Are Democrats and Republicans on the Road to Genocide?

Dr Franklin H Littell was an American scholar who spent ten years working on deNazification projects in Germany and dedicated his life to Holocaust and Genocide studies. He has witnessed at first hand the effects of genocide, and has extensively studied the sociological happenings that create the proper political environment for genocide to occur. In 1988 he published an article titled Early Warning, focused on identifying political movements with genocidal intent before it's too late. Included in this article is a list of 15 criteria of events or attributes of a political movement that imply a future genocide, and he says that if any one party portrays 10-11 of these criteria, “it's time for the alarm bells to start ringing.”

Additionally, the Encyclopedia of Genocide, edited by Israel W Charny, cites the same article with an additional 16^th criteria, and states that a pattern of only 8 to 10 attributes “should be enough to start red flags waving.”

Well, what if I told you both the Democratic and Republican parties of America meet precisely 8 of them, with a ninth occurring naturally in the country?

I might as well be writing a blog about how not to be popular with Americans.

The list in full is available in the link above, but I'll also copy it here:

• 1) The group or movement prints, distributes, and uses anti-Semitic material for recruitment of membership.
• 2) The group or movement makes anti-Semitic appeals through the media or in evangelistic meetings.
• 3) and 4) The same actions as 1) and 2) are directed against any other ethnic, religious, or cultural community, using targeting and intimidation as a weapon in the quest for political power.
• 5) Members cultivate violence toward opponents -- publishing slanderous charges, bombing meeting places and homes and media, beating and assassinating.
• 6) The movement pursues the politics of polarization, destroying the middle ground of conciliation and compromise, rejecting the politics of moderation and orderly change. If it becomes large enough, instead of being a loyal opposition, it builds the structure of a state within a state.
• 7) The group or movement deliberately drives a wedge between the generations, alienating young people from their heritage -- a very characteristic part of the policy of the Nazi party. In the last open election the average voting age of the Nazi list was 10 years younger than the voters of the other parties. They got these votes by teaching the young people to be ashamed of and then to turn with bitterness against their elders.
• 8) The movement maintains camps for paramilitary training, including practice in the use of anti-personnel weapons. The United States has camps in Oklahoma and Arkansas right now [being 1988], in the Ozarks, at Hayden Lake in Idaho and elsewhere.
• 9) The movement maintains private armies, demonstrating in public in uniform, parading and marching to intimidate loyal citizens.
• 10) Leaders of the movement elaborate a quasi-religious structure of authority and sanction, with political hymns, shrines, martyrs, and liturgies.
• 11) Archaic tribal, clannish, or religious symbols are worn by members as public insignia; secret passwords, handshakes, and other recognition signals are used to signal co-believers.
• 12) Induction and termination of membership are observed as pseudo-religious rites. Straying members are treated as heretics, subjected to exorcism or intensive group therapy.
• 13) The movement's basic unit is the closed cell, with three to seven the standard number. This is the classic unit of a revolutionary party or intelligence operation, but inappropriate to exercise influence upon a legitimate government.
• 14) The movement practices deception and confusion of public opinion by launching one-issue "fronts" without clear identification of sponsorship, financing and control. A great deal of money is raised this way, ostensibly for a good public purpose but actually to serve the movement's power drive and internal interests. This is also the "large net" within which "innocents" are caught.
• 15) The movement's tactics include infiltration and subversion of public institutions and voluntary associations, to bend their direction from public service in the declared purpose to organization of the group's drive for power. Positions controlling the schools, police and public safety forces are special targets.
• And the 16^th criteria cited in the Encyclopedia of Genocide) The cadre uses Language of Assault toward political opponents rather than using the Language of Dialogue and participating in good faith in the political forum.

No matter which side of the political spectrum you may thrust yourself toward, most anyone can tell there is a constant war between democrats and republicans in America today. Through dialogue, slander, hostility, and tactics; the two sides are constantly going at it, and it's creating a civil pseudo-war in the country. We don't even have a congress who can pass a budget bill without being so distracted by petty issues spurred on by the two sides, that while they argue and bicker instead of discussing the issues and finding out the real solution, they cripple our military and government workforce through sheer inaction. Let's look at these sixteen criteria individually to see how they apply to our bigoted bipartisan brethren.

3 and 4 (or 1 and 2, just replace anti-Semitic with anti-republican or anti-democrat): Publicly attacking the other party. Both political parties are keen to write and blog and jabber on and otherwise distribute media to attack the other party. I spent a few years in California and it was hard not to go downtown and walk around without being handed some democratic infographic using 'statistics' to debunk republicans as anything but evil. The same can be seen from the republican side as well, usually outside a Wal-Mart or gun shop somewhere in Texas.

