Top Ten Signs Your Country May Be Going Fascist

Creeping Fascism: History's Lessons

“There are few things as odd as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater. ... Perhaps the only comparably odd thing is the way that now, years later....”


These are the words of Sebastian Haffner (pen name for Raimund Pretzel), who as a young lawyer in Berlin during the 1930s experienced the Nazi takeover and wrote a first-hand account. His children found the manuscript when he died in 1999 and published it the following year as “Geschichte eines Deutschen” (The Story of a German).

The book became an immediate bestseller and has been translated into 20 languages—in English as “Defying Hitler.”

I recently learned from his daughter Sarah, an artist in Berlin, that today is the 100th anniversary of Haffner’s birth. She had seen an earlier article in which I quoted her father and e-mailed to ask me to “write some more about the book and the comparison to Bush’s America. ... This is almost unbelievable.”

More about Haffner below. Let’s set the stage first by recapping some of what has been going on that may have resonance for readers familiar with the Nazi ascendancy, noting how “odd” it is that the frontal attack on our Constitutional rights is met with such “calm, superior indifference.”

The parallels are stunning....but still, we follow like mindless sheep down the path to tyranny, much as the Germans did under Hitler, stepping over the victims of of our criminal government along the way.

You’re Damn Right I’m Angry. Why Isn’t Everybody?

I’m furious because the Bush administration and its ideological allies have shredded the Constitution at every turn, destroying the institutional gift of those they pretend to revere (but only when it’s convenient to upholding their own depredations). This president, who has gotten virtually everything he has ever wanted throughout his life and his presidency, once privately exclaimed in frustration at not getting something he wanted when he wanted it, “It’s just a goddam piece of paper!”, and that is precisely how he has treated America’s founding document. His signing statements - probably over a thousand in count now - completely obliterate the checks and balances principle of the Constitution, its most central idea. His admitted spying on Americans without warrant smashes the Fourth Amendment. His fiasco in Guantánamo and beyond mocks due process and habeas corpus guarantees. His invasion of Iraq against the international law codified in the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, violates the Constitutional requirement to hold such treaties as the highest law of the land. Altogether, Americans have never seen a presidency with such imperial ambitions, and anyone who cares about the Constitution should be furious. A year from now, it is quite possible that Hillary Clinton will be president of the United States (ugh). Would our conservative friends silently countenance, let alone viciously support, such a monarchy in the White House if it belonged to Queen Hillary rather than King George? I think not.

We could go on and on from here. This administration and the movement it fronts at least gets high marks for consistency. Everything they touch turns to stone. There’s Pat Tillman and Terri Schiavo. There’s the politicization of the US Attorneys and the corruption of DeLay and Abramoff. There’s North Korea, Pakistan and the Middle East. There’s the shame of torture and rendition. There’s the wrecking of the American military and of the country’s reputation abroad. There’s Afghanistan and the failure to capture bin Laden. And much, much more. But above all, and driving all, there’s the kleptocracy - the doing of everything in every way to facilitate the looting of the national fisc.

What an unbelievable record of deceit, destruction, hypocrisy, incompetence, treason and greed. What a tragic tale of debt, lost wars, stolen elections, environmental crises, Constitution shredding, national shame and diminished security.

All done by the very most pious amongst us, of course. Merry Christmas, eh? I guess those are our presents, all carefully wrapped in spin, contempt, and preemptive attacks on any of us impertinent enough to say “No thanks, Santa”.

So, yeah, you’re goddam right I’m angry about what’s been done to my country, and what’s been done by my country in my name.

How could anyone who claims to care about America not be?

How indeed.

This one has been around a while...but never fails to amaze me...we are so screwed.

Navy JAG Resigns Over Torture Issue

"It was with sadness that I signed my name this grey morning to a letter resigning my commission in the U.S. Navy," wrote Gig Harbor, Wash., resident and attorney-at-law Andrew Williams in a letter to The Peninsula Gateway last week. "There was a time when I served with pride ... Sadly, no more."

