Kids this kentucky event is the pattern some of us have predicted

[nadinbrzezinski]

This either will put a stop to this, doubt it, or it will continue to heat up.

But this is the exact pattern on the way to something ugly. Oh and if things don't go the way the rethugs expect on tuesday expect more violence. Ah I hate the smell of cordite in the morning, but this is the direction we are moving towards.

[madmax]

1. Yes, and it was born from

the mouths of the candidates themselves. They're disgusting and not fit to hold any office.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Just like 1859

This is why at times I wish I didn't know the history I know.

[madmax]

4. I wish I knew the history you know.

What happened in 1859?

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Politicians in the south increased the rethoric towards secession,

Yes using the Tenth amendment. Perry sounded just like them. After Lincoln's election it got ugglier, and well you know what came next.

Calhoun was particularly toxic. He was a US Senator.

[madmax]

9. Thanks Nadine - will check that out a little more.

I do believe history repeats itself. It helps if we're aware of it to begin with. ;)

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. Yep

Why tenth ammendment talk was such a critical marker.

[unkachuck]

7. say no more....

....I don't want to know, I'm happily uneducated....

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Somebody else asked

Sorry

:hi:

[madmax]

10. Awe, c'mon live a little

;)

[donheld]

33. The mouths of the Candidates and Fox

[enough]

3. From the polls I've seen, it looks as if Conway shot himself in the heart with the

Aqua Buddah ad, and that Paul is going to coast to an easy win. I don't think there's too much we can do to "put a stop to this" right now.

That said, I agree with your basic point.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Not bout that race

Generally speaking we are moving to a hot phase.

The GOP in general will NOT do as well as they expect, and that will lead to more ugliness.

[enough]

18. I see, so, given that, what are your suggestions for "putting a stop to it?" (nt)

[nadinbrzezinski]

24. Institutions such as the press need to act

Politicians need to stop the rethoric, and the Feds need to arrest people calling for second amendment remedies. That could be construed as sedition.

[Ozymanithrax]

11. Even if they do as well as expected...

Cook predicted 51 seats, that doesn't mean things cool down.

These folk are not asking that Republicans play nice.

I suspect the next two years will be uggly.

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. Much uglier indeed

[Radical Activist]

12. I immedeately thought of an article Sara Robinson wrote last year.

Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism?

http://www.alternet.org/rights/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism/

In the second stage, fascist movements take root, turn into real political parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers on behalf of the large landowners. The KKK disenfranchised black sharecroppers and set itself up as the enforcement wing of Jim Crow. The Italian Squadristi and the German Brownshirts made their bones breaking up farmers' strikes. And these days, GOP-sanctioned anti-immigrant groups make life hell for Hispanic agricultural workers in the US. As violence against random Hispanics (citizens and otherwise) increases, the right-wing goon squads are getting basic training that, if the pattern holds, they may eventually use to intimidate the rest of us.

Paxton wrote that succeeding at the second stage "depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner." He further noted that Hitler and Mussolini both took power under these same circumstances: "deadlock of constitutional government (produced in part by the polarization that the fascists abetted); conservative leaders who felt threatened by the loss of their capacity to keep the population under control at a moment of massive popular mobilization; an advancing Left; and conservative leaders who refused to work with that Left and who felt unable to continue to govern against the Left without further reinforcement."

And more ominously: "The most important variables...are the conservative elites' willingness to work with the fascists (along with a reciprocal flexibility on the part of the fascist leaders) and the depth of the crisis that induces them to cooperate."

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Rural elements are critical

Indeed. The pattern is like obvious, the cop standing by should send shivers down everybody's backs.

[blindpig]

48. I think you will find...

that these TBs are found to be mostly petit bourgeoisie from the 'burbs. They are the small fish in the local chamber of commerce pond and the wanna be's.

[JDPriestly]

52. Radical Activist, please post this separately.

This is really insightful. I am very familiar with German culture and history -- although that is not my area of academic expertise. And believe me, much of what is happening in our society as a whole is similar to what happened in Germany and Austria prior to WWII.

Of course, every totalitarian movement has its own identity. And every time brings its challenges.

But, the fact is that the crucial element now is, as you point out, whether Obama and the Democrats in government across the country can make our economy and our society work for everyone. FDR did it, and we avoided the bullet back then.

