Up is down....

[nadinbrzezinski]

we have majorities, yet the party in the majority behaves still like an abused wife.

No Massa, no more, I will behave today...

Ok, Ok, I will believe you... you don't want to hit me again, ok, ok. never mind the bruises cover the face and the arm is
broken

Or is that just an illusion and our leadership is truly in cahoots with them?

Every critical vote.... the Republicans and the President get what they want

And now the leadership is facing a real revolt... (yes that is what Kucinich, bless his heart, did. He lead a revolution.
And the leadership is busy telling us, the rabble... the unwashed masses, that for our own good we should forget
it because we have an agenda to follow and damn it, we don't have the votes.

Of course the media is not covering this, since they know that if it is not on Teevee, it didn't;'t happen...

Up is down indeed.

And this will lead to only one thing... more and more people will not vote, and I am betting 2008 will not be good for the
party of cowardice, or as good as it could be if they developed a spine... them jellyfishes.

So it is time to ask... what the hell is going on? And who are they protecting... and why do they keep confirming
monsters that aide in this fascist shift?

There is no parallel to what is going on in the US. or at least in recent memory... and Americans don't have a historical
memory, so if it happened a generation ago, who cares? But why did the Spaniards throw Aznar to the wolves? Francisco Franco... and why the Brits have not accepted a fascist shift? The Troubles.

So once again... what the hell is going on? And why are our people enabling this shift?

Why are they behaving like Straussians?

[bridgit]

1. ever heard of that *super majority* thing?

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ever heard of dysfunctional legislatures during fascist shifts?

[bridgit]

4. not near the weight, nor water carried as 'functional illiterate'

check it out :thumbsup: again with the fascists??? like that is news, er'somethin?

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Ah, I love the ad hominens

read some history...


By the way, thanks for providing the example of NOT knowing history and being proud of it.

:evilgrin:

[bridgit]

7. you're the queen of nothing...go for it...

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Ignore in 5...4....3....2...1 BOOOM!

[bridgit]

12. what*ever*, 'ignorance' is not the key to survival; engagement is...

where it is the case that others are only here to stroke their ego driven notions, and tout their "so-called" lib/progressive, ethnocentric diatribes that is fine, this is America and i say thank G_g for it therefore be gone in earnest

:patriot:

[Jim Sagle]

16. Thank you for your unconcern.

[bridgit]

22. para nada...

[2rth2pwr]

3. Your question "who are they protecting?"

doesn't fit with your theory that they are being silenced by Anthra*. Or the other one that they are being blackmailed because they have been illegally wiretapped.

I wish you could stick to one conspiracy theory that doesn't contradict all the others.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Actually it doesn't

read Wolf... and then come back to me.

But it is clear that the LEADERSHIP CURRENTLY is protecting somebody...

By the way here is the definition of conspiracy for you

conspiracy |k?n?spir?s?| noun ( pl. -cies) a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful : a conspiracy to destroy the government. See note at plot . • the action of plotting or conspiring : they were cleared of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

You seem to need it... and by the by, it IS a legal term.

[2rth2pwr]

11. wolf on Taser Boy

It is an iconic turning point and it will be remembered as the moment at which America either fought back or yielded. This violence against a student is different from violence against protesters in the anti-war movement of 30 years ago because of the power the president has now to imprison innocent U.S. citizens for months in isolation. And because, as I have explained elsewhere, we are not now in a situation in which 'the pendulum' can easily swing back. That taser was directed at the body of a young man, but it is we ourselves, and our Constitution, who received the full force of the shock. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/a-shocking-moment-for-soc_b_64909.html

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. There you go... a fascist shift

time to see this for what it is

Party leadership is not truly on our side.

[wiggs]

9. Important question that's been in the air since 9/11. Can't be asked enough.

It's not dem vs reps, right vs left, du vs freeps, progressives vs conservatives, secularists vs religious right, straight vs gay, citizens vs illegals, or any other popular division that talk shows and campaign strategists spend time on.

