The big lie

why?

This is exactly my point with regard to US Citizens refusing to engage in critical discourse and to critically examine their leadership and the motives of their leadership. Anyone who does is obviously "Lunatic Fringe" or "Not Patriotic".

I find it offensive and grossly demeaning that millions of innocent people will have to die before some of you are willing to question the war on "terror" or the characterization of middle eastern states on the whole as terrorist nations deserving of the treatments rendered by the US government who think little of the reprocussions of their actions. I find it offensive that so many American's will call anyone who disagrees with the authorities or considers the Patriot Act's unconstitutional lunatics or idiots without offering up proof to the contrary.

It is easy to sit back on ones laurels, throw out a couple of insults laced with fluffy psuedo-intellectual drivel and denounce without reason any opinion or statement to which one does not agree. It was a radical assumption that the world is round, it was a radical assumption that the common man deserved certain rights, it was a radical assumption that women should be given the right to vote. If not for radical assumptions the scientific, political and philosophical evolution of man would be very slow indeed.

So do follow on, oppose all things foriegn or disagreeable to your own personal agendas, wave your flags and salute the troops sent to war by a governing power who so freely takes the freedoms those fair men and women are fighting to preserve and allow us liberal radical whacko lunatics to carry the weight of change in the world.

Historically (And I can point to specific Historical References)

In various speeches made shortly after the March on Rome, Mussolini stated, "We must take from state authority those functions for which it is incompetent and which it performs badly... I believe the state should renounce its economic functions, especially those carried out through monopolies, because the state is incompetent in such matters... We must put an end to state railways, state postal service and state insurance." The state returned large monopolies to the private sector after returning them to profitability such as the Consortium of Match Manufactures, privatized the insurance system in 1923, the telephone system in 1925, and many of the public works.

In Germany the Nazis announced they would end nationalization of private industries when they seized power. In 1932, Hitler returned control of the Gelsenkirhen company to private hands and in 1936 returned the stock of "United Steel" to private hands. Throughout 1933-1936, the Nazi returned to private hands the control of several banks: Dresdner, Danat, Commerz and Privatbank, the Deutsche Bank, and several others. In 1936, the steamship company Deutcher Schiff and Maschinenbau was returned to the private sector. In 1934, Dr. Schacht, the Nazi Minister of Economy, gave instructions to hasten the privatization of municipal enterprises. These enterprises were especially coveted by the rich industrialists, as they had been prosperous even during the depression.

Both in fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, the tax system was changed to one favoring business and the wealthy. The Nazis allowed industries to deduct from their taxable income all sums used to purchase new equipment. Rich families employing a maid were allowed to count the maid as a dependent child and reap the tax benefit. In Italy, the Minister of Finance stated: "We have broken with the practice of persecuting capital."

The Nazis outlawed legitimate labor unions. In place of the original unions, the Nazis implemented quasi-like unions that were controlled by the industrialists.

In a déjà vu manner, the Republican Party has recently tried to enact a similar measure, conferring legal status on worker groups controlled by corporations.

Creeping fascism is the gradual lost of freedoms of the masses to the power elite.

Full-blown fascism has never appeared all at once. The Nazis took several years to reach the final state of full-blown fascism. It took the Nazis five years before Kristallnacht, which marks the beginning of the "Final Solution." The Nazis gradually took away the freedoms of the citizens of Germany until they were able to launch the Holocaust. This was the reason for including the caveat in the definition of fascism above, "Any action taken by the government that places the rights of the elites and corporations above the citizens is a step towards fascism."

Such actions will not look like fascism some may even appear to be reasonable. Its only when the summation of many such actions ends in a fascist state that such actions can be seen as a step towards fascism.

Make no mistake in understanding that the power elite, those that own and run America's corporations, are fascist. They have forced war on this country to protect their assets, they have over-exploited their employees, they have used violence to bust unions, and they rely on divisionist policies such as racism and class warfare to maintain their power.

The erosion of our freedoms in the United States was prolonged by our constitution. Nevertheless, over time the loss of freedoms has left America at the edge of a chasm. Any further loss of freedoms and America will begin an irreversible slide into the deep abyss of fascism

There was only limited government ownership under the Nazis. Prior to the Nazi take over, the German governments took over failing businesses and continued to operate them. When the Nazis took over the government already owned a large number of enterprises. When the Nazis took over they began to privatize many of these businesses, especially the ones that had remained profitable during the depression like the electric utilities.

Once Hitler assured big business that they would be free to continue to operate, they failed to raise any further objections to the Nazis. The large German steel and coal industries especially welcomed the Nazis. Hitler's plans for rearmament meant large contracts for new ships, tanks, etc. Later during the war when a labor shortage appeared, it was Krupp from the German steel industry that first raised the question of using slave labor from the concentration camps. At first the Nazis were reluctant to allow the inmates to be used as slaves as it would slow the progress of the "final solution." However, once Krupp offered to pay for the slaves the Nazis readily agreed and soon there was no shortage of companies seeking slaves.

See: Prison Labor Boon for Employers, Report Says by Jeff Elliott, Between 1979 and 1992, inmates employed in joint ventures certified by the U.S. Department of Justice earned $28,668,450. (This comes from Justice Department stats).

Germany's plunge into a totalitarian state began before the Nazis took over. It was as much a result of a lack of a strong leadership as anything else. For the first eleven years of the German Republic there had been seventeen cabinets headed by nine different chancellors.12 Undoubtedly, the country faced grave crisis in this period such as hyperinflation, but the lack of strong leadership and an increased polarization was readily apparent.

The Nazis were the most notorious radicals unwilling to compromise, but the other parties have to share some of the blame for this polarization as well. The blame can be extended beyond the parties to the vested interests behind each party, including that of big businesses. Fracturing the electorate by polarization was playing right into the divisionist character of the Nazis, whose radical program lacked a broad base of support as the election results from 1928 showed.

The policies of the German governments during the 1920s inadvertently aided the rise of the Nazis. Throughout the 1920s the government arrested many of the leaders from the left. It would not be unfair to term these arrests as purges. The arrest of any strong leaders emerging from the left only served to further polarize the country by creating a vacuum on the left that was only filled with the more radical communists.

A similar situation is emerging in the United States, throughout this century the United States has conducted purges of the left: the Great Red Scare of 1919, McCartyism of the 1950s, and COINTELPRO operations during the sixties. Without the voices from the left to moderate policy, the political center in the United States has shifted to the hard right.

The immediate result in the lack of strong leadership is frequent chances in government, which only lead to more instability and chaos. An ideal parallel is the long string one term Presidents ending with Lincoln and the Civil War. The polarization of the Unite States gradually increased from about 1820 on resulting in one term presidents. Another string of one term Presidents ended with the election of Roosevelt in the middle of the Great Depression. In both U.S. case the ending result was not pleasant: a civil war and a depression.

Feel like a frog boiling in water yet?


This an interesting site: http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/chpt1.htm

If you want historical facts compared to current facts (bill definitions and numbers etc. with accurate American history - take a peek.

You might conclude that comparing America to Fascist Germany before Hitler took over is not the thoughts of mere insane fringe lunatics.

To the original author:

Yeah, yeah...Americans are like Nazis...yeah yeah...we eat children and use the kid-poop to fuel our giant pollution machines...yeah yeah...we are now a weak society hiding behind military strength...yeah yeah...we know...we are small dicked people with big weapons...yeah yeah...we are fat and eat all the food in the world and never help anyone who is starving...yeah yeah we go to countries and start wars which no other country in the history of the universe has ever done...blah blah blah....oh, and we are so so sorry it took us a whole 3 days to start relief aid shipments to the tidal wave areas...our bad, we suck sooo hard....yeah yeah...and we apologise for our movies, music, and culture....please send any unused culture back to us for a refund....yeah yeah...and we are a horribly repressive society, but hey you may not be able to say a prayer in school but you can at least wear a religious symbol in public....sure....we know we will bring the apocalypse since we are so evil and mean to everyone else, please let us freely immigrate to your country...wait, your borders are closed? What the hell! Well, you must have a good reason...yeah yeah...and our President is the devil....yeah yeah...He will be prosecuted just as soon as he leaves office for his crimes as Mayor of Pari, wait I mean Govenor of Texas....etc. ect. etc.

I would think you would be thankful that there are still people questioning our administration's motives? Questions and checks and close scrutiny is the best way to expose the "fetid inner core" of corruption. And thus far, the Bush administration has been anything but open and honest. They have been very uncooperative in any investigation that isn't handled by "their" people. They have flatly refused showing people evidence that they claimed to have, until thier agenda was already in place, and then holding out empty hands and saying, "Hehe..we were just joking about evidence".

I'd much rather have a million people asking tough questions than a million people following blindly, and I find it hard to understand how you wouldn't want the same.