Å: Gorge Bush's Fascist States of America

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Gorge Bush's Fascist States of America

So after watching Olbermann's latest eloquent rant in which he calls Bush to task for being a fascist, I got to thinking - obviously he's not the first to consider this idea - let's see what other material has been written on the subject. A quick search of the internet turned up a number of sites presenting different views on the subject. I've provided links to some below.

The search also turned up a few feeble attempts to attack Olbermann, but these looked more like preaching to the Bush choir, singing the familiar refrains of their usual hymns, than any substantive argument. As such, I didn't bother to include them here.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to confess I only skimmed these postings - didn't have time to read them in full - but they seemed to be of possible interest. As is typical of internet sites, their quality runs the gamut but they have much to say.

For further reading, I encourage you to do your own search usng your favorite search engine/s. There're lots more out there than the few I posted here.

"From this distant vantage point [from the Voyager Spacecraft outside the orbit of Pluto], the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Look again at that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

"The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

"The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

"It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."

- Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot

"The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what's true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key." - Carl Sagan

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