We are beaten. Defeated. We kept it close for a while, but in the end, we just didn't have what it takes to win. Did we try hard enough? Not as hard as they did. Did we play fair? Yes. Did they? No. Does it matter that they broke the rules while we played by the book? Nope. The winners write the history, the losers are a footnote.
The truth below the fold...
I'm not talking about Iraq. I'm talking about freedom loving Americans. And not the hypocritical, flag waving, wearing-your-false-patriotism on your sleeve type of freedom loving American. I'm talking about progressive/liberals, who truly believe what the Constitution means, or meant, before the right wing poisoned the soul of the electorate with their rampant dishonesty, corruption, cronyism and for lack of a better word...evil.
We have had our asses handed to us election after election because of one simple fact: lies are stronger than truth. They believe in lying, they have no use for the truth. Why? Because dishonesty works. Lying makes the complicated simple. Lies make the unpleasant palatable. Dishonesty masks the stink of blind, power hungry ambition like a cheap cologne. Throwing away facts makes fear that much easier to ferment. The truth is so much harder, infinitely more complicated. We believe the truth is important, facts matter.
The lies of Republicans are burned into American history like tattoos on a Hell's Angel. McCarthy, Nixon, Reagan all wove a boogeyman mythology of the communist threat into a quilt of personal power. Now we see today's Republicans furiously weaving the terrorist mythology into a quilt of ideological dominance.
Here is a little quiz. Read the following and think about who it reminds you of:
His primary rules [are]: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
Sound like any President you know?
Of course, any student of history will immediately recognize the theory of the "big lie," variously attributed to Hitler and/or Goebbels. That quote is actually from an OSS report on Hitler's psychological profile.
And from Mein Kampf:
All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
I'm not calling Republicans Nazis, but I am suggesting that they learned a little from them. Whenever you hear a Republican cite 9/11 for ANYTHING, just replace the terrorist attack with "Reichstag fire".
This post began as a spleen-venting exercise over the rampant dishonesty revealed by Bush's NSA spying program and the other various, numerous, overwhelming and all-encompassing lies of this administration. But, I don't think I can finish. Looking at what is happening, the "how" and the "why" of our eroding freedoms, I am losing the ability to focus on this post, instead trying to keep the tears from flowing and the vomit from filing my mouth.