A truly sad day

Iraq? What about the USofA?

It would be the height of irony if some decision-maker takes this seriously for Iraq after ignoring its obvious truth in the USofA for all these decades.

Government Is the Solution
By Arnold Kling 04/09/2003

Once the fighting dies down in Iraq, new sets of challenges will appear. These involve putting together a new government and a new economy. In order for Iraq to be successful as a democracy, its economy will have to be successful, also.

In What Causes Prosperity?, I wrote that economic success requires three ethics: a work ethic; a public service ethic; and a learning ethic. As Ralph Peters has pointed out, these ethics have been missing in many Arab societies, so that cultivating them will require some effort.

Focus on Jobs, Not Oil

Often, when pundits look at the Iraqi economy, the focus is on oil. For example, Morris Adelman wrote an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal about the importance of selling Iraq's oil assets to the highest bidder.

Instead, the issue of privatizing Iraq's oil can wait. Oil should remain government property at least until oil production is stabilized, and perhaps longer - until the economy and an Iraqi government have gotten on their feet.

In the short run, the most important focus of economic policy should be to develop the work ethic. Nothing is more dangerous and destabilizing than large contingents of unemployed men with guns. Iraq is saturated with guns. We need to focus on eliminating the unemployment.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 02:41:51 PM |

Cartoon of the day

I doubt I can keep this up.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 09:12:46 AM |

Well, duh . . .

No New Tax Cuts
By BOB KERREY, SAM NUNN, PETER G. PETERSON, ROBERT E. RUBIN, WARREN B. RUDMAN and PAUL A. VOLCKER

The fiscal outlook is much worse than official projections indicate. These projections assume that the tax cuts enacted in 2001 will expire at the end of 2010. They also assume that discretionary spending, the part of the budget that pays for national defense, domestic security, education and transportation, will shrink continuously as a share of the economy. Neither of these assumptions is realistic.

---

Under more realistic assumptions, the deficit projections are cause for alarm. A recent study by Goldman Sachs includes this forecast: if the president's proposed new tax cuts are enacted, a Medicare prescription drug benefit is approved, the A.M.T. is adjusted and appropriations grow modestly, the deficits over the next 10 years will total $4.2 trillion ? even if the Social Security surplus is included. If it is not included, the deficit would be $6.7 trillion. Under these circumstances, the ratio of publicly held debt to gross domestic product climbs within 10 years to nearly 50 percent, from 33 percent just two years ago.

And all of this happens before the fiscal going gets tough.

---

The president has proposed a cut of $726 billion, which the House has already approved. The Senate has reduced the cut to $350 billion.

Given the rapidly deteriorating long-term fiscal outlook, neither proposal is fiscally responsible. It is illogical to begin the journey back toward balanced budgets by enacting a tax cut that will only make the long-term outlook worse. Furthermore, the proposed tax cuts are not useful for short-term fiscal stimulus, since only a small portion would take effect this year. Nor would they spur long-term economic growth. In fact, tax cuts financed by perpetual deficits will eventually slow the economy.

The tax cuts now before Congress do not pay for themselves. No plausible array of matching spending cuts or offsetting revenue increases has been, or will be, proposed to close the gap resulting from a large new tax cut.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 08:51:53 AM |

Because it makes you lie, and God don't approve of lies.

Senate Rolls a Pork Barrel Into War Bill

In fact, there were dozens of pork-barrel projects and special interest provisions that were inserted at the last minute Thursday night into the bill to pay for the war in Iraq, and the lawmakers were not particularly shy about acknowledging what they did.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, for example, sent out a news release to reporters in her home state, boasting of helping the Alaska seafood industry with a provision allowing wild salmon to be labeled as organic.

But members of the Appropriations Committee, who brought up most of the extraneous provisions after 10 p.m. on Thursday, about 40 minutes before the bill would be passed, said many of the expenditures were vital and needed to be attached to a bill that was guaranteed approval. Although the president calls the measure a war bill, they said, it is really a wide-ranging appropriations bill that may be the only vehicle for months to enact important provisions.

"The administration itself has asked for funds in this bill that have nothing to do with Iraq, such as their request for aid to Colombia," said David Carle, a spokesman for Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, who inserted several additions to the bill. "Each year there is a midyear course-correction bill like this to address issues like these that cannot or should not wait another year." Mr. Carle was referring to the $104 million in the bill the president requested for antinarcotics efforts in Colombia.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 08:32:43 AM |

I really needed to read this before breakfast

Republicans Want Terror Law Made Permanent

WASHINGTON, April 8 ? Working with the Bush administration, Congressional Republicans are maneuvering to make permanent the sweeping antiterrorism powers granted to federal law enforcement agents after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, officials said today.

