"Part II"
"Part III"
"Part IV"
The final argument of those who say 'of course Bush is not like Hitler' is the argument that every repressive regime in history has been a regime of extreme national socialism and no one is more pro capitalist than Bush.
True enough. Except for the fact that he is so pro capitalist that virtually all corporations that supported his election bids are now firmly on the public dole -- the energy companies, the pharmaceutical companies, and above all, the military contractors.
Middle class taxpayers of this and future generations are subsidizing Bush's largesse and his favored corporations' greed and waste.
Because of the vast sums of money needed to run a successful campaign, and because of the funds the people who head them lavish on candidates running for political office, corporations have become ever more powerful. Consequently, to quote "Ramsey Clark" at the Washington anti-war rally in the fall of 2002 - another event ignored by the media -- "This is not a democracy, it is a plutocracy. The people don't rule here, wealth rules, the corporations rule. They rule the Congress, they elect the President, they run the Pentagon, they own the media."
Mussolini, himself the father of Fascism, adopted as his own the saying "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism since it is the merger of state and corporate power." If that is the definition of Fascism, we have been drifting toward it for some time, but under Bush the "drift" has become a gallop, and so can no longer be comfortably ignored. Not by anyone who is paying attention, at least. In a way, I guess you could say "the worst president in history" has done us a favor by forcing us to pay attention in a way previous presidents did not.
The courts have given corporations the rights of people. Unlike most people, they have the money to fight any actions brought against them. Therefore, there is no person whose welfare is more guaranteed -- more socialized in our country than that of giant corporations. Socialism for corporations is paid for by the taxpayers while "regular" people - the people government exists to look out for -- increasingly become poorer and less able to afford and obtain the necessities of life, such as food, housing, and health care.
Additionally, when people feel without hope they self-medicate with drink or drugs. Consequently, crime of all kinds, increases, from using and selling drugs, to domestic violence to robbery to??? In a Fascist state, the solution to crimes brought about by poverty and despair is to build more prisons. More people are in prison in America than in any other country in the world, and Halliburton recently received a contract for $500 million to build "detention centers" for unspecified purposes.
The future for this country unless the people stand up and refuse to let this formerly great country fall further into totalitarianism and fascism, is truly bleak. And, it will take the people standing up to stop it. Most members of Congress have already proven their greatest priority is getting elected and reelected, and to do so they will appease whoever they believe it benefits them to appease. They are so "bought," they are "okay" with selling yet another slice of their -- and our -- integrity.
America is in danger of losing its place as world leader. It would, doubtless, have lost that position at some point in time anyway - empires always self-destruct -- but the Bush administration has guaranteed it will lose that position faster than would otherwise have happened. It is likely, however, that we will squander our diminishing resources in wars in an attempt to maintain our preeminence.
What angers me most besides the dereliction of duty of the mainstream media, is that Congress assumes the American people have no more integrity than they do - that we are as motivated by greed as they are, that we care as little for the "common good" as they do. That we are as "okay" with the corruption and atrocities the Bush administration is committing in our names as they are. And here, I will have to disagree with Molly. IF this administration is not held accountable for its misdeeds, what administration can ever be held accountable for anything ever again? The Democratic leadership does not think they can "afford" to impeach Bush/Cheney. Again, I agree with George McGovern. How can they afford not to??
The people, and certainly our soldiers, want our country to be a force for good. We want our country to stand for and advocate what we were taught it stood for when we were children.
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