April 23, 2006
04/23/06 "ICH"
-- --
I have often asked myself why human beings have any rights
at all. I always come to the conclusion that human rights, human
freedoms, and human dignity have their deepest roots somewhere
outside the perceptible world. These values are as powerful as
they are because, under certain circumstances, people accept
them without compulsion and are willing to die for them. -
Vaclav Havel
The following notice was nailed to the gate of the American
prisoner-of-war camp at Babenhausen/Darmstadt in 1946:
"When you, SS-man Willi Schulze, or you, Corporal Rudi
Muller, stride out through this gate, your steps will lead you
to freedom. Behind you lie months and years of slavish
obedience, years of bloodshed, years in which human
individuality suffered incredible humiliations, all of which was
caused by a criminal regime whose adherents will not escape due
punishment.
You yourself are not to blame. Deluded, you blindly followed the
call of a false doctrine. From now on your life in your family
circle can unfold free and undisturbed. You have been freed from
accursed military service, from guilt-laden German militarism.
Never again will a shrill command chase you across the barracks
courts or drive you to the battlefield. The ashes of your army
ID card have mingled with those of Buchenwald and Dachau.
The victorious United Nations which, through their great
sacrifice, have freed you and your descendants forever from
military service, have assumed the responsibility of protecting
your freedom. But in exchange for that great sacrifice you are
duty-bound to make sure that never again in your homeland will a
desire for military service arise, that never again will young
Germans sacrifice the best years of their lives to the
hankerings of the Prussian nobility and their war-thirsty
general staff, but that they will, from now on, dedicate their
strength and their gifts to peaceful ends. - Signed: U.S.
War Department"
How times have changed! How things have remained the same! 50
years after this sign was posted we no longer have a U.S. War
Department; we Americans now have a Department of Defense.
However, the sameness comes in considering that for we Americans
"Behind us lie months and years of slavish obedience, years of
bloodshed, years in which human individuality suffered
incredible humiliations, all of which was caused by a criminal
regime whose adherents will not escape due punishment". The
irony of the comparison to our own situation in America is
easily seen if one substitutes "Bush nobility" for "Prussian
nobility" and is further magnified by considering that those who
suffered most (the Jews) from the "criminal regime" in Nazi
Germany are today most responsible for engineering and fomenting
the suffering and humiliation of others (the Arabs and
Palestinians) through Israeli aggression and the same type
suppression they suffered under Hitler. Israeli purchase and
exploitation of the entire American political system [1][2] for
the purposes of financial aide and fighting their wars and then
spying on and working against their benefactors, the United
States, [3] only adds to the bitterness of the irony.
In 1946, we Americans could see that the suffering of millions
of people and the death of 6 million Jews was the fault of Nazi
Germany's leaders. Today we see that it is the fault of the Rudi
Muller's and the Willie Schulze's of our armed forces who are
responsible for the suffering of their prisoners. It is the
Rudis and Willies who are responsible for using "Willie Pete"
for night- time "illumination" of civilian areas and snipers to
establish "free fire" zones in Falluja. It is "they" who are
responsible for the radioactive contamination of an entire
country and the radioactive contamination of themselves and
their comrades with depleted uranium. It is "they" who decided
to drop cluster bombs on civilian targets. It was not OUR
LEADERS who were responsible for the disappearance of 8.8
billion dollars in Iraqi reconstruction funds or the 60 percent
increase in world oil prices since the invasion of a virtually
powerless country. It was not OUR LEADERS who invaded and
destroyed a sovereign nation on false pretenses. It is not OUR
LEADERS who are responsible for the rendition of real, imagined
and purchased enemies using carefully camouflaged CIA planes for
their transport into the nether world of carefully hidden CIA
prisons. It is not OUR LEADERS who are preparing to invade Iran
because it wants to exercise the same freedom of choice OUR
LEADERS made for us when WE began the Manhattan Project.
How can we spoiled Americans have forefathers who fought a world
war to stop the slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and
Communists and then wind up with a president whose grandfather
helped Hitler rise to power and invested in the company which
manufactured the Zyklon B Gas used to kill these "undesirables"?
This is a mystery that shows many things about turning wheels
and the "smallness" of the world.
This is a study of how we Americans changed from a proud people
into a herd of sheep that are only waiting for the order to
"strip and step into the showers. What happened to us? Why do we
refuse to learn from history? How similar are we to those who
put their clothes and valuables into neat piles before stepping
into the "showers" of the 40's? What dichotomy allows our
American military to act like Hitler's SS troops and their
parents to be so weak that they allow their president to assume
dictatorial powers without giving so much as a whimper? How can
we believe the 9/11 fantasy constructed for us by our leaders
(sic) and not believe we are presently living in a land with
little freedom and no privacy from government surveillance? How
can we listen to a demagogue like Alan Dershowitz extol the
necessity of using torture on our "enemies" while trumpeting the
fact that he lost 40 family members in the holocaust?
To reach some answers, this article will go back to pre-war Nazi
Germany and examine the character and the way of life of 10
average German citizens living in Germany who were caught up in
or volunteered for the Nazi movement and assumed roles in the
movement as it germinated under Hitler and grew to the ending
described by the 1946 sign over the gate at Babenhausen/Darmstadt.
This examination and comparison will use as reference the 1955
Milton Meyer book, "They Thought They Were Free".
Then:
One of the more telling aspects of the transition from "normal"
German life into the world of German Nazism was the realization
by "our" 10 German citizens that there were no clear-cut
dramatic changes in German life. Life changed imperceptibly as
rules were gradually changed. There was a widening gap between
the government and the people. People became very gradually
accustomed to government by surprise, to receiving decisions
deliberated in secret, to believing that situations were so
complicated that "normal" people couldn't properly understand or
that the "situation" had to be handled in secret for "national
security reasons". Additionally, each step in the transformation
of German life was disguised to create the illusion of a common,
grand threat to all which could only be discovered, interpreted
and handled by the government.
In Germany, the government gradually increased the "required"
participation by the individual in the government's grand
design(s). There was required attendance at various government
functions, forms to be completed, lists to be compiled, etc,
etc. There was no time to think or reflect.
Now:
In today's America, required participation in government-
sponsored activities is not the central aspect of family life.
Our participation in the life of the community and in the life
of the family is a part of the ever increasing speed of the
"squirrel's exercise wheel". Today's "soccer mom" is forced to
run faster and faster just to remain "in place".
The result of these phenomena (coupled with today's
mind-destroying television) is and was that for even those who
were and are prone to "think" for themselves, there is and was
less and less time for such a luxury. For those few who tend and
tended to think about the basics of life, there is also the
government created diversions concerning national enemies to
distract from any serious effort in that direction. Germans as
well as Americans cannot be relied upon to tolerate activities
that outrage the normal sense of decency unless the selected
victims are stigmatized in advance. Governments can be relied
upon to perform this function and thereby mobilize its citizens
toward the government's desired goals. There are always red,
yellow or purple alert levels to keep us "in the mood" because
uncertainty is a very important part of the "plan".
Then:
Then as now, if one accidentally finds one to whom he can
express his fears, he is labeled an "alarmist" or told that he
"is seeing things" or that "things aren't so bad". One tends to
have fewer and fewer friends in whom he can confide or converse
freely. Besides, how does one oppose? What is his reason?
Opposition depends upon circumstances.
"The few who tried to kill Hitler in '44, certainly . . .
'opposed' But why? Some hated the dictatorship of National
Socialism, some hated its democracy, some were personally
ambitious or jealous, some wanted the Army to control the
country, maybe some could escape punishment for crimes only by a
change of government. Some, I am sure, were pure and noble. But
they all acted .
. .
Well, we had twenty thousand people . . . If you ask me how many
did something in secret opposition, something that meant great
danger to them, I would say, well, twenty. And how may did
something like that openly and from good motives alone? Maybe
five, maybe two. That's the way men are". [4]
Living in this environment of uncertainty it is impossible to
notice change. Each step is so small and inconsequential that
change goes unnoticed.
"When the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy,
but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing,
and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little
uneasier, but, still he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing;
and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was
always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they
attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did
something -- but then it was too late". [5]
Then and Now:
Uncertainty is very important to the government. One doesn't see
where or exactly how to move. One keeps waiting for the one
"great event" that will trigger an appropriate response within
oneself. But the "big event" never comes. One doesn't want to
talk or act alone. Standing alone is not the only restraining
factor; uncertainty is certainly an important factor. Life is
not a series of isolated events; life is more a flow of
continuing events and change comes very slowly. We no longer see
spying on Americans inside the United States as an important
event. It is just one of a series of outrages that seems no
larger than the hundreds that went before. One lie is no larger
than the ones that went before and brought us into a war of
aggression aimed at another country's resources.
Today we are outraged by the "news" that our government has been
spying on Americans in the United States for the last year or
so. (The truth is that spying on Americans is so commonplace to
our government and has been going on so long that "spying"
hardly even rates a raised eyebrow at this point).
Another factor common to Nazi Germany and our present American
Way is the small number of people required to change a whole
country from a free, prosperous land envied by all into one
hated and despised by the whole world - but not for our
prosperity. How many people did it take to change our country's
goals and its perception by others: Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz,
Feith, Libby, Luty, Perle, Rumsfeld, and a few "movers and
shakers in the business world. How many "do nothings" did it
take to allow this to happen? Answer. At last count, 535 members
of Congress and almost 290 million Americans. And how many
Americans have resisted our slide into totalitarianism and
oblivion? At last count there were two - Kevin Benderman and
Cindy Sheehan. (Oh yes, there have been more who have protested
in marches and others who have hurled "word bombs" from the
safety of "our" computer keyboards at the criminals guiding our
descent into chaos and oblivion, but only these two have taken
their convictions "to the mat" or more correctly, "to the jails
and prisons" for all of us).
Conclusions:
And after the war - the Big One - WWII. What did the average
German feel? Was it remorse? shame? guilt? Yes, some Germans
felt all three. But within the majority was an underlying
hypocrisy. Although some confessed that their government's
actions were terrible, few were able to say that the actions of
their government "violated the precepts of Christian, civilized,
lawful life"[6] and even fewer were able to say that "I" knew it
was wrong when it was happening and "I" knew it was
un-Christian, uncivilized and unlawful and "I" pretended it
wasn't.
Does this sound vaguely familiar? Did Abu Ghraib sound
un-Christian, uncivilized and unlawful to we Americans or did it
sound like a sophomoric college prank? Did the second set of
photos from Abu Ghraib, which were finally released to the
public after having been screened and judged by our lawmakers to
be so graphically horrific that the American public should not
be allowed to see them, goad we Americans into finding who was
REALLY responsible, impeaching the responsible party and trying
his underlings for war crimes? Did the description of the
destruction of Fallujah seem right to us? Did we Americans try
to pry open the CIA's rendition operation and prosecute all the
way to the gas chamber those responsible for rendition and
torture and black prisons? No, because we know that those
responsible would not be able to wage wars of any type -
aggression, defense or entertainment - in the future in our
names. We know that wars of aggression are "necessary" for our
comfort and survival. We know that without the occasional,
necessary war we won't be able to take the family on the annual
vacation in the safety of the family SUV. Fighting the
terrorists "over there" is better than having to drill off our
own pristine coasts and find our own oil. Is this realization
one of hypocrisy, self-delusion, convenience or
self-preservation?
References:
[1] www.wrmea.com/crchives'jun2003/0306036
[2] www.counterpunch.com/cook04152006.html
[3] www.counterpunch.org/husseini08302004.html
[4] "They Thought They Were Free", page 93,
[5] page 169.
[6] page 184.
Nolan K. Anderson is a retired engineer and a veteran of Korea who was once a "conservative" until he found there was nothing left to conserve and as a veteran hates to see a tour in Korea go to waste. (He may be reached at nkanders@bellsouth.net).
Copyright Nolan K. Anderson
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