Dumb Or Arrogant
Which one were they in The White House when they nominated Miers? Or was it that they were just too preoccupied with L'Affaire Plame? Naw, don't think it's that one.
When I asked my researcher boyfriend that question, he deemed it "Hitler-level arrogance," in that "Hitler had all these incredible Prussian generals -- a warrior class," but Hitler hamstrung them. "If you look at what they could have done, had Hitler not gone after the Jews...it was like Napoleon fighting a war on two fronts -- invading Russia without long johns. The ideology of anti-Semitism did them in."
"Hitler kept order. Like Saddam. A lot of people were happy with this. Like with Iraq, maybe something happened with your neighbor, but if you were a good Baathist, you didn't get fucked with."
My boyfriend was up in Canada visiting the Killshot set, and had dinner with a guy he knows from his research -- not a mobster, but a guy just on the outskirts of the mob who had what my boyfriend called "a very 'mob' take on it":
For us to think that we're gonna go in there and tell these people, these milllions of Muslims, to give it up...roll over...how stupid can you be?
My boyfriend put the combat boot on the other foot: "A couple of Jihadists walk into (Detroit church) Our Lady Queen of Peace, and say 'Tear down the cross!' It's nuts."
And, even if it's unspoken, except in the occasional slip, don't think that isn't what this is about -- a religious thing in the minds of some of the "crusaders," and in the minds many of the invaded (crusaders and the invaded alike clinging to their varying primitive religious beliefs).
On his way to Detroit, my boyfriend saw a bunch of "jarheads" on his plane, a number of whom were very visibly carrying the book Christian Truth and its Defense, with a gun-toting soldier at sunup smack-dab on the cover. A lot of these Christian funda-nutters have to secretly have "The Rapture" and all that baseless, irrational crap at heart.
"Whenever (religious) ideology invades a democracy," my boyfriend added, "When you go into battle it's a holy war. We've created the ultimate terrorist playground -- putting Afghanistan to shame."
Points taken, but calling this president 'Hitlerian' doesn't make him seem worse... It just makes one suppose Hitler wasn't so horrific.
The Third Reich demonstrated industrial process could be deployed in the service of abject murder to a the cost of millions of lives. As a metaphor, it shouldn't be squandered on lesser presidents.
> to think that we're gonna go in there and
> tell these people, these milllions of Muslims,
> to give it up...
Right. Exactly. So what you're saying is, Game ON. Or am I reading you incorrectly? If on a deeply interconnected planet we can't (even) expect them to contain their wretchedness within in their own borders, than we're go to have to pick teams and have at it. No parking on the dance floor etc.
> "Whenever (religious) ideology invades a
> democracy..."
How many first-class democracies have been so poisoned that you feel the need to be so weary about it? The metaphor you lead with was, in its broadest, hateful manifestations, a Godless nationalism. Serious, what do you mean by "whenever?" Examples! We want examples! Could a scholar who cared list democracies that we're improved by religion..............
OK, enough, thanks for reading. Prayer service for Scooter at oh-nine-hundred Monday, people.
Crid at October 30, 2005 9:53 PM
> Which one were they in The White House when
> they nominated Miers?
Sophie's choice redux.
Crid at October 30, 2005 9:54 PM
> Like Saddam.
Saddam KEPT ORDER? In the mass graves, he did. This is lunacy
Crid at October 30, 2005 9:55 PM
Hitler wasn't godless. Google Hitler and Christianity. And it was the perception of order by those who weren't targets.
My boyfriend was wondering why there wasn't so much as a peep of a comment on this one. I guess everyone but Crid was simply cowed!
Amy Alkon at October 30, 2005 11:04 PM
Religion is a sideshow in this circus, IMO. What we're seeing here is the beginning of the resource wars. Buckle your seatbelts!
Joe at October 31, 2005 9:39 AM
Using the word 'perception' with smirking italics doesn't acknowledge the breadth of judgment that history has made on WWII. Maybe Adolf cried during communion one Sunday... So what? Humanity doesn't regard the Third Reich as a representative Christian enterprise. Why not? Is is because humanity hasn't consulted your sources, or because so many Christians gave their lives to defeat the axis?
Crid at October 31, 2005 9:41 AM
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