From blogger Glovefox (whose site is retricted), an email documenting that fact that Liberal Britain goes into depression and shock as it sides with the Blue States of America.
We are not alone.
And, just for more to ponder, a couple of relevant quotes:
“The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.”
— Adolph Hitler, 1933
(Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin,
February 1, 1933).
(I think I’ll put the above in my sidebar.)
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
— Edmund Burke
Heh. Just found some other Hitler quotes that seems uniquely appropriate to what we just witnessed from the GOP:
All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of those towards whom it intends to direct itself.”
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Vol. I
I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almight Creator by warding off the Jews. I am fighting for the Lord’s work.
— Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Hey, Elaine, I’m so glad you put those Hitler quotes up. Hitler is often considered a buffoon by those who don’t know history, but the man was smart. We shouldn’t put Bush down as a buffoon, either. I heard a snippet of his acceptance speech; he said something along these lines: we are one country, with one constitution, and “one future that binds us all.”
You know, I thought of Hitler. One future? Who says? My future is the same as a Halliburton CEO’s? A black kid in the inner city has the same future as …whoever? What bullshit! But that’s exactly how Hitler talked, too: eine Zukunft, ein Volk, …ein Fuehrer. (And like Bush, he believed utterly that he had “die Vorsehung” — God — on his side, that God spoke through him.)
Bush isn’t Hitler. But he’s using similar tactics. It’s the perfection of demagoguery, and it has timeless appeal for some. I suspect that it’s typically used by people who in fact are quite *canny* and not at all simple, but who manage to pitch (as in voice) their appeal to some level that’s simple, not complex. If a truly “simple” person did that, he’d be dismissed, but when the demagogue (a canny clever person) does it, he’s welcomed as “one of us.” Wish I knew how to uproot his hold on people’s minds, really I do. But I have no idea how to do it. The harder we fight, the more “they” hold on to their intimate friend.
Perhaps the only way to do it is by shining example, ..you know, what the marketers are always on about, haha. Develop a better product, make it look better? At some point (and maybe I’m channeling maria from alembic here), the frame doesn’t matter anymore, it’s the picture, and it’s gotta look good, better than what the Hitler-of-the-day is promising. The Democrats need to field someone who actually comes into focus — but they shot Dean down, so maybe they don’t want to?
We must have been sharing the same brainwaves, Elaine & Yule! That was the first thing I and my S.O. thought when we read Bush’s words “We are one country, one constitution and one future that binds us…”
http://www.geekicon.net/go.shtml/article/637
I am glad I’m not the only one who is picking up on these nationalistic parallels.