Minds have pretty much made themselves up regarding the ongoing NSA scandal – either you think that the president has the right to disregard the law in “wartime” (according to Gonzales we’re not actually at war) or you don’t. Actually it surprises me how many rightwingers, Republicans and “conservatives,” not necessarily the same thing, have expressed serious concern about the isse. It’s not just loose cannons like Arlen Specter – Michael Savage can’t stop ranting about the dangers of, say, Hillary Clinton using the same powers to round up talk-radio critics in the interest of ‘national security.’ He’s right. The appropriate comparison for George Bush isn’t Hitler but an earlier Chancellor and very much non-Nazi named Friedrich Ebert. German history buffs will know what I’m talking about, for everybody else I’ll get into the significance in a later post. Read here for more on Republicans who’ve expressed serious reservations about the program. There’s more, but you get my point.
Glenn Greenwald and Jane Hamsher have a new/old approach to this issue that’s worth commenting on. Using the newfagled tools of blogging and teh oldfangled approaches of talk radio call-in and LTEs they’ve decided to use Congressional oversight of the wiretapping issue as a test case for a general approach to blog-based activism. I think that the old-fashioned approaches are a great idea because, admit it, most people don’t read blogs. Harrassing the media directly is fun and gets results, but at the same time it creates an combative atmosphere that leaves reporters with the sense that both left and right bloggers are a bunch of raving loons.
Blogs come in as a way to fine-tune the message and get it out effectively. The general idea, again not necessarily new, is to focus attention on the ‘pressure points’ of this scandal. Based on their representation in the Senate, seven states came up:
(1) Pennsylvania (Specter & Santorum)
(2) Kansas (Roberts & Brownback)
(3) Maine (Snowe & Collins)
(4) Nebraska (Hagel)
(5) South Carolina (Graham)
(6) Ohio (DeWine)
The first step is Kansas. Everything that we know about Roberts suggests that he’s a lost cause, but the local press has already begun the Roberts roast without any help from us. No doubt sensible press outlets like the Wichita Eagle could use some positive encouragement.
As a card-carrying believer in the balance of government powers I’m more than happy with this project as it stands right now. Bloggers can email Jane if you’re interested in contributing; Being a Pittsburgher I plan to link through to any PA bloggers who get involved so email me or leave a comment if you’re from the keystone state and want in.
Pooh
Tim,
Is it worth adding a gentle reminder to be nice. Firm, but civil. The last thing that we should want is a replay of HowellGate where a few truly nasty comments allow the whole thing to get painted as “Angry Leftism”.
Don Surber
Yes, yes, yes, George Bush is personally reading my email and monitoring my text messages
Yawn
Ancient Purple
Translation: Who cares if the Constitution isn’t being followed? It’s only a piece of paper, for Christ’s sake.
Doublethink
Come on now Don. We all know you have already been to Room 101 and you now know that 1 + 1 = 3, and that we are at war with Eastasia not Eurasia. We know you sit at the Chestnut Tree cyber cafe, with tears streaming down your cheeks as you truely love BB.
Can we hear from another Outer Party member on this issue?
ppGaz
You’re kidding yourself. Nobody is reading anything you write.
Bob In Pacifica
Don Surber, my union local was a target of an illegal spying operation in the late 80s. One of the employees of that operation was part of the CIA interrogation staff in Latin America. You know, tie them to chairs, put a hood over their heads, then go at it. It doesn’t matter what you do, because when you’re done with them then they DISAPPEAR.
You ignorant fuck, they gather information on you until they use it.
They are probably not interested in harmless, docile little shits like you. Just keep chanting, “It can’t happen here.” It has, shit-for-brains, and you haven’t even noticed it.
D. Mason
Maybe he knows exactly what has happened and is too cowardly to face it. If he does know what kind of place America is turning into then he also knows the only way to partially avoid it is to pretend it doesn’t exist.
Paddy O'Shea
Speaking of Republicans and miserable liars in general, looks like the Bush admin has been snagged in another big fat fib. The number of U.S ports to be taken over by the Guys From Dubai is 21, not the 6 previously reported.
