Welcome to Germany, 1933

[AnnInLa]

First, this from Dem Vet:

http://www.usndemvet.com/blog/archives/002974.html


Welcome to Germany, 1933

snip

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

The Pentagon has pushed legislation on Capitol Hill that would create an intelligence exception to the Privacy Act, allowing the FBI and others to share information gathered about U.S. citizens with the Pentagon, CIA and other intelligence agencies, as long as the data is deemed to be related to foreign intelligence. Backers say the measure is needed to strengthen investigations into terrorism or weapons of mass destruction.

snip

snip

The measure, she said, "removes one of the few existing privacy protections against the creation of secret dossiers on Americans by government intelligence agencies." She said the Pentagon's "intelligence agencies are quietly expanding their domestic presence without any public debate." In addition, each of the military services has begun its own post-9/11 collection of domestic intelligence, primarily aimed at gathering data on potential terrorist threats to bases and other military facilities at home and abroad. For example, Eagle Eyes is a program set up by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, which "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the program's Web site.

Comment by Dem Vet:

OK, wait a fucking minute here...this is the US of A, right? We are supposed to have civilian oversight of military activities unless I misunderstood 9th grade civics. So now the 1600 Crew has succeeded in bringing us one step closer to Grampaw Prescott's carefully supported, chosen government, Nazi Germany. We have laws like Posse Comitatus for a reason, and here we're getting a circumvention by the military being it's own self-propelled judge, jury and executioner against American Citizens. Fuck that.

Then this from Jesus' General:

http://patriotboy.blogspot.com/2005_11_20_patriotboy_archive.html#113306503944371091

Saturday, November 26, 2005

The General and the State Security Apparatus

Lafayette points to a Dem Vet article about domestic spying by the Counterintelligence Field Activity (CIFA). CIFA's been reading Jesus' General for over a year (seriously, this is not a joke). I feel much safer knowing that.

I've always wondered if it was because I asked the government of Iran to fix a pothole in front of my house (again, I'm serious--it's the only reason I can think of for being on their radar). The timing's right. I first learned that CIFA was monitoring Jesus' General in the Spring of 2004.

Are they reading your blog too?

Update: Via Talk Left I've learned that Uncommon Thoughts also received visits from CIFA.

[AnnInLa]

1. Lefty Bloggers Are Worried, Outraged

From today's TalkLeft.com:

Beware CIFA: Defense Dept. Plans to Step Up Domestic Surveillance

This is scary stuff. From Walter Pincus at the Washington Post:

The Defense Department has expanded its programs aimed at gathering and analyzing intelligence within the United States, creating new agencies, adding personnel and seeking additional legal authority for domestic security activities in the post-9/11 world.

The moves have taken place on several fronts. The White House is considering expanding the power of a little-known Pentagon agency called the Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, which was created three years ago. The proposal, made by a presidential commission, would transform CIFA from an office that coordinates Pentagon security efforts -- including protecting military facilities from attack -- to one that also has authority to investigate crimes within the United States such as treason, foreign or terrorist sabotage or even economic espionage.

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/013235.html



Pincus reports that all branches of the military are now involved in the snoop and tell business:
snip and some clickable links:

Some CIFA links to note:

* 2002 DOD Directive on CIFA
* 2004 Wall St. Journal article (free link)
* 2004 Military.com Article
* Harris Technical Services Corporation (HTSC) gets contract to provide services to CIFA. They even advertised for employees to work on CIFA matters. Unisys was given a five year contract with CIFA. ISX and Sytex also work for CIFA.

If you'd like to know if CIFA is keeping information on you, here's how you can find out:

Individuals seeking to determine whether information about themselves is contained in this system of records should address written inquiries to the Privacy and Freedom of Information Coordinator, Counterintelligence Field Activity, 251 18th Street, Suite 1200, Arlington, VA, 22202-3537.

Requests should contain the individual's name, date of birth, sufficient information to determine the type of records being sought, and the approximate date the records might have been created.

It's time blogs began broadcasting this information. Why blogs? CIFA has been reading at least two: Jesus's General and Uncommon Thoughts reports on finding CIFA in its stats.
Posted Sunday :: November 27, 2005| Civil Liberties

[Silverhair]

2. It has been worse before. Yes, here in USA.

Take a look at some of the things Wilson did in 1917. There was genuine press censorship, here in America. And tens of thousands of people signed up to watch their neighbors for unpatriotic activities. Criticizing the gov't became illegal.

