Category Archives: nazi germany

November 9, 2020 · 19:08

Burning Down the Country to Save Himself: the Götterdämmerung of Trump’s Final Days

 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

President-Elect Biden is continuing to prepare to assume the office he has been elected while President Trump refuses to concede and endangering national security, our economy, our lives, and our entire system of government in a desperate effort to retain power.

Today he “terminated” Secretary of Defense Mark Esper who refused to allow Trump to use Federal Troops under the Insurrection Act to attack demonstrators following the murder of George Floyd, and supports renaming Army Forts named after Confederate leaders.

Trump continues to utter falsehoods about the election process in order to undermine it and our faith in that process, sending out teams to create chaos in ever state that flipped to Biden.

He continues to flaunt the reality of the Coronavirus 19 Pandemic, and even with nearly a quarter of a million Americans dead from it holds parties and rallies, and conducts business so slovenly that many of his own closest supporters, cabinet members and staff are becoming infected.

In this campaign to burn down the United States in order to save himself he is being supported by Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and a host of other elected Republicans and his cult like army of illegal militias, White Nationalist paramilitary groups, Christian theocrats, the QAnon cult, and more than likely with the help  Russian agents.

Vigilance is the watchword today for Trump’s Götterdämmerung, his Twilight of the Gods is upon us. Volker Ullrich in his second volume of his biography of Adolf Hitler wrote:

“I know the war is lost,” admitted a deeply depressed Hitler in early January 1945. “The [enemies’] superiority is too great…I would like to put a bullet in my head.” But he immediately pulled himself together: “We will not surrender, never ever. We may go down but we will take a world with us.”

Today Trump aide Jason Miller said “The word concede is not in our dictionary.” I think that they will hold onto that as long as they can. It is possible that eventually Trump will issue a grudging concession, but then it is possible that in his last days he will do everything he can to destroy the country on his way out.

Anyway, as another reminder, something I wrote on 18 May 2017 about Trump, his followers, and enablers in the GOP. It was originally given the title Trump’s True Believers: Why Removing Trump will be Harder than it Seems. 

On to working on the book,

Until next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Trump’s True Believers: Why Removing Trump will be Harder than it Seems 18 May 2017 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

For those rejoicing in the continued revelations of President Trump’s malfeasance and incompetence hoping that this will soon trigger his removal either by impeachment or the use of the 25th Amendment be assured that unless something totally unexpected occurs that this will not end soon, nor well.

Dona;d Trump is a unique creature in American politics, he has succeeded in establishing himself as the center of a political cult that has taken over the Republican Party. Despite his overall approval ratings consistently being below 40% with terrible numbers pertaining to his basic character and trustworthiness, well over 80% of Republicans in every poll continue to support him. They reject any fact that is contrary to what they believe about their leader, and they tend to support the most unconstitutional aspects of his ill-defined political ideology, which more resembles the Nazi Fuhrerprinzip than anything from the American political tradition. They abhor those who raise objections of any kind based on fact so much that they have gone resorted to repeating what they sometimes refer to as alternative facts or alternative truths.

Guided by an uncompromising propaganda network of talk radio and television hosts as well as internet based organizations they have little loyalty to anyone but the President. This mass movement supported by such propaganda is well described by the great American philosopher Eric Hoffer who wrote:

“All mass movements strive, therefore, to interpose a fact-proof screen between the faithful and the realities of the world. They do this by claiming that the ultimate and absolute truth is already embodied in their doctrine and that there is no truth nor certitude outside it. The facts on which the true believer bases his conclusions must not be derived from his experience or observation but from holy writ.”

This is the world of alternative facts, and the prelude to dictatorship if the trend is allowed to continue. Likewise the true believers, those who follow the President as if he were some sort of Messiah intent on destroying the old order and establishing a new will not stand easily aside. Their support for the President is much deeper than normal political attachment, he is an extension of them who gives voice to their innermost fears, passions, and insecurity. They are defiant in their stand against those that he is against. Historian Timothy Snyder wrote of how the language of their leader and his propaganda works in the minds of the followers:

“Victor Klemperer, a literary scholar of Jewish origin, turned his philological training against Nazi propaganda. He noticed how Hitler’s language rejected legitimate opposition: The people always meant some people and not others (the president uses the word in this way), encounters were always struggles (the president says winning), and any attempt by free people to understand the world in a different way was defamation of the leader (or, as the president puts it, libel).”  

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Thus they cannot be convinced by normal argument or fact. Hoffer noted:

“The leader personifies the certitude of the creed and the defiance and grandeur of power. He articulates and justifies the resentment damned up in the souls of the frustrated. He kindles the vision of a breath-taking future so as to justify the sacrifice of a transitory present. He stages a world of make-believe so indispensable for the realization of self-sacrifice and united action.”

Even when everything comes apart around them and their leader collapses they cannot admit that he was deceiving them. At the end of the war a German soldier told Victor Klemperer that “Hitler has never lied, I believe the Fuhrer.” Snyder writes: “The final mode is misplaced faith. It involves the sort of self-deifying claims the president made when he said that “I alone can solve it” or “I am your voice.” When faith descends from heaven to earth in this way, no room remains for the small truths of our individual discernment and experience. What terrified Klemperer was the way that this transition seemed permanent. Once truth had become oracular rather than factual, evidence was irrelevant.”

With that kind of following in the GOP it will take a while before this is finished as most GOP leaders, even those who distrust or oppose Trump on some issues are too afraid of the Trump supporters who now control their party to attempt to remove him unless those supporters turn on him. This is unlikely at least in the near future, and there is always the possibility that early some morning Trump will tweet them into committing acts of violence to crush dissent, even against Republican leaders who have the courage to jump ship and turn on the President.

The man is not normal, he is not stable, and he knows nothing but conflict. His followers believe in him almost as a Messiah figure who cannot be wrong and must be defended to the last and experience has shown us that some of would resort to violence to silence his critics.

Like Hitler and his most loyal followers, he sees this as a fight to the finish which Trump which he must win or be defeated. It is a zero sum conflict, and I do not expect it to end well, even if Trump is eventually removed by impeachment or the 25th Amendment.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 8, 2020 · 02:11

Chose Reconciliation over Rage: the Opportunity of 2020

President Trump Seeing the Celebrations as he Returns to the White House

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today the 2020 election was called based on irrefutable evidence of voters and the statistics compiled by State Attorneys General and Election Commissioners, of both parties, and rulings of state Supreme Courts either completely composed of or highly majority Republican majorities. Yes the certified results will not be complete until each state certifies them, but the fact is that this election was more highly scrutinized and transparent than any in modern history.