UAE terminal takeover extends to 21 ports
http://www.upi.com/SecurityTerrorism/view.php?StoryID=20060223-051657-4981r
Brian
How fun! The blind leading the blind.
I’ll get a bag of chips and something to drink, and sit back to watch the pummeling you’re gonna take on this one.
Break a leg!
Pooh
Funny how after every ‘pummeling’ darling Leader’s numbers drop further. Soon us lefties will be surrounded in our tanks…
t. jasper parnell
Certainly it is true that the Weimar Constitution was flawed. But this was not really Ebert’s fault. Are you refering to 1923 and the use of Article 48? But that was during his presidency not his chancellorship. So that cannot be it. Or do you mean the deal with the army and his general refusal to reign in the militarized right? Presidency again, was it not? Or his fear of social revolution and his monarchism? Are you suggesting, some how or another, that the president is a socialist with monarchical leanings? Or that Bush is a trade unionist? A saddle maker?
Perhaps the best way to understand the current president is to, you know, look at his actions and decision in the context of the present instead of dragging a much different time, place, and democracy into the discussion.
Yours with bated historical breath.
Pb
Why aren’t we hearing the good things about all-out civil war in Iraq?
By the way, we’ve gone way past satire is dead. And, as for Fox News, Photoshop is dead too (sorry Fark Phriday lovers!).
Richard Bottoms
Dear Republican Asswipes,
Morrissey is a singer, not a terrorist.
Fuck you very much.
Pooh
I dunno Richard, any music that likely to inspire suicide may well be a WMD.
Hoodlumman
Wow.
Validated.
Tim F.
t. jasper parnell,
If you want to get pedantic about it, I’ll spell it out more clearly. Savage correctly points out that one of the greatest dangers of the Bush presidency is that his tendency to disregard law and government oversight could, if it goes unchallenged, set a precedent for future presidents to use to their own advantage. Ebert had a similar effect – he did not bring down the republic, but he set useful precedents for somebody who would.
Richard Bottoms
Well I’m not sitting around waiting for the knock on my door.
I thought when I started this project I was being perhaps a little too paranoid.
This little episode has done more to let me know I’m on the right track than any of the NSA stuff.
Due out in April 2006. Looking for great artists:
http://www.darknessascending.com/
t. jasper parnell
Tim F.
I do not want to get pedantic about it; but, Ebert followed the constitution, no? Ebert’s use of 48 led to Hindenburg relying on a series of minority right-wing governments and government by decree and therefore Ebert is complicitious in that aspect of Weimar’s collapse, is this seriously your argument.
Ebert did not create some novel interpretation of his presidential power that, in any meaningful sense, led to Weimar’s collapse. The army, the Freikorps, his fear of the far left, fine these were real problems. But his use of 48? in 23? leads to ’33? Come on, man. Weimar’s collapse resulted from deeply flawed constitutional and electoral systems, the right’s decision to dismantle both, and Hindenburg’s senility and cupidity, among all the rest. The snidish tone of the last arose because, like many who do history or in fact anything professionally, sloppy use of it drives me nuts.
The argument, concerning the clear and present danger of any American president asserting he or she is above the law when national defense is in play, stands on its own without dragging any badly drawn “lessons” from history into the fray.
But please, spell away.
t. jasper parnell
And another thing, why is that everybody looks to the German example when fretting about the end of a democracy. They have only lost one, after all. How many French republics have come and gone? 4? 5? Why so little on Napoleon III’s political tactics, eh? What about Spain and Franco, Portugal and Salazar, eh? Italy and the Duce, huh? Lots of countries have lost their democracies. Why must it always be the Germans and when it is the Germans why must it always be the Nazis? It certainly serves no argumentative or logic purpose, what rhetorical advantage is gained by comparing something in the present to the best known catastrophe of the 20th century? Spell that out and I would be happy.
Richard Bottoms
Holy shit. It’s all over but the ass covering. William F. Buckley says the ‘D’ word on NRO.com no less.
