Tom Cole Opens the Door on Hitler
By Becky Burgwin
Republican Congressman Tom Cole recently made the claim that a vote against the re-election of President Bush is like a vote for Adolph Hitler. If Representative Cole were the defense attorney in a trial, this statement would have just "opened the door" to questioning by the prosecuting attorney on previously suppressed testimony regarding the Bush administration's similarity to the Nazi's. It might have gone like this.
Rep. Cole: President Bush, do you think that a vote against you can be equated with a vote for Adolph Hitler?
Pres. Bush: Why yes, Congressman Cole, I do.
Rep. Cole: Thank you Mr. President. No further questions.
Prosecuting Attorney: President Bush, do you think there are any other ways in which your administration compares to that of Hitler's in the early 30's?
Rep. Cole: Objection. Council is alluding to facts not in evidence.
Prosecuting Attorney: Your Honor, my good friend across the aisle "opened the door" to this line of questioning when he asked the president if a vote against him would be similar to a vote for Adolph Hitler.
Judge: Objection overruled.
So, Representative Cole has, in my opinion, opened the door to an examination of how anything or anybody in this election compares with the Nazi Party and I intend to take advantage of it.
Actually, there happen to be quite a few similarities and quite a few differences.
One of the most glaring differences is that as egomaniacal, obsessive and paranoid as Hitler was, he was no dummy. He knew that in order to gain the loyalty of the German people, he had to improve conditions in Germany. Having experienced a humiliating defeat in the First World War, as well as the effects of the Great Depression, the German people were suffering on many levels. Unemployment was high, their currency worthless. Many went hungry. The rough and tumble German pride was shattered.
Despite glaring character defects, Hitler was able to accomplish in a relatively short time many things that would make the German people believe that he was their savior. He created prosperity by lowering the unemployment rate. He put through tough environmental standards and was, in fact, himself, a vegetarian. He restored Germany's legendary military and won back many of the lands that they lost in the war. Just the fact that the trains were running on time on time made the Germans feel that, thanks to this colossal man with his torchlight parades and huge Nazi rallies, their country had been restored to the tough and proud Germany they knew it to be.
In stark contrast to the early days of the Third Reich, George W. Bush told the American people that he was going to find them jobs but, instead of creating jobs, almost 3 million jobs have been lost since he was elected president. He told them he was going to enact strict environmental controls so the American people could be assured of always having clean air and water, then he withdrew America from the Kyoto talks and rolled back 30 years of environmental progress. He told older Americans that he was going to fix Medicare and give them a prescription drug plan that would ease their burdens and their pocketbooks, then he passed the most scurrilous Medicare bill ever devised and lied not only to the people but also to the Senate and House about how much it was going to cost.
Bush is dangerous because he is ignorant and doesn't make any attempt to change that so he engages in activities that are extremely harmful but doesn't have the slightest idea of what he is doing. But what's worse is that foreign policy ideas are being perpetrated by a man who knows nothing of other countries, their customs, their history or their current politics.
George Bush is part of a plan to take over America and return it to the days before the New Deal. It is being done under the auspices of the Christian Coalition and it has been just as affective as Hitler's use of German nationalism. As far back as 1986 Pat Robertson was circulating a memo entitled, "How to Participate in a Political Party." According to Joan Baker, the Director of Theocracy Watch, the memo read as follows:
"Rule the world for God.
"Give the impression that you are there to work for the party, not push an ideology.
"Hide your strength.
"Don't flaunt your Christianity.
"Christians need to take leadership positions. Party officers control political parties and so it is very important that mature Christians have a majority of leadership positions whenever possible, God willing."
(From Katherine Yurica in her treatise, "The Despoiling of America.")
Also, according to Yurica, Journalist Frederick Clarkson, who has written extensively on the subject of the Christian Coalition and it's ties to a group called Dominionists, warned in 1994 that the members of our government who have fallen in behind Pat Robertson "seek to replace democracy with a theocratic elite that would govern by imposing their interpretation of 'Biblical Law.' He described the ulterior motive of Dominionism is to eliminate '"labor unions, civil rights laws, and public schools.' Clarkson then describes the creation of new classes of citizens: 'Women would be generally relegated to hearth and home. Insufficiently Christian men would be denied citizenship, perhaps executed. So severe is this theocracy that it would extend capital punishment [to] blasphemy, heresy, adultery, and homosexuality.'" (Pg. 4, "The Despoiling of America.")
