Oliver Stone, "The Secret History of the United States". and a warning to Obama.

'Adolf Hitler was aided in his rise to power by western bankers who appreciated his tough line on communist agitators and worker power, Oliver Stone told reporters in Bangkok yesterday.

Following on from the comments he made to TV critics in Pasadena earlier this month about his upcoming 10-hour TV documentary on The Secret History of the United States, the film-maker said the German dictator had seduced the nation's military industrial complex with his ambitious promises.'

so far nothing new. then:

'The Oscar-winning director said his documentary, made in collaboration with two historians, was aimed at providing an analysis of 20th-century history that might be useful to Barack Obama. "What has America become? How can we in America not learn from Germany in the 1930s?" he asked.'

i know where he aims at, but really it is nothing new. the story of our western democracies and dictatorships, more or less in disguise, is about that.
i understand his feelings though, especially for being personally attacked.

but i feel uneasy, historically, with his parallel between US now and hitler's germany.
as a provocation for better hope, i understand it. in any other guise i do not.

the article and source is the guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jan/26/oliver-stone-bankers-hitler

Were closer than anyone wants to admit.

State sponsored propaganda? Check

A nation increasingly militarized? Check

A "secret national police force"? Check

An increasingly fascist mix of business with government? Check

...compared to then.

and people/movements/political organizations/the internet offer a resisting tough side that there was not - at least with this potential strength - in hitler's germany.

whatever the crisis, unemployment rates, desperation - we're still far from being clueless sheeps unaware of the game.
that's what makes me uneasy, historically, in oliver's words.

You'd be hard pressed to demonstrate that a significant portion of "the public" is CONSCIOUS, let alone possessing a conscience. And even if you make that giant leap and pretend (OK, OK, "accept") that there is some such public conscience, it's certainly not tilted toward anything democratic. Far more savage and self-serving than that. Think Tea Party.

That is unprecedented in our nation's history and the history of the world. Things are getting better. A hard core authoritarian fascist state could not exist in these times.

harder to see, isn't it?

A hard core authoritarian fascist state is one explosion away, if even that.

Things are actually getting better. Authoritarian 1930s-style Fascist states do not exist anymore. Physical coercion is going out of fashion with the elites, same with sort-of centrally planned corporatist economies.

That's Michael Parenti's description of what we currently have.

and in reality, that's what it was meant to be. However, what seems clear is that fascism entails the violent suppression of one's political opponents. Since that's generally not taking place, Parenti really seems to be taking some liberties with the term.

They were quite strong. Many Austrians were further to the left than even the most left-leaning Americans of our day. Lots of Austrians and Germans were anti-war. Don't fool yourself. Read The Lost City by John Gunther.

It might be a bit difficult to read if you don't know Austria and its traditions of coffee houses or the story of the failure of the Creditanstalt (which set off the Great Depression).

http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/4047359/used/The%20lost%20city,%20a%20novel.

did you notice how utterly ineffective those protests were? how obama has not reversed our war footing? how obama has not followed up on prosecuting the war criminals? noticed the huge corporate welfare obama ushered through?

it might not look exactly like hitler's germany, but we are there, or within easy striking distance of complete fascism. the stranglehold of money on politics is really what its all about.

if you don't see the media as propaganda organ of the state/industrial complex, you're not really paying attention. if you don't see the u.s. foreign policy as utterly imperialistic, you're not really paying attention.

then there's what we don't see, the continued and growing protest against u.s. foreign and domestic policies.

of course, there is and will be resistance. will it be successful? god only knows, but it hasn't been so far. and as many people as may be aware of the problems, there are far more who are totally asleep, discouraged, and/or, like you, in denial.

Do you honestly believe that the crowd at an anti-war rally reflects anything like the "public conscience" of this country? No more so than the crowd at a tea party. MUCH less so than the crowd at walmart after church any given sunday.

your profile says you're in Italy -- you know what fascia means.

And if you are in Italy, how are you so certain of your statements? They may apply in the broader world. Stone is focusing on the U.S., isn't he?