The move is likely to touch off strong objections from many Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress who believe that the Patriot Act, as the legislation that grew out of the attacks is known, has already given the government too much power to spy on Americans.

The landmark legislation expanded the government's power to use eavesdropping, surveillance, access to financial and computer records and other tools to track terrorist suspects.

When it passed in October 2001, moderates and civil libertarians in Congress agreed to support it only by making many critical provisions temporary. Those provisions will expire, or "sunset," at the end of 2005 unless Congress re-authorizes them.

But Republicans in the Senate in recent days have discussed a proposal, written by Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, that would repeal the sunset provisions and make the law's new powers permanent, officials said. Republicans may seek to move on the proposal this week by trying to attaching it to another antiterrorism bill that would make it easier for the government to use secret surveillance warrants against "lone wolf" terrorism suspects.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 08:07:18 AM |

Technology is a beautiful thing,
or,
Hitting the links II

Well, now I have a little lefty blogroll. I set it up last night real quick because I could, and because I'm backing away for at least today. I need to work some code and change a few plans.

Among the changes will be setting up another blog, most likely private, to think out loud about the blogging tools I'm writing. No offense to Blogger, because it works well. But the free version doesn't work exactly the way I want it to. I really want a desktop-based tool. Blog and its sibling BlogMan is real close (including being free), as is CityDesk, (which full version is not free buit cheap enough). I'd have no problem recommending either, or Blogger for that matter. I just have a good idea what I want and know I can make it myself.

Other free blogging stuff that's cool enough to mention, and even pay for:
Sitemeter page counter
Squawkbox commenting
Blogrolling.com link management (though I can probably make some desktop-based equivalent thing, it may be better/faster/easier to just open an account there)

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 07:14:10 AM |

Random thoughts while walking the web

So I?m on Warblogs:cc to see what?s new. An article on TalkLeft catches my eye.

When I read the articles I generally check out the comments, at least briefly?sometimes there are hundreds and I tend to skip those, but there were fewer than ten attached to this particular one, so I hit the link. In the comments a ?warrior? says something about attacking Hussein in retribution for 911.

Now this bugs me.

Of all the reasons given by Bush and Co. for attacking Iraq, this is the one I simply can?t credit. I can see someone feeling he?d have to be punished for lying about disarming, if that?s what one believe he?s done. I can see pulling him into line with international law (although I?m going to have to ask how you?ll handle Israel?s flouting the UN authority, if that?s your reason). I can actually see someone believing and acting on the idea that conquering the Middle East is in the country?s best interest (though you?ll never convince me of it). These are decisions made based on the values one holds. If I held Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rove?s values, reason would make me just as dangerous as they. In a perverse way, I can relate.

But when you tell me there?s an objectively supportable reason for invading another country and killing bags of people, you?d bloody well better support it objectively.

Here?s a big difference between convincing folks something is true and proving it. A serious effort was made to convince people but not to prove it. It seems like everyone was expected to just accept that the papers being waved about had valid information?my GOD, they didn?t expect anyone to actually check the validity of that stuff.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/9/2003 01:07:08 AM |

Hitting the links

Having to do with a blogroll, not golf. I'm supposed to have one, right?

Well, I don't, not yet. "Dropping knowledge" is more important. Make what you will of that.

I guess I'll sign up for blogrolling.com tomorrow to add blogs. Liberal and leftist blogs, thank you very indeed. When I find rational conservatives to talk to, I'll likely add a section for them. Until then, Glen Reynolds doesn't even need my symbolic support. He got all the traffic he can handle.

I sorted my Netscape bookmarks the other day. Between that and organizing my morning news run as a set of saved tabs I spend a lot less time on said news run, so I don't need a blogroll personally. But one must respect the rituals. When in Rome, donchaknow . . .

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/8/2003 07:21:17 PM |

Meanwhile, back in my skull

At this point, the blog is just kinda talking to myself.

While wandering the Wide Word Web, I keep seeing folks commenting on other people's comments. That's how the public blogging thing works. It's a big part of why it works. And I keep seeing things I'd really like to rip apart.

Right now, though, there's no point to it. I know what I think, my knowledge is a great (or small) as any other intelligent writer out there. But unless/until I get readers, the major function of this site will be helping me shape my own thoughts.

