It was David Hume's 1758 Of the First Principles of Government that stated:
Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few, and the implicit submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular.
-David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government
Hume was not alone in associating military governments with despotic governments. When any person puts himself both above and against the law, then the people are entitled lawfully to rise up -violently if necessary -to overthrow the tyrant, the self-proclaimed dictator. In our own Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson said that "...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it". Che Guevara spoke of such 'governments' when he said:
When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken
Che Guevara, Chapter I: General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare
John Dean makes this chilling point. Nixon, at the height of the Watergate scandal, toyed with the idea of defying the high court, but, in the end thought better of it and resigned. Bush/Cheney won't budge amid declarations that whatever may be alleged against them, they can, themselves "authorize" it and make it legal –even after the fact. This is, of course, utter bullshit, a violation of the Constitutional prohibition of ex post facto laws1. But powerful men with nukes and paid thugs believe it.
Sinclair Lewis wrote a now famous book entitled: It Can't Happen Here! But, in fact, it has and in a manner that closely resembles the fictional rise to power of one "Buzz" Windrip. We should not be surprised. George W. Bush's grandfather had, in fact, plotted with fellow Nazis to overthrow the government of FDR and establish, in America, a fascist dictatorship. Too late now I'm afraid, have we learned the lessons of history, how almost all dictatorships begin and grow.
The 'state' becomes 'absolute' and absurdly self-justifying'
Over the next several posts, I propose to take each point in turn. Story tellers since Aristotle have told us that every story has a beginning, a middle and an end. Bush's story is the story of how he and the GOP leadership conspired to create a police state of America.
The Police State Always Follows a False-Flag Terrorist Attack
Hitler never got more than 37 percent of the vote in several elections called over a short period of time ending with an act of terrorism that Hitler would exploit to consolidate his dictatorship. That act was the Reichstag Fire, Hitler's 911.
It's hard to imagine that anyone would dare go back to the well given the press "Reichstag" gets. Nevertheless, the tactic, having proved successful for Nazis, would be tried again. No one ever accused Bush of being imaginative. His gang would simply repeat a tired, old Nazi tactic and expect the people to go along. And, for the most part, the people did precisely that.
On February 27, 1937, Hitler was having dinner with Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels when the phone rang to inform the future Fuhrer: "The Reichstag is on fire!" At the scene, Hitler and Goebbels, found Hermann Goring, later Hitler's air minister, shouting "at the top of his lungs", blaming communists for an act of terrorism.
How Hitler became a dictator is recounted in many sources but William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich is still among the very best.
From Goring's Reichstag President's Palace an underground passage, built to carry the central heating system, ran to the Reichstag building. Through this tunnel Karl Ernst, a former hotel bellhop who had become the Berlin S.A. leader, led a small detachment of storm troopers on the night of February 27 to the Reichstag, where they quickly scattered gasoline and self-igniting chemicals and then made their way quickly back to the palace the way they had come. At the same time a half-witted Dutch Communist with a passion for arson, Marinus van der Lubbe, had made his way into the huge, darkened and to him unfamiliar building and set some small fires of his own. This feeble-minded pyromaniac was a godsend to the Nazis. He had been picked up by the S.A. a few days before after having been overheard in a bar boasting that he had attempted to set fire to several public buildings and that he was going to try the Reichstag next.
The coincidence that the Nazis had found a demented Communist arsonist who was out to do exactly what they themselves had determined to do seems incredible but is nevertheless supported by the evidence. The idea for the fire almost certainly originated at the top with Goebbels and Goring. Hans Gisevius, an official in the Prussian Ministry of the Interior at the time, testified at Nuremberg that 'it was Goebbels who first thought of setting the Reichstag on fire' and Rudolph Diels, the Gestapo chief, added in an affidavit that 'Goring knew exactly how the fire was to be started' and had ordered him 'to prepare, prior to the fire, a list of people who were to be arrested immediately after it.' General Franz Halder, Chief of the German General Staff during the early part of World War II, recalled at Nuremberg how on one occasion Goring had boasted of his deed.
