BS: A good day for Bush

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 03 - 12:32 PM

CarolC, I think the tension between democratic ideals and capitalist ideals is at the root of what you are talking about. But that tension has always existed in the US, from the coming of the steamboat, to the railroad, to the car, to the airplane to the missiles and satellites, in terms of the transportation revoution. Then there is the weapons revolution, from the muskets, to the cannons, to the modern era of war weaponry, to the more recent promotion of war weaponry as consumer goods. Combine that with the technological advances of the past 50 years in telecommunications, and the rules have definitely changed.

But you are right. That tension, today, definitely indicates that the ideology of capitalism is winning out, at the expense of democratic ideologies.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 03 - 01:26 PM

I watched and listened to the speech, Doug. Just what significance were you referring to?

All I saw was a very "Rah! Rah!" setting which should produce a lot of good footage for the 2004 campaign (stepping off the A-10 wearing a flight suit and removing his helmet to display his firm jaw and his hair blowing in the wind was an especially nice touch--considering the fact that when he had an opportunity to do it for real, he went AWOL). He spoke, as usual, in T-shirt messages and bumper-stickers. He didn't even say that the war was over; he said that the major fighting was over. The "significance" of this was that he was able to convey the appearance of a victory speech without actually declaring victory. Had he actually declared the war over, the Geneva Convention would have kicked in, and Bush doesn't want to have to deal right now with what that would obligate him to do. Once again, America First!   To hell with treaties, conventions, and International Law.

Just what, exactly, did you find that was of any significance beyond getting some good campaign footage?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Don Firth
Date: 03 May 03 - 02:17 PM

Or was that an EA-6B Prowler? I didn't really get a good look at the aircraft. I guess I assumed it was an A-10 because, for some reason, I was thinking "warthog."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 May 03 - 02:35 PM

Last night at music someone said that it was reported that Bush flew the first jet (not the fighter jet) on part of the first leg of the journey. Does he have a pilot's license?

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 03 - 02:43 PM

Legend has it he flew the plane.

In his dreams, maybe. I doubt even the president of the US is gonna be allowed to really take over the plane. They let him steer, while sitting on the pilot's lap, is my guess.

But hey, I don't expect they'll tell us if he barfed all over his shoes when the plan hit the carrier deck, either.

He is still just trying to make daddy proud, IMO. Remember, at least Papa Bush was a real pilot, didn't run away and go AWOL from the military, and didn't have to subject himself to the humiliations that Dubya has to in order to make himself look military.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 May 03 - 02:54 PM

They let him steer, while sitting on the pilot's lap, is my guess. Cute. LOL, Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST,Dreaded Guest
Date: 03 May 03 - 03:42 PM

Oh yeah. GW can fly. The bush family has quite a collection of planes, including the one Barry Seal (most famous of the CIA's dead drug runners) used to use. Seriously. The Bushes own about fifty planes...they are trillionaires and collect things like that. And one of GW's favorites is the plane the Family ended up with after Barry Seal was shot for knowing too much about the Bush Cocaine Cartel. That is an ancient, ancient bookmark I lost long ago, but a google search of Barry Seal Bush Plane should turn it up.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST,Dreaded Guest
Date: 03 May 03 - 03:49 PM

Here it is...the story I read so long ago. Back on my bookmarks to read again later, but I skipped to the end...I knew it was involved with the Bushes somehow:

Barry Seal's Plane

At the beginning of this article we outlined briefly how a tail number in Barry Seal's papers started this investigation. It actually began when author Terry Reed announced at a Los Angeles public gathering in July, 1999 that a video tape might surface during the 2000 Presidential campaign "showing George W and Jeb arriving at Tamiami Airport in 1985 to pick up two kilos of cocaine for a party. Said Reed, "They flew in on a King Air 200." Subsequent statements made by Barry Seal and recorded in Reed's 1995 book Compromised recount how Seal bragged about how he had video of "the Bush boys" doing coke. Other witnesses located by both writers of this story, who were in relevant official positions in 1985, have confirmed that the described Tamiami sting took place. All, in fear for their lives, have refused to go on the record.