Writing has always been highly beneficial to me. It's not so much the communication aspect of it that makes it a Good Thing; it's that casting inchoate thoughts into form makes you shape them up. Making sure what you write is tight, clear and communicative forces you to deal with the assumptions that underlie the gut reactions.

That is, if you're intent on being tight and clear. A lot of folks just ain't, because (assumption fueling speculations that I'm arrogant as hell coming up) most people simply aren't interested in following a reasoned debate. Most people seem to me to be satisfied hearing something--ANYthing--that supports their gut reaction so they can say "Yeah! Yeah! YEAH!" Best example I can think of in this regard was when one of them "Bell Curve" assholes was touring the college campuses to "debate" some leftist who seemed from the email I was getting at the time to believe she had a shot at changing someone's mind.

Racist anthopoids are incapable of following subtle debate. They are more than capable of recognizing bombast that agrees with (not supports, mind you) their racism.

Anyway, it's even worse now. Now you have intelligent people actively parroting arguments to get a goddamn folding chair.

I don't want to talk to them in detail, believe me. The comments are here more because blogs have comment mechanisms than anything else.

Oh, yeah. Writing.

I'm going to try writing one coherant thing per day. The rest will be drive-bys of stuff I personally feel it's important to remember.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/8/2003 04:40:51 PM |

How fukkin' absurd

Boy howdy, we're your friends
Jon Carroll
Monday, April 7, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle

URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/07/DD296366.DTL

It appears that after this pesky war is over, the State Department will start publishing a magazine about American culture to be distributed in Arab countries. The name of the magazine is Hi.

I dunno. I've traveled in Egypt and Dubai and Oman and Muslim northern Nigeria, and they just weren't "hi" kinds of places. They were "you are very welcome in my home" kinds of places, and "you must pay the double because-it- is-Wednesday fee" kinds of places, and even "once again you have misunderstood everything, but please have some flat bread" kinds of places.

But not "Hi!"

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/8/2003 05:52:17 AM |

Intellectual Speaks of the Arab World's Despair

For him the United States was a "dream," a paragon of liberal values to be emulated by Arabs and Muslims seeking to have a voice in the modern world.

Yet these days, in his opinion, something has gone terribly wrong.

"Under the present situation, I cannot think of defending the United States," said Mr. Aboulmagd, a small man with thinning white hair who juggles a constant stream of phone calls and invitations to speak about modernizing the Arab world.

"I would not be listened to," he added. "To most people in this area, the United States is the source of evil on planet earth. And whether we like it or not, it is the Bush administration that is to blame."

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/8/2003 05:30:26 AM |

Cartoon of the day

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/8/2003 05:26:06 AM |

Stolen from the NY Times

The Last Refuge
By PAUL KRUGMAN

In 1944, millions of Americans were engaged in desperate battles across the world. Nonetheless, a normal presidential election was held, and the opposition didn't pull its punches: Thomas Dewey, the Republican candidate, campaigned on the theme that Franklin Roosevelt was a "tired old man." As far as I've been able to ascertain, the Roosevelt administration didn't accuse Dewey of hurting morale by questioning the president's competence. After all, democracy ? including the right to criticize ? was what we were fighting for.

It's not a slur on the courage of our troops, or a belittling of the risks they face, to say that our current war is a mere skirmish by comparison. Yet self-styled patriots are trying to impose constraints on political speech never contemplated during World War II, accusing anyone who criticizes the president of undermining the war effort.

Last week John Kerry told an audience that "what we need now is not just a regime change in Saddam Hussein and Iraq, but we need a regime change in the United States." Republicans immediately sought to portray this remark as little short of treason. "Senator Kerry crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander in chief at a time when America is at war," declared Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Notice that Mr. Racicot wasn't criticizing Mr. Kerry's choice of words. Instead, he denounced Mr. Kerry because he "dared to suggest the replacement of America's commander in chief" ? knowing full well that Mr. Kerry was simply talking about the next election. Mr. Racicot, not Mr. Kerry, is the one who crossed a grave line; never in our nation's history has it been considered unpatriotic to oppose an incumbent's re-election.

Anyway, what defines patriotism? Talk is cheap; so is putting a flag in your lapel. Citizens prove their patriotism when they make sacrifices for the sake of their country. Mr. Kerry, a decorated veteran, has met that test. Most of his critics haven't.

I'm not just talking about military service ? though it's striking how few of our biggest hawks have served. Nor am I talking only about financial sacrifice ? though profiting from public office seems to be the norm, not the exception, among those who wrap themselves in the flag. (Mr. Racicot himself accepted the job as R.N.C. chairman only on the condition that he remain on the payroll of Bracewell and Patterson, a law firm that specializes in lobbying.)