At a luncheon on the birthday of the Fuehrer in 1942 the conversation turned to the topic of the Reichstag building and its artistic value. I heard with my own ears when Goring interrupted the conversation and shouted: "The only one who really knows about the Reichstag is I, because I set it on fire!" With that he slapped his thigh with the flat of his hand.
Hitler ordered a round up of the usual suspects, in other words, his opposition, consisting largely of communists whom the Nazis could, with but a shred of credibility, blame for an act of bloody terrorism.
Nazis knew what goppers know now --that frightened and anxious people will willingly surrender the blessings of liberty. From Hitler's experience, Bush learned how to use a "Patriot Act" to crack down on dissent.
Hitler wasted no time. The very next day, he was in President Hindenburg's office urging the aging statesman to issue a patriot act, a decree entitled, "For the Protection of the People and the State." Justified as a "defensive measure against Communist acts of violence endangering the state," the decree suspended constitutional guarantees of civil liberties.
Upon 911 and claims that he is waging a great "war on terror" in Iraq, Bush cites a principle unheard of since King Charles I dared to place himself above Parliament. Called a 'unitary executive', it is, in fact, an American police state. Briefly, a terrorist is whomever Bush says is a terrorist. Anyone --political opposition, dissidents, advocates of free speech, peaceful demonstrators --is a terrorist if Bush 'deems' them so. You can be arrested and detained indefinitely. You don't get a phone call. You don't get a lawyer. You don't get a trial.
Bush claims powers that had accrued to Hitler in 1933. His Federalist Society apologists and Department of Justice appointees claim that President Bush has the same power to interpret the Constitution as the Supreme Court. An Alito Court is likely to agree with this false claim. This is the great issue that is before the country.
Len Hart is a Houston based film/video producer specializing in shorts and full-length documentaries. He is a former major market and network correspondent; credits include CBS, ABC-TV and UPI. He maintains the progressive blog: The Existentialist Cowboy
The danger of a police state is always possible. There are some amongst minorities that might say that has always been a problem for them in this country. What is a police state may depend what your status is in relation to that state. There may be a little too much emphasis at this point as to whether the U.S. will become a full blown police state, but you might ask those loyal Japanese Americans and their offspring what their opinion is about the whole thing. If you recall, the government did some pretty nasty things to black men in a study about syphillis.
by
billiam (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 11 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 12:34:40 PM
Great start on the series, looking forward to the next one ;)
If we would just play ball, and pretend nothing is happening, then everything will be fine.... Just ignore the odd events, they don't matter. What matters is that everything stay as it is now. Would you rather that our 4-bathroom house that we stupidly bought for twice the real worth and our $500,000 mortgages be forgiven and protected; our corporate white-collar jobs continue to be safe.... Our line of credit continue forever?
Because if we continue to buck the flow and cause trouble, then nothing will be safe! There will be food riots, mass unemployment, 1930's poverty that all us soft city yuppies are supremely unequipped for. Everything will melt-down and turn to crap unless we just forget, and go along with the government's wishes!! Just stop reading these damned blogs, go to the Mall instead, and it will all be OK.
Or... We can decide that there is no such thing as invisible clothing. And all those who tried to convince us of that will be revealed for their true natures. They will be stripped of their power to control and ruin our lives... Because they cannot do that unless we allow them to.
Then we can begin to build a world based on reason and common good; not on fear and greed.
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jibbguy (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 83 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 1:35:14 PM
The false flag controlled demolitions of 9-11 and the familar sounds of fanaticism that followed recall the Nazis grip on absolute power and tyranny on that fateful 9-11-38 day in Nazis Germany
- country has suffered a dark day - a day that has changed everything - face a new kind of enemy - will stop at nothing to destroy our way of life - strike them down preemptively - without hindrance from our quaint laws - interrogate them with new techniques until they confess - those who question are dangerous indeed - they pander to our enemies - deal with them soon enough -
And please know that I am a real Texan and, yes, my father insisted that I learn how to rope and ride. My ancestors were in Texas even before Stephen F. Austin. For me, Bush is a carpetbagger! I also learned more than I wanted to know about an evil business: OIL! I also must confess that I am old enough to recall a 'liberal' Texas which is still represented by a gentleman and a scholar: Jim Hightower. 'Kinky Friedman' was a big dissapointment but I still like his "Texas Etiquetee" in which he listed numerous things that you would NEVER hear in Texas. Ex: "Come to think of it, I'll have a Heincken!" or "The tires on that truck are too big!" And my favorite: "And I thought Graceland was tacky!"
