A Kinder, Gentler
Fascism
Last September, German Justice Minister Herta
Daeubler-Gmelin pointed out
that George Bush is using Iraq to distract the
American public from his
failed domestic policies. She capped her statement
by reminding her
audience: “That’s a popular method. Even Hitler did that.”
She was
chastised so severely that she soon recanted. But let’s face it, she
was
right on the money. Rather than recanting, she should have clarified.
She
wasn’t comparing Bush to the Hitler of the late 1930s and early ’40s;
she
was comparing him to the Hitler of the late 1920s and early ’30s. And
if
the jackboot fits?
What most Americans have forgotten about Hitler
(or never knew in the
first place) is that he came to power legally. He and
his Nazi Party were
elected democratically in a time of great national
turmoil and crisis.
They themselves had done much to cause the turmoil, of
course, but that’s
what makes the Bush comparison so compelling.
Like
the Bush administration, the Nazis were funded and ultimately ushered
into
power by wealthy industrialists looking for government favors in the
form of
tax breaks, big subsidies, and laws to weaken the rights of
workers. When the
Reichstag (Germany’s Parliament building) was set
ablaze in 1933 (probably by
Nazis), the Nazis framed their political
rivals for it. In the general panic
that followed, the German Parliament
was purged of all left-wing
representatives who might be soft on
communists and foreigners, and the few
who remained then VOTED to grant
Chancellor Hitler dictatorial powers. The
long, hideous nightmare had
begun.
History teaches us that it is
shockingly easy to separate reasonable and
intelligent people from their
rights. A legally elected leader and party
can easily manipulate national
events to whip up fear, crucify scapegoats,
gag dissenters, and convince the
masses that their liberties must be
suspended (temporarily, of course) in the
name of restoring order.
Consider the following two statements, and see if
you can identify the
authors.
“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
danger. It works the same way in any
country.”
“To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost
liberty, my
message is this: ‘Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they
erode our
national unity and diminish our resolve.’”
The first
statement is a quote from Hitler’s right hand man, Hermann
Goering,
explaining at his war crimes trial how easily he and his fellow
Nazis
hijacked Germany’s democratic government. The second statement is a
quote
from Bush’s right hand man, John Ashcroft, defending the Patriot Act
and
explaining why dissent will no longer be tolerated in the age of
terrorism.
If that doesn’t send chills down your spine, nothing will.
When the
shooting started at Lexington Green in 1775, those calling
themselves
patriots were the men and women who refused to yield their
rights to an
increasingly oppressive government. Today, according to John
Ashcroft and his
Patriot Act of 2001, a patriot is someone who kneels down
in fear and hands
over his or her rights to the government in the name of
fighting
terrorism.
Isn’t the hypocrisy of this all too obvious? The Bush
administration
wants us to fight in Afghanistan, to fight in Iraq, and to
fight wherever
terrorists may be hiding. And what, pray tell, are we fighting
for? Well,
according to the White House, we’re fighting for freedom. Yet
freedom is
exactly what the White House is demanding that we now SURRENDER in
the
name of fighting terrorism.
So what’s really going on? Well, it’s
all a lie, of course. The Bush
administration isn’t any more interested in
protecting our freedom from
terrorists than Hitler was in protecting Germans
from communists, Jews,
and all the other groups he scapegoated. The Bush
administration is
fighting only to protect itself and its corporate sponsors.
It hides
behind a veil of national security and behind non-stop war headlines
of
its own creation. And behind that smokescreen, Bush, Inc. is
pursuing
Hitler’s old agenda from the 1920s and ’30s: serving the interests
of the
corporate industrialists who brought it to power.
There is a
name for governments that serve the interests of Big Business
at the expense
of their own citizens: fascist.
Here’s a short list of the rights we’ve
already surrendered since the
September 11 attacks. Most of these abuses are
from a single piece of
legislation called the Patriot Act of 2001, which was
rushed through
Congress with no debate in the aftermath of the attacks. Many
of the
Congressmen who voted for it later admitted that they hadn’t even read
it
at the time.
1. The government can conduct “sneak and peek”
searches in which agents
enter your home or business and search your
belongings without informing
you until long after.
2. Government
agents can force libraries and bookstores to hand over the
titles of books
that you’ve purchased or borrowed and can demand the
identity of anyone who
has purchased or borrowed certain books. The
government can also prosecute
libraries and bookstores for informing you
that the search occurred or even
for informing you that an inquiry was
made. According to ACLU staff attorney
Jameel Jaffer, such “searches
could extend to doctors’ offices, banks and
other institutions that, like
libraries, were previously off-limits under the
law.” Chris Finan,
President of the American Booksellers group adds: “The
refusal of the
Justice Department to tell Congress how many times it has used
its powers
is even more unsettling because it naturally leads to the
suspicion that
it is using them a lot.”
3. Federal agents are
authorized to use hidden devices to trace the
telephone calls or emails of
people who are not even suspected of a crime.
The FBI is also permitted to
use its Magic Lantern technology to monitor
everything you do on your
computer?recording not just the websites you
visit but EVERY SINGLE KEYSTROKE
as well.
4. Government agents are permitted to arrest and detain
individuals
“suspected” of terrorist activities and to hold them
INDEFINITELY, WITHOUT
CHARGE, and WITHOUT an ATTORNEY.
5. Federal
agents are permitted to conduct full investigations of
American citizens and
permanent legal residents simply because they have
participated in activities
protected by the First Amendment, such as
writing a letter to the editor or
attending a peaceful rally.
6. Law enforcement agents are permitted to
listen in on discussions
between prisoners and their attorneys, thus denying
them their
Constitutional right to confidential legal counsel.
7.
Terrorism suspects may be tried in secret military tribunals where
defendants
have no right to a public trial, no right to trial by jury, no
right to
confront the evidence, and no right to appeal to an independent
court. In
short, the Constitution does not apply.
8. The CIA is granted authority
to spy on American citizens, a power that
has previously been denied to this
international espionage organization.
9. In addition to the Patriot Act,
the Bush administration has given us
Operations TIPS, a government program
that encourages citizens to spy on
each other and to report their neighbors’
activities to the authorities.
It’s EXACLTY the kind of thing for which we
used to fault East Germany and
the Soviet Union, and for which we currently
fault Red China and North
Korea. Fortunately, Operation TIPS (or AmeriSnitch,
as it’s known to its
many detractors) seems to have been recalled to the
factory?at least for
now.
(Incidentally, in a clever variation of
“two-can-play-at-that-game,” Brad
Templeton has set up a website
at
http://www.all-the-other-names-were-taken.com/tipstips.html
where you can
report people you suspect of being informants for
Operation
TIPS. It’s an interesting and amusing site, well worth a
look.
10. In the wake of Operation TIPS came something even worse:
Total
Information Awareness. TIA is a program of the Defense Department
that
when fully operational will link commercial and government databases
so
that the DOD can immediately put its finger on any piece of
information
about you that it wants. New York Times columnist William Safire
writes:
“Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine
subscription
you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you
visit and
e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every
bank
deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend ?
all
these transactions and communications will go into what the
Defense
Department describes as ‘a virtual, centralized grand
database.’”
And that’s not all. Who did our president appoint to head the
TIA? Who
gets to be Big Brother himself? Why it’s none other than John
Poindexter,
a man convicted in 1990 on five counts of lying to Congress,
destroying
official documents, and obstructing congressional inquiries into
the
Iran-contra affair. Another Hermann Goering, if there ever was
one.
At the same time the Bush administration is probing into your
private
life, it is shielding itself from all public scrutiny. It has
shredded
the Freedom of Information Act; it has locked away presidential
records
not only of the current administration but of administrations going
all
the way back to Reagan as well; and it has even locked up
Dubya’s
gubernatorial records so that the people of Texas can’t see what he
did to
them while serving as their governor.
Not surprisingly, the
Bush administration is also using anti-terror
legislation and executive
orders to protect its corporate sponsors from
scrutiny and from prosecution.
The drug company Eli Lilly, for instance,
was recently granted immunity from
all cases brought against it?even those
initiated long before the war on
terrorism?related to a vaccine it
manufactured that turned out to cause
autism in many children. (Eli Lilly
contributed over $3 million in the last
two election campaigns.) The Bush
administration also protected the Bayer
Corporation’s patent on the
antibiotic Cipro throughout the anthrax scare,
whereas other countries,
such as Canada, broke that patent so that other
companies could make
cheaper versions of the drug in case of emergency. It is
interesting to
note that during WWII Bayer was part of the I.G. Farben
conglomerate, the
top financial contributor to the Nazi Party. I.G. Farben
produced petrol
and rubber for the Nazi war machine and it manufactured the
Zyklon B gas
that was used to exterminate millions of Jews and other “enemies
of the
state.” In exchange for these services, the Nazis provided Farben
(and
Bayer) with lucrative government contracts and with slave labor
from
concentration camps.
