Letters to the Editor
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It's all about power
It is obvious that they have no interest in anything but their own power. Power to imprison enemies. Power to break the law. Power to avoid punishment for doing so. That's the only thing the believe in. Power, absolute and, of course, exclusive to them.
You have to totally ignore what they say - it is all just PR and spin to conceal the above.
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Rule of Law Only Applies...
...to Democrats getting blow jobs.
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Precisely because they hold those views...
I worry very much about what will happen in January 2009. If they don't manage to steal another election, will they really give up power?
As the case for impeachment builds, and once Pelosi backs off her mistake in taking it off the table, watch for Cheney's health to suddenly take a turn for the worse, so that Bush can try to nominate someone who will pardon him and his cronies when they are carted off to jail. Could even be Jeb himself. The only silver lining in this is their miscalculation on losing Congress, so that getting a new Veep confirmed is much more problematic than it would have been last year.
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Simply brilliant
Your posts are always superb. This one is above and beyond.
There's little to say. You discuss a topic (or topics) that many note but for the most part ignore. Yet what is going on is as vital to our future as anything else happening. It is as vital as investigating and thwarting potential terror cells. For if what is happening conjtinues on the course you make so clear, there will be no USA as we were, oh heck, thought in school.
Fantastic post.
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Similarities to their conflicting view of rights
This is a bit off the topic of the post, but it hits on something I've been ranting about to friends lately - namely the bizarre conflict between the neocon/right winger's views on gun rights versus their views on rights to privacy. According to them, it's entirely reasonable to let the executive branch run roughshod over the right to privacy through warrantless spying. And they consider the argument that it's a basic right enshrined in our constitution, or that infringing on it is a slippery slope or a that is a fixed principle of the rule of law to be treaonous claptrap. However, any mention of possible regulations regarding guns is an unforgivable transgression into our basic rights. It's a slippery slope, they yell. It's a constitutional right! So to put it in Animal Farm terms, "all rights are sacred, but some are more sacred than others!"
Perhaps there's some logic here, though - if they're ok with an executive branch that has no limits and which can violate our rights at will, maybe we do still need those well maintained militias after all.
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Laws are for bad guys
"Laws are for bad guys" is the basic legal philosophy of the Bush administration. Glenn makes a strong case that this belief extends throughout the neocon movement.
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Guess we've found "Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford"
Pity these three won't simply disappear as those three luminiaries did.
Wonder who is going to serve in the role of "Comrade Ogilvy"?
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Papal infallibility
Those ordained by God are never wrong. Mix that with an unhealthy dose of paranoia and stir in an unabating hunger for power, garnish with lockstep groupthink, and you've got the modern neocon movement.
Words are indeed meaningless where this group is concerned. They amount to verbal legerdemain, showy gestures to distract you from the real trick underway.
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This is the most important paragraph:
All of this may seem jumbled and inconsistent but it is actually quite coherent and clear. Neoconservatives do not believe in any limits on their power. Their mission in the world is so important and so Good that anyone devoted to is, by definition, a hero, a Warrior, on the side of Good. By definition, a neocosnervative cannot be guilty. Only those who accuse neoconservatives of wrongdoing or who seek to impede them are the guilty parties.
I don't think the general population quite understands yet how deep this type of thinking goes in neoconservative circles. They do not believe in democracy, they do not believe in people governing themselves at any level.
They believe that this country should be ruled by a group of wise elites (themselves, naturally), because only they have the strength and vision to rule correctly.
Because their cause is right and just, they feel obligated to lie to, mislead, and manipulate Americans so that the people support their agenda.
While their action seems like hypocracy to those of us in the reality-based community, their actions seem completely justified and rational to themselves, because they serve a just cause.
There's an interesting parallel to be drawn here between neocons and suicide-bombers. Both believe their cause is so righteous that any action taken in support of it -- not matter how reprehensible -- is completely justified.
I hope that people are starting to wake up to this and recognizing the threat to American democracy the neocons represent.
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Guess we've found "Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford"
Pity these three won't simply disappear as those three luminiaries did.
Wonder who is going to serve in the role of "Comrade Ogilvy"?
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"impunity" is the missing word in this post
Impunity is characteristic of authoritarian regimes, especially in Latin America. Guy tortures you, then you see him a few weeks later getting a latte at Starbucks. "His hair was perfect."
Just guessing, but it could be that one little noticed aspect of the Latin aspect of Iran-Contra--and all the perps popped up again in the Bush administration, with promotions--is that Republican operatives found out down there how Latin American regimes worked, and decided they wanted that kind of power (and, specifically, the power to torture and disappear) for themselves.
Sort of a bringing-the-dirty-war-back-home style of thing...
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This is where the Virginia Tech shooter went wrong!
If Cho Seung Hui had simply made a big show of joining the Federalist Society or signing on to PNAC before killing all those people, the neocons would be carving his face onto Mount Rushmore as we speak.
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It's the Mafia mentality...
...if not out-and-out literally the Mafia.
Watch the Godfather, Sopranos, etc. and you get what Glenn is describing in the article.
Amoral people obssessed with their own agenda, power hungry beyond belief, justifying it all by framing themselves as the victim while the true victims are weaklings, part of the game.
Violence is an honorable, foregone conclusion; the Don (ie, George Bush) may be a senile idiot, but his orders still get carried out without question.
The agenda is framed in "omerta" (ie, secrecy) & anybody bold enough to cast aspertions on the agenda gets whacked (whether literally or figuratively).
Over-thinking is bad unless it ultimately leads to a revenge scenario. Those outside the "family" are expendable.
Evil is good & good is evil. The end always justifies the means though the end is always horror.
Indeed, Sammy the Bull would be right at home with this crowd.
Though I'm afraid Sammy the Bull might not be loathsome enough (ie, too honorable) to co-exist with these vermin.