Walter Cronkite pleads in his fund raising letter for The Interfaith Alliance, --I am deeply disturbed by the dangerous and growing influence of people like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell on our nation's political leaders. Especially after Robertson and Falwell shamefully blamed America's courts and the highest level of government for the horrific September 11 attack on our nation. They said it happened because we 'insulted God.' Falwell went on to blame feminists, pro-choice Americans and other groups he despises."
In case anybody doubts that Mr. Robertson has important members of our system of jurisprudence on his side, they only need to read Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's essay, "God's Justice and Ours," written in 2003.
To quote Justice Scalia, "Few doubted the morality of the death penalty in the age that believed in the divine right of kings. Or even in earlier times. St. Paul had this to say (I am quoting, as you might expect, the King James version):
"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. (Romans 13:1-5)"
Scalia goes on to say, "This is not the Old Testament, I emphasize, but St. Paul. One can understand [St. Paul's] words as referring only to lawfully constituted authority, or even only to lawfully constituted authority that rules justly. But the core of his message is that government""however you want to limit that concept""derives its moral authority from God. It is the 'minister of God' with powers to 'revenge,' to 'execute wrath,' including even wrath by the sword (which is unmistakably a reference to the death penalty)."
The idea that evil deeds can be part and parcel of a government that supposedly aspires to the highest level of Christianity not only come from Antonin Scalia, Pat Robertson and the Bible, but also from other equally well read sources such as "The Prince" by Machiavelli.
According to Ms. Yurica, Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Vladimir Ilich Lenin, Lee Atwater, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia and Pat Robertson have all extensively studied the extremely troubling theories of Machiavelli. (If you want a 46 page detailed report of exactly what Pat Robertson, Dick Cheney, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and George Bush are up to, read Yurica's "The Despoiling of America." It's chilling.)
Machiavelli aspired to such ideals as the end always justifying the means. He espoused the idea that the leader does not have to actually possess qualities of goodness; he must only appear to have these qualities. "Machiavelli is not concerned with the education of the citizens". There is no inherent purpose in the state. Any direction it may receive must be imposed upon it by the ruler." (Introduction to Machiavelli's "The Prince," by Christian Gauss.) How closely this resembles Pat Robertson's "How to Participate in a Political Party."
According to Machiavelli, "A man who wishes to make a profession of goodness in everything must necessarily come to grief among so many who are not good. Therefore, it is necessary"to learn how not to be good, and to use this knowledge and not use it, according to the necessity of his case." Much of this ideology can be heard flowing from the mouths of the Christian right as well as the Nazis.
Hitler's Third Reich used another tactic so familiar to today's global community"the use of war to maintain peace. "When we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." Adolph Hitler? No. George Bush.
Hitler was able to convince everyone; the Germans, the British, the French and even the Americans, that the problem was Communism and the solution was him. "Only brainless dwarfs cannot realize that Germany has been the breakwater against the Communist floods, which would have drowned Europe and its culture." ("The Nightmare Years," by American foreign correspondent, William L. Shirer, pg. 121.) Even Charles Lindbergh, after meeting him, stated that Hitler's Germany, "held today the intangible eastern border of European civilization." (ibid.)
Much like George Bush, Hitler often sounded awkward and confused in his public appearances. Still he managed to fool the entire world into believing that he was using his reconstituted military to keep the peace. According to Shirer, Adolph Hitler, "while talking peace to lull the outside world "was going to make ready for war as fast as he could." ("The Nightmare Years," pg. 223.)
Hitler used the tactic of preying on the weaknesses of some countries and he played up the disloyalty of others. Coincidentally, Britain, behind the backs of its allies, France and Italy as well as The League of Nations, threw out provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, agreed to Hitler's ideas regarding the German Navy and basically gave the Third Reich carte-blanche to rebuild.
The similarities here are unnerving. With Britain's blessing, Hitler went behind the back of the League of Nations and threw out the Treaty of Versailles in much the same way that Bush and Blair ignored NATO and acted against the wishes of the UN in their race to war with Iraq.
