|
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.)
|