Saddam Stretched

[archenemy]

Reading through this thread, I couldn't help but be reminded of a tome that I read about a dozen years ago:

 

Selected Quotes:

 

"American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wing. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind."

 

"The enemy is clearly delineated: he is a perfect model of malice, a kind of amoral superman—sinister, ubiquitous, powerful, cruel, sensual, luxury-loving. Unlike the rest of us, the enemy is not caught in the toils of the vast mechanism of history, himself a victim of his past, his desires, his limitations. He wills, indeed he manufactures, the mechanism of history, or tries to deflect the normal course of history in an evil way. He makes crises, starts runs on banks, causes depressions, manufactures disasters, and then enjoys and profits from the misery he has produced. The paranoid’s interpretation of history is distinctly personal: decisive events are not taken as part of the stream of history, but as the consequences of someone’s will. Very often the enemy is held to possess some especially effective source of power: he controls the press; he has unlimited funds; he has a new secret for influencing the mind; he has a special technique for seduction."

His GEB book is part of what inspired me to get into the IT field.

[Fairweather]

Sorry to burst your bubble Buckaroo, but I believe your vegan diet has impaired your ability to think. No doubt Foraker will be along to point out some the 'critical thinking' deficiencies in your posts, but until then I'll try to help you through this difficult time:

 

"Have to side with Virendra on this one."

Damn. That's not a good start.

 

"Since the advent of the atom bomb war is just a racket (well even before). The recent wars in the middle east have been fought for oil".

Like the Palestinian/Israel conflict?

 

"Saddam was installed by the CIA to control an oil rich region."

Saddam was home-grown...with a little help from Egypt's education system and a perverted uncle. Please demonstrate US complicity in his rise to power.

 

What's the first thing that happened after "shock and awe"? Well besides securing the oil field's..."

Great! I didn't realize we had actually secured...anything. What's Iraqi oil production up to these days?

 

"Saddam killed about 30,000 Iraqis over a span of 20 years. By some estimates bushies war has already killed 650,000 Iraqis in just 3 years."

Huh? Add a zero to Saddam's internal tally - and subtract one from the later. Also, I believe you forgot about a million Iranians killed by Saddam 1980-1988. Don't they count?

 

"And the CIA has killed an estimated 7 million since it's inception, mostly overthrowing democracies and installing dictators."

Wow! Maybe you could share the breakdown with us?

 

"You could look at the Israeli connection also with all the dual citizen"crazies" at the defense department, wolfy, et al and the PNAC. Their plan was for an expanded Israel power through US wars helped on by the Israeli lobby."

Ahhhh yes.... Now were down to brass tacks! It vaz ze Jewz!!! Pathetic, Buckaroo. Really

 

"I think rummy the neo-nazi corporate neo-fascist has buggered that for them on the sly."

Neo-Nazis? But Wait!! I thought it was the Jews!!

 

"America the killers. The genocide of the Native Americans was one of the most successful in the planets history. Before WW2 Hitler sent emissaries over here to study how we did it."

Dates? Names? Help us out here, asshole.

 

"I give about 10 percent of my net earnings to environmental causes."

Great! A tithe! More proof that environmentalism is just like a religion.

 

"man needs air to breath, the plants create that atmosphere."

Um...I thought you said you studied environmental science?

 

 

"And McDonald's has stopped growing also, one of the prime mother nature rapers. Good reason to be at least a partial vegan."

Yes. Of course.

 

 

"thanks to "the internets""

At least you're willing to reveal the spring from where your vast knowledge flows! Keep at it....the truth surely resides where you look!

[joblo7]

in your case, your maternal origins are clouding your perception of reality!!!

 

once again you have nothing to say except ' it wasnt us'

 

[JayB]

Re: Hofstadter.

 

Same last name, but different guy.

 

I just picked up GEB and am looking forward to reading it once I finish "The Looming Tower."