5: Cultivating violence or slander. Although bombings, beatings, and assassinations are pushing it, although I won't say they've never happened under the table, it's very clear again that both sides have no problem issuing slander against the other party, and this isn't even recent, it's in fact been present throughout most of our history.

6: Promoting polarization and lack of compromise. America today is about as polarized as RD-3, the world's strongest artificial magnet. If you could buy lotto tickets based of democrats and republicans voting one way or another on a given issue, you'd break the lottery's banks. You see very little compromise, and even less discussion. Most political arguments either attack the other side's opinion or exemplify there own. Media based discussion is commonly semi-scripted in a way as to make it obvious that the other side is wrong, CNN and FOX both being equally guilty. One example is the interview/debate, in which the news company will find some rather week-willed or uncharismatic opponent to discuss a controversial issue with a political advocate who will speak in such a way that you can't not disagree with him. Facts (or statements rather) are proven or disproven in only one direction, and the other side is made to look a fool.

7: Creating a generation gap. Now, although I can't prove the generation gap you see often today is caused by either political party, nor that it's entirely prevalent in America, there is something of a phenomenon occurring in which parents and their kin hold a certain disconnection. As activist/researcher Bill McKibben writes in his book Deep Economy, which I strongly recommend, architects are designing houses designed with smaller common rooms and larger bedrooms, and even laying them out in such a way that you pass by common rooms less often or for shorter periods on your way to your room. They're perfect for the dysfunctional family, they promote isolation and seclusion. I'll refrain from making any comparison to the American people's currently fanatic obsession with privacy.

10: Quasi-Religion. Do our current political parties have quasi-religious characteristics? Do people obsess over their party? Will they deny the other party ample benefit of a doubt? Will they follow their party's leaders endlessly? Will they vote for their party's candidate without having done any prior research, voting only because it's their party? If so, then democrats and republicans as a majority clearly act on the premise of faith, faith that their party is right and the other is wrong, and it is faith that defines religion. They will use their party to pursue patterns their every-day lives, it infiltrates their very way of thinking. Bipartisanship and monopartisanship are incredibly quasi-religious.

14: One issue fronts. Yeah, we pretty much have that covered. “I'll vote democratic because of republicans' draconian views on abortion!” “I'll vote republican because of democrats' fascist views on gun control!” Every issue we use to define politics is a front, and our entire political debate is nothing but a long list of one issue fronts. Some conspiracy theorists even say the two political parties only disagree on these issues so much to create an illusion of choice and to distract you from 'real' issues, in which case it doesn't matter who you vote for.

15: Infiltration of public institutions and volunteer organizations. Politics in the classrooms, lawmakers favoring one party's outlooks in law, the Salvation Army's opposition to homosexuality, judges favoring and making rulings in favor of a party's ideologies, or just the overall trend in politics in general infiltrating any organization. It's happening all over the country.

16: Language of Assault. Again, both political parties are lightning-quick to attack the other side, and rarely is there an attempt to compromise or even discuss an issue at hand. There's no discussion in the debate style dialogue we see today. One party gives their idea, the other does the same, one party disagrees with what the other said because it wasn't what they said, vice versa; and they both hope to get more votes. Never is the discussion thoughtful nor does it change or develop, and rarely do ideas change in a way to progress the betterment of the country. I've even seen parties agree on something, but they agree a little differently and will still use the matter to attack their opponents. 

Give the two parties some paramilitary armies and terrorist cells, and you'll be seeing genocidal outbreaks before you can say, "Oh say can you see..."

If you haven't guessed by now, there is a hint of satire to this post. I don't really think republicans and democrats are going to break out in civil war (any time soon) and start throwing each other into concentration camps. What I am trying to do here is highlight what is wrong with our two-party system. It doesn't do any of the things government should do. We feel no unity as a country, we can't move forward, we're constantly being halted into stalemates of political banter. We're not progressing. America was once the symbol of innovation, we developed flight, we went to the moon, we built the greatest scientific institutions on the planet and lead the way, but we don't any more. Other countries mock us, our education rates are falling. Our people have no reason to trust in our schools, our government, our security systems, our health or welfare systems. And it's all because of this political divide we've felt for decades. We need to stop arguing, figure out what's right, not through faith in a party, but through logic and reason, and move forward. Because we've been standing still, and we cant do that any more.

But how far does this satire go? If given the chance, how many hyper leftists or hyper right wings do you think would open fire on the other? Like literally with guns and armies and stuff? Could it happen? Is that really what the civil war was about, mere political tensions? I'd love to here any comments, thoughts, or concerns.

And of course, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and follow up for more happenings in the World of Humans.