After the Supreme Court’s intervention to stop a recount authorized by the Florida Supreme Court in 2000, and the controversy of Russian (Read Soviet) interference and manipulation in the 2016 election, no state (Red or Blue) or reputable media organization (Conservative or Liberal) wanted to be put in the crosshairs of any electoral controversy because there was no good outcome of being partisan. Truth, law, and how they would be remembered appeared to matter more than ideology or power. Thus Fox News much to the chagrin of Trump and many of his followers (Even their prime time pundits: Hannity, Ingraham, and Carlson) and their viewers called Arizona long before anyone else. Regardless of ideology, truth and facts seemed to matter to the media more than ever this year.

I have many friends who voted for President Trump, but none of them are on the streets and only one has challenged me on social media. They are Republicans who like I used to, take the word of allegedly conservative or Christian preachers, politicians or pundits at face value. But then I don’t tend to attract extremist of any kind as friends, and I understand what years of listening to “conservative Christian or Republican” ideologues does to the soul of someone, because that was me for at least a decade between 1997-2008. But change and redemption are possible. For me it took seeing the effects of an unjust and illegal war against Iraq, and coming home to listen to the abject racism of Rush Limbaugh towards Barack Obama before I collapsed in tears behind the wheel of my car driving between my office and our unit’s headquarters.

I say this because for Trump followers who are not racist anti-semites, but actually retain a sense of decency and hold to the values of their faith or philosophy yet for whatever reason still believed that Democrats were like Communists, or even for than matter Socialists (the most hated enemy of Communists since 1917): I understand. I used to be you. Party loyalty and the teachings of churches and Christian leaders convinced me that I had to follow that path regardless of the cost, until I returned from Iraq in 2008.

I had my doubts long before that, but from 1997 until 2008 with the exception of when I was deployed I tried to listen to Limbaugh, and later Hannity every time they were on the air. I knew better, but they played on my emotions and I fell for them, until I came home from Iraq. When I heard them defending the war and calling people who did not agree with them “unpatriotic” after what I had seen provoked a surge of anger and the realization that all of us who served there had been betrayed, by the very people who helped convince us to go to war, and demonized its opponents, politicians, preachers and pundits alike.

I think that the hardest thing for decent people who follow ideologues to experience is to realize that they were betrayed trust by people, organizations and Parties they trusted the most. I think that is happening with some now, but for the real extremists only motivated by hate of people different than them and a sense of grievance too deep to fathom that defeat will make them more extreme.

As a historian who knows far too much about America and Germany I know how this plays out. Defeated people, especially true believers look for scapegoats and fall back on myths to defend their leader’s failures and mistakes. It happened after our Civil War, after World War One, and even after Vietnam. For Americans the ghosts of the Civil War, Vietnam, and maybe even our misguided adventures in the Middle East over the past three decades loom large. For some they are something to rage against, for others something to defend and find scapegoats.

The same is true of elections. President Trump masterfully used the politics of grievance to bring people he had no respect for to follow him. Since his policies only benefitted the richest of the rich he had to use diversionary tactics to get people how did not benefit from them to follow him. These policies where historically proven to be successful; racism, religious prejudice and hatred and anti-immigrant sentiment. President Trump played on these grievances never expecting to be President. For him it was another opportunity to promote himself, and since proving himself to be an unqualified and incompetent leader in real life crises he had to hold on using the same primal passions that got him elected.

But he lost. I will never forget the picture I saw of him returning to the White House with his mouth agape after golfing at Trump National today. He was stunned, and the real shock of his defeat was in evidence before his very eyes. I imagine that is the look on so many people who bet their lives, reputations and honor to defend. For those dealing with that reality the psychological trauma has to be considered. I am not talking the people who knew better and tried to use Trump to keep power, but those who honestly thought, despite all the evidence that he actually gave a damn about them. They might have been misguided but I do understand how that can have fallen for the con of Don. It is one of the oldest psychological, religious and political games ever played, especially in the democratic era unleashed by our own revolution in 1776.

Do I think that President Trump and those who collaborated with him to gain power and destroy the lives and futures of so many people in the United States and around the world need to be held accountable? Damn right. Does that include people with no power who were manipulated into following and believing all he said because he played to their grievances, not at all. Without talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh I would have probably left the GOP in 1998 or at least 2000. But 9-11-2001 delayed that until the truth hit me between the eyes when I went to Iraq in 2007 and returned home in 2008.

When people who know better follow ideologues and other leaders into the abyss and subsequently realize that they were used and betrayed by those they trusted, there are results. One of the most common is Moral Injury. I think that Moral Injury is even more difficult to deal with than PTSD because the victim goes into the situation believing that those they followed cared for them. The realization that they were used often comes as a hammer blow that shatters all faith and trust and either leads them in an opposite direction or to recommit to the cause that harmed them and become more strident opponents of those who abandoned them. I have seen it and I know to many people to which this has happened to ignore it and seek vengeance on all who voted for President Trump.

However, for Trump, his low class crime family who have lived high on taxpayer money, and his enablers in the GOP hierarchy, in the Senate, House of Representatives, the Courts, and in state and local government I have little such concern. Those who know more are accountable for more, and these leaders helped destroy Constitutional liberties, protections, guardrails, and norms are far more guilty than anyone who simply voted for Trump because they had been led to believe over the course of decades that Democrats were their mortal enemies.

But that is all for now. I need to sleep as today the pain in my jaw returned and after I took my medicines I was too wiped out to notice much other that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election.  I am happy that they won and I hope that we as Americans are able to be reconciled to each other even as Trump and his enablers are held accountable by law for what they have done. I could go into detail about the latter but for now I have to get some sleep.

Until next time.

Peace,

Padre Steve+ 2016

 

 

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November 5, 2020 · 00:31

The Ugly Truth: What the Election Says about the United States

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

So much for being A City Set on a Hill, The Model Republic or an Exceptional Nation. At times we have been that, but many times we have not, especially in terms of our behavior towards own own citizens at home, especially Blacks and other racial, ethnic, or religious minorities. Whether it be the attacks of the Know Nothing’s on Irish and German immigrants between the 1830s to 1850s; the Genocide committed in the name of our Manifest Destiny; the invasion, Rape and conquest of Mexico in which we took 40% of Mexico’s territory, once again in the name of our God Ordained Manifest Destiny; the enslavement of Blacks that began in Colonial times, followed by our systematic persecution of Blacks following their emancipation, citizenship, and suffrage, during and after Reconstruction and in the Jim Crow Era. The conquest, annexation, and war against Filipino patriots following the Spanish American War, which caused Mark Twain to write:

“There must be two Americas: one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on; then kills him to get his land. . .”