...against the processes ongoing in our western capitalistic societies.

that's people - seattle as the internet. that's not sheep.

yes, i'm italian, and i have first-hand feeling of what "fascio" is. that's why i feel uneasy also when premier berlusconi (which i consider the opposite of what i believe in) is compared to a dictator.

this is not mussolini's italy.
i think americans have a stronger identity as a democratic people than we italians, anyway.

Unfortunately that identity is what allows the creep of soft fascism....... and sheeple like behavior. A general sense of belief in our rights as Americans, even when those rights are assaulted or stripped away.

Would you mind defining it? Because regular old, run of the mill "fascism" is difficult enough to pin down.

It might change your mind. It is written about Vienna at the time of the failure of the Creditanstalt. That period, those events are very similar to the events of today.

True, democracy was newer in Germany and Austria at that time than it was in the U.S. or in France, let's say. But the parallel is still quite appropriate.

Actually, the Germans had a democratic form of government. Devastating economic policies and a crushing defeat in WWI made Germans vulnerable to simplistic answers. They sought security and found it in Hitler's fanaticism and easy-to-understand political philosophy.

The parallels are not all that inappropriate.

first, americans are very jealous of their own local communities and independence, so i do not feel like they look for a "father" "fuehrer" with a strong central control over anything - the federal system works well, historically, for you.

second, US military engagements are far from being the ones germany got involved in, during the previous reich in WWI. the defeat and the winning countries there were part of the cause for germany's revenge under hitler's success: practically the winning allied hindered germany from rising its head again and pay for the war debts, because its richest resources were literally stealt by the allies.
weimar was murdered by blind allies then.
this, whatever military defeat, does not happen to US.

third, there is a democratic conscience that runs across the nation(s), the internet and the local organizations count millions of people ready to oppose any "hitlerian" ambition or freedom restriction.

so no, i think oliver's parallel is just a provocation.

of the NEW and IMPROVED "fascism"

That being the power, many, many, MANY times more powerful than anything Hitler or Mussolini had at their disposals, of psychology, advertising, marketing, PR, and all the rest that makes up the Sciences of Lying and Manipulation.

Think of this as a simple marketing problem for the Bushies:

Your old brand (fascism, totalitarianism, feudalism) has been utterly discredited. How does one go about reintroducing a new brand that has such negative connotations among the public?

Why, rebrand, remarket the old product with a FRESH, NEW look! Avoid at all costs, similarities to the Old Brand which you are trying to reintroduce! Use the latest techniques uncovered by behavioral and statistical psychologists, focus groups, marketing men and the rest of the hundreds of millions of person-hours that have been put into researching how to sell people shit they don't need or want.

Combine it with an already existing structure (The Republican Party) to lend verisimilitude to the whole act, and of course, combine it with the ruthless parts of the aristocracy (Dulles-Bush-Cheney-CIA faction) that are interested in promulgating this new product while not spooking the sheep, and viola!

This is but one facet of a a many, MANY faceted and long-term Bushie project, but it may well be the overarching one, the aspect that informs all the other aspects.

As to the democratic conscience that overlaps the nation, it sure didn't seem incompatible with invading Iraq on as flimsy a premise as Hitler used to invade Poland. It sure didn't slow down the absolute de facto eradication of the Bill of Rights nor the constant stream of lies, half-truths, infantilization and misinformation that is the entirety of our National Dialogue now.

I appreciate your touching naivete in the face of overwhelming evidence.

It's a nice dream, and I have no doubt many were dreaming something similar, if as detatched from reality, in Weimar, also.

Let me leave you with two links for you to read, the German psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, who tries from the grave to inform your naivete, probably as successfully as he tried to inform Weimar of the same.

http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/jaspers02.htm

Oh, and by the way, the fact that you cannot visualize a form of fascism that doesn't include traditional fascist actions, merely plays into the hands of the criminals and aristocrats who want you to be blind...until it's too late.

http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/20080515_chalmers_johnson_on_our_managed_democracy/

...there always needs struggle - for every generation.

i do not expect people to ride the roads with black shirts - i'm perfectly aware of the contemporary dangers and i can recognize an embodied fascist in elegant suit.

but before what you call the 'NEW and IMPROVED "fascism"' there is now a 'NEW and IMPROVED "democracy"'.
and the fact that no rallies could hinder the iraq invasion does not mean that those rallies were ineffectual.
it created awareness.

have a look at paris. when the crowds organize against a bill/campaign paris stops - literally: parisiennes compel the government to change route.
the first berlusconi's government failed ALSO because of millions people on the street for a bill that was felt as threatening workers rights.

i do not think you would have elected Obama without seattle and the no global movement that created awareness on something about many many people were not aware of before. and the rallies against bush and his wars put a pressure on the candidates for afghanistan and iraq as well. and then global warming, and the financial crisis - all of this is now thousand times discussed publicly, in blogs, here, mouth-to-mouth. there is more awareness against the "fascist" power you talk of.