Outrage over CIA scandal

elow is an excerpt from the letter Andrew Williams submitted to The Peninsula Gateway. For the entire letter, see Letters to the Editor 16A.

"Thank you General Hartmann for finally admitting the United States is now part of a long tradition of torturers going back to the Inquisition. In the middle ages the Inquisition called waterboarding "toca" and used it with great success. In colonial times, it was used by the Dutch East India Company during the Amboyna Massacre of 1623.

"Waterboarding was used by the Nazi Gestapo and the feared Japanese Kempeitai. In World War II, our grandfathers had the wisdom to convict Japanese Officer Yukio Asano of waterboarding and other torture practices in 1947 giving him 15 years hard labor. Waterboarding was practiced by the Khmer Rouge at the infamous Tuol Sleng prison. Most recently, the United States Army court martialed a soldier for the practice in 1968 during the Vietnam conflict."

Awesome! We need MANY more citizens with the integrity and courage to stand up for what is CLEARLY right, both from a human perspective and legally. This man deserves a medal for speaking out, as so many others go along to get along, ignoring their own values to serve a lawless and violent government.

New Orleans: Locked Outside the Gates

In a remarkable symbol of the injustices of post-Katrina reconstruction, hundreds of people were locked out of a public New Orleans City Council meeting addressing demolition of 4,500 public housing apartments. Some were tasered, many pepper sprayed and a dozen arrested.

Outside the chambers, iron gates were chained and padlocked even before the scheduled start.

The scene looked like one of those countries on TV that is undergoing a people's revolution - and the similarities were only beginning. (See video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMBWAXfGsc4)

Dozens of uniformed police secured the gates and other entrances. Only developers and those with special permission from council members were allowed in - the rest were kept locked outside the gates. Despite dozens of open seats in the council chambers, pleas to be allowed in were ignored.

Chants of "Housing is a human right!" and "Let us in!" thundered through the concrete breezeway.

Public housing residents came and spoke out despite an intense campaign of intimidation. Residents were warned by phone that if they publicly opposed the demolitions they would lose all housing assistance. Residents opposed to the demolition had simple demands. If the authorities insisted on spending hundreds of millions to tear down hundreds of structurally sound buildings containing 4,500 public housing subsidized apartments, there should be a guarantee that every resident could return to a similarly subsidized apartment. Alternatively, the government should use the hundreds of millions to repair the apartments so people could come home. Neither alternative was acceptable to HUD. A plan of residents to partner with the AFL-CIO Housing Trust to save their homes was also ignored.

Outside, SWAT team members and police in riot gear and on horses began to arrive as rain started falling. Those locked out included public housing residents, a professor from Southern University, graduate students, the Episcopal bishop of Louisiana, ministers, lawyers, law students, homeless people who lived in tents across the street from City Hall, affordable housing allies from across the country and dozens of others.

Inside the chambers, the Rev. Torin Sanders and others insisted that the locked out persons be allowed to come and stand inside along the walls - a common practice for over 30 years. No one could recall any city council locking people out of a public meeting. The request to allow people to stand was denied. The council then demanded silence from those inside. Those who continued to demand that the others be let in were pointed out by police, physically taken down and arrested. Ironically, some young men were tasered right in front of the speaker's podium.

This was a meeting the council had repeatedly tried to avoid. It was only held after residents (100 percent African-American and nearly all mothers and grandmothers) got an emergency court order stopping demolitions until the council acted. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced long ago it was going to demolish 4,500 public housing apartments despite the Katrina crisis of affordable housing, no matter what anyone said. HUD had no plans to ask the council or anyone else for approval. The judge said otherwise, so the meeting was scheduled.

Opponents cited the affordable housing crisis in New Orleans. Homeless people camped across from City Hall and for blocks under the interstate. The number of homeless people has doubled since Katrina. Thousands of residents in FEMA trailers across the Gulf Coast were being evicted.

