The 1933 Riechstag Enabling Act

The 1933 Riechstag Enabling Act (0 / 0)
http://en.wikipedia.org/...



Let's call the proposed Repub duck and cover-up "law" The Enabling Act.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act
via:http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/3/25/133652/898

it has a catchy ring to it, no?

n/t

Reichstag Fire.
That was only the beginning.

Fire at the Reichstag!

911!

Homeland Security.

Homeland Security.

Fatherland.

Motherland.

Enabling Act.

Patriot Act.

Gott mit uns.

God is with us.

Crusade

Crusade.

Nationalism wrapped in a flag as patriotism.

Nationalism wrapped in a flag as patriotism.

Invasions.

Invasions.

Occupations.

Occupations.

Gulags.

Gulags.

Hitler.

bush.

Nazis.

Neocons.

Same shit, different assholes. So far, bush just has a lower bodycount.

Are you sure this was in Germany?

Love that sign! :thumbsup:

Love that sign. Thank you for posting it again. :hi:

The comparisons are truly on time with what is happening here and the people need to wake up before we are all wearing the big L on our clothes....:wtf:

...cycle of stolen elections to effect the total rubber stamp House and Senate and we're there.

country and built it into a huge industrial/military machine, whereas the Bush junta took a prosperous country and broke it--the Bushites don't seem to be building anything. No industrial base. A huge loss of jobs, income, and big hits by price gougers. An $8 trillion deficit. They just seem to be big-time LOOTERS.

We need to beware of historical parallels--in the sense that they may not tell you where the danger really lies in current circumstances--especially in a country such as this, which is so very different from Germany 1930s (much bigger, much, much more diverse, much longer tradition of democracy). I think the danger may be AFTER Bush, and after four years of a Diebolded-into-office Hillary taking all the blame for everything Bush. THEN we get Hitler.

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Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

I worry a little bit that the neo-cons might try a coup, using martial law or something. I still believe that they could and may even want to try that.

However, I worry a lot about the dangerous precedents being set by this administration.

Historically, and Hitler is a great example of it, many, many dictators assumed their offices through legal means. That applies to ancient Rome, many of the Greek city states that evolved into dictatorships, Mussolini in Italy, and, of course Hitler. Some were put in place by popular election (Mussolini), some were elected/appointed by the elected assembly (Hitler), some were appointed by a more patrician/republican body (Caesar in Rome). The common thread is a crisis of some sort, either military or domestic that got the 'democrats' scared enough to entrust the bulk of power in one person, who then exploited the situation for their own purposes. The crisis may have been real or manufactured, the key ingredient is a ruthless person or organization that exploits it with little regard for what the body public actually needs.

BuchCo scares me. They have been really good at crisis exploitation (not crisis management, that's something different IMO) and grabbing power. Maybe we don't have to worry about this particular batch of goons, but the precedents they are setting bode really bad for future generations.

Just my opinion, I hope I'm wrong.

And the bushies learned it well then and know it now. Believe it's called mind control, or, gather the sheep and fence them in. The frightening part is that the bush's were not and are not the only families and groups of people that like this ideology of control of the sheep. The phony religious right group is playing this game for all it's worth. They give religion a bad name, hope it backfires. The Jim Baker and Tammy Fay's of the world never seem to pay the price for screwing people. How does that happen?

He whipped a nation into a frenzy with his speechs

whereas Bush.... um... errrr.... our C student prez...
couldn't be bothered to do the homework neccessary
.... so we end up with this dickless dictator who can't do squat.
Great,

and we are there, we have crossed over into the abyss

'Big Brother is Listening' by James Bamford

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200604/nsa-surveillance

:scared:

:kick:

Bush's novel take on the constitution-- that it allows him to ignore the law-- equals Enabling Act.

I may pass it through here for some commentary and discussion first. The 1933 Act reminds me so much of what Bush has sought and received from congress. He just makes it worse with his editorial add-ons.

The enabbling act predates 1933, in fact it existed from right after the first world war, long before Hitler even knew about it.

Hitler's law was not the first of it's name, but very much unlike it's precedessors.

Historic comparisons just don't work.

I believe it was refereed to as Article 48 or 49 from the Wiemar Republic and came into existance with the Constituion of Germanyt following the Treaty of Versailles (June 1919).

Basically what it allows for was law by decree (sound familiar?) when consensus could not be achieved in what was the equivalent of our Congress. It had been used hundreds of times before Hitler ever came to power and certainly years before 1933.

The special part of Hitler's law was the removal of the constitution and the federalism. That was very clearly beyond the scope set by the constitution and certainly very much unlike any of the actions pre 1924.

More to the point, there were about seven major "Ermächtigungsgesetze" in the early years of the constitution; each limited in scope, duration and under parliamentary control.

That has little to do with the article 48 you seem to mix up with those law. Article 48 empowered the president to make decrees. Making decrees doesn't equal reigning by them; in fact the majority of the decrees are about setting up the democratic system and preparing the first elections.
Hindenburg later used it to strengthen the position of the President, a move which turned out to be fatal. In any case: Hitler was not President at the time; his move used Hindenburg and was not itself based on said article.

""Laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. The rights of the President remain undisturbed.""

He is saying that he is not required to follow laws that prevent the President from fullfilling his constitutional job.

I wish more Republicans were able to envision their reaction if a future President Hillary Clinton made the same claim as President Bush - that the President gets to decide which laws to follow with no checks and balances - I think they would immediately see the problem.

Tried to recommend but got the message:

You can only recommend posts from the last 24 hours

I'm just saying be careful, a) about identifying both dangers and the opportunities, and b) about spreading fear in a way that disempowers rather than empowers people.

For instance, I don't think it's as important what powers Bush is seizing (with a 30% approval rating, no less!), or the inevitable Bush "pod people" in Congress rubber stamp he gets, as HOW these people--Bush and his lapdog Congress--achieved power, because I think that HOW they achieved, or rather, retained, power in 2004, is still CHANGEABLE--by election reform at the state/local level--and the situation still reversible by that means.

There is absolutely nothing we can do to stop the Bush junta from spying on us, using spying for political repression, torturing people, arresting people including Americans without charge and detaining them indefinitely without access to the outside world, throwing out the Geneva Conventions and the US Constitution, openly breaking the law, invading more countries, looting us blind, destroying our common good programs such as FEMA and Medicare, or whatever else we would like to stop. There is nothing we can do about it--nothing! We are helpless. That is very apparent. Bush and his puppetmasters have control of every branch of government; the "balance of power" is gone; and they are ruthlessly using their power to suppress dissent within the US political establishment and within the ranks of US government professionals (military, intelligence, scientific communities, etc.).

In that sense, the new Third Reich is upon us. There is no question about it. The parallels are stunning. BUT...

This is NOT Germany circa 1930s. This is a significantly different country, and one that is much harder to control, and--very important, I think--much harder to fool! For instance, where are the 'Nazi youth groups' parading around the streets in uniforms, bullying people and sieg heiling to Hitler and the Fatherland? There is no evidence of that kind of devotion to Bush except in a tiny minority who almost never show their faces. We hear those types on radio call-in shows sometimes, and see evidence of them on the internet--but they remain largely anonymous. Why? Because that kind of mindless devotion to "the Leader" is disgusting to Americans. We are a population that is very sensitive to Nazi-like behavior, in our workplace, in our personal lives, among our children, and in the stories/myths that get played out in the entertainment and sports activities that we prefer. We like the underdog, not the overdog. We admire innovation, not lockstep dogmatism. So the minority fascists who are running things now--who have control of the public airwaves and federal powers--have to work us over in subtler ways. One of their masterstrokes, in my opinion, has been convincing the great progressive American majority that it is the minority, and that it 'lost' the 2004 election.

