Fellow List members:
I've been reading a book published in 1999 by the son of German writer Sebastian Haffner. The book is titled "Defying Hitler: A Memoir." It was written by Haffner as a young German man in 1939.
Haffner describes how the German people were whipped into a frenzy of fear and paranoia, and how Hitler and the Nazis painted the Jews and other enemies as demons and ogres in order to motivate the German people to fear and loathe them.
The Nazis also intimidated people into conformity. To dissent was at first merely in poor taste, then was anti-patriotic, then was treasonous.
Haffner, writing in 1939: (The Nazis) "trained the Germans to be persecutors of the Jews throughout the world, and if possible exterminate them..... to turn the human predatory instincts...against members of their own species, and to make a whole nation into a pack of hunting hounds. Once the violence and readiness to kill that lies beneath the surface of human nature has been awakened and turned against other humans, and even made into a duty, it is a simple matter to change the target. That can be clearly seen today: instead of 'Jews' one can just as easily say 'Czechs' or 'Poles' or anyone else." (page 143)
Just so, in 2,003, our leaders are doing the same. Recall that "We the people" were lied to at the outset of the Vietnam War many years ago. (The Gulf of Tonkin incident.) That conflict --during which 3 times the munitions were dropped in South East Asia than in all of World War II, was minor compared to the Gulf War of 1991. At that time, Bush administration officials crafted two enormous lies, both later refuted. The Bush administration had a Kuwaiti officials daughter tell an "eyewitness account"of Iraqi soldiers tearing infants from incubators in hospitals. After the war had simmered down this person and others admitted that this was a total fabrication. Also, the media widely reported that US "intelligence" satellite photos showed a massive build-up of Iraqi forces along the border of Saudi Arabia. Once again, this was refuted by the intelligence photos of other nations, but that fact was not admitted until Iraq was reduced to rubble.
So now our leaders are using the threat of terrorism against us, and indeed seem to hope for another attack to justify their war. Not only that, our leaders trot second-rate lies before us about Iraq's threat to the world. Hitler did the same about the Czechs at one time.
As a friend near DC wrote to me:
"Iraq is Czechoslovakia.
Tony Blair is Neville Chamberlain.
And I'm standing by..."
James Madison once said: "If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foriegn enemy." Tyranny has indeed come to this land, and in this way.
We must all stand forth against this tyranny, and against this flood of fear and hatred whipped up by those who would falsely arouse our passions in order to use us as pawns in a game of world domination.
Recall that "small government" and "state's rights" were recently popular political themes. And yet Reagan bloated the war department budget from $ 150 billion a year to $ 300 billion a year. By now the war budget is over 450 billion a year, not including the expenses of actually fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq and any other changing target placed before our fear-glazed eyes.
Recall, too, that government is to be lean and unobtrusive. It is only lean and unobtrusive in relation to corrupt corporatist businesses and criminal leaders as they bloat the political parties with contributions which amount to a purchase of our government. Indeed, even local politicians live in fear of the threats and strings-attached-promises of those who manage corporations who dwarf our sity and state. Recall that out of the largest 100 economies in the world, 48 are corporations. Our laws and foriegn policy are now formed by corporatists, and are "spun" to us through the political parties and corporate media. Lobbyists write laws for senators to pass, and corporate leaders meet secretly with the vice President to map out our "energy policy."
Not only is our foriegn policy militarized, but our domestic policy is being transformed into that of a police state. The government is indeed growing large in relation to private citizens, more and more of whom are being identified as "potential terrorist threats" and who are being edred away from any constitutional rights. Dissent is largely portrayed as weak and anti-patriotic, when it is referred to by the media at all.
For these reasons and more, I call upon my fellow citizens to join in the protest on Saturday February 15, 2,003 at 1 PM at Lagoon and Hennepin in Minneapolis. If we remain silent, we effectively assent to slaughter and oppression untold. In the first two days of the newly increased aggression, the USA will launch twice as many guided missiles into Bagdad as in the entire "Gulf War I." According to US and UN officials both, there will be no place to hide. Estimates of civilian casualties now range between 100,000 and 500,000, especially including children. As Senator Byrd recently stated, over half of Iraq'a population is now under 15 years of age. We are attacking and murdering nation of horribly oppressed people under the guise of liberation.
"We the people" must take back our nation, which is already destroying democracy and the world.
I urge my fellow citizens to begin working together as well to develop a sustainable economy in our city and bioregion. We have all the technology and resources we need to create an "infrastructure of peace" for benefit of all. As Wendell Berry has said, peace requires great diligence and effort on our part over time. It is not a matter of protest and political engagement as much as it is a matter of lifestyle. Just-peace politics are impossible without just-peace living. We must live lives that call peace into being!
Senator Byrd's speech is available online at Common Dreams at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0212-07.htm
I believe we Americans stand at a crossroads -- perhaps the last chance to turn from the road of a new and more universal holocaust, and the way of peace.
At no time prior to this have the ecological and geopolitical issues of our day overlapped so completely to form a lense to show us what must be done. We must act now, with vigour and determination, and we must sustain that action so that we shape our very lives into instruments of peace and justice1
-- pedaling for peace -- Gary Hoover, from King Field
