quote:
Originally posted by Captain Sammitch:
You couldn't have Orwell without a functional socialism. I may not be a political expert but I know that much based on literary comprehension. I seriously doubt this country will have a functional socialism for some time. Although sometimes I wonder... [mwah hwah haa]
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

The simple fact that people are so certain that this can never happen here is a recipe for complacency. The Patriot Act has many parralells with the German ‘Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation’ that was enacted after the Reichstag fire. It was more commonly known as the Enabling Act. It turned what was a democratic government into the fascist one we remeber from WWII.

quote:
Last September, German Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin pointed out that George Bush is using Iraq to distract the American public from his failed domestic policies. She capped her statement by reminding her audience: "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did that." She was chastised so severely that she soon recanted. But let's face it, she was right on the money. Rather than recanting, she should have clarified. She wasn't comparing Bush to the Hitler of the late 1930s and early 1940s; she was comparing him to the Hitler of the late 1920s and early 1930s. And if the jackboot fits . . .



What most Americans have forgotten about Hitler (or never knew in the first place) is that he came to power legally. He and his Nazi Party were elected democratically in a time of great national turmoil and crisis. They themselves had done much to cause the turmoil, of course, but that's what makes the Bush comparison so compelling.



Like the Bush administration, the Nazis were funded and ultimately ushered into power by wealthy industrialists looking for government favors in the form of tax breaks, big subsidies, and laws to weaken the rights of workers. When the Reichstag (Germany's Parliament building) was set ablaze in 1933(probably by Nazis), the Nazis framed their political rivals for it. In the general panic that followed, the German Parliament was purged of all left-wing representatives who might be soft on communists and foreigners, and the few who remained then VOTED to grant Chancellor Hitler dictatorial powers. The long, hideous nightmare had begun.
http://www.grant-greens.org/Patriot%20Act%20II.htm

Of course the usual suspects will probably denounce me as a Bush basher. I however can sleep soundly knowing I'm questioning Bush's authority as I rightfully should as an American. If I'm wrong well no harm no foul, if I'm right then i'll be content in the fact that I spoke up when so many didn't.

Recent history though doesn't bode well though. I'm always surprised that so many people were so easily dismissive of Iran/Contra and Oliver North's plan to intern dissidents in times of unpopular war and to suspend the Constitution. Nice to see most of these guys have returned under Dubya's reign. It doesn't take much to look back a few decades and see the parrallels to Nazi Germany.