Neo-fascists and terrorists against liberty come in all shapes and sizes and in every human era. 9/11 = the burning of the Reichstag. What followed in both cases evidences that history does indeed repeat itself. But were most of us astute enough to see it happening again?
On September 11, 2001, seventy-one years after the Berlin Reichstag fire that Hitler exploited to make himself supreme dictator, a heart-rending tragedy struck the United States. More than three thousand people died suddenly in an inferno of flames in the pulverized wreckage of the most prestigious building of international capitalism: the World Trade Center in New York City.
No Air Force defense was triggered after the first and then after the second plane hit the most prominent target in the financial capital of the world. An F-16, where normally stationed, could have scrambled from about 20 miles away and could have saved the Pentagon from the third attack that followed 44 minutes later. Instead, there was no alert whatsoever when a still unidentified craft or missile struck the headquarters of America’s military might, opening a 15 ft diameter hole and penetrating deep into the building. Not a single defense shot fired – not even a beep – to warn people in the buildings.
The fourth hijacked plane went down at a 90º angle. The Government did not release the voice recorder from the cockpit. A piece of that plane was found two miles away from the point of impact. To those who have studied all reports available, the 9/11 Commission’s conspiracy theory never rose to the lowest level of a joke.
“Elementary!” Sherlock Holmes would say, but then our mainstream media (now generally known as the cloaca maxima media – the Roman Empire’s name for the main sewer of ancient Rome) – yes, friends and citizens, our mainsewer media did not report what could be easily deducted from obvious facts.
Deranged individuals at the service of global plutocrats moved to entrench a new kind of totalitarianism – inverted totalitarianism – disguised as democracy under a fake state of war against an invisible enemy called “terror.” Following 9/11, instant war drumming began against alleged foreign terrorists by an illegitimate administration. Later many facts were exposed proving that top criminals at the wheel of our government had long been seeking a new Pearl Harbor-type crisis to justify a war of aggression to steal the oil wealth of Iraq and to occupy that country as a base for further dominion of the region.
By spreading death and destruction at will upon defenseless populations in any region of the globe it chooses to attack, enslave, and pillage, the ruling global oligarchy hopes for forever-flowing profits. This insane permanent global war on an invisible specter of fabricated terror is being pitifully justified as America’s effort to establish and defend democracy. Such a deceitful justification has opened a new era, transforming the entire planet into a scientific battlefield that destroys our freedom and suspends civil liberties indefinitely – even habeas corpus which was granted to everyone since the days of the Magna Carta.
Does history repeat itself? Let us compare the events in 1933 Germany to the unfolding anti-democratic events that began with the 2000 election coup d’etat that ended America’s democracy, unfolded into a covert totalitarianism after the 2001 false flag attack of 9/11, and was followed by the dictatorial Patriot Act.
Seven decades ago Adolf Hitler abused democracy to establish his dictatorship. To do this Hitler manipulated President Hindenburg into dissolving the Reichstag and calling for new elections. He then sought a Nazi majority in the Reichstag to rubber-stamp whatever laws the big corporations financing him desired.
In Election 2000, George Bush usurped the presidency and crushed democracy when he subverted the vote of the people with the help of five treasonous black-robed Supreme Court justices. In one blow, they destroyed America’s 225-year Constitutional tradition of democratic elections by denying the people’s fundamental right of having all votes counted. Bush then got the well-paid support of a majority of goose-stepping neo-fascist in Congress to rubber-stamp everything his corporate masters desired as payback for financing his campaign (witness the colossal tax cut for the rich, corporate favors, and the anti-labor and anti-environmental laws pushed through during of the first year of his illegal administration).
In 1933 Germany, law enforcement officials were replaced by Nazi SA and SS troopers. Anybody harassed, arrested, beaten, or even murdered by these criminals had no one to turn to for help. (Extreme right-wing American racists as far back as the Nixon days secretly admired the Nazis.) That same year the Nazis began their attack on democracy by raiding the headquarters of the Communist Party to steal its membership list.
Half a century later, Republican neo-fascists repeated the same history by burglarizing the Democratic Party’s Watergate headquarters, which ended in Nixon’s resignation. That GOP crime was just a preview of coming attractions for Election 2000. During the days after the 2000 Election, GOP goons were bussed to Florida and paid to riot at vote counting locations to intimidate election officials into stopping their manual recount.
The pattern of historical repetition begins to appear clearly with an even more frightening contemporary aspect. While in Nixon’s times there existed independent investigative reporters willing to bust treasonous plots, today mainstream media is fully under the control of right-wing mega-corporations whose interests are carefully protected.
Göring and Goebbels, with Hitler’s approval, hatched a grandiose plan to shock public opinion and cause massive national panic. They coaxed and helped a psychotic communist to torch prepared combustible fuel caches set up by the Nazis (through an underground tunnel) to burn the Berlin Reichstag – the building where elected representatives of the Republic met in Congress. The crazed arsonist worked a long time to start many fires in the enormous edifice while the efficient German police were inexplicably and conveniently absent from this most important of government buildings. No one explained this abysmal lack of security, just as today no one can explain how allegedly 18 men with box cutters could hijack four airliners on the same morning or how the mighty Pentagon could be struck without warning 45 minutes after a colossal catastrophe hit New York City – even though the FBI had received information that strikes involving civilian airlines were being plotted.
Nazi reactions to the Reichstag catastrophe were without the least reflection as were, 70 years later, the Bush-ists’ reactions to the heart-breaking national tragedy of 9/11. Both the Nazis and the American right-wing chose to instantly beat revenge war drums and rattle swords to reap a maximum political bonanza from public shock, anguish, panic, and anger.
Investigate? Later. Reflect? Never! That might reveal the real causes behind the attack. That might bring to light the many acts of U.S. terrorism throughout the world. Let the press concoct polls created for propaganda and provocation. “98% of the people are lining up behind our glorious neo-Führer!” This is the kind of journalism that gives bullshit a bad name.
Unfurl the battle flags! Sing the national anthem! Unite the people behind the Commander-in-Chief, no matter how evil and corrupt. Sound familiar in both German and English? “Deuschland, Deutchland über Alles!”
Immediately after the fire, Hitler rushed from the scene to his newspaper, the Völkischer Beobachter, to oversee coverage of the story. He worked all night with Goebbels putting together tales of Communist plots to seize power violently. The same security apparatus allegedly caught with its pants down was suddenly so clever and efficient that it instantly spotted culprits and terrorists everywhere and was able to harangue Germany into a frenzy of violent revenge against Communists, Jews, gypsies, and all non-Arian races.
An emergency meeting of government leaders was held in Berlin. Hitler made himself a spectacle of deliberate rage to fan the flames. “The German people have been soft too long. Every Communist official must be shot. All Communist deputies must be hanged this very night. All friends of the terrorists must be locked up. And that goes for the Social Democrats and the Reichsbanner as well!” As a preamble to declaring war on the world, he literally declared war on his own people.
At a cabinet meeting held later in the morning, Chancellor Hitler demanded an emergency decree to overcome the crisis. He met little resistance from lawmakers or his cabinet. That evening, Hitler and Papen went to Hindenburg and the befuddled old man signed the Emergency Decree “for the protection of the state.” The Decree proclaimed: “Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; warrants for house searches; orders for confiscations; as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.”
A few days after the Reichstag fire, as if by collective hypnosis, the Nazis were seen as all-knowing heroes. They deftly captured the lone culprit (an easy task, since, having helped him, they knew who he was) and grabbed a bunch of others as well. The Nazi Party was instantly believed to be courageous and patriotic. The more the Party blamed foreign and domestic Communists, painted German liberals and democrats as enemies, and threatened to crush its enemies by force, the more the public became deliriously titillated.
This happened in 1933. No independent investigation or a shred of evidence was brought forward about who had plotted the fire. The press and radio (owned by the state and its sponsors) trumpeted the Nazis as being the only force qualified to protect Germany from evil. Germany’s citizens were called upon to unite behind the Führer, to be seen as patriots or else. “You are with us or you are against us!” This climate of hysteria foreshadowed the ultimate destruction of Germany and death of millions in Europe and across the globe.
Seventy years ago, after the Reichstag burned, the neo-Nazi police was ordered to show no mercy to those suspected of independent thinking, i.e., those hostile to Hitler, and especially any alleged “Communist terrorists” who were suddenly believed to be hiding under the beds of all German-Jewish homes or wherever mixed blood might be found. The pure Arian race alone was German and trustworthy enough to goose-step for the Führer.
A similar mindless reaction was sponsored immediately by George Bush and his neo-fascist Republicans. We were told that we must accept limitations on our liberties in the name of national security. One of the most frightening threats to civil liberties was the draconian Senate bill deliberately rushed through by GOP neo-fascists that would dramatically expand the use of secret searches to every criminal case, going far beyond anything necessary to conduct investigations on terrorism. The bill permitted wiretap information to be used and disseminated without prior judicial review or safeguards. It created a new crime of “domestic terrorism,” which could easily transform protestors into terrorists if protestors engaged in conduct that “involved acts dangerous to human life” (this vague wording might include blocking traffic or dropping a banana peel on a sidewalk).
For example, Operation Rescue, the Environmental Liberation Front, and Greenpeace have all engaged in activities that could subject them to a Nazi-style prosecution as terrorists. Under this legislation, those who provide lodging or other assistance to “domestic terrorists” – which could includes parents and relatives of environmentalists protesters or literally anyone who objects to environmental exploitation – could have their homes wiretapped and be prosecuted.
Fascist-style patriotism translated into uncritical and sniveling support of whatever actions a half-witted Führer deemed appropriate as well as withholding constructive criticism.
Arab-Americans and people with Middle Eastern names or ancestors were vilified and subjected to special scrutiny by the Government and by their fellow citizens. No American should be persecuted or abused as “disloyal” because of race or national origin. This great democratic ideal is what makes America a civilized country. However, many liberals were cowardly silent and shamelessly unable or unwilling to voice opposition to the illegitimate Bush administration. The U.S. is perilously close to the same situation Germany was in 1933 when the democratic forces there put their tails between their legs and easily allowed Hitler to take over and destroy democracy and Europe along with it, because no one wanted to find out who really burned the Reichstag and for what reason.
After security laws were rubber-stamped by the Nazis, as was done in the U.S. with the passage of the Patriot Act I and II, there followed the first big Nazi roundup as truckloads of SA and SS roared through the streets busting in on known liberal and communist hangouts and barging into private homes. Thousands of citizens, Communists as well as Social Democrats and Progressives, were taken away into “protective custody” at SA barracks where they were tortured and many killed.
Always remember the FBI’s abuses and harassment of individuals like Martin Luther King, Jr. and the official violence it generated to disrupt the Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements. Remember the students killed at Kent State University and never forget the CIA’s history of helping some of the world’s most evil violators of human rights. Let us recall Kissinger’s role in Operation “Condor” where international squads under Latin American dictators sought, tortured, carved eyes out of people, killed, and made thousands disappear.
Next Hitler turned his attention to Election Day. All resources necessary for a big win were placed at his disposal by the same large industrialists who had helped him gain power and who now gladly coughed up millions of Marks. Representatives from Krupp munitions and I. G. Farben were among those reaching into their deep pockets; several American corporations were also included.
Today the same corporate beasts are supporting war, ecological devastation, exploitation of labor, oppressive dictators, censorship by media control, medical monopolies, and a pseudo war on drugs that covers up the reality of an ocean of ill-gotten money supporting political abuse and fraud.
The difference between the Nazi rise to power and the takeover of the American Government by neo-fascists is that neo-fascism is not a strictly national sickness. America is being overrun by a multi-national corporate network positioning itself above national governments and the law through world trade and financial manipulations. The WTO is a rising super-government voiding national sovereignty. U.S. administrators are the errand boys of mega-corporations that have supported the likes of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama for over a century. The Congressional record reveals that the Bush family supported Hitler and also shows that Bush Sr. was in business with the Bin Laden family. What other information do we need to wake up?
Our last hope is in massive, overwhelming peaceful opposition. Unless Americans – refusing to be divided by the mainstream media – march as one people to defend freedom and turn the tables on its ruling criminals, what happened in Florida will go down in history as the end of our Republic. It is our ethical duty as a free people to oppose tyranny and deceit, to take control of our government, and to sue for peace and justice for all. It can be done when we – united and free – fully engage our proverbial courage and refuse to support evil.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
We the people control our american government, not the government controling the people, that is our Constitution. If George Bush killed all those innocent first responders at the World Trade Center, he should be put in prison. If the Bush family in the oil business, be owes Osama Ben Ladin alot of money, then why don’t Osama go after George Bush and stop killing the innocent american people, why does’nt President Obama put Bush in prison, but I don’t think we can trust him either, he’s making america unsafe and when they are elected into the presidency they take the oat of office to protect america and president obama is not doing that! I would like to solve this problem but I can’t do it alone. My cousin was working on the 100th floor of the WTC when that plane hit and burned her body, she was only 28 years old and about to get married. Alot of countries and people are jealous of the americans and that’s a disease, We need freedom and justice, free speech and humanity. I’d like hear other comments about this. Why did’nt we get George Bush out of office? God Bless America, we are the free and brave.
Let’s build up America again and united we stand. We need to teach everyone democracy and to respect each other.