Thursday, October 14, 2004

Fascists

Am I the only one who noticed the absolute nonsense Bush wants us to believe about importing Canadian drugs? On the one hand he claims he doesn’t approve of importing drugs because they may be dangerous. But now that he is confronting a shortage a vaccine who does he propose to get it from – Canada! Maybe others picked up on this but just believe that it is so typical Bush it’s not even worth reporting.

Fascism, Mussolini told us, is when you marry corporations to the government. Can anyone doubt this is what has been happening in he United States? Is it not the case that corporate donations are driving politics? Corporations even financed the debates – a real coup as they can claim donations to both parties simultaneously, no doubt tax deductable donations.

And can anyone doubt any longer that Republicans are employing purely fascist tactics to acquire and maintain power? A woman handcuffed and arrested for wearing what they regard as an improper t-shirt? People having to sign loyalty oaths just to get a ticket to hear Bush/Cheney speak? The FBI intimidating black voters? Throwing blacks off the voter rolls? An RNC financed voter registration drive that tears up democratic applications? Congressmen being offered bribes to vote in certain ways? Instructions to black voters that the election is actually being held on the wrong day? The theft of democratic e-mails? Jamming democratic phone lines on election day? Arresting demonstrators doing nothing but exercising their rights of free speech? Usurping prime time television programs to show an anti-Kerry movie just before the election? And this says nothing about the endless attack ads against Kerry – almost exclusively attack ads as Republicans have absolutely nothing positive to run on. The corporate media refusing to criticize Bush/Cheney for their absolute litany of lies and distortions? Their failure to discus any of the real issues in favor of commenting on style and demeanor? Deliberately distorting the polls? If all this isn’t part of a fascist attempt to take over the United States I don’t know what is. We should have known what was coming when Tom DeLay ordered his thugs to Florida to disrupt the vote counting (I think it was DeLay who was responsible). These are certainly not the tactics of truly democratic politics. But they have become the tactics of choice for the Republican party, a party that is promoting candidates that should be ashamed to show their faces in public. Indeed, if they had any decency at all they would resign and admit to their deceit and disastrous failures.

Our best chance to save our democracy is to stop this right now. Get rid of this evil bunch of warmongering murderers and war criminals. Apologize to the world for our temporary insanity and begin again with a clean slate.

Given what has happened in the past three plus years, plus the four recent debates, plus the report on the complete absence of WMD’s, plus the reality of what is going on in Iraq, Israel and Palestine, plus the historic national debt, plus the war profiteering, plus the unprecedented secrecy of the administration, plus the loss of personal privacy, plus the absence of any plan other than stubbornly insisting on more of the same, how in the world can any sane person still not be decided about who to vote for? Never mind the insistence by the media pundits that it will be too close to call, the American people will come to their senses in large enough numbers to reject this band of international cutthroats. If I am wrong, God help us all.

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