[Peace-discuss] Hitler

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

Bob,
    Your point about the parallel justice system is excellent.  The development 
of this system, as part of 
the secret government of the national security state 
(military-industrial-intelligence complex), has 
reared its ugly head in numerous political events and major scandals.  The 
national security state really 
began to usurp governmental power when they participated in the murder of JFK on 
the streets of 
Dallas.  Their covert work in this period helped fire the flames of conflict in 
SE Asia, spreading the war 
beyond Vietnam to Laos and Cambodia.  The Watergate scandal flowed directly out 
of this as well---
linking the perpetrators of the JFK murder to the systemic corruption of the 
Pentagon and intelligence 
services revealed in the Pentagon Papers.  Watergate briefly inspired those rare 
moments of truth in 
government where the national security state's assault on democracy and civil 
liberties became part of 
the accepted taxonomy of public discourse during the hearings of both the Church 
and Pike 
Committees.  The national security state's participation in the infilitration of 
popular organizations and 
their accessory role in the murder of many leaders of the New Left became known.  
Even the House 
Select Committe on Assassinations admitted that the murder of the President was 
a conspiracy of 
organized crime (yet ignored the decisive role played by the national security 
state here).  The 
crackdown on "alphabet" agencies, particularly the CIA and FBI, offered some 
hope for the restoration of 
a more democratic form of government.  The mass televisual delusion of the 
Reagan era---an era that 
has cast a long shadow over today's politics---ended the search for truth and 
the pursuit of justice.  
Instead, the national security state returned with avengeance.  Iran-Contra 
increased the national 
security state's role in American politics.   They could completely subvert the 
Constitution and they 
flaunted both Congress and international law in mining the Managua harbor in contravention to the 
Boland Amendment and the Geneva Conventions.  They also trafficked crack into America's inner cities 
in order to fund arms sales and pocket windfall profits---thereby infecting the U.S. financial system 
with billions of laundered organized crime cash.  (See Gary Webb's Dark Alliance and Peter Dale Scott's 
Cocaine Politics for more information on this crime).  Now, the Patriot Act, the overturning of the 
Insurrection Act, and the Military Commissions Act have legitimated this criminal state.  The parallel 
government is now at war with the American citizen, and this war is now backed by the full force of 
official law...  AND WE THINK SUPPORTING DEMOCRATS HELPS THIS?  DEMOCRATS HAVE WORKED WITH 
THIS AGENDA FOR A HOST OF REASONS FOR YEARS!  SEEING FRANK CHURCH DEFEATED BY THE RIGHT-
WING IN THE EARLY 1980S WITH NARY A WORD FROM THE POPULATION SURELY EMBOLDENED THE 
NATIONAL SECURITY STATE.  Working through Washington does little good.  If anything, the public's 
indifference and acquiesence for all practical purposes equals tacit support for the parallel criminal 
national security state.  I sometimes wonder if we deserve any better than this.  A public that believed 
the verbal hogwash spewed by an aged TV actor suffering from dementia and that did little to hold his 
corrupt Administration and their progeny to task surely deserves whatever comes their way.  
   Don't misunderstand me.  I REALLY WANT DEMOCRACY TO WIN!  But, I don't think the mass 
consciousness, the collective if you will, really cares.  Like John Wason says, Joe Sixpack doesn't care---
who will win the Super Bowl seems more important.  I want very badly to have Carl's passionate 
optimism in the political righteousness of the American people.  But, hey they are excited for the 
American Idolization of the 2008 election.  Outside of Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich (and Cynthia 
McKinney when she was the lone voice of dissent in Congress arguing that 911 was caused or at least 
abetted by the Bush Administration), nobody is looking at the profound disease of American political 
society.  The people have their bread and circuses.  The Republic be damned, and democracy be 
consigned to the grave.  It's final relegation to the death bed dates back to 11/22/63, and it took 
nearly forty years to expire.  The Bush-Cheney regime is the final stake through the heart of the 
American polity.  Our distracted society seems oblivious to this fact---and so be it for them.  A part of 
me is ready and willing to concede that the cause is lost and that our society is heading into its terminal 
decline.  Morris Berman in Dark Ages America and Kevin Phillips in American Theocracy, as well as a 
long list of other clear-minded social commentators, have accurately diagnosed this trend.  What 
remains to be seen is if some pockets of American society can construct alternatives to this diseased 
collective that are capable of being beacons of regenerative hope and models of sustainable democracy 
capable of providing models for posterity.


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    Bob Illyes <illyes at uiuc.edu>
To:      peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
Subject: [Peace-discuss] Hitler
Date:    Mon, 23 Jul 2007 19:18:47 +0000

> Thanks for the excellent reference, Mort. As I've said before, the 
> left-right distinction is not on a line, but a circle. The Libertarians and 
> the anarchist left  are not opposites, but sit near each other on the 
> circle. I'm not at all surprised to hear this about Hitler from a Libertarian.
> 
> I used to get visits from a Jehovah's Witness who had been in the German 
> Army during WW2. I always told him that he couldn't convert me, but that 
> I'd be glad to talk with him. He was born in Milwaukee, but during the 
> Great Depression his father couldn't find work. His uncle in Germany said 
> that there was plenty of work there, so his family returned to Germany. 
> This is how a kid from Milwaukee ended up in the German Army on the Russian 
> front. In the early days, Hitler did much do combat unemployment. Like many 
> of us, Hitler was concerned about the bad effects of international 
> capitalism. Unfortunately, there was madness behind his method.
> 
> One of the safest places to be in Nazi Germany was in a conventional 
> prison. The German justice system continued to function more-or-less as 
> before, and the police and the courts would keep you safe. Instead of 
> trying to subvert the German justice system, which would have caused a 
> massive backlash, the Nazis set up a parallel legal system of "courts" and 
> prison camps. That is now happening in the US.
> 
> Bob
> 
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