Under Dubya’s kinder, gentler fascism, U.S.
corporations are now allowed
to do business with the Homeland Security
Department even if they cheat
the government out of vast amounts of tax
revenues by setting up offshore
business fronts in the Caribbean Islands. It
used to be that tax-evaders
were tracked down and punished. Now they’re
rewarded with fat government
contracts. Could the slave labor be far
behind?
If only this were the extent of the Bush administration’s ramble
down the
road to fascism. Way back in November of 2001, William Safire
accused the
Bush administration of “seizing dictatorial power.” Well, Mr.
Safire, you
ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
Just when you thought it couldn’t
get any worse, just when you thought we
can’t lose any more of our liberties
and still call ourselves a “free
society,” we learn that the Bush
administration wants to take away even
more of our rights. A secret document
was just leaked out of John
Ashcroft’s Justice Department and turned over to
the Center for Public
Integrity. Titled the Domestic Security Enhancement Act
of 2003, this
document turns out to be a draft of new anti-terrorism
legislation, a
vastly more muscular sequel to Patriot Act. If passed, it
would grant the
executive branch sweeping new powers of domestic
surveillance, and it
would eliminate most of the few remaining checks and
balances that protect
us from tyranny. It’s the Patriot Act on
steroids.
Charles Lewis of the Center for Public Integrity shared this
document with
Bill Moyers, who examined it on NOW, his weekly PBS program.
That episode
aired Friday, February 7, yet even now, three days later, no
mainstream
news broadcaster has picked up this incredible story. Read the
NOW
transcript and see the document itself online at
http://www.pbs.org/now/.
Dr. David Cole, a Law
professor at Georgetown University and author of
Terrorism and the
Constitution assessed the document, saying, “I think
this is a quite radical
proposal. It authorizes secret arrests. It would
give the Attorney General
essentially unchecked authority to deport anyone
who he thought was a danger
to our economic interests. It would strip
citizenship from people for lawful
political associations.”
Secret arrests? Did we hear that right? It seems
that the Homeland
Security Department (HSD) is about to become the KGB. The
first Patriot
Act already allows for people to be locked up indefinitely
without a
lawyer and without being charged with a crime. If Patriot Act II
passes,
then arrests would also be secret. That means that dissenters (or
anyone
else, for that matter) could disappear without a trace, just as they
did
in Nazi Germany, in Stalinist Russia, and in Pinochet’s
Chile.
Patriot Act II would also grant even more immunity to Big
Business. A
corporation could pour toxins into your local river, for
instance, and you
wouldn’t know about it until all the fish died and your
neighbors’ kids
were born with missing limbs. And then when you went to court
and
demanded to know what that company was dumping in your river, the
company
could deny you that information of the grounds that it’s a
national
security secret. Jim Hightower put it this way: “All a company has
to do
to shield anything it wants to keep from the public eye?say,
an
embarrassing chemical spill?is give the documents to the Homeland
Security
Department and call them ‘critical infrastructure
information.’”
Ah, but there’s even more to be concerned about here. The
document was
created back in early January, but so far it appears that the
only members
of Congress who even know of its existence are House Speaker
Dennis
Hastert and Vice-president Dick Cheney. (The Vice-president presides
over
the Senate, which makes him a member of the legislative branch as well
as
the executive branch.) This raises a troubling question: Why has
the
White House been sitting on this bill for a month? If the CEOs down
at
Bush, Inc. really believe that they need these broad new powers to
protect
us from terrorists, why not roll out that bill and start the debate?
The
answer is all too plain. In all likelihood, the Bush administration
was
planning to avoid debate entirely by springing this bill on the
American
people in the midst of a perceived national crisis. Perhaps during
the
war with Iraq, for instance. Or perhaps in the aftermath of the
next
terrorist attack. Or perhaps right after the Reichstag fire.
Had
some courageous soul not leaked this document out of the Justice
Department,
the White House might easily have succeeded in passing it
through Congress
without debate in the midst of our next perceived
national crisis, much as it
did with the first Patriot Act in the
aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
A thorough debate of this bill
right now, under fairly stable circumstances,
would defuse it and prevent
its passage even under more frightening
circumstances later on. There’s
just one problem. The debate can’t begin
until more Americans know about
this bill, but so far the Washington Post is
the only major news outlet to
even MENTION this story since Bill Moyers broke
it on Friday night.
Here’s what you can do to help.
First, forward
this email to everyone you know.
Second, join and/or donate money to the
American Civil Liberties Union.
