Okay Then

The Reichstag Act Revisited.

Friday, December 9, 2005 at 08:05 JST
WASHINGTON — Congressional negotiators onThursday reached a deal on renewing the USA Patriot Act, a bundle of laws passed in the weeks after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks to enhance domestic security.

But leading Democrats condemned the renewal bill, and said the Congress should rewrite the controversial anti-terrorism laws to better protect civil liberties.

Republican House and Senate leaders Thursday reconciled differing versions of the bill, which was set to expire on Dec 31 without congressional action.

The White House lauded the bill as an important step in safeguarding Americans against future acts of terror.

"This bill reauthorizes every single provision of the Patriot Act and makes 14 of the 16 provisions permanent," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

Read Full Story HERE

And then read the rest of the story below and tell me if you see any parallels.


The night of February 27, 1933 loomed dark and gray over the city of Berlin. The Reichstag, seat of parliamentary government in Germany [cut]had been in recess since December of the preceding year. New elections were scheduled for March 5th. The great building was quiet and except for a watchman, empty. At 9:05 that evening, through the windows of the first floor, a student passing by saw a man carrying a burning torch, but did not report it. Ten minutes later smoke was observed coming from the building and the first fire alarm was received by the Berlin Fire station. In less than ten minutes the firemen were on the scene, but already flames were breaking out all over the building. At 9:30 there was a tremendous explosion and the great central chamber was totally enveloped in flames. The fire quickly raced out of control despite the efforts of the fire fighters and soon only the walls of the gutted building were still standing. Within minutes police arrested a half naked and seemingly dazed Dutchman, Marinus van der Lubbe, who was discovered at the scene.

It wasn't long before Chancellor Hitler and Prussian Minister Göring arrived amid a flurry of reporters and photographers. Although he had just stepped out of his car, Göring at once accused the communists of setting the fire. The debate over who set the fire continues and may never be solved to everyone's satisfaction. Despite attempts to support the case against van der Lubbe, who was tried and executed for the crime, a great deal of evidence collected and analyzed by Walther Hofer of Bern points in the direction of a SA/SS Sondergruppe headed by Reinhard Heydrich and an official of the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, Kurt Dalüge.

Less important than the cause of the fire, however, was the result. Before the sun had risen on the morning of the 28th, over 4,000 communists and a miscellany of intellectuals and professional men who had incurred the wrath of the Nazi Party were arrested. A shaken President Hindenburg, 86 years old, was easily convinced that the nation was on the verge of a communist revolution. Hitler easily induced him to sign a decree suspending the basic rights of the citizens for the duration of the emergency. This decree also authorized the Reich government to assume full powers in any federal state whose government proved unable to restore public order, ordered death or imprisonment for a number of crimes including some newly invented, such as resistance to the decree itself. The decree did not include any provision guaranteeing an arrested person a quick hearing, access to legal counsel, or redress for false arrest. Those arrested often found their detention extended indefinitely without legal proceedings of any kind.

On March 2, Hitler was asked by a corespondent of the Daily Express whether the suspension of liberties was permanent. He answered in the negative saying that full rights would be restored as soon as the Communist danger was over. The reality was that the decree of February 28th established what would become the normal order of things under National Socialism - arrest on suspicion, imprisonment without trial, the horrors of the concentration camps. This condition would persist until the end of the Third Reich.

The decree was immediately turned against the real and fancied enemies of the Nazi Party. In the last weeks of the election campaign the Marxist press was silenced. The Social Democrats found it impossible to campaign effectively and even respected Center party politicians like former Reich Chancellor Heinrich Bruning had their meetings broken up by brownshirted SA thugs. Despite this the Nazi Party fell far short of the two thirds majority needed to change the constitution. Hitler then began turning the decree of February 28th against those states where significant opposition still existed. Using the argument that local authorities were unable to maintain order, which was in the main, being disrupted by drunken brownshirts and SS members, the government replaced the legally constituted governments of Wurttemburg, Baden, Bremen, Hamburg, Lubeck, Saxony, Hessen and Bavaria.

Soon, with the support of the Center, Catholic and Bavarian Peoples Parties, the Nazis gained the passage of the Enabling Act, and Adolf Hitler on the afternoon of March 23rd, 1933 became the supreme dictator of Germany, free from any restraint from his cabinet or the aged President Hindenburg and free to mold Germany into the nightmare state it was to become.

It is easy to look back on history and realize what a tyrant Hitler was. But at the time, Hitler did not appear so to the German people. With the help of the media he was portrayed as the protector and saviour of Germany. He was even TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938!

The German people assumed they were safe from a tyrant. After all, they lived in a Republic, with strict laws regarding what the government could and more importantly could not do. Their leader was a devoutly religious man, and had even sung with the boy's choir of a monastery in his youth.

While it is certainly true that Hitler was a world class tyrant, the reality is that he actually did very little in the way of committing atrocities. From the death camps to WW2 all of the evils committed, were done by German citizens who were afraid to question if what they were told by their government was the truth or not. Because they did not want to admit to themselves that they were afraid to question the government they refused to see the truth behind the Reichstag Fire and they blindly followed Hitler into national disaster.

The German people of the late 1930s wanted to see themselves as the heroic Germans depicted by the Wagnerian Operas. They were, after all, the descendants of the fierce Germanic warriors who had hunted wild boar with nothing but spears and who had defeated three of Rome's mightiest legions in the Tuetenberg Forest.

But in truth, by the 1930s, the German people had become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery was both salve and slavery. Germans were required to behave as if they were brave, even when they were not.

But the German people didn't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding individual courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the German people simply pretended that the situation did not exist. And in that simple self-deception lay the ruin of an entire nation and the coming of the second World War.

When the Reichstag burned down, most Germans simply refused to believe suggestions that the fire had been staged by Hitler himself.

When Hitler requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under German law, but powers Hitler claimed he needed to have in order to ensure the safety of the people from terrorism, the German people happily agreed. The temporary powers were conferred, and once conferred lasted until Germany itself was destroyed.

When Hitler staged a phony invasion from Poland, the vast majority of the German people did not question why Poland would have done something so foolish as to attack a country with vastly superior military might.

Hitler knew the mentality and self-image of the people he ruled, he was, after all, not a stupid man. He knew he had to spend the money to make the new war something the people could fight and win. More importantly he had to make the people believe in the threat and the necessity of the war. He decorated his troops with regalia to make them proud of themselves, further their self-image as the mighty warriors of old. Hitler copied the parade regalia of ancient Rome, to remind the Germans of the defeat of the legions at the Tuetenberg Forest. Talismans were added from orthodox religions and the occult to fill the soldiers with delusions of mystical strengths and an afterlife if they fell in battle. He spent vast sums of money on new wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, the world's first cruise missile and the world's first guided missile, so that the people would feel invincible in their military superiority.

The American people want to see themselves as the heroic Americans depicted by Western Movies, the descendants of fierce patriot warriors who tamed the wild frontiers and defeated the might of the British Empire.

But in truth, the American people have become civilized and tamed, culturally obsessed with fine details in both science and society. Their self-image of bravery is both salve and slavery. Americans are required to behave as if they are brave, even when they are not.

The American people assume they are safe. After all, they live in a Republic, with strict laws regarding what the government can and more importantly cannot do. Their leader is a devoutly religious man.

But Americans don't wish to lose their self-image of courage. So, when confronted with a situation demanding courage, in the form of a government gone wrong, the American people simply pretend that the situation does not exist.

When the World Trade Towers collapsed, most Americans simply refused to believe suggestions that the attacks had been staged by parties working for (or at least the tacit approval of) the US Government itself. Americans refused to believe, even as news reports surfaced proving that the US Government had announced plans for the invasion of Afghanistan earlier that year.

The vast majority of Americans never question why Afghanistan would have done something so foolish as to attack the United States which has a vastly superior military might.

The vast majority of Americans never question why these attacks (which angered the American people into support of the already-planned war) seemed to fit entirely too conveniently.

The vast majority of Americans never question where our trillion dollar air-force was on the day not one, but four commercial airliners deviated wildly from their courses and crashed into our nation's financial and military command centers killing thousands. In the case of the latter, in a conveniently unoccupied portion of the building.

The vast majority of Americans never question how our air defense command which is supposed to safeguard us from attack just seemed to not notice these four aircraft.

The vast majority of Americans never question why 5 trillion dollars of nuclear weapons built to deter attacks upon this nation seem to do nothing to deter attacks upon this nation.

After the 9/11 tragedy the US Government requested temporary extraordinary powers, powers specifically banned under Constitutional law, but powers the government is claiming they need to have in order to deal with terrorism. The American people, happily agreed. The temporary powers conferred will be no more temporary in America than they were in Germany.

The US Government knows the mentality and self-image of the people they rule, after all, they are not stupid. The United States government has spent vast sums of money on wonder weapons, airplanes, submarines, ultra-long range artillery, cruise missiles, and guided missiles, weapons that kill at a distance, so that the people feel invincible in their military superiority.

As I mentioned above, Hitler was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year in 1938. Stalin was TIME Magazine's Man Of The Year for 1939 and for 1942. Both of these men, and many others also celebrated by the media, were unimaginable monsters. The lesson from these facts is that it isn't easy to spot a genocidal tyrant when you live with one, especially one whom the press supports and promotes.

Tyrants become obvious only when looking back, after what they have done becomes known. The German people did not stand up to Hitler because their media betrayed them, just as the American media is betraying the American people by willingly, voluntarily, even proudly, abandoning its traditional role as watchdog against government abuse.

It is the very nature of power that it attracts the sort of people who should not have it. The United States, as the world's last real superpower, is a prize that attracts men and women willing to do absolutely anything to win that power, and hence are also willing to do absolutely anything to keep that power once they have it. If one thinks about it long enough, one will realize that all tyrants, past and most especially present, MUST use deception on their population to initiate a war.

No sane citizen of a modern industrialized nation would willingly send their children off to die in a war simply to grab another nation's resources and assets, yet resources and assets are what most wars are fought over. The nation that wishes to initiate a war of conquest must create the illusion of an attack or a threat to start a war, and must always give the people an excuse never to question that carefully crafted illusion.

It is naive to assume that tyrants appear only in other nations and that somehow America is immune simply because we are Americans. America has escaped the clutches of a dictatorship thus far only through the efforts of those citizens who had the moral courage to stand up and point out where the government is lying to the people.

Note: I originally posted this quite some time back. A prediction come true?


 
Posted by Tio