Monday, 31 May 2004 CDT
Europe is willing to remember history
Little Gamers is a web comic from Sweden about gaming culture. In somewhat of a break from its normal subject matter, a recent strip makes a salient point about lessons of history.
When I was learning about World War II in school, we'd ask the teacher how the well-educated, civilized Germans could possibly let a monster like Hitler take control of the country. What we've seen in the United States in the last three years seems to answer that question. A population that feels threatened, coupled with a leader that mixes the rhetoric of nationalism and patriotism with fear, seems willing to follow even when the direction is an affront to all that the country has striven for.
Is Bush a new Hitler? No. Not yet. But he does look an awful lot like a Slobodan Milošević, who used nationalism and war to stay in power. An objective look at Bush's Administration should lead one to realize that what America is doing right now is not exporting our ideals to the rest of the world, but instead acting no better than a tin-pot dictatorship using intimidation and military might to expand our empire.
What we are doing today is not securing America. And we are losing the best of our character in the process, I fear.