Does George "W" use Zero-Eight-Foxtrot? According to Jerry Daniels, Executive Director of the Texas State Aircraft Pooling Board, "He used to fly on that airplane all the time. He stopped when he became a Presidential candidate because the State won't let you fly its aircraft for political purposes." But FTW learned that if and when Dubyah is back in the state and on state business, he probably will because Dubyah is a licensed pilot and Zero-Eight-Foxtrot is one of his favorites though he doesn't get to pilot much any more.

Said one savvy Pol of George W, "The last thing we need in this country is another President with lingering drug scandals in his past--and maybe present."

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST
Date: 03 May 03 - 03:58 PM

Here is an interesting summation of Dubya's pilot experience:

http://www.seanet.com/~johnco/bush102.htm

It's one thing to claim you are a jet fighter pilot. It's another thing completely to fly the plane.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: DougR
Date: 04 May 03 - 01:00 PM

It was a significant blast off for the next election, of course! Latest polls show him leading all of the Democrat hopefuls by a SIGNIFICANT margin. I don't know if the polls took Ralph Nader into consideration though.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 03 - 02:33 PM

Well, unless he starts another war (certainly a possibility), folks might start looking at the domestic mess, and then Mr. Bush could find himself in the soup without his galoshes. Diversion is the name of the game.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 04 May 03 - 02:49 PM

Diversion is the name of the game.

JtS and I watched the movie "Gladiator" yesterday evening. JtS said that where, in the Roman Empire, the diversion was "bread and circuses", now it's SUVs and TV.

"The people that once bestowed commands, consulships, legions, and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for just two things — bread and circuses."

--Juvenal (Roman satirist)

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 03 - 06:32 PM

Sure he leads the pack now. But, when the election comes around, most people vote their wallet.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: katlaughing
Date: 04 May 03 - 08:06 PM

That's right, Kendall. The news report I read said that many people polled expressed a lot of concern and disappointment in shrub when it came to the economy and other domestic issues.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 03 - 08:11 PM

Who do they poll anyway? They never call me, or anyone I know. Has anyone here been polled?

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Don Firth
Date: 04 May 03 - 08:38 PM

Nobody ever asked me. The only times I ever receive a political type phone call is when they want me to vote for a local levy of some kind. I have never been asked about my preferences in a national election. Who are these people anyway?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: kendall
Date: 04 May 03 - 09:12 PM

More figments of Bush's imagination?

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: TIA
Date: 04 May 03 - 10:38 PM

Here's a question (for DougR I suppose since he started this thread, and seems to be the only personimpressed by the speech-

Clinton held up Air Force One for 20 minutes to get a haircut. Thug radio went apesh_t over the "abuse of power" and "waste of taxpayer money"...I think a special prosecutor even looked into it (using taxpayer money of course).

How is commandeering an aircraft carrier (fer crissakes) for six hours different?

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Greg F.
Date: 04 May 03 - 11:17 PM

Copmpletely and categorically different. It didn't involve a Clinton.
Also factor in standard Republican neo-fascist cognitive dissonance & selective memory. No problem. Works a treat.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: DougR
Date: 05 May 03 - 03:11 AM

I suppose, TIA, as Commander in Chief of the armed forces, the president can do just about anything he pleases. Clinton showed that, and the wait was considerably longer than fifteen or twenty minutes. The aircraft carrier was headed to San Diego anyway, so Bush didn't hinder it's getting there.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: kendall
Date: 05 May 03 - 06:56 AM

That hair cut story is just that. It came out later that it was not true. Just like the trashing of the government offices by outgoing Clinton peoplewas a lie by the republicans "dirty tricks dept."

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: TIA
Date: 05 May 03 - 08:50 AM

Even if actually true (see kendall's post above), it wasn't six hours was it? And are there more people on a carrier or a jet? So, which costs more thousands per minute to commandeer for essentially personal reasons?

Don't get me wrong, I was a Clinton opponent before he was elected Prez. My target is the incredible double standard in "reporting" aka scandal-mongering. No matter how hard I look for "biased liberal media elites", all I see is a propaganda machine. Remember John DiIulio's quote from inside the White House -

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Old story, but quote proving out

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 05 May 03 - 11:31 AM

The Clinton "hair cut scandal", as kendall has said, has absolutely no basis in truth. The plane was on a side runway that was not used for regular traffic, and no planes were held up. The hair cut didn't cost $200. I saw the guy who did the haircut on TV. He said it cost under $100, but the news people who interviewed him only asked him how much his most expensive cut cost, and they published that figure instead of the actual amount that was charged.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 05 May 03 - 01:03 PM

What the hell is a "social entrepreneur"?

