Political Cortex: Brain Food for the Body Politic

As an inevitably pointless troll prophylactic, I emphasize that this is a comparison of rhetorical strategies, and in particular the tendency of police states (and now the Bush administration) to justify restrictions of liberty by insisting on the enemy's relentlessness and the need therefore to maintain constant vigilance.  Moreover, any criticism at all is, in Five-Deferment Dick's words, "beyond the pale," and, quite possibly, traitorous, because unity is absolutely necessary to combat this evil (and devious) enemy.  In this Manichaean worldview, there can be only two sides, us and them, good and evil, and any criticism is therefore defined (or at least implied) to be High Treason.

So here are some brief excerpts, and I'm quite certain that I could have found many more with just a bit of effort.  Make the obvious substitutions where necessary:

I began by googling "Stalin vigilance terrorist," which was predictably productive.  For instance, the following excerpt from the 13 January 1953 Pravda turned up:

The Soviet people should not for a minute forget about the need to heighten their vigilance in all ways possible, to be alert for all schemes of war-mongers and their agents, to constantly strengthen the Armed Forces and the intelligence organs of our government.

Comrade Stalin has repeatedly warned, that our successes have their dark side, that they cause among many of our workers a spirit of placidity and complacency. Such moods are far from being overcome. We still have many complacent people. It is exactly this absentmindedness of our people that becomes the fertile soil for this vile sabotage.

Hardly a leap to see Coulter or Assrocket screeching something similar ...

To continue, for your amusement (or not), here's some classic Franco:

The Reds who pursued these treacherous tactics in the Nationalist rear, in attempting to destroy our unity, will continue these tactics after the war, when our vigilance and our care for the purity of our creed must increase. The Nationalist movement has ousted the old political intrigues and is guiding the nation to greatness and prosperity.

Spain was great when she had a State Executive with a missionary character. Her ideals decayed when a serious leader was replaced by assemblies of irresponsible men, adopting foreign thought and manners. The nation needs unity to face modem problems, particularly in Spain after the severest trial of her history.

Separatism and class war must be abolished and justice and education [education, of course, of a very particular sort -- sdf] must be imposed. The new leaders must be characterized by austerity [hah!], morality [hah!], and industry [hah hah hah!].

Spaniards must adopt the military and religious virtues of discipline and austerity. All elements of discord must be removed.

And, more briefly, from Mussolini:

Fascism will have nothing to do with universal embraces; as a member of the community of nations it looks other peoples straight in the eyes; it is vigilant and on its guard; it follows others in all their manifestations and notes any changes in their interests; and it does not allow itself to be deceived by mutable and fallacious appearances.

Do the Busheviki sound quite so over the top?  Not usually, although their blogging and pontificating minions often do, and I hope that we understand by now how the Mighty Wurlitzer operates, to wit, the center quite purposely avoids making the most spectacular statements while making quite certain that its representatives disseminate such rhetoric.

But we'd be accused, by some, of exaggerating. So just for kicks, I just went to Google News and try "(vigilant OR vigilance) Bush."  First up was this gem of an editorial from today's NY Post, entitled "The Gray Lady Toys with Treason" [on second thought, it's far too easy, no one in their right mind could accuse us of exaggerating]:

Has The New York Times declared itself to be on the front line in the war against the War on Terror?

The self-styled paper of record seems to be trying to reclaim the loyalty of those radical lefties who ludicrously accused it of uncritically reporting on Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

Yet the paper has done more than merely try to embarrass the Bush administration these last few months.

It has published classified information -- and thereby knowingly blown the covers of secret programs and agencies engaged in combating the terrorist threat.

[...]

Does The New York Times consider it self a law unto itself -- free to subversively undercut basic efforts by any government to protect and defend its citizens?

The Times, it appears, is less concerned with promoting its dubious views on civil liberties than with undercutting the Bush administration. The end result of the paper's flagrant irresponsibility: Lives have been put in danger on the international, national and local levels.

The ability of the nation to perform the most fundamental mission of any government -- protection of its citizens -- has been pointlessly compromised.

And lest you think that the NY Post is as nutty as it gets, you can check out the links on Google News to proto-fascist sites like therant.us ("Our liberals have invested exceedingly in the defeat of our nation in the WORLD WAR with Islam. Democrats are more interested in seeing to the failure of our president, than defeating the worldwide Islamic threat") and renewamerica.us ("There is a critical need for all patriotic Americans to understand fully the enemies we are facing, both abroad and at home. Many of us have become complacent and forgetful instead of continuing to remember a September day not all that long ago that was Pearl Harbor for Americans alive on that day and forgotten at our grave peril").

And if you toy with the words a bit (try "complacency" or "treason" on a Google News search),  you get many, many more ...

-- Stu