It's all of us...us dems and us republicans versus those who want power and resources concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Most branches of government are led by those who come from or live in circles that are on the receiving end of the power shift. Their friends and relatives are CEOs or sit on boards of global companies. This is their frame of reference. This is the America they know and protect. And they protect it at the expense of other groups or other countries.

It's not all of them, but it is enough of them.

IMHO, of course.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. You are describing a power structure

there are exceptions (Kennedy), but my view of the factions are as follows

NeoCons \ DLC... they come from the same intellectual millieu and distrust the masses and secular societies... read Strauss

Econonic Monarchists... that is where Junior and his family comes from... even if Jeb is also a Neocon, as well as the other
brother.

Populists: Those are actually for the people... since they recognize that their wealth and safety depends on our consumption... and those are the ones who have lost control

Progressives: A particular subgroup...

In effect this is the difference that has existed since the foundation of the country... whgs versus Democrat-Republicans was not that different and led to the Second American Revolution, the election of 1800

[Prophet 451]

10. It's about personal power

Remember, only resort to a theory when the facts cannot be adequatly explained.

I think what you have here is a confluence of factors. First off, put away the idea that any more than a tiny minority of politicians are genuinely trying to benefit the nation:
1. The Dem contenders for the Presidency (barring massive vote tampering or a coup, one of them is likely to get in) don't want to focus too much light on Bush's illgal actions because they'd like the option to engage in similar illegal actions (Kooch excepted).
2. A certain number of others are personally rich and/or well-connected and doing quite well off the Bush regime.
3. A few more want to, effectively, give the Bush junta enough rope to hang themselves. They figure that widespread revulsion with the Bush doctrine in 2008 will lead to an electoral bloodbath in favour of teh Dems.
4. For the rest, you have a mixture of the hapless, the gutless and those who haven't realised that the MSM is always tilting things in a conservative fashion. Effectively, the way your media presents political issues hasn't changed much since 1985 and they still think Bush is as popular as Reagan was.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. I love a view from the outside

and we are in the midst of something uggly

And we have several factions, see above.

Just becuase soembody has a D behind their name... does not guarantee anything

But a lack of a national narrative (history is not taught in history classes, what there are history classes) or folks would be able to see the paralells with McCarthy early on after 9.11 and done something about it

Klein noted in an interview recently that after 9.11 people started to read... trying to understand. That is a national activity, as discusion involves people. Bush told us to go shoping, which isolates the individual and prevents understanding... and oposition

[Prophet 451]

19. It's worse than that

Two of my hobbies are history and criminal psychology. The two rarely come together but very occasionally, the patterns of history start to repeat in ways that everyone can see if they had but eyes to look.

McCarthy is one comparison but there's another, even worse. I don't say this much because Americans have an annoying tendancy to assume it isn't fascism unless there are tanks in the streets but this is starting to look an awful lot like an updated version of Germany, circa about 1936. Everything which should have sent up alarm bells about Germany (but didn't because no-one knew what to look for) are there again:
- A national tragedy, exploited to expand the power of the executive. 9/11 in Bush's case, the Reichstag in Hitler's (that is not to say that 9/11 was a work although it's possible, I tend to think LIHOP myself).
- A retreat from previous democratic freedoms, the accumulation of ever more power in the hands of law enforcement. See the Patriot Act, Military Tribunals, legalised torture, etc.
- The designation of official "enemies", scapegoats who can be blamed for all the countries ills. Witness the ongoing demonisation of anything which can be labelled "liberal".
- The merging of state and corporate power. People tend to assume that teh Nazis were socialists because the word was included in teh party name. The fact is that they were socialists in name only. Now, the US has been suffering from this one, to an extent, for the last thirty years or so. The protracted conflict with the USSR created a simplified view that anything other than unrestrained capitalism was communist. The revolving door between corporate and political life has reached new heights in teh Bush junta though.
- The crushing and/or demonising of dissent. See "Free Speech Zones", much of teh Patriot Act and the self-appointed Patriotism Police of talk radio.
- Pronounced and continuous nationalism. No comment necessary.
- The glorification of the military. Again, the US has been prone to this for several decades but teh rest of us in teh rest of teh world worry about the extent to which Americans almost hero-worship their military (and the US's permanent war-time economy).
- The abuse of religion. Now, opinion of the Nazis religious views tends to assume that they were all either irreligious or ardent Christians. Again, the facts are rather more complicated but it's certainly true that the Nazis used and abused religion in an attempt to identify the party with the faith. You don't have to look very far to see a concerted effort for Bush to do the same thing.
- Media censorship. The Bushistas have been lucky on this one. They don't have to resort to anything as crude as outright censorship or D Notices because the media has become largely concentrated in corporate hands so self-censorship is the order of the day.

