Splash of Cold: Germany 1933

[panzerfaust]

To illuminate and expand upon Ms Troy's thesis in "Splash of Cold Water", you might want to read Milton Mayer's They Thought They Were Free

This book will open your eyes as to how totalitarianism is welcomed by the mass of people if the media support it, and the economy is good.
Christine Weingarten
Reviewing on Amazon

Sadly, the question no longer is "can it happen here", but "when"

[Fiendish Thingy]

1. Haven't read the book, but read Ms. Troy's article;

Agreed with a lot of it, although I don't think we've reached "critical mass" as we did during Vietnam/Watergate. The censorship/complacency of the corporate media has delayed this, but as the "girl on the sofa" metaphor describes, awareness is increasing, as evidenced by Bush's tumbling poll numbers. (Germany in 1933 didn't have television, let alone the internet or DU- I think that makes a huge difference in whether all the lambs go peacefully to the slaughter).

If activists begin to be 'disappeared", I think there would be an uprising, perhaps not in Utah or Alabama, but in many places. This would then test the thesis put forth in Ms. Troy's essay. Then we'll see how far this administration is willing to push the issues of Posse Comitatus and Habeus Corpus with the general population. So far they've been shrewd enough only to violate the rights of individuals who can be passed off as "terrorists" or "enemy combatants"; I don't think they could get away with indefinitely imprisoning demonstrators- Nixon didn't even push it that far. That would be, IMHO, the straw (or anvil) that broke the Camel's back.

My gut tells me that, if the Dems retake even one house of Congress and begin agressive investigations/impeachment hearing that can't be ignored, that Bush would "cut and run"; It's Cheney who worries me more (and I'm sure a lot of others).

Nevertheless, a splash of cold water now and then has a good, bracing effect, waking one out of the doldrums of complacency...

[theSaiGirl]

2. "Controlled demo" as a memetic paradigm for current policy

It seems as though the original events of 9/11, like the earlier JFK hit, or Waco or the OKC bombing, provide a mythic defining event for our entire epochal shift into the Sacred Age of Terror
(borrowing the title from a current book on the market).

Presaging the collaspe of Enron, and failure of confidence in financial markets generally, 9/11 seemed to drown out the emerging reality, the sights and sounds of Big Globalization's manifest failure in places like Latin America and Southeast Asia, so distant and lacking in apparent connection - to the Middle East, Iraq, or midtown Manhattan.
9/11 became the background noise, against which the signals of economic collapse and social decay could be masked and obscured; as in the proverbial low signal-to-noise ratio, that digital engineers constantly have to contend with.
So, mass psychologically speaking, 9/11 becomes the new template for political reality; roughly proportional to the way the JFK hit became the background template for an entire generational concept of politics and power.
How one interpeted the earlier event, often tends to clarify how one interprets the more recent one, depending on age and cultural background. If someone personally watched the televised broadcast of Ruby silencing Oswald, only a few days later, the long-term psychological impact is even more intense.
Either way, slight asjustments of the overall system, have to be understood as massive psychic shifts in the whole backdrop of things.

If one accepts the basic official explanation of 9/11 events, as an attack by crazed Arab Muslim fanatics, armed with box cutters, masterminded by a dialysis patient, from a cave in lower Afghanistan - all led to the leveling of the WTC Towers, WTC6 and WTC7, and a wall at the Pentagon; and ushered in a New Age of Terror ...
If that basic world view is assumed, that we are living thru a long protracted (never-ending ?) war on terror, or war on terrorists, or something like that; then it becomes increaingly problematic to differentiate oneself from the gangsters and sociopaths who are currently in power; as far as basic questions of war, peace and policy for the future of our suvivial..
You can object that the Iraq occupation is a diversion from the main War on Terror campaign as laid out by the PNAC folks, Michael Ledeen, Richard Pipes, Joe Lieberman even...
But if you accept the basic premise of the global War on Terror, then you really make a very weak case for presumptive withdrawl from Iraq.
So, in that respect, Democrats who endorse the War on Terror, but reject the War/Occupation of Iraq; become increasingly difficult to differentiate from those who currently hold power.