(let's put aside now what Obama is doing after a year: focus on the fact that his election could not be possible without so much more awareness in the recent history of americans).

what you seem not to understand is that things change, maybe slow - but they do. and it's sad how you just see the overwhelming wave of corporations and big news monsters - and not the counterpower of millions.

this is not naivete - but it's the daily experience of people across the world - gathering, discussing, taking action, organizing, petitioning, blogging. this makes a difference.

it takes struggle for every generation: democracy is not given as a gift.
but what you do now is a legacy for the next ones to come.

my naivete ;)

ciao and thanx for the link. i'll go and read tonight.
(btw, jasper is very far from my idea of life and commitment.)

I'll ask this again in 2010.

The big item was called "The USA P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act". Can we get more ominous than that?

Bust the labor unions? Check

Justify all manner of atrocity by the Reichstag Fire (9/11)? Check

Place all the blame on irrelevant groups (Jews-Bolsheviks-Communists/Muslims-Cultural Elite-Liberals)? Check

We're certainly not hauling wheel barrels of dollar bills to the store in order to buy a single loaf of bread the way Germans were.

The Nazis didn't so much "bust" unions as subjugate them to the state (as they did everything else, for that matter).

For as extreme as the response to 9-11 was in some respects, we certainly didn't throw the House under the bus the way Germany did to the Reichstag. They may have been lax in fulfilling their duties, but they weren't rendered completely obsolete.

Mostly because the Chinese have so many of them, and thus they cannot be allowed to drop to 0 euro.

You really don't think that Bush was made emperor after 9/11?

We have 300,000,000 people, so our slide into fascism won't look exactly like Deutschland's. But if you believe we still live in a representative democracy, I envy your rose-colored glasses

I'm glad that we agree that the dollars devaluation is nothing compared to the monetary disaster that was 1930s Germany.

No, I don't think Bush was "made emperor after 9/11". For starters, if he were, he'd still be in power today.

There seems to be a lot of liberties taken with the term fascism on this board, which I get, the term has rarely ever been clearly defined, even by the best of historians. However, it seems pretty clear that a lot of the common components of fascism are missing in the United States today. Attempting to dismiss that and say "well, this is the NEW, UPDATED version!" fall pretty short. Without the violent stomping out of your political opponents, territorial expansion, etc. it simply isn't fascism...

Rampant unemployment? Check

A sense of helplessness and confusion in the populace? Check

A history of cover-ups and secrecy in the government? Check (Read about the death of Crown Prince Rudolph and Marian Vetsera and how the crown prince's father prevented the facts from becoming known. We still don't really know them. That's how tight the security and secrecy of the Austrian emperor was.) That is what Austrians were used to prior to becoming a republic.

And remember, Hitler was born and raised in Austria. That is why it is important to know the history of Austria if you wish to understand Hitler and WWII.

Rampant unemployment? Unemployment in the U.S. is sitting at around 10%, in Germany in '32 it was THREE TIMES that.

Between that figure, the humiliating loss of WWI, the victor's peace imposed upon Germany in the aftermath of the war, and the cultural changes that were taking place in Germany at this time, it clearly follows that any "helplessness and confusion" the German population felt was taking placeon a far greater scale than anything we're currently witnessing here in the United States.

Third, Hitler may have been born in Austria, but moved to Germany when he was three years old and always identified himself, first and foremost, as a German. In other words, while I'm sure the Austrian history you've read is quite interesting, the case that it's a central in understanding Hitler or WWII is pretty darned weak. Generally speaking, Austria during this period was reduced to reaction to events set in motion by the Germans during this period.