The brutality that happened in this case was incredible to see, one woman with a cane shoved around by the thugs in uniform repeatedly, then pepper sprayed. She left by ambulance, as did several others. We pay these thugs....and I mean both the police involved and the city government people who ordered these attacks on tax-paying citizens....and we ALLOW our employees to abuse us this way? And, for simply trying to attend a PUBLIC meeting, at a TAX-PAYER OWNED building? What has become of this country? It is sickening.....astounding and sickening.

We Are All Prisoners Now, By Paul Craig Roberts

Excerpts:

Americans are also imprisoned by fear, a false fear created by the hoax of “terrorism.” It has turned out that headline terrorist events since 9/11 have been orchestrated by the US government. For example, the alleged terrorist plot to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower was the brainchild of a FBI agent who searched out a few disaffected people to give lip service to the plot devised by the FBI agent. He arrested his victims, whose trial ended in acquittal and mistrial.

Many Europeans regard 9/11 itself as an orchestrated event. Former cabinet members of the British, Canadian and German governments and the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army have publicly expressed their doubts about the official 9/11 story. Recently, a former president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, said in an interview with the newspaper, Corriere della Sera (November 30, 2007), that “democratic elements in America and Europe, with the Italian center-left in the forefront, now know that the 9/11 attack was planned and executed by the American CIA and Mossad in order to blame the Arab countries, and to persuade the Western powers to undertake military action both in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

....Cossiga’s statement has not been reported by a US newspaper or TV channel. Raising doubts among Americans about the government is not a strong point of the corporate media. Americans live in a world of propaganda designed to secure their acquiescence to war crimes, torture, searches and police state measures, military aggression, hegemony and oppression, while portraying Americans (and Israelis) as the salt of the earth who are threatened by Muslims who hate their “freedom and democracy.”

Americans cling to this “truth” while the Bush regime and a complicit Congress destroy the Bill of Rights and engineer the theft of elections.

Freedom and democracy in America have been reduced to no-fly lists, spying without warrants, arrests without warrants or evidence, permanent detention despite the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, torture despite the prohibition against self-incrimination--the list goes on and on. http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1115]

In today’s fearful America, a US Senator, whose elder brothers were (1) a military hero killed in action, (2) a President of the United States assassinated in office, (3) an Attorney General of the United States and likely president except he was assassinated like his brother, can find himself on the no-fly list. Present and former high government officials, with top secret security clearances, cannot fly with a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of water despite the absence of any evidence that extreme measures imposed by “airport security” makes flying safer. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071221/us_nm/security_airports_dc;_ylt=ApzEobAIQMfiX02LTvKbk1UXIr0F

Elderly American citizens with walkers and young mothers with children are meticulously searched because US Homeland Security cannot tell the difference between an American citizen and a terrorist.

All Americans should note the ominous implications of the inability of Homeland Security to distinguish an American citizen from a terrorist.

An article well worth reading in its entirety...just hit the link in the title...The condition this country is in is clear to so many, but apparently not enough to stop the noose from slowly tightening, as the oblivious majority slowly hang us all. We have merely been given the rope to do it ourselves...which we have cheerfully done. What a shame it is to see...sometimes I just barely resist the impulse to shake people, or scream at them...as they fret about nonsense like who is winning American Idol or how their kids will be sniveling if they don't get the latest $500 video game system...I can't stand it...

The torture tape fingering Bush as a war criminal

The Washington Post reported that “current and former officials” said the torture lasted weeks and even, according to some, months, and that the techniques included hypothermia, long periods of standing, sleep deprivation and multiple sessions of waterboarding. All these “alternative procedures”, as Bush described them, are illegal under US law and the Geneva conventions. They are, in fact, war crimes. And they were once all treated by the US as war crimes when they were perpetrated by the Nazis. Waterboarding has been found to be a form of torture in various American legal cases.

