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This is what I wrote to TBO's father this morning. It's just my own quick take on the state of the union . . .
The unfortunate comparisons to what's happening inside our government and what happened during the rise of Hitler are clear, but because most of the people here still think they are free and untouched by the gov't, anyone stating them gets immediately "booed off the stage" as it were. "I'm not worried about the NSA, because I'm not doing anything wrong" is hardly the rationale a citizen in a republic should be using to excuse anything the gov't does (of course), but that's exactly what those on the right are arguing in their haste to become jingoistic bigots. The enemy (as the Nazis so memorably propagandized into "truth") in Germany during the '30s was internalized (changing from those awful Allies and their damned Versaille Treaty to the Jews), and ours has been externalized (from the actually external bin Laden and Taliban to "if you're not onboard with our jackbooted thuggery you're with them"), but the course of history is the same between the two so far. The only difference that I can see at this point is that centralized control of the media began under one gov't (Reagan) and has only now become completely warped during Smirky's reign. That it is not under direct ownership of the state has become irrelevant, but that's what has people bamboozled. "We're not fascists because we believe in a free market" is not a comforting explanation, because the effects of politicized and deregulated commerce working hand in glove with the government are exactly the same. The fact that most of what passes for the "free market" is actually heavily governmentally subsidized (think of the oil, media, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural tax breaks/gifts, for example, let alone gov't contracts in the aerospace and munitions industries) doesn't seem to register as a problem in the (probably largely unaware) public's mind. One party rule has been in place for 5 years now--how much longer will it be before people get that? In the 6th year, Hitler declared war on the world--Smirky got to do it in his first. Where's the difference, really?
The unfortunate comparisons to what's happening inside our government and what happened during the rise of Hitler are clear, but because most of the people here still think they are free and untouched by the gov't, anyone stating them gets immediately "booed off the stage" as it were. "I'm not worried about the NSA, because I'm not doing anything wrong" is hardly the rationale a citizen in a republic should be using to excuse anything the gov't does (of course), but that's exactly what those on the right are arguing in their haste to become jingoistic bigots. The enemy (as the Nazis so memorably propagandized into "truth") in Germany during the '30s was internalized (changing from those awful Allies and their damned Versaille Treaty to the Jews), and ours has been externalized (from the actually external bin Laden and Taliban to "if you're not onboard with our jackbooted thuggery you're with them"), but the course of history is the same between the two so far. The only difference that I can see at this point is that centralized control of the media began under one gov't (Reagan) and has only now become completely warped during Smirky's reign. That it is not under direct ownership of the state has become irrelevant, but that's what has people bamboozled. "We're not fascists because we believe in a free market" is not a comforting explanation, because the effects of politicized and deregulated commerce working hand in glove with the government are exactly the same. The fact that most of what passes for the "free market" is actually heavily governmentally subsidized (think of the oil, media, pharmaceuticals, and agricultural tax breaks/gifts, for example, let alone gov't contracts in the aerospace and munitions industries) doesn't seem to register as a problem in the (probably largely unaware) public's mind. One party rule has been in place for 5 years now--how much longer will it be before people get that? In the 6th year, Hitler declared war on the world--Smirky got to do it in his first. Where's the difference, really?
posted by bryduck at 8:27 AM
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