Last night I was still too wiped out from my tooth extraction and jaw infection to do any writing of any kind. I was still pretty wiped out most of today but I am feeling well enough to write and probably go to work in the morning. As I was getting my wits about me today and looking over the election and COVID-19 numbers I came to realize that as a country and people that we Americans are not very good or exceptional.

While the race for President is yet to be called it looks like Democrat Joe Biden has a very good chance of winning it, but having his win stand the scrutiny of lawsuits, recounts, and court decisions to follow. That does not mean that our system of government, based on a Constitutional republic with three pillars of power, the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, based on democratic principles and the understanding that All Men are Created Equal… is perfect, or capable of being destroyed by a man and party willing to sacrifice it for their political power. President Donald Trump and his cult of dearth, the Republican Party have proved that, even if he loses he will have succeeded in undermining every pillar of our Republic, and maybe even ensuring its destruction in the coming years.

Whether Trump loses or not, nearly half of Americans have showed that they no longer believe in our Constitution, system of government, or the rights of fellow citizens. We have found that a sizable number of people who call themselves Pro-life Christians are actually simply a party of death; yes they are against abortion, but they care not a wit about the lives of those already born. In fact the man they voted for stands against the principles that they supposedly believed in less than for years ago. The Republican Party is no longer the party life life, limited government, or individual freedom, it is the party of Trump, the party of dictatorship, tyranny, and death; even willing deaths of his followers, for 14 of the top 15 states with the highest COVID-19 infection rates per million people all voted for him, unless Georgia flips, then it will be 13 of 15.

In the early hours of the morning Trump declared victory and demanded that states stop counting legal votes. As his losses began to mount he filed suit against three states on very shaky charges to stop them counting votes already cast. But the President doesn’t care because he is nationalist, but his nationalism is worse than most nationalists, because he does it to enhance his own power. Historian Timothy Snyder wrote:

“The president is a nationalist, which is not at all the same thing as a patriot. A nationalist encourages us to be our worst, and then tells us that we are the best. A nationalist, ‘although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge,’ wrote Orwell, tends to be ‘uninterested in what happens in the real world.’ Nationalism is relativist, since the only truth is the resentment we feel when we contemplate others. As the novelist Danilo Kiš put it, nationalism ‘has no universal values, aesthetic or ethical.’ A patriot, by contrast, wants the nation to live up to its ideals, which means asking us to be our best selves. A patriot must be concerned with the real world, which is the only place where his country can be loved and sustained. A patriot has universal values, standards by which he judges his nation, always wishing it well—and wishing that it would do better.”

Hitler was also a Nationalist, but when his self anointed German Master Race lost the war he caused, he blamed his followers as being too weak, and unworthy.  Why do I not see Trump doing the same thing when all is said and done? I think his followers should worry about that more than me.

As I get ready to finish this article Biden leads the popular and electoral vote counts, and it is very possible that hi will win Nevada where he is ahead, as well as flip Pennsylvania and Georgia where Trump is narrowly leading but the lead is diminishing every hour. By the time I get up in the morning those races may have been called. Biden could end up with over 300 electoral votes, but the damage will already have been done, and I have no doubt that Trump and his supporters will continue to do, maybe using violence in pursuit of their goal. But I do think that the courts, and other institutions will stop him and them. I could be wrong, but I don’t think they will succeed in preventing Biden’s election. But based on Trump’s words of last week I wouldn’t discount an attempt on Biden’s life before he is sworn in.

But all of that is said in realization that over the past four years, Trump and his supporters have more to destroy the foundations of the American Experiment than anything before, even the Civil War. I believe that even if our better angels prevail, that it will take more than a generation to recover from the Trump Era, if he loses now, and probably never if he remains in office.

Russian exile, dissident, and Chess Grand Master Gary Kasparov who wrote:

“First of all people here should understand that nothing is for granted. There were many warnings in the past, you know, but every time, Americans and Europeans—they believe that it’s like bad weather. It comes and goes. But the danger is real. I always want to quote Ronald Reagan, who said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” Now, probably, it’s not even one generation. Things can happen very quickly, because there’s so much power that comes in the hands of people who have very little affection for the values that make up the core of liberal democracy and the free world.”

Trump and his supporters are those of whom Kasparov wrote. They want nothing to to with the values of liberal democracy and the free world, it is all about their grudges, hatred, and need for absolute power, which they project onto their opponents.

While I think Biden will win I take nothing for granted, and must warn others of, even if they do not want hear that warning.

So tomorrow when we know more, I wish you a good night.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

 

 

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November 1, 2020 · 23:18

Revisiting Donald Trump, the Toxic Venomous Vulgarian, Four Years Later

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Tonight my toothache continues unabated but in the morning I will be going to the Dental Clinic at Little Creek to have it worked on. I think there may be a nerve abscess on one of my left bottom molars. I could be wrong as I am no dentist but I have been through this when I was 20 and when I was 50. But enough about me, however between German beer, Australian wine, and wonder Single Malt Scotch, the pain meds take away much of the pain.

However, tonight I am following up my post from last night which was my prediction of what Trump’s followers would be like if elected. That was from October 12th 2016. This is an article from October 21st 2016. This article like the last is reposted in its unedited form. When I wrote it I spoke of Trump’s toxic vulgarity and aspects of his character, the evil that he had normalized, and the effects that would remain “after he had been defeated.”

I was wrong about that last part because like most people I was shocked to see him win. However, what I wrote about his long lasting toxic effects on our society were correct, and have been made much worse since he was elected. Now he is threatening to contest the election and continues to urge violence against anyone who opposes him.

Trump may be ignorant of many things, but that does not mean that he is stupid. I think that most of us assume that he is. He does what he does for specific reasons. His bankruptcies, divorces, fraudulent business dealings, and everything else he has done in life have been to enrich himself at the expense of others or feed his megalomania, and desire for absolute power. What he has done throughout his Presidency is proof of that: his cooperation with Russia to win election in 2016, his attempts to destroy our alliances and to undermine allies on the border of Putin’s Russia, his wanton destruction of the guardrails of our republic, his trampling of the Constitution, and his willingness to sacrifice the lives of Americans during the Coronavirus 19 Pandemic are all proof of his lack of character and the evil in his heart, are not proof of his stupidity; but proof of his ruthlessness and cold blooded cunning to make people underestimate him. Yes, when it comes to basic knowledge of our Constitution, history, science, philosophy, religion, economics, foreign policy, literature or anything else that has enriched Western Civilization, the President is an ignoramus of astounding proportions.

