Letters to the Editor
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Outstanding.
Thank god. Pieces like this (and anything written by Blumenthal) make it marginally possible to slog through Video Dog and the other fluff, hoping against hope to find more of them.
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No danger
"While there is no danger that America will become a fascist, totalitarian or theocratic state..."
How many patriotic Germans continued to believe that the best aspects of German character would prevail, for how long into the 1930s and 1940s?
Mr Kamiya shows profound insight in much of his review. Why does he throw it away for the same pious platitudes that have allowed the people in power to do so very much damage?
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Bad News
Mr. Suskind's book joins the stack of others that before and during Mr. Bush's pathetic presidency have attempted to awaken the American people to the incompetency and mendacity of this administration. Here's the bad news: as long as Americans are entertained, not too concerned about losing their jobs, and don't have to think too hard, Mr. Bush and Company may do whatever they damn well please. If the American public can be duped time and again by Rove and Company, vote against their own economic interests, and buy the lie, there is no hope. How sad that we went from Washington to Mr. Bush in 217 years. The American people are presently complicit in their own demise.
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Scarier and scarier
The most disturbing aspect of the descent of American foreign policy from the realm of the arguably rational into the hellish faith-based bizarro-world inhabited by pencil-dicked draft dodgers like Bush and Cheney - inadequate, twisted men who talk gruff and act tough - is that it's not clear what it takes to climb out of the hole they've dug for the Republic.
Is this some kind of black hole - and has our nation passed beyond the event horizon?
We need a national catharsis - and its unclear yet whether the nation has the will to impeach, convict, indict and imprison the criminals populating the Bush Administration.
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Sorry...
Gotta chime in again. The drive to war was not powered by something as inane and pointless as Bush's "ignorant whim." A war, with its built-in claim of presidential privilege, is a made-to-order cover for the real goals of the administration, the goals for which Little Georgie was rammed into office. How much easier is it to cut taxes, gut environmental protections, allow corporate interests to engorge themselves further and further, leave universal health care on the back burner, put off requiring higher-mileage product out of Detroit, etc., etc., when there's an oversized, overseas SWAT operation that can be rebranded by Rovian semanticists as a war?
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The Danger is Real
"While there is no danger that America will become a fascist, totalitarian or theocratic state..."
We now teeter on the edge of totalitarianism. Weakened democracies can fall prey to extremism and demogogery in a short of period if conditions are right. Currently our government, without any legal authority, is monitoring our phone calls, internet usage, and banking transactions. American citizens are detained indefinitely without charge. Authorities use funds earmarked for counterterrorism efforts to infiltrate legitimate groups of dissidents and peace advocates. Protestors are cordoned off into so-called Free Speech areas. When signing a bill curtailing, for instance, the use of torture, our President also signs a statement explicitly stating that he refuses to acknowledge the authority of the law. Wake up: the executive branch no longer acknowledges the Bill of Rights. Bush is supported by corporate American, religious zealots, shady underlings, and a fanatical cult of personlity. Defenders of civil liberties are smeared as unpatriotic. And through every disaster and lie of this administration, the American media has been our President's best friend. All the ingredients of totalitarism are right there. We are watching our country and our freedoms disintegrate. The danger is real.
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so vast, so complete
Thank you, Gary. Especially for those last few paragraphs. I think this is at least the third review of this book on Salon now. The first (Blumenthal, I think) was interesting. The second (War Room?) seemed to repeat nearly the exact same story summaries from the book. I was afraid this third (?) would (as glad as I am to see these words getting out in as many columns as possible) once again rehash the same points. While there was necessarily some overlap, new ground was covered, and with passionate intelligence this piece surpassed the others fine pieces with its personal voice, and inflammatory (in the good way) conclusions. Not only have you informed us as to the book's content, but you've provided an excellent example of what should be an appropriate response to that content.
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A couple of things
First, the War was not so the Bushies could get their hands on Iraqs oil, it's so they can keep Iraqs oil IN THE GROUND! Since the early 20's there has been a conspiracy to keep Iraq from pumping as much oil as it can so as to keep the price high to prop up those wonderful people known as The House of Saud.
Second, Bush was so stupid to lie to get into the War. If he had just come out and said "Hussien is a terrible dictator who has caused us trouble for the last 12 years and killed thousands of innocents and it's time we took him down" the American people would have backed him.
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Treasonable Acts
The Bushit Maladministration is, collectively and individually, guilty of treason. there is no other word that will suffice. The PNAC fascists planned this years before Widdle Georgie, braindead sockpuppet, conveniently appeared as a figurehead. I was long reluctant to really consider the Bushistas complicit in September 11 itself, but it is getting to the point that Occam's Razon is cutting straight that direction. As far as "no danger of a fascist state", I'm afraid the verb tense is out of date. We're in the beginning stages, following a clear theft of the 2000 election, and a highly suspect outcome (Ohio, et al) in the 2004 election. We are being taken over, my fellow countrymen and women. Register. Vote. Democratic. With all their myriad of failings, spinelessness, and complicity, they're still the only horse to ride...at least until the equivalent of Paul Revere rides through. This is deadly serious, and the future of the republic is in immediate and dire peril.