BERLIN, 1936–A majority of Germans support the “Final Solution”, a once controversial program to rid the German nation of its strongest domestic enemies, according to a recent poll conducted by the Goebbels-founded newspaper Der Angriff.
The new survey found that 63 percent of the German people said they found the program to be an acceptable way to combat moral weakness and economic woes, including 44 percent who strongly endorsed the effort. Another 35 percent said the program was unacceptable, which included 24 percent who strongly objected to it. (Those 35 percent are due to be rounded up any day now, which should boost approval for the program significantly).
A slightly larger majority–66 percent–said they would not be bothered if the SS collected records of personal telegrams and postal mail they had written in order to seek out traitors in their midst, the poll found.
Underlying those views is the belief that the need to investigate treason and economic sabotage outweighs privacy concerns. According to the poll, 65 percent of those interviewed said it was more important to investigate potential threats “even if it intrudes on privacy.” Three in 10–31 percent–said it was more important for the federal government not to intrude on personal privacy, even if that limits its ability to investigate possible threats. (The SS denies reports of the disappearance of many of the more prominent members of that 31 percent).
A clear majority approved of the way the Fuehrer was handling privacy matters.
The popularity of this program is leading many Party politicians who would otherwise object to stand down and remain quiet. “It seems fine to me: after all, they’re not coming for me!” said Gunter von Falkenhausen, who spoke on condition of anonymity, but whose identity has been provided to us by the SS.
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The point? When a democratic republic is placed into a state of absolute fear for its safety by unscrupulous, power-hungry government officials, the people can be made to support anything. ANY intrusion onto privacy or liberty becomes acceptable in the name of combatting “the enemy.”
ESPECIALLY if they don’t know the extent of the program–as most Germans did NOT know with respect to the Final Solution. They didn’t know because they didn’t care to look, and they didn’t dare ask.
As I said in my previous post, the truth is ALWAYS ugly with these guys, and it is my firm belief that if the American people really knew what the spying program was being used for, they would be outraged.
But they think it’s all to protect them from the scary terrorists.
And until we can drive out the culture of fear from America–the culture of fear created by this corrupt and evil scum that runs our country–we can expect more polls like this.
Because this is precisely the greatest weakness of a democracy (outside of inefficiency): its ability to be led astray by fear-mongering populists without compunction or shame.
Fear is bound to become even more of a problem as more americans become aware that Bush is incompetently screwing up the “War on Terror”. Just wait until Iran starts focusing on us and we genuinely have to deal with more attacks.
The fear was completely irrational four and a half years ago. Now that so many people around the world despise our leadership for how they have reacted, I’m not sure it is anymore.
The greatest threats we face as a nation come from the White House and the Pentagon. Iran has nothing to do with it.
Iran isn’t a threat to americans now. I’m talking about after Bush attacks them.
Even if BushCo does manage to attack Iran, Iran will only threaten those US forces aggressivgely deployed against it, not America itself.
There are no tin foil hat conspiracy theorists re: the Bushistas. Reality has made tin foil unnecesssary.
I have a lot more respect for the efficacy of “tinfoil hattery” to accurately reflect reality that I did before the Bush regime came along, that’s for sure.
I wear 24Kt gold leaf in my hair. And Madman in the Marketplace assures me it is a better conductor than tin.
😉
I am only partly kidding…
Gold is the best conductor of all. Alas, as a result of newfound poverty resulting from health care difficulties, there are no more solid gold utensils for serving caviar, and certainly no gold adornments of any kind, leat of all hats.
But virtually all of my “tinfoil” type prognostications have turned out to be true. so even though Gold has doubled in value since the advent of the Bush regime, (thereby adding to the weakness of the dollar and hence our economy), my tinfoil has delivered better value.
(Of course, I am mostly jesting too, despite the seriousness at the heart of all this.)
It’s silver that’s the best conductor. During the Manhattan project, a large part of the US Treasury’s silver was drawn into wire to make electromagnets used in uranium enrichment. It was later melted down and turned back into bullion.
I bet Iran has some silver, so they must be up to no good.
I stand corrected. All these years I’ve labored under the false impresion that gold was the premier (metal) conductor.
Every con-man and swindler on the planet knows that if you can get people to respond to stimuli emotionally rather than rationally you can get them to support any policy and commit ay atrocity.
Fear is the #1 weapon in any tyrant’s arsenal and the authoritarian megalomaniacs running the Bush regime have used the inculcation of fear to great effect. Without their ability to scare people so thoroughly none of their propaganda would work.
The infamous Nazi Hermann Göering summed it up succinctly;
This is the fundamental rubric upon which the propagation of the neocon agenda is based, just as it was when advancibng the cause od the Crusades, the Inquisition, the slaughter of Native Americans and the implementation of bin Laden’s jihad and Falwell/Robertson/dobson’s evangelical fascism.
Most liberals are angry that the bushites are incompetent as organizers and managers and that bush himself is so childish, stupid, and inept.
I applaud these qualities. When you have FASCISTS in charge, the LAST thing you want is competence, intelligence, efficiency.
nicely done
at least a dozen times today I’ve said “we’re living in 1930’s Germany”…
I’m once again in slackjawed disbelief at what has become of the nation i thought I lived in.
First:
“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
— Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
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Second:
In 1972, tricky Dick Nixon won a landslide victory over the dems who tried to paint him as a war monger and a crook. In less than 3 yeasr, ticky Dick had one of the lowest approval ratings in history of any president and was forced to resign in shame. Gee do you think the electorate can be duped! How indeed can 55 million people be so stupid!
The reason 55 million people can be so stupid is because they watch television. The decline of the American electorate corrolates directly with the rise of television watching and the expansion of television channels. It also corrolates directly with the decline of public education in America. I know there are other factors, but when the vast majority of individuals in our country get all their information about what is happening in their country and in the world from television, those people are bascially ignorant.
I read a really boring book about the creation of the Oxford English dictionary. (Okay, let me have it for even thinking it would be stimulating.) However, in the preface or first chapter there was a very interesting passage about the London Times back in the day when the dictionary was being put together. The Times was talking about obscure places in Asia andd Africe (in the Empire) and the newspaper did not once do anything other than simply write the names of the places and the people. The paper expected its readers to know where the places and who the people were. And the readers did. Watch any TV program toady and they have to explain where Des Moines is.
Public education is America’s best invention, better than the cotton gin, the steamboat, you name it. The purpose of public education is not to create cogs in the economic machine or to clone people with the right “values” (which it has become today because of right wing pressure, the purpose of public education is to create knowledgeable citizens. A knowledgeable citizen is one who can participate in governing and being governed (the point of a republic). Television makes people spectators, and right wing ideology turns citizens into taxpayers and users of government service.
This tranformation of active citizens into pliant spectators is at the heart of the fascist tranformation of society. It is the core of the Republican Party today.
We can only oppose facism with a notion of a shared citizenry and humanity, with an idea of the common good we all share as opposed to the individual benefits that the corporate teat can spew out.
I live in the highly conservative, extremely christian religious region of central PA. I deal with conservative repubs daily, and although I cannot disagree with what you say above, there is more here than just TV brainwashing.
I know a lot of folks who are strongly against the dems for 2 often related (not always) reasons. The first is that they think the Dems encourage/encouraged handouts and make people lazy, so that even many of these conservative working folks that benefitted from Dem support of labor, pensions, and social security, still go repub almost as a racist backlash and a backlash against what they perceive as unfair competition in their lives.
Second and more profound, these people are fundamentalist christians and are totally blinded to reality. If the Repubs can chant the ideology even a little, well they are the ones getting their votes, even if they end up shooting themselves in the economic/freedom foot.
I tell you I do not know how to deal with such ignorance!
Here is the real question:
What does Karl Rove have on Donald Graham and Leonard Downie of the Washington Post?
Between yesterday’s poll question, written intentionally to produce results good for the Bush administration, and today’s column enthusiastically supporting the domestic spying program, the newspaper has made its stand for George W. Bush.
This reeks of desperation on the part of the paper. No newspaper executive would risk the future of their paper supporting a criminal like GWB unless they were forced to.
Here is the column they ran this morning.
In the past, I felt that Donald Graham of the Post and Arthur Sulzberger, Jr of the Times had decided to support Bush for two reasons: they are both spoiled little rich kids, given their advantaged positions in life, like Bush, through inheritance. They both are incredibly unqualified to be in their positions; in addition, both realize that Bush would not stand in the way of their company’s desire for more media consolidation and expansion.
But now, I think there is something else going on. The WaPo is acting completely out of character now. Like a hit man who has his orders, does not think, but blindly goes about his business. There seems to be a deal: if Bush is in trouble the WaPo will be there immediately to try and save the day. But why? Even ideology cannot explain this. Ideologues generally will blindly take a stand, but they do not do so on command.
I seriously think Rove has something on these guys — something serious — something that would be so embarrassing that it would end the careers of both men. One can only speculate what that would be.
If this is not the case, then there would be only one other explanation: they, like Goebbels, have their man and they will stick by them — their newspaper and profession be damned. I suppose this is possible. There is an incredibly strong stench of totalitarianism running throughout the country. I have no doubt that the remaining 30% of the country which supports Bush would not mind the suspension of all civil liberties and the opening of concentration camps in exchange for staying in power. But my gut tells me that the explanation is simply that Graham and Downie are caught between a rock and a hard place — and they will do as they are told until the beast has been finally slain.
you are overreacting. Falkenrath is just carrying water for Hayden’s nomination. The WP gave him the courtesy of a spot on the op-ed. They will also publish editorials saying the exact opposite. What do the unsigned editorials say? That is their policy stance.
The poll was the poll. They are often misleading, but Downie and Graham would have no influence over the wording of it.
Lastly, the WP has always been closely allied with the intelligence agencies, even before they were the biggest circulation paper in town. It’s not a change of character for them to repeat misleading crap that serves their interests, or to print crap that justifies stuff like, say, overtrowing the democratically elected leaders of Chile or next week, Venezuela.
The WP has never been as reliable as the NYT and the NYT has never been that reliable either.