Pass the twinkies this way, please. (do chubby people start revolutions?)

Well then, how about just a phonecall? (1-202-225-0100 say IMPEACH)

My take on the detention camps thing is that our current "two party" system is such an effective way for channeling dissent in ineffective directions that they're not necessary.

Why should the government spend good money providing us with 3 hots and a cot (and maybe even some rudimentary form of health care) when the illusion of democracy works so well to keep us in line?

Whenever some paranoid liberal claims that he's destined for Guantanamo, my response is, "Really? What have you done to earn that?"

Who needs the Kraut style of Fascism when we already have Fascism with a Friendly Face?
Corporate America has understood this for decades, turning the "liberating" slogans of the Sixties into advertising jingles --from Coke to Nike--you are yourself through the products you consume. While Germans sought and found identity with something larger than themselves in the music and parades and NS slogans, we find it through niche and product branding. Brilliantly done, effective, and the only violence is to the mind.
If you're upper middle class, you work out six times a week at Gold's or run marathons, a great bonding experience.
If you're blue collar, you cheers for the Steelers and eat Frito Lay and drink Bud. Another great bonding experience.
We don't have greeat marching music anyhow, and violence is up to each of us, remembering that people, not guns, kill people. Be all you can be.
And don't forget, YOUR VOTE IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US.
Who needs mobs. They've built a little mobsters into most of us, and the procedure hardly hurt and was barely noticed. Yeah, yeah, there's Tom Frank and what's left of the Left. We tolerate them. A little bark but no bite.

The US is dropping twice as many bombs on Iraq this year as last - and we hear nothing about it. Sometimes there is an AP photo - which I collect here:

http://facesofgrief.blogspot.com

It is usually the only record of a US bombing in Iraq, but it happens many more times than they record.

Sorry, not convincing.

Code Pink women were not allowed into Canada because of their misdemeanor arrests for civil disobedience. They were on some FBI list.

Hey, any school shootings in the USA today?

Susan:

It is usually the only record of a US bombing in Iraq, but it happens many more times than they record.

Yes, but I still don't believe they could get away with a 1.6 X World War II moonscape Cambodia-style bombing.

abb1:

Sorry, not convincing.

As I say, feel free to rub my face in this when we're dying of dysentery on adjacent lice-infested wooden bunks.

I'm not worried about mass killings either, for largely the reasons you lay out.

However, I do worry about a growing inventory of little Tim McVeighs, Eric Rudolphs, and Joseph Paul Franklins who become "action oriented" through this kind of organizing.

I'm not worried about mass killings either, for largely the reasons you lay out.

However, I do worry about a growing inventory of little Tim McVeighs, Eric Rudolphs, and Joseph Paul Franklins who become "action oriented" through this kind of organizing.

Erk! Sorry for the dupe.

Sorry for the dupe.

You fascist!

Seriously, though, I feel exactly the same way—that there is a real possibility of a new crop of Timothy McVeighs—and in fact meant to mention that specifically but forgot. You don't need many of them to do significant damage.

I see it going the other way: more entertainment, more sports, more "up close and personal" treatment for those who can afford it, more Oprah for those who want to drink snake oil to produce the illuision that it's within their reach.
America, a quiet version of Argentina or Brazil, enough crumbs at Target and Safeway for the 90% to keep them tuned in to the programs in DC and on TV.
A very slow dance down the mountain. An occasional McVeigh as the price for an "open" and multi-culti society. The beat goes on.

Remember Jim Garrison, who was slimed for trying to get to the bottom of the JFK assassination? This is what he said in 1967 in his Playboy interview:

"I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau. I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I've always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I'm concerned about all of this because it isn't a German phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man. What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions, and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same. I've learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in."

Nothing changed from 1967, it just got worse. And since then we've had a President who was a pitchman for the CIA'S importation of Nazis (Reagan), the head of the CIA (Bush) and the spawn of the head of the CIA (Bush II). "Congress reduced to a debating society"?

Jon:
"1.6 X World War II moonscape Cambodia-style bombing"

You mean like they did to NAHR AL-BARED camp in Lebanon? To clean out the Palestinians for a new US air base?

Lice and scabies are a big problem in the US-run prisons in Iraq, in case anyone is noticing.

Not worried about mass killings?

well, we have likely killed over a million in Iraq, isn't that a mass killing?

don't think they could do it here at home? think again.

lots of cholera in Iraq too.... thanks to the US taxpayers!!!

yes, I am guilty, but I am going to move to Canada so I can stop being so very guilty.

it could be that the wheels come off absolutely everything before today's toddlers can legally booze. there's a lot of involuntary change ahead and mitigation will require disassembly of suburban enclaves.

Bob in Pacifica - that's a very thought-provoking quote from Jim Garrison. All I knew about him was what I read in the newspapers - some kind of nut, I supposed - like that crazy hippy congressman Dennis Kucinich.

Remember Jim Garrison, who was slimed for trying to get to the bottom of the JFK assassination? This is what he said in 1967 in his Playboy interview:

"I was with the artillery supporting the division that took Dachau. I arrived there the day after it was taken, when bulldozers were making pyramids of human bodies outside the camp. What I saw there haunted me ever since. Because the law is my profession, I've always wondered about the judges throughout Germany who sentenced men to jail for picking pockets when their own government was jerking gold from the teeth of men murdered in gas chambers. I'm concerned about all of this because it isn't a German phenomenon. It can happen here, because there has been no change and there has been no progress and there has been no increase of understanding on the part of men for their fellow man. What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is that we in America are in great danger of slowly evolving into a proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the state. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built since 1945, the "military-industrial complex" that Eisenhower vainly warned us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the states and Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive Department, because of war conditions, and we've seen the creation of an arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and balances of the Constitution. In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same. I've learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in."