But at the beginning of the 1930s, we were a creditor nation with a strong industrial base that was in the forefront of innovation. Therefore FDR could fall back on resources that we no longer have.

I become less and less optimistic. Moderate Americans, Democrats especially are in denial about what is going on. They are blissfully ignorant of the history of totalitarian movements.

People seem to comfort themselves with the misconception that totalitarian regimes arise like mushrooms seemingly magically from the earth. That is untrue. They emerge slowly as economies and societies become less confident of their ability to provide for all members of the society. Extremists move to the forefront at the end of a long process when moderates relinquish power, when moderates are tired of the fight, when moderates feel defeated.

That is why Obama needs to understand that his first job is to speak to and consider the opinions of progressives -- who are the real moderates of today and who are his base. All the right decisions and policies will not work unless he communicates his enthusiasm in language that excites ordinary people, language they (we) can understand.

He should replace his weekly sit-down chats in front of a camera in the oval office with scenes in which he interacts with the public during his speech. That simple thing would make him seem so much less remote and so much more accessible, present and competent to the public.

He should not fall into the trap that the right-wing sets by pushing toward the right. He should not portray those of us who still have the values of the FDR Democrats as "leftists." We really aren't. WE ARE THE MAINSTREAM. And it is essential that Obama understand and insist on the fact that WE ARE THE MAINSTREAM, the rational element in the U.S.

He also should not fall into the trap of failing to prosecute the rich and powerful for their wrongs. If he fails to prosecute, if he allows his government to be intimidated by the likes of BP or our creditors overseas, he will be perceived as weak and the public will acquiesce to the pressures from the right even more.

Most of all, unfortunately, the difficult tasks of rebuilding our economy and cutting back on imports and pollution have fallen to Obama after years of procrastination under successive Republican presidents and Bill Clinton.

We need to push Obama but also support him any time he makes efforts to correct past failings in those key areas -- because those areas are where we, as a nation, are vulnerable. And failure to take care of our trade deficit and our environmental problems will lead the American people to become desperate.

Desperation is the detonator of totalitarianism in a situation like ours. Desperate people are in danger of becoming violent and of adopting extremist political views.

[Celtic Raven]

54. Reminded me of a book I heard Thom Hartmann talk about

From They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer

<snip>

As a friend of Mayer's noted, and Mayer recorded in his book:
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head."

In this conversation, Mayer's friend suggests that he wasn't making an excuse for not resisting the rise of the fascists, but simply pointing out an undisputable reality. This, he suggests, is how fascism will always take over a nation.

<snip>

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

<snip>

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked - if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

More at the link.

http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2005/11/they-thought-they-were-free

If the Teabaggers lose we may face a hot phase now; if they win even a few races we may face a hot phase later. Once they get a toehold in the government they will move into more and more positions of power financed by corporations & the Koch family. If that happens we will eventually have to face them down. The problem then -- they will be the government.

----------------------------------------

Emphasis added is mine.

[robertpaulsen]

60. The last three paragraphs were chilling.

It's so easy right now to look at the melee on the right and discount it as pure political theater of the most absurdly ridiculous kind. It's a freaking puppet show. These people can't be serious. Sure, they're angry -- but they're also a minority, out of power and reduced to throwing tantrums. Grown-ups need to worry about them about as much as you'd worry about a furious five-year-old threatening to hold her breath until she turned blue.

Unfortunately, all the noise and bluster actually obscures the danger. These people are as serious as a lynch mob, and have already taken the first steps toward becoming one. And they're going to walk taller and louder and prouder now that their bumbling efforts at civil disobedience are being committed with the full sanction and support of the country's most powerful people, who are cynically using them in a last-ditch effort to save their own places of profit and prestige.

We've arrived. We are now parked on the exact spot where our best experts tell us full-blown fascism is born. Every day that the conservatives in Congress, the right-wing talking heads, and their noisy minions are allowed to hold up our ability to govern the country is another day we're slowly creeping across the final line beyond which, history tells us, no country has ever been able to return.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/141819/is_the_u.s._on_the_brink_of_fascism?page=5

[county worker]

14. I lived through 3 assignations and 3 attempts. I thought that was a bad time.

I see today as much more dangerous.

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. Those were walks in park

This is pre-hot civil war.. Or right wing coup and assassination squads.

[Rage for Order]

19. Wow, hyperbole much?

Somebody is roughed up in a minor assault and suddenly it's worse than the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK combined? Okay then.

:crazy:

[nadinbrzezinski]

20. If this was an isolated incident you'd be correct

It is not.

We are on a progression to something ugly.

I highly recommend you crack a book on how civil ears happen, including ours. Pay close attention to how rethoric and violence heats up. For the record as bad as the 1960s were the country was not as polarized. Regions were, but not the country.

[Rage for Order]

21. I am of the opinion that actions speak louder than words

Overheated rhetoric does not rise to the level of murder

[nadinbrzezinski]

25. No but we have had murder already

Try to create a time line.

Oh and rethoric can and has led to death and destruction, whether that is US Senator Calhoun, or a small Tutsi massacre not so long ago.

[McCamy Taylor]

45. Born and raised in the South---and that kind of behavior indicates some deep seated

anger/hatred. Southerners are trained to swallow their negative emotions. They have to get really mad to act out.

[Joe Fields]

28. Bring 'em on. Again I ask what are you really afraid of?

[Odin2005]

22. This violence is only gonna get worse.

The Teabaggers are authoritarian social dominators.

[guitar man]

23. There needs to be arrests and prosecution

They're like a pack of dogs only not quite as smart.

Something I know about dogs is how unchecked behavior escalates. If he gets away with growling at you, sooner or later he's going to nip you. If he gets away with that, he'll eventually bite you. If he gets away with that, one day you'll find yourself on your back fighting for your life while he's going for your throat.

It's time to nip this behavior in the bud, allowing people to get away with assault is no way to live in a civilized society.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. That is exactly how you nip it

Why tweety calling this brown shirt tactics without using those wordscwas important.

Calling for second amendment remedies is not protected speech.

[guitar man]

30. If they dont

If they let this shit go unchecked I will avail myself of my second amendment rights to avoid bring the next liberal with a boot to the head. :grr:

[nadinbrzezinski]

31. I hope it does not come to that

No, I don't like the smell of cordite in the morning.

[Joe Fields]

29. Bad analogy.

Our corrupt political system is not analagous to a pack of dogs. If we wanted to nip this behavior in the bud we should have done it thirty years ago. Americans are still yawning over political repercussions. They are not yet awake. We have not hit bottom as a nation yet. It's going to take a lot more pain for the people to finally rise up and take back what is rightfully theirs.

That is why I want to get it over with, sooner, rather than later, which is why I hope the republican party trounces us.

I would be happy to explain in depth, if asked.

[guitar man]

32. I was specifically referring

To the teabagging brownshirts and their behavior of late. Like a pack of wild animals...

[Joe Fields]

39. Okay. In agreement with that.

[Joe Fields]

27. If it is to be, kid, let it be.

What are you afraid of? I'm as resilient as a red rubber ball. Frankly, I hope the GOP trounces us democrats in the election. We deserve to be trounced, and maybe, just maybe that is what it's going to take to allow people like you and me to take this country back a few years from now. Evidently, we haven't hit bottom yet.

[proteus_lives]

34. You're focusing too much on one period.

Fringe violence has always been part of the American political landscape.

[nadinbrzezinski]

36. Here

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?oe=UTF8&client=firefox-a&ie=UTF8&source=embed&msa=0&msid=100917659372037806288.0004828ef8239ccbe7445

Yes it has but the pattern is not funny.

Perhaps I am biased by that fancy education and debriefs of survivors of actual civil war.

[proteus_lives]

37. Yeah, fringe violence,

Threats, individual violence.

Minor-league stuff that never stops.

Obama's election amped it up but the situation is closer to the Know-Nothings or Anti-Masons then the Civil War.

You're seeing the patterns you want to see.

"perhaps I am biased by that fancy education and debriefs of survivors of actual civil war."

:eyes:

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. People made fun when this started

I hope you get the last laugh...

I refer you to

Those who forget history...

And of course John Calhoun

http://www.quotesdaddy.com/author/John+C.+Calhoun

Fancy pants education...

[proteus_lives]

43. I don't think either of will laugh.

Like America, we'll simply move on with our lives.

Comparing to John Calhoun would work better if you hadn't been making "ZOMG, the next Civil War is right around the corner" posts for years.