[dmuja]

A little late I know,

 

 

Regardless of his history of barbarism, Saddam died displaying a great deal of balls, laughing even - with a noose around his neck. To many people around and across the world (most importantly inside Iraq), it had the appearance of a revenge killing and not of "justice".

 

Personally, I think his "execution" displayed quite effectively the barbarism that lies just beneath the surface of all human "civilization"- yippee..

 

The way this all happened (and arguably THAT it happened) will only bring more division, more passionate ignorance, and more violence in both the short AND long term. If you profess to have a better way then "an eye for an eye" (ie democracy, justice etc..) then you better be prepared to demonstrate that better way with your actions. For what ever reason, we're all still waiting for that "better way" to be demonstrated - it certainly was NOT in this case.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Its all about the "NEW WORLD ORDER". there I said it.

 

It's all about old school CYA, and keep the barbarians on the other side of the wall.

[Buckaroo]

Sorry to burst your bubble Buckaroo, but I believe your vegan diet has impaired your ability to think. No doubt Foraker will be along to point out some the 'critical thinking' deficiencies in your posts, but until then I'll try to help you through this difficult time:

this is generally a waste of time but I'll go one round with you

 

"Have to side with Virendra on this one."

Damn. That's not a good start.

No, your ad hominem is not a good way to start

"Since the advent of the atom bomb war is just a racket (well even before). The recent wars in the middle east have been fought for oil".

Like the Palestinian/Israel conflict?

 

Can't understand a general statement? Specifically wars we are directly involved in, the P/I war is for land and ideals. But they are trying to open the Haifa pipeline. Happy now, specific enough for you? No comment on WMD's? or "terror"? Denying the oil is connected to our wars there?

 

"Saddam was installed by the CIA to control an oil rich region."

Saddam was home-grown...with a little help from Egypt's education system and a perverted uncle. Please demonstrate US complicity in his rise to power.

 

try the bush boy's "the google"

 

What's the first thing that happened after "shock and awe"? Well besides securing the oil field's..."

Great! I didn't realize we had actually secured...anything. What's Iraqi oil production up to these days?

 

Did you see the price of gas jump after we invaded? Hello? Are the insurgents shipping oil past our air superiority? It's not about volume it's about control.

 

"Saddam killed about 30,000 Iraqis over a span of 20 years. By some estimates bushies war has already killed 650,000 Iraqis in just 3 years."

Huh? Add a zero to Saddam's internal tally - and subtract one from the later.

 

Sounds like limbaugh numbers to me, or Faux news. 300,000? where's the mass graves? Same place as the WMD's? No distinction between soldiers and civilians?

 

Also, I believe you forgot about a million Iranians killed by Saddam 1980-1988. Don't they count?

 

A war we promoted, encouraged, supported. He probably wouldn't have been capable without our help. We've always bought his oil even during embargoes. Just our embargoes and bombing between the gulf wars killed over a million Iraqis.

 

"And the CIA has killed an estimated 7 million since it's inception, mostly overthrowing democracies and installing dictators."

Wow! Maybe you could share the breakdown with us?

 

"the google"

 

"You could look at the Israeli connection also with all the dual citizen"crazies" at the defense department, wolfy, et al and the PNAC. Their plan was for an expanded Israel power through US wars helped on by the Israeli lobby."

Ahhhh yes.... Now were down to brass tacks! It vaz ze Jewz!!! Pathetic, Buckaroo. Really

 

Do you deny the high number of dual citizens in the bush admin, particularly on the defense side? Do you deny the 15bil annual subsidies to Israel, or the 15mil of those dollars coming back to politicians via the 2nd largest lobby in congress? Why is a foreign nation allowed to buy our politicians? Such a small country and we give more subsidies to them than all others combined? Do you deny Jewish influence in 90 percent of the mainstream media?

 

"I think rummy the neo-nazi corporate neo-fascist has buggered that for them on the sly."

Neo-Nazis? But Wait!! I thought it was the Jews!!