Just as scripted events were staged to appear spontaneous in post-republican Roman times and perennially in Byzantine times (re: Gibbon, Suetonius, Procopius), in order to pre-empt or manage or contain the consequences of larger harder-to-control forces in the surronding environment and population; emergencies, catastrophes, disasters, so-called terrorist events; all have to be managed as political and cultural theatre.

If a collapse can be managed, ratcheted down in decrements, engineered even, as in market, banking or parliamentary crises, then our current situation may politically be described as a "controlled demolition" of the American republican (or democratic, if you will) tradition, with the real consquences of staged events like 9/11 the London bombings of 7/7, or the recent Amman hotel bombings; providing justification for universal surevillance, checkpoints, warrantless search and home invasion, the threat of compulsory vaccination or chipping, all the emerging technologies (so business-friendly) of our new homeland security universe (heimland securitate) now becoming normative.

So I propose controlled demolition as the most descriptive and concise meme, to name the process going on right now around us.
For which 9/11 was nothing more than the pilot episode, the prototypical motivating event in the whole plotline.
It's all about changing how we think.
So our co-operation and compliance might be secured, with or without the Bill of Rights, or Constitution, now virtually shredded.
With or without staged electronic elections...
Already, new forms of governance are being proposed that would more honestly and frankly acknowledge the true global character of our ruling elite polity.

[newyawker99]

3. Hi theSaiGirl!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[deacon2]

6. I saw Ruby silence Oswald

and I don't think the 9/11 shift is analogous. Kennedy's assassination did not set off a compliant sheep reaction so much as unspeakable grief. The net effect in background was, of course, a massive power grab by "God knows who." But in foreground, the societal shift from my small piece of America was one of stunned disbelief and sadness. We did not line up to drink from the kool-aid fountain as so many of our countrymen did after 9/11.

So allow me to join your otherwise astute narrative affirmatively post-9/11 here in New Sparta, where torture is the new black and Faux Media is the agency of disinformation. Where the rapidly emergent semiotic marker of "martial law" is troubling in the extreme. As is the absence of discussion of what to do with those pesky permanent bases along the Iraqi oil pipelines once we "withdraw." Not a chance in hell of this happening, of course, unless "we" were to "win" the 2006 elections. And as you have so correctly stated - there's a whole lot of silicon chips now between "us" and anything resembling a real election.

I think the notion of waiting to worry until the dissidents are being "disappeared" as stated elsewhere in this thread is far too slow on the brakes. By that time there will be absolutely nothing left to do but smile and enjoy the waterboarding.

Surf's up!

[blindpig]

7. Great post. Welcome to DU. n/t

[phantom power]

4. I saw a film in high-school about an experiment...

Somebody conducted at another high-school, where the faculty(?) basically engineered a nazi-like student organization. They set up a student club that scape-goated some subset of the student body, and installed a hitler-like leader, etc.

The "movement" was called "The Wave", and they had arm-bands with a wave logo, etc.

At the point where things were starting to get out of hand, the faculty brought all the students into the auditorium, and showed them footage of Hitler, Nazi Germany, etc. And of course all of a sudden the students "got it"

As I recall, this film was based on an actual experiment. Anybody else remember this? Cuz I think it's a good time to start showing it again, at every school in America.

And maybe the adults need a refresher, too.

[phantom power]

5. Aha! Here it is....

It began it's life as a short story based on a real experiment. The movie was made in 1981. It's also been turned into a novel and a musical:

http://www.geocities.com/Broadway/3145/wave.html

[lostnfound]

8. An excellent column; I'm mailing it to my moderate friends.

Just ran across this thread while doing a search; I'm sorry I missed it until now.