Reply #72: The root of both Hitler's Germany and booooosh's USA in terms of the

[Tansy_Gold]

political "threat" to a resistant populace is, imho, the core belief in both that their people were inherently better than their enemies and that their enemies were essentially non-human; that they had an inherent right to rule and conquer and eliminate their enemies; that anything they did in furtherance of their goals was right, justified, legitimate, and legal.

The union of corporations and government is of course another aspect, and the privatization of the military, especially into a form of military that owes its allegiance not to the state or the people but to the leadership and its personal ideology is yet another. We've seen our "homeland defenses" severely diminished as the national guard is sent off to war; the secondary effect is the diminishing of local police and fire protection -- those lauded "first responders" -- because many of them are also national guard.

Though I am not usually a tinfoilhatter, I can skim on the fringe: the virtual destruction of the extreme right wing militias after the OKC McVeigh bombing opened the doors to outfits like Blackwater and at the same time put informal limitations on the development of anything along the lines of a true citizen militia. Don't misunderstand me: I'm very anti-gun and anti-violence, and I would much prefer that law enforcement and civil defense and all that stuff remain in the hands of loyal and professional government forces (police, fire, military, etc.). And while I'm not in a "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" mood, I do think there are elements of what's happening in the waning days of the semi-legitimate boooosh reign that presage something other than the peaceful, orderly transfer of power on 20 January 2009.

Have I taken steps to flee the way some of my family members fled Germany in the late 1930s? No, not really. But the fact that I've even thought about doing it, and thought about what I'd need to do to accomplish it, is evidence to me that things are not right in this country.

The other side of the same coin, which I don't think has been touched on very much, is what would happen if someone -- China? Russia? -- decided to invade the U.S. Oh, it's as far fetched as anything, and I suppose such a move would result in some form of mutually-assured destruction. But if we are vulnerable to attack from within, are we not also vulnerable, even if less so, to attack from without? :shrug:

Tansy Gold