I've heard the obverse idea discussed from time to time (that the GOP can only steal elections because they're close); but I had never come across a book length treatment of it from either side. So no, I've never read it.



That's good, because so am I. While comparisons between the Nazis and the Republicans are much better deserved than anyone on the right may wish to admit; there are more differences than many on the left seem to see. It makes meaningful comparisons by simile very hard to do. Take my word for it; if I intend to call the GOP nazilike, I won't be using literary devices. I'll be citing specifics.

I chose Goebbels because he was a marketing genius, who made his bones peddling political poop to the masses through commercial media; full stop. That he happened to be a creature of the right is mostly coincidence; were there a left wing figure with equivalent stature who said it that way, I would have mentioned them. I've never heard of one.

Speaking of Goebbels, consider this:

At Nuremburg we prosecuted the order givers

At Abu Ghraib we prosecuted the order takers

Food for thought, self righteous America.

How is that different from the status quo? Trust me, enough people don't need Bush's admission to figure out he screwed up royally and invaded for no reason. The international respect has been lost, and I doubt he'd look worse for being less arrogant about it. I've never seen any real statistics on whether terrorism has gone up or down - I suspect they don't exist - but they've promised a holy war for "months and years". Family and friends aren't all upset yet, but some are, and others will be without progress.

I have a lot of sympathy, sometimes even for people who are plainly evil. But whatever happens, Bush and his family will be comfortable. It's everyone else who is suffering. I can't say I feel sorry about his "difficult position".

Of course, he does have something to lose. Big-O asked where this country is going, and all indications suggest Iran.

I'm sure people thought the country was going down the tubes during the Vietnam war too. I don't know how tight media censorship was at the time, but I'm guessing it was at least comparable to now. And America's leaders thought that an obscenely high death toll was a good thing.

It looks bad now, and it makes me furious. But sometimes I have to remind myself that it's probably not as bad as it's been, and it could certainly be worse.

Well, since the Nuremburg procesecutions were of members of a different government, as opposed to the government responsible for the attrocities prosecuting it's own members. After WW2 I highly doubt indicting a high-ranking member of a government that had killed that had killed millions of innocents and your troops carried the same political risks as going after your own infrastructure. I'm not sure the comparison works, maybe it would be more accurate to find an example where the government prosecuted itself. Oh, and it looks like Bush may have been serious about cutting down the federal deficeit, but it'll cost us a few federal programs along the way:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050122/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_benefit_cuts

So where do you guys thing this country is going?

I personally think that the rich in this country are forgetting that too many poor people and inequity of wealth historically eventually equals a lot of dead rich people.

Leochopper - official state department figures for the númber of international terrorist attacks in recent years are as follows -

1998 - 274
1999 - 395
2000 - 426
2001 - 355
2002 - 205
2003 - 208

Looking at the number of attacks in the middle east paints a different picture -

1998 - 31
1999 - 26
2000 - 20
2001 - 29
2002 - 35
2003 - 67

Figures for 2004 aren't out yet. Bear in mind the definition of a terrorist attack does vary a bit, but to be fair the state department's report includes most nón-state terroists, including ones funded by the US.