However, when it comes to the art of manipulating people and getting them to do things and support polices that harm them he is probably in the league of Hitler, Stalin, and Chairman Mao. His image is based on a fictionalization of his “successful businessman” persona that he played on “The Apprentice.” It is all fiction, but he plays to the basest beliefs of his base. He knows them better than they know themselves. 

If he finds a way to remain in power, he will exploit it even at the cost of the lives of his opponents, but also his supporters; especially the latter, because they believe his lies as much as they believe the Gospel. They will willing sacrifice themselves to keep him in power. The fact is that his only loyalty is to himself.

That being said, let me take you back to my post of October 21st 2016, which was entitled “The Venomous Vulgarian: the Lasting Toxic Legacy of Donald Trump.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

What follows is the original post.

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

As I watched and listened to Donald Trump before and after the third and thankfully final debate of the 2016 Presidential election, I was struck with just how viscous, vulgar, and venomous this man is. I cannot remember anyone in American politics at the national level, Republican or Democrat, or for that matter even Whig, who ever managed to immerse himself so deeply into the amoral, unethical, and undemocratic sewer that Trump has bathed himself, the Republican Party and this nation.

Trump’s toxicity is unparalleled in American politics. Everything and everyone who has ever had anything to do with him is poisoned by his touch. Wives, business partners, contractors, employees, political advisors, and supporters have all been stained by the Mustard Gas that Trump emits on a minute to minute basis. Maybe the most stained are the Evangelical Christian church leaders who have not only endorsed and defended Trump, but  who positively described his character as Christian and said nothing about Trump’s words and actions, which if an opponent had uttered, or had been accused, they would have excoriated with a particularly “Christian” self-righteousness.  Their actions have stained the witness of the church for at least the next generation and it is no wonder that young people are fleeing the church. I specifically use the imagery of Mustard Gas, not just because of its toxicity, but because of its persistence. The battlefields of World War One France and Belgium are still contaminated by it, and the toxic residue still injures people today.

That my friends is the poisonous and corrosive effect of Donald Trump on this country.  He is a toxic and persistent threat to everyone, even his most devout followers. Race baiting, misogynistic, narcissistic, vulgar, and ignorant, Trump spews his vile venom of conspiracy theories wrapped in fiction, and coated in lies, and buttressed with near pornograpic misogyny in every direction. He has given his supporters in the heavily armed Alt-Right, the neo-Nazis, Klansmen, and White Supremacists the boldness to come out of hiding because he has normalized their hate, something that no Western statesman or politician has done since before the verdicts at Nuremberg.

I have long felt that Trump reminded me of Nazi leaders, but frankly most of them, while every bit as toxic as Trump were both more intelligent and were better able to cover the darkness of their amoral souls with a modicum of respectability, with the exception of one; the publisher of the infamous newspaper Der Sturmer, and Gauleiter of Nuremberg, Julius Streicher.

Robert Jackson, the Associate Justice of the Supreme Court who served as the Chief American Prosecutor at Nuremberg referred to Streicher in his summation:

“Streicher, the venomous vulgarian, manufactured and distributed obscene racial libels which incited the populace to accept and assist the progressively savage operations of “race purification.” 

Is that not exactly what Trump has done during his seventeen month campaign to stir up race hatred against Mexicans and Arabs, not to mention Asians and Blacks? Of course it is, which is exactly why the leaders of the Alt-Right claim him as their candidate, the man who in their perverted minds has made them respectable again and ready to assume their place in Trump’s new order. Anti-Semitism and racism runs rampant in the words of his closest collaborators such as the Breitbart News chief Steve Bannon, as well as Alt-Right Neo-Nazi and KKK leaders like David Duke, Richard Spencer, Jared Taylor, and Peter Brimalow.

My friends, what you see in Trump is what you get. Unlike Hitler and Goering, but much like Streicher, Trump has no capability of maintaining any sort of respectability. He has been stoking the fires of violence by claiming that the election is rigged and pumping up his followers for violence if he loses.

Donald Trump is dangerous and will remain an enemy of the American experiment long after he is defeated on November 8th.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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October 24, 2020 · 03:15

Lying and Dying Every Single Day: Trump Continues at the Final Debate

Friends of Padre Steve’s

I reluctantly watched the train wreck of a debate between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. To his credit the President pretty much to the debate format, a first in this election season, although he did try to steamroll the moderator more and more as the debate went on. He looked angry, for some reason, I thought his orange tint was a shade darker, it made his angry eyes stand out. But anyway, I digress.

As far as the debate went some issues were discussed and both men stuck to their script, Biden did nothing to harm his campaign and despite a few times where he to a lesser extent than the President uttered a few phrases of  word salad, but generally stayed on topic and hit Trump pretty hard a number of times. The President’s best line of attack was was near the end of the debate he attacked Biden on the transition to a non-fossil fuel driven economy and the push for zero emissions. Of course the Vice President’s ideas make sense and the United has to lead the world in this direction. But Trump used it to try to make his case as a friend of the oil industry, especially in Pennsylvania and Texas. I don’t know how many votes he swayed with the argument but it was really the only time that he might have got some people to not abandon him, but in doing so he also dehumanized poor and mostly black or Mexican people who live in the communities Just outside the fence lines of refineries and plants. He insinuated that they benefitted through jobs at them, but that is not the case. Most currently employed oil workers, are suburbanites who make enough money to live well away from the toxin spewing plants and refineries they work. As always the President lied about the effect on the economy, and the people who would be effected by the change, heck even the oil companies are beginning to diversify into wind, solar and other renewable energy sources.

Unfortunately lying is his baseline and he seldom deviated from it. Biden made some factual errors but they did not come across as outright lies. Likewise,

I had to start drinking early because the President lied continuously and with such warp speed that I could not keep track of all of them. His heartlessness was revealed so many times that as Priest and Christian I was overwhelmed at his repetition of so many disproved conspiracy theories, absolute lies, and the realization that Donald Trump does not care about the lives of any person than him, even his supporters based on his answers to the disaster that his administration had been regarding the Coronavirus 19 pandemic. The President claimed that cases were going down, that excess deaths were down, deaths were down, and that vaccines would soon be here and distributed by the military.

He told of his make believe world with a happy ending, when with COVID-19 there is no happy ending, no magical silver bullet that is going to make it go away. On the day of the debate the United States record its highest number of infections ever, and Friday the infections soared by almost 6,000 more than Thursday, 81,210 new infections and over 900 new deaths. The worst rates of infection were per million people were as follow: North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, Arkansas, Georgia, South Carolina, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nebraska, Idaho, Utah, Texas, Nevada, Illinois, and Oklahoma. Those are the top twenty. Sadly, most of the infections and deaths in these states were not in the initial surge, but after months of negligence and political malfeasance of the Trump Administration, and the mostly Republican governments of these states, many of which opened quickly, reopened schools, and for the most part have poor public health systems and few intensive care beds. The spike in deaths hasn’t begun yet, but they will and the President will again be shown to be a liar, whose refusal to deal with facts, attacks the scientist and doctors that tell the truth, and attempts to mislead every American.

