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Gott Mit Uns: On Bush and Hitler's Rhetoric |
Current rating: 0 |
by Bob Fitrakis
(No verified email address) |
02 Sep 2004
|
Both Bush and Hitler believe that they were chosen by God to lead their nations. With Hitler boldly proclaiming, before launching his doctrine of preventive war against all of Europe, that "I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany."
President Bush told Texas evangelist James Robinson that "I feel like God wants me to run for President." |
President Bush told Texas evangelist James Robinson that "I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen . . . I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it."
With 49.3% of New York City residents in a recent Zogby poll believing that some people in our government knew of the 911 attack in advance and allowed it to happen, the President as right-wing evangelical prophet is under siege in his Madison Square Garden bunker. Convention watchers should take careful note of the theocratic nationalist rhetoric at the Republican convention this week.
When was the last time a Western nation had a leader so obsessed with God and claiming God was on our side?
If you answered Adolph Hitler and Nazi Germany, you're correct. Nothing can be more misleading than to categorize Hitler as a barbaric pagan or Godless totalitarian, like Stalin.
Both Bush and Hitler believe that they were chosen by God to lead their nations. With Hitler boldly proclaiming, before launching his doctrine of preventive war against all of Europe, that "I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany."
"I follow the path assigned to me by Providence with the instinctive sureness of a sleepwalker," Hitler said.
Hitler stated in February 1940, "But there is something else I believe, and that is that there is a God. . . . And this God again has blessed our efforts during the past 13 years." After the Iraqi invasion, Bush announced, "God told me to strike at al Qaeda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did . . . ." Neither the similarity between Hitler and Bush's religious rhetoric nor the fact that the current President's grandfather was called "Hitler's Angel" by the New York Tribune for his financing of the Fuher's rise to power is lost on Europeans.
Pat Robertson called Bush "a prophet" and Ralph Reed claimed, after the 9/11 attack, God picked the President because "he knew George Bush had the ability to lead in this compelling way." Hitler told the German people in March 1936, "Providence withdrew its protection and our people fell, fell as scarcely any other people heretofore. In this deep misery we again learn to pray. . . . The mercy of the Lord slowly returns to us again. And in this hour we sink to our knees and beseech our almighty God that he may bless us, that He may give us the strength to carry on the struggle for the freedom, the future, the honor, and the peace of our people. So help us God."
At the beginning of Hitler's crusade on April 12, 1922, he spelled out his version of the warmongering Jesus: "My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter." Randall Balmer in The Nation, noted that "Bush's God is the eye-for-an- eye God of the Hebrew prophets and the Book of Revelation, the God of vengeance and retribution."
As Bush has invoked the cross of Jesus to simultaneously attack the Islamic and Arab world, Hitler also saw the value of exalting the cross while waging endless war: "To be sure, our Christian Cross should be the most exalted symbol of the struggle against the Jewish-Marxist-Bolshevik spirit.
Like Bush-ites, Hitler was fond of invoking the Ten Commandments as the foundation of Nazi Germany: "The Ten Commandments are a code of living to which there's no refutation. These precepts correspond to irrefragable needs of the human soul."
But if you ever wondered where Bush got his idea for so-called "faith-based initiatives" you need only consult Hitler's January 30, 1939 speech to the Reichstag. The Fuhrer begins, "Amongst the accusations which are directed against Germany in the so-called democracy is the charge that the National Socialist State is hostile to religion."
Hitler goes on to document how much "public monies derived from taxation through the organs of the State have been placed at the disposal of both churches [Protestant and Catholic]." Hitler gave nearly 1.8 billion Reichsmarks between 1933-1938 directly to the Christian churches. In 1938 alone, he bragged that the Nazis gave half a billion Reichsmarks from the national government and an additional 92 million Reichsmarks from the Nazi-controlled German states and parish associations.
Hitler made the intent of his faith-based initiative clear when he noted, "With a tenth of our budget for religion, we would thus have a Church devoted to the State and of unshakable loyalty. . . . the little sects, which receive only a few hundred thousand marks, are devoted to us body and soul."
Bush's assertion that "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job" brings to mind God as a dull-witted, cognitively-impaired nationalist unable to utter a simple declarative sentence who spends his time preaching "blessed are the warmongers and profit-makers."
Bob Fitrakis is the Editor of the Free Press (freepress.org), a political science professor, attorney and co-author with Harvey Wasserman of George W. Bush vs. the Superpower of Peace.
All content © 2004 The Columbus Free Press
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Prime-time Republicans are Hard to Take |
by Hugh Pearson
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
02 Sep 2004
|
As I watched Tuesday night's network coverage of the unrelenting political propaganda hour known as the Republican National Convention, the first thought that came to mind was of old newsreels of those self-congratulatory Nazi rallies held in Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler.
For many people, I'm sure, such a comparison sounds extreme. Yet, just as the Nazis were obsessed with endless displays of swastikas, the Republicans are obsessed with the red, white and blue (for that matter, the Democrats are, too).
In the same manner that the German people were told that Nazi leadership was faultless, the Republicans are telling the American public that no one knows what's best for the world except the current leadership in the White House.
"If you believe this country and not the United Nations is the best hope for democracy, then you are a Republican!" bellowed California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
In the same way that Nazis rationalized doing away with democratic rights and launching a pre-emptive war to protect the self-interests of the Third Reich, Republicans this week continue to encourage the American public to ignore our Constitution's directive that only Congress has the right to declare war (thus, we are not officially at war with anyone), and that a pre-emptive war with no exit strategy will actually protect "the American way of life," rather than further endanger it.
Simultaneously, on the streets of New York City, the police are responding to dissent by protesters from around the country with a mild approximation of the kind of crackdown that happened decades ago in Germany. Tuesday night they arrested close to 1,000 protesters in an attempt to make sure the demonstrators couldn't come close to displaying to a world shocked by the mess our government has made of its foreign policy that, indeed, dissent in America is alive and well.
With the cooperation from the broadcast media, there were ominous signs that the Republicans have every intention of continuing to dumb down the American public, turning us into collective putty in their hands. Indications came not only from the propaganda espoused by Schwarzenegger, but in the performance of President George W. Bush's twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna. Having the audacity to stand in front of the convention like two bored rich girls at a coming out party, they told the audience: "Since we've graduated from college, we're looking around for something to do for the next few years..."
How about suiting up and joining the front-line troops your father has sent to fight in Iraq, in his misdirected effort to protect your privileged existence?
After watching this convention on television, about the only sign I could find that the Republicans have any understanding of the real struggles facing those in this nation without the privileges epitomized by the president's daughters came from the mouth of the president's wife, Laura Bush. Our first lady acknowledged that making the ideal of freedom in America real has been an arduous task.
What neither she nor anyone else speaking from the podium acknowledged is that the economic and foreign policy facts of life in America are about as far from Republican fantasies as Crawford, Texas, is from New York City.
Convention speakers want us to believe that decisiveness from our current president, even if you disagree with where he has led us, beats the wishy-washy pronouncements from the mouth of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.
Given the tone of what Republicans have been telling us at their convention about the direction George W. Bush is leading us - and the way they are delivering the message - let us not forget one other thing: Hitler was decisive, too.
Hugh Pearson is currently working on a biography of James Weldon Johnson and is a publisher of the Web site, NYAge.Net.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
http://www.newsday.com |
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Brownshirts Dressed in Blue? |
by Stephen M. Osborn
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
02 Sep 2004
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I have observed the Republican fascist takeover of our government with great trepidation, as I am a student of history. The parallels with the Germany of the 30's are frightening. The Weimar Republic was under attack and the economy was failing. They could have balanced the budget, but chose not (or were not allowed) to tax the wealthy Junkers, the owners of most of the agriculture and heavy industry of Germany. Instead, the burden fell on the middle classes.
