Well, I understand Charles' frustration with the current situation...and I am guessing that he didn't mean that 100 percent literally (am I wrong?).
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CB: Bush's declared war policy is Nazism plain and simple
However, in the law we term an overbroad statute that is knowingly overbroad a prophylatic. Premature anti-fascism is a wise prophylatic measure.
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However, I think what Ian and Doug are saying is important, too. It's just too easy to get caught up in old analyses that dont fully comprehend the current situation. Nazi is good rhetoric, bad analysis. And people have fought hard to make the system observe the letter of the constitution...it doesnt always work but things are not as arbitrary as they would be in a fascistic order.
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CB: It hasn't been established in the least that my analysis is old. I said the NEW Nazism. The commenters conveniently ignored the word "new" . Like most things , today's situation is a combination of the old and the new. I know many here like to think that history ( the old ) has absolutely nothing to do with the present, but as Thomas always says , " "The tradition of all the dead generations
weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living". Fascism is not dead. It's sort of like small pox. We almost annihilated it, but the CIA wanted to keep strains of it for bioweapons. Sort of like the CIA preserving the old Nazis. ( See _Old Nazis, New Right in the Republican Party_ by Russ Bellant ( intro by Chip Berlet). Literal Old Nazis in the George I admin. Why wouldn't they be in the George II admin ?
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Nonetheless, what if all hell broke loose right now...Dont you think, in this country, there might be something close to fascism imposed? Remember, Ashcroft is Attorney General ;) I havent got a good feel for the political climate outside of the Bay Area...but wouldn't a large percentage of the population support such measure in the name of security?
Thomas
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CB: With latest poll claims of the American "good German " response to Bush's extraordinary declaration that he is about to commit wholesale crimes against peace, who knows ? I'm not at all sanguine about the American People at this point.