Susan:

Not worried about mass killings?

well, we have likely killed over a million in Iraq, isn't that a mass killing?

Sure. And counting in this way for Indochina, we probably killed 4-6 million. Maybe more.

Look, I'm not arguing that things are heaven on earth in Iraq. I'm arguing that things are hideous, yet we could make—and in the past have made—them even more hideous. And one of the reasons is that the people in power here have a harder time shielding themselves from knowing about the results of their actions.

Dude, our populace may be unhealthy, but you really don't have to be too healthy to kill someone. You just have to have access to a gun, knife or pipe.

Also, we have Blackwater, which could make good stormtroopers, and lots of very understandably angry, alienated veterans who definitely know how to kill people being rotated back into a country where they often have no job and poor prospects.

I think it's a real danger.

Just a guess:
The "angry white male" thing mushroomed under Clinton. The system doesn't want to foster anger right now because the war and Bush would be the most obvious targets. If/when a Dem is in, they will stop telling us US people are fat and will tell us we're mad (immigrants, etc), Michael Douglas' (or some mimicker's) career will take off {again}......

"it could be that the wheels come off absolutely everything before today's toddlers can legally booze."

When the wheels come off toddlers will be encouraged to booze.

2. To really get a mass slaughter off the ground, the society carrying it out must somehow remain unaware of what it's doing. While one hand is bludgeoning the subhumans to death, the other has to remain clamped firmly over the eyes.

This is not true. In Rwanda, for example, the exhortation to genocide was gleeful and public, carried over the airwaves on popular radio programs. The participation of most of society was required, since genocide is hard work, especially when carried out mostly with machetes. The slaughter was NOT invisible - it was just that the climate of fear and hate against the Tutsi (and the Hutu who supported them/opposed Hutu nationalists) was so strong that, well, resistance was futile. We'd like to believe that the majority of people are fundamentally good and would not support genocide, but sadly, this is not the case.

          SAVE THE PLANET!
      or drop the drinking age
  don't make our kids feel the pain

And one of the reasons is that the people in power here have a harder time shielding themselves from knowing about the results of their actions.

I'd say it's more that the people in power here have a harder time shielding us from knowing about the results of their actions; otherwise they wouldn't give a good goddamn how many Iraqis they killed.

yeap, they don't give a good goddamn how many Iraqis they kill - but still the majority of Americans don't know about it or flat out don't believe it (or think it is all Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence)... and the few of us who do know have failed totally to even slow it down, much less stop it.

I have been looking for the picture of the Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon that was bombed to hell - saw it the other day on the internet - cannot find it now. It clearly was not on the front page of the local paper or TV "news".

here's what I think is "remarkable" about this illegal and immoral occupation of Iraq:

CIA has pictures of insurgents with the "missing" Glocks

US armed, funded and trained the Iraqi security forces, including the Interior Ministry and Iraqi Army

Interior Ministry is behind a lot of sectarian violence and murders

A lot of the explosives used in Iraq came from unguarded ammo dumps in 2003 - but the REALLY bad explosives looted in 2003 have YET to be used....

Some Iraqis profess they want the US military to stay in Iraq to protect them from the US-trained, armed and funded Iraqi Army.

Hey, we've bought the bullets for each and every side of this conflict - which may be a first, I don't know. Plus, we supplied (through neglect) a lot of the bomb materials.

Maybe we will have a museum exhibit some day of US bullets that were fired by Iraqis - who we were bringing democracy to - that killed US military.

It would make a fine addition to the Smithsonian.

I'm sure they felt the same way as you did in Argentina in 1975, Jonathan. There's even a book called IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE -- unfortunately it's almost unreadable, but the gist of it is that it most certainly can.

And that telemarketer could probably keep several dangerous lefties immobile by just sitting firmly on them while eating crisps and watching Fox.

Susan: Surely The Smithsonian would point out WE were bringing robbery and murder under the guise of democracy/ regime change/ saving the world from WMDs.

Regarding: It Can't Happen Here.

It did.

It's still happening.

I don't doubt for a second that the sort of folks who make up the frontline of the conservative blogosphere could see the bodies on the street, walk up one flight of stairs and convince themselves that it was some sort of lib-commie staged spectacle.

Remember that one of the bright lights over at Powerline wrote that thing about George W. Bush being the misunderstood genius of our time and Jimmy Carter was history's greatest scoundrel.

Their power to lie to everyone else is only exceeded by their power to lie to themselves.

Please strike #2 from your list, sir.

"Yes, but I still don't believe they could get away with a 1.6 X World War II moonscape Cambodia-style bombing."

Posted by: Jonathan Schwarz at October 11, 2007

IIRC, the first Lancet survey found that the leading cause of death was due to bombing. Now, a 'moonscape' bombing isn't needed, of course. Precision weapons means that the bombing campaign can be much closer to 'one building, one bomb'. In WWII, hitting the city itself was a difficult trick, let alone hitting a factory complex or railyard within the city. In Vietnam/Cambodia, bombing featureless jungle in hopes of hitting somebody took vast quantities of bombs.