Reflections

THE FOURTEEN CHARACTERISTICS OF FASCISM
REFLECTIONS
by Brandon, Daniel, Jeffrey, and Kyle

"Such was the government of the Third Reich, administered from top to bottom on the so-called leadership principle by a vast and sprawling bureaucracy having little of the efficiency usually credited to the Germans, poisoned by graft, beset by constant confusion and cutthroat rivalries, augmented by the muddling interference of party potentate, and often rendered impotent by the terror of the SS-Gestapo.
-------"At the top of the swarming heap stood the one time Austrian vagabond, now become, with the exception of Stalin, the most powerful dictator on earth. As Doctor Frank reminded a convention of lawyers in the spring of 1936, "There is, in Germany today, only one authority and that is the authority of the Fuherer."
-----"With that authority Hitler had quickly destroyed those who opposed him, unified and Nazified the State, regimented the country's institutions and culture, suppressed individual freedom, abolished unemployment and set the wheels of industry humming--no small achievement after only three or four years in office. Now he turned--in fact he had already turned-to the two chief passions of his life: the shaping of Germany's foreign policy toward war and conquest and the creation of the mighty military machine that would enable him to achieve his goal."

William Shirer
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.

While we were writing our essays on the Fourteen Characteristics of Fascism, we couldn't help but notice that the unifying theme which united the series as a whole was the Administration's craving for and addiction to power. Whether it was the use of Gays, Lesbians, racial minorities, or non-Christians as scapegoats to unify and energize the Republican base, or the strengthening of corporate power at the expense of workers' rights, we recognized a truly pathological addiction to and abuse of power that reminded us of so many totalitarian regimes in the past. As bad as we thought the regime in Washington had become, we were stunned and horrified to discover that its craving for power, that it's desire to control every aspect of American life, it's obsessive goal of permanently undermining the Constitution in favor of what Karl Rove refers to as a "permanent Republican majority" (think Thousand Year Reich) would take it to even lower and more repressive levels.

Under the guise of protecting Americans from terrorism (repression and atrocities always produce a plethora good excuses--even the Nazis defended their demented medical experiments by claiming that their crimes against humanity were for the benefit of the German Fatherland) the United States Senate voted to give George W. Bush dictatorial powers. After phony, public dissent from Republican Senators John McCain, Lindsay Graham, and John Warner, passed what what Chris Floyd has referred to as the Republic Snuffing Act. For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past few months, on Thursday, September 28, 2006, the United States Congress gave George W. Bush the right to both, interpret the Geneva Conventions as he sees fit, and to unilaterally decide who is an enemy combatant. In addition, the September legislation defines an enemy combatant as someone who gives "terrorism" some kind of "support." Moreover, the President and his designated agents are now free to persecute American citizens. Translated into the common vernacular, the president and his cronies now have the power to render virtually anyone for any reason. Whether it's a lawyer defending accused terrorists, a naive citizen making an innocent contribution to a seemingly legitimate charity to help the victims of war in Afghanistan and/or Iraq, or even some one who dares to speak the truth to the corrupt and increasingly totalitarian power that is flowing out of Washington DC, anyone can now be declared an enemy combatant by our highly paranoid leader select. And to make the deal even sweeter, the legislation is retroactive, meaning that our beloved Fuhrer cannot be persecuted. Worst of all, since 2001, George W. Bush has been claiming the right to kill anyone who he declares an enemy combatant. Six days after those jumbo jet liners crashed into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, the Demander and Thief signed a 'presidential finding' authorizing the CIA to kill those individuals whom he marked for death as terrorists." Eventually Bush signed orders which authorized CIA agents to kill targets without seeking permission from the President. The upshot being that you can be disappeared, tortured, or even murdered by the President and his Gestapo admiring goons if the President experiences one of his increasingly visceral temper tantrums.

So what's the worst that can happen? Well, you can be "disappeared" or murdered if you're lucky. But with habeas corpus in a shambles and the President's proclivity for enjoying the pain and suffering of others these are just a few of the experiences that you might be forced to undergo and which others before you have already been forced to endure:

*placing panties on your head.

*threatening you with vicious dogs

*having a plastic bag tied around your head and then having your head soaked in water

*being stripped naked and forced into a human pyramid

*being stripped naked and forced to masturbate in front of your interrogators

*being strapped into a chair, force fed through a rubber tube in your nose and then forced to sit in your own feces

*having electrodes connected to your genitalia

*having a broom stick inserted into your rectum

Those are the kinds of things that could happen to a innocent American citizen because our increasingly paranoid and sort tempered (read unstable), sociopathic president believes that he has been chosen by Jesus for a greater purpose. This, after all, is a president with a lifetime history of bullying and sadism.