And that is where the story becomes interesting. The Bush administration denies any illegality at all, insists it does not “torture” but refuses to say whether it believes waterboarding is torture or not. But hundreds of hours of videotape were recorded of Zubaydah’s incarceration and torture. That evidence would settle the dispute over the extremely serious question of whether the president of the United States authorised war crimes.

And now we have found out that all the tapes have been destroyed...........

........ This is not, of course, the first big scandal to have emerged over the administration’s interrogation policies. You can fill a book with the sometimes sickening details that have come out of Guantanamo Bay, Bagram in Afghanistan, Camp Cropper in Iraq and, of course, Abu Ghraib.

The administration has admitted that several prisoners have been killed in interrogation, and dozens more have died in the secret network of interrogation sites the US has set up across the world. The policy of rendition has sent countless suspects into torture cells in Uzbekistan, Egypt, Jordan and elsewhere to feed the West’s intelligence on jihadist terrorism.

But this case is more ominous for the administration because it presents a core example of what seems to be a cover-up, obstruction of justice and a direct connection between torture and the president, the vice-president and their closest aides.

Because several courts had pending cases in which testimony from Zubaydah’s interrogation was salient, the destruction of such evidence triggers a legal process that is hard for the executive branch to stymie or stall - and its first attempt was flatly rebuffed by a judge last week.

Its key argument is a weakly technical one: that the interrogation took place outside US territory - and therefore the courts do not have jurisdiction over it. It’s the same rationale for imprisoning hundreds of suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba - a legal no man’s land. But Congress can get involved - especially if it believes that what we have here is a cover-up.

What are the odds that a legal effective interrogation of a key Al-Qaeda operative would have led many highly respected professionals in the US intelligence community to risk their careers by leaking top-secret details to the press?

What are the odds that the CIA would have sought to destroy tapes that could prove it had legally prevented serious and dangerous attacks against innocent civilians? What are the odds that a president who had never authorised waterboarding would be unable to say whether such waterboarding was torture?

What are the odds that, under congressional grilling, the new attorney-general would also refuse to say whether he believed waterboarding was illegal, if there was any doubt that the president had authorised it? The odds are beyond minimal.

Any reasonable person examining all the evidence we have - without any bias - would conclude that the overwhelming likelihood is that the president of the United States authorised illegal torture of a prisoner and that the evidence of the crime was subsequently illegally destroyed.

It is clear to me that most Americans simply don't care what the government does to these people, choosing to believe the propaganda that paints these people as somehow less human than us, less civilized, allowing them to achieve some sort of twisted justification in their minds for allowing this to continue. However, if basic humanity isn't enough to spur an outcry against this cruelty, perhaps self interest will be. The government has already begun to treat its "free citizens" savagely, and the brutality that is perpetrated in our names in the secret CIA prisons, Gitmo, Iraq, and Afghanistan has begun to travel home, and when it does, they will have perfected their techniques. Our society bears more resemblance to that of Saddam Hussein's Iraq ...the man that, of course, our CIA sponsored into power...than the free nation it claims to be.... It won't be long until Americans are waterboarded...in the name of "National Security"...and "for our own good", of course.

FBI Prepares Vast Database Of Biometrics

The FBI is embarking on a $1 billion effort to build the world's largest computer database of peoples' physical characteristics, a project that would give the government unprecedented abilities to identify individuals in the United States and abroad.

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills.

The increasing use of biometrics for identification is raising questions about the ability of Americans to avoid unwanted scrutiny. It is drawing criticism from those who worry that people's bodies will become de facto national identification cards.


Self-employed, self sufficient, and ready to leave quickly ..the only way to live in the Big Brother Police State. How long will it be until the Sheeple open their eyes to what is happening here?

Surprise! Mukasey Covers Up Torture

Last month, Democratic Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and Dianne Feinstein of California joined Republicans to ensure Michael Mukasey's confirmation as Attorney General, even though he refused to acknowledge that the simulated drowning of waterboarding was torture.

Senate Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada helped the Bush administration, too, by rushing a floor vote on Mukasey before rank-and-file Democrats could get organized and push for a filibuster.