It was an Austrian bank. It went bankrupt and that set off (but did not necessarily cause) the great depression.

Our unemployment is far, far higher than 10%. I cannot tell you how many of my friends are unemployed and do not count. Many of us "retired" long before we wanted to.

Others lost their jobs a few years ago and have about given up on getting another one.

Others work at some excuse for a part-time job.

Others have returned to school to take courses -- to qualify for jobs that don't exist.

We are at least at 17% unemployment. At least, possibly much more.

The fortunes of the National Socialist German Workers Party changed with the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. Desperate for capital, the United States began to recall loans from Europe. One of the consequences of this was a rapid increase in unemployment. Germany, whose economy relied heavily on investment from the United States, suffered more than any other country in Europe.

Before the crash, 1.25 million people were unemployed in Germany. By the end of 1930 the figure had reached nearly 4 million, 15.3 per cent of the population. Even those in work suffered as many were only working part-time. With the drop in demand for labour, wages also fell and those with full-time work had to survive on lower incomes. Hitler, who was considered a fool in 1928 when he predicted economic disaster, was now seen in a different light. People began to say that if he was clever enough to predict the depression maybe he also knew how to solve it.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERunemployment.htm




After the war, inflation began to devaluate the Krone, still Austria's currency. In the autumn of 1922, Austria was granted an international loan supervised by the League of Nations.<34> The purpose of the loan was to avert bankruptcy, stabilise the currency, and improve its general economic condition. With the granting of the loan, Austria passed from an independent state to the control exercised by the League of Nations. In 1925, the Schilling, replacing the Krone by 10,000 : 1, was introduced. Later it was called the Alpine dollar due to its stability. From 1925 to 1929, economy enjoyed a short high before nearly crashing after Black Friday.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austria

but it was the failure of the Creditanstalt that set off the bank failures which culminated here in 1932 with massive bank failures.

The failure of the Creditanstalt set off all kinds of political tremblings that ended in the rise of Hitler and repression of the left and others who were made scapegoats for the excesses of the greedy.

...I would recommend that you read a little more about the rise of Germany after WW1.

All of the criteria that you list has been in place for decades. This is nothing new.

I pay close attention to the state of the union and am a student of history. We are not even CLOSE to what Germany was in the late 20's and 30s. The differences are far too great to twain the divide.

Bring on the missing white girls.


(Go Oliver!)
:patriot:

Bankers have gotten away with a LOT! It'll be interesting to see if Prescott Bush is left out or put in. But Americans need to know that corporate interests do not...and daresay never have equaled American interests. People need to know the history of criminal activity and the closets of skeletons these plutocrats have amassed. If Jesse Ventura's show Conspiracy Theory gets another season, I'd really like to see him do an episode on this.

We are more likely to become some kind of Brave New World consumer society reliant on cheap foreign imports and anti-depressants.

if that happened :spray:

I just dumped Showtime. I really, really want to see this. I wonder how soon Netflix will have it?

extra channels will be able to see it.

I hope he makes a DVD available.

Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain or Argentina during the 1970s reign of terror are better comparisons.

Life continues to look normal to the casual observer, but democracy is dead.

...and published in recent years by his son makes the exact point that life went on and most people were blissfully unaware of the coming storm. Change was so incremental, people were so busy just staying alive (like we are now) that they kept not noticing that they were "frogs being boilded in a pot."

We resemble all of the "isms" from the 1930s through the 1970s in various ways. A little here, a little there, so we're not exactly like any of them. But we're in trouble, big time!

There are some significant parallels--warning signs, useful precedents to study (and be very worried about!)--and also some rather large differences between our two countries, in general, and as a historical comparison to that era in Germany.

In addition to the parallels mentioned above by DJ13...

"State sponsored propaganda? Check

A nation increasingly militarized? Check

A "secret national police force"? Check

An increasingly fascist mix of business with government? Check"

...there are...

--perhaps the greatest danger of all: 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines, throughout the USA, with the 'TRADE SECRET' code owned and controlled by a handful of rightwing corporations**, and with hugely inadequate audit/recount controls--a parallel to Hitler's brownshirts, who stuffed ballot boxes and beat up leftist voters.

