Reply #25: Parallels are there, but not completely...

[TreasonousBastard]

Germany and France were decimated after WWI, but Germany had the worst of it. It was rightfully blamed for pretty much starting the whole thing, but the terms of Versailles were far too harsh. On top of that, the Depression hit and hit Germany worse than anyone else.

Add to that an ineffective and incompetant government, and you get the seeds of revolution.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "left." The Communist Party in Germany was one of the strongest parties, and although tried to portray itself as rational and full of warm fuzzies, was tied to Stalin, and terrified many Germans. Hitler was seen by Krupp, Hindenberg, and many others as an acceptable alternative to Stalinism. They believed they could control him, and use him to keep the Communists at bay.

(There's your "lesser evil" argument.)

Although the Bush cabal is trying to portray 9/11 and its aftermath as a crisis, there is no crisis anywhere as near as horrific as there was in Germany in the 30's, so it's tough for them to line up all the help they need. Martial law and constitutional suspensions will really have a tough time getting through here.

They're working on it, though, and are trying mightily to get one key part of the population to believe they can save us from the evil Democrats, another part to accept what they do as for the good of the nation, and yet another part to just ignore what's going on. That last group is the easy one.

Of course, we're doing the same thing, aren't we? The two significant differences between them and us are that we are actually interested in the good of the country and not power for its own sake, and we refuse to boldly lie to the extent they do.