Seriously. Do we really want to trust a man who is this disturbed and this impulsive with that kind if power? Just look at this man's background.

When George W. Bush was a child seven years old his younger sister Robin died of Leukemia. The Senior Bushes, in one of the most abusive forms of child neglect that you could possibly imagine, didn't even bother to have a real funeral. After a brief, get-this-out-of the-way memorial service, they went golfing the next day. They didn't even allow their grieving and angry son to express any emotion what so ever. The end result was that George W, the oldest born in the family, never had an opportunity to express the grief and often virulent blend of love and anger that older siblings have towards younger siblings for knocking them out of their position as the only and favorite child. And to make the situation even more complicated, George Junior and Robin were exceptionally close. They were playmates and George almost certainly loved her as a big brother would love a favorite little sister.

Sadly she may have been the last person for whom he felt anything that even resembled a normal human relationship. As Bush grew physically he did not grow emotionally. The end result is an angry, sadistic seven-year-old in a 60-year-old body. His entire history is filled with the early symptoms of Anti Social Personality Disorder, also known as psychopathy. (In an alternative view as suggested by one of our friends, LeftOfCenter on THE BLUE REPUBLIC , Bush may in fact suffer from an even more serious disorder, Malignant Narcissism .) As a child he enjoyed torturing and killing small animals ( e.g. inserting fire crackers in frogs rectal openings and blowing them up. As a young man in college he enjoyed branding the buttocks of fraternity initiates with red hot coat hangers. Many years later he would underplay the fact that this was actually a form of sexual assault by spewing half baked drivel about how the injuries he inflicted weren't any worse than a cigarette burn. (Do you know what we would do to a parent who was caught burning a child's hind end with a cigarette burn? Can you say "abuse charges?") His past history of alcohol and cocaine addiction are well known, but chemical addictions are often a sign of psychopathy. As a young married man he drove the car through the front and out through the back of the garage wall because Laura criticized one of his speeches--unusual behavior since it was George who asked for her opinion in the fist place. From the time Robin died to this very day George W. Bush has been a verbal bully, a mean-spirited sadist who has enjoyed the pain of others. Despite the fact that he never served a day of active combat himself, his hero worship has always been centered around soldiers and cowboys--but not just any soldier or cowboy. His affection has always been reserved for the most violent and brutal ones, the ones who can kill without conscience--a trace which our psychopath and commander shares with his idols. In other words, George W. Bush has always enjoyed the pain and suffering of others. The man is so self-absorbed and so thoughtless of others ( i.e. cruel) that during the 2004 campaign he called Laura a lump. And that's pretty much how he sees everyone else--as lumps below him.. How sadistic and cruel is he? When soldiers were dying in Iraq he thought it would be a really cool idea to perform an insulting comedy routine about the weapons of mass destruction--the ones that he lied about.

Moreover he abhors debate and nuance. Bush himself as actually said that he "doesn't do nuance." Translated into modern English he becomes aggressive, often unstable, when people disagree with him. Indeed disagreement, debate in any way shape or form, makes him nervous and angry. So much so that he has to cover up his insecurity by using off-color names for reporters and others. This unusual trait became even more obvious when he literally ordered the Secret Service to keep a safe distance between himself and the equally unstable President of Iran during his recent trip to the United Nations. The reason? Bush did not want to reveal how afraid and angry be becomes when he has to debate people without a pre-written script. .

The ultimate irony in all of this is that while George W/ Bush claims unilateral (dictatorial) power to preserve American freedom of Islamic Terrorists, Bush has found the perfect, complimentary dance partner in Osama Bin Laden. Both embrace fundamentalism in the names of their various religions. Both view dissent and disagreement as traitorous or even blasphemous. And, more chillingly, both have a dismal view of human life and are perfectly willing to terrorize and kill to obtain their very repressive objectives.

And now this abomination has been given the unilateral power of life and death over anyone anywhere on the face of the earth,

The American Republican is dead. May the ensuing Empire collapse quickly so that we bring back the little things that this Administration despises the most: Democracy, Freedom, and the Founding Fathers' system of Checks and balances.


SPECIFIC SOURCES
BOOKS:

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany
Page 276
by WIlliam Shirer
Simon and Schuster 1969, 1976

GENERAL SOURCES:
WEBSITES:

Fatal Vision: The Deeper Evil Behind the Detainee Bill
By Chris Floyd
From Truthout Editorial
October 2, 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206A.shtml


Senate OKs Bill for Detainee Trials, Interrogations
From CNN.com
October 28, 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/100206A.shtml