During the debate he spoke like Hitler in the last months of World War II that said that Germany would be delivered from defeat by new miraculous weapons, and a split between the Allies, when every German military leader and industrial expert knew that Hitler’s Germany was doomed to defeat. Like Hitler, he blames those who were responsible for his early successes at fault for his defeat, and blames the professional military and intelligence officers, diplomats, scientists, and even long term followers for being disloyal not to the nation, but to him.

He promised an effective way vaccine that neither the drug companies or any experts will be available in sufficient numbers until next summer or fall. Then he promised that this miracle vaccine would be distributed by the military. That my friends is complete hogwash. Our military is not designed to distribute millions of vaccines across the country. Our medical departments have been cut to the bone by the Trump administration in order to provide more “trigger pullers” and our reserve and National Guard medical personnel have civilian jobs, most of which involve staffing medical centers, research institutions, hospitals, clinics, and private practices all of which are already engaged in the battle against COVID-19. and by the way the readiness and maintenance readiness of the transportation assets needed to get the vaccines to the places they can be used absolutely suck. Contrary to what President Trump says all the time, our military has not been rebuilt. It is broken by nearly two decades of incessant and unnecessary wars, and those wars broke our ability to sustain our military at the levels it needs to confront the Soviet, Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian threats, additionally he has undermined our alliances with long term allies and diminished the trust in the world of American leadership.

So a few more words about his claims of the military being able to distribute a yet to be proven and produced vaccine is a lie. Heck, we in the military are being told that we won’t have Flu vaccines available for military personnel until late December and being told to go to civilian providers to get our Flu shots. Neither do we have a full fledged COVID-19 testing program in the military. If you want to know why units are sequestered and cannot deploy, or ships have to disrupt deployments because of COVID-19 outbreaks We don’t have them, and even if a safe COVID 19 vaccine is developed the chance that it will be distributed quickly by a military logistics system that is under immense strain to supply our troops around the world is mindless jibber-jabber.

I have to ask how many million vaccines will be produced, how they will be distributed by a already stressed military supply system. The fact is that the virus is blowing up all over the country especially in Red States that resisted almost every aspect of the science and ensured that their citizens would be more exposed and more vulnerable to the virus, and this includes states who Governors might be Democrats but whose legislatures and courts are controlled by Republicans is a ridiculous defense of those states policies that put people at risk.

As of today there are over 8.575 million people who have been infected, almost 230,000 who have died, and if you count the number of over average deaths probably drives the death total to almost 300,000. Trump said that the numbers were down. It is not. Trump claimed that Virus infections were going down, as were deaths. But that is not the case, we are going into the third spike of the first wave of the pandemic because the Trump administration and its congressional, state, White Nationalist  and Christian Nationalist supporters ensured that any meaningful action to stop the virus would be undermined, because their political and Racist and religious political power demanded that it be so. Look at the statistics. Ethnic minorities, the elderly, and the poor are the majority of the deaths and infections. Those numbers are now beginning to include a lot of White people in states that have done the least to protect their citizens and have the least medical capabilities to handle the onslaught. Yes, the major metropolitan cities in the Northeast were hit hardest in the early days of the pandemic, but in comparison to the new areas, are doing well. That is not good enough but their preventative measures have been undermined by the President’s propaganda and an emotional and spiritual fatigue created by months of life disrupted by the virus.

Of course there was the propaganda put out by Trump on how children’s being separated and locked up by his administration were “being very well cared for” while locked in cages at the border.  I’m sorry, the Nazis said the same things of the Jews incarcerated at the “humanitarian” camp of Theresienstadt concentration camp, from which nearly 90% were sent to the death camp of  Auschwitz.  

When Biden brought up that over 545 children, forcibly separated from their parents at the border will likely never see their parents again because of Trump’s policies, Trump said “Good.” The fact is that the President has never, every condemned any violent acts, or previous illegal activities that international courts led by Americans would call Crimes Against Humanity, are not only tolerated, but encouraged, because the American President said so.

I am going to end for the night. I cannot be silent as a Christian, politics does not enter into my equation, but morality and human decency do matter, as do the best humanitarian aspect of my faith. The German martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote:

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.” 

Likewise, if somehow I think that because I am a White Military Officer and remained silent that I will be spared because of that, I would be misguided and an imbecile. There is no safety for anyone today, even for those who most fervently believe what President Trump says. If you are one of them, and your really thing your liebes matter to him, they don’t and you are believing a lie.

The anti-Hitler martyr of the White Rose resistance Sophie Scholl wrote:

““The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place aswide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

Thats a fact. We have a President who is lying while people are dying every day In increasing numbers because of his lies, especially his supporters. That my friends is not a lie. Ask yourself, do you really trust him, or have you subordinated you’re morality, ethics, and respect for yourself to him, for what?

i do not stand in judgement over anyone. I believe in justice tempered by mercy. But as for me I have to echo the words of German Major General Henning Von Tresckow, a key planner in the anti-Hitler plot who on learning of his failures killed himself if the face of Soviet forces:

“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.” 

Trump by no means is Hitler, but he acts a lot like him in terms of behaviors, words, and attitudes, especially in regards to minorities, the poor, his opponents, and even his supporters.

So until next time When I go back to my Battle of Leyte Gulf series, have a good night and please be safe. Even if you agree with the President and plan on voting form him, matters less to me than your lives and safety. I am tired of death, especially deaths that are completely preventable by the simplest actions such as the proper wear of face masks, social distancing, and hand washing. Those are not tyrannical measures, they are simple common sense and proven by science.

So until next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 6, 2020 · 03:02

No Sympathy for a President with No Empathy or Tose Who Follow Him Into the COVID19 Abyss


President Trump Defiantly Taking off His Mask after Returning to the White House Knowing his is Still Infectious 

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I did not get online until couple of hours ago. I was a work, and then went to get gel injections in my knees and a steroid shot in my hip. I’m getting closer to Dr. House every day. That being said I spend most of this evening trying to trim down my Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory! manuscript to the 100,000 words for my publisher desires without cutting meat and not fat. I only have about 17,000 words left to get to the goal and then I can pick my photos from what is in the public domain or allowed with attribution by their authors, and then work on my index. In the meantime I am working on my retirement physical, waiting for the VA to decide my disability rating,  looking for a job for post retirement, and stressing out about preparing our townhouse for sale and getting ready to find a new home without stairs, unless it has an elevator. 

