I don't talk about Bush as much as I used to. I still talk about him from time to time among friends, but I mostly focus my energy on creating positive projects rather than criticizing the work of others.

Even so... people who make the Hitler analogy aren't looking at the details of the Bush regime so much as the spirit of what is happening. Bush as an individual is arguably a "true believer" who truly believes that his actions are ultimately serving the American people [and "God"]. But some of the people who put him into power are clearly disingenuious individuals whose chief desire in life is power for its own sake, no matter the cost to the common good.

Whether the people in the Bush administration are "true believers" or Machiavellian manipulators is largely irrelevant. Either way, they are all participating in a political, economic, and cultural movement that is fascist -- or at least proto-fascist -- in nature.

Of course, today's American fascists are mostly using methods of social and psychological means of control rather than the horrific holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis and their allies. But when our freedom is taken from us, and a war results, it matters little whether our freedom was taken by an iron fist or a velvet glove. Either way, we are still left in a world where a small number of powerful people control the lives of the masses without their consent [and often without their knowledge].

I don't think that anyone I know would question the fact that Bush has not yet met Hitler's level of profound and prolific atrocity. The Holocaust is a hard measure for any aspiring fascists to live up to. And whether it's morality or timidity that's restraining him, Bush simply hasn't gone in that direction with his "Master Plan." His body count is much lower, and the incidence of open torture and macabre spectacle is much lower as well.

And yet, there IS a body count, and there IS open torture, and there IS a macabre spectacle. And Bush's administration does have a Master Plan -- an unthinkable, intolerable intention to lay siege to the entire world in pursuit of ever-greater amounts of money, power, and control.

Believe it or not, fascism is about more than racking up the highest number of bald atrocities. It's about something called Weltanschauungskrief, aka Worldview Warfare. It's about the belief that We are Right; that the Disbelievers must be Converted; and that the Evildoers must be Destroyed.

Why this focus on Weltanschauungskrieg? Because a fascist is someone who never feels safe until all people who are perceived as threats are either converted, controlled, or killed. From this basic fear emerges a mass psychology and a mass movement to conquer the world in the name of one's Worldview -- whether that be defined as a Race, a Nation, a Culture, a God, or something else entirely.

In this department of Weltanschauungskrieg, the Bush administration's moderately more nuanced approach to fascism is far outshining the coarse and brutal methods of his predecessor. Less people are dying -- but more people are being controlled, with bombs over Baghdad and a media blitzkrieg at home.

In the end, this approach -- which looks less brutal in some regards on the surface -- doesn't mean that Bush is any less of a fascist. It simply means that the people who control Bush are more effective at what they do than the Nazis were. This is almost certainly because they've had 60+ years to refine their propaganda techniques, military weaponry, and other methods of physical, social, and psychological control. On the homefront, instead of enduring the dread flights of the Nazi Luftwaffe over our cities, we have the likes of Republican Fox News flying through our airwaves, saturation bombing the American public with so much fear and close-mindedness that we will wage war on our sisters and brothers in other nations simply because formerly-US-backed terrorists may or may not be hiding somewhere amongst their cities.

In conclusion... yes, it's clear that the details of Bush's deeds don't nearly match up in their brutality to the details of Hitler's Holocaust. So on some level, I agree with you that the comparison of Bush's deeds to Hitler's deeds is a bit absurd. But deep down, the two political-cultural movements share a similar spirit -- the spirit of fascism. And in all honesty, I believe that American fascism is largely just a new evolution of the fascism that swept through Europe 60+ years ago. But that's a whole nother story...