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Len Hart (107 articles, 142 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 364 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 3:35:55 PM
I think it's important to remember: Bush is only a puppet. Thus it is not Bush's conspiracy, per se, rather, it's the PNACers' conspiracy, of which Bush is merely the most obvious agent: the front man.
Without the complicity of AIPAC, it's coterie of treasonous, bought and paid-for politicians, their propaganda organ (i.e., the "mainstream media"), etc., none of this would be possible.
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Harold Smith (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 297 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 7:31:16 PM
Well, you're point is well-taken but I've heard all the puppet theories before. Herman Goring and his ilk were likewise only Hitler's puppets and were only 'folloving orders' at Nuremberg. Most of them hanged for their complicity. Bush is called "Commander-in-Chief" ...now, unless his IQ is EVEN LESS than that of the moron that he is, he is guilty as sin.
No....sorry...if he were to get a speeding ticket, he would have to pay the fine. Bush is a grown man, a bona fide member of the Skull and Bones. Stupid though he may be, he knows very well what he was doing and even boasted about being a dictator.
Sure --they are all puppets --So what? They are all WILLING PUPPETS and some of them like Condo Rice even think themselves smart. They should all stand trial for capital crimes that have been the deliberate result of their criminal junta. A first year law student could make the case, but I would feel more comfortable if someone of some proven expertise took on the job.
There is no cover for Bush under law. Bush knew what he was doing even if he lacked the imagination to concoct it all himself. He doesn't have to have originated the idea. He need only WILLFULLY participate. And he did that with ENTHUSIASM. He LIKED being dictator of the world.
No one ever said he was as smart as 'Bunker' Dick and it doesn't matter. They should all stand trial. I am sure there is courtroom somewhere that will accomodate the entire gang.
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Len Hart (107 articles, 142 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 364 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 1:11:34 AM
I didn't mean to imply that Bush is not culpable for his many crimes, all I meant to say is that we must not lose sight of the fact that this whole idea was obviously not one that Bush dreamt up himself.
The PNACers have been planning and plotting and agitating, for years, to get the U.S. inextricably and disastrously involved in the Mideast.
If not for their puppets in Congress, this plan would not have gotten to first base. In fact, I blame the traitors in Congress such as Conyers and Pelosi far more than I blame Bush.
Sorry but putting the focus mainly on Bush is wrong.
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Harold Smith (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 297 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 7:00:11 AM
Mostly HW Bush has been the president with his Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney. They've been at it a long time--30 yrs. They managed to get the right prop boy in and expedited the plan.
As a Texan, I bet you make no claims to Lil' Bush. You know it's next to impossible to find that 1984 video in movie rental stores in my town. Everyone was wanting to see it, and then suddenly, they didn't even have a copy anymore. I figured it was some of that Homeland Security editing(repression of press).
It's all financed by Reverend Moon. Moon probably has more money than anyone in the world. No one knows how much he makes on arms and drugs sales. He wanted so badly to abolish the constitution and rid America of "individualism". He has a permanent Green card. His plans are what is coming to pass and the Bush crime family is helping him. Reaganites helped him as well. All the neocons are helping him actually. I believe Rev. Moon wants to be a world leader and first he has to whip us "satanic Americans" into line.
This is an excellent article if you have the time...it's lengthy but the whole article has valuable info in it so read the whole enchilada!
Thanks for your comments, Shirley...but the "Bush is a prop" line seems designed to let this murderous, sociopathic criminal off the hook. If Bush was a 'prop', he was all too eager. I am interested in the criminal case that can be made NOW and introduced as evidence in a court. There is no doubt that Bush was both 'enabled' and 'enabler' of others. Certainly --whatever case is made against Bush DOES NOT PRECLUDE cases that can be made against Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Yoo, Gonzales, Ashcroft, Ridge, the co-conspiractors of Cheney's "Energy Task Force' et al, ad nauseam.