--the induced Great Depression conditions (--induced by the Bushwhacks Financial 9/11 in Sept 2008--the coup de grace of a series of policies since Reagan to destroy public services, privatize everything, destroy the large, progressive middle class and create a "banana republic" for massive global corporate predator and war profiteer exploitation)--parallel to the Great Depression impacts on Germany that were the conditions for Hitler's rise.

--the fragmentation of the center-left, and the inability of the center-left to govern the country (--corpo-fascists have hamstrung the US government and still control policy--a policy of looting and plunder; increasing poverty, wars, etc., could lead to BIG fragmentation of left and center, civil unrest and other disorder that could/will be dumped on Obama's head, to discredit "the liberals" and pave the way for Bush Junta II).

There are three main differences between Germany then, and the USA now:

1) This is a much bigger and much more culturally diverse country. It would be a hard country to control with Nazi Boots.

2) The democratic traditions in the US are very strong. They go back to our roots. Although Germany was the spark of the Reformation (more "free thinker"/individual conscience) religious rebellion against very corrupt, very rightwing and tyrannical Roman Catholic Church), and had some good socialist/liberal trends prior to Hitler, their roots were monarchical and possibly that is why they yielded so easily to outright tyranny. The tyrannical slime here are subtler in their tactics and have seriously subverted our democracy, but could they pull off a "Third Reich"?

2) The Bushwhacks were/are more thieves than Nazis. It's kind of odd, what the Bushwhacks did. They did NOT build the country up, into a great manufacturing and war machine--like Hitler did. They tore it down. They looted it. They outsourced millions of jobs. They let the banksters run wild, etc. Also, we did NOT see Nazi youth groups in the streets goose-stepping to Bush. Most people cringed when Bush or Cheney came on TV. There were ideological/brainwashing efforts by the Christian right, for instance, in support of the Bush Junta, but the Bush Junta's principle players were half-hearted Hitlers as to any big rallying of the people via ideology or passion "for the Fatherland." In fact, if you study the polls back through 2002 to the present, you find the great American progressive majority holding fast, for instance, opposing unjust war, opposing torture, supporting socialist programs like Social Security. Maybe Bush Junta II will be different, now that they have broken our backs economically and have so seriously attacked our laws and traditions. But I just don't see the majority of Americans goosestepping to anybody--unless and until things get really, really bad, and even then, I have some faith in the American people that it wouldn't work or couldn't be maintained.

-------------------------

One other thing that needs more thought and discussion--in a comparison to Hitler's Germany--and that is US militarism and building of an empire through conquest and domination. We are definitely on that path, and our corpos and war profiteers have gotten a lot further than Hitler did, as to the imperial ground that has been acquired and military domination of the world. The next imperial battle is very likely going to be against Venezuela--which is being set up as we speak--and I believe involves a "circle the wagons" strategy in the northern South America/Central America/Caribbean region, to gain control of all the oil in that region and to fend off the leftist/socialist democracy movement that has swept Latin America. It was creeping up through Central America, with leftist governments elected in Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala (and a leftist almost elected in Mexico a few years back). They dealt this movement a severe wound with the rightwing military coup in Honduras. Now they have death squads murdering leftists (one was found beheaded a few weeks ago) in Honduras (with only a cosmetic front of legitimate government to mask these horrors and to maintain US control of the country). But the most telling signs of an impending war are the huge US military buildup in Colombia (adjacent to Venezuela's main oil region), and the non-stop psypos/propaganda "Big Lie" campaign against Hugo Chavez and, by implication, against the people of Venezuela and Venezuela's many leftist allies in the region.

I frankly think that this is going to be the Pentagon's "Waterloo"--but we shouldn't underestimate the amount of carnage and grief that our war profiteers can inflict in losing a war--and the amount of economic and other blowback damage that the US war machine can inflict on us here. It is awful to contemplate, but we must contemplate it. We are--despite our powerlessness as a democratic people--responsible for it, deep in our democratic souls. We, the people of the US, are the ONLY sovereign rulers of this land--in theory, anyway--and we have a lot of work to do to make that theory real again. We are a peace-loving, courageous, enterprising and revolutionary people--and we have the right and the duty to change this country for the better. It is not going to be an easy task. But we must try. It is who we are.

