At this point this kind of thing is just really pathetic. I mean, it shows a complete lack of imagination and perspective. Every time something doesn't go the way Conservatives like they jump up and complain that it's Just Like Nazi Germany and any minute, any second now, the Round Up is going to begin.
This is kind of talk we've recently heard from Conservative Rich Guy Whiner Tom "Kristallnacht" Perkins. And Glenn Beck. And Jonah Goldberg. And Glenn Beck Again, along with Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter.
Either that or they say something as equally deranged as the suggestion that "ObamaCare [or Unions, or Social Security or the Federal Debt ] is Just Like Slavery" - because sure all the Slaves got to buy private health insurance on the free market with the money They Weren't BEING PAID!
That's the kind of rhetoric we've heard from Fox Contributor Dr. Ben Carson, from Gov. Scott Walker, from Former Rep Allen West and from Sarah Palin. Because surely all of those things are just Exactly like the market driven practice that deprived Millions of their Human Rights for Centuries.
Fuckin' Please!
Today's Deluded Godwin-Defying-Dolt, is yet again, the ex-neurosurgeon in search of a clue - Dr. Ben Carson. (the relevant nitwittery starts at 8:00)
The comments came at a Jan. 31 fundraiser for Oregon Republican Senate candidate Dr. Monica Wehby. A video of the speech, uploaded to YouTube, shows Carson discussing how the "secular progressive movement" wants to "fundamentally change who we are." The majority of Americans who have "common sense," meanwhile, are "afraid to speak out," Carson said, because "they will be targeted, they will be called names, they will be investigated by the IRS, and all kinds of unimaginable things will happen."
Oh, my, shit! Conservatives who want to avoid taxes with a 501(c)4 "Social Justice" organization might actually have to wait until the IRS is sure that it's not just a
Political Front, and then eventually
all be approved - while Progressive organizations...
have to do the same thing?
Oh nooo, Mr. Bill. What ever will they think of next to torment us with?
But wait, it got worse...
"There comes a time when people with values simply have to stand up," he said. "Think about Nazi Germany. Most of those people did not believe in what Hitler was doing. But did they speak up? Did they stand up for what they believe in? They did not, and you saw what happened."
"And if you believe that same thing can't happen again, you're very wrong," Carson then added. "But we're not going to let it happen."
Pardon me, but exactly when have Conservatives - on the Washington Mall with tri-corner hats, on Fox News, in the well of Congress tweeting rude smack talk during the State of the Union, on the verge of throwing someone
over the balcony in Congress, at the local Gun Store, in the bowels of
skunky restaurants in Enid Oklahoma, on
Every Sunday Political Talk Show, in the middle of most Church Services in the Bible Belt and
All Over Right-Wing Talk Radio - not been
Speaking Out?
If anything, they can't seem to shut up for half a second with their constant complaining and griping.
Here's the thing, I think Conservatives are suffering from a terminally apoplectic case of Projection, because they don't seem to think any of us remember exactly what it was like when they had the White House last and what they did with that power to anyone they didn't like, let alone anyone who dared to dissent or criticize. They are deathly afraid that Progressives, deep in our hearts, are just as petty, mypoic and vindictive as they are.
Except we aren't. Well, mostly not.
(Trigger Warning: Some of the images I will use to illustrate this point, are Graphic)
It is funny that they can never seem to bring themselves to say that this or that progressive initiative is Just like the Trail of Tears! Or perhaps like Jim Crow Lynch Mobs. Or the Internment Camps of WWII (ok, wait they do keep talking about "Fema Camps" except those are a Paranoid Fantasy that originally begun under Bush after Katrina) Or just like Plessy V Furgeson which codified Seperate but (Un)equal. Or better yet - the Tuskegee Experiment where black men suffering from syphilis were given fake medicine to study the impact of the disease on them. Or just like Kent State were innocent unarmed protesters were shot down. Or just like COINTELPRO where the FBI performed illegal surveillance, planted false evidence and coerced witness into false testimony. Or just like allowing industrial tragedies like the Triangle Shirt Waist and Cuyahoga River Fires to take place, which could be used an as analogy for something. I don't know what, but something - at least it would show some thought, imagination and initiative on their part instead of "Slavery - HITLER - Slavery - HITLER - rah Rah RAH!"
But I guess admitting that America Really Did All That would undermine their "We're Number #1 FUCK Yeah!" Cheerleader Routine with some cold hard reality and a touch of humility.
It's progressives who feel that people should have to freedom to worship, or not worship, while Conservatives are threatened if anyone dares not worship like them. It's progressives who feel that people should have the freedom to marry the consenting adult of their choice, but Conservatives don't. It's progressives who think working people should have freedom to choose where they want to work, and IF they want to work, but Conservatives don't. It's progressives who think Health Care is a Right connected directly to the "Right to Live" including pre-natal care and child healthcare, not a privilege or commodity, but Conservatives don't. it's progressive who think working people should have the ability to work their way up the economic ladder to a better life and gradually close the inequity gap, and Conservatives clearly don't. It's progressive who feel that being of a particular ethnicity shouldn't determine whether you can get a job, a loan, a house, a decent meal, or that it should let police or panicked cowardly armed white-people treat you like a dangerous scumbag by default - Conservatives don't. It's progressives who feel that bullying and shaming of people for being different from you is wrong and shouldn't be tolerated in civil society, Conservatives don't - unless they feel like playing the victim for a day or two right after they've been caught bullying someone else.
Generally speaking the Nazis really wouldn't be in strong agreement with many, if any, progressive values. And it's not like you can't check to be sure - just go to Stormfront.com and have a look. Don't forget to wear a snorkel and bring some disinfectant.
But you know what actually is a lot like something the Nazis did? Rounding up people of a particular religious persuasion, whether they were guilty of anything or not, grabbing them up and Kidnapping them, moving them to a far away undisclosed and remote location then subjecting them to brutally cruel and harsh treatment sometimes leading to their death.
.
.
.
Yeah, I guess you know I'm talking about Bush Era Policy of Extraordinary Rendition to Secure "Black Sites" and systematic Torture don't you?
http://www.salon.com/...
While new movie “Zero Dark Thirty” has renewed debates over the CIA’s use of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, a Thursday ruling in the European Court of Human Rights has brought the issue of U.S. extraordinary rendition practices to the fore. The court ruled that the CIA illegally subjected a German-Lebanese man to extraordinary rendition in a secret Afghan prison sinisterly dubbed “the salt pit.” It was the first case relating to the U.S.’s practice of transferring terror suspects across borders for interrogation to come before the Strasbourg-based court.
Khaled El-Masri was kidnapped in Macedonia by the authorities there and handed over to U.S. custody. He was flown to Afghanistan in December 2003 and interrogated there until his release in May 2004, when he was dumped on a mountain road in Albania. Thursday’s European court decision focused on Macedonia’s role, ruling that the government must pay El-Masri 60,000 euros in damages, but carries important implications for U.S. accountability over the use of torture in its war on terror.
Some in the CIA are wanted on kidnapping charges.
http://www.investigativeproject.org/...
Today Italian newspapers announced that authorities in Milan have indicted 13 CIA operatives for the kidnapping of Abu Omar, a radical Egyptian cleric that "disappeared" from the streets of the northern Italian city in February of 2003. The step represents a major upset to the CIA's "rendition" policy and could create a potential rift with one of its closest allies in the War on Terror.
Oh, and as it turned out Abu Omar had
nothing to do with terrorism, which is something that we didn't find out until he was tortured in Egypt.
Abu Omar was allegedly kidnapped by a group of men one cold morning in Milan, taken to a US military base in Northern Italy and flown to Egypt on a CIA jet. According to Italian authorities, Abu Omar was locked up in an Egyptian jail and tortured after he refused to become an informant for the Mukhabarat. The indictment alleges that the whole operation was planned by CIA agents stationed in Italy and that at least 13 agents took part to it. The operatives' sloppiness led Italian investigators to identify them, as the 13 used their cellphones to make calls and their passports to book hotels. Investigators allege that the agents even went to a luxurious Venice hotel to celebrate the success of the operation.
Far from being limited to only a few persons, U.S. Black Sites along with prisons such as Abu Ghraib and the facility at Bagram AFB in Afghanistan held an estimate of over 100,000 people in
50 Prisons across 28 Countries at the height of the rendition program.
it may not have been the Millions of Nazi Germany, but it's not exactly a "few".
Some of these Black Sites were actually located at Former Soviet Gulags, so if you want to talk about Fascism and Stalanism that's getting pretty close.
Then you had the practice of trying to extract information or coerce cooperation using "Enhanced Interrogation" methods like those used at these Black Sites (as well as at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib) that included stress positions, sleep deprivation, hypothermia, fear induction with dogs and other forms mental and physical torture.
And yeah, even at Abu Ghraib some of these guys died. That last picture of the guy packed in ice (known as "Ice-Man") is in fact dead. The case involving his homicide was pretty much the only
Post-Bush Torture Trial we actually had, but he certain wasn't the only
death in custody.
“Command’s Responsibility documents a dozen brutal deaths as the result of the most horrific treatment. One such incident would be an isolated transgression; two would be a serious problem; a dozen of them is policy. The law of military justice has long recognized that military leaders are held responsible for the conduct of their troops. Yet this report also documents that no civilian official or officer above the rank of major responsible for interrogation and detention practices has been charged in connection with the torture or abuse-related death of a detainee in U.S. custody. And the highest punishment for anyone handed down in the case of a torture-related death has been five months in jail.
