Tag Archives: donald trump supporters

April 26, 2019 · 23:59

Turning People into Questions or Problems: the Root Of Genocide

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In the morning I will be speaking on the last day of Passover at Norfolk’s Temple Israel on bearing witness to the Holocaust even as its last survivors pass away from their earthly journey. Since it is late and I have to be up early, for a Saturday, I will leave you with this thought from the late Christopher Hitchens:

“Die Judenfrage,’ it used to be called, even by Jews. ‘The Jewish Question.’ I find I quite like this interrogative formulation, since the question—as Gertrude Stein once famously if terminally put it—may be more absorbing than the answer. Of course one is flirting with calamity in phrasing things this way, as I learned in school when the Irish question was discussed by some masters as the Irish ‘problem.’ Again, the word ‘solution’ can be as neutral as the words ‘question’ or ‘problem,’ but once one has defined a people or a nation as such, the search for a resolution can become a yearning for the conclusive. Endlösung: the final solution.”

President Trump repeatedly dehumanizes minority groups, immigrants, both legal and undocumented, LGBTQ people, religious minorities (including liberal Jewish) and women. Right wing pundits, politicians, and preachers often do the same, and the bulk of the Republican Party, mostly made up of White Evangelical Christians says nothing. While most do not readily admit their prejudice, though some, including members of Congress openly support White Nationalist policies and groups. Little or no condemnation is ever made by them against killings and mass murder, let us call it Domestic Terrorism. In return such groups are growing and being emboldened and the President and his compatriots spin lies as history.

How does one prevent yet another genocide from happening? I think that there is some wisdom in the answer a German University Colleague of Milton Mayer said when Mayer was questioning him about the subject.

In his book They Thought they Were Free Mayer wrote of his conversation with that professor:

“How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

“Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.”

So I leave you with that for the night,

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under ethics, History, holocaust, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , ,

April 25, 2019 · 21:58

Bearing Witness: My Mission

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The words on the polished stone in the hall of remembrance at the U.S. Holocaust Museum are as much as a somber warning as a command:

Only Guard Yourself and Guard Your Soul Carefully, Lest You Forget the Things Your Eyes Saw, Lest These Things Depart Your Heart All the Days Of Your Life, and You Shall Make Them Known to Your Children and to Your Children’s Children.

Last May I visited the United States Holocaust Museum. Since I study the Weimar and Nazi period, the Holocaust and the war crimes trials this was important. While in Germany I have been to the Dachau, Buchenwald, Flossenburg, and Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camps, the T4 Euthanasia Program Center at Hadamar, the Palace Of Justice in Nuremberg where the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials (as well as the Nazi era Nuremberg laws) were prosecuted, the Wannsee House where the Final Solution was implemented, the Memorials to the German Resistance in Berlin, the Sophie Scholl White Rose Museum, and the Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism; this visit, in the United States was important. I will be continuing to visit Holocaust sites in Germany when I go there this Fall, but last year I finally was able to stake out the time to visit the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

The museum is important and despite having been to places shown in it and knowing more about the Nazi regime and the Holocaust than the vast majority of Americans, I found myself overwhelmed at times as I walked slowly through the exhibits. Many I recognized, knew about, or had been to, but that did not make them any less emotionally difficult to see. But there were others that drove home why this museum is so important in our day and time.

I think that the one that hit me the hardest was the pictorial Tower of Faces from the Polish shtetl of Ejszyszki. That town was home to some 4,000 Jews and the pictures had been taken over the preceding decade by local photographers. They were pictures of everyday family and community life; men, women, children at work, at play, at rest. Worshipping, working, studying, the old and the young, the well off and the poor, the religious and those not as religious at all phase of life captured in photos for eternity. For 3500 of them their lives ended on September 21st 1941 when the Nazis rounded up the Jews at their Synagogues on the eve of Yom Kippur and executed them by firing squad in mass graves at the town’s Christian and Jewish cemeteries. Only 29 of those who survived that day lived through the war. That Jewish community had existed for 900 years and was exterminated in a matter of hours.