But the country came though it.

[Sapphocrat]

25. True. What's scary is that what happened here, then...

...is what's happening now, in Australia, especially in terms of trying to criminalize criticism of the government. Seriously.

It's been said that Australia, the de facto 51st state, is the testing ground for the U.S. to see just how much oppression the people with put up with. (And why not? We've virtually owned Australia in everything but name at least since the Gough Whitlam debacle.)

If you want to know what they may pull on us here, look at what they're doing Down Under. Right now, Oz is in the first stages of their own "Patriot Act" era -- only their proposed "anti-terror" legislation is a lot worse than anything we've faced yet.

Watch what the Australian people do: If they let this happen without a whimper, we're in for a lot worse.

[indepat]

29. I'd never call these modern-day fascists Nazis, but they've copied a good

bit of the Nazi playbook and implemented a frightening number of the plays.

[mia]

3. Another indicator: Phase I Drug Trials Used Foster Care children

We have learned that a series of Phase I and Phase II drug experiments were conducted on infants and children who were under the guardianship of the New York City Agency for Children's Services (ACS), and living at Incarnation Children's Center, a foster care facility under contract with ACS. The test subjects were children diagnosed with HIV infection - in some cases infants who were merely "presumed" to be HIV-infected. Phase I and Phase II experiments involve the greatest level of risk and discomfort for children insofar as they test the safety and toxicity of the drugs as well as maximum dose tolerance.

The New York State Department of Health guidelines for children and adolescents, and those of the New York City Agency for Children's Services, facilitate and encourage the enrollment of vulnerable children in foster care - who are wards of the state - in experimental research that exposes them to significant risks of drug toxicity and adverse drug side-effects. Such experiments are unlikely to have any benefit for the test subjects.

http://www.ahrp.org/ahrpspeaks/HIVkids0304.php

[alcibiades_mystery]

4. Again?

Yawn...

People have been "welcoming" others to Germany 1933 for as long as this board has been around.

You know what I think? I think this is NOTHING like Germany 1933. Zero. Without legitimate comparison. That's what I think.

[zippy890]

5. were you there?

in Germany in the 1930's.

just wondering

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. No...I wasn't in ancient Rome either

But I think I know enough about the history to say that what we have is remarkably different.

What's your point?

[zippy890]

14. such an unequivocal and emphatic statement

would lead one to believe that you had lived in Germany in 1933.

I don't think anyone would say that its exactly the same, but when viewing events there are historical parallels that can be made which are important to consider if we are to move forward in the right direction.

for example, the fervant nationalism that is used by our government and republicans has proven dangerous and harmful.

Hitler used nationalism to further his agenda.

There are similarities.

[Yupster]

27. By December of 1933, opposition parties

were banned in Germany, opposition leaders had fled the country or been arrested and sent to Dachau.

No this really isn't Germany in 1933.

If it was Hillary Clinton would be in GitMo, Ted Kennedy would be dead and we sure as hell would't be posting criticism of the government.

[Jim Sagle]

30. That's all scheduled for NEXT year.

;-)

[teamster633]

7. from weyrich.com:

ANALYSIS
The events in 1933 can be summarized as follows:
*While it is not clear whether the Nazis intentionally set the Reichstag fire(just as we cannot prove that Bushco is guilty of LIHOP or MIHOP)in order to create a national crisis, or whether the Nazis simply were opportunistic, the event was used as justification for a sharp curtailment in constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties.
*The Nazis took advantage of the additional Federal police powers to suppress opponents.
*It is clear that in other situations, the Nazis did use the tactic of creating a "law and order" crisis so that they could provide a solution which further eroded civil liberties and entrenched their power.
*The right-wing Nazis and the left-wing communists were cut from the same cloth -- the point is not that the far right destroyed civil rights. Rather, the point is that a democracy can be destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority.

[alcibiades_mystery]

11. I would argue against the notion that the KPD

was "cut from the same cloth" as the NSDAP.

I'd also argue that the economic conditions, the memories of the lost war, the cultural attitudes (towards minorities as well as general culture), and the transition from a military culture make Germany 1933 so different that the surface similarities are just that - minor surface similarities that are only really similarities to an untrained eye. "Civil liberties" and "state's rights" and "unaccountable central authority" didn't even have the same meaning in Germany at the time as they have in our culture. I mean, the country had a friggin' monarch and de facto military government as recently as 15 years before! Are you kidding?