The forces against us know this--they know who we are. That is why they have taken such trouble to loot us and to demoralize us--to degrade us with idiot puppets like Bush, to fool us with "liberal" placeholders like Obama and to confuse and disempower us. Believe me--these things are left-handed compliments. And the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines are the biggest left-handed compliment of all.

--------------------------------------



**(The 'TRADE SECRET' vote counting picture just got much worse, with ES&S scooping up Diebold (aka, 'Premier') into its evil fold. ES&S--which is worse than Diebold as to far rightwing connections--now has a 70% lock on the vote 'counting' in the US. Half the states in the US have no audit at all of the numbers that these 'TRADE SECRET' systems come up with, and the other half have extremely inadequate audits. The bad guys have the capability--the EASY capability--of fixing the numbers in any given election, for any office in the US, including president. And with the corpo-fascist press and the Democratic Party leadership in collusion, we have no recourse. That is the situation--and it's very, very bad. We need a massive citizen movement, at the local/state level, to change this, and it's going to take time. But I think it's the first layer of corporate rule that needs to be peeled back. Without the vote, we have no power. Without transparent vote counting, we have, in essence, lost our right to vote.)

I was drafting a post when I checked back in and read yours. Especially resonating was:

"The forces against us know this--they know who we are. That is why they have taken such trouble to loot us and to demoralize us--to degrade us with idiot puppets like Bush, to fool us with "liberal" placeholders like Obama and to confuse and disempower us. Believe me--these things are left-handed compliments. And the 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines are the biggest left-handed compliment of all."

As for the public and the demonstrations:

The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world against the imminent invasion of Iraq. Millions of people protested in approximately 800 cities around the world. According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests in up to sixty countries over the weekend of the 15th and 16th; other estimates range from eight million to thirty million.<1><2>
Some of the largest protests took place in Europe. The protest in Rome involved around 3 million people, and is listed in the 2004 Guinness Book of World Records as the largest anti-war rally in history.<3> Opposition to the war was highest in the Middle East, although protests there were relatively small. Mainland China was the only major region not to see any protests, but small demonstrations attended mainly by foreign students were seen later.<4>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest


Anti-war demonstrators rally around the world
Organizers put turnout in Washington at 200,000
Sunday, January 19, 2003 Posted: 8:22 AM EST (1322 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Americans across the nation publicly protested a possible war in Iraq on Saturday.
In Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, California, at the two largest peace rallies, the crowds were urged on by international peace activists, religious leaders, members of Congress, actors and musicians.
At least tens of thousands of people rallied on the Mall in Washington, and a similar-size group crowded downtown San Francisco.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/01/18/sproject.irq.us.protests/index.html



Just to show you how the public protest was minimized in 2003, I was at both SF demos and videotaped them. The one in January was so large, much larger than “tens of thousands,” that it took over 4 hours for the group to march, in close quarters from the Embarcadero down Market St. to the Civic Center Plaza. That is a constant stream of humanity, almost shoulder to shoulder, for 4 hours. It was at least 200,000. There were so many people attempting to get to downtown SF on that holiday to protest that BART had to open the turnstiles at all outlying stations to deal with the over-crowding that occurred on all the boarding platforms in the train stations. As it was in 2003 and as they have learned to do since those magical times of the 60s when public will actually was a factor, any display of public sentiment will be ignored and downplayed, drowned out by the corporate owned media. Nothing the voters or the demonstrators or the activists, or any well-meaning politician do will matter at all. Peace Patriot is right, the control of the vote has neutralized any notion of public will exercised for change for the foreseeable future.

Coming up on the 7th anniversary of the ongoing genocide in the middle east in the two active invasion/occupations our MIC is trying to maintain, what has slowed them down? Only their lack of any military success. But then they just move on to the next de-stabilized country and resume the bloodshed and chaos in the new venue. See Pakistan, next up Yemen, Iran and Syria. They would more likely bankrupt our nation in the continuation of these conquests than call for any halt in their march to dominate that region. They will always need oil to fuel the war machine. The military is the biggest consumer of oil and half of that oil is used simply to transport and burn the other half of it.

