mindmeld,
Re: If we don't learn the lessons of history, then we are doomed to repeat them. Hitler was a fascist monster. Muslim Fundamentalism is a resurgence of fascism in the form of a religion, which makes it even MORE dangerous
The problem with your analysis is that Muslim fundamentalists have no organized military, aren't the most powerful force in their own region, let alone the planet and don't seem to be interested in conquest quite so much as in containing America's rapacious imperial armies.
A much better analogy today to Hitler is, of course, George Bush who is engaged in fascism as defined by Benito Mussolini. "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
That is what George Bush is doing. Merging the interests of corrupt and venal CEOs into national policy. That is clearly not what the ragtag cells of insurgents pestering imperial and mercenary forces in Iraq and Afghanistan are interested in. Some of them may not even know what a P&L is, let alone a "golden parachute".
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Re: The best and only response to militant Islam is to fight it with all of our diplomatic, economic, and military power, allied with aid of all of our friends, and to do so relentlessly
It doesn't seem to cross your mind that America today is a greedy, zombified nation? The rest of the world sees America as a lethal, malevolent Goliath, striding the world stage hoping to fulfill the neocon dream of world conquest.
Clearly, public diplomacy is not going to solve America's image problem in the world. Having the citizenry of America rise up and demand a return to the values stated in our Constitution and by our Founding Fathers would go a long way toward creating peace on earth. You do recall that George Washington warned against "foreign entanglements", right? Or how about the warning from the enlightened leader of the Allied Forces in World War II who clearly saw the greatest danger America would ever face would be domestic. Here's his words:
Guns or Butter: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Speech in 1953
Source: eisenhower.utexas.edu
"In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." --President Dwight D. Eisenhower, Farewell Speech, January, 1961
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Mindmeld, you are simply wrong to allow yourself to be propagandized into an irrational fear of swarthy foreigners. This is a racket that has been played on little people for centuries by unscrupulous and self-serving masters. You are being played for a chump by George Bush and the A-team of his $300 Million per year Propaganda Ministry.
Think about this quote from one of Hitler's most important ministers. We do agree that Hitler was a monster. And perhaps you will agree with me also that what is proposed below is exactly what George Bush is doing to the American public today:
: "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." --Herman Goering, interview at Nuremberg Trials
snopes.com
Remember, George Bush is trying to play you for a chump.
Or, as Warren Buffet of Berkshire-Hathaway is fond of saying, "if you can't figure out after a couple of hands of poker who the sucker at the table is....... it's you." |
