History Lessons

From Andrew Sullivan. He's not putting the pieces together.

First, the thank-you letter from Samuel Alito to James Dobson:

In the meantime my entire family and I hope that you and the Focus on the Family staff know how we appreciate all that you have done.

A short comment on the Catholic right:

These theocons are indeed hard and merciless; and it's time take back our Church from them.

Then he cites an "Anti-Islamist Manifesto":

"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism."

I would take issue with the Anti-Islamists. The threat is not Islamism, it is fundamentalism. The methods vary, but the ends are the same: to dispense with political dialogue in favor of monologue, as is so evident in Sullivan's own Catholic Church.

We've seen the methods the Islamists are using, and they are, by any measure of civilized people, repellent. What I find equally repellent is the use by the Christianists in America of the mechanisms of democracy to subvert democracy.

Take the courts, for example. Bush has packed the courts with right-wing judges, and even granted that some of them will, indeed, rule according to the law, it is no mistake that the most activist justices on the Supreme Court, for example, are those most acceptable to the Christianists -- Thomas and Scalia. The blasts at "activist judges" are, as usual, no more than a smokescreen, to deflect attention from the fact that the wildmons are packing the courts with their own activists. The idea has been put forward that Alito was nominated not because he would not legislate from the bench, but because he will; the key factor is that he will do so in ways acceptable to the right.

In this context, I recommend David Neiwert's series at Orcinus on "Bush, the Nazis and America," which starts here, as well as "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism," which is available at Cursor.

Scootmaroo starts putting it together in yesterday's post at cabanaboyscoot, coming from a slightly different angle than my own comments.

In the 1980's, Margaret Atwood wrote a prophetic novel called The Handmaid's Tale, which imagines the United States being replaced by a Christian Theocracy called The Republic of Gilead. Apparently, we are moving closer to her vision than any of us cares to recognize.

Put the pieces together: the cult of personality (remember the billboards with Bush's picture and the simple statement "Our Leader"?), elimination of checks and balances in the government, government operations conducted in secret, unlimited power in the hands of one person, the government in control of the flow of information (one area in which we are still, thank the Lord and Lady, holding our own --although you will recall that Congress periodically tries to censor the Internet) -- which includes rewriting history to fit the agenda -- cries of "persecution" by the ruling clique, demonizing certain groups of citizens as well as the creation of outside enemies (or at least, the gross inflation of the threat they present -- it's much easier to assume dictatorial powers in wartime), enlisting the aid of religious leaders in the "crusade". . . .

The tip of the iceberg.

"Hitler" is too easy and too shallow. It's the way every dictatorship that's ever been has maintained its power, and the way many of them have gained control in the first place. It's very comforting to say "it can't happen here" but that assumes that someone will do something about it, rather than collaborating, actively or passively, in the repeal of liberty. Guess who has to be that someone.

Yeah. We own it, we get to fix it.

(A late note. It's pervasive, and it's not all originating with the admimnistration. Take a look at this editorial in today's NYT:

After a murky legislative process distinguished by a lack of any public hearing, the House is ready to rush to approve a special-interest measure for the food industry today. The bill would pre-empt all state food safety regulations that are more protective than federal standards.)