 

Can ideals live on after a defeat? What are Rummy's ethnic origins? Do you deny the bush family connection to Hitler? Were there four former nazis in the bush one admin?

 

"America the killers. The genocide of the Native Americans was one of the most successful in the planets history. Before WW2 Hitler sent emissaries over here to study how we did it."

Dates? Names? Help us out here, asshole.

 

You're beyond help unless you help yourself, it's all there in "the google" If you don't believe it why don't you post some opposing numbers.

 

"I give about 10 percent of my net earnings to environmental causes."

Great! A tithe! More proof that environmentalism is just like a religion.

 

Many in the rest of the developed world give 10 percent to charities, Americans give less than 2. If you don't think that environmentalism is connected to science unlike religion which surely is not then you are truly beyond hope. Oh wait, you believe in rush limbaugh type "science" sorry to disturb your trance.

"man needs air to breath, the plants create that atmosphere."

Um...I thought you said you studied environmental science?

 

You don't understand general terms, layman's terms? Sorry, can't dumb it down any further.

 

"And McDonald's has stopped growing also, one of the prime mother nature rapers. Good reason to be at least a partial vegan."

Yes. Of course.

 

No refutation here because there is none? Deny it takes 32 lbs of grain to grow one pound of beef? Deny deforestation to raise cheap cattle? Deny nearly 80 percent of world population is primarily vegetarian?

 

"thanks to "the internets""

At least you're willing to reveal the spring from where your vast knowledge flows! Keep at it....the truth surely resides where you look!

I go to the downtown library for the aesthetics, but generally the internet is the best. What's your source, are you a boob tuber? Rabid-Reich-hater-baby talk radio?

 

 

 

[Fairweather]

 

Let me see if I have this straight: You throw out dozens of bullshit claims, and when challenged your only counter is "just Google it yourself - you'll see!" That's probably the weakest bullshit reply I've ever read. For future reference; when making outrageous claims the burden of a footnote, link, citation, whatever, falls upon you. Don't insult yourself and others by regurgitating unsubstantiated horseshit and then telling the masses to Google it for themselves. The internet is not a library...or a bodyguard...or a teat. Grow a brain.

 

edit: I am especially curious about the 4 ex-Nazi's in the Bush 41 administration. I'm sure I could "google" it myself, but I would like you to tell me their names. After all, it is you making the claim. Mainstream sources preferred. Now back it up.

[ClimbingPanther]

President Merkin Muffley: You mean people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?

 

Dr. Strangelove: It would not be difficult, Mein Fuhrer. Nuclear reactors could... I'm sorry, Mr. President... nuclear reactors could provide power almost indefinitely.

 

General "Buck" Turgidson: Doctor, you mentioned the ratio of ten women to each man. Now, wouldn't that necessitate the abandonment of the so-called monogamous sexual relationship, I mean, as far as men were concerned?

 

Dr. Strangelove: Regrettably, yes. But it is, you know, a sacrifice required for the future of the human race. I hasten to add that since each man will be required to do prodigious... service along these lines, the women will have to be selected for their sexual characteristics which will have to be of a highly stimulating nature.

 

I must confess, you have an astonishingly good idea there, Doctor.

[Buckaroo]

" You throw out dozens of bullshit claims"

 

none of which you've factually refuted ehh? You're whining about links, where are yours? I'm going by memory, don't need links, just the knowledge that they are there. I don't think you'll find much to refute me or you would have already.

 

"That's probably the weakest bullshit reply I've ever read."

 

You're initial reply was about 1/2 ad-hom and only addressed about 1/2 of my original points, now you're reduced to a paragraph of pure ad-hominem. Seeing your faults in others ehh?

 

"The internet is not a library..."

 

ROTFLMFAO!!!! You demonstrate your level of intelligence so clearly here. The internet's most useful purpose it serves is as a... library.

 

I'm through arguing and don't want to come across as hostile among fellow climbers, which is what usually happens when arguing politics, but I will leave you with this.