Hitler also used the politics of fear in exactly the same way as it is being used by the American government today. On February 27, 1933 the German Parliament was burned to the ground. A Communist was charged with the crime and sentenced to death. Because it was determined that this was the act of a Communist terrorist, Hitler used this event to advance his dire warnings that Communists are the enemy of all free lands and that they must be stopped in any manner possible. In response to this attack and supposedly for the benefit of the German people, many of their civil rights were revoked. Included in these were the right to free expression of opinion, freedom of the press, the right of assembly and association, the right to privacy in all forms of communication and protection from unlawful searches and seizures. Also at this time the SA (Storm Troopers) and SS (Special Security) were formed.
Just one month after the Reichstag fire the "Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation" was put into effect essentially granting Adolph Hitler dictatorial power"the title of this law being only slightly less genuine than the title of John Ashcroft's "Patriot Act."
Similarly, here in America, Gen. Tommy Franks, a high-ranking officer in the US military, has stated that if there is another attack on our country, martial law will be declared. No elections, no congress. A dictatorship.
Also like some in the Bush administration, when Hitler or any member of his cabinet was called upon to testify at the inquiry into the Reichstag fire, they refused.
There were other incidents in these early days that required an even further erosion of the German people's civil liberties and Hitler used these incidents to create even more fear that the enemies of Germany and, indeed, the world over; Communists, Jews, homosexuals, and any other fringe group that threatened to destroy the Aryan race, could only be stopped by his government. It was then that the Third Reich began to grow into a force that came very close to being unstoppable.
Another similarity between the views of Nazi Germany and those of the Bush administration is their hatred of women. Hitler believed that there were only three things that belonged in the life a woman. Kirche, kuche, and kinder. The church, the children and the kitchen.
One need only look as far as the ruling on late term abortions to see the hatred this administration harbors towards women. The late term abortion, as any sane American knows, is only used to save the life of the mother. The ruling that outlaws this procedure and that the old white men in our government were so proud of prohibits the use of this procedure even if the act of carrying the fetus to term will kill the mother. The mother's life is far less valuable to them than the life of the fetus.
Ironically, in the Christian Coalition's America, if abortion is outlawed and the woman is forced to carry a fetus to term, she won't get any help from this government because, if it stays in power, it will dismantle all government programs that are in place to help families in this country like Medicare, Medicaid, Aid to Dependent Children, Head Start and Social Security.
Just as the right-wing Nazis and the left-wing Communists were cut from the same cloth, the Christian fundamentalists in America are cut from the same cloth as their enemy, the Islamic fundamentalists. Their hatred and distrust of women"their belief that their God is the only right God"the belief that, because they are doing God's will, any act, no matter how horrific is justified"and anyone not sharing their beliefs and conforming to their laws is a criminal and a traitor to their cause and deserves to be punished severely.
These are a few of the examples of how Adolph Hitler and George Bush are different in some ways but similar in others.
Don't be fooled, though, they are both extremely dangerous men. Hitler, though he was certifiably insane, was smart enough to figure out what he needed to give the German people in order to fool them into allowing him and his henchmen to construct their evil empire. Having done that, he set about to accomplish his goal of world domination and almost succeeded.
The good news here is that the Bush administration turns out to be much more inept than the Third Reich because they aren't fooling everybody. Not by a long shot. We can take heart from this but we must remember that the election is over 8 months away, and that one of Bush's biggest backers is supplying the voting machines for that election.
William Shirer, eyewitness to the rise of Hitler's Third Reich, laments, "If only I had known what Hitler was actually doing, in contrast to saying." Maybe, he supposes, he could have done something to stop it.
We must continue our diligent search to find out the truth of what President Bush and his Machiavellian advisors are up to and shout it far and wide. Hopefully, our allies who have proclaimed that they will not back the current administration will be willing to support us in our efforts to unseat them and that, in the words of Pete Townsend, "We won't get fooled again." If we are not successful, God help us all.
another article comparing Bush with Hitler:
When Democracy Failed Thom Hartmann The First article to Compare Bush with Hitler Editor Rob Kall published this under a pseudonym, on another website, www.sphincterpolice.com at Thom's request, in September 2002
