complaisance is dangerous

A disturbing essay at Slate by Dianne McWhorter about her fear that the results of the midterm elections did not so much entail a rejection of the Bush Administration's policies and tactics -- which she finds parallel in many respects those of Nazi Germany -- as the rejection of their failure to work well.

Well worth a read. Obviously, Germany of the 1930s is far different from the America of the 2000s. But even if you don't buy the Nazi analogy, I think McWhorter is essentially right that complaisance by the citizenry -- and by the corporate-owned mainstream media that ranges from explicitly cheerleading on behalf of the junta I mean de facto Administration, to timidly going along for fear of being metaphorically slapped around by the right-wing noise machine -- in the face of radical and often undemocratic actions of the government is a dangerous thing.