 

""I believe your vegan diet has impaired your ability to think""

 

Any peer reviewed science to back that up? (Clue, from my memory there is none, so waste your time looking for links on the internets if you want.)

 

I will educate you about PUTREFACTIVE BOWEL SYNDROME though. From your profile you're not physically sedentary now although you're probably headed that way, and going by your posts your brain is half sedentary already if not entirely.

 

You eat meat everyday I bet, sometimes 3 meals a day. When you become sedentary that meat will start staying in your gut for 3 days before you #2 it out, because meat takes longer to digest, especially without exercise. Plenty of time for that meat to rot. You do know dead meat rots at body temp right?

 

Dead rotting meat gives off toxins which your body ends up absorbing through your worn out bowels which you've been abusing all these years. Not to mention all the synthetic hormones and antibiotics they put in meat, hey, just say no to drugs. (or just "some" drugs as rummy's pharma buddies would have us believe)

 

People are going to smell your farts from 50 yards (that's not an exaggeration), it's called THE SEDENTARY MEAT EATER FART and it is RANK. And odds are you're going to end up with colon-rectal cancer. You're going to be laying on your stomach on the gurney while some colon-rectal doctor, and a majority are males, is going to be digging around in your a**hole with a razor knife!

 

Have fun dude!!!!!

 

 

 

[joblo7]

::

Let me see if I have this straight: You throw out dozens of bullshit claims,horseshit and then telling the masses to Google it for themselves.

edit: I am especially curious about the 4 ex-Nazi's in the Bush 41 administration. Now back it up.

 

ACTUALLY THAT'S YOUR JOB!

 

the mere fact that YOU are not aware of your own governement's actions here and abroad points to a total lack of accountability on your part.

YOU voted these people in and now, at all cost , you will deny their wrongdoing , to mask your own incompetence...that is your only point so far.

 

IF YOU BELIEVE, LIKE THEY DO that their barbaric methods are the best way to serve us ,than have the courage of YOUR convictions instead of denying they exist and hide in low ball personal attacks and name calling.

 

 

your attack of someone's dietary orientation in a political discussion is most telling.

it should demonstrate EVEN to your own, simple immature twisted mind, that you ,in fact, have nothing to say ; SO PLEASE STFU.

 

 

 

 

 

[Bogen]

 

your attack of someone's dietary orientation in a political discussion is most telling.

 

I dunno, this recent tirade on meat shows a low level of education coupled to a serious insecurity complex. Not sure I'd be accepting bizarre, unsupported political statements from someone like that on faith alone.

[mattp]

A question that may have been addressed already:

 

Why do you think we turned Saddam over to the Iraqi's for a trial that we knew would not be anything like a fair trial, and which was not to address the real crimes of Saddam's reign or address even in a tangential manner how he rose to power, who supplied him with weapons and chemicals, etc.?

 

Didn't Milosevich go on trial at the Hague? Why not Saddam?

[JayB]

"A final characteristic of the paranoid style is related to the quality of its pedantry. One of the impressive things about paranoid literature is the contrast between its fantasied conclusions and the almost touching concern with factuality it invariably shows. It produces heroic strivings for evidence to prove that the unbelievable is the only thing that can be believed. Of course, there are highbrow, lowbrow, and middlebrow paranoids, as there are likely to be in any political tendency. But respectable paranoid literature not only starts from certain moral commitments that can indeed be justified but also carefully and all but obsessively accumulates :evidence.” The difference between this “evidence” and that commonly employed by others is that it seems less a means of entering into normal political controversy than a means of warding off the profane intrusion of the secular political world. The paranoid seems to have little expectation of actually convincing a hostile world, but he can accumulate evidence in order to protect his cherished convictions from it."

[pink]

nothing is what it seems

[JayB]

"This glimpse across a long span of time emboldens me to make the conjecture—it is no more than that—that a mentality disposed to see the world in this way may be a persistent psychic phenomenon, more or less constantly affecting a modest minority of the population. But certain religious traditions, certain social structures and national inheritances, certain historical catastrophes or frustrations may be conducive to the release of such psychic energies, and to situations in which they can more readily be built into mass movements or political parties. In American experience ethnic and religious conflict have plainly been a major focus for militant and suspicious minds of this sort, but class conflicts also can mobilize such energies. Perhaps the central situation conducive to the diffusion of the paranoid tendency is a confrontation of opposed interests which are (or are felt to be) totally irreconcilable, and thus by nature not susceptible to the normal political processes of bargain and compromise. The situation becomes worse when the representatives of a particular social interest—perhaps because of the very unrealistic and unrealizable nature of its demands—are shut out of the political process. Having no access to political bargaining or the making of decisions, they find their original conception that the world of power is sinister and malicious fully confirmed. They see only the consequences of power—and this through distorting lenses—and have no chance to observe its actual machinery. A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. It is precisely this kind of awareness that the paranoid fails to develop. He has a special resistance of his own, of course, to developing such awareness, but circumstances often deprive him of exposure to events that might enlighten him—and in any case he resists enlightenment.

We are all sufferers from history, but the paranoid is a double sufferer, since he is afflicted not only by the real world, with the rest of us, but by his fantasies as well."

[gambo]

Micky D.. colon cancer...US Govt and Sadddam's execution I smell conspiracy.

[mattp]

Here's another couple "paranoid" questions for you, JayB:

 

Who is making lots of money in Iraq? Any companies with close ties to Administration officials ring a bell? How are the oil companies doing? Any connections between them and the personal interests of any U.S. leaders or their good friends the Saudi royal family? Maybe it is all going according to plan...

 

Most here seem to agree that Saddam's trial and execution were largely a circus side show, but who wants to join in speculating about what is really going on? You too can join the fun.

[mattp]

C'mon, Jay. Don't want to play? We know they lied about why we went in, they've lied about the "progress" of the war all along, and now I'm wondering if they are still lying. Paranoid? What do you think may be going on over there?

[joblo7]

". A distinguished historian has said that one of the most valuable things about history is that it teaches us how things do not happen. ."

that is exactly the point.

 

a leader is hung that is factual.

our history will however record that he was a butcher of babies and will make no mention of our involvement in his rise to power, our invasion,etc etc.

 

the actual facts are clear to see. oil,invasion,occupation,war,greed,imperialism.

 

what will our history record? liberation,women's rights,democracy?

 

think!

[Seahawks]

This conspiricy stuff is so tiring. Can't the democrat fanaticals find something else? Don't you think that there are enough high up democrats out there that if something was going on they would have leaked it long ago?? Same stuff, Different year. Dems needs to realize this conspiricy crap is the reason people on the fence last election voted republican. Who wants to vote for a nut.

 

And who ever up above said there are Nazi working for Bush please list them or shut the hell up. Clinton should killed that fag Bin Laden when he had this chance and wouldn't be in this mess. Pussy or to busy licken pussy that is.

[JayB]

Matt:

 

Why don't you type out your Iraq-War oeuvre/dossier? Name names, connect the dots, and cc. me on the e-mail that you send to the relevant sub-committees?

 

I'd be very interested in reading that, in the same way that it would be interesting for me to listen to someone in the throes of a mania interpret ink-blot tests, or to look at the stars with a schizophrenic and watch him transmute the dots into the sky into a prophetic message from the heavens.

 

[Winter]

hmmm ... lickin puss, killin arabs ... lickin puss, killin araba ... lickin puss, killin arabs.

 

Life is so unfair - why can't we have our puss lickin and arab killin at the same time?

[tvashtarkatena]

Why, yer jis a puss killin, ay-rab lickin sumbitch!

