Dangers of Nationalism-why You Must Vote Democrati

WHY YOU MUST VOTE DEMOCRAT; THE DANGERS OF NATIONALISM

The recent controversy concerning Michael Savage and CAIR, The Council for American and Islamic Relations reminds me of the hate and murderous vitriole I witnessed in Bosnia and Yugoslavia, and during the Rwandan Genocide. as the post-colonial country polarized between two dominant tribes politically and socially the Hutu controlled media increasing used hostile and demeaning language to vilify Tutsis.As mouth piece for the Hutus they grew bolder in their hate speech until they began to call for the destruction of Tutsis, or cockroaches as they were called.

In Slobodan Miloshevich’s Serbia his nationalist media soon crowded out or drove out virtually all dissention to the regime. In newspaper, radio and television Serbs were bombarded with messages that they were under siege from foreign powers, that Serbia’s very culture was threatened. Inflamatory and often fabricated stories about Muslims and Albanians created the impression of a 5th column in the country. I recall speaking with wonderfully decent Serbs on the street in Belgrade and other towns in Serbia who had as much of a siege mentality, and were animated by fear and uncertainty as the civilians of Sarajevo under fire by Serb forces.

Nationalism is not waving a flag and believing that you live in the greatest place on earth. That is patriotism, and patriotism can be a wonderful, prideful thing. Nationalism is believing that you have the god-given right to dislike someone for not agree with you, and bludgeoning them for your own self interest. And when they respond you then rationalize a purpose for their destruction. Precisely what pro Nazi fascists did in slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent Serbs during the Second World War for daring to defend them self.

Every nationalist movement is exactly the same. There is a simple formula that can be applied. Nationlism requires three things, an outside antagonist, a created national identity, and a betrayer. The Right wing has created through ignorance and unchecked selfish greed Islam and “Illegal aliens as the enemy besieging America. They claim to speak for all Americans, but their message is really only for angry White men,, frightened people, and rich white men. They regularly attack women’s and minority movements, berate those who strive for equality under the law or who advocate for curbing runaway capitalism for national conscientiousness in international relations, calling them anti-American.

Finally, they consider Liberals, secular folks, critics, dissidents and the ACLU as the betrayer, completing the formula.
When Savage and others on the Right use words like “Vermin” to describe the media, members of congress, Liberals, Democrats, when he calls Liberalism a mental disorder, Illegal immigrants bums and scum, when he says Democrats are destroying America he is inching down the road where he or others like him will advocate violence. He and others like him employ the couched language of lawyers-which they claim to hate, though most of them are-, or by parsing words or talking right up to the edge of an issue. Earlier this year Savage, perturbed that someone had the audacity to protest in San Francisco, mused what it would be like if a bunch of bikers went down to meet those protesters. Did he openly advocate violence? No. He knows better than that, but we all know what he really meant. In Bosnia, during the genocide I witnessed and documented firsthand, the Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzich never once explicitly called for the slaughter and ethnic cleasing of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. He never gave orders to loot and rape, but by his silence, and with a wink and a nod the message was loud and clear to his forces.

All nationalist movements, if unchecked lead to genocide. Iraq comes dangerously close to that line. Such movements and usually, though not exclusively Right wing. The Nazis were Right wing. It is the Right that typically lays claim to “traditionally” values, honing the perception of a culture besieged to the exclusion of all but a narrow fraction of the population. They maintain idealistic fantasies of hearth and home, often wrapped in religion to make their hatred more palatable. They are predominated by an aggressive sub-group who blames others for perceived moral decay, issues of the moment, loss of jobs or status in the society, and the general progression of a society they are not equipped to comprehend or keep up with, or share.

Their ascent is not through the time-tested success of their ideas, but through power, winner-takes-all politics, such as in pre-World War II Germany. Leftists were typically pro-democracy, pro-Weimar, rather than pro-Communists. German Communists, though often deluded by their Soviet patrons-who were evolving to something far more perverse than the ideals of Marx and Engel impractical utopia-were often the targets of Nazi violence. The Nazis considered Soviet Communism as the outside enemy and the ultimate threat to their Aryan culture. Leftists, dissidents, German Communists, Socialists and Jews were the 5th column, the betrayers that had to be eradicated from German society.

Republicans have adopted the power politics strategy, by cloaking themselves in the Bible, by overwhelming radio with pro-Right wing programs, through FOX News and all out attacks against any dissenting voice. They claim to be the party of God, of Judea/Christian values, of right and of being on the side of good against evil. In truth they are the party of guns, power, money, caustic xenophobia, and a haven for bigots who have learned the subtle science of quiet hate. They claim to be culture warriors and defenders in the war for the soul of the nation- all things I heard in Bosnia and Rwanda, and the same things Mussolini the Iranian leadership, Stalin, Castro, Idi Amin and Hitler espoused.

They idealize a past that never was. They idealize a world gone by that was every bit as corrupt, violent, dangerous and perverse as it is now. The only thing that has changed is their greed and their sudden awakening to a world they never realized before. The good old days were good for whom?
Were the fifties of Happy Days and sock hops the good old days for Blacks lynched in the south, or who were forced to use separate facilities? Was it good for women? What do you throw out from modern civilization in that return to the good old days? Space flight, medical advances, computers, cell phones, modern plumbing, safety innovations, and all the discoveries and knowledge gained since then? Maybe you long for the good old days when you could call someone a nigger, where native Americans were routinely bared from shops and businesses, when women bled to death during back alley, illegal abortions- a practice that has gone on since the dawn of time. Perhaps the good old days were when Blacks were, according to the “original constitutions 3/5 of a man, or where only land owners could vote?
Our political system was supposed to be about the competition and open debate of ideas, not battles for power. Carl Rove’s dream of a permanent Republican majority is as dangerous as a permanent Democratic majority would be. The Republicans have decided that they must eradicate any political and social dissent through the use of power politics. It will only polarize the country more and lead us down a path no American can afford to go. Nationalism cannot be sustained by a country and always leads to its violent destruction or to a long miserable death. One only has to look at Germany, Japan and the former-Yugoslavia for proof.