General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Are we really going to pretend we were fooled into the Iraq War? [View all]Douglas Carpenter
(20,226 posts)left-wing equivalent of Obama is a secular, socialist, Islamic extremist who wants to impose Sharia Law while forcing gay marriage and abortion on all of us. And frankly that kind of creative speculation about Bush and 9/11 undermines left-wing credibility every bit as much and is as damaging to the left as the Obama is the anti-Christ nonsense undermines the credibility of the Republicans. Bush and his people are far too inept to carry out a conspiracy like that. In fact it is pretty much impossible in the modern world to carry out something that big and that secretive. But nonetheless, there is no doubt that they took advantage of the situation and the event empowered the most reactionary elements of the Republican Party. In urban America one can easily miss out on just how reactionary and simplistic close to half of America really is. Just recently I got back in contact on Facebook with several members of my high school graduating class which happened to be in small semi-rural Pennsylvania toiwn. Many of these people think it is a fact that Obama is anti-Israeli and probably anti-Semitic Muslim, a radical secular-socialist who really wants to drive religion out of America while destroying the free enterprise system and transforming America into a socialist society and forcing gay marriage on people while he takes away their guns. This is not some small marginal portion of Americans. It is a major portion - probably somewhere around 40%. In the aftermath of September 11, 2001 - the shock opened the door for the Bush Administration and their backers to play on the darkest fears of America with the willing compliance of a sycophantic media. Even most of the Democratic Party became dangerously compliant. There is no doubt that most Americans did at the time of March 2003 support he invasion of Iraq - incorrectly believing even up to more than a year after the fact that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government were personally involved with September 11. Unfortunately most Americans really did believe that at the time and no doubt at least one third of Americans still do.