When we think of Hitler we think of the Hitler of 1939, of the Hitler that started a world conflagration and committed arguably the most egregious crime against a single people in history.
It is clear that George Bush is not that person.
Look, however, at an earlier Hitler, the Hitler we saw as he began his climb to power. Look at the policies initiated and carried out, the propaganda machine built and operated and the attitude toward the rest of the world demonstrated as he and his party began to sieze and then wield power in their country.
It may be hyperbolic to speak of Bush and the Neocons as the final manifestation of Hitler, and, if you examine their attitudes and their stated aims for the United States and their actions in the world and lay that over the earlier manifestations of the Nazis I believe your bones will be deeply chilled, indeed.
John Gillmore
Posted by John Gillmore on Oct 31, 2004 at 9:00 AM
I do not like to see this president compared to Hitler. It’s a sloppy comparison. However, anyone who reject such comparisons out of hand is also missing something important. I would recommend reading Martin A Lee’s book The Beast Reawakens to understand the survival and metastasis of fascist ideas after their defeat in World War 2. There are many connections between surviving fascist/Nazi elements and conservatism in this country and elsewhere. Fascism lives; it simply became “the political philosophy that dare not speak its name.”
Quickie history lesson: Benito Mussolini started out as a Marxist, but by 1918, when he coinded the word ‘fascism’, he had migrated to the far right. His Fascism was a coalition of the military, the church, and wealthy landowners in the Po Valley, and then wealthy corporate factory owners. He said fascism could better be called the corporate state. He beat down labor unions, the press, women, Ethiopians.
Bush’s policies match up with Mussolini’s on a point-by-point basis. I’ll let The Goddess tell it:
http://the-goddess.org/blog/2004/08/yes-it-canwhy-i-wont-apologize-for.html
The fascist template can be found in many nations during the last century, allowing for local flavor. For example, it doesn’t much matter if the dominant church is Christian, Islamic, or Shinto. How can someone go from far left to far right, as Mussolini did? Just ask Napoleon: “Paris is well worth a mass.” A great show of piety plays well with some of the public.
Let’s look at it another way: totalitarian communists and authoritarian fascists agree with each other more than they agree with liberal democrats. Instead of ‘left’ and ‘right’ we have the poles of ‘closed’ and ‘open’.
Closed governing philosophies may disagree on whether there is a God and on whether private corporations or the State should control the means of production. But they agree that:
- A single party will rule.
- The way to power is through the single party.
- Decision making tends to be centralized. If a closed state does not begin as a dictatorship, it will become one as ambitious sociopaths are magnetically drawn to the centers of power and the strongest competitors seize the helm.
- The use of force to maintain party rule is acceptable. Opposition will be crushed.
- Economic power is aligned with the Party, whether this means control over private corporations or over State industries.
- Even if there is a stated belief in economic equality, those at the top of the Party or friendly to it will live in luxury and the rest will toil and go without.
- The press is either controlled by the Party, or by corporations whose interest is inseparable from that of the Party. The press will say that invisible purple llamas are responsible for the failed corn crop, if that’s what the Party tells it to say.
- A strong military is desired and is used to further the Party. This will often include foreign wars which seize resources and distract the people from the Party’s bad domestic policies. Borders are tightly controlled and police and military are not clearly separated.
- Crime is whatever the Party says it is. Criticizing Stalin in a private letter got Solzhenitsyn sent to the gulag. In Cambodia in 1975, being a school teacher was enough to get you killed. Under Hitler, it became a crime for a Jew to have a telephone, so that many of those sent to death camps were, technically, ‘criminals.’
- The rights of the Party, the State, and whatever passes for a ruling class, will always eclipse the rights of any individual. Even the dictator may be ground up in this machinery if he is weak.
Other than anarchistic ‘failed states’ where there is no government but that of firepower, the ‘closed state’ frame is roomy enough to cover just about every place a sane person would want to avoid.
The ‘open state’, on the other hand, can take many forms, but they too share certain defining characteristics.
- The individual enjoys a long list of rights which are considered sacred. “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” There are degrees of openness and many different views of what rights are more important, but in general, the individual in an open society is free to speak hir mind, travel without being monitored, associate and organize politically, and so on.
- The government is never the sole property of any party. If a party in power governs badly, it should be possible to remove it without bloodshed.
- Decision making is decentralized and local wherever practical. Even in the center of government, ‘checks and balances’ exist to prevent dangerous concentrations of power in one party or person.
- Economic power is comparatively decentralized. Neither state nor corporate monopolies will be allowed to crush the life out of ‘mom and pop’ stores. Extreme wealth concentrations are discouraged by tax policies. Extreme poverty is considered a human rights violation and combatted accordingly.
- A truly free press is protected from interference by government and private interests. It is understood that a thousand newsletters published from basements are better for the public good than one fat newspaper run by the State or a private monopoly. Opposing views always have access.