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: TIA
Date: 05 May 03 - 01:17 PM

Never heard of one, but DogPile found this...
social entrepreneur

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Don Firth
Date: 05 May 03 - 01:17 PM

No matter how hard I look for "biased liberal media elites", all I see is a propaganda machine.

Over ninety percent of the media is owned and controlled by five mega-corporations. When they want your opinion, they'll give it to you.

Who owns what.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 05 May 03 - 02:26 PM

Very interesting, TIA. So by that definition, Karl Marx was a "social entrepreneur".

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: TIA
Date: 05 May 03 - 03:35 PM

T'would seem so. So, apparently are these folks. Since my ignorance is on full display already, I must ask - where'd you come upon this phrase?


Historical Examples of Leading Social Entrepreneurs

Susan B. Anthony (U.S.) - Fought for Women's Rights in the United States, including the right to control property and helped spearhead adoption of the 19th amendment.

David Brower (U.S.) - Environmentalist and conservationist, he served as the Sierra Club's first executive director and built it into a worldwide network for environmental issues. He also founded Friends of the Earth, the League of Conservation Voters and The Earth Island Institute.
"Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish, or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."
    - Bill Drayton
Vinoba Bhave (India) - Founder and leader of the Land Gift Movement, he caused the redistribution of more than 7,000,000 acres of land to aid India's untouchables and landless. Mahatma Gandhi described him as his mentor

Frederick Law Olmstead (U.S.) - Creator of major urban parks, including Rock Creek Park in Washington DC and Central Park in NYC, he is generally considered to have developed the profession of landscape architecture in America

Mary Montessori (Italy) - Developed the Montessori approach to early childhood education

Gifford Pinchot (U.S.) - Champion of the forest as a multiple use environment, he helped found the Yale School of Forestry and created the U.S. Forest Service, serving as its first chief

Florence Nightingale (U.K.) - Founder of modern nursing, she established the first school for nurses and fought to improve hospital conditions

Margaret Sanger (U.S.) - Founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she led the movement for family planning efforts around the world

John Muir (U.S.) - Naturalist and conservationist, he established the National Park System and helped found The Sierra Club.

Jean Monnet (France) - Responsible for the reconstruction and modernization of the French economy following World War II, including the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The ECSC and the European Common Market were Monnet's mechanisms to integrate Europe and were direct precursers of the European Union, which have shaped the course of European history and global international affairs.

John Woolman (U.S.) - Led U.S. Quakers to voluntarily emancipate all their slaves between 1758 and 1800, his work also influenced the British Society of Friends, a major force behind the British decision to ban slaveholding. Quakers, of course, became a major force in the U.S. abolitionist movement as well as a key part of the infrastructure of the Underground Railroad.

Some Present Day Social Entrepreneurs
Dr.Verghese Kurien (India) - Founder of the AMUL Dairy Project which has revolutionized the dairy industry through the production chain of milk, small producers, consumer products and health benefits

Bill Drayton (U.S) - Founded Ashoka, Youth Venture, and Get America Working!

Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) - Founder of microcredit and the Grameen Bank

Marian Wright Edelman (U.S.) - Founder and president of the Children's Defense Fund (CDF) and advocate for disadvantaged Americans and children

Ralph Nader (U.S.) - Fighting for consumer rights and working to increase citizen access to government

Michael Brown and Alan Khazie (U.S.) - Founders of City Year, a program to promote community service and civic participation among teenagers

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 05 May 03 - 03:59 PM

Since my ignorance is on full display already, I must ask - where'd you come upon this phrase?

I found it in this paragraph in the link you provided in your 05 May 03 - 08:50 AM post:

"Bush, in announcing his faith-based initiative the week after his inauguration, called DiIulio "one of the most influential social entrepreneurs in America" and said he "has a servant's heart on the issues that we will confront.""

