Comments on: Those demonstrations

By: Murray Ralph

Murray Ralph — Wed, 10 Dec 2003 22:00:09 +0000

If you’re going through hell, keep going.Everybody is a star with the potentiality to shine in the infinite sky of eternity.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 09:15:02 +0000

In re: Bush and swastikas, I can only suggest to all concerned that you must have been a barrel of laughs during the days of punk rock. Calling someone a “Nazi” because you don’t like them or think they have been a bit extreme is a fine rhetorical device with a pedigree that now goes back fifty years and I’m all in favour of it. I believe that my parents were aware in the lated 1980s that no serious moral equivalance could be drawn between their stance on the issue of cleaning my room and the Holocaust, for example, but introducing Hitler to the debate galvanised things admirably.

By: Seth Edenbaum

Seth Edenbaum — Mon, 24 Nov 2003 02:05:13 +0000

“Friends, the Republic is in real danger. It is not the UN black helicopters that threaten it, but elements of the United States officer corps. That is, if their thinking is in any way exemplified by Tommy Franks. Franks has speculated that in the wake of a major WMD attack, the US will scrap its constitution and adopt a military government. I can’t imagine a more fascist, irresponsible thing for him to say.” …I was talking to a former high government official recently, who told me that for the first time in his life he was alarmed about the survival of American democracy. I think we all should be.” Juan Cole

By: Seth Edenbaum

Seth Edenbaum — Sun, 23 Nov 2003 16:37:45 +0000

If everyone were as mature as I, the world would not be in such a sorry state; but since one can not speak out without being touched by the immature and vulgar, I’ll think I’ll stay at home.

By: John S

John S — Sat, 22 Nov 2003 22:20:31 +0000

Copeland: hmm… I agree with you that saying someone is disloyal is a smear tactic. But, hey, that’s free speech. And meanwhile, on the other side, quite a few people are not shy of making comparisons between Bush and Hitler – which is also a smear tactic. You can’t criticize someone else’s tepid support for free speech if you don’t think the neocons should be allowed to question their opponents’ loyalties. Pot, kettle, black… Whether you have lived in a one party despotism is important to know for the same reason that Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle that he had known John Kennedy, and Quayle wasn’t another John Kennedy. It’s easy to say you’re living in an incipient one party despotism (say you’re similar to John Kennedy) if you’ve never lived in one (if you never actually met the guy). But, if you have lived in a one party despotic state, your experience is valuable. If you haven’t, then you risk degrading the experiences of people who have. For example, no I haven’t heard of the Free Speech Zones, and they do sound Orwellian, but a state that doesn’t allow free speech everywhere is not the same as a state that doesn’t allow it anywhere. In any case, as I understand it, demonstrating in a US shopping mall is not allowed, and that was true not only under Clinton but before him too.

By: Copeland

Copeland — Sat, 22 Nov 2003 20:16:18 +0000

First of all, John S, only right-wing wackos like Ann Coulter, think it’s cool to accuse their partisan adversaries of treason. Asking me if I’ve personally lived in a one-party State is a rather silly rhetorical gambit. Free speech still exists in the US, but the Bush Administration is comfortable with marginalizing it, when possible. An example would be detention of protesters in so-called Free-Speech-Zones. I’m sure you’ve heard of this Orwellian practice.

By: John S

John S — Sat, 22 Nov 2003 09:36:17 +0000

Copeland, I’m curious. Have you actually ever lived in a one party despotic state? If you think the US is one, what do you call Myanmar? And why can’t the neocons allege their democratic opponents are disloyal? Isn’t it their right of free speech to say what they think, the right of free speech that you’re anxious to protect?

By: Copeland

Copeland — Sat, 22 Nov 2003 07:16:04 +0000

For all the reasons Patrick mentions, George W. is something worse than just a bad President. The lines of demarcation between his kind of corporate assault on the democratic process and the One-Party-State despotism are growing more blurred as time goes on. To say quaintly that “Guantanamo is not Auschwitz” is no reason not to be scared shitless by the political climate that is being generated by America’s neocon faction.This is the time to recognize the explicit danger. Some of Bush’s strategists are already testing the water, with respect to allegations of disloyalty against their democratic opponents. George W. Bush continues to say “I love free speech” but it’s no secret that he doesn’t like to see it, in person.