That being said I didn’t see any news except for pop up notifications on my iPad until a couple of hours ago. I was aghast at President Trump’s actions leaving Walter Reed, knowing that he is contagious and his life is at risk, and then immediately unmasked when he got to the claim that COVID19 was not to be feared at the White House angered me because of the lack of concern for His staff, those who volunteered to serve in his administration or those assigned by DOD, the Justice Department, the Secret Service, DIA, NSA, CIA, FBI, or any other department that assigned career personnel to the White House.

My God, Trump has friends like Herman Cain who died of COVID19 after attending one of his rallies unmasked. Now 11 people, including his wife are infected who travelled with or attended events with him. Some like Kellyanne Conway have infected family members. How many others have passed it to their family members and friends?

Even Hitler allowed friends, advisors, and officials to leave his bunker as he prepared for Götterdämmerung in Berlin, even as he left the majority of Germans to death, dislocation, destruction, and his military to Soviet POW Camps, from which few returned. Trump makes Hitler look good by comparison.

Gustave Gilbert, an American Army Psychologist who tended to the major Nazi War Criminals at Nuremberg said:

“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trails 1945-1949) I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”

When I think of all the blood on Trumps hands due to his early knowledge of COVID19’s deadliness before the first reported case in our country and did nothing to stop it. He actively hindered the  CDC, FDA, and NIH; ignored the intelligence of the NSA, CIA and the head of his National Security Counsel about the national security risks; undermined public health officials at every turn by advocating for unsafe practices and proven testing and contact tracing methods.

As of yesterday his actions and inactions  have cost the lives of over 215,000 Americans as of yesterday, with 7.67 million infected, and 2.5 million current infections, with numbers going up in almost every state on a daily basis.

In doing so he doesn’t care if he kills all of us. I have lost any sense of personal sympathy or empathy for him, that being said I don’t want him to die, but be effectively leaving Walter Reed while still infected with his medical team shipping that he is not out of danger is irresponsible and needs to be condemned publicly by anyone with a grain of decency left in their soul.

To say he is not responsible, as he says himself is to say no one has died, and no one is guilty. Associate Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, who prosecuted the Nazis Gilbert watched over said in his closing argument at Nuremberg:

“They stand before the record of this trial as bloodstained Gloucester stood by the body of his slain King. He begged of the widow, as they beg of you: “Say I slew them not.” And the Queen replied, “Then say they were not slain. But dead they are ….” If you were to say of these men that they are not guilty, it would be as true to say that there has been no war, there are no slain, there has been no crime.”

Trump claims no responsibility for the death and infections, just before his super-spreader event, he was asked about them, and said “It is what it is.” If any claims that Trump is not guilty of these death, then they are no better than those that defended the Nazi crimes. Likewise, if one person launches an ad hominem attack on me for this post, it will be their last here, and I will do my best to find them and shame them publicly, because they are willing accomplices in those deaths and infections.

Sophie Scholl, the 22 year old University of Munich Student leader of the White Rose Resistance against Hitler said:

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be governed without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day.”

I cannot imagine any honest American being ashamed of Trump and his clique’s actions during the COVID19 Pandemic. 

Finally, if you dear reader are a COVID19 Denier, refuse to were a mask properly, physically distance, do not wash your hands, or exhibit symptoms and willingly expose others you are guilty, just as Hitler’s followers who obeyed what they knew were illegal, immoral, and criminal orders and you deserve whatever happens to you. God help your families, friends, coworkers and associates, and may God or anyone save us from this madman. 

Thus ends the lesson,

Peace, if you can find it,

Padre Steve+ 

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October 2, 2020 · 03:22

Trump’s Debate Debacle and the Irony and Karma of COVID-19 as Trump Tests Positive

President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I started this post on Tuesday night after the debate. My anger was palpable. I found out a few minutes ago that he and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19. The irony is so rich. The man who knew about how bad the virus is and how he did nothing to stop it, who took few personal precautions, exposed his followers in rallies where masks were not required and social distancing was ignored. He set himself up to get it by so casually denying the advice and attacking the experts who gave it. I hate to say it, but anyone who conducted himself in such a manner served to be infected, and due to him being high risk in that he is old, morbidly obese, and must have unreported medical conditions that he has ordered his doctors to lie about, including an  unplanned and rushed visit to Walter Reed, but I digress. I expect that he will have a very bad time of this, and may end up incubated in an ICU in the next few weeks. So please read on to my debate commentary. 

I hate bullies and liars. I always have. Donald Trump has always been a bully, and a liar and this was on full display tonight. I have never seen a President disgrace his office more and demonstrate his unfitness for office than President Trump did in the first Presidential debate tonight. He was far ruder and disrespectful than any American President than I have ever have seen. Trump broke every ground rule of the debate, and ended with him saying that the election didn’t matter and that he should remain in office, even encouraging Right Wing Militias like the Proud Boys to be stand by after the election. I felt assaulted as an American citizen, by his display of hatred for our political system, institutional, and Constitutional norms. It was as if only he mattered, and the rest of the country, even his supporters be damned.

Like Adolf Hitler, President Trump shouted down his opponent and the debate moderator through the entire debate. I was overwhelmed by his anger, invective, lies and incredible lack of empathy for the victims of COVID-19, or even Joe Biden’s dead son Beau who served in Iraq before dying of a brain tumor.

I cannot believe what I saw, the number already disproved lies that that he blasted all night long on every issue, repeating QAnon conspiracy theories as if they were the Gospel and sowing discord that could destroy our country. He refused to condemn White Supremacist ideology, lying about his responsibility in the Coronavirus Pandemic, for 210,000 deaths and over seven million infected by it, many of who will never fully recover.

However, like everything else he touches, tonight he destroyed another American institution, that of a neutrally moderated debate. Instead he abused the moderator, Chris Wallace of the Fox News Network, his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, and everyone who watched, of course since his followers are fine with abuse and being abused they won’t raise an eyelash in criticism.

What the President did tonight was to destroy any respect for the office of the Presidency and the reputation of the United States around the world. I was so embarrassed.

Because of the Hatch Act I cannot urge anyone to support or vote for any candidate, nor can I say who I will vote for in the election. I have served in the military for over 39 years, obey my oath and have been able to serve under six Presidents, almost eight since I enlisted shortly after President Carter left office and won’t be on active duty if Joe Biden becomes President. In my service to the nation I never have believed that any American of any belief was not a person that I was not obligated to defend.