Nice list, by the way, in your 05 May 03 - 03:35 PM post.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Rich(bodhránai gan ciall)
Date: 05 May 03 - 06:13 PM

I thought this was a bit of a stretch when a friend e-mailed this article to me, but with the Patriot acts I and II and the Homeland Security act (aka the repeals of the Bill of Rights), it sounds pretty close to an exact parellel except Bush would have "undesirables" (anyone not supporting his abuse of power) into jails instead of camps. A good day for Bush is the end of America as it was established by our forefathers.

Rich


When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History

by Thom Hartmann




The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.



It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)



But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.



Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.



"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.



Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.



Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.



To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.



Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)



Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.



Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.



His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.



Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.



He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.



His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.



To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.



But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.



With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.



It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.



In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."



To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.



A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.



As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.


February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."



Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.



We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.



Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."



Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.



Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.



To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.



Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: ard mhacha
Date: 06 May 03 - 06:26 AM

The US the most brain-washed country on earth, even the Iraqis had the good sense to realise their rifles were usless against tanks, so they wisely took the advice of oul Slattery and "ran away to fight another day".
And as for air cover they couldn`t put up a kite, the most sickening thing of this walkover was those US sailors shouting "showtime" as those brave US pilots dropped their cluster bombs on the civilians.
No wonder every right thinking person I talk to has nothing bur contempt for the present US government.
Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: TIA
Date: 06 May 03 - 10:00 AM

Along the lines of Rich's post above:


We got around to the subject of war again and I said that, contrary to his attitude, I did not think that the common people are very thankful for leaders who bring them war and destruction.

"Why, of course, the people don't want war," Goering shrugged. "Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship."

"There is one difference," I pointed out. "In a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars."

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."


Gustave Gilbert
Intelligence Officer and Psychologist
Interviewing Hermann Goering
Nazi Luftwaffe Chief and Reichsmarshall
April 16, 1946, at Nuremburg
From Gilbert's book Nuremburg Diaries

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Sam L
Date: 06 May 03 - 10:10 AM

I don't know, Carol C, isn't it gilding the past a bit to say that most of U.S. history was about the goals of democracy and freedom? It's true. But a lot of other things were going on, were also true, at the same time, all along.

I really don't believe Bush can be re-elected, but I could be wrong--I didn't see the Oscars, which usually restores my pessimistic viewpoint. The shame is that the party system insures that R's run Bush instead of a better, more qualified conservative candidate.

Nader was the first person I thought of at the term Social Entrepreneur, but I admire him more as that, and couldn't vote for him as a candidate. He's a hero of mine, but has also made some serious mis-judgements about people. And I think it would be hard for him to be very effective even if he won. He's already too big an influence to be re-cast into the role of chief exec. It'd be like watching Robert Duval do a tv sit-com. I don't want to see it.

   Doug R, your posts are too short, I still don't know what you think was so significant, but then, oh well, I probably wouldn't understand it anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 06 May 03 - 11:31 AM

"Mayberry Machiavellis" -- LOL!! I think that is the best, succinct capsule description of this administration that I've ever seen. Great!

A comment on Bush's good day from an editorial in the New York Times of May 6th, 2003 here

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 06 May 03 - 03:19 PM

I don't know, Carol C, isn't it gilding the past a bit to say that most of U.S. history was about the goals of democracy and freedom? It's true. But a lot of other things were going on, were also true, at the same time, all along.

Yeah. But I think maybe what's changed is that we're more openly just about power and privelege now, whereas before, we at least thought we were fighting about ideals and principles of freedom and democracy. Or maybe I'm being too charitable.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: DougR
Date: 06 May 03 - 03:52 PM

Thank you Fred. I'm flattered. It is a rare occurance for anyone to be criticized for posting a message that was too brief. I'll take another stab at it.

The speech was significant because the major part of the fighting was pronounced to be over. It was significant because it was the first time that a Commander in Chief landed on an aircraft carrier to deliver a speech to U. S. Armed forces and the world. It was significant because it was the first time that a Commander in Chief piloted the plane for part of the journey from San Diego.

Now Fred, I don't believe for a minute that you agree with me, but I'm fairly confident you understand why I, at least, think it was significant.

And in typical Mudcat fashion, I used a minimum of four paragraphs to state my case!

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Sam L
Date: 06 May 03 - 05:27 PM

Well, I might agree with you more than you think. True, I do quibble on a couple of points. It may be kinda cool that the Prez flew the plane--just like in that Harrison Ford movie!--I don't think it's very significant of anything, except that he's a pilot. It's cool that Lincoln had a patent, but, the invention was silly and didn't work.