 

A side note on beef, which has the greatest variety of amino acids of any domesticated meat, tastes fucking great, and is not unhealthy if eaten in moderation (3 oz serving recommended, about the size of a pack of playing cards):

 

Grass fed beef raised with proper pasture rotation is a completely sound environmental practice, typically much more so than grain production on the same land. Grass fed beef raised on semi arid natural grassland does not require irrigation, pesticides, or herbicides like grain production. The cows love it, too...up until the point where we turn them into delectable filet mignon, that is. But hey, they don't exist in nature. We invented them. No burgers, no existence. A philosophical question, really. What if we were a food item? Which would you choose?

Edited January 3, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[sexual_chocolate]

Let me see if I have this straight: You throw out dozens of bullshit claims, and when challenged your only counter is "just Google it yourself - you'll see!" That's probably the weakest bullshit reply I've ever read. For future reference; when making outrageous claims the burden of a footnote, link, citation, whatever, falls upon you. Don't insult yourself and others by regurgitating unsubstantiated horseshit and then telling the masses to Google it for themselves. The internet is not a library...or a bodyguard...or a teat. Grow a brain.

 

 

here's some interesting stuff on historic connections. I looked at a bunch of other sources, and have read more on paper indicating the same. fairweather, if you have something that refutes this, i'd love to see it.

 

i couldn't find anything on 4 nazis in the current administration. buckaroo, any links or info?

 

The Bush family ties to the Nazi party are well known. In their 1994 Secret War Against the Jews, Mark Aarons and John Loftus use official US documents to establish that George Herbert Walker, George W. Bush's maternal great-grandfather, was one of Hitler's most important early backers. He funneled money to the rising young fascist through the Union Banking Corporation.

 

In 1926, Walker arranged to have his new son-in-law, Prescott Bush---father of President George Bush I, grandfather of George Bush II---hired as Vice President at W.A. Harriman and Company. Prescott became a senior partner when Harriman merged with a British-American investment company to become Brown Brothers Harriman. In 1934 Prescott Bush joined the Board of Directors of Union Banking.

 

The bank helped Hitler rise to power. It also helped him wage war. As late as July 31, 1941---well after the Nazi invasion of Poland---the U.S. government froze $3 million in Union Banking assets linked to Fritz Thyssen. Thyssen was noted in the American press as a "German industrialist and original backer of Adolph Hitler."

 

Loftus writes that Thyssen's "American friends in New York City [were] Prescott Bush and Herbert Walker, the father and father-in-law of a future President of the United States." That would be the current president's father, George Herbert Walker Bush, also the former CIA director.

 

On October 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi Germany's banking operations in New York City, which were under the direction of Prescott Bush. The government seized control of Union Banking Corporation under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The liquidation yielded a reported $750,000 apiece for Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker. The book, The Splendid Blonde Beast: Money, Law and Genocide, goes into exhaustive detail on Bush-Harriman Nazi money laundering. More recently, Michael Kranish covers the same Bush-Nazi relationships in The Rise of the Bush Family Dynasty published in the Boston Globe. Loftus documents that "Prescott Bush knowingly served as a money launderer for the Nazis. Remember that Union Bank's books and accounts were frozen by the U.S. Alien Property Custodian in 1942 and not released back to the Bush family until 1951."

 

Often ignored are the Bush family's post-World War II dealings with former Nazis. John Foster Dulles, who had worked with the Bush family in the Harriman Company in laundering money for Nazi Germany, was Dwight Eisenhower's Secretary of State. His brother Allen became CIA director.

 

As Martin Lee documents in The Beast Reawakens, American intelligence recruited numerous top Nazis to spy on the Soviets during the Cold War. Many established connections to the Bush family that had helped finance their original rise to power. In 1988 Project Censored, in its top award, noted "how the major mass media ignored, overlooked or undercovered at least ten critical stories reported in America's alternative press that raised serious questions about the Republican candidate, George Bush, dating from his reported role as a CIA 'asset' in 1963 to his presidential campaign's connection with a network of anti-Semites with Nazi and fascist affiliations in 1988." Investigative reporter Russ Bellant established ties between the Republican Party and former Axis Nazis and fascists.