[teamster633]

13. I can't really comment on the NSDAP/KPD issue Weyrich raises.

But
economic conditions:
the Germans were fucked and they knew it---so far our collective borrowing(at the national and at the personal level) has succeeded in allowing most of us to deny our eminent national bankruptcy. Most honest people in our land would admit to having disquieting doubts, however. No panic in the streets, not yet.

memories of the lost war:
Vietnam lacks the magnitude of World War I without a doubt, but the psychological effects it had on the collective consciousness of the US can't be dismissed either, being that it was the first war we lost, and being that many citizens blame this loss on the unpatriotic, even traitorous actions of their fellow citizens.

cultural attitudes:
the prevailing cultural attitudes of the US in 2005 are in no way above reproach. They may differ from Germany in the 1930's in degree, but not in kind.

military culture: we've sat astride the entire globe for sixty years now. Many of those years we had to share this dominance with the former Soviet Union, perhaps like two Consuls shared power in the Roman Republic. We were not elevated to this position by popular acclamation. We've done our best to impose our will on all those who would oppose our rightful exploitation of all that we deem to be in our national interest. We haven't risen to our present position by arguing our case before the United Nations. I would argue that our projection of power is militaristic, perhaps you disagree.

civil liberties, state's rights, unaccountable central authority: I'm pretty sure that none of these concepts had the same meaning in 1930's America either. The fact that Germany did not have as far to fall into the fascist hell it became than we might have to is again, a difference in degree, not in kind. As to their monarchy, I recall that being a pretty common feature in European governments of the 19th century. If I'm not mistaken, our ally in 'George's Great Iraqi Adventure', the United Kingdom, still has one.

to conclude:
no "I'm not kidding." In case I didn't make it clear enough, my original post was clipped in it's entirety from a web page attributed to Paul Weyrich. None of the arguments you make seem to address his primary contention, and the contention that I thought was relevant to the OP: "...a democracy can be destroyed by creating a law-and-order crisis and offering as a 'solution' the abdication of civil liberties and state's rights to a powerful but unaccountable central authority." The fact that 1930's Germany didn't have a perfect democracy does not preclude the validity of this assertion.

[EuroObserver]

26. Ah, but:

"just as we cannot prove that Bushco is guilty of LIHOP or MIHOP" - assume you're referring to 9/11 where it's looks lke one can at least prove bushco's complicity in a coverup.

[Inland]

22. I disagree.

I'm not one for hyperbole, either, but I think it's fair to say that we are in the grips of a proto-fascist party.

The yearning for a Great Leader is painfully apparent. Why else is there a sizable contingent who admire Bush for sticking to his decisions...even when admitting the decisions are wrong? Why else is there a sizable contingent who find the only means of uniting the country is by everybody backing the Commander in Chief in a war, a term now used by civilians as well as military? Why else is there a sizable contingent finding the REAL enemy to be here at home, in deviants, cosmopolitans, and civil libertarians? I didn't put the book on the shelves entitled Treason.

And what purpose is Congress or the Courts serving nowadays? The republican caucases sole function is to act as foot soldiers in the president's army, and the court's function is removed by a single piece of paper signed by the president declaring an American citizen and enemy combatant. There's an empire where nobody but the President is allowed to know what is going on, and most of our representatives are unwilling to ask.

What is Bush besides an elected dictator, where he is given plenary power for four year stretches after elections that are based on media control, money, and a rube goldberg system that has been gerrymandered from bottom to top?

All that's left is calling off the elections altogether.

[dusmcj]

6. yes, it is

Thanks, AnnInLa.

Yes, it is like Germany in 1933. No, I wasn't there. I can read, just like you can. Remove civil liberties, "for our own good". Prescribe acceptable behavior rather than proscribing unacceptable behavior. Encourage mindless respect for authority and power, and conditioned self-censorship, aka being "Under Control" and "Connected". Create a pervasive domestic monitoring apparatus, involving both government agencies, and fellow citizens, a la the "informellen Mitarbeiter" (informal coworkers) of the East German Stasi. Eliminate fundamental checks against abuse of government power such as habeas corpus, posse comitatus, etc. Prepare for appearance of overt dictatorship.