Steve
One of the prominent pro-war pundits basically presaged Buckley’s line a year or so ago, although Buckley plays around with words so much you might not get his real point. Basically, he’s saying that we had the best of intentions, but the Iraqis simply weren’t good enough to live up to the ideals of peace and freedom we sought to bring to them. We gave them a golden opportunity and those savages just had to keep on fighting amongst themselves. Oh well, not our fault, on to the next theatre of war.
leefranke
Yeah but he is a pro-pot hippie now. So him saying that is the same as CIndy Sheenan talking about it.
/sarcasm off
tzs
I see the meme from Buckley is “no one could have forseen this!” Shock, horror, too-bad-those-silly-Iraqis-didn’t-appreciate-all-that-looooverly-democracy-we-was-bringing-them….
What was that comment made by the Iraqui to the American in the Green Zone:
Iraqi: –You must have studied the British occupation a great deal!
American: –Oh yes.
Iraqi: –I say this because you seem determined to repeat every one of their mistakes!
…incidentally giving the lie to WFB. Unless he wants to claim he’s the sort of silly twit that never reads history?
jg
Perhaps both are appropriate. Of course if you’re trying to imagine what future badness could come from Bush’s policies its nice to have history to fall back on. Has anyone in the past rose to power in similar means? Maybe but we’ll never know because conservatives don’t want us studying the past. Only the present matters, the new realities historians are left to pour over after more new realities are created. On freedom, marching forth to the beat of its very own drummerboy.
Davebo
Odd that none of the kids on The Corner seem to have any comment on Grandpa’s proclamation today eh?
SeesThroughIt
Not until they’re rewritten it to their liking, at any rate. You know, Hitler was a leftist, America was founded by Christians for Christians to be a Christian Nation, Reagan was right about everything, supply-side economics never fail, liberals were the ones opposing civil rights, all that stuff.
By the way, why is everybody so hard on Ebert? He’s the best critic of the arts–any arts–working today, and he’s a very good person. Oh, wait…different Ebert.
Pooh
Preach on, supply-side Jesus!
t. jasper parnell
JG,
I appreciate the sentiment; however, in my experience, the one reliable “lesson” that history teaches over and over again is that predictions are wrong and the events right now unfolding will not pan out as (almost) anyone expects. By the way, I include the prediction that all predictions are wrong as being among the predictions that history teaches is false.
On a totally unrelated matter. Cannot the united league of pundits kick David Brooks out? That man is an embarassment to idiocy.
srv
Bill Buckley – objectively pro-terrorist.
TR
Boy, I hope that was meant to be irony.
The linked story shows that conservatives claim to be happier than liberals, as if that’s somehow a validation of conservatism. Just seems to validate the old expression that ignorance is bliss.
Al Maviva
I’m starting to agree with y’all in the wake of this shrine bombing. If people are stupid enough to buy into the notion religious war, then they aren’t smart enough to govern themselves. They are probably better off under a cruel fascist tyrant, a maniacal Ottoman or a neglectful imperial clerk, than they are governing themselves. So a few tens of thousands of folks get killed off here or there… at least there’s order most of the time, right? And in the grand scheme of things, does it really matter whether somebody has a “right” to criticize the ruling regime, whatever it happens to be? Perhaps it’s not worth wasting our treasure to try to give away a gift of self rule, maybe it’s something that can’t be given. The Sunnis want to engage in score settling? Fine. Let the Iranian-backed Shiites give it to them. Nice to know you, Al Tikriti tribe. Hope you enjoy the afterlife.
Otto Man
I may be maniacal, but I don’t want the job.
Par R
Thank God, none of you idiots are anyplace near running anything important in this (or any other) country! frankly, I really do wonder how you survive in such a cold, cruel world without your mommas and poppas to wipe ypor asses and runny noses. Bob in Pacifica appears especially backward and unlikely to survive without the helping hand of some dimwitted friend and/or relative.
srv
Ah, maybe Buckley had a panic attack.
As they say, Freedom isn’t Free. It’s not something you can just endow. It’s all well and good if you want to make a serious effort to indoctrinate a culture of 25 millions (or the Arab world) into the concept. But if that’s what people want, you can’t be serious without the manpower (millions), time period (generations) and treasure (trillions) to make it happen.
I don’t think a civil war is imminent, it’ll be more of a slow burn like Lebanon, with surges of violence. It only took what, 25 years (if it really is over)?