The biggest test of a politician's patriotism is whether he is willing to sacrifice some of his political agenda for the sake of the nation. And that's a test our current leaders have failed with flying colors.

Consider the case of Tom DeLay, the House majority leader, who also piled on Mr. Kerry last week. As it happens, during the war in Kosovo Mr. DeLay was a defeatist, and blamed his own country for provoking Serbian atrocities; any Democrat who said similar things now would be accused of giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Mr. DeLay's political agenda hasn't shifted a bit now that we're at war again. He's still pushing for huge, divisive tax cuts that go mainly to the rich: "Nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes," he says. And he's still eager to slash any and all domestic spending. In the midst of war he pushed through a budget that included sharp cuts in, yes, veterans' benefits.

You can see why Mr. Kerry blasted back, "I'm not going to be questioned in my patriotism by the likes of Tom DeLay."

Some timid souls will suggest that critics of the Bush administration hold off until the war is over. But that's not the American tradition ? and anyway, when will this war be over? Baghdad will fall, but during the occupation that follows American soldiers will still be in harm's way. Also, a strong faction within the administration wants to go on to Syria, to Iran and beyond. And Al Qaeda is still out there.

For years to come, then, this country may be, in some sense, at war. And all that time, if Mr. Racicot and his party are allowed to set the ground rules, nobody will be allowed to criticize the president or call for his electoral defeat. You know what? If that happens, we will have lost the war, whatever happens on the battlefield.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/8/2003 05:20:29 AM |

Second day of "Blogging"

In quotes because I playing with it, really.

This could become an obsession for someone (like me) with too much goddamn time on their hands. Especially if you've been reading blogs for a while.

Blogs have me online so much I can't talk shit about the "web surfers" of olden days, the people who clicked random links for entertainment. I've been berserk recently, following the war discussions, and it hasn't been pleasant (more on that later).

Anyway, I'm getting the feel for what a successful blogging tool is like. I get to modify XREBlogger/XREBloggregator/Whatever I'm gonna call it accordingly . . . just a bit is all that's necessary. But of course that's not the only reason I'm interested in this.

Truthfully, I've wanted a public speaking platform ever since Intersection days. And in those days I was looking at a specific set of goals and ideas. Those goals are still good but there's a bag of other stuff that has me concerned, not least of which is the way the RIME Current Events/Debate conference seems to have risen to devour the public debate space (man, you got to be old as hell to remember that!). The bag is getting too big, too full. I need to develop some kind of focus.

Crushing asshole comments and rhetoric feeblely disguised as logic is easy. Getting heard is hard and getting individuals to change their behavior is harder. Influencing the public debate alone is probably a sisyphean task. Finding and linking up with the right folks is only slightly less difficult.

A single blog is insufficient unto the task. A network though, properly used . . .

And "properly used" is the problem. It is my experience that too many grass-roots types (and I could name names) are as concerned with recognition as correctness. A lot can't seem to think of a solution that doesn't require themselves at the top of the pyramid. Human nature, I suppose. A number of folks are just pissed da fuck off and their idea of activism is ragging on people . . . more human nature. And a lot of the discussion takes place in self-reinforcing groups of people who don't know how the system operates. As such, those discussions have self-reinforcing errors.

Lotta lotta problems, lotta lotta issues. Notta lotta answers, because I feel like I've lost touch with folks on the ground. Alll this down-time has let me know that.

I have a couple of ideas, though. Primary among them is finding some way to facilitate the communication and exchange of ideas among the grass-roots. A lot of the discussion is done on the cheap, Yahoo mailing lists and such. Good looking web sites and/or blogs that folks will want EVERYONE to know about would help. A method of letting people know about new information would help as well--something like www.weblogs.com, maybe, or better, like www.syndic8.com specializing in syndicating Black interest/leftist/activist weblogs.

I'm feeling, though truthfully the public platform thing is more appealing to me (damn that human nature!), the networking thing is more important.

If I'm serious . . . and I think I am . . . I got work to do.

(Note to self: the application MUST HAVE A SPELL-CHECKER)
(Second note: a grammar checker would be nice too, but I don't know how! sob!

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/7/2003 10:33:39 PM |

Be afraid . . . be very afraid

Small Bomb Damages Ald. Solis' Office

(Chicago) -- The West Side office of Ald. Danny Solis (25th) was bombed early Monday morning.

