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America's Hitler: Part IV

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Message Lonna Van Horn
It is clear Bush did not lose a lot of sleep over the number of people he executed as governor of Texas. According to a staffer, he cut down on the time he spent reviewing death penalty convictions from half an hour to fifteen minutes, often on the very day of the scheduled execution. He does not seem to care " that many prisoners held at Guantanamo or elsewhere are simply people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Hitler believed in his own brand of what he considered "justice," but it was not justice tempered with mercy. Nor does mercy seem to be a high priority in Bush's brand of justice. It appears he does not worry over much that "criminals" even if the evidence indicates they have been convicted wrongly, remain in prison, or that an innocent person or persons might have been put to death while he was governor of Texas. The "collateral damage" to innocent civilians that is a fact of his war does not seem to bother him unduly either. He could joke about the fact that the weapons of mass destruction that were his alleged reason for going to war -- a war that has killed and maimed hundreds of thousands including 18,000 of our own soldiers -- did not exist.

Hitler knew the importance of defining his opponents rather than letting them define him. He said to Hanfstaengl:

"There is only so much room in a brain, so much wall space, as it were, and if you furnish it with your slogans, the opposition has no place to put up any pictures later on, because the apartment of the brain is already crowded with your furniture." (H. 72.)

Think of Kerry portrayed as a "flip flopper." No matter the truth of that statement, it became the" furniture of the brain" of many people since it was the first image put into play about Kerry.

The people in the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave" must be the most frightened people on the face of the earth. And, among the most easily manipulated. As Noam Chomsky has said, "While all of Saddam's neighbors hated him, only America feared him." The unnecessary invasion of Iraq has created such animosity toward the United States that rather than making the world a safer place it has made the world a much more dangerous place. "Even the CIA says so" Because we have become an aggressively aggressive aggressor nation, other nations, have become afraid of us alright. So afraid that they, too, are seeking to build up their weapons arsenals. The world overwhelmingly wanted Kerry to become president. Something else most Bush supporters are unaware of.

As Jimmy Carter said in his marvelous new book "Our Endangered Values," America used to be a place where other nations would come to have their grievances redressed. That would be unthinkable today under Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/Bolton.

Under other presidents the people of other nations felt envy, admiration, and a healthy respect for the United States and its might. For the most part we were viewed as a force for good. We were remembered as the saviours of the world. Alas, that is no longer the case.

Now America is, if not the most hated nation in the world, at least among the most hated nations in the world. And people do not 'hate us for our freedoms,' as Bush and his supporters say. They hate us because they perceive us as a bully nation and a threat. Judging by what they have seen in the past five years, they believe that if they have something we want, we might very well just come and take it.

I don't know about you, but I was proud of the fact that my nation was, for the most part, considered a "different kind" of super power. A force for good. A country respected because it operated under the rule of law and was generally in the forefront in the fight for human rights. And now I am ashamed that we have become a thug nation. A bully nation. A nation that is openly stealing from the people of other nations. Simply because we can. Like Hitler did.

Of course in our imperialistic quest we brought England along with us. Against the will of most of its people. I have wondered if that was because England is so accustomed to being a major player in world events that Tony Blair could not stand for England not to be a "player" in this world event as well. He wanted to share and he wanted England to share in the glory. And then, of course, for the sake of its economy England, as well as the United States must cater to the economic dictates of a military industrial complex.

Bush is becoming more mad as time goes on. In the beginning his words were humble, but no more. A diplomat reported about Hitler, "When I first met him, his logic and sense of realities had impressed me, but as time went on he appeared to me to become more and more unreasonable and more and more convinced of his own infallibility and greatness." (L. p. 34.)

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Notice the change in Bush from 'We are not going to engage in nation building, we are going to have a humble foreign policy,'(2000) to 'it is our job to bring liberty and freedom to the entire world.' Inaugural address 2005.

"My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Saviour as a fighter." (H. p. 39.)
"Bring em on!" Bush.

Hitler "places loyalty and justice as the two greatest virtues and observes them with scrupulous care." (L. p. 59.)

Competence means nothing in the Bush administration. No one has been fired because of all of the mistakes made by this administration in ignoring the terrorist threat before 9/11, or in the disastrous lack of sound planning involved in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the torture scandal, the Valerie Plame affair. Loyalty is everything. And Bush, like Hitler, has the gift of inspiring loyalty among the people of his inner circle. He appoints cronies and campaign contributors to important positions. All presidents do this, but most try to appoint people who are not total incompetents or dolts to positions that matter.

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Lonna Gooden VanHorn was born and raised on a small farm in Minnesota. She is the mother of 6, a grandmother, and the wife of a Vietnam veteran.

Formerly a person who did not "get involved" in controversy, the constant lies and deceit of the Bush administration have motivated her to become a trouble maker in her old age.

Archives of some of her articles may be accessed "here" (more...)
 

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