To show thanks, Mukasey now is slapping the Democratic-controlled Congress in the face by demanding it back off any oversight investigations into how and why the CIA in late 2005 destroyed videotapes of the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects.

Mukasey is pressing the House Intelligence Committee to shelve its investigation into the videotape destruction and is refusing to turn over information to other congressional committees. He claims that to do so would interfere with his own investigation of what appears to be criminality that his Justice Department may have sanctioned.

And, to add insult to the stonewalling, Mukasey justified his refusal to provide information to Congress by citing his promise during his confirmation hearing that he would "ensure that politics plays no role in cases brought by the Department of Justice."

In other words, Mukasey is arguing that congressional oversight of possible criminal wrongdoing by President George W. Bush and other senior administration officials represents "politics" - and that the only legitimate investigation of Bush's Executive Branch is one carried out by Bush's Executive Branch.

Congress is just going to let it slide--Again. The American Sheeple are going to just let it slide--Again. I wonder, will we pretend not to notice when it is our friends and neighbors on the waterboard, rather than a foreigner who has been labeled an "Enemy Combatent"?...Pitiful...we should all be deeply ashamed at what this country has become...some of us are.

An Alleged "Two Party System"

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

We must be clear about the following bitter realities:

1. "Every 10 minutes an Iraqi civilian is injured or killed in a war that George Bush says will not end until he leaves office. Every 10 hours an American soldier is killed in a war that George Bush says will not end until he leaves office. Every 10 days $2 billion is removed from the U.S. Treasury and placed in the accounts of Halliburton, Blackwater and all other war profiteers that are getting rich off the misery of Iraqis and Americans by a government that will continue to remove those amounts or more every ten days as long as George Bush is President of the United States" (from Sally B. Davidson at Veterans for Peace, NY).

While Bush and Cheney remain in office, the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan will continue. Bush's recent announcement of his (probably illegal) "agreement" with the increasingly unpopular, discredited, U.S.-puppet Maliki regime to continue Iraq deployment of U.S. troops indefinitely shows Cheney/Bush's absolute and total contempt for our Constitution and the wishes of 3/4 of U.S. citizens. As even Alan Greenspan admitted in his recently-published book: the Iraq War was largely about oil. The U.S. power elite, Democratic as well as Republican, wants those permanent U.S. bases in Iraq to protect access to, and control of, "our" oil, especially as China, India, and Europe become stronger economic and trade threats to U.S. global hegemony.

2. Why do BOTH major parties agree that the U.S. "needs" access to, and control of, this oil? Because, implicitly, most Americans believe that we "need" this oil to live the way we have become accustomed to living in 2007. The one, true religion of all Americans is Consumerism, and we all practice it daily via TV & radio, the Internet, and in our mega-cathedral of consumption, the shopping mall. We need to be honest with ourselves and face up to how much our consumptive (pun intended) U.S. lifestyle depends on maintaining our oil and other fossil fuels addictions, and how complacent, if not comfortable, we are about expecting that our political and military leaders will continue to secure these foreign fossil fuels to support our lavish "American Dream" lifestyle. Then we need to ask ourselves how much we are truly willing to cut back, and how we can make this a part of our activism.

We are a shallow and materialistic society, and there is no doubt that the blood shed in Bushco's wars is about money...and power of course...as Americans sell out freedom for more things that we don't even need. We have become a society of spoiled and demanding children, too busy whining for more things to care about the loss of our rights and our humanity. I know people who literally go into a panic when the cable goes out...as if it were as serious as losing one's heat on a blustery winter night...You won't see these same people upset at the reports of more innocent children blown to bits in Iraq to make sure the SUV can have a full tank, or the reports of thousands more children here drugged up for the depression and other emotional problems that stem from being raised in the empty wasteland that our culture has become. Of course many of them never see those reports, consumed with celebrity gossip and the latest sale at the mall. We have the President and Congress we elected....and they are a remarkably accurate reflection of what our society has become. Despite all the hard times and suffering that it will bring, I won't necessarily be sorry to see the house of cards that our economy has become collapse. Unfortunately, an event that extreme may be the only way our society will ever get its priorities back in order....I hear many economists saying our recent economic woes are a huge market correction, and necessary to get the country back on sound footing....well, I think that what is much more necessary for a solid and sound America is a massive values correction....and perhaps that will be the good that will come from a financial catastrophe.

The Central Bank; Silent partner in the bloodletting

The meltdown in the real estate market continues to send tremors through Wall Street. Trillions of dollars in complex bonds (CDOs and MBSs) are being downgraded as foreclosures increase and housing inventory soars. Banks, insurance companies, pension funds, bond insurers, hedge funds; are all among the living-dead. Many are already insolvent and many more will follow. It's just a matter of time. The foundation of the financial markets is crumbling. The scheme to transform the liabilities of loan-applicants with bad credit into a reliable source of fat profits has failed. Alchemy still doesn't work. Never has.


The subprime crisis and (subsequent) credit crunch originated at the Federal Reserve. The Fed triggered a speculative frenzy by lowering interest rates below the rate of inflation for over 31 months between 2002 and 2004. Trillions of dollars were fed into the banking system creating the biggest equity bubble in history. Now that the housing bubble is crashing to earth--and trillions of dollars in shaky bonds are headed for the landfill--the Fed is trying to distance itself from any responsibility. But we know the truth. The plan was authored and executed by the Fed and that's where the blame lies. Everyone else is just a “bit player”.


What matters most, is that the system is collapsing. It is being slowly crushed by the accumulated weight of its own corruption. When the system crashes, the flag will be lowered over Guantanamo Bay, the present oligarchy of racketeers will be removed from office, and the troops will come home from Iraq. Sometimes positive results derive from tragedy.


There could be anarchy or tyranny or martial law or detention camps. Who really knows? It's understandable that the public is worried about “what could happen” in the near future. But, consider this: can we continue moving in the same direction that we are now? Can we keep pouring the blood of innocent people all over the planet while claiming to own the world and all of its resources? Can we keep ignoring the species-threatening challenges of global warming, peak oil and nuclear proliferation?

No.


Well, then, is there any chance that the media, the congress, the courts, or the president will come to their senses; chart a different course, restore civil liberties, stop the human rights abuse, and withdrawal the troops?


No.


So tell me, dear reader, what hope is there for change apart from a full-system economic collapse?


Political systems do not have to be perfect to be acceptable. I'm not naive. But---for many of us---there are basic moral criteria that have to be observed to win our support. The Bush administration has elevated killing, torture and kidnapping to a level of state policy. This is unacceptable by any standard, and yet, all the levers of power are controlled by people who support the present doctrine.


Isn't that so?


The United States is not a beacon of hope or a light unto the world. It is a menace and a growing threat to survival on earth. America's political and military belligerence is just an extension of a domineering economic system which serves the sole interests of the rich and powerful. The Central Bank plays a critical role in this paradigm. Nation's don't go to war without the blessing of their main financial institutions. The “big money” guys are the silent partners in the plunder and bloodletting.


The men who own and oversee the US financial system; created the cancer which is presently devouring it from the inside. Now the tumor has metastasized and spread through the entire organism. The situation is irreversible. The economy is on its last legs and headed for a fall. US political leaders will have to accept a world in which America is just one of many states of equal power and significance. Military funding will slow to a dribble. The killing will stop. Finally.

Well, we are surely in for some changes in the world, and very soon. I wonder what will become of this country after the economy goes down in flames. Will we reevaluate our priorities? Will we demand accountability from the government and our citizens who are supposed to keep it honest? Will we demand our rights as free citizens and accept the personal responsibilities that come with freedom? Or, will we demand another nanny state to take care of us so we don't have to bother with being adults. Will we learn from our mistakes or be crushed by them?