In one of his comments threads, our favorite specter, the Dark Wraith, noted the seeming impossibility of deterring the neocons from their current path of tyranny and destruction (which I’m not going to blockquote, since it’s longish, but please note it was authored by the Wraith):
The Rove & Co. strategy is winner-take-all, scorch-the-Earth, and leave the remains for the buzzards. Look at the descriptions of the behavior of men like Bolton, who has been described by multiple, first-hand witnesses as literally violent when things don't go his way. That's not leadership; and it's not really madness, either. It is, instead, a style of control that has no use for consensus, pooling of knowledge, and reason among the reasonable.
I speak as one of the most independent and least team-oriented folks around, and this is not some shade of strong, independent-minded vision. What these neo-cons do is world-class tyranny. Although every fiber of my being wants to say that the solution lies in a good round of old-fashioned ass-beating for these kinds, that would do no good. No matter how hard they are knocked back, they'll keep coming at you.
They are, in that regard, relentless; and finding a strategy that is successful against them is really, really difficult. Just about everyone reading this comment knows just how hard it is to permanently ignore a relentless, whiney person. Sooner or later, that person gets his or her way, if for no other reason than that people just want peace, and they'll eventually do just about anything to shut the whiner up.
We've all seen it; and many of us—whether or not we want to admit it—have accommodated the pestilent little people who hound us to death.
Rove, Bolton, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and scores more of their ilk are of this breed, except that they can turn vicious on those rare occasions when things don't go their way. The damage they do in that regard is not worth it for most people. I am not certain that there are many who would be willing to risk the damage the neo-cons could cause if they were to be refused for very long.
In that regard, I cannot be too harsh on the Democrats who seem to appease them. Neither can I be too harsh on the moderate Republicans who, despite their much better judgments to the contrary, are going along with this awful, spiraling descent into tyranny.
How do you stop men like Rove, Frist, Bolton, and the others? Perhaps shine a bright light on them? Ask Joseph Wilson or Sibel Edmunds about that plan.
Be just as nasty and mean to people around you as they are? Ask Howard Dean about that plan.
Be optimistic, hopeful, and darned-near visionary in the good way you see America, its people, and its future? Ask John Edwards about that plan.
The rhetorical attack above certainly doesn't mean they cannot be stopped. What it means is that we need to go beyond seeing them for what they are. And we need to see them not as ignorant beasts, even if that really is their nature.
One solution is rather obvious... Unfortunately, it is a self-administering solution, the one used by any organism when an aggressive, destructive, and unrelenting cancer has metastasized within it.
May God help us if we can't think of something before the organic being called the United States solves the problem that way.
The Dark Wraith reaches deep for an alternative.
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Sadly, my best notion is this blog, into which I pour my heart and soul and hope it makes a difference even as fear it never will. I described the concurrence of these notions to Mr. Shakes recently as feeling like a hobbit tasked with saving Middle Earth, but I haven’t even got the ring.
So, ye wise and astute Shakers…got any ideas?
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