Now before anybody says “Bush and Hitler? Com’on!!!”, I’m not in any way putting Bush on a level with Hitler. I simply think that Bush has committed a crime against humanity, regardless of the amount of cognizance he really has about the real impact of what he’s allowed to happen, or what he’s been complicit in, or what he has allowed himself to be convinced of (yeah, I did just end several phrases with a preposition). He’s been a major cog in an evil regime that has caused , unneccessarily, from even many “worldly standards”, the deaths of tens of thousands, most of them Iraqis who may well have hated Hueseein more than we do. But hey, as they say “That’s war”. Again, that phrase makes me sick; sick to realize how many people who call themselves Christians will adopt into their ethic.
Clarence Jordan (a Greek Scholar who graduated in the 40’s from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) said that “blaspheme” meant , literally, to pass the gas and say God did it. “Blas” meaning bodily gas, and “Pheme” meaning name, taken together create to “create a stink of the name”, or , similar to “take the name in vain”; the only people who take the name in vain are those who HAVE taken the name. Jordan said he could say “Buddha-damn” all day and never take the name of Buddha in vain, because he has never taken on the name of Buddha. People who claim to be Christians are the ones guilty of this. I and all of us have blasphemed many a time , not with our LIPS, but with our LIVES (another quip of Jordan’s). (I’ll have to blog some on Jordan real soon….he founded Koininia Farm in Americus, Georgia, and was the place where Millard Fuller went seeking after what God would have him do, and led to Habitat for Humanity. My youth group was introduced to Jordan by Mel Doughty, our Youth Minister, via the Cotton Patch New Testament (which Jordan translated)
I found this article illuminating, and I also want to blog a bit of Bonhoeffer again in the morning whenever I decide to get up. Right now, I’m gonna go watch “Terminal” on DVD.
Essay: The fatal legend of preemptive war
Adolf Hitler quickly capitalized on their hurt pride. Like many demagogues, Hitler stirred his audience with patriotic phrases about “freedom†and “democracy.†He thought in absolutes, leaving no room for dialogue. He regarded history as a struggle between good and evil. He declared it was his messianic mission to defend the Germans against the Jews. In so doing, he was “fighting for the work of the Lord.â€
Hitler hammered the theme of German exceptionalism. German cultural values were superior to all others, he said. He encouraged the nation to avoid multilateralism. He argued against the League of Nations and lashed out at journalists for “licking France’s boots.â€
Hitler spelled out his strategy in Mein Kampf, a book deserving notoriety not only for its racist diatribes but also for its cynical rules for manipulating the public. Among other things, Hitler advises his supporters to repeat slogans over and over “until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by that slogan.â€
While most Western political leaders ignored Mein Kampf, Winston Churchill took it seriously. He realized that the bestselling book unveiled a strategic plan for reshaping Europe in the Nazi image.
The world woke up after it was too late.
The Bush Doctrine, spelled out in the National Security Strategy released by the White House Sept. 17, 2002, and in administration speeches and statements, also has attracted little attention. It should be taken seriously. The similarities to the ideas that took hold in Germany and culminated in World War II suggest the dangers in the policy pursued by the White House. Of course, history never repeats itself exactly, and many circumstances may arise to avert the United States from continuing down the road that Germany followed in the 20th century.
Still, to a researcher of German history, these parallels are worrisome. For all its talk about American values, the Bush Doctrine actually repudiates those values.
Preemptive war is at the center of the ideology, but the Bush White House goes beyond that, claiming that the United States has the duty, indeed the moral obligation, to violate the rights of sovereign nations and to change their rulers as the American government sees fit. The aim is to shape the world in America’s image.
Yes, the parallels are indeed frightening. I don’t know how everybody doesn’t see it.
What’s interesting is that the Jews of Germany were also often the elites of the country. They often had a lot of money, and controlled a fair amount of stuff (I guess the unfortunate stereotype continues to this day in this country), but the reason I bring this up is that it’s almost the same way Bush treats the “liberal elites” here in the U.S. And what’s more frightening — like, *actually* frightening, not just throwing words around because I’m a wannabe political pundit– is that so many of Bush’s surrogates like Limbaugh and Coulter and Savage use language about “wiping out” the liberals or talking to them with a baseball bat, or just killing enough of them off so that you still have a few left as remaining examples… If you ever read Orcinus (dneiwert.blogspot.com), he has some excellent blogging on this kind of pseudo fascism.
The actual, real scary part comes in when we see that Bush doesn’t do anything to stop or condone this eliminationalist language. His silence is his consent.