It must be pointed out that none of this would have been possible without a largely apathetic and ignorant electorate. I could go on but I think I've made my point. This is not to say that Bush is Hitler. The psychological traits are very different. Hitler was the archetypal megalomaniac. Personally brave, quite bright and a talented public speaker (that is not praise, I'm partly Roma, I have more reason than most to hate the bastard). Bush is a man suffering from dry-drunk syndrome who's lack of emotional development (I guess he has an emotional age of about 10) leads him to be easily dominated by those he looks to for guidance (in this case, Cheney). He also has classic rich-kid narcissism and lack of empathy (his childhood cruelty to animals fits a well-established pattern). None of that is untreatable if caught fairly early in life.

The problem is that he is dominated and manipulated by Cheney and Cheney does fit the classic megalomaniac profile. His lack of concern after he accidently shot his friend was telling, as is the pattern of unethical (and probably illegal) deals he presided over at Halliburton. He is the power in this junta. Bush is simply the easily manipulated front man, sent out to put on a smiling face for the cameras. This is a common pattern. In criminal psychology, crimes committed by two people are psychologically distinct from those committed by a larger group. Two person crimes are referred to as "partner crimes" and, contrary to popular belief, are not usually "folie a deux" (a shared madness) but a case of one partner psychologically (and sometimes physically) dominating the other. The best example would probably be the serial killers Myra Hindley and Ian Brady ("The Moors Murderers").

I contend that this is the real danger. That Bush, while doubtless malicious, would be little danger without the manipulation of the sociopathic Cheney and it is that which should ring alarm bells. We've seen what happens when state power is concentrated in the hands of a sociopath. That's why I think impeachment is imperative, because with this man in charge, I'm honestly not sure the US can survive another year without an excuse (perhaps a terrorist incident, either real or manufactured) to declare martial law and engineer an executive coup.

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. Ameircans have that knee jerk reaction

true... and I have been calling it fascism (as well as other posters) for close to a year now

And yes Germany is close... but Italy, chile and even the USSR is also there...

Totalitarian states are totalitarian states after all

Three books to highly recommend

Naomi Wolf's The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot.... she is American

Naomi Klein: Disaster Capitalism, Canuck

And Bush on the Couch by Frank... you will particularly enjoy this one since he goes into the antisocial personality of our fearless leader and his lack of apathy....

Of course there are the other classics, that most Americans refuse to read these days.

like oh... Hannah Arend's but I am sure you've read those

Naomi is very good at sumarizing the ten steps to a police state, a closed society, and we only are missing one... by next year we will be there... no doubt in my mind... and we are running out of time FAST...

Klein is extrmely good at explaining the Chigago school and disaster Capitalism, slowly working my way through that one.

And thanks... it is refresing to speak with somebody who recognizes the danger.... and yes there are people INSIDE the country who do as well, but we are fighting a level of denial that have allowed me to understand how it could happen in Germany.

[Prophet 451]

23. Read two of those

"Disaster Capitalism" is next on the list (I habitually have four or five books on the go at once).

I actually learned about the Chicago school before I read Klein. Greg Palast did a series of articles about it in the Guardian here years ago. Fascinating stuff but teh kind of theory that could only be cooked up in academia. Now, I love academia but I'll also be the first to admit that there's a tendancy toward the "ivory tower" due to a failure to experiance the sharp end of theories cooked up there. The idea of privatising essential services for example, could only have been cooked up in academia. The "free market uber alles" model doesn't and can't work for them because it's not like, say, a Big Mac. If teh price of a Big Mac gets too high, you just don't have one but you have to have electricity, water, gas and, these days, communications so privitising those industries allows rampant profiteering, as happened here when Thatcher (may she one day get what's coming to her) did it.

