I should tell you that this post is particularly inflammatory, but I believe not without cause. It may also seem in particularly bad taste for July 4th, but as far as I’m concerned, it needs to be stated.
I’ve read a great deal of news articles and columns where the authors don’t seem to understand the mood of the country and why there is no unified resistance to the Iraq war or the policies of the Bush administration in general (granted, a lot of these authors are liberal or progressive, and yes, there is a difference between the two). I believe there are several reasons for this.
One is the fact that the mainstream media upon which most of this country relies for information has been totally co-opted by a pro-business, conservative agenda more concerned with stories such as the tragic disappearance of Natalee Holloway in Aruba and how the latest GDP numbers from Bushco are going to affect the leading economic indicators on Wall Street such as the Dow Jones industrial average.
Another is the truly ineffectual state of what laughably passes for an opposition party in this country. David Sirota (yet another plug) has posted twice on this subject over the last week, with the most recent one having to do with how 28 Democratic legislators in the House actually voted against a bill from fellow Dem Rose DeLauro to ban government contracts to companies that use offshore loopholes to avoid paying taxes in this country (including the pathetic Rahm Emanuel of Illinois who, when asked last year if we were right to invade Iraq without WMD actually said yes!). The bill was ultimately voted down (another Democrat who caved was John Murtha of Pa., a former Marine who I thought knew better).
Another reason is the fact that Bushco are, collectively, the most skilled propagandists I’ve ever seen, unfortunately. With their “Project for a New American Century” they envisioned a way to consolidate power by allowing for a total collapse of our economy and creating an environment for an attack on this country (Note 1: I will NEVER say that they knew 9/11 was coming and let it happen, if for no other reason than because Barbara Olsen, wife of connected conservative lawyer Ted Olson, was killed in the Pentagon attack, and she was definitely one of their own). Subsequently, the people of this country would instinctively rally around a leader who, by all appearances, was trying to put things back together.
Given all of this, I have this to offer regarding the mood of the vast majority of the people in this country. I think it can best be described as a kind of shocked anxiety, not having a clue as to what’s coming next and kind of numbed into a state of inertia because of repeated “fear and smear” warnings from Bush and his acolytes (how many times did Bush shamelessly mention 9/11 in his speech on Iraq last week?). That definitely explains the results of the election as far as I’m concerned, along with the fact that John Kerry was running an unimaginative campaign with themes from the 90s, along with voter intimidation and harassment in Ohio and Florida along with electronic fraud.
Bush’s strategy to shape public opinion in this way (assuming for a minute that he came up with this himself, which would be giving him far too much intellectual credit) recalls Nazi propaganda of an earlier day, as far as I’m concerned (Note 2: I am NOT saying that Bush is Hitler, only that he’s trying to copy Hitler’s tricks). All politicians and other propagandists want to address favorable audiences, but Bush and his cronies have elevated this throughout his administration in a manner not unlike der Fuehrer riding in the open jeep on his way to address the sixth Nuremberg Party Congress in 1934.
One difference I would note is that, after World War I, Germany was in such a state politically and economically that they were ripe for domination by a group such as the National Socialists. In this country, the conditions had to be created for plutocratic rule.
Though I am not old enough to recall the rise of Nazi Germany firsthand, I have a pretty clear picture of how those sympathetic to Hitler felt during that time, particularly in Austria. It was a total unquestioning acceptance of his policies, much like I see in the followers of Bushco today. Also, it was pretty clear early on that the Nazis sought world domination (thank God Winston Churchill had read Mein Kampf and understood what Hitler was about in the 30s while the rest of England was recovering from WWI), and everything they did was geared towards achieving that goal, and their followers dismissed some of the pre-war rhetoric about eliminating non-Aryans as some type of fictional propaganda. Bushco is relentless in their goals also, and they do not, nor have they ever, sought a compromise on anything. Likewise, I see the same sort of denial among their followers regarding news stories about what really is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Gitmo.
Germany as a nation suffered long-term repercussions for their support of Nazi Germany, and I’m afraid this country is in for the same fate because of its collective support for Bushco.
However, one note of hope that we can hang onto this day is that, due to the framework of our government and the vast well of patriotism and people doing the right thing on a grass roots level of either party, as far as I’m concerned, the kind of fascist rule that Bushco is trying to foist on us will never take hold. It is my hope and dream that that will be the case now and always.
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