Conservatives would like to pretend these were "aberrations" or were only minor issues, but all of these techniques were specifically authorized by SecDef
Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush. All of this was a
feature, not a bug in the Bush Anti-Terrorism strategy.
And the false debate over whether these tactics were or weren't "torture" is now offically over according to a new report.
http://www.politico.com/...
A nonpartisan panel declared Tuesday it was “indisputable” that the United States tortured detainees in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, and said the nation’s “highest officials bear some responsibility for allowing and contributing the spread of torture.”
Yes, it was torture. It was illegal, it was a long series of War Crimes.
When Obama wants to give Federal Workers a minimum wage increase the Right-Wing screams "Tyranny" and "Dictator" - even though he's the "CEO" of the Federal Workforce - but Bush didn't ask Congress's permission for any of this. He. Just. Did. It. And then he lied to everyone about the fact that it was going on.
Then it seems, he got away with it with a pile of legal legerdemain and weak will to address the subject.
Does anyone remember "Free Speech Zones" for Anti-War Protestors?
WASHINGTON - At events attended by President Bush and other senior federal officials around the country, the Secret Service has been discriminating against protesters in violation of their free speech rights, the American Civil Liberties Union charged today in the first nationwide lawsuit of its kind.
""There is nothing more American than raising your voice in protest, and there is nothing more un-American than a government that attempts to hit the mute button when it doesn't like what it hears," said Witold Walczak, Legal Director of the ACLU of Greater Pittsburgh and a member of the national ACLU legal team that filed today's lawsuit.
Apparently the Right-Wing doesn't, because to them - during those years - anyone who dared to question the President's War Policies - were essentially traitors giving "aid and comfort" to the enemy.
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/...
December 2001: In response to Democratic plans to question parts of the USA Patriot Act during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, John Ashcroft suggests that people who disagree with the administration's anti-terrorism policies are on the side of the terrorists. "To those who pit Americans against immigrants, and citizens against non-citizens; to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies, and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.
September 2002: Campaigning against Democrats who did not support his legislation to create the Department of Homeland Security (a department whose creation he had previously opposed), President Bush said that "the Senate is more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people."
May 2004: After Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) said "the direction [in Iraq] has got be changed or it is unwinnable," Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) said Democrats are "basically giving aid and comfort to the enemy."
July 2005: Senator Dick Durbin states that a description of US interrogation procedures at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility sounds like something "done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others." Presidential adviser Karl Rove responds by suggesting that Durbin and other liberals seek to put US troops in danger, saying that "Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."
Because pointing out the obvious is clearly anti-Americanism.
If you want to talk about singling out a specific group for scrutiny then we have to talk about the NYPD. First you had their program to secretly surveil and spy on musiim groups even when they were in other states.
https://www.commondreams.org/...
Starting in 2002 following the 9/11 attacks,the NYPD has systematically surveilled Muslims at mosques, bookstores, neighborhoods, and restaurants for no reason other than their faith.. This has included sending paid infiltrators into mosques, student organizations, and other associations to spy on individuals, document conversations, and take photographs. The NYPD has mapped New York to single out Muslim communities for monitoring.
This program, although it was widespread and thorough, discovered
No Terrorists and Prevented No Attacks. Also, targeting people simply because of their Faith - is something that Nazi Germany actually did.
And then you have Stop-N-Frisk which functions as an ongoing seige of intimidation against minority members even though 98% of the time, there find no weapons and there is no violation in progress.
http://nymag.com/...
A Columbia professor testifying in the ongoing trial over the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program said that by his count in a study of 4.4 million street stops, the tactic led to just 5,940 guns seized. That's one for every thousand people stopped between 2004 and 2012, according to the New York Daily News. "" Professor Jeffrey Fagan said in court.
NYPD has been stopping more young black men in New York City than there
Are Young Black Men in New York City. And if they aren't even finding as many guns on them as they would
by random chance, why are they targeting one specific demographic group if not to
place that group in a constant state of panic, fear and worry?
If the GOP thinks the IRS gave the Tea Party a hard time, they should try going through something like this kind of humiliation, intrusion, verbal and physical assault time and time again. And again. And again.
The fact is that Initiating an Unwarranted War of Aggression on Flimsy False Evidence, Rendition/Kidnapping, Unlawful Imprisonment without Due Process, Torture, Murder by Cruise Missile ["Decapitation Strikes!"], Race and Religion based Surveillance and Intimidation are all exactly like the Nazis, but Progressive Polices, Health Care, Social Security, Unions and addressing the National Debt in a balanced manner AREN'T.
They really aren't.
Vyan