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November 22, 2005
True Colors
Dick Cheney and the Republicans (sounds like a really back 60s pop group, doesn't it? Jay & the Americans, Dick & The Republicans...) are showing yet again what they're really made of, showing us the kind of people they really are. The only consolation is that by now, the emperor might just be standing there as naked as the lies they told to con the nation into war; Cheney's approval ratings are as low as 19% in some polls and no higher than 29% in any poll. The verdict is in: the American people hate Dick Cheney for the karmic diarrhea he is.
Meanwhile, the disgusting attacks on 37 year Marine veteran John Murtha continue. A gutless disgrace of a Republican Congresswoman from Ohio, Jean Schmidt (who never served in the military and never went to war on behalf of her country) called Murtha a "coward" on the House floor Friday... and then in the very definition of the word that she chose to use, she asked immediately that her remarks be stricken from the Congressional record. (Apparently Ms. Schmidt has the compunction to call decorated Vietnam veterans cowards, but lacks the courage to actually stand by the words she chose or have people be able to refer back to them. If you want a more textbook definition of gutlessness cowardice, you won't find it.)
Almost as pathetic -- actually moreso, if that's possible -- are the defenses of Schmidt by her fellow Republicans.
"The poor lady didn't know Jack Murtha was a Marine - she really just ran into a hornet's nest," said Representative Jack Kingston of Georgia. Representative David Dreier of California said, "Very clearly, she did not know that Jack Murtha was a Marine."
So what they're saying is that, in so many words, the only reason Schmidt was wrong is that Murtha is a Marine. Otherwise, it would have been perfectly okay to accuse anyone who disagrees with the Republican Official Party Line of the Fatherland and the Great Patriotic Leader Bush of cowardice. The message remains consistent and sickening... disagree with us, and we're going to slander you, accuse you of unpatriotism, and otherwise try to intiimidate or demagogue you into silence. That's the Republican way. That's what conservatives do; their arguments are so weak and devoid of any logic or rational defense, they have no choice but to engage in McCarthy-esque intimidation in order to defend themselves. The Republican Party is a party of thugs, and if you want to see the cowards they're always talking about, all you have to do is look to the right.
The Republicans bring to mind a quote from history that I think bears repeating -- not only for what it reveals about the man who said it, but about conservatives in this country. The stench eminating from the Republican attitude that the only way to support our troops is to blindly accept the administration that sends them to war... that they ony way to be patriotic is to think and act exactly how conservatives (who never served in war themselves) want you to think and act, to accept what they tell you to accept... well, it's reminiscent of something the world has heard before.
Naturally the common people don't want war; that is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
-- Hermann Goering, leader of the Nazis and founder of the Gestapo, at the Nuremberg trials.
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Comments
I just finished Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America," and whether he intended it or not (I suspect he did) it bears a remarkable similarity to what the Republicans seem to want to do in 2005. Stifle dissent, disperse the dissenters, and institute martial law.
Posted by: Linkmeister at November 22, 2005 03:15 PM