A "small explosive device" was thrown through the window of the office, at 2439 S. Oakley Av., and blew a small hole in the floor when it exploded, according to Marquette District Capt. Fred Konet.

Solis shares the office with State Representative Edward Acevedo. Both are Democrats.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/7/2003 03:22:32 PM |

A capitalist should appreciate this line of thought, but . . .

The Bottom Line, a blog hosted by Corante has this to say about the costs of doing or not doing Bush's Total Information Awareness program:

---

Filtering and Errors

Here is an example of poor use of mathematics.

Heather MacDonald, defending Total Information Awareness, called us all Luddites for not being thrilled by the capabilities of this new technology. She would, she said emotionally, be happy for her daughter to answer a few questions if it meant she wouldn't be blown up at her college. Patrick Ball, who does statistics and relational databases for a living in human rights work, challenged her with some numbers. We are, he said forcibly, talking about hundreds of millions of suspects and a few dozen terrorists. Even the tiniest error rate, he pointed out, means hundreds of thousands of false positives and therefore investigations.

It is MacDonald who is right and Ball who is wrong. Think of it this way: what do we do without a database? Then we will have a larger error rate and even more investigations.

Or, implicitly, we will not have any terrorist investigations. In that case we save the cost of the investigations (both to the government and to the people who would have been investigated). That's wonderful. Except that now we pay the price of more terrorist incidents, which might be $100 billion each (look at 9-11).

In order to know whether an error rate is costly or not, we need to know what the alternative would be. If the alternative is a higher error rate and/or more terrorism, that puts the error rate of a database in perspective.

---

You know, if you don't want to pay the price of more terrorist events, you might consider not empowering extremists for your own benefit.

See, the thing about extremists is if you don't agree with them point-for-point, they're going to do something extreme.

But, I suppose it's too late to think along those lines now. Oh, well . . .

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/7/2003 09:06:51 AM |

Workers Who Feel Discarded

Bob Herbert, NY Times

Among the many things overshadowed by the war is the substantial human toll that is quietly being taken by the faltering U.S. economy. Putting Americans to work is not part of the agenda of the Bush administration, and the fallout from this lack of interest is spreading big time.

The U.S. is hemorrhaging jobs. On Friday the government reported that 108,000 more jobs were lost in March. Some 2.4 million jobs have vanished since the nation's payrolls peaked two years ago.

The jobless rate held steady at 5.8 percent last month, but that is extremely deceptive. People who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work are not counted when the unemployment rate is calculated. This keeps the official rate artificially low. There are five million people in the discouraged category and their ranks are growing.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/7/2003 08:29:49 AM |

Ted Rall is Eeeeevil!

I love that in a man.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/7/2003 08:03:00 AM |

The Nazis: Warning from History - The Condensed Version

When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
Published on Sunday, March 16, 2003 by CommonDreams.org
When Democracy Failed: The Warnings of History
by Thom Hartmann

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."

Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, inc
eased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/6/2003 03:59:51 PM |

In no particular order:

• ya damn skippy, I'm a liberal
• I'm a Capitalist because I can't see Bell Laboratory scientists creating the transistor in exchange for a couple of loaves of bread, a bag of salt and a hunting knife each
• people aren't so much stupid or lazy as comfortable
• Nazis is as Nazis does. Look up the history on how they manipulated public opinion and came to power. Too lazy . . . um, comfortable to read? Check out The Nazis: Warning from History set from The History Channel. Do the math--draw a conclusion.
• Good Germans is as Good Germans does. See the previous point.

If not for IP issues, I'd post this weekly

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/6/2003 02:21:28 PM |

ASS-u-me

Of course, all this presupposes someone is listening to poor l'il me. Which means trying to get into marketing on some level--simply being serious and making sense (another assumption I make is that I do that) hasn't been enough to be heard in a long time.

After all, there's a lot of competition out there.

So I set up my little shop, right? And I put all amnner of truth, goodness and wisdom on display. Then I set out a sign with directions to my shop, a 200 watt spotlight above it so it can be read in the middle of all the darkness.

But right next to me . . . hell, 100 miles away . . . there's a big display room full of all manner of googaws, making pretty tinkling noises and flashing colored lights. They serve cotton candy, whipped cream, all these yummy, empty calories. And they put up a sign the size of a billboard with ten searchlights sweeping the skies and play funky music that can be heard blocks away.

Is anyone gonna even see my sign?

posted by Prometheus 6 at 4/6/2003 12:49:06 PM |