Topic: The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

Pretty hard hitting this one is....

quote:

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Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology - even by its own standards - is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s.

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/03/15

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?Privatize the Profits - Socialize the Losses.? Randi Rhodes

Actually, I think we already faced it with Bush.

And survived it.

Just need to clean up his mess now.

WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

I wish I could be as optimistic as WebShaman is.

I think it's very close to being a chillingly valid comparison. Look at the polling data. As the Republicans continue to use fear, greed, and hate to drive their propaganda machine, you'd think we'd be smarter than to fall into the trap. Not so. The approval ratings that are coming out this week show that Obama is losing ground, and not just because the honeymoon is waning, but because Limbaugh and his various cronies have turned this economic crisis into an Obama crisis. People are slipping away from the idea that Obama inherited this problem and intends to fix it, and are migrating to the position questioning why he hasn't fixed it yet.

Additionally, they're creating as much clamor as they can talking about nationalization (the furthest thing from anyone's intentions at Treasury), spurring a belief that Obama is a socialist. It's a very small line to draw between Limbaugh loudly proclaiming that Obama is a socialist and everyone on the Right should be hoping he fails in his agenda to the Hitlerian accountability claiming it was the Jews and Socialists who put Weimar Germany in the position it was in.

Fact is, both sides are jumping as far as they can to blame the other side for all the problems, and very few people are in the middle saying, "Hey, come on, we can point fingers later, let's just FIX this thing." Fortunately for us, Obama is one of those folks in the middle that is saying just that, over and over. Now, it's possible that he's just saying that for show, while simultaneously he's pushing a hidden agenda, but I just don't buy it.

The 'Moment' we will face will be hinted at in 2010 (midterm elections, wherein the incumbent majority party *always* loses ground) and then will come to the forefront in 2012. We will start seeing soon the names that will inevitably begin leading the Republican charge for moderation in all things (I think their platform of being the "Just Say No" party will hurt them more than it will help them, but that's neither here nor there), and in that charge for moderation, I think we will begin to see some of the darker forms of American politics coming out, in the form of hate speech, greed, and other less desirable emotive behavior.

That is, unless the economy turns around, as it seems to be doing right now. If by the end of the year we start seeing some positive growth in the GDP, the GOP will find themselves standing, isolated from the rest of the country, as their placards of "NO NO NO NO" droop in their hands.

This is me, crossing my fingers, that the Republicans don't have a strongly charismatic voice in their ranks that we've just not heard from yet. Because that's all it would take, to foment fear in the populace--one man yelling loudly enough that we SHOULD be afraid, that we SHOULD be outraged, that we SHOULD hate these leftists who have made a mockery of economies.

Crossing fingers. I don't want an American Hitler.

Bush definitely wasn't that. Cheney came close, but never had popular appeal. Romney is genuinely too nice. Limbaugh & Newt Gingritch... well, let's cross that bridge if we ever get to it. Hopefully we'll never get to that point.

-S

Nah, you all forget how those 8 years were, and exactly who it was in power.

It was the Neocons.

Now, in Hitler's case, his party was not in power before he came to rise (it did not rise to power, then fall out) - so no, the US does not now have an identical situation as Weimar.

We did have one, of course, with Bush - have any of you actually been reading those memos that have been released? Or perhaps those writs as to what the President should be able to do in a time of war?

Doesn't get much closer to a Dictatorship than that, to be frank. I think they were just waiting for the next "big event" to seize total power, abolish the congress, declare all opposition parties null and void, and that would have been that. That the event thank the Noodly One didn't come to pass, I think, was the beginning of the end for the Neocons...and try as they might, they just could not start one themselves, not with the opposition and everyone else onlooking.

No, we and the world got lucky, this time. Well, that and due to the incredible incompetence of Bush and his Neocons, that is.

Now, this does not mean that we can relax our guard - freedom only exists where there are those who are willing to defend it, against all enemies foreign and domestic.

WebShaman | The keenest sorrow (and greatest truth) is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles