OBAMA AND THE HITLER YOUTH REVISITED
You cannot trust your neighborOr even next of kinIf mommy is a commieThen you gotta turn her in-Chad Mitchell Trio 1962
Back in September of 2004 I put together a photo essay and sent it to my friends on the Internet. The essay was entitled "Kerry and the Hitler Youth revisited." It was an analysis of one of John Kerry's campaign planks which he called "A New Army of Patriots." It demanded a compulsory year of service for high schoolers. That service was to include assisting local and federal law enforcement and homeland security. Kerry also promised college tuition in return for two years in the military which he called "the highest form of service." This is the "service" where Kerry's band of brothers learned to burn villages and murder civilians. Along with expanding what I called his "Police Corps" program John Kerry also wanted to create what can only be characterized as a Gestapo-like "Community Defense Service" with local captains functioning as the eyes and ears of the government. Interestingly the URL which I quoted as a source no longer leads to this program. The reference can still be found here: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5554/is_200407/ai_n21840070
The Police Corps Returns
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Barack Obama, July 2, 2008
In the same speech Obama repeated his pledge to boost the size of the active military. But he said the nation's future and safety depends on more than just additional service members. "It also depends on the teacher in East LA, or the nurse in Appalachia, the after-school worker in New Orleans, the Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, the Foreign Service officer in Indonesia," he said.
Obama would put teeth in his program by promising to withhold funds from school districts which failed to establish service programs and set goals of 50 hours of service a year for middle school and high school students. For college students, Obama would set the goal at 100 hours of service a year and create a $4,000 annual tax credit for college students tied to that level of service.
In Germany in 1926 Adolph Hitler created the "Hitler Youth" (Hitlerjugend). One of its sub-organizations was called the "Patrol Service" (Hitlerjugend-Streifendienst). It was the Hitler Youth's counterpart of the Gestapo. It was designed to be a type of internal police service that worked in the shadows to enforce the strict laws of the Third Reich. It ruled by fear, terror, and violence. Its members sought out any dissident or suspected traitor to the cause. Like the Gestapo, its members were everywhere and were the eyes and ears of top party members. Any suspected disloyalty or even anti-Nazi (or Hitler) jokes were reported. "Patrol Service" members were capable of denouncing their own family and parents on occasion.
Obama's "Civilian National Security Force", like Kerry's "Community Defense Service", with their compulsory training of young people, strongly enforced by withholding educational services, was ominously foreshadowed by the Hitler Youth's "Patrol Service." Just as there was virtually no mention of John Kerry's compulsory youth program back in 2004 there is virtually no mention of Obama's compulsory youth training corps by the mainstream media. In fact, if the speech were not available on YouTube, http://tinyurl.com/5t76rw it might be suggested that the comments never occurred. This is altogether warranted since the prepared remarks given to the media did not contain some of the comments Obama made in the actual presentation.
The Obama Youth versus Nader's Watchdogs
By contrast Ralph Nader has introduced the idea of "Congressional Watchdogs." Instead of forced participation in a government run program driven by threatening the loss of educational funds and instead of creating an organization with the nebulous purpose of further protecting our "homeland security," Nader's proposal does not establish a covert organization for spying on our fellow citizens. Rather it is an effort to galvanize American citizens in each congressional district in order "to turn the Congress around" as Nader puts it. Rather than creating an atmosphere of fear and the aura of a police state, as planned by the corporate Democrats in 2004 and now again in 2008, Nader's idea is to have "Congressional Watchdogs" defang the corporate serpent which now controls our Congress.
Ralph Nader encourages us saying that "we're millions of people out there, and we simply have to, for the sake of our children and grandchildren, and the state of our nation in [sic] the world, we have to mobilize in that manner, and that's what that, that Web site (www.votenader.org) is all about [sic]. It's not just a Web site. It's a gathering center."
When I read about Obama's plan I feel a draft. A national draft, both for military and civic purposes, in which Obama's Youth will find themselves indoctrinated in the beliefs of neoliberal corporatism, taught to pledge their allegiance to Milton Friedman every morning. What I would like to have heard from Obama, wishful thinking, would be that he is cutting the Pentagon budget by 15% and would use that to fund a college education for every kid in America. But Obama is not about do that anymore that he is going to propose universal single-payer health care. Just as he receives huge campaign contributions from the financial organizations that make a fortune on college loans, he is up to his neck in HMO and big Pharma contributions.
This is a scary election. In previous years, candidates would at least sometimes go through the motions of trying to differentiate themselves from the opposition. In 2008 with both candidates having approved the USA Patriot Act, The Military Commissions Act and the FISA bill, both parties seem to be competing to make America a police state.
We can choose to follow a citizen-based civic oriented watchdog group or a government mandated, fear driven program which moves us further to the corporate goal of a completely controlled population. Bringing about a new version of the Hitler Youth will not be a difficult task. Two recent books, "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein and "American Fascists" by Chris Hedges both detail how easily either the corporate Democrats or the corporate Republicans could swiftly engineer a situation which would result in the final eradication of the last vestiges of democracy to be replaced by an unmitigated corporate totalitarian government.
Postscript
Less than 24 hours after completing the draft of this article, just prior to submitting it after final proofing, I noticed that the video of Obama's speech in Colorado Springs at YouTube says that it is no longer available. Another website which archived the speech http://forthardknox.com/2008/07/16/say-what-a-400b-national-security-force/ still has the appearance of the video but last time I tried to listen, it too failed to open so that approximately 16 minutes into the speech Obama's obiter dicta could be heard!
John Murphy is the independent candidate for House of Representatives in the 16th Congressional District of Pennsylvania (www.johnmurphyforcongress.org). He is also one of the founding members of the Pennsylvanian Ballot Access Coalition, working to change the egregious ballot access laws in Pennsylvania. He can be reached at: johnamurphy@comcast.net.
