Comparisons between the Bush administration and aspects of Nazi Germany are often overblown but they are inevitable. Variations on the theme appear over and over again in the post WWII world. A rapacious Nazi state is probably a possibility in any industrial state. It doesn't seem to be a question of particular national values. No state, including the U.S., is morally immune to fascism. The danger posed by any expansionist authoritarian regime is proportional to its strength, not its espousal of democratic principles.

Hitler, of course, rose to power first with the acquiescence of the German people and especially the congress. He didn't need a lot of support, just resignation. Later the European powers followed their own policies of "appeasement," as he began to force his way upon the world. Had he been opposed early, both within Germany and without, his worse instincts may have been thwarted.

It seems at least that any powerful ambitious nation left unchecked will only grow bolder and more ambitious. The likely outcome has been recorded time and time again.

Germany's European neighbors watched Hitler break international treaties to build up his military. They watched quietly as he used the Spanish Civil war as a testing ground for his new military technology. They acquiesced and even assisted his demand to annex part of Czech territory. His ally Mussolini launched a brutal invasion of Italy's former colony of Ethiopia while the world halfheartedly protested.

The world's most powerful nations didn't do anything because they were mainly concerned with maintaining international trade. And a fascist Germany was seen as good for trade and thereby world peace -- so long as Hitler restricted his conquests to less powerful and more marginalized peoples. By the time Hitler launched his invasion of Poland, it was too late for anything but world war.

More recently, the dangers of appeasing hungry dictators was invoked by the first Bush administration to justify the war on Iraq. Allowing Hussein to keep Kuwait, it was argued, would only encourage him to further adventures.

The same loud alarm about appeasement could be sounded made about the USA's acquiescence to Sharon's bloody excursions in Lebanon and Palestine. But the most relevant example of the dangers of appeasement for us in the U.S. is the activities of the current Bush administration.

The German Congress gave Hitler a temporary yet sweeping security mandate. The courts overlooked various transgressions of the Constitution. Soon after, he that owned the congress. Piece by piece his supporters saw his promises of labor and economic reform betrayed. By the time the real campaign of horror began, by the time there was serious opposition, it was too late.

Britain and France were content to appease Hitler's first moves because he wasn't in principle doing anything they weren't doing. It was when he went for a monopoly that the other governments decided he should be stopped. Until the U.S. entered the war -- two years after the European War began, when Pearl Harbor occurred -- the government suppressed information about the death camps, and U.S. corporations expanded their ventures with German industry.

That's just business. Then and now. And it is history threatening to rewrite itself.

Going along with Bush on his promise to make us safe from terrorism is only useful if he is really going to make us safe from terrorism. That's always been questionable. As time goes on and the Bush administration pursues its unilateral course, it's become quite doubtful.

How much longer can we afford to appease the intolerant hawks in the Bush administration, or to allow our congressmen and senators to continue to appease them?

While the White House plays out their fantasies of neocolonial world domination, it is the people of the U.S. and the world who pay the price.

The American public began paying vastly beginning on September 11. Bush and the National Security Industry got more powers and money after proving themselves incapable of )or uninterested in) protecting us from the predictable blowback from their previous activities.

While the Bush administration is chafing to inflict slaughter and immolation on "Saddam Hussein," it is the Iraqi people who will pay the massive price. As they have already been paying the price, for our ten-year campaign against their renegade leader, who hasn't got a scratch. The Iraqi people are caught in the middle of an ongoing feud between power-mad warlords. I'm sure I have more common interest with the ordinary Iraqi people than I have with George Bush. And it seems that George Bush has more in common with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden than he does with ordinary Americans. They've all got bunkers, for one thing.

Bush, his dad, Cheney Rumsfeld, Aschroft, Wolfowitz et al. don't feel the real repercussions of their actions. They can afford to throw away lives like chessmen for their piece of the action and of history.

And the Congress, the courts, the Democrats, the privileged, while they may disagree with particular policies, none of them protest against a pain they don't feel.

Meanwhile, a relative few corporate insiders loot the world's resources and undertake massive frauds for their own enrichment. A relative few warlords, generals and presidents unleash personal rampages in the name of peace and order.

The George W. Bush White House appears to be working toward World War III without regard for possible repercussions. It isn't there yet, and it may not be where they are gong. But each time they are allowed to go a little farther, take a little more, feel more and more powerful and unstoppable, the world gets a little more dangerous.

And it can be made safer the same way: a little bit at a time. Talking, marching, letters to the editor, letters to elected officials. Maybe Hitler couldn't have been prevented altogether, but even a little more opposition at the beginning might have had a profound effect on what came later.