Par R
And I should add, in the event it wasn’t otherwise crystal clear…..LOSERS are what you mostly are, LOSERS unable to get off even with a friendly hand job from your first cousin. Pitiful, pathetic LOSERS!
tzs
Gee, Par R seems to be off his meds today….not liking it when someone points out the CF aspect of Iraq at present?
I heard from a Christian Arab friend of mine the scuttlebutt that the whole Lebanese war had originally started as a catfight between two branches of the Lebanese civil service and then had just snowballed. Proxy fight among all the countries in the area who were egging on everybody. “Brother against brother, family against family, tribe against tribe…”
Why does this remind me of the 30 year war in Germany?
Alas, poor Iraq…
srv
Par, you’re always right. Rather than gloat over a Maredsous #8 with the gf tonight about the likes of Fukuyama, Sullivan and Buckley finally agreeing with something we said 3 years ago… Instead, we’ll drink to a self-made man like GW, and the example he set for us all.
We should all strive to fail harder at everything we do.
Tim F.
There’s an easy question at least. God only knows how many books have been written about Germany (and Rome). They’re the two things most folks with a basic education but no formal education know at least a little about. If I brought up Napoleon III I might as well bring up Krull III of Outer Uzkerbia for all it means to most people. Being a history dilletante myself, it’s something that I know at least a little about.
Good example, when Hackworth quoted one word about Iraq – Syracuse – military historians flipped out and everybody else shrugged. It didn’t sink in the way, say, Waterloo or opening an unnecessary Eastern front would have.
Par R
Oh, come on, srv…you can do better. After all, you were one of the first out of the box to practically dance, metaphorically speaking, with absolute glee when the insurgents blew up the most Holy of Shia shrines. One could sense in you an excitement that the US would be blamed for this despicable act and suffer the consequences, including, an enormous loss of life in Iraq, and ultimately, political defeat for Bushitler. Additionally, I suspect you must also be happy at the thought of tens of thousands of terrorists “freed up” now to come over here and go after the neocons (that is to say, Jews, in your likely fevered mind).
Eural
Exactly! Talk about the whole Reformation redux. I keep thinking thats a great good news/bad news line –
The Good News – like the Christians 500 years ago, these guys will eventually sort their problems out and develop a more secular, moderate social and governmental system.
The Bad News – like the Christians 500 years ago, these guys will only do so after a century of intense, bloody and tragic warfare that will destabilize the region beyond any superpowers control (China or the US).
“People like to say that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. I say, those who forget the past – SURPRISE!” Stephen Colbert
ppGaz
I admire Buckley in many ways, but at this hour, he is just a complete bullshit artist.
Basic commitments in foreign policy? The history and legacy of American foreign policy the last 75 years is alignment with and support of all manner of despots, murderers and thieves …. whatever was convenient and rational for our interests at the time.
In this context and at this time, you’d have to conclude either that Buckley is senile, or is just yet another lying sonofabitch with a keyboard in his lap.
As if we need another one of those.
Shorter lying cocksucker Buckley: Bush was right, but it just didn’t work out.
Bill? Kiss my entire ass.
Otto Man
I think they were trying to figure out what kind of freshman class Jim Boeheim recruited this year.
tzs
Hadn’t heard that from Hackworth. I would have flipped out too. Syracuse, indeed.
“Non Carthago delenda est, sed Iraqo detruitus sumus.”
(C’mon you other Latinists out there, what’s the Latin word for Iraq?)
Since we’re culling from history, I’m wondering whether this will all end up like the religious wars in Europe–200 years of people doing nasty things to each other in the name of religion until it finally burnt out. I’ve never figured out whether people finally wised up out of exhaustion or whether all the real nuts just got killed off.
Speaking of Thucydides, I think I’ll take down my copy of the History of the Peloponnesian War and read it again. It never fails to amaze me.
Otto Man
Persia?
Perry Como
Babylonia?
Pb
Mesopotamia.
Pb
ppGaz,
Condensed Buckley:
Even shorter:
ppGaz
Yes, Pb, and this morning’s DKos has a story about the readiness of Iraq’s own fighting forces.