But I'm as happy as anyone that the fighting seems to be over, and prefer not to be cynical about what good may come of it.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 06 May 03 - 06:12 PM

Hey DougR, we both know you're right, and we don't have to waste any number of paragraphs to explain why they are losing. Many are continuing to fight the obvious because if they didn't, they would have to admit they have been wrong for many years. But someday they going to have to explain it to their children. (Who, as children do, do not pick up all the prejudices fof their parents. I love this in my daughter, and she is more conservative in ways I never imagined possible).

They wonder at the intelligence of a President who could pilot a jet plane, and yet excuse one who lost every trace of his legacy over a blow-job. The men he has picked are the wonder of their age, with Rumsfeld making changes at the Pentagon never thought possible, and sacking a slow performing Secretary of the Army as soon as the war was effectively over (Quick! Name Clinton's SecDef). I could go on, but it might make them alter their position to comport with reality (kinda like Dean) and I prefer them just the way they are.

But hey ya gotta love 'em, they only make it easier the next time...

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Alba
Date: 06 May 03 - 06:59 PM

Clinton again!!!.Jeez guys let that go would ya.
Clinton screwed an Intern..
Bush is screwing a Country.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: kendall
Date: 06 May 03 - 07:52 PM

So, the shrub is the only president to fly a plane? His father was a REAL pilot. Hell, I once flew a plane that was already in the air!

Significant that he announced the major fighting over? Anyone with a TV knew that! You notice he didn't say the WAR was over...no, that would require him to release prisoners, and conform to the Geneva convention.
Doug, come on now, you know, and we know that it was nothing more than a sound bite for the coming election. There was nothing significant at all.
I still say, a draft dodger and an AWOL drunk has a nerve to prance around like Moussolini in a military uniform is a PHONEY!! Deep down, you know it too, but, he's YOUR phoney.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 06 May 03 - 08:55 PM

Are you, Guest Claymore, comparing the intelligence of Clinton, a Rhodes Scholar, with G W Bush, who got "a gentleman's C"?

I don't like either of them, but come on!

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Peg
Date: 06 May 03 - 11:55 PM

Claymore the great American wrote:

"The men he has picked are the wonder of their age, with Rumsfeld making changes at the Pentagon never thought possible"

Jeez Louise, you can say that again...

when you're standing in the bread line in a couple of years, under the watch of armed mercenaries, maybe your words will come back to haunt you...

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 03 - 12:14 AM

The men he has picked are the wonder of their age, with Rumsfeld making changes at the Pentagon never thought possible

I would change that only slightly:

"with Rumsfeld making changes at the Pentagon never thought legal.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: DougR
Date: 07 May 03 - 12:22 AM

It doesn't take much intelligence to relish a blowjob. Any Intern will do! If you find a really willing one, well, that's probably icing on the cake!

Claymore: if you ever stand in the bread line, as Peg suggests you will do, I will be more than happy to flick you some crumbs from my loaf of French ...oops ...Italian bread.

Kendall: so are you REALLY sure you want him to release ALL the prisoners? Even in Maine they might figure out where you are! :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Nerd
Date: 07 May 03 - 02:22 AM

Anyone who thinks Bush really piloted that plane is deluding himself. He was "co-piloting," which in this case means just sitting there. Even if he were fully competent and rated on the machine, which after his non-appearance for his year in the Air National Guard is highly unlikely, they would leave the flying to the pro. He is the president, and no matter how much he wants to look like a tough guy, he is shielded from danger at all times. So, no, DougR, that part's not significant.

Also, DougR, the issue is not just releasing but repatriating the prisoners. When he declares the war to be over, Bush has to send all POWs back to Iraq. Kendall won't be in any danger from them, because in case you missed the briefings, these are not Al Qaeda operatives but Iraqi soldiers! Once they're back in Iraq they will be under US Military rule for quite some time, anyway!

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Greg F.
Date: 07 May 03 - 07:53 AM

Now THIS, on the other hand, IS significant:

Report: Pentagon Adviser in Seminar Flap

Associated Press
Last updated: 3:51 a.m., Wednesday, May 7, 2003

LOS ANGELES -- Pentagon adviser Richard Perle briefed an
investment seminar on ways to profit from conflicts in Iraq and North
Korea just weeks after he received a top-secret government briefing on
the crises in the two countries, the Los Angeles Times reported
Wednesday.