You may not agree with every case the ACLU
takes to court, but you won’t
find a more steadfast defender of the Bill of
Rights anywhere. Find them
online at
http://www.aclu.org/. While you’re at there, take the ACLU’s
“How
Free Are We?” quiz at
http://www.aclu.org/Quizzes/QuizIntro.cfm?quizID=4.
See if
you can get a perfect score now that you’ve read this essay.
Third, send
an email to the Center for Public Integrity and to the
producers of NOW
thanking them for breaking this story. Here’s a sample
message that you can
use or modify.
I am writing to express my heartfelt thanks and admiration
to the Center
for Public Integrity, to Bill Moyers, to the producers of NOW,
and
especially to the brave unnamed patriot who valued the Bill of Rights
over
his or her own person well-being and, at great personal risk, leaked
a
draft of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 out of the
Justice
Department.
Sincerely,
(Your name, city, and
state.)
Center for Public Integrity: feedback@publicintegrity.org
NOW
with Bill Moyers: now@thirteen.org
Fourth, start the debate over the
Patriot Act that the Bush administration
wants to avoid. Send the following
email message to the major news
outlets demanding that they investigate and
cover this important story.
Here’s what you can say:
On Friday,
February 7, the PBS program NOW with Bill Moyers broke an
important story
about a document recently leaked to the Center for Public
Integrity by an
insider at the Justice Department. That document, titled
the Domestic
Security Enhancement Act of 2003, turns out to be a draft of
a new bill, much
like the Patriot Act, that would grant the executive
branch sweeping and
unprecedented powers to spy on Americans with little
or no judicial
oversight. It would also enable polluting and otherwise
irresponsible
corporations to hide incriminating documents behind the veil
of “national
security” simply by handing them over to the Homeland
Security Department.
Such a bill should obviously not pass without a
thorough and informed debate.
Please investigate this story immediately
and bring it to the attention of
the American people so that such a debate
can begin before we find ourselves
in a war with Iraq or in the midst of
some other national crisis. The
document can be found on the Web at
http://www.publicintegrity.org/.
Thank you,
(Your name,
city, and state.)
New York Times: nytnews@nytimes.com
Los Angeles
Times: letters@latimes.com
Wall Street Journal:
editors@interactive.wsj.com
ABC News: netaudr@abc.com and
niteline@abc.com
NBC News: nightly@nbc.com
MSNBC: world@msnbc.com
CBS
News: evening@cbsnews.com (Fax 60 Minutes at: 212-757-6975)
FOX News:
comments@foxnews.com
CNN: cnn.feedback@cnn.com
Fifth, write your
representative in the House and both of your Senators to
let them know you’re
mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore.
Demand a rollback of the
Patriot Act and state unequivocally that you will
not tolerate ANY further
infringements upon your civil liberties. If you
need help finding your
representatives’ contact information, check out our
Getting Started page at
http://www.theemailactivist.org/GetStart.htm. Here’s
a
sample of what you might say:
Dear Senator (or Representative)
________________,
The Patriot Act of 2001 was passed through Congress so
hastily that it was
not well-considered nor even read by a great many of the
representatives
who voted for it. Now I’ve come to learn from the PBS program
NOW with
Bill Moyers that the Justice Department is hard at work on an even
more
draconian version of the Patriot Act called the Domestic
Security
Enhancement Act of 2003. This bill can be read online at
http://www.publicintegrity.org/.
The original Patriot
Act already challenges far too many of our
Constitutional rights to go any
longer without a thorough revision and a
rollback of many of its features.
The proposed Domestic Security
Enhancement Act of 2003 is an even greater
threat to our civil liberties.
If we were to adopt it, we could no longer
honestly call ourselves a free
society. I am writing you today to demand that
you spearhead a debate and
a revision of the Patriot Act of 2001 and also
that you commit yourself
publicly to opposing ANY further infringements of
American civil liberties
in the name of fighting
terrorism.
Sincerely,
(Your name and address)
Sixth, commit
yourself to a regime change right here at home. Start
working now for the
Democratic Party (
http://www.democrats.org), the Green
Party (
http://www.greenpartyus.org/), or any political organization
you can
think of that might bring down
the Bush administration in the next
election, if not beforehand. There
are also dozens of “Impeach Bush”
petitions online. Type “impeach bush
petitions” into a search engine like
Google.com and sign every damn one of
them that comes up.
As always,
we thank you for your dedication to true democracy and to the
Bill of Rights,
especially in these dangerous times when our leaders in
the White House
equate dissent with treason instead of with
patriotism.
