusing Bush of having cynically used 9/11 to grab as much power as he possibly could--he leaves out any possibility that Bush might have felt responsible for our nation's defense, and wanted to prevent another such attack during his tenure.
Soon after Hitler took power, the concentration camp at Dachau was created and "the Nazis began arresting Communists, Socialists and labor leaders ... . Parliamentary democracy ended with the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag."
With Bush leading all branches of government around by the nose, there's a question whether parliamentary democracy still exists here.
Because Bush gets his way in Congress much of the time does not diminish the democratic nature of our country (which the author inexplicably refers to as "parliamentary democracy"--this is very silly error, because in countries with parliamentary democracy, the executive and legislative branches are fused, and the Prime Minister always enjoys at least tenuous support from more than half of the legislature, or his/her government falls and the PM is replaced or new elections are held). This does not diminish the democratic nature of this country because Americans elected and re-elected Republican congressmen during the 2002 midterm elections because we wanted them to help Bush and not obstruct him. We voted for Republicans knowing full well what it meant.
Certainly, concentration camps exist, if we're willing to call the lockup at Guanténamo Bay what it really is. And the USA Patriot Act allows the president to effectively take citizenship rights from any American-born criminal suspect.
If all Hitler had done was establish "concentration camps," he would not have been such a monster. I would not mind terribly if one eighth of my relatives had only been locked up in poor conditions rather than exterminated in extermination camps. We are not running gas chambers and crematoria, and it is absurd to compare the prison in tropical Gitmo to the Nazi death camps. Who is being held in Gitmo? Mostly hardened terrorist leaders who belong there, not random political or racial prisoners.
How comfortable do American-born Arabs feel in the United States today?
How comfortable do you feel knowing that every single prominent Arab-American organization (with the exception of explicitly Christian organizations) supports Muslim terrorists around the globe? How comfortable do you feel knowing that CAIR refused to condemn Usama bin Laden for several months after 9/11? Even with these displays by prominent Muslims of disloyalty to America and sympathy for terrorists, there have only been the smallest number of hate crimes involving serious bodily harm or death against Muslims here in America, mostly by mentally deranged people. These attacks have always been condemned by politicians across the spectrum and Bush has never tried to stir up race-hatred against Arabs or anti-Islamic sentiment (he goes out of his way to praise it at every turn).
While the German concentration camps were being built and Jews were being persecuted, in 1936 Nazi Germany hosted the Olympic Games and put its best face forward to the world. We have the Super Bowl.
I don't think I can argue effectively against this point; nobody who would accept it credulously could possibly be swayed by anything I have to say.
In the mid- to late 1930s, Germany was able to annex nearby territories without firing a shot. That was because of the threat of the German military, the strongest in the world at the time. That might be compared with the sudden flexibility of Iran, Pakistan, Syria and Libya, all of whom are aware that Bush will do more than just threaten; he'll do it.
So the author has now accused Iran, Pakinstan, Syria, and Libya of appeasing America by giving in to our demands--demands like "hey, quit trying to get nuclear weapons you bloodstained fanatic dictators" or "knock it off with the international terrorism." The nations Hitler intimidated were democracies that wished to avoid war. The nations Bush has intimidated are dictatorships that are never hesitant to use the most brutal tactics, including war, to get what they want (just look at what Syria has done to Lebanon).
This also raises the question: If Bush is Hitler, and if Hitler had been resisted earlier much violence could have been avoided, and these states are appeasing Bush, does that mean that the author feels these states should be resisting Bush? Does he want these states to continue developing nuclear weapons and sponsoring international terrorism?
Hitler came to power in 1933, but the killing of Jews (and others) didn't begin until five years later, in 1938, with the historic Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") on Nov. 9. On that day, "nearly 1,000 synagogues were set on fire and 76 were destroyed. More than 7,000 Jewish businesses and homes were looted, about 100 Jews were killed, and as many as 30,000 Jews were arrested and sent to concentration camps to be tormented ... ."
We haven't seen anything like that here, nor does it appear to be one the horizon, yet one must wonder about the hundreds shut away in Guanténamo Bay and in other lockups in the United States and throughout the world.
Once again he returns to Gitmo to support this comparison. The prison there is humane, it holds many bad people, and it is a necessary part of the war on terror (they need to be locked up somewhere--much better here than to be tortured by police forces/intelligence services in their home countries). The prison in Gitmo is held up as the greatest single example of George Bush's fascist tendencies. But Gitmo is not terrible at all.
My conclusion is that some comparisons between modern times and Nazi Germany are valid, and some are not. Enough are valid, in my opinion, however, for us to be wary, and as vigilant as humanly possible.
I don't see a single instance in which he points out a comparison as being invalid; he just says they haven't happened yet.
From the Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, we can view Hitler's rise to power in detail. Notice the comparison he has not mentioned: Where is Bush's Mein Kampf? Does George Bush worship strength and teach children to hate weakness? Does Bush demand more government control of the economy? Does Bush blame our troubles on a ethnic groups? (Bush has always gone out of his way to say that Arabs and Muslims are not our enemy--a courtesy Hitler did not exactly extend to the Jews).
When has Bush expounded on his philosophy? He is in favor of faith-based charity initiatives, strict educational standards for poor children, a thing he calls "compassionate conservatism" (Hitler never described himself as a big softie at heart). A major aspect of the Nazi party was its brazen fascist nature, which it did not ever try to hide; indeed, this was a major part of Hitler's drive to revolutionize Germany. Hitler was always loud, angry (he shook with rage during his speeches), violently stabbing into the air with his finger. Bush is always calm and composed.
When was George Bush's failed "Beer Hall Putsch?" Where is George Bush's SA? Where are his lynch mobs? Who are his domestic assassins?
Hitler took power because of an economic crisis. George Bush won election during one of the biggest economic booms of this century (some say the recession started during Clinton's term, but at the time, nobody knew a recession was coming). Under Hitler, the economy was improved; under Bush... well, let's just say the economy is finally turning around now.
Hitler was a vegetarian and an anti-smoking Nazi. George Bush probably took major campaign contributions from tobacco companies and beef farmers (I'm just guessing about this, I could be wrong). He abstains from alcohol, but has no plans to encourage the rest of us to give it up.
And, perhaps most importantly, unlike Hitler, George Bush isn't trying to get into his niece's pants.
Hmmm....