According to the article, there are now ZERO Iraqi units ready to fight on their own.
In the Clusterfuck Olympics, this thing wins the gold.
tzs
How does everyone see this playing out? Bush is likely so stubborn he won’t care how many soldiers die for his Excellent Little Adventure, but I’m surprised if the military will continue to go along with this much further. They MUST realize that the soldiers are getting worn out and can’t be kept on this continued rotation schtick. They’ve already managed to trash the National Guard idea for a generation–who now will trust any promises made by the gov’t about exactly what they will be used for? And I’ve heard the equipment is also getting worn out, what with the dust and use under battle conditions and all that. Having a $2 billion piece of equipment isn’t worth jack unless you can actually use it.
The one thing we have to keep pressure on and NOT FORGET is the support for all of the veterans after this whole thing winds up, whichever way. We have to make certain they have the medical, financial, and social support needed upon return.
Tacitus: “They make a desolation and call it peace.”
The Other Steve
I think President Bush should go to Iraq personally to oversee the resolution of Democracy and Peace.
Because, after all. It’s for the Children.
ppGaz
If this isn’t the end of the “Freedom on the march” bullshit, I can’t imagine what is.
Steve
Victor Davis Hanson, yesterday on NRO:
Later that same day, as ppGaz points out:
I find this sort of thing sad on many levels.
Otto Man
Man, is Victor Davis Hanson ever right about anything?
The Other Steve
My guess is his book tells of the amazing victories of the Athenians, and how in the end the Spartans could not compete against their staggering skill and battle readiness, so they just surrendered at Sicily.
kl
Then why do his albums keep bombing?
don surber
LOL
Love the Buckley shortened bits
Eventually you reduce it to [grunt]
srv
More Hanson:
Yeah. Right. Notice he doesn’t even discuss the successes of the reconstruction. I guess that was something we should not have been doing?
This guy is always a depressing read, because you know whatever he says, the exact opposite is going to end up true.
Pb
Don Surber,
You’re welcome. Buckley is a wordy bastard, as someone else pointed out to me, elsewhere. I felt compelled to try to make some sense out of his rantings–I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment. :)
Shorter Don Surber:
[grunt]
Pb
srv,
Perhaps he meant to say… Most would now agree that the administration knew exactly what they were doing.
don surber
Pb
Yes, while you are grunting the rest of us are thinking.
Leonidas
Pb
Yes, while you are grunting the rest of us are thinking.
LOL. The liberals are out of their minds with paranoia about the NSA program. Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. It makes me wonder just who these liberals are talking to that they’re so afraid of being monitored.
Otto Man
Fine. The White House can go first.
rachel
*Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. *
Nods. Thats why our founding fathers decided to leave “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” out of the Bill of Rights after all. The Fourth Ammendment? As long as we can trust our elected officials to be as wise as Solon and beyond corruption, we don’t need it.
t. jasper parnell
Tim F.
I had intended to put the know above in scare quotes.
I am not sure what you mean by being dilletante, which I thought was a bad thing. YOu may think that most people “know” about Nazism; you may think that this “knowlege” grows from the many texts written on it; I think you are wrong. I have been involved in teaching history at the college/university level for 10 yrs or so, and in my experience — which is not definitive — most people think they “know” about the Nazis etc but do not. I would argue, and in fact use your misuse of Ebert and Weimar as an example, that most people do not understand or know anything meaningful about Nazism, or its prehistory. It is rhetorical shorthand for this is something bad.
For a culture that has little to no interest in real history, as compared to the Hitler Channel documentaries, it is odd that those who seek to interject historical instances into contemporary political debates resort to the Hitler and the Nazis.
Granted, of course, that this site’s motto actually forstalls my criticism, but there it is.
My point, I think, was this, your inclusion of Ebert was inapt and badly done, resting as it does on a failure to understand the structural, contextual, and historical differences between Germany in the Weimar era and the US in the present. It is as a consequence, alarming, distorting, and confusing.
Kimmitt
Do you think they were fascists the whole time, or is this more of a gradualist thing?