Hitler had written his plan for Germany and the World in Mein Kampf and there was little of freedom in it. The Nazis had a small minority in the Reichstag, but there was a large organization of thugs known as the SA, or Brownshirts. These stormtroopers protected Hitler’s rallies by driving off or beating up on the opposition. They destroyed polling booths and drove off opposition party voters at the polls, stole ballot boxes, and generally brutalized any opposition. Hitler made a pact with the army Officer Corps and the Junkers, that the army would be rebuilt and supplied. They would be given free rein. The Junkers would not be taxed or their profits reduced by the Nazi government. They poured huge amounts into the Nazi coffers, which was used to fuel a propaganda machine unmatched until today.
The Nazis finally won and took power. Hitler quickly suborned the Reichstag into a rubber stamp congress for his programs. He used a phony terrorist act (The SS set fire to the Riechstag Building and blamed it on the communists) to clamp down on the people, for their own security of course.
“Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of freedom of expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications; and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permitted beyond the legal limit otherwise prescribed.”
No, that is not a quote from the PATRIOT ACT, it is taken from a decree “for the Protection of the People and the State” issued on 28 February 1933, the day after the Reichstag fire, suspending the seven sections of the Weimar constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties. It was described as a “defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state.”
Once the Nazis had consolidated their power, newspapers or radio stations expressing opposition were either shut down, or the Brownshirts destroyed their presses and offices. As the newspapers were suppressed, they were “bought” by Nazi propagandists. Soon, all that one heard or read in Germany was the Nazi’s “fair and balanced” viewpoint. Soon, it was death or a concentration camp for those who disagreed or even listened to another viewpoint. Labor unions quickly came under fire and were abolished. The various churches who tried to protest were silenced or outlawed. Pensions were erased and labor laws were abolished. New ones were substituted which left the workers with no right but to do what they were told. Then came the book burnings and an attempt to erase anything that did not agree with the Nazi view of the world.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not equate Bush with Hitler. Bush doesn’t have Hitler’s charisma, nor is he anywhere close to as intelligent. I am just trying to point out that the United States is poised on a slippery slope and the lesson is there to be read in fairly recent history.
In both Italy and Germany, the government and big business were closely tied and business had the right to unlimited profit. The government passed laws against organized labor and repealed any laws that guaranteed worker’s rights. Pensions were repealed and the funds returned to business and government to use as they wished. Both governments invented foreign enemies that “threatened their existence.” The people were expected to approve any measure that protected them from those enemies. People who protested these policies were automatically classified as traitors or enemy agents. They were tried, often in secret tribunals, and executed, or just disappeared, often to a concentration camp. Ethnic groups were singled out as scapegoats and persecuted, often winding up in concentration camps. The above description is only a thumbnail sketch of what happened, but one can get the idea.
The result in each case was a nation whose citizens were bombarded with only one point of view until they came to believe it, who marched lock step with their leader right into the abyss, dragging millions of innocents along with them. In four years, we have gone from a respected nation that worked with the world to try to make it a better place, to a nation hated and despised for being a bully, a liar, a killer, a torturer and a gross polluter, raping the environment for private profit and greed.
I would like the United States to be remembered as something better; as a nation of law and empathy and respect; as a nation with a marvelous Constitution and Bill of Rights that is a model for any emerging nation. Watching the actions of the NYPD suppressing the people exercising their First Amendment rights, while the major “fair and balanced” media ignored it, made me realize how fragile these freedoms and that Constitution have become under the Cheney/Bush regime. These latter day Brownshirts are rapidly gaining power. We the People are rapidly running out of options and we had better exercise them at the polls before it’s too late.
Stephen M. Osborn is a freelance writer living on Camano Island in the Pacific Northwest. He is an "Atomic Vet." (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll 1956, ) who has been very active working and writing for nuclear disarmament and world peace. He is a retired Fire Battalion Chief, lifelong sailor, writer, poet, philosopher, historian and former newspaper columnist. |
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