Perle, who until March was chairman of the Defense Policy Board, a
group of outside advisers to the Pentagon, also serves on the board of
several defense contractors. The revelation raises concerns about
conflicts of interest.

The Times reported that Perle attended a Defense Intelligence Agency
briefing in February and three weeks later participated in a Goldman
Sachs conference call in which he advised investors in a talk titled
"Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"

Perle did not return phone calls or e-mails from the newspaper seeking
comment.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: GUEST,Claymore
Date: 07 May 03 - 10:33 AM

A couple of quick ones:

I have stood in a bread line, during Carters presidency when interest rates were up to 19% (anybody remember that?). It took Reagan to get us out of that "malaise" (remember that?).

I was refering to the only time Clinton claimed to be Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces; when he was trying to use the Soldiers and Sailors Relief Act to claim immunity from his sexual escapades. This was many years after he falsely joined a National Guard unit, went to England on that Rhodes scholorship, and then denied joining (anybody remember that?)

And while it is a surety that Bush was "shadowed" as a pilot on his portion of the flight, he has over 400 landings in his flight record. He's not carrier qualified, but surely the only president (other than his father - who was carrier qualified) I know of who would have had a chance to put the plane down with some chance of success, were it necessary.

Finally, it is highly fitting that as the Commander in Chief, President Bush gets to put himself slightly at risk (carrier landings being the most dangerous of all) to greet his troops on their return home from a superbly executed military action. I'm sure that every man on that ship appreciated his gesture, and that the very men he sent into battle will vote en masse to elect him again. And I can't wait for the parade in Washington...

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Peg
Date: 07 May 03 - 01:13 PM

Claymore wrote:

"It took Reagan to get us out of that "malaise" (remember that?)."

Was that before or after he drove our national debt into the trillions? A debt that exceeded the TOTAL DEBT of ALL the presidents who had ever served prior to him!

Oh yes, I remember it well.

It has been said by political analysts that Reagan's first few years of economoic windfall were almost entirely dur to cost-caving measures implemented by Carter (many of them energy and utility related) that tok a bit of time to take effect. As for the obscene military build-up that put our debt into the trilions, wel that was all Ronnie's doing...mostly due to his "Star Wars" fantasy...

Clinton brought our federal deficit into the black again, and the economy positively boomed under him. Bush has driven it way, way into the red.

See a pattern here? I do.

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: Don Firth
Date: 07 May 03 - 02:17 PM

Well . . . let 'em have Clinton's blow job. It's all they've got.

On the other hand, this Bechtel/Halliburton pork-fest is the Bush Administration's Watergate. What is needed are some investigative reporters like Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who have the cajones to run with it.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: A good day for Bush
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 May 03 - 02:54 PM

Little boy george just wanted to see how it felt to be one of the big boys, at our expense:

The White House said today that President Bush traveled to the carrier Abraham Lincoln last week on a small plane because he wanted to experience a landing the way carrier pilots do, not because the ship would be too far out to sea for Mr. Bush to arrive by helicopter, as his spokesman had originally maintained.

Mr. Bush's arrival on the carrier, emerging from the four-seat jet in a full flight-suit with a helmet under his arm, is sure to be a defining image of his presidency and his re-election campaign.

But it brought criticism from Democrats who suggested it had been stage-managed. It also led to questions about the White House's assertion that Mr. Bush would fly in on a jet and make a dramatic landing because the carrier was expected to be hundreds of miles offshore at the time of his arrival, too far for a helicopter to fly.

Asked about the landing today, Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said the carrier was within helicopter range when Mr. Bush arrived on it, though he said he did not know precisely how far offshore the Lincoln was. He said the decision to fly in the S3B Viking jet rather than a helicopter was made by Mr. Bush.

"The president wanted to land on it, on an aircraft that would allow him to see an aircraft landing the same way that the pilots saw an aircraft landing," Mr. Fleischer said.

"He wanted to see it as realistically as possible," he added. "And that's why, once the initial decision was made to fly out on the Viking, even when a helicopter option became doable, the president decided instead he wanted to still take the Viking."