By: satan krishna

satan krishna — Sat, 22 Nov 2003 00:56:53 +0000

Shorter Chris: academic niceties prevent me exercising my democratic rights.

By: John S

John S — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 21:14:33 +0000

Thanks Henry, but now you’ve just made me even more confused! No, Bush isn’t like Hitler but yes, rhetorical comparisons of Bush to Hitler can serve a useful purpose? Isn’t saying “rhetorical comparison” just using two multi-syllabic words to say “like”? If not, then can I make a rhetorical comparison of Bush to … er, how about John Lennon? So I think, for the purposes of destroying the argument of anti-warites, that Bush can be rhetorically compared to John Lennon. I know Bush isn’t like Lennon, but for the purposes of rhetorical comparison because Lennon loved peace, so must Bush. I mean, come on, if you’re going to use rhetorical comparisons, you’ve got to believe in them if they’re going to work.

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 20:35:19 +0000

Sorry John – you’re wrong. Patrick does not say that Bush is like Hitler. As I understand him (and I could be mistaken), he’s saying that rhetorical comparisons of Bush to Hitler can serve a useful purpose, given the extremist goals of the Republican administration. And that’s a completely different claim. One which I disagree with – but which is perfectly intellectually respectable.

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 20:21:48 +0000

The idea that GW Bush is some sort of equivalent to Hitler is a politically unpersuasive idea. And I don’t think the issue is a matter of being “rude”—- as someone seemed to have said—- but of being accurate and politically astute. Bush is not a good President; his well-intentioned but impetuous Iraq war was far too “radical” and I fear is not being carried to a successful conclusion; I very much look forward to a different president in 2005. But why does the left insist on demonizing him? (Just as the right did to Clinton?) One may intensely dislike his policies on almost any issue one can name—I do. But why not simply leave it at that?. He’s not a good President and should be removed. Is there some sort of psychological need to create a monster in order to mobilize the political base? Is it as simple as that?

By: John S

John S — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 19:52:28 +0000

Patrick: you see? It’s not just me who thinks you’re saying what you say you’re not saying! Henry thinks so too. You are comparing Bush to Hitler. And yes, I do understand clearly what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to get you to see it’s ridiculous to say the US is a incipient fascist state. Guantanamo is not Auschwitz. Please!

By: Henry

Henry — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 19:32:14 +0000

Patrick – I’m with Chris here for two reasons. First, I don’t buy into the argument that the US should withdraw – it shouldn’t be there in the first place, but it shouldn’t pull out and leave a shambles now that it has gone in. Second – and this addresses your criticism more directly – I reckon that calling Bush a Nazi, or a Saddam equivalent is politically counterproductive. Bush isn’t Adolf Hitler. Nor is he Hussein. And people know that. I suspect (though I’ve no evidence to back this up, and I could be wrong) that rhetorical overreach isn’t doing anything to sell the anti-war anti-Bush case to the general public, and that if anything, it’s turning people off. I accept your argument that on-the-one-hand type arguments aren’t any good. But I think that it’s possible to harshly criticize Bush without lapsing into Michael Moore-isms. We should be going after him on precisely the grounds that you lay out – invasions of civil liberty, efforts to screw around with the voting system etc – but trying to sell this to the majority of the voting public, including those on the center-right. And this means losing some of the US=Nazi Germany rhetoric, which has been a staple of the left for the last forty years, and which, bluntly, allows people on the right to typecast us as irrelevant losers, who are outside the mainstream, and will never be part of the mainstream. I’m all for a bit of rabble-rousing now and then. I also agree that the reduction of complex political ideas into stylized slogans and images is an important part of mobilizing the public. But I don’t think that the slogans that Chris is talking about are appropriate, or even very useful, for the task at hand. We need to be getting more than the usual suspects out on the streets, and, even more importantly, into the polling stations.

By: Patrick Nielsen Hayden

Patrick Nielsen Hayden — Fri, 21 Nov 2003 19:28:05 +0000

Oh, I don’t think you’ve “misunderstood” me at all. I think you understand quite clearly what you’re trying to do.