Donald Trump will never change, his documented lies, falsehoods, and distortions of the truth since he entered office number in the tens of thousands, respects no-one or nothing, During the debate he showed to the nation and the world that he only considers his power as the ultimate end. That is what a dictator does. After his election I gave him a chance, but in the past 3 1/2 years he has proved that he, the the Constitution, not our institutions, cannot be trusted. When he told the Neo-Nazi Proud Boys to Stand Back and Stand By it was a clarion call against our Republic. It showed that the President demonstrates that he does not uphold his oath to the Constitution, and only cares about his political power and the protection his offers him from his creditors.

My thought is that Trump has destroyed everything that used to be considered conservatism in the country and that the Republican Party once stood. I know because for 32 years I was a conservative Republican. Now I can only say, I can only repeat the words of  General Ludwig Beck: who said:

“Final decisions about the nation’s existence are at stake here; history  will incriminate these leaders with bloodguilt if they do not act in accordance with their specialist political knowledge and conscience. Their soldierly obedience reaches its limit when their knowledge, their conscience, and their responsibility forbid carrying out an order.”

Beck was correct. Final decisions about our Republic are at stake. My time in the military is almost over, but even so I will maintain my oath of office, my vows as a Priest, and my honesty as a historian who gets many threats, including death threats  on this blog because of President Trump’s calls to violence. The Proud Boys just issued a new patch for their hateful, fascist and violent movement using Trump’s words, Stand Back and Stand By. I will fight them if need be. I have been threatened by them for over a decade and I won’t take it.

I have turned my cheeks so many time that I have callousness on all four of them because of it. No longer. I will fight for our Constitution and Republic.

To quote John Paul Jones:  “It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win.”

I say that I will take the risk and if fate says I lose, I will have my honor and integrity intact. To quote Major General Henning Von Tresckow who died in the attempt to kill Hitler and overthrow Nazi rule: “I cannot understand how people can still call themselves Christians and not be furious adversaries of Hitler’s regime.” I think the same of anyone who calls themself a Christian who is willing to follow Trump into the abyss.

To this end in response to last nights shit show of a debate presented by a President who broke every rule, disrespected and dishonored one of the last remaining  bulwarks of the American experiment, the right to watch the candidates tell the truth about themselves, their positions and how they defend the Constitution and Republic, I remain will continue to support legal orders, but I will be damned to Hell if in my last 90 days of active duty I will a pawn of a President who has bulldozed the Constitution and Poisoned our instructions. As Democrat Senator Stephen A. Douglas said of President James Buchanan, a man of his political party:

“God forbid,” I said “that I ever surrender my right to differ from a President of the United States for my own choice. I am not a tool of any President!” 

And I also quote Theodore Roosevelt who responded to attacks on his patriotism by members of Woodrow Wilson’s administration: 

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”

As I have always said, I will tell the truth.

I would rather stand in the shoes of Stephen A. Douglas, or Theodore Roosevelt, than in the shoes of President Trump. I still have to obey his legal orders and respect his office, but disobeying unlawful and unconstitutional orders issued by any President who tramples the Constitution and Civil Liberties at every opportunity is something that I cannot do for humor any other President regardless of their political party, or ideology.

I have to remind people time and time again that for 32 years, from 1976 to 2008 I was a loyal Republican, but by bearing first hand witness to the propagandists of the Iraq War, damaged by PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury, and finding that with the exception of their I support the Troops bumper stickers that the lies that brought on the war and it’s victims, including Americans really didn’t matter, to that Party.

My beliefs hadn’t changed, but theirs did, and 12 years later most remaining Evangelical Christian Republicans support a man who only uses them as a stepping stone to absolute power, and because he appoints judges sympathetic to their ideological, political, and social beliefs, even  though they no longer represent most Americans.

As far as that goes those people are heretics and isolators, who sold out their faith for that of a Golden Calf.

Now Trump and his wife Melania are infected with the Coronavirus 19. As I said up front, Trump himself is in a high risk group: Morbidly obese, old, and probably suffering from medical conditions that he has ordered his doctors to lie about for year to maintain the lie of his great health. I figure at best he has a long and painful ICU stay ahead of him, if he doesn’t die from it.

By the way as of publication there were 7,494,671 total infections, 212,660 deaths, 2,545,390 current infections, 47,389 which were reported yesterday before the President’s announcement. Worldwide over a million people have died. 

How this effects any future debate is on me, but that now is probably the least of his concerns, and his political opponents are going to have a field day with it. Biden will be gracious but others will go for the jugular.

If it either happens I can only quote his words when asked about his feelings about 200,000 dead Americans, “It is what it is,” as he praised his response to the virus. That being said I don’t wish death on him, “just a fate worse than a fate worse than death.” (Gratuitous Black Adder Quote)

So, until whenever,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2020 · 15:53

When You Lose Your Citizenship You Lose Everything: Another Post on the Nuremberg Laws from the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial

www.ushmm.org/genocide-prevention/blog/remembering-the-nuremberg-laws-the-true-meaning-of-citizenship

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Another post from the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial on the effects of the Nazi Nuremberg Laws, this one about how Jews lost everything including their citizenship before the Holocaust even began. Once they lost their citizenship, they were beyond all but clandestine help from people putting their lives at risk. This is the plight of all stateless people. Never Forget.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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October 1, 2020 · 15:35

A Post From the US Holocaust Museum and Memorial on Nazi Race Laws

encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nuremberg-laws

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Since I haven’t been doing much writing or posting here of my own I needed to let you know that I am alive and well. I’ve been very busy with what I need to do to retire, editing my book to meet the contract, help Judy around the house, and took Tuesday night to watch the “debate” that the President turned into a complete shit-show completely embarrassing himself, the country, and debasing his office. Everything Trump Touches dies. If you didn’t get his White Supremacist racist message anytime over the summer or during his it came through during the debate loud and clear. That is what makes this article from USHMM so pertinent now.

Have a great day,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 24, 2020 · 20:26

State Sanctioned Punishment and Death for Profit: Oswold Pohl and the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am continuing the edits to my book but decided to repost an article about how the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office, head by SS General Oswald Pohl used Concentration Camps for punishment an profits.

Timely subject regarding how Federal, State, and Contracted correction facilities or detention centers become places where government agencies, the states and those they contract with use them to exact profit at the expense of prisoners. Over 2.3 million Americans are incarcerated in all types types of facilities across the country at the city, county, state, and federal level, public and private.  Despite have We are slightly less than 5% of the World’s population the United States owns 25% of the world’s  prison population.

While our prisons and detention centers have yet to rise to the fullness of the Nazi evil, although on private detention center contracted by the US Border Protection Service and Immigration Naturalization Service had a Doctor sterilizing women detainees against their will.