Get used to it. We are a country of lockstep Bushites now. People think Bush is likable. They'd like to 'have a beer' with him. They like his war. A little "collateral damage" on Arab babies and old grannies doesn't bother them. They think like he does--in blacks and whites, good vs evil, 'you're either for us or against us.' They don't mind torture, if it's just Arabs. They may grumble about $8 trillion deficits and trebled gas prices and 30% credit card interest rates and $2,000 prescription drug bills, but they don't really mind, all in a good cause. Just give them 0% financing on a new SUV and they're happy.

Never mind that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies' own opinion polls say otherwise. 63% of Americans oppose torture "under any circumstances." 58% opposed pre-emptive war by Bush BEFORE the invasion (Feb. '03). 90% are worried about, or wildly worried about, the deficit. Etc.

It MUST be that, SOMEHOW, people must SOMEHOW have put all of these HUGE ISSUES aside, because they just don't like gay marriage. And "the churches" must SOMEHOW--in some mysterious way for which there is ZERO evidence--have countered a 60/40 blowout success for the Democrats in new voter registration in 2004. Maybe Dick Cheney was right that it was their "invisible" voter registration campaign. It MUST be, because...look at the result!

Hidden behind all of this--the truly invisible thing, because it has made invisible--are the following facts:

Two rightwing Bushite corporations gained control of 80% of the nation's vote tabulation in the 2001-2004 period, and put in place new electronic voting systems that use "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming code, with virtually no audit/recount controls--an election system brought to you by the two biggest crooks in Congress, Tom Delay and Bob Ney, with their $4 billion "Help America Vote Act" boondoggle; an election system with no paper trail requirement, no requirement of transparent open source code, no controls on private company personnel who are convicted computer fraud felons writing the code, no controls on private partisan vendors, no controls on secret industry 'testing' of the machines, no controls on lavish lobbying and "revolving door" employment, basically no transparency and accountability, and underfunded regulation by a Bush-appointed commission.

The two corporations that took over most of our election system in that period were: Diebold, whose CEO, Wally O'Dell was a Bush/Cheney campaign chair, and major fundraiser, who promised in writing to "deliver" Ohio's electoral votes to Bush/Cheney in 2004, and ES&S, a spinoff of Diebold (similar computer architecture), which was initially funded by rightwing billionaire Howard Ahmanson, who also gave a million dollars to the extremist 'christian' Chalcedon Foundation (which, among other things, touts the death penalty for homosexuals). These two companies have an incestuous relationship--they are run by two brothers, Tod and Bob Urosevich.

These are the people who counted most of our votes behind a veil of secrecy in 2004.

It is a no-brainer that they used their secret programming power to keep the Bush junta in office.

A no-brainer that much of the Democratic leadership didn't and doesn't seem to get.

A no-brainer that the American people largely don't know about.

A no-brainer that the war profiteering corporate news monopolies NEVER report on.

And, in fact, on election night 2004, the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, acting in concert, through one polling organization (Edison-Mitofsky) shut down the election reporting system (a supposed "computer glitch"), and FALSIFIED their own exit polls (Kerry won) to force them to 'FIT' the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won)--thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud, and squelching protests and calls for investigation. (See www.TruthIsAll.net.)

Many good people (but not all) pretty much decided, at that point, that the country had gone nuts, and gave up on our democracy--depressed, demoralized, and disempowered, thinking they are now the minority (despite even the closeness of this so-called election).

THAT is the point. Not to convince anyone of anything--as with Hitler's true-believer "Nazi youth" parading around about "the Fatherland," or as with millions of people cheering and sieg heiling Hitler's speeches. That won't work here. But what WILL work, and DID work, was making YOU feel that YOU are all alone, isolated and powerless in your true-blue American progressive values, when the truth is just the opposite. You are by no means alone. AT LEAST 60% of the American people agree with you on all basic, progressive and democratic values--including on Bush and his war--and 20 million MORE people came out to vote on these things, than had ever voted before in history, in 2004, with the anti-Bush voters having a 60/40 edge in new registrations. In addition, independents and former Nader voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry. Bush vs Gore in 2000 was a draw, with Gore having the edge in the popular vote. Where did the Bush/Cheney '04's margin COME FROM?

Out of thin air, is where it came from. Electrons spinning around in 'trade secret' programs run by Bushite corporations. And since the electronic election theft system was not entirely smooth and fully 'tested' yet (they likely had to pre-program the percentages in 2004--and changing them on election day, with Kerry's win bigger than expected, was not so easy), they added on Plan B, massive, blatant, illegal vote suppression in Ohio and other places.

They had the script written BEFORE the election. Gay marriage. "Invisible" church vote. The 'tight' race. (It wasn't even close--Kerry won by at least a 5% margin--despite his 'flip-flopping.') Bush's "mandate" (remember that?).

So, wheras Hitler appealed overtly to German pride and nationalism, a message that was resonant in crippled and demoralized, post- WW I country, Bush only PRETENDS to appeal to American pride and nationalism, while he destroys a powerful and prosperous country, mainly for the purposes of major LOOTING by his corporate puppetmasters (for now anyway--I think the precedents he is setting of executive tyranny are actually for a future scenario, 4-6 years down the line).

State and local jurisdictions still hold some power over election systems--power that the so-called "Help America Vote Act" is fast eroding (as intended). We have a window of opportunity, now and for several years, to restore election transparency, and, with it, our right to vote, and with that, our democracy, which has been taken away from us. We must seize back control of our election system, at the state/local level, as step one of getting our country back.

Hitler's "brown shirts" and 'Nazi youth' literally stuffed ballot boxes by violent means. We saw a bit of that--a crucial bit--in the 2000 election in Florida, and more of that kind of tactics in Ohio in 2004. But that just doesn't work, in the long run, here. We are too democratic--and too big, and too diverse, a nation. Subtler means had to be devised. And WE have to get subtler in our analysis, to figure out what's going on and to strategize successfully against it.

Although protesting the war, and sending thousands of letters to Congress about their 'rubber stamp' on Bush/Corporate tyranny, has educational, and certainly moral, value, it is largely useless as to influencing what happens. We have zero power to change anything--the opinion of the majority of Americans simply doesn't count--with fascists controlling the tabulation of our votes. Our vote is our sole means of exercising our sovereignty as a people. Our right to vote, our power to influence our government, and our very sovereignty have been taken away and SOLD to unfriendly and anti-democratic entities, who now hold sole control over who represents us, with 'TRADE SECRET' vote tabulation.

But we DO still have the power to change this--if we act quickly--by intense pressure on state/local officials, at levels of government that are still somewhat accountable to ordinary people.

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Some resources for American Revolution II:

Breaking news:

Californians sue the state over Diebold:
www.VoterAction.org--just announced--suing the state of California and 18 Calif county registrars on behalf of 25 California voter/plaintiffs, on the illegal Diebold "certification".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2180496

Maryland rejects Diebold:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x418263

Florida - anti-trust accusations against Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2183630

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.votetrustusa.org (news of this great movement from around the country)
www.UScountvotes.org (statistical monitoring of '06 and '08 elections)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.bradblog.com (also great, and devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)*
Sign the petition (Russ Holt, HR 550, great bill-has 169 sponsors). http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html
www.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)

www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.johnbonifaz.com (running for Massachusetts Sec of State on strong election reform and antiwar platform)

*Some tributes to TruthIsAll, who is very ill:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x417231
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x675477

Also of interest:

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy!)
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

Bob Koehler's latest: "Take this box and stuff it" (3/16/06)
http://commonwonders.com/archives/col337.htm

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

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Throw Diebold, ES&S and ALL election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:think: :patriot: :woohoo: :patriot: :think:

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"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."--Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence