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Creeping Fascism: Lessons From the Past
These are the words of Sebastian Haffner (pen name for Raimund Pretzel), who as a young lawyer in Berlin during the 1930s experienced the Nazi takeover and wrote a first-hand account. His children found the manuscript when he died in 1999 and published it the following year as "Geschichte eines Deutschen" (The Story of a German). The book became an immediate bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages-in English as "Defying Hitler."
I recently learned from his daughter Sarah, an artist in Berlin, that today is the 100th anniversary of Haffner's birth. She had seen an earlier article in which I quoted her father and emailed to ask me to "write some more about the book and the comparison to Bush's America...this is almost unbelievable."
More about Haffner below. Let's set the stage first by recapping some of what has been going on that may have resonance for readers familiar with the Nazi ascendancy, noting how "odd" it is that the frontal attack on our Constitutional rights is met with such "calm, superior indifference."
Goebbels Would be Proud
It has been two years since top New York Times officials decided to let the rest of us in on the fact that the George W. Bush administration had been eavesdropping on American citizens without the court warrants required by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. The Times had learned of this well before the election in 2004 and acquiesced to White House entreaties to suppress the damaging information.
In late fall 2005 when Times correspondent James Risen's book, "State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration," revealing the warrantless eavesdropping was being printed, Times publisher, Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., recognized that he could procrastinate no longer. It would simply be too embarrassing to have Risen's book on the street, with Sulzberger and his associates pretending that this explosive eavesdropping story did not fit Adolph Ochs' trademark criterion: All The News That's Fit To Print. (The Times ' own ombudsman, Public Editor Byron Calame, branded the newspaper's explanation for the long delay in publishing this story "woefully inadequate.")
When Sulzberger told his friends in the White House that he could no longer hold off on publishing in the newspaper, he was summoned to the Oval Office for a counseling session with the president on Dec. 5, 2005. Bush tried in vain to talk him out of putting the story in the Times. The truth would out; part of it, at least.
Glitches
There were some embarrassing glitches. For example, unfortunately for National Security Agency Director Lt. Gen. Keith Alexander, the White House neglected to tell him that the cat would soon be out of the bag. So on Dec. 6, Alexander spoke from the old talking points in assuring visiting House intelligence committee member Rush Holt ( D-N.J.) that the NSA did not eavesdrop on Americans without a court order.
Still possessed of the quaint notion that generals and other senior officials are not supposed to lie to congressional oversight committees, Holt wrote a blistering letter to Gen. Alexander after the Times, on Dec. 16, front-paged a feature by Risen and Eric Lichtblau, "Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts." But House Intelligence Committee chair Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan) apparently found Holt's scruples benighted; Hoekstra did nothing to hold Alexander accountable for misleading Holt, his most experienced committee member, who had served as an intelligence analyst at the State Department.
What followed struck me as bizarre. The day after the Dec. 16 Times feature article, the president of the United States publicly admitted to a demonstrably impeachable offense. Authorizing illegal electronic surveillance was a key provision of the second article of impeachment against President Richard Nixon. On July 27, 1974, this and two other articles of impeachment were approved by bipartisan votes in the House Committee on the Judiciary.
Bush Takes Frontal Approach
Far from expressing regret, the president bragged about having authorized the surveillance "more than 30 times since the September the 11th attacks," and said he would continue to do so. The president also said:
"Leaders in Congress have been briefed more than a dozen times on this authorization and the activities conducted under it."
On Dec. 19, 2005 then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and then-NSA Director Michael Hayden held a press conference to answer questions about the as yet unnamed surveillance program. Gonzales was asked why the White House decided to flout FISA rather than attempt to amend it, choosing instead a "backdoor approach." He answered:
"We have had discussions with Congress...as to whether or not FISA could be amended to allow us to adequately deal with this kind of threat, and we were advised that that would be difficult, if not impossible."
Hmm. Impossible? It strains credulity that a program of the limited scope described would be unable to win ready approval from a Congress that had just passed the "Patriot Act" in record time. James Risen has made the following quip about the prevailing mood: "In October 2001 you could have set up guillotines on the public streets of America." It was not difficult to infer [[ http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/60/19945 ]] that the surveillance program must have been of such scope and intrusiveness that, even amid highly stoked fear, it didn't have a prayer for passage.
It turns out we didn't know the half of it.
What To Call These Activities
"Illegal Surveillance Program" didn't seem quite right for White House purposes, and the PR machine was unusually slow off the blocks. It took six weeks to settle on "Terrorist Surveillance Program," with FOX News leading the way followed by the president himself. This labeling would dovetail nicely with the president's rhetoric on Dec. 17:
"In the weeks following the terrorist attacks on our nation, I authorized the National Security Agency, consistent with U.S. law and the Constitution, to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al-Qaeda and related terrorist organizations.... The authorization I gave the National Security Agency after September 11 helped address that problem..."[emphasis added]
And Gen. Michael Hayden, who headed NSA from 1999 to 2005, was of course on the same page, dissembling as convincingly as the president. At his May 2006 confirmation hearings to become CIA director, he told of his soul-searching when, as director of NSA, he was asked to eavesdrop on Americans without a court warrant. "I had to make this personal decision in early Oct. 2001," said Hayden, "it was a personal decision...I could not not do this."
Like so much else, it was all because of 9/11. But we now know...
It Started Seven Months Before 9/11
How many times have you heard it? The mantra "after 9/11 everything changed" has given absolution to all manner of sin.
We are understandably reluctant to believe the worst of our leaders, and this tends to make us negligent. After all, we learned from former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill that drastic changes were made in U.S. foreign policy toward the Israeli-Palestinian issue and toward Iraq at the first National Security Council meeting on Jan. 30, 2001. Should we not have anticipated far-reaching changes at home, as well?
Reporting by the Rocky Mountain News and court documents and testimony in a case involving Qwest Communications strongly suggest that in February 2001 Hayden saluted smartly when the Bush administration instructed NSA to suborn AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest to spy illegally on you, me, and other Americans. Bear in mind that this would have had nothing to do with terrorism, which did not really appear on the new administration's radar screen until a week before 9/11, despite the pleading of Clinton aides that the issue deserved extremely high priority.
So this until-recently-unknown pre-9/11 facet of the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" was not related to Osama bin Laden or to whomever he and his associates might be speaking. It had to do with us. We know that the Democrats who were briefed on the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" include House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) (the one with the longest tenure on the House Intelligence Committee), Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) and former and current chairmen of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Bob Graham (D-FL) and Jay Rockefeller (D-WVA). May one interpret their lack of public comment on the news that the snooping began well before 9/11 as a sign they were co-opted and then sworn to secrecy?
It is an important question. Were the appropriate leaders in Congress informed that within days of George W. Bush's first inauguration the NSA electronic vacuum cleaner began to suck up information on you and me, despite the FISA law and the Fourth Amendment?
Are They All Complicit?
And are Democratic leaders about to cave in and grant retroactive immunity to those telecommunications corporations-AT&T and Verizon-who made millions by winking at the law and the Constitution? (Qwest, to it's credit, heeded the advice of its general counsel who said that what NSA wanted done was clearly illegal.)
What's going on here? Have congressional leaders no sense for what is at stake? Lately the adjective "spineless" has come into vogue in describing congressional Democrats-no offense to invertebrates.
Nazis and Those Who Enable Them
You don't have to be a Nazi. You can just be, well, a sheep.
In his journal Sebastian Haffner decries what he calls the "sheepish submissiveness" with which the German people reacted to a 9/11-like event, the burning of the German Parliament (Reichstag) on Feb. 27, 1933. Haffner finds it quite telling that none of his acquaintances "saw anything out of the ordinary in the fact that, from then on, one's telephone would be tapped, one's letters opened, and one's desk might be broken into."
But it is for the cowardly politicians that Haffner reserves his most vehement condemnation. Do you see any contemporary parallels here?
In the elections of March 4, 1933, shortly after the Reichstag fire, the Nazi party garnered only 44 percent of the vote. Only the "cowardly treachery" of the Social Democrats and other parties to whom 56 percent of the German people had entrusted their votes made it possible for the Nazis to seize full power. Haffner adds:
"It is in the final analysis only that betrayal that explains the almost inexplicable fact that a great nation, which cannot have consisted entirely of cowards, fell into ignominy without a fight."
The Social Democratic leaders betrayed their followers-"for the most part decent, unimportant individuals." In May they sang the Nazi anthem; in June the Social Democratic party was dissolved.
The middle-class Catholic party Zentrum folded in less than a month, and in the end supplied the votes necessary for the two-thirds majority that "legalized" Hitler's dictatorship.
As for the right-wing conservatives and German nationalists: "Oh God," writes Haffner, "what an infinitely dishonorable and cowardly spectacle their leaders made in 1933 and continued to make afterward.... They went along with everything: the terror, the persecution of Jews.... They were not even bothered when their own party was banned and their own members arrested." In sum:
"There was not a single example of energetic defense, of courage or principle. There was only panic, flight, and desertion. In March 1933 millions were ready to fight the Nazis. Overnight they found themselves without leaders...At the moment of truth, when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed. They yielded and capitulated, and suffered a nervous breakdown.... The result is today the nightmare of the rest of the world."
This is what can happen when virtually all are intimidated.
Our Founding Fathers were not oblivious to this; thus, James Madison:
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.... The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home."
We cannot say we weren't warned.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. A former Army officer and CIA analyst, he worked in Germany for five years; he is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
This article appeared first on Consortiumnews.com.
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Show AllOK, so now we know why Pelosi has worked so hard to take impeachment off the table. Turns out she's a (so far) unindicted co-conspirator.
Too many Fascists and fellow travelers in both major parties. Time to clean house, top to bottom. If the red party and the blue party can't or won't vigorously cleanse themselves in the next few months, vote green.
What is wrong with our legislators? Are a majority of them also responsible for this chaos? Is Representative Wexler and Representative Inslee the only people we can rely on? Of course this problem has been building for years. Nixon was a fascist, Reagan was a fascist and this entire administration is Fascist! Is it going to take a revolution to bring democracy back to this country?
There are better writers out there than I, please give us something to grab on to.
"Fascism in America won't come with jackboots, book burnings, mass rallies, and fevered harangues, nor will it come with black helicopters or tanks on the street. It won't come like a storm—but as a break in the weather, that sudden change of season you might feel when the wind shifts on an October evening: Everything is the same, but everything has changed. Something has gone, departed from the world, and a new reality will have taken its place. All the old forms will still be there: legislatures, elections, campaigns—plenty of bread and circuses. But "consent of the governed" will no longer apply; actual control of the state will have passed to a small and privileged group who rule for the benefit of their wealthy peers and corporate patrons.
To be sure, there will be factional conflicts among the elite, and a degree of debate will be permitted; but no one outside the privileged circle will be allowed to influence state policy. Dissidents will be marginalized—usually by "the people" themselves. Deprived of historical knowledge by a thoroughly impoverished educational system designed to produce complacent consumers, left ignorant of current events by a corporate media devoted solely to profit, many will internalize the force-fed values of the ruling elite, and act accordingly. There will be little need for overt methods of control.
The rulers will act in secret, for reasons of "national security," and the people will not be permitted to know what goes on in their name. Actions once unthinkable will be accepted as routine: government by executive fiat, state murder of "enemies" selected by the leader, undeclared wars, torture, mass detentions without charge, the looting of the national treasury, the creation of huge new "security structures" targeted at the populace. In time, this will be seen as "normal," as the chill of autumn feels normal when summer is gone. It will all seem normal."
--- November 10, 2001
Moscow Times (English Edition)
Just as the German Social Democratic Party "was dissolved", the US Democratic Party is rapidly dissolving.
In addition to enabling the neocons, many "prominent" Democrats are actively working against the Democratic Party.
A glaring example is Bill and Hillary Clinton actively campaigning for independent Joe Liebermann against Democrat Ned Lamont. Now Joe has endorsed John MCCain in New Hampshire.
There is a significant difference between the spineless surrender of the Weimar politicians opposing Nazi rule and the collaboration of the leading Democratic politicians in the United States in ending Constitutional protections.
Hitler had already attempted a violent overthrow, in the so-called Beer Hall Putsch of (I believe) 1922, of the constitutional government of Weimar Germany. While serving time in prison because of his leadership in that attempted revolt, he wrote and published "Mein Kampf" [My Struggle] which explicitly laid out his plans for a Germany ruled not by democratic election, but by a fascist leader, as Italy was then being led by Benito Mussolini.
Exactly the opposite is the case for the fascist take-over in the United States in the last decade.
Bush decried activist judges. deficit spending, and efforts by the United States military to import democratic institutions: he opposed efforts, he said, at "nation-building" (such as had characterized Clinton's interventions in Somalia and Haiti). He opposed the federal efforts to shore up the lot of the homeless, the unemployed, and the mentally unstable, promising a "faith-based" effort for their assistance. He was, he said, a "compassionate conservative."
All of those domestic promises were transparent lies. Planning for war began immediately,as -- your post provides important substantiation -- the transformation of the government into a centralized, leader-based, militarized tyranny.
Co-operation by the non-Nazi politicians in the take-over of the Weimar constitutional order was done in full public view, pressured by the actual confrontation with a large Communist movement pledged to overthrow of the system of private property. The collaboration by the leading Democratic politicians in Washington in the fascist coup d'etat we have witnessed in this country is of a different order, surreptitious and hypocritical. At every step the Democrats claimed to be protective and supportive of civil liberties; all the while they in fact supported the stripping of Constitutional protections and imposition of quasi-military rule in its stead.
I, too, plan to vote green.
The well-known political scientist, Bertram Gross authored a controversial book in 1980, "Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America."
Gross was a well awarded social scientist and he was the author of Hubert Humphrie's Full Employment Bill (the government would be the employer of last resort).
Because he was such a big name, his book was published but censored (parts were expurgated).
Eventually, the complete book was published by a Cambridge-based Left-wing publishing house: Southend.
Read it and nod your head in amazement when concluding how prescient Gross was.
Ron Paul was right to sound a warning. Should the Clinton's return to power there is no doubt that we will continue down this road to tyranny. Mrs. Clinton will not only not give up the powers she has helped Bush gain she will be in her glory. the danger signs are everywhere.
That's an absolutely chilling quote, Gadfly ... especially considering the source.
Fascism and most other totalitarian systems are most successful with a compliant monopoly controlled media.
Turn off your televisions. At least until our televisions converge with the internet.
television = monopoly
internet = democracy
it is as if evil just moved its headquarters over to america,after the fall of nazi germany...i believe evil has once again moved its headquarters,this time to dubai. (if any of you have time today,watch george bush sr.'s chilling speech on the 'new world order ').....not convinced,yet ??
The "Good" American can now take his place in the history books next to the "Good" German.
Hoa binh
I agree with MMEO, It is't over, the bad guys are very worried right now. They aren't the only team in DC who know how to dance the Patomic two step.
Bush has lined up a lot of ducks, but he doesn't have them all lined up yet. There is still time to stop him and his Cartel. Let's see how the Congressional hearings and investigations go in January, when Jose Rodriguez testifies before the Judicial Committee. (Unless he has a unfortunate fatal accident.) Their Congressional pre-hearings last week looked very bad For Bush.
"the Bad Guys won."
They are winning, but it's not over yet.
"Vote Green" = Karl Rove's dream to further Divide and Conquer
What's really needed is a people's movement of true Peace Candidates united to end the war. We don't need millions of dollars, just a united front.
Peace Candidates
Dear Ray- you ought to be a leader of this movement to unite Peace Candidates in every state. Mr. McGovern- you ought to run for Congress.
...and the rest of you CommonDreamers - you ought to consider running too.... particularly the 30 somethings - quit waiting for the older generation to do it- most are stuck relying upon the failed system- it's time to evolve, and it's the younger generations that must lead the way.
great stuff, Ray. we must keep telling it like it is.
Fascism is not coming to Amerikkka; it is here. Instead of the one Nazi party, we have the Demokkkrats and the Repulikkkans in colusion with each other.
I've had it. Today I switched my voter registration to Republican. I'm voting for Ron Paul. Fuck the Democrats. They've owned both houses of congress for a year and haven't done a goddamn thing except to get down on their knees and perform fellatio on Bush every chance they get.
Sadly, you may be correct, moon. The "American psyche" has indeed descended deeply into the darkness of fear and especially resignation, which goes along feeling marginalized. Hoverer, the solution to effective change may be as close as a mirror. :)
Today I switched my voter registration to Republican. I'm voting for Ron Paul. Fuck the Democrats. They've owned both houses of congress for a year and haven't done a goddamn thing except to get down on their knees and perform fellatio on Bush every chance they get.
ROFL so you changed your affiliation to the party of bush????
tom joad and slimshady,you are men of my own heart...i did the same-i have INFILTRATED the mein-camp-de-bush,so i may vote in the primary for ron paul.let hillary and obama duke it out...they dont need me.
"ROFL so you changed your affiliation to the party of bush????"
Wake up sLiMsHaDy. Paul is the only real opposition to Bush that there is.
What isn't going to do it moon is supporting an opposition party that provides NO opposition.
The American political system was murdered on November 22, 1963 with a warning to all future Presidents. The warning was reiterated on June 5, 1968. "American values" began in slavery, flourished in genocide, battened on empire, and died in conspiracy. Its funeral was conducted with a closed casket for reasons of "national security." Until we have a theory of political economy that relies on thermodynamics instead of Adam Smith and his subscribers, which would include Karl Marx, we are in thrall to the "common sense" of Wall Street. Without a vision of where we should go, we are blinkered by the evasive and ambiguous blather of pundits.
You don't need to bail out of the Democratic Party yet.
Dennis Kucinich has been trying to keep us from slipping into this Fascism for years. Unfortunately the main stream media know that he would work for the people rather than for corporations (as they do) and they aren't covering his campaign -- and now even Edwards was shut out of the USA Today article.
We can't let corporations buy the presidency, we need to do the explorations on our own!
Take a look at the Kucinich view of the issues at http://www.dennis4president.com/go/issues/
Is that Cheney I hear laughing? The giggling is obviously (coming from) Bush.
It does not matter who wins the election, it will be business as usual. This is the Nazi Party on mescaline. Leaders are but temporary incidentals. How many times of crisis have we faced in the last half of the last century only to be told that the solution was our due to the foresight of our founding fathers by way of the living framework of the Constitution. If you have just arrived at the party I have to tell you, "Due to executive order and clarification, the Konstitution has been suspended. The Bill of Rights have been retired for security reasons, and the Magna-Carta has its origins elsewhere, therefore it is unAmerican." The solution to this problem lies with the people and not with their elected officials. A good start would be to organize a new Constitutional Convention.
infiltrating the party of bush...,equals= guerilla-warfare ( give them a healthy dose of their own medicine(tactics )oprah will take good care of obama and wall street will bolster-up hillary..they dont need me.i want to be where i might have the opportunity of making a difference.....douglas ames is probably right...but i have still have my boots on and a desire to kick some ass while i wade thru all the 'bullshit'......
can't we be a bit more hopeful here???
anyone who says they know what is going to happen or that the bell has already tolled, needs to ask theemselves: are you able to tell the future.
I think not. The future remains to be sensed...
Lets stop being so dismally self-fulfilling...
gracious, sometimes the conversations here are so ridiculous...honestly, it seems that way to me...
I'd rather be talking with folk who are hopeful....
some here are, but some are choosing to be woefull..
The most politically apathetic and ignorant population lead by the most immoral and crooked politicians (not leaders) has given rise to the present state of affairs. However, the politicians' economic treachery where the second class in America is evaporating like an ice cube in hell is no less outrageous. It's amazing how people let themselves be outsmarted by a clown.
Saila - we have not been outsmarted. Just you wait and see.
saila,you are of good intention and speak what is sad and very true...people were outsmarted by a clown...criminals hold all the highest offices in our government(and the world) america is indeed melting like an ice cube in hell....but what the hell,saila !!grab your boots and kick some ass or you can lay down and die,here in what's left of america or as an ex-patriot in some other country that 'hates' americans.........
Otherwise Saila, I want to say, I have very much appreciated all you have said...really, I mean it for what it matters..
moonraven, i have much respect for you.
All I am trying to say is that no-one knows the future. The past informs what may be, but we never know for sure.
I choose to be hopeful.
Peace
moonraven,
we should stop talking....
but if you want to know about me, then just click on my name.
Peace, and I meant it the first time I said it.
I told you so. Very strange isn't it.
moonraven,it would work for me,as well...but i could never leave behind,those that i love.and they are the reason,i choose to keep my boots on.
moonraven,my circle of loved-ones,is all over this globe and i call them "humanity"...... (but),the children and grandchildren of my womb,i will not abandon, to face the dogs of war,alone.
McGovern is ignoring a huge difference between the Germany of 1933 and the America of 2001-2002, let alone the America of 2007.
The German people were intimidated by the Nazis themselves and their brutality. They were in fear of the SA gangs and then of the Gestapo and SS and concentration camps.
Americans in 2001-2002 were in fear of terrorism. Americans today are not much in fear of terrorism anymore, and certainly not in fear of George W. Bush and the Republicans.
There are no huge concentration camps, there is no Gestapo. The NSA wiretaps have not resulted in mass arrests. If you're named Osama or Husseini you may have been insulted and harrassed at an airport, you may even have had to fear arrest and detention in the various black holes. But the latter has affected very few people, and fewer still have been US citizens. Most of us are not afraid.
We just have not found our voice.
The Democratic leadership has been too cautious and pragmatic; they may be complicit in some of the worst excesses but they could easily pin the blame on Bush and Cheney and if they moved to impeach them being called hypocrites by the Republicans would hardly be so bad (in fact, coming from the Rs most people wouldn't buy it). They just don't think they'd win, and they haven't the courage to try and to bet on coming out ahead.
We The People have not found found our voice, either. It's easy to blame "the Democrats" but where is the mass movement demanding impeachment or even accountability? We're dependent on the mass media to tell us what's happening, and even whether we're supposed to care.
So we wait for the next election. And that's not devoid of hope, either. Imagine what it could mean if Barack Obama could be our next president, backed by a solid Democratic majority in both houses? AND pushed hard by a mass movement?
I think it's way too soon to be talking about a "fascist takeover". We already live under the effective control of the corporate media, outrageous inequality and a stagnated politics. Black boots are not needed to maintain order.
At the same time, throughout the nation and throughout the power structure there is a sense that we made a wrong turn and there is a yearning for a new direction. This surfaced dramatically in the Iran NIE, and you sense it in the ambivalence about Iraq, torture, civil liberties and the GWOT itself. Democracy has not been undone, and it is preparing for a major course correction.
I see hope ahead for a more positive direction.
my offspring are also free standing people...,,they still have hope for a tomorrow...mexico ?? how is the aquifer doing there ??are they really getting most of their fresh water from california ?or is that just a myth ? i agree that biological families are not all that there is and i think love is more often found in many different places....and as far as i know,i am my own ancestor.
moonraven,that jab about 'snug as bugs' and' fortress america'...went over the line and betrayed your inclination to be mean-spirited and bitter,a tad below the belt.i wish you would save your vim and vinegar...for a more deserving foe........
Moon Raven: I always like to hear your prospective from Mexico. I say that because you know that the Mexican people have already experienced first hand and personally what US corporate empire has wrought. The "people of the corn" have already experienced the "tortilla wars" because of corporatization and degradation to your main food supply. You have already experienced the literal death of your local farmers and the driving them for the land so that Mexicans can no longer sustain themselves. The fact is that Americans seem to still buy into the concept of "exceptionalism". Most Americans seem to believe that those things can not happen here. Well, the fact is, that they have and they will.
Look folks, Ray has given us a window to look at the past and how it relates to the present. We are already a fascist state. Almost all the pieces are in place. Many of us seem to think that we still have time to "vote" this mess into remission. I don't have a crystal ball, but I am not convinced that there will even be an election next year. And even if there is one, did your vote in '06 stop this snowball from hell? How do you think an '08 election is going to change things? In what realistic ways?
I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to go down screaming, with my boots on. I've become resigned to the fact that we are far too along on the path to fascism to really be able to stop it politically. But I'll keep trying to get impeachment "on the table". I'm going to support Cindy in her efforts to unseat Pelosi. And I will support and vote for Kucinich in the primaries. We also have a chance to unseat many of the incumbant Dimms and Repugs with progressive candidates. But none of this is going to stop the snowball from hell.
Even though I KNOW that I am spitting in the wind, at least I'm going to try to do the right thing. But I am also going to be prepared for what is going to come. Before the revolution can happen we are going to have to suffer through an economic meltdown that is going to wake the sheeple up. There won't be anything for them to buy at the mall or the grocery store. Even if they had the money, which they won't.
So, if you truely love your family and your country, you had better make friends with your neighbors - all of them. We are all in this sinking boat together and we had all better learn how to bail TOGETHER. Start stocking up on all the things you and your neighbors are going to need. And don't forget the seeds and the community gardens you will need to feed yourselves. We all have a very diffecult time ahead of us. And time is running short to get ready.
And I want to thank Ray for the insight of how we got here. I just wish he had some answers about how we fix anything at this late date.....
Moon Raven: Sometimes you need to pull in your horns. I know that is sometimes hard when the injustices served up are so hard to bear. But we are where we are. We need each other now more than ever. Let it go.....
moonraven,whoa now ! are you projecting or what ? back-up...where on this earth did you get any inkling that 'bad mother' was implied in any way ?? i know that you are a fine mom and a wonderful soul ! i just want you to save your passion for the foe,that is rubbing the face of america,in the shit !!
It is not over yet-politically. We blame the democrats and certainly they are not all we would hope for, but they only have a small majority in the Senate which is what has hurt their agenda for change, and there is no way a conviction in the Senate is possible on impeachment charges, so why waste time and political capital. The only thing that is overwith is the likelihood that civilization will persist as we have known it. That is over, but it just hasn't penetrated the consciousness, because we are in denial of ourselves as an evolutionary fluke. On the way out as a species we could have a pseudo-democratic fascism in the U.S. which is about where we are at the moment with corporations buying our politicians. Even if we solve this one the problems are too massive and the overpopulation too great for a soft landing to happen.
whatever,,,(sigh)...but your motion that no one be allowed to sling around some 'word' violates the amendment and would deny me my constitutional right..you should talk with misanthrope, ad nauseum....where were we ?oh yea,back to the creeping fascism at hand.....
Stop it you two! PLEASE....
Socialism is simply the middle ground between Capitalism and Communism, and when you vote, it is called Democratic Socialism, or a Social Democracy
Our country has been somewhat of a mix of Socialism-Democracy and Capitalism-Fascism since the New Deal. Most of our industries are cartels, banking, oil, etc. Free competitive markets in the US is a myth, except for establishments that sell drinks and food. Capitalists desire monopolies or cartels to maximize profits, not competition which reduces profits.
Capitalism at it's height is Fascism. Or as Mussolini said, it is best to call it Corporatism. I think we are already there and have been for some time, we are not creeping toward anything in this regard.
Those necessary functions that are not profitable, or can not be trusted to corporations, they are filled by government, and are basically Socialist programs. Non-profit Education, Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Military, Police, Firemen, etc.
So politically we are Fascist, controlled by Corporations. This is why economically, we are neo-liberal, since corprations dictate to government and pretty much have all the freedom they need or want, including to take capital earned in this country and move it to another country. Socially, we are neo-conservative, since the critters need to be controlled and keeping them poor helps do this. We fill the gaps that Capitalism leaves ever so reluctantly with socialist programs that do their best to profit the capitalists, or at least not hurt them.
Today we are in a soft kind of Fascism. Still have most of our liberties, freedom to travel, post anti-government messages, etc. However, if you look at the recent Laws and Executive Orders, not to mention Presidential Directives passed since 2001, heck, even back to Jimmy Carter with FEMA, you can see that the tools have been put in place allowing for a transition to hard fascism.
The hard, as in Nazi hard, is defined as fewer liberties (no criticism of the government), less rights (no habeus corpus), more intrusive government (spying, search and seizure), and increased use of violence to control dissent (tasers, etc), and the removal of the illusion of a Democracy.
The acceleration of the process does not bode well for the critters. Democrats are going along with it because for the last 30 years they have been participating in the looting of the American critter. Once the critter recognizes he has been robbed through a combination of taxes (almost 50% of his income in one tax or another), usury banking practices
(high interest on money created out of thin air), fraudulent CPI reporting that keep salaries and COLA's from keeping pace, and the government incentives given to corporations to export capital and jobs out of the US, creating unemployment (real number is 12%)/underemployment, which also serves to increase our national debt and lower the value of the dollar;
then the critter might get mad and bite someone, no matter they be dems or repugs .
They fear the mad critter, and it is time for his awakening, and they have prepared for this.
It happened yestersay too Rebel, with another, it was far worse. Don't sweat it MOM, she may be having a fever or sometthing, the water is bad there.
MIMI, that sound about right to me. It is also why we are on the verge of a depression and what Rebel Farmer posted sounds about right to me also.
As far as this Bush administration goes, I do see that the Congres is going to attempt to end the bull shit next moonth and if their hearings turn out like they should, the press will have to cover it. __ ~Watergate two~. I sure hope so. __We'll see.
Hi Rebel, did you recieve any happy next year cards? ~~ Smiley face~~.
moonraven: "There is absolutely nothing you folks can do to make meaningful change–short of a revolution. ....but that would interfere with shopping"
Sarcasm at its very best!
Would you extend that observation to apply to the folks in Igloo-Hockeyland as well?
Little ships are cast in any direction by the wind. Big ships steer a steady course in any wind conditions. Rest assured that there are many big ships among us. They have lived long lives, withstood the storms, suffered the hardships, and they remain on course. Do not despair. There are Captains other than Captains of industry.