- The less wasted on military spending, the better. The only thing more wasteful than a bomb that rusts in a warehouse is one that is used. Like many other aspects of an ideal open state, a small military may appear to be a luxury no one can afford in the face of aggression, but it is always to be preferred when possible. And it is understood that military spending threatens neighbor states, causing them to arm themselves, so that arms races threaten the peace. It is understood that often it is cheaper to assist one’s neighbors peacefully, and in the end a better defense. It is worth noting that in the Iraq war, the United States has already spent about $5,000 for each Iraqi citizen, and has already cost each American citizen about $400.
- In an open society, crime refers to behaviors that harm people. Criticising the government is not criminal. Very little that passes between consenting adults is criminalized. Neither corporations nor churches are allowed to use the courts to impose their will upon the general public. Open societies tend to shun the death penalty, as there is no way to redress a wrongfully executed prisoner.
_When in doubt, the rights of the individual will always precede those of any artificial entity, whether state, corporation, or church.
One can add other points, such as free inquiry, scientific openness, even freedom to alter one’s own consciousness with drugs (drug prohibition was an early front in the decay of the Bill of Rights).
It should be clear to anyone who closely follows the news that the Republican Party has pushed the United States firmly in the direction of a Closed State. Republicans have long accused Liberal Democrats of trying to lead the nation toward communism, but it can be seen that Soviet-era communism actually has less in common with the liberal ideal of openness than with the conservative Republican agenda of one-party closed government.
Posted by Tom Buckner on Oct 31, 2004 at 10:03 AM
The Nazi comparisons, seven minutes reading to children, being a drunk, being dumb are all the weakest most inane reasons to sight for the unseating of the incumbent Bush, an incumbent that still has 48 to 51% of the population in his corner at any given moment. It’s too late now, but what made this vote a referendum on Bush boiled down to the war strategy that was drawn up by the administration’s civilian leaders in the Pentagon and is the only issue that holds up unquestioned in why Bush should have been removed from office.
This is not about the rational for war (questionable), not about the execution of the war(the troops executed
perfectly), it is about the plans that were drawn up and approved by the Bush administration (WRONG).
The military minds that have successfully mapped the war strategies for Kuwait, Kosovo and Somalia (and in progress Afghanistan) and have been reinventing the military since Vietnam and were at opposite ends of the war strategy spectrum with Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and other civilian strategists in the Pentagn. The insurgency and problems in Iraq are not like 9/11 where we were caught off guard, Bush is lying when he talks of the Iraq hardships as a surprise. There were high-level military minds and more importantly Secretary Powell who had the ear of the President, and offered real and better contingency plans. Bush clearly chose the strategy laid out by the Secretary of Defense(SoD) office, that being a smaller, swifter, supposedly less expensive operation that could strike quickly as the best option and they based much of this on success in Afghanistan - but that was more of an overthrow of Kabul that didn’t have Iran and Syria as neighbors and was mainly controlled by non-taliban tribal warlords outside of Kabul. I don’t recall ever hearing about needing thousands of National Guard troops in Iraq before the war - Who should really only be guarding the borders, weapon depots and other Iraqi infrastructure.
- this isn’t about removing Sadaam Hussein or whether the world more safe
- this isn’t about the justification for war, or WMD’s or rape chambers, or abu-graid
- this isn’t even about building a coalition
This is about who made the strategy, the macro war plans - we didn’t see a Powell and Schwartzkopf like in Gulf War I, we saw Rumsfeld and a joint chiefs guy keeping a low-profile. I don’t even know his name. We are at war and the only person I’ve heard of General Franks, who no offense to him, is not a Schwartzkopf or Powell. I know more about Newt Gingrich’s influence on the war strategy than that of the Chair of the Joint Chiefs. This is about the fact that a more comprehensive and more thought out plan for pre and post Iraq was on the table and the administration chose not to take it. This was clearly in the hands of Bush, not the Congress, nor a senator when it came to this all-important decision. I don’t believe there is a side a take on this, the strategy undertaken by the Secretary of Defense was clearly wrong and the president chose this strategy and has defended it and has not held the SoD nor himself accountable. Bush has actually made this a positive in his campaign by stating he wouldn’t change a thing. The execution of the war strategy was perfectly executed by our troops and military leaders, but the policy was poorly planned and based on selective use of intelligence, ideology, politics and lack of war experience, not to mention disregarding the collective brain and genuity of experienced military leaders.
What I cannot believe is that Kerry did not adop this as his main line of attack and pummeled Bush on this - Nor that many in the ranks of military supported Bush. You can clearly convey that the troops should be commended for the valor and execution with which they have fought a hard war, while clearly pointing the criticism to the administration and civilian leaders in the Pentagon. In my opinion every soldier stationed in Iraq should be awarded an additional medal for exceeding the expectations of such a
poorly derived war strategy.
Again this is not about the rational for war (questionable), not about the execution of the war(the troops executed perfectly), it is about the plans that were drawn up and approved by the Bush administration (WRONG). Of course I can always hope that this less divisive rational build in the polls public opinion and congressional leaders to call for some kind of change, be it removing Rumsfeld or more unlikely Bush…
Posted by dan mullins on Nov 3, 2004 at 8:42 AM
