A few days ago, one of our writers, Peregrin Wood, wrote a short article with a link to one of our new anti-Bush posters. Both the article and the poster identify some of the actions of the Bush Administration that parallel the nationalist agenda of the Nazis.
Honestly, when the rest of us saw that Peregrin had written the article and made the poster, we expected our many Republican readers to rush to Bush’s defense and insist that the Republican Party does not stand for a nationalist, Hitler-like agenda at all. What actually happened surprised and shocked us even more.
You see, among the parallels that Peregrin identified was a willingness to use torture on prisoners seized and held captive in a system outside the law. When our Republican visitors saw this parallel being made, not a single one of them denied it. Instead, last night, a Republican reader who chose the pen name “Anonymous” merely wrote back to criticize Irregular Times for opposing torture.
This anonymous Republican wrote an angry note calling the Irregular Times writers “stupid ass” idiots. Significantly, this Republican did not attempt to deny that President Bush has designed a policy of torturing prisoners. Instead, the Republican criticized us for opposing torture.
Consider this: The Republican response to our comparison of George W. Bush to Adolph Hitler has not been to deny the adequacy of the comparison, but rather to merely to criticize us, and other liberals, for opposing Bush’s Nazi-style nationalist policies.
This unexpected Republican reaction has led me to spend some time this morning exploring the history of how the Nazis came to power in Germany. What many people forget is that Adolph Hitler was elected by the German people, who loved the Nazi hard-line anti-Communism, focus on security, and patriotic nationalist rhetoric. The democratic election of a national leader does not guarantee protection against fanaticism.
Hitler’s Nazis were accused of torturing prisoners, just as the Bush Admistration has been accused of setting a policy of torture of prisoners in American military centers installed around the world. Consider the following justification for torture:
“This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees.”
This justification for torture is striking similar to the protestations by Donald Rumsfeld and George W. Bush that the American guards who torture prisoners are just “a few bad apples”. However, the words were spoken by Rudolf Hoess, Commander of the dreaded Nazi SS guards.
In another comment, our anonymous Republican reader lashed out at us American liberals for our willingness to sacrifice American power for the sake of liberty. Peregrin Wood has observed that this Republican, and many others, seem to value the power of the American nation above the freedom and integrity that were once American ideals.
In the broad scheme of social values, the struggle between Nazis and German liberals is the same struggle between today’s American Republican nationalists and American liberals. It is a struggle between the values of power and the values of freedom. As our anonymous Republican reader has reminded us, while the powerful Republican nationalists value power above freedom, it is the job of those of us in the liberal opposition to promote the values of liberty over the cult of government power that has cast a dark shadow over the once gleaming monuments of Washington D.C.
I joined the group of Irregular Times writers just this year. However, before the 2004 election, I shared the common liberal presumption that if the American people only knew about the torture and other cruel lawlessness being perpetrated by the Bush Administration in their name, they would surely oppose the re-election of Bush as president. It is now clear that we liberals were quite wrong to make this presumption.
Not in spite of, but largely because of, President Bush’s policies of torture and repression, a slim majority of the American people chose to keep Bush in office. The Republican voters knew what Bush had done, and they willingly embraced it. Like the pro-Nazi voters in Germany decades ago, the Republican nationalists in America have expressed their true values: They have chosen the thrill of extreme patriotism and the draconian tactics of a security state, and rejected the feeling of vulnerability that comes with true liberty.
For those of us in the 48 percent that chose liberty over power, this is a difficult lesson for us to learn, but we must learn it if we are to continue our struggle to oppose the Republican nationalist agenda. We must not be content merely to inform. We must also persuade the nationalist 51 percent that the pursuit of American power regardless of the law, basic decency, and our traditional values of liberty will lead our nation into moral darkness and historical infamy.
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Very interesting article, and also, I found your annon. republican’s view quite consistant with what I’ve been hearing around here for twenty five years. For a quarter century most of this country has been hard pressed to keep from jumping to it’s feet and yelling, “Sieg heil!”. The torture question is quite interesting as well: a man I see periodically when I go to the VA for treatment really hates the North Koreans. Their barbaric (no argument) treatment of POW’s was attrocious, according to this man. Yet, he’s all for US doing it. Maybe the North Koreans were just ahead of their time? Maybe we should learn from them? He thinks they are barbaric, but when we use torture we use it for “good.” This man is in front of a judge on average twice a year for DUI, public intoxication, PFA violation, something like that, but he’s not worried about the prospect of a domestic application of “intense interrogation”. Why? “It can’t happen here, we have laws.” There is a diary called “I Will Bear Witness” that makes relevant if frightening reading. Also, Niemoller’s words keep ringing loudly in the back of my mind.
