Reply #17: Absolutely. Both hastened the end of Democracy. [View All]

[Octafish]

Bush's 9/11 Reichstag Fire

by Harvey Wasserman
Published on Friday, September 13, 2002 by CommonDreams.org

EXCERPT...

This unelected regime---Hitler also came to power with a minority of votes---has used the terrible tragedies of September 11 in much the way the Nazis jumped on the Reichstag fire. Bush has failed to capture or try 9/11's alleged perpetrators. But he's used the tragedy to push an extreme rightist agenda aimed at crushing civil liberties, silencing all opposition, fattening a war machine, and arrogating the right to unilaterally attack other countries without tangible provocation.

With this has come an assault on the natural environment, women's rights, gay rights, organized labor, a wide range of international treaties, and the need of the public to know about and prosecute corporate crime and fraudulent stock dealings, which seem to involve at least half the Bush cabinet, including its two ranking members.

Fittingly, just as the nation was mourning those who died in one of the most twisted acts of terrorism imaginable, Bush's brother Jeb made another mockery of the electoral process. In Florida, where the 2000 election was most blatantly stolen, faulty voting machines were again foisted on districts filled with primarily with blacks and Jews. While the nation's eyes were elsewhere, major---perhaps fatal---chaos was injected into the Democratic primary meant to choose Jeb's fall opponent. As the unusable ballots, dysfunctional voting machines and manipulated poll hours again shredded the democratic process, one could hear Republicans smirking from Tallahassee to DC.

SNIP...

Meanwhile John Ashcroft has shredded the American Bill of Rights as Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein could never imagine. Under the cloak of terror, the new Grand Inquisitor has virtually eliminated the first ten amendments to the Constitution---except the second, which guarantees that he and his gun lobby sponsors (and innumerable potential terrorists) can continue to carry guns.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0913-03.htm

For those people wondering why I so often "violate" the so-called "Godwin's Law":

Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI.