S. Paul Forrest
In the spirit of celebrating the re-election of a silver tongued fascist (actually the faux election), I offer the following repost...Enjoy the coming years.
A fascist state exists where a nation begins to allow the control of its government by corporatism, single party political interests and law enforcement that reaches beyond the normal necessity of such. There are many other defining characteristics of a fascist condition but in the
Most recently in this country, fascism has taken the form of overzealous faux-patriotism and its accompanying legislation in order to garner control of our nationalistic interests, domestic and abroad. It has condemned the speakers, the activists, the natural food producers, the non-Christians, immigrants and the poor. In fact, it has attacked everything that is
Fascism is not new to this country, nor is it a conspiracy theory by half-baked paranoids. It is alive and growing in this, our Republic and has been for quite a long time. Any developed country has, as part of its governing system, a certain level of fascism. There needs to be a police element otherwise there is anarchy. A certain level of governmental control of information is necessary to secure military counter actions in national defense interests. Prisons are established to correct criminal behavior. These defining principles of fascism are present intrinsically in any government. The issue that needs to be watched and contained by the people, is to what level of existence the fascist element is present within said government.
The gathering secrecy and purposeful placement of representatives of the fascist interests into the political arena is eerily consistent with the rise of the Third Reich in
What happened here was the
gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by
surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the
situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information
which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people
could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And
their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier
to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about
it.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
The Historical Parallels are
frightening if one looks at it in context with the present initiatives of our
American Paranoia in the wake of 9/11:
1. Hitler, or rather the Third Reich, propagated that economic conditions ofGermany in 1932
were the fault of the Jewish population. They introduced anti-Jewish decrees,
which gradually eliminated the rights of Jewish citizens. People listened
attentively, believing every word.
* In 2007, Oklahoma State Representative, Randy Terrill, a Republican, pushed through a series of measures to try to drive out illegal immigrants, whom he blamed for economic hardship and lawlessness in his state. Many followed the call for reform of our immigration laws across the nation based upon this same belief.
2. In 1933, the Reich initiated internment camps for Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which included beggars, the homeless, alcoholics, and the unemployed.
* The current push by the Right to cease current unemployment compensation payments, tougher sentencing for “habitual” criminals, which directly affected immigrants and the attempt by Marge Baker, a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, told The Associated Press in 2010, that we needed to have camps because there are a lot of these people (illegal immigrants) roaming among us.
* The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.
3. In 1937, Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.
* In 2010, the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.
One can easily see other founding principles of Fascism in our system:
* Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
* Supremacy of the Military
* Controlled Mass Media
* Obsession with National Security
* Religion and Government are Intertwined
* Corporate Power is Protected
* Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
* Obsession with Crime and Punishment
* Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
* Fraudulent Elections
These are just a few of the similarities between the rise of the Third Reich's call to Patriots to protect the German Nation, and the current call for blind Patriotic support of our Government today. Yes, they are more subtle, more disguised, more executive, but to those who are aware they are signs of things to come. All one has to do to see the future is to compare the Nazi timeline with our own emerging one.
These sentiments are not just isolated in the words of these few people, they are the same beliefs that have been emerging in the Republican Party, the Freedom Party and the Tea Party Patriots. These words may have been meant as protectionist statements but so were the words of Hitler as felt by the Nazi Party and swallowed by a desperate people as a reaction to desperate times.
When a government set up as a beacon to those who have been downtrodden begins to extinguish not only the flame ofLiberty
but the very freedoms that this country was founded upon, it is time for a
second look at reforming the very structure of that government. The people that
back these initiatives speak of Patriotism but they act with very different
character of a real Patriot.
Milton Mayer finishes his book with the poignant words of his colleague:
1. Hitler, or rather the Third Reich, propagated that economic conditions of
* In 2007, Oklahoma State Representative, Randy Terrill, a Republican, pushed through a series of measures to try to drive out illegal immigrants, whom he blamed for economic hardship and lawlessness in his state. Many followed the call for reform of our immigration laws across the nation based upon this same belief.
2. In 1933, the Reich initiated internment camps for Habitual and Dangerous Criminals, which included beggars, the homeless, alcoholics, and the unemployed.
* The current push by the Right to cease current unemployment compensation payments, tougher sentencing for “habitual” criminals, which directly affected immigrants and the attempt by Marge Baker, a candidate for the Florida House of Representatives, told The Associated Press in 2010, that we needed to have camps because there are a lot of these people (illegal immigrants) roaming among us.
* The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA. Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.
3. In 1937, Jews are banned from many professional occupations including teaching Germans, and from being accountants or dentists. They are also denied tax reductions and child allowances.
* In 2010, the Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English classes.
One can easily see other founding principles of Fascism in our system:
* Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
* Supremacy of the Military
* Controlled Mass Media
* Obsession with National Security
* Religion and Government are Intertwined
* Corporate Power is Protected
* Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
* Obsession with Crime and Punishment
* Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
* Fraudulent Elections
These are just a few of the similarities between the rise of the Third Reich's call to Patriots to protect the German Nation, and the current call for blind Patriotic support of our Government today. Yes, they are more subtle, more disguised, more executive, but to those who are aware they are signs of things to come. All one has to do to see the future is to compare the Nazi timeline with our own emerging one.
These sentiments are not just isolated in the words of these few people, they are the same beliefs that have been emerging in the Republican Party, the Freedom Party and the Tea Party Patriots. These words may have been meant as protectionist statements but so were the words of Hitler as felt by the Nazi Party and swallowed by a desperate people as a reaction to desperate times.
When a government set up as a beacon to those who have been downtrodden begins to extinguish not only the flame of
Milton Mayer finishes his book with the poignant words of his colleague:
Once the war began, the
government could do anything 'necessary' to win it; so it was with the 'final
solution' of the Jewish problem, which the Nazis always talked about but never
dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its 'necessities' gave them
the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought
that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still
thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany 's
losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it.
As Erich Pratt stated so well: “If our government chooses to violate our unalienable rights; if our government chooses to pass unjust laws, contrary to the consent of the governed; if our government chooses to take despotic actions that reduce us to servitude of the government, or some political agenda – then we have a right and a duty according to the Declaration of Independence to throw off such Government."
What will you do to avoid history’s repetition and the continuation of the American Dream? For those of you who have been sleeping for the past several years, I can only say this: Welcome to the slow creep of American Fascism.
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