I don't have any war record, but I had some Madison Avenue hacks craft me a bunch of empty patriotic speeches to bamboozle you. I don't have a lifelong record of actually doing things for this country; but I do have a carefully managed public image of that. Don't you mind that its basis in documentation is thin enough for conspiracy theorists like Wayne Madsen to find enough embarrassing factoids to accuse me of being a CIA plant. (Its oh-so-convenient that this "birther" crap poisons the well for anyone doing genuine investigative journalism. That's why I pay Madision Ave the big bucks.)
Like Hindenburg, I am a creature of the Establishment. I am right wing, "pragmatic", and quite willing to sell out working people to an entrenched military establishment.
Though 84 years old and in poor health, Hindenburg was persuaded to run for re-election in 1932, as he was considered the only candidate who could defeat Adolf Hitler. Hindenburg was re-elected in a runoff but nonetheless played an important role in the Nazi Party's rise to power, dissolving parliament twice in 1932 and eventually appointing Hitler as Chancellor in January 1933. In February, he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended various civil liberties, and in March he signed the Enabling Act, in which parliament gave Hitler's administration legislative powers. Hindenburg died the following year, after which Hitler declared the office of President vacant and, as "Führer und Reichskanzler", made himself head of state.
- Wikipedia entry
Unlike Hindenburg, I have no excuses for my behavior. I am not in ill-health. I did not serve my entire life in the Prussian Officer Corps - one of the most haughty and oppressive aristocratic groups to ever exist. No one begged me to come out of a well-earned retirement for a second time.
Hindenburg himself was said to be a monarchist who favored a restoration of the German monarchy...he hoped one of the Prussian princes would be appointed to succeed him as Head of State...It has been alleged that Hindenburg’s will asked for Hitler to restore the monarchy.
-Wikipedia
Unlike Hindenburg, when I came to office, the radical right's power was at its nadir; I even had a super-majority. Had I been aggressive, I could have been another FDR. Instead I used the phony rhetoric of "bipartisanship" to give the GOP time to regroup, while pissing off my own base.
Hindenburg played a supporting but key role in the Nazi Machtergreifung (Seizure of Power) in 1933. In the "Government of National Concentration" headed by Hitler, the Nazis were in the minority. Besides Hitler, the only other Nazi ministers were Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick. Frick held the then-powerless Interior Ministry, while Göring was given no portfolio. Most of the other ministers were hold-overs from the Papen and Schleicher governments, and the ones who were not, such as Alfred Hugenberg of the DNVP, were not Nazis. This had the effect of assuring Hindenburg that the room for radical moves on the part of the Nazis was limited.
- Wikipedia
Like Hindenburg, I essentially just dissolved the Democratic Party and handed the government over to the minority GOP. Like Hindenburg, I have continued Bush's suspension of civil liberties and even added a few of my own. (Make sure to wear clean underwear to the airport.) Of course, Hindenburg was senile and being manipulated, while I am sharp as a razor. That's how I (and the Village) are "able to assure you that the room for radical moves on the part of the GOP is limited."
But, you know as well as I do that, in 2012, I will hand this country over to whatever proto-fascist Dominionist nutcase wins the intra-party brawl inside the GOP.
You can take that to the bank. Look at how I managed to blow a massive landslide and alienate just about everyone in my base in just two years, while passing little more than a castrated health reform that just got whacked by the courts. Give me two more years with a GOP house and a bare majority in the Senate, and the GOP could elect a serial murderer whose running mate is a child molester. Oh, right, that's who they will be running. Well, not my problem.
So, just remember, the "H." is for Hindenburg. A giant bag of gas that is going to crash and burn and kill a lot of people.
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Speaking for those who remember history and don't want it repeated, I (arendt) say:
Obama is even more of a willing figurehead for a corporate/theocrat takeover of America than Hindenburg was for a Nazi takeover of Germany. Obama won the 2008 audition for figurehead going away over the tired, pathetic, hopelessly compromised, Hindenburg wannabee, John McCain.
In his diary Barack Obama, tax cuts, and the role of Mediator-in-Chief, brooklynbadboy made a case for Obama being "a process guy". That neutral phrase got me thinking.
A process guy is neither a policy maker nor a leader, he is a functionary. A process guy who's job description is to be a leader? - he's a figurehead.
George Soros and Der Spiegel - two voices that know fascism when they see it - are saying America is on that track. Any genuine leader would be fighting that fascism, not embracing it. Obama? Not so much.
Go ahead. Flame away. History. Who reads it? Who needs it?