It is enough to make me wonder what would happen in them if President Trump remains in Office. The man has a penchant for sadism, cruelty, and violence, as well as personal profit that Americans have never seen in a President. He is a malignant narcissistic sociopath who has no empathy and now has the death of over 200,000 Americans on his hands due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, with many more to come.

He unleashes the police power of the state against mostly peaceful protestors for the most banal reasons, and urges his supporters to Commit violent acts against his opponents on his behalf. So if he remains in office I can only imagine what he will do, and I cannot imagine it being anything to most Americans could be proud.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Two years ago on our way from Munich to Berlin we stopped to visit the memorial at the site of the former Flossenbürg Concentration Camp. For most people it is best known as the site where Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, General Hans Oster and others implicated in the 20th of July plot to assassinate Hitler. However, the evil committed there was far greater than the execution of these outstanding men.

In May of 1938 the SS-Wirtschafts- und Verwaltungshauptamt or the SS Main Economic and Administrative Office constructed a labor camp for German political and other prisoners at the town of Flossenbürg near the Czech border in northern Bavaria.

SS Gruppenführer Oswald Pohl 

Directed by SS Gruppenführer Oswald Pohl, a former German Navy officer and paymaster. Already a dedicated Nazi, Pohl gave up his Navy career in 1933 to take a commission in the SS at the behest of Heinrich Himmler who desired to use Pohl’s military administrative experience to set up a more professional and efficient administrative branch.

 

Pohl was the man for the job, and over time his influence grew. He was appointed to head the Hauptamt Haushalt und Bauten or the Main Office for Budget and Construction, and over time his responsibility continued to grow. German historian Heinz Höhne who wrote of Pohl:

Four potent departments placed Pohl’s hand firmly on the levers of power in the SS empire: he was in charge of the entire administration and supply of the Waffen-SS; he controlled the 20 concentration camps and 165 labor camps; he directed all SS and Police building projects; he was in charge of all SS economic enterprises.

But in 1938 Pohl was just beginning his rise in the SS. He realized that the Concentration Camps could be used for economic reasons as well as the punishment of the Reich’s enemies. Himmler appointed Pohl to oversee the economic and business operations of the camps. In March of 1938 they began at Mauthausen in Austria by partnering with the SS operated German Earth and Stoneworks Corporation (DEST) excavate Granite using Slave labor. In May they did the same at Flossenbürg.

Pohl’s understanding of labor was thoroughly Nazi, he wrote:

“SS industries [Unternehmen] have the task…to organize a more businesslike (more productive) execution of punishment and adjust it to the overall development of the Reich.”

Flossenbürg’s prisoners initially worked in the granite quarry above the town. They, like other slave laborers were exploited and even the more pragmatic views of Pohl’s office in terms of exploitation were based on the policies of extermination.

Stone Quarry at Flossenbürg 

As time went on Pohl developed a formula to base the economic profits of each prisoner. This was based on the “rental” of each prisoner to industry, minus food and clothing, the profits from anything left by them when they died, minus the expense of the cremation, based on an expected lifespan of nine months as a slave laborer. Pohl expected a profit of about 1,630 Reichsmarks per inmate employed as a slave laborer.

Flossenbürg was one of the second generation camps designed to be more than a place of extrajudicial punishment for enemies of the Nazi regime. It was designed for economic exploitation and extermination through work. While the initial inmates were Germans it would become a place where people from eighteen nations were worked to death.

Like Mauthausen, Flossenbürg supplied laborers to DEST which ran the quarry. The quarry is still in operation, though most of the work is done by machines run by very few actual well paid workers. The machines can be heard from the grounds of the former camp.

The camp grew and so did the numbers of prisoners, especially from countries conquered by the Nazis. Germans who made up the majority of the prisoners from its opening until late 1940 were eclipsed by Poles, Russians, and Hungarians. By the end of the war the camp had housed about 100,000 prisoners, of which about 30,000 died or were executed there.

As the number of deaths rose the process to dispose of the remains of the victims required that a crematorium be constructed. It was built in a valley at the base of the camp and ashes were disposed of near it in what is known as The Valley of Death. Those killed not only included those inmates who were worked to death, died of starvation or disease, but also the Polish and Soviet prisoners of war killed on the orders of the regime.

In 1943 the Messerschmitt facility in Regensburg moved parts production for the Bf-109 fighter plane to Flossenbürg. Camp inmates became part of the workforce producing those parts as well as other munitions for the German armaments industry.

The camp was liberated by the American 90th Infantry Division on April 23rd 1945.

The camp memorial is off the beaten track for most people. Visitors must make a special point to visit it. Unlike Buchenwald, Dachau, or Bergen-Belsen it is quite isolated from places that most people would go. Even so there are a significant number of Germans, and other Europeans, especially young people, who go to the camp to learn. In addition to the museum there is an education program with seminar rooms, guest speakers, and speak alike programs. A number of buildings have been preserved including the Camp Administration building, the Detention building where the special prisoners were housed, the laundry and camp kitchen which house the museum and special exhibits, the crematorium, two guard towers, and the SS Officer Club, or Casino. The last houses the education center as well as a small cafe for visitors.

In The Valley of Death near the crematorium there is what is called the Pyramid of Ashes, the Square of the Nations, and a cemetery. Above them are a chapel dedicated to the victims and a Jewish memorial.

For me I think that the most powerful images I will remember are The Valley of Death and the courtyard outside of the Detention barracks where Bonhoeffer, Oster, and Canaris were executed. The SS Camp doctor wrote the only account of the death of these men:

“On the morning of that day between five and six o’clock the prisoners, among them Admiral Canaris, General Oster, General Thomas and Reichgerichtsrat Sack were taken from their cells, and the verdicts of the court martial read out to them. Through the half-open door in one room of the huts I saw Pastor Bonhoeffer, before taking off his prison garb, kneeling on the floor praying fervently to his God. I was most deeply moved by the way this lovable man prayed, so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer. At the place of execution, he again said a short prayer and then climbed the steps to the gallows, brave and composed. His death ensued after a few seconds. In the almost fifty years that I worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”

That being said, while Bonhoeffer, Oster, and Canaris resonate with me I cannot ignore the fate of the 30,000 other men and women who died at Flossenbürg. They were victims of the Nazi policies on race and men like Pohl who extracted the last bit of profit they could make off of the lives and labor of their prisoners before they killed them.

Unfortunately with humanity being what it is and the desire to seek profit and power over the good of people what happened at Flossenbürg could happen again. There are men like Oswald Pohl today who would not hesitate to try to make a profit off of so called enemies of the state.

That is why we always have to remember what happened there and fight to ensure that it can never happen again

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