Certainly not, Mike. I try to reference history in everything I do.
Since I was on vacation, I did not see this until I returned.
I hardly see a parallel between the attrocities of a regime that annihilated 10 million people over the span of little more than a decade to the alleged mistreatment of a few terrorists. (And it is a few, given the scope in numbers of terrorists worldwide.)
I won’t bother trying to convince you who believe this bulls**t that your views are, to put it mildly, so far off the radar of common sense so as to be undetectable. I will, however, refrain from calling any of you “stupid ass idiots” or any other derogatory term.
Try explaining your views to Holocaust survivors such as Walter Kase, who, along with his mother and father, witnessed the murder of his younger sister at the hands of Nazi thugs. He now lectures to school children in the Houston area, and can be easily reached through the Houston Holocaust Museum.
Better yet, visit any Holocaust museum and express your views there. I’m sure those who suffered unmentionable attrocities would love to hear what you have to say.
Also, if Dubya is the next Hitler, how do y’all explain the “alliance” of Bush Senior and Bill Clinton??? Surley this partnership disturbs you all, given that Hillary will probably run for President in 2008…
Heil Rodham-Clinton!
Kevin,
Either you’re missing the point, or you’re intentionally trying to obscure it.
This article does not compare Bush’s actions to the Holocaust. It just doesn’t.
This article compares the Bush’s nationalist agenda to the nationalist agenda of Adolph Hitler. The comparison works. The article compares Bush’s tactics for whipping up popular support with Hitler’s tactics for whipping up popular support. The comparison is apt.
It’s fascinating that you openly refuse to actually deal with the content of either article we have written, and then complain about content that isn’t even in either article. Good grief!
Hillary Clinton certainly is a problem. She collaborates with the Republican nationalist agenda far too often. Glad you agree that her politics are too far towards the nationalist right wing side of the scale.
Her crass manuevering for power is also quite unnerving. Just because Bush is a nationalist creep doesn’t mean that there aren’t others.
So, Kevin, do you reject Bush’s nationalism or not?
I’ll just make a quick note:
Once again, a Republican has attacked us only for making a comparison of Bush to Hitler. The Republican has, like others before him declined to condemn the nationalist policies that create parallels between the present day Republican nationalists and the Nazis of the 1930s.
Why is it that Republicans are more bothered by criticism of nationalist policies than they are of the actual nationalist policies themselves?
J.Clifford: Whether you intend so or not, whenever one mentions Hitler, the Holocaust is inevitably brought up in discussion. The two are so intertwined in history that when one sees an image of Hitler, one sees the suffering of millions. That is not my fault, and that is not your fault; but it IS an unavoidable image.
As far as this “radical” Nationalist agenda, I’m having a hard time seeing it through the myriad of protests against Bush’s policies, the Ten Commandments, environmental issues, sweat-shop labor, animal rights, torture, war, dependence on foreign oil, etc… Seems to me that your right (or anyone else’s right) to protest what you perceive as wrong is still legal. Seems that one still has a right to hate this country and live in it at the same time (not saying YOU hate this country).
Be careful that you don’t confuse pride in one’s country with an extreme Nationalist agenda.
I’m amazed that those of you who enjoy the freedom to say and do as you please are so concerned about this “right wing” conspiracy that seems to be sweltering up behind the scenes. Where is it? Why haven’t I seen hordes of news stories declaring an end to our personal freedoms? Where are the Time/Newsweek cover stories? Where are the outraged pop stars on MTV? Where is the mass exodus to Canada or France or Germany or somewhere else to escape this “Nationalist” agenda? Where are the riots protesting this agenda? Where are the police knocking at my door to ensure I have an American flag prominently displayed at my residence? Where are the check points along my route to work to check compliance with these “Nationalist” mandates? Where are the agents following me to the store? Where is the mandatory salute to the flag (not at schools, but at places of work)? Where is the mandatory salutation of “Praise Bush?” (like “Heil Hitler) Where is the mandatory military service? Where is the state-approved product list? Where are the mass arrests of protestors? Where? Where? Where?
Show me, please. You haven’t convinced me of anything yet.
