Letters to the Editor
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Published Letters: 1438 Editor's Choice: 20
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Why? you may ask.
[Read the article: Democrats' responsibility for Bush radicalism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why would Democrats enable Bushite subversion of the Constitution, along with all his other crimes? Because they're neocons also. Not all of them, or even a majority of them. But more than a few of them. And more than enough of them.
And why does Bush feel the need to subvert Constitutional rights, basic human rights, and the rule of law generally?
I'll give you a hint: it's not to 'fight terrorism'. Much less aggressive tactics than overt imperial militarism would be far more effective in doing that, and an easy argument from the evidence proves that Bush's corporatist imperialism encourages and even causes 'terrorism', and does not mitigate it. Attacking countries not involved in 'terrorism' would not have stopped 9/11. So why is he so wedded to his approach?
It's to create a right-wing police state, a neoconservative totalitarianism. Bush isn't "destroying democracy in order to save it". He's destroying democracy to complete the process of turning the US into a fascist empire for the benefit of power-mad corporate greedheads in Big Oil and the Military-Industrial Complex. If you look closely, you can see that the US is already most of the way there, not in the people, but in how the power structures have been organized in the last twenty or thirty years.
That's what the facts say.
There can be no other explanation.
Bush did say that he preferred to be Dictator. Did you think he was kidding?
Now for the bad news. Despite their political problems, the neocons still have a better than 60% chance of succeeding. And if they do succeed, their political problems simply won't matter anymore.
Many scholars believe the last fifty years of progressive middle-class freedom and prosperity to have been only a temporary aberration of history, since most of human history has been characterized by large poor populations dominated by small ruling classes.
Power and money naturally flow uphill unless artifices are instituted to prevent it, like labor unions and democracy. But these are artifices: these do not change the natural tendency for wealth and power to accrue to the wealthy and powerful. This is why the price of liberty is eternal vigilance - because that tendency does not go away, and must always be countered.
Indeed, fascism appears to be the natural political disease of modern society for a number of reasons, and may ultimately be the natural end result of human civilization. Because that is what most of the wealthy and powerful want.
Democracy, which has grown up in the last three hundred years, represents, with its emphasis upon individual responsibility and individual actions, the most difficult societal system, requiring a definite human maturity. Totalitarianism and especially fascism can in many ways be regarded as an escape from this difficulty into the irresponsibility of following a leader who deprives the people of their liberty and their maturity but promises them 'security' and 'economic progress'. To that end, personal immaturity and self-gratification are celebrated and promoted by corporate America in particular, and in U.S. culture in general, because it prepares the electorate to give up its responsibility to maintain democracy in favor of totalitarian leadership.
And the population of the US is very well-prepared. Unless the U.S. electorate becomes instead prepared to renounce its political irresponsibility and becomes able to assert its authority through the Constitution over its government, the democratic authority of the people will inevitably be supplanted by one that is corporatist and totalitarian. Neoconservative fascists have the means to accomplish that, and also have the means to make it permanent.
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Scorpio69er
[Read the article: Democrats' responsibility for Bush radicalism]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well met, my old friend. Too bad you can't just do a search on your handle to find my response, eh? Long since it has been when first we traded truth for lies with the right-wingers on the old Krugman forum or the 'National Security' forum. We have been there, you and I.
Well met indeed.
Essential questions we must ask:
1. Are we headed for a corporatist, militarist totalitarianism? Nobody believed me after 9/11, but more believe it now. Now that Democracy in America is withering away before our eyes.
2. Can we reverse course? Doubtful. The Powers That Be have Advantages we lack.
You're right, of course. We must start demanding more from our politicians on every level, Republicans and Democrats alike, and we have to start demanding it fast, we have to demand it now, and we have to keep demanding it.
And this time was have to be dissatisfied with the same old bullshit. But we all have to do it, or they're not going to listen. And we have to get huffy about it. If we're going to be the least patient with more lies and more rip-offs then that's what they're going to feed us. The dangers are enormous and this 'trend' has to stop or we're all going to be bleeped beyond our wildest imaginations.
We have seen this coming for a long time. Like I said, when the worst happens, it's not just going to be ugly. It's going to be weird ugly.