 

 

Karl Rove has parallel ties. The shadowy Rove serves as "Bush's Brain" in the current White House. He is the political mastermind behind the California coup, and is now in the headlines for outing Valerie Plame, the CIA wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson. A consummate strategist, Rove may have outed Plame in retaliation for Wilson's failure to back up the Bush claim that Saddam Hussein was buying nuclear weapons materials in Africa. According to some published reports, as many as seventy CIA operatives have been put at risk by Rove's retaliatory strike.

 

According to Wilson, and to Retired U.S. Navy Lt. Commander Al Martin (www.almartinraw.com), Rove's grandfather was Karl Heinz Roverer, the Gauleiter of Oldenburg. Roverer was Reich-Statthalter---Nazi State Party Chairman---for his region. He was also a partner and senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo A. G. engineering firm, which built the Birkenau death camp, at which tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, dissidents and other were slaughtered en masse.

 

Rove, who has been based in Utah and associated with the Mormon Church, is widely viewed as the chief engineer of the current Bush administration. He and Tom DeLay are attempting to force the Texas legislature to redistrict its Congressional delegations, adding seven sure seats to the Republican column. By controlling the state houses in New York, Florida, Texas and California, the GOP would have a lock on the four largest states in the union, and thus the ability to manipulate vote counts and strip voter registration rolls in the run-up to the 2004 election.

 

Rove is a prime behind-the-scenes mover in the Schwarzenegger campaign. On May 1, 1939, a year after the Nazis took control of Schwarzenegger's native Austria, his father Gustav, voluntarily joined Hilter's infamous Strumabteilung (SA), "brown shirt" stormtroopers. This was just six months after the brown shirts played a key role in the bloody Kristallnacht attacks on Germany's Jewish community.

 

The Vienna daily Der Standard noted recently that "Gustav, a high-ranking Nazi, brought up the bespectacled, rather frail boy with an iron fist and quite a few slaps in the face." Arnold's father favored a Hitler-style mustache in photos.

 

On October 3, ABC News broke the story of Schwarzenegger's 1977 interview in which he was asked whom he admired. Schwarzenegger replied, "I admire Hitler, for instance, because he came from being a little man with almost no formal education, up to power. I admire him for being such a good public speaker and for what he did with it."

 

To cover himself, Schwarzenegger has made substantial donations to the Los Angeles-based Wiesenthal Center, which tracks down ex-Nazis. Arnold has also renounced Hitler.

 

But he has not renounced his friendship with fellow Austrian Kurt Waldheim, the one-time head of the United Nations with known Nazi ties. The book Arnold: An Unauthorized Biography, documents Arnold toasting Waldheim, who had participated in Nazi atrocities during World War II, at his wedding to Maria Shriver. "My friends don't want me to mention Kurt's name, because of all the recent Nazi stuff and the U.N. controversy," Arnold said. "But I love him and Maria does to, and so thank you, Kurt."

 

 

if all of this above is true, what does it really say? people change, and we can't hold them hostage to the attrocities of their forefathers, right?

 

but there is also an old saying: "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." i think it's pretty clear that the republican political apparatus as it stands today (and in the last hundred years) has many similarities to nazi ideology and actions, from ultra-nationalism, to strong police-state, to ultra-militarism, extra-legal maneuverings, torture, end-arounds around civil protections, the creation of a bogeyman enemy to galvanize public opinion. i have republicans in my family, and it is truly frightening to see first-hand the type of mentality that is fomented by a blind allegiance to this type of ideology, and the excuses and rationalizations that it produces. i'm not saying other ideologies don't foment this type of behaviour....

 

anyways, ramble ramble. i just think it's important to stay open to all possibilities, without believing blindly in any of them. it's of course harder to do once we have staked out opinions and beliefs.