We often think of the Nuremberg Trials in terms of the first and most famous, in which Justice Robert Jackson simply ground down Hermann Goring who had hoped to use the trial as a podium from which to spout Nazi propaganda. In fact, that trial was merely the first of many trials of Nazis.
I support however many trials it takes to put behind bars or on the gallows EVERY Bush co-conspirator and EVERY war criminal in or out of Bush's criminal 'White House'.l
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Len Hart (107 articles, 142 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 364 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 3:53:53 AM
Last year, it was reported in South American newpapers and picked up by Wonkette. com that Bush had purchased about 100,000 acres in Paraguay, next the nearly 1.5 million acres owned by Moon near the town of Chaco. The land sits atop the largest freshwater aquifer in the country, and is along the arms (and other contraband) smuggling routes. Bush negotiated for and received immunity from prosecution from national and ICC jurisdiction for his family and any military he employs at his ranch.
if the above link doesn't work, go to wonkette.com and search for article titled
I recall reading something that Paraquay may have changed its laws and that the Bush 'safe haven' might have fallen through.
If Bush cannot escape extradition, his years out of the White House may turn out to be very, very interesting. Last time I checked, EVEN Texas could not shield mass murderers from extradition.
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Len Hart (107 articles, 142 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 364 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 8:06:42 AM
1. Is something that's dead-bone knife-in-the-crotch OBVIOUS to all but the most soma-soaked simulacrum-saturated SUCKERS a "conspiracy?" Like... urban sprawl is a "conspiracy" to create ugliness??
2. "to create," what- like the Police State is not already a done deal?? what-- because there aren't yet torchlight-toting storm troopers in the streets herding people into boxcars... we still got feedumb and dumocracy??? Oh... that's sooo "1930."
Take a spin into the city and count the kop kars. If you don't see at least four (marked) in 15 minutes... you must be living in Mayberry... or Downtown. Downtown they ain't marked... and in the Ghetto they aint there. The Criminal Just-Us "system" has been privatized... so it's only worth preying on the folks who can pay fines. "serve and protect?" why? crime is how the "useless eaters" kill each other.
There is no place on earth that is more of a Police State than what used to be the USA.
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waldopaper (9 articles, 2 quicklinks, 6 diaries, 165 comments)
on Friday, May 2, 2008 at 10:07:13 PM
I am very well acquainted with Europe where I RARELY saw a cop. On my first visit to England back in the 70s, one would sometimes see a bobby, even a mounted 'bobby'. But no one feared to approach them to ask a question or seek aid. It was benign. Not so the oppressive pall that has descended upon America.
The omni-presense of STORM TROOPERS and TASER HAPPY HOT DOGS is downright oppressive. And most of these people are seriously impaired intellectually and emotionally. Sheesh! To think that the nation is now held hostage by this ilk, many of whom are little better than criminally inclined morons and had no other job opportunities but that of paid thug and taser toter!!!!!
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Len Hart (107 articles, 142 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 364 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 1:34:00 AM
Bush's Conspiracy to create an American Police State: Part I
Bull's Eye! AIPAC & AIPOOC & A-SPOOKS, they are ALL in it, A-SPOOKS being everyone who would stand to BENEFIT from a Police State and a POLICE(D) WORLD ORDER. Keep the Oil & Defense Industries getting richer & richer. Allow Wall Street 'Merchants of Venice' get their last pounds of Human Flesh. Get Corn off the Food List. Let the Drug Business prosper, both types of DRUGS. Let Israel grow and prosper. Let Rev Moon and the Evangelist Churches grow richer and richer. Let the Few off all hooks! Let those can not afford 'bread' eat cake! The Kingdom of God's Chosen Race & the Pilgrims has arrived!
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syed mahdi (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 107 comments)
on Saturday, May 3, 2008 at 6:09:40 AM
Anyone --political opposition, dissidents, advocates of free speech, peaceful demonstrators --is a terrorist if Bush 'deems' them so. You can be arrested and detained indefinitely. You don't get a phone call. You don't get a lawyer. You don't get a trial.