Oh, and by the way, in case Germany 1933 is sacrosanct as a standard of comparison for fascist corruption because we want to preserve the special status of the Nazi crimes as a particular standard of bad behavior, that approach will shelter the same usual suspects operating here and now who operated then, there. It's too easy an excuse to "go easy" because we're uncomfortable for one reason or another with acknowledging that what's going on here is exactly the same. The question arises whether we're squeamish about calling a spade a spade because we're not quite committed to our evaluation of the current situation, or maybe even are uneasy for some reason about comparing some particular party (in the sense of individual or collective entity, not political 'party' - and no, calling the GOP Nazis would be a simplistic mistake) to the Nazis, which would clearly flag them as a problem. Let's get over it, shall we ? The tactics are the same, and the danger is the same. (And I note that the same family is involved as pointed out above.)

[AnnInLa]

10. Hear, Hear....Well, said

and succinctly expressed.

[Deja Q]

8. How have their current initiatives curbed terrorism?

It seems they're more interested in stopping brothels and online downloading (unless it's steeped in "DRM", aka "corporate fascism") than terrorism. Plenty of news articles and real-life events that these terrorism-initiated programs have shown NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE.

In a word: Katrina.

[converted_democrat]

12. This really bothers me. This is an attempt to circumvent

Posse Comitatus, pure and simple.

[earth mom]

15. That and more....!

can't believe the naysayers on this thread. :puke:

[converted_democrat]

28. I think people of all stripes don't want to believe this stuff is actually

happening in our country.

[hootinholler]

16. Kickin it. needs more recs. n/t

[bonito]

18. Yep n/t

[mucifer]

17. seems more like the American Hoover era than nazism

yes it's horrible we need to fight it.

[niallmac]

19. Hoover era? How so?

All this Big Brother stuff? Was this a Hoover fetish? I didn't think Hoover did anything but protect big business.:shrug:

[mucifer]

20. he spyed on everyone. He had massive crazy files.

FBI hoover, not the president.

[niallmac]

21. Ha Ha! Got my Hoovers mixed up.

Vacuum cleaners? What do vacuum cleaners have to do with it?:shrug: :dunce: :rofl:

[Clara T]

23. The Swastika or the Swooshtika

Fascism is very different for very different places. A caricature of fascism as identified by a funny-mustached German guy does not reveal the true depths of this fascistic characteristic that now, and perhaps always, defines America. We are an obedient group of hominids that have been immersed in an authoritarian cult since the inception of the cumulative flag.

Fences and borders
Control

[Dunvegan]

24. There's a very good piece on compare and contrast...

...that actually reads non-hysterically at the Crisis Papers.

http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm

Excerpt:

--snip--

Given their built-in weakness and their willingness to swallow the most outrageous Big Lies emanating from the propaganda ministry and the media, most Germans were fruit waiting to be plucked by the Nazi harvesters. "They still fall for anything. After all that, I do not see that one can blame the majority of Germans who, in 1933, believed that the Reichstag fire was the work of the Communists. What one can blame them for, and what shows their terrible collective weakness of character clearly for the first time during the Nazi period, is that this settled the matter. With sheepish submissiveness the German people accepted that, as a result of the fire, each one of them lost what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the constitution; as though it followed as a necessary consequence."

In short, what should have been a strong political and moral opposition movement to Hitlerian policies, meekly acceded to the destruction of their country's institutions of law and social harmony. The result in society was a clear leaning toward the dynamic, muscular policies advocated by the Nazis, and a seething "anger and disgust with the cowardly treachery of their own leadership."

Of course, fear of police-state action always was operative. "Join the thugs to avoid being beaten up. Less clear was a kind of exhilaration, the intoxication of unity, the magnetism of the masses. Many also felt a need for revenge against those who had abandoned them. Then there was a peculiarly German line of thought: 'All the predictions of the opponents of the Nazis have not come true. They said the Nazis could not win. Now they have won. Therefore the opponents were wrong. So the Nazis must be right.' There was also (particularly among intellectuals) the belief that they could change the face of the Nazi Party by becoming a member, even now shift its direction."

--snip--


And so it becomes easier to simply permit oneself to sink, ever so slowly into this collective illness, into accommodation with the ruling party, even though the police-state is constantly violating citizens' privacy. "We were pursued into the farthest corners of our private lives; in all areas of life there was rout, panic, and flight. No one could tell where it would end. At the same time we were called upon, not to surrender, but to renege. Just a little pact with the devil -- and you were no longer one of the captured quarry. Instead you were one of the victorious hunters."

-------

There is much more good argument in this review of the posthumous account of pre-war Germany by Sebastian Haffner. The book is titled "Defying Hitler". The manuscript was found, stuffed away in a drawer, by Haffner's son in 1999 after his father's death at age 91.