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Originally posted by Flame On@Sep 6 2004, 10:48 PM
Wow, often I don't agree with Lanny but in these cases I do. I've been noticing that there are some similarities between how Bush operates and how Hitler got to power. I'm not saying they have the same values, or that they're going to start building death camps, but I think they know how to pull the same cords to ignite the "nuke 'em" extremists. The EXTREME patriotism, the misguided blaming of a group i.e. Iraq = terrorist hot bed. I just find it all pretty scary. If you believe he's stating policy (which by the way why don't you already know it if he's already in power, cause he's done zip) and Kerry isn't or if you prefer them, great. I just agree with the sort of comment that says in 20 years people will look back in shame.
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The late 1940's through the mid-1960's were a period of EXTREME patriotism in the USA.
Nothing today remotely compares.
The self-loathing left, the origin of "Give Peace A Chance" which sprang out of universities in the 1960's and 1970's, ensured from that point forward there would always be a vocal opposition to an aggressive USA foreign policy. The protests of the 60's and 70's would have been unthinkable in the 1950's, the era of McCarthyism.
To suggest that the "average" American has an attitude of "nuke 'em" is patently ridiculous. That element is certainly there, perhaps in abundance, but there are all kinds in America, not just one kind, and you saw them all over the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, howling their protest. Again, you would never have seen the like in the 1950's leading, as one example, into Korea.
Hitler came to power out of the ashes and poverty of World War I and the global economic downturn of the late 1920's and early 1930's. He had a message of a resurgent and mighty Germany, restored to its rigthful place as a global military leader and an economic power once again, and was elected from a base of misery on that basis and largely delivered on that promise until . . . . well, the war didn't go well. Although he didn't allow elections beyond his original gain of power, he probably would have won them if he had.
Bush came to power as the economic success of the 1990's was peaking, the opposite of Hitler, the speculative excesses of that period blowing up spectacularly in the mid-March period of 2000 with Bush barely in power a few months. That eventually led to a global downturn exacerbated by 9/11. As far as I remember, there were no elaborate promises of global dominion from a Presidential candidate who had been outside the boundaries of the USA only twice in his lifetime. Foreign policy was considered a distinct weakness of his until Dick Cheney joined the ticket. Without 9/11, its doubtful Bush would have taken more than a cursory interest in foreign affairs. In fact, our own Lanny is fond of reminding us of how the Bush team "screwed the pooch" in the months leading into 9/11, dozing fools largely disinterested in anything happening beyond the boundaries of the USA.
Bush/Cheney = Hitler? Yeesh.
Nuke-em Americans? Check the 1950's as a comparable. That's where you'll find them.
9/11 changed the world. Twenty years from now, that's what we'll remember.
Cowperson