The lynchpin for this was always 9/11. As that event fades into the rearview mirror, it will be more and more difficult to dislodge that motivator for fear out of the American conscience. It will constantly be used to reinforce the notion of terror lurking somewhere just out of sight. Until a need is seen for a strategic strike. Almost always attributed to a Muslim terrorist group. What few desperate cells of anti-American militarism will be/have always been, fully infiltrated and neutralized to the point of constructively being on the PNAC’s payroll. Same as it ever was. 9/11 has to be the all time psy ops success in terms of propaganda and mass perception manipulation. It ranks right up there above the assassinations of the 60s in this country and the burning of the Reichstag in Germany. The MIC continues to march unabated, with no end in sight. No amount of alleged legislative will to end them has been displayed. Just the opposite is true with every single funding bill supported by both sides of the aisle. Even Mr. Obama never voted against any appropriation for the bloodshed once he was able to vote in the Senate. Now we see he is escalating in Afghanistan and extending the military operations to Pakistan where a considerable another political vacuum exists, to what end? Do you have faith that when the violence resumes if we ever achieve a full pullout in Iraq, or when the Taliban or whatever indigenous forces within Afghanistan/Pakistan decide to implement their own escalation, how long we will be in that part of the world trying to assert the will of the neocons?

No amount of public outcry will slow them down. The reactionary forces are firmly embedded throughout all elements of government and business. They will continue until the ability to wage these illegal campaigns becomes unsustainable. If that ever occurs.

They will continue until they ruin as many countries around the globe as they see fit, and of course our own country in that process.
There is no hope to change this direction, no will, no ability, no public uprising to save our souls, except and unless Mother Earth sees fit to end our little cycle of humanity.
In an apocalyptic mood for sure.
rdb

particularly, with regard to voting machines, I've got to point out a few things. First, with regard to state sponsored propaganda, I'm not sure how much of a sign of fascism this really is, considering how some of the Nazi use of propaganda was inspired by us to begin with. Goebbels was impressed with the way British and American propaganda had helped motivate the people during WWI, he took many of those ideas and used them for other ends - which is the other part of this that really needs to be considered. Is the problem that there is state sponsored propaganda (as far as I'm concerned, all states do this to one degree or another) or is the problem WHAT that propaganda was used for?

Secondly, I'm not sure the "increasingly fascist mix of business with politics" is a given, especially considering how what fascism WAS, by definition, was always changing - even with Mussolini who is widely credited with coining the term. I wouldn't mind hearing a broader explanation, though as far as I'm concerned, fascism is not an easily defineable term that allows us to easily pin point fascism wherever it occurs. Hell, half the time Mussolini simply defined fascism as "action" - what action? Well, whichever ones HE was taking at the time. Not a lot of ideology behind it, especially when compared to say...communism or anarchism.

With regard to the differences, I would also say you've overlooked some major ones, without which the Nazis wouldn't have risen to power.

The first of these was the complete lack of dedication by all sides to democratic government within Germany. Whether it was the Nazis, the Communists, or otherwise, when it came down to it, no one was truly dedicated to principle of democratic governance in Germany and, in fact, were willing to paralyze the Reichstagg for years through political games, ensuring its failure. I'm not sure one can make the same case with democratic governance in the United States. While there is gridlock at times, it's usually worked through, and no one is using it in an attempt to further their chances at an armed uprising/seizure of power the way we witnessed in 1930s Germany.

The second importance difference, and I'm not sure I can stress this enough, is the fear some Germans had at the prospect of a Soviet-styled uprising taking place in Germany. Germany's elites were hardly oblivious to what had unfolded in Russia during the Revolution and when one keeps in mind the gains the far Left was making during this period AND Russia's generally close proxity, it isn't hard to see why their fears were amplified to the point where backing someone like Hitler seemed like a reasonable alternative. There's nothing even remotely comparable to this situation in the United States today.

The third important difference is the effect that losing WWI had on Germans, the feelings of betrayal and resentment felt by those who fought in that war, as well as the glorification of the violence of WWI by those who were too young to have actually fought in it themselves. This was a huge motivator, across the board, not just in Germany, but in Italy, where fascism was spawned.

There are other important differences as well, but I've rambled on enough for one post. As I see it, fears of a repeat of what occured in Germany, or even Italy, are a bit unfounded.