None of the tactics that the Republican Reich has relied on are even that new. The Nazis are one example, the USSR is another but Machiavelli laid out most of them in "The Prince" (and if there was ever an arguement for getting American students to read the classics, there it is) and even he wasn't first. One can go back to Rome or Greece and find much the same power plays being used, often even using the same terms. "Peace through war" has been the justification of tyrants throughout history. The Romans, for example, described their aggressive wars as "pacification". The paralell to the Bush claim that removing Hussein (and he was a monster, no question) has made the world safer is obvious.

The abiding grievance of historians, especially political historians, is that the plebiscites, the great mass of the people, are not so much bad as easily distracted.

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Well the true source for Leo Strauss is

Aristotle so yes, people read the classics... and trust me... his Ethics WERE boring at 18... these days I see the problems with it

But then again I did not grow up in the US and my HS required me to read the Prince, Aristotle, Heguel and Heideger.. among others

My first two years of college at a liberal arts college was kind of... ok I read this, I read this... oh goody, now I get to read Tomas Paine...

It is sad... but we are also getting the fruits of an effort to dumb down American Education. Hell, my mother went to the American School in Mexico City.... silly one of her Textbooks was part of my Masters Thesis... but I digress. Her readying list back in 1940 included the classics and the US Constitution ... these days, the kids from my brother in Law's previous marriage, they graduated from the California Public HS system... and they NEVER read the classics, or had a civics course. Nor are they interested.

As to being easily distracted... bread and circuses, they just have changed methods.

[earth mom]

17. I saw a story on about Kucinich & Impeachment on CBS last night-yeah, the MIDDLE of the night.

around 3 am or so. :argh:

IMO, There is NO difference in the parties anymore save a handful in Congress. They all serve the same master and want the same thing which is TOTAL GLOBALIZATION. To them, we are peons-NOT the people they were elected to serve. A North American Union is the goal because then they won't have to deal with any of us any more! We will finally be silenced and not allowed to speak, to protest, to phone their offices or write them letters. Oh hell yes they want to give us all the middle finger in the worst way!

Make NO mistake: We, THE PEOPLE, are disposable.

Treasonous Bastards! :grr:

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. So what do we do?

I mean when we ask the people to step to the plate....

That is what I still rake my brains over...

How do we activate a very desllusioned people?

As to the NAU... won't happen.

No... I am not pollyanna about it... this will be one of those .. the best plans of mice and men.... and that has all to do with the collapse of the Empire

They expect to use that to ram it through, disaster capitalism and all, but I suspect it will not work...

And the why... I suspect it will get uggly... as in blody ugly

[earth mom]

25. The North American Union is THE PLAN. There is no doubt in my mind.

Are you saying the people won't allow it to happen? Are people even paying attention? I've posted dozens of times on DU warning about the NAU. Do people even notice? They think it's CT & refuse to connect the dots! They would rather whine & complain about the dems without even looking for a deeper reason behind everything! Frankly, I'm getting tired of warning people but I won't give up even though it's almost too late.

So once more with feeling:

http://www.vivelecanada.ca/staticpages/index.php/20060830133702539



BTW-How else will they reduce all of us to the peons/slaves they want us to be? How else will * get his wish and become the dictatorTOT he already thinks he is?!




Daniel Estulin has a lot of information about the whys-He advocates that getting out of debt and out of the financial grasp of the powers that be is the ONLY way to stop them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-15EjHCzds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRsX3LXzxD4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYS4D-gUrE0



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJI9PaYvptQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Byed3cIWgZQ

[nadinbrzezinski]

34. It won't happen because there are forces that have been unleashed

in the body politic that will not allow it

As I said, this is about the best plans of mice and men.

The empire will collapse soon enough and when it does, we may even see states going their own way.

[Prophet 451]

21. There will be no NAU

It's a simple equation: Canada and Mexico are much less wedded to glabalisation than the US is. They go along with free trade agreements essentially because they get far more out of it than you do.

A true free trade area (which NAFTA isn't and an NAU wouldn't be) would stabilise wages, admittedly at a very low level, but that would remove the power to play workers in one nation against workers in another. It would also actually reduce corporate profits. I know that sounds illogical but the current trade agreements are carefully structured to maximise profit through a complex system of tax breaks, copyright laws, import/export duties and tariffs and so on. Actually unifying the three nations removes all of that. The US agricultural industry relies heavily on cheap, imported labour (read Reefer Madness) which disappears in the three nations are unified.

Also, Canada is still a Crown Protectorate (albeit nominally). Our Queen is still officially their head of state and officially has to give her blessing to this kind of thing. These days, that's mainly a rubberstamp but if there's anything likely to make her invoke the Right of Veto, that's it.

[earth mom]

26. See my post #25-do some research. You are wrong. nt

[Prophet 451]

27. Yes, blanket denial ALWAYS beats considered thought

I have read the research, probably the same research as you. It's my considered opinion that a NAU will not and cannot happen. It is your considered opinion that I am wrong. Fair enough, you're entitled to that. You are not entitled to issue a blanket "you are wrong" when we come to differing opinions. You're entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.

[earth mom]

31. The problem is your opinion doesn't make sense.

The powers that be want want to turn back time. They want slave labor. They don't care about preserving wages for the lowly peons of this country. They are waging a class war with the majority of us and we are losing! They have systematically set out to crush the middle class by illegal immigration, union busting, out sourcing etc. These are FACTS. You can call them opinions but you would be wrong. It doesn't take much research to see that what's happening to the middle class. The question you and all of us need to be asking is WHY? Why do they want to destroy the middle class and our way of life? Looking for the deeper meaning and reasons behind their actions is what everyone needs to be doing, yet you are taking what they are doing and twisting it into something that isn't there. This is a "New World Order"- Bush Sr. said so himself years ago. They powers that be-THE PEOPLE WITH THE MONEY & POWER- are not playing this by some sort of outdated business model. NO.

The powers that be have carefully and methodically set out to crush this country and it's people and those who can't see that are in deep denial.



BTW-You say "our Queen"-are you British? FYI-the Queen of England is part of this, just like all the rest of the leaders around the world. You can bank on that.

[Prophet 451]

33. Yes, I am British

Your facts may be accurate but your interpretation of those facts is highly questionable.

However, since this is La Rouchist nonsense, I'll not play further. Good evening to you.

[cali]

28. LOL

First of all, you can find just as much evidence for your "fascist shift" in Great Britain as you can in the U.S.- if not more. Secondly, the dems are acting weak- that doesnt' translate into "Straussians". And as someone pointed out, you contradict yourself with the assertion that they're behaving like slaves and behaving like "Straussians". Not a very well thought out or constructed argument about the motives of the U.S. Congress.

Oh, and you utterly ignore that institutions have a life of their own.

[Junkdrawer]

29. Because we've gone from an Industrial economy to an Imperial economy...

Same thing happened to Rome. And when that shift occurs, civilizations turn from republics to dictatorships and then a long, slow, debased slide into ruin.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. that's a good point

and not only rome, the comparison to Spain is even better at certain levels

[nashville_brook]

30. because the people who pay their bills aren't us.

k n r.

[porphyrian]

32. If you figure it out, let me know. My breaker's already flipped off. -n/t

[Indi Guy]

36. The answer is simple

Wall St. money has corrupted, and continues to corrupt the leadership of both major parties.

Outsiders make campaign promises to cleanup the lobbying cesspool in D.C.; but when they get to D.C. the cesspool becomes a Jacuzzi.

[Mike03]

37. Please keep a journal

So much of what you write is worth keeping, but my life is so frazzled that I can't keep it all. It would be so nice if you would collect your writings somehow.

In the meantime, thank you for your thoughts. They are like a Roto-Rooter to my tired brain.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Done

[Indi Guy]

39. Forgive my ignorance here

Is the journal retroactive, or will you need to retrieve your writings & add them yourself? If so, please do. I like your style as well.