One can find parallels betwixt most anything. Case in point: The similarities between Lee Harvey Oswald/JFK and John Wilkes Booth/Abraham Lincoln. Sure, there are similarities, but that doesn’t mean the two are directly connected by anything other than weird coincidence.
Kevin – actually quite a few of those things are here… I’ll be glad to point it out to you, though it will take an article-length response, as the nationalism is extremely pervasive.
Offer a challenge, Kevin, and you might be disturbed at what you find out. You may remember that some months ago you commented that the torture was just a few isolated incidents. You challenged us to show that it was anything but that, and, well… Let me just point you back in the direction of that quote from Herr Hoess mentioned in the original article, a quote striking similar to the excuses for torture offered by the Bush Administration, and a point that you are curiously avoiding.
For now, I’ll just comment that when I mention widespread, patriotically-justified torture as an incarnation of nationalism, you accuse me of confusing it with “pride in one’s country”. Talk about confusion!
Now, Kevin, you seem to have trouble with precisely worded comparisons, and so are trying to slather on a weird association with the Holocaust that we never brought up. It really only seems fair that you argue against what we’ve actually written, instead of pretending that we’ve written things we haven’t. Of course one can talk about Hitler without talking about the Holocaust, especially if one is drawing a comparison between Bush’s undermining of democracy with the period of time in which Hitler was undermining the democratic institutions in Germany. But, Kevin, are you really saying that nationalism is okay so long as you don’t massacre millions of people??? Are you saying that what Hitler did to Germany was okay, except for the Holocaust? I hope not. The Holocaust was enabled by everything else that Hitler did to Germany in the name of nationalism – and there are many, many parallels in those actions with the current Republican agenda.
Once again, a Republican refuses to apologize for his party’s nationalist agenda, but merely criticizes liberals for calling attention to it. To take a look at these Republican comments, you’d think that nationwide spy networks against the political opposition are an example of “pride in one’s country”. Hmmmm.
J. Clifford:
Bush is not Hitler. Evidently, I can’t convince you of that, so I will just agree to disagree with you at this point.
As far as torture of prisoners, I’m sure you’ve read the al Qaeda training manual that states, in part 18:
“…when arrested, members of al-Qa’eda “must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security investigators. [They must] complain to the court of mistreatment while in prison”.
http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/trainingmanual.htm (Lesson 12-End, page 16)
I don’t know about you, but I’ll take the word of our soldiers over the word of those terrorists.
Now, on to other things. I don’t believe we are all in immminent danger of becoming a fascist state. It’s simply NOT going to happen, not as long as citizens are guaranteed the right, per the 2nd ammendment, to take and bear arms against oppressors, whether those oppressors be a common thug or the U.S. government.
And let me say, if the scenario you fear does come to play out, I’ll stand side-by-side with you in fighting it. Deal?
I refuse to apologize for an “agenda” that only exists in the minds of those who choose to see it. I see opposition to this “nationalist” agenda everyday, J. Clifford, through protests, op/ed pages, and this and other websites. Again, you show me mass arrests (by mass arrests, I mean arrests by the hundreds occuring daily- not a few here, a few there) and I’ll review your statements more carefully. Remember, in Nazi Germany those dudes didn’t play around. They not only arrested people by the hundreds, they made people “disappear,” via the “Night And Fog” thing.
And please, J. Clifford, don’t ever accuse me of sympathizing with the Nazi treatment of Holocaust victims. That is a disgusting and hurtful accusation, to say the least. I actually visited a Concentration Camp (Dachau). Not to get my jollies over the torture and killing of thousands, but to attempt to get an actual physical, real-life representation of the horrible stories I’d only read about in books. Needless to say, it was a very humbling and frightening experience- but at least I was merely a day-visitor there, right?
Ooh, I love this one:
Kevin says, “Now, on to other things. I don’t believe we are all in immminent danger of becoming a fascist state. It’s simply NOT going to happen, not as long as citizens are guaranteed the right, per the 2nd ammendment, to take and bear arms against oppressors, whether those oppressors be a common thug or the U.S. government.
Wow, Kevin! I guess you didn’t know that in Iraq, under Saddam Hussein, every household in Iraq had its own guns. Didn’t make a big difference there, did it, Mr. Heston?
Oh, and it’s not about believing the fucking prisoners, who were almost ALL NOT members of Al Quaida you torture apologist!
It’s about believing the International Red Cross, you jerk! The International Red Cross has found evidence of widespread torture in American prisons, and killings! These are concentration camps! Most of the people there were rounded up in street sweeps, and aren’t guilty of a damned thing! The United States government admits that! So, believe the US government you torture-lover, American prison death-camp denier! Jeesus wake up, Kevin and smell the blood!!!!
You can believe American soldiers, huh? What about those soldiers who are coming back and reporting that torture and killing of innocent people is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq right now in your name?!?!?! What the hell is wrong with you, Kevin???? Hundreds of reports are coming out – you sound exactly like Herr Hoess in the quote provided by Irregular Times!
Don’t believe the prisoners? You don’t have to! The Bush Administration admits that it sent hundreds and hundreds of people arrested on American soil to foreign torture camps! This is what they admitted after being caught in the act last month – so how much more do you think they’re covering up, Kevin? NOTHING????!???
You’re a creep, Kevin. The evidence of what your fascist, torture-and-death-camp government is doing is plain, and you’re just denying it like the neo-Nazis deny the Holocaust. Why???? Because of “moral values???” You make me want to puke.
Kevin,
While I don’t go along with Heretic’s use of foul language to make the point, the facts he or she uses are correct.
Don’t believe the hundreds and hundreds of prisoners who talk about being tormented and tortured?
Believe the dead bodies, Kevin. The Associated Press now counts 108 separate reports of prisoners being killed by American guards in Afghanistan. —-> And those are just the deaths that have leaked out to the press through military security, Kevin.
Dead bodies don’t lie. Heretic’s right. These are torture and death camps, and you’re in serious denial.
First they came for the terrorists,
And I did not speak out,
Because I was not a terrorist;
Then they came for the gays,
And I did not speak out,
Because I was not a gay;
Then they came for the Muslims,
And I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Muslim;
Then they came for me,
And there was no one left,
To speak out for me.
[Based on First They Came for the Jews, by Pastor Martin Niemöller]
Dictatorships seem to be able to spring up wherever they like, using aggressive speach and stereotypes, whenever there’s a lot of people with hurt pride.
At least Americans weren’t in hyperinflation and eating dead horses off the streets a few years ago; maybe people will come to their senses in time.
NOTE: Used “terrorists” instead of “Iraqis” because it’s using all the “terrorists are evil, hatefilled, demons who intend to destroy our way of life” talk that got Bush this far. Iraqis, then Muslims, were just added in on top of that.
And the American’s been all uptight over communists, Russians and Vietnamese for a while too, haven’t they? Maybe this will blow over when the next hate-craze comes along.
And Heretic; much as you didn’t show it in a politically correct way, I agree. It’s all disgusting… I’d probably sound like you did in your last post if I didn’t want my credibility and such to disappear.
This many people dead… Over nothing… It’s horrible.
Heretic: Your lack of professionalism would be funny if I knew you weren’t serious.
I’m sorry. I refuse to apologize for the mistreatment of some friggin’ terrorist thugs who cry foul when someone calls them on their agenda. It is funny how these f**ks are only brave when it comes to blowing up civillians and buildings, but oh Lord, once they get caught and interrogated, their true cowardice shines through like the midday sun.
So go on and defend these vermin. It’s your right. Just don’t expect my sympathy when their “agenda” hits close to your home ’cause you’d rather see them running around free than behind bars.
“Oh, and it’s not about believing the fucking prisoners, who were almost ALL NOT members of Al Quaida you torture apologist.”
So, Heretic, are you saying the “get out of jail free card” in this case (for terrorists) is to claim NO AFFILIATION to Al Qaida? After all, a terrorist is not a terrorist without being a card-carrying member of that orgainzation, correct?
Oh, but Kevin…
Until they’ve been proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt in a fair trial at a court of law, they ARE innocent, not just claiming it.
America’s produced some pretty horrific murderers in its time. Didn’t mean that the government was then allowed to go to the home town of the murderers and torture and/or kill everyone there in case they might be intending to do the same thing.
Excellent point, HareTrinity.
i told everyone that republican politics is all about ripping off the americans.now do you believe me?why do we elect a republican when all they do is find ways to double the prices of everything.the republicans are not americans.americans wouldnt find ways daily to screw over the people of america.
Kevin writes:
It’s been shown that some of these “f**ks” actually turned out to be innocent. Will you apologize? And can you now understand the problem?