Do you know what one of the rightwing coup generals in Honduras said? He said that, by their coup, they were "preventing communism from Venezuela reaching the United States."

There is the "brown menace"--"illegal immigrants" from the "brown" south infiltrating our lily whiteness--and now they're commies.

Admittedly, this is not YET comparable to Germany/the Soviet Union--but it concerns me.

---

"As I see it, fears of a repeat of what occured in Germany, or even Italy, are a bit unfounded."

It is and will be different, for sure. I pointed to one important difference--the subtlety of our corporate ruler/war profiteer oppressors. That could change, and, really, began to change with the Bush Junta. A lot of people feared martial law and "nazi boots" with them--with very good reason. We've now gone back to subtle. Is this the calm before the storm?

I was trying to stay on topic, so I didn't go into implications of the differences, as to how tyranny works here and could get even worse. Consider the Bush Junta, the Supreme Court coup of 2000, and the Diebold coup of 2004. I don't think Bush/Cheney were elected either time. It was a putsch, that the corpo-fascist media aided and abetted, as did our Democratic Party leaders. Nazis marching down the street, maybe not. But a powerless people in a supposed democracy dragged into a horrendously unjust war, and into bankruptcy? It not only can happen. It did happen. So, how are those who are calling shots going to use these powers--over the media, over the voting machines, over our military, over our Constitution--next? How are they going to fool and/or disempower people next?

no one really believes that "communism from Venezuela" truly threatens the elite of the United States - at least not in the way that the German elites felt threatened in Germany during the 1930s. No one goes to bed at night knowing in the back of their minds that leftists, using Venezuela as their inspiration, might rise up at any moment and throw them in jail or kill them.

Well, to me, that's the kicker. If it's not reliant upon physically stomping out the opposition, is it really fascism? As I said in my earlier post, fascism is a difficult term to define, however, it does seem clear that wherever its sprouted up, physically stomping out the opposition has always been a key element.

Personally, while I have concerns over control of the voting machines and remain upset over the appointment of Bush in 2000, I'm unconvinced that Kerry had the election stolen from him. As I saw it, he ran a very shoddy campaign, though perhaps we should postpone this particular aspect until a more relevant thread arises. I don't know.

which were fast-tracked all over the country with a $3.9 billion e-voting boondoggle from the Anthrax Congress, with no requirement for audit/recount controls--FOR?

Hm? Why do this? Why transform transparent vote counting to NON-transparent vote counting, just in time for 2004, and four more years of massive looting and war?

'TRADE SECRET' voting machines are obviously, blatantly, egregiously wrong and anti-democratic. There can be no other purpose to non-transparent vote counting systems, run by a handful of rightwing corporations, BUT stealing elections.

Can you prove that Kerry lost? No, you cannot. And don't you find that mindbogglingly odd? Shouldn't there be a "paper trail" somewhere, that somebody counted, or could count, to check on those numbers? There isn't. In half the states in the U.S., there is NO paper trail, nada, nothing. And in the other half, they may have a "paper trail" but they DON'T COUNT 99% of it!

So, whether Kerry won or lost is UNKNOWN. And, in that circumstance, you must presume fraud. It's rather like a bank that has 'disappeared' all of its financial records, on purpose. That. In itself. Is. Fraud.

AND....**AND**...there is ALSO circumstantial evidence of fraud all over the landscape of the 2004 election.

The purpose of fast-tracking 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines all over the country IS so that nobody can prove it.

Thanks for all the many hours you've spent explaining things so well here.

The Nazis, for all their evil, built up the country instead of tearing it down. Most people's living standards went up, not down, during the pre-war period.

The strengthening was in preparation for an attempt to conquer the world, but a lot of people were seduced into complacency by the improvement in their material standards.

But that said, there are plenty of bad choices I do think Obama is taking half measures toward. I don't agree with Stone's conclusions most of the time, but he never puts together a piece of work that's not worth thinking about.

Lots o' the same family lines, too.



Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI

We can both read the same language, I hope.

What I read is him asking a reasonable question: How can we not learn from Germany in the 1930s?

I've been asking myself the same thing for about 35 years now.

Sometimes I think we'll debate whether it's appropriate to ever mention that example in connection with anything else, ever, right up until a nuclear war happens.