No McGrath, I don't think qualifying adjectives has anything to do with it.

Hitler was brought to power by a nation. You can no more blame Hitler alone, without the support of his nation, for the Holocaust, than you can blame Bush/Cheney alone, without the support of this nation, for the war on terror, Iraq, Palestine, etc.

Democratically elected leaders that do despicable things, do it with the blessing of enough of their countrymen, and the capitulation and acquiesence of most the rest of their countrymen, to make the nation itself culpable.

That is what happened in Germany in 1933, and that is what is happening in the US in 2004. Enough Americans agree with Bush, and most the rest of those who disagree with Bush have capitlated and acquiesced to his agenda, including John Kerry and the Democrats.

They may well be coming for us Naderites soon enough, whether Kerry or Bush is elected. Because that is the mood of enough of the US citizenry right now.

Americans are very afraid right now, for good reason, and in a way that most Europeans aren't. Afraid for their jobs, their health, their housing, their ability of their families to afford to stay warm in winter and get to work driving the distances many Americans drive to get to their jobs, their children's ability to get a decent education, or even survive to their 18th birthday if they are African American or Latino and male, or beyond it if we see a draft. Afraid that when they can't work anymore, that their pension money will be have been disappeared by the government, to pay for the reckless oil wars. Afraid that when we can no longer work, no one will take care of us when we become ill, or will house us, or even give us food.

Most Europeans, while the economy does effect them, just doesn't have this perfect storm of capitalist oppression bearing down on them the way Americans do, which is why it is so easy for them to oppose Bush. Most European countries haven't gone to these capitalist extremes the way the US has. They still have at least some vestiges of socialist governance protecting them, at least so far.

It isn't that easy to oppose Bush here. It is, however, pretty easy to appease and capitulate to his agenda, as Kerry and the Democrats have consistently demonstrated.