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Have you ever heard of the long view

I doubt it. The Annales school is not too common. Right around the corner isn't either what I've said for years. Thanks for playing and NOT paying attention. Go back to sleep now. It is safer than actually paying attention to trends.

[proteus_lives]

49. Paying attention or seeing what you want to see?

Thanks for your opinions.

[nadinbrzezinski]

56. Have a good day

[RagAss]

35. We're about a year away from the fucking fire hoses again !

[nadinbrzezinski]

42. I hope it is not Ft. Sumpter.

[proteus_lives]

44. Ft. Sumter

"Fancy pants education"

Indeed.

[Matariki]

38. It doesn't help that these incidents are being treated as misdemeanors.

Was Miller's 'security' militia even punished at all for unlawfully detaining that journalist?

What about the Angle supporter who punched a woman, is he facing anything more than a slap on the wrist?

[nadinbrzezinski]

41. To miller I want to know what the Army will do

The rest.. Yep

[slackmaster]

47. Do you think they can beat Mississippi State?

I doubt it.

[Initech]

50. Sadly I think it's gonna escalate.

The teabaggers will push us to the brink of something really dangerous and scary if they don't gain control.

[Imajika]

51. Oh please...

Come on, it's not near as big a deal as your making it out to be.

A nasty incident in a pretty ugly campaign does not mean much. There is not violence breaking out across the nation, nor is there a shred of evidence we are moving towards that.

Be serious. Our side is playing this up for political reasons, to try to fire up the base just a little more going into the elections. Their side is playing this down for political reasons, and instead amplifying any negative story they can find about Democrats to excite their base as much as possible. This entire episode will be completely forgotten immediately after the election.

We point out something terrible the Republicans did, and they will cite stories of yard signs being stolen, or some brawl between union protestors and tea party people, etc, etc.

This kind of stuff is part of every election cycle. And every election cycle one or both sides will claim they fear the other is leading us towards violence.

Yes, we need to use this to our advantage - just as they would. No, we are not about to descent into brutal street battles and chaos.

[nadinbrzezinski]

55. Second person that cannot see patterns

One, you'd be right.

Have a good day

[kctim]

53. What's interesting

is that the wingers say President Obama and the Dems in power, show the pattern THEY predicted. Fear fear fear.

Oh well, I'm sure all these fascism vs. socialism fear tactics are good for the nation.

[nadinbrzezinski]

57. Confused

Read the... Editorial the local ky paper wrote today.

Oh and thanks for bringing some red baiting... Thought I've seen all.

Oh and have a wonderful day... What's next McCarthy?

For the record I have never been a communist or a Nazi either. (Questions are still part of nationalization papers)... Yes I had to answer those two questions. Seems I have to answer them again...red baiting as old as 1833.

[kctim]

58. Red baiting?

Screams of socialism from the right. Screams of fascism from the left.
Worries of the left taking over by force from the right. Worries of the right taking over by force from the left.
Theories and fear from the right for this. Theories and fear from the left for that.
FEAR! FEAR! FEAR!

I realize fear gets votes and that fear is easier than understanding, but all this rhetoric is getting downright ridiculous.

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. Tell that to Mrs. Valle

I am positive she might want to correct you.

Hell tweety is even going there today... You know another country in the '30s.

Have a wonderful day... And stay away from reality...m'kay.

[kctim]

61. So she will tell me

that the actions of a few is representative of what ALL Republicans will do if they lose on Tuesday? And because of that, a second whisky rebellion or civil war is coming?
I'll go ahead and file that right next to my right-wing neighbors comment that ALL Democrats try to eat fingers. Sheesh.

I'll stay with reality, but if ok with you, I'll stay away from the fear-based factless reality you have created here. m'kay?

Oh, and you have a wonderful day also.

[nadinbrzezinski]

62. So they also thought they were free

George Santayana Quotes
George Santayana Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

[felix_numinous]

63. K + R

Propaganda is used because it works. The RW has fostered these unbalanced people and is using them to intimidate any opposition. If the propaganda continues and is not countered by some deprogramming methods, their little social experiment will indeed result in domestic instability--which is another goal they have--to create chaos while President Obama is in office. As I've said before they fight down and dirty, and in order to know what they are up to, you have to imagine the darkest motivations of power domination.