CaseyL
Kimmitt, they were always fascists. While it wasn’t pc to express fascistic views, they kept quiet. But now it’s OK, so they’re letting it all hang out.
ats
“Those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.”
Until the regime changes. because then different people will have things to hide.
Its pretty apparent that George Orwell was never on YOUR syllabus at Bob Jones.
ats
Parnell: “Weimar’s collapse resulted from deeply flawed constitutional and electoral systems, the right’s decision to dismantle both, and Hindenburg’s senility and cupidity, among all the rest.”
I expect all Marxists and many economic historians would differ–given that little thing called the Depression.
” The snidish tone of the last arose because, like many who do history or in fact anything professionally, sloppy use of it drives me nuts.”
Did you develop that fastidiousness through from reading “Wolfgang” Mommsen?
t. jasper parnell
ATS,
Why is “Wolfgang” in guotations? Wolfgand M worked on the 19th Century. It is his twin brother Hans M who wrote, in my opinion, the best book of Wiemar’s rise and fall. There are, of course, other famous Mommsens (Theodore for example) Although I will say, that reading any of the Mommsens does provide an object lesson in the necessity of getting the facts straight.
But, to return, it is Hans’ _The Rise and Fall of Weimar Democracy_ to which one looks when working on Weimar. If you cannot read the whole book, it is long filled with large words and some of the detailed discussions of the various events in Germany after 1918 can be terrifically confusion, what with all the names and dates and complex interpretations. I would suggest the final four chapters, of it.
Bully for the Marxists and the (unnamed) economic historians. Leaving aside the obvious question: what did he depression cause German voters to do? There are still the unfortuante facts of the process through which Weimar was dismantled.
Look, for a moment, at the process of Hitler’s installation. Hindenburg relied on a series of minority conservative governments culminating in the “Barons Cabinet” under von Pappen. This led to decreased popular support. Von Pappen and others on the right proposed Hitler as a figure head. Hindenburg resisted untill 32 because he despised Hitler and was convinced, as He put it, that a Hitler government would become a party dictatorship. However, Hindenburg did eventually appoint Hitler, at least in part, because of Hindenburg’s or his cronies misuse of Ost Hilfe money.
The proliferation of splinter parties with very narrow electoral bases, one of the reason that the Grundgesetz includes the 5% hurdle, created a situation within which the SPD was very nearly the sole political party that remained committed to parliamentary democracy. This was a electoral problem. IN addition, ARticle 48 allowed the president to rule by decree in time of emergency, something that HIndenburg did increasingly in the early thirties. This was a consitutional problem.
Electorally, the Nazis and the KPD created the so-called “Negative Majority,” which allowed them to styme any and all state attempts to meet the problems of the Depression. It was, in other words, not economic conditions that led to Weimar’s inability to respond to economic conditions but rather political conditions. This suggests that it was ideology, both the Nazis and the KPD hated Weimar, granted for different reasons, and both actively worked to destroy it.
AFter Hitler’s appointment he insisted that Goering to Prussia, the rock of Weimar’s democracy, and once there Goering used the policy and the Brownshirts, enrolled as an adjunct police force, to destroy opposition parties. Hitler managed to pass a series of decress that seriously undermined free speech, political association and so on. Despite this the Nazi’s polled only 44 somthing %, in fact in the last free election that Nazis’ share of the vote declined. In order to pass the Enabling Act, which allowed Hitler to rule without concern for the Constitution, they had to arrest the KPD deligates and the Brownshirts stood in the aisles threatening the parliament.
This is, obviously, a foreshortened version. If you are actually interested in learning some history you might consult Ian Kershaw _Hubris_ Chapter 10; and Richard Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich chapter four. There are, to be sure, much better specialized monographs on this process but both Kershaw and Evans to excellent jobs of synthesizing.
If you are being “snarky” it was badly and ignorantly done. If you can explain to me how economic conditions or iron laws of history explain these events, I would, of course, be forever grateful.
yours in Eil
t. jasper parnell
ATS,
Lest there be any further confusion that you are an ill-informed, self-regarding lout of amazing proportions, and to encourage you to apologize for your assumption that you know more than I and, what is worse, that I have made an unfogivable error in fact please click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mommsen