I looked at those pictures and I could not get over all of those innocent lives cut short. Each face was the picture of an individual or individuals, families, friends, schoolmates. They were not abstract numbers or statistics but real flesh and blood people like you and me. They had hopes and dreams, but because they were Jews they were exterminated, like nearly six million other Jews who also were real people with hopes and dreams that would be destroyed by the Nazi racial war. Of course the Nazis targeted others, but none with the relentless anti-Semitic racial hatred propagated by Nazi ideology. Thus they condoned and executed by people who would have ordinarily have been considered upstanding and moral citizens. The late Christopher Hitchens wrote:

“We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many.” 

But then this is not abnormal as the great American theologian and philosopher Reinhold Niebuhr wrote: “Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.”

The problem is that what happened during the Holocaust and to the people of the shtetl of Ejszyszki is not just an aberration, it is all too much a part of human nature; even that of people who call themselves Christians like those who exterminated the Jewish people of Ejszyszki. It is not simply an artifact of history that we can ignore. It can happen again and if we are not careful it will happen again. The spirit of the ideology that allowed normal law abiding people to massacre millions of people, either up close and personal like at Ejszyszki or in death factories like Soribor, Treblinka, Belzec, and Auschwitz is still alive today in Russia, Europe, and even in the United States. Of course it exists elsewhere in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. But I think that it is most frightening when it exists in the nations which claim to be inheritors of Christian civilization or the enlightenment, especially among the people who claim the words of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

Honesty when I see the President of the United States and his most devoted followers follow the script of the Nazis and other race supremacists I get concerned and I remember the words of historian Yehuda Bauer:

“The horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn’t. What happened may happen again, to others not necessarily Jews, perpetrated by others, not necessarily Germans. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.”

As for people who might be neighbors, coworkers or even friends today who for whatever reason either support, dismiss, or ignore the peril of the racial, ideological, and religious animus of the modern authoritarians and anti-Semites I can only recall the words of Yale historian Dr. Timothy Snyder who wrote:

“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why.”

Today, more than at any time in his Presidency, I truly believe that under President Trump that the United States is just a Reichstag Fire moment the usurpation Of the Constitution and the beginning of a dictatorship. I believe that, the Muller Investigation and the Democratic Party House Majority notwithstanding, we entering a phase of history when not only Trump supporters, but even some Trump opponents would do nothing in a crisis and either become willing participants in tyranny, bystanders to it or victims of it. As I walked through the museum and remembered all of my visits to Holocaust and other sites in Germany I realized again that it can happen again.

When I finished with most of my visit I went to the Hall of Remembrance and sat for a long time in silence, a silence facing the words on that stone, and that made me realize again just how easy it would be to happen again, and the choices that all of us must make if it is not to happen again in our time.

I’ll leave you with the warning of Yehuda Bauer:

“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”

I cannot be a bystander. This Saturday I will be speaking on the topic of bearing witness to the Holocaust as the last witnesses pass away and the Holocaust denial industry ramps up and gains supporters in the high reaches of governments around the world. It is entitled, Lest We Forget: Walk, Remember, and Bear Witness at Temple Israel in Norfolk. The premise is that In order to bear witness today the those who want to prevent genocide today need to study it, and then go to the places hallowed by the blood of the victims in order to internalize it and speak for those whose voices cry out from the grave, “never again!”

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under History, holocaust, nazi germany, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 31, 2019 · 16:48

A Meditation On Resistance For Today From General Henning Von Tresckow

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

There are times that resistance seems almost hopeless. I was talking with one of my friends who is very discouraged about the situation. He is an idealist. I spent much of the evening trying to buck him up.

British Historian Laurence Rees wrote:

“human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it’s just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice.” 

One of the problems is that throughout history, resisters frequently fail to unify in the face of their primary adversary and instead look for the faults among their own potential leaders. That my friends is the way to failure. So tonight, or as it is early this morning I will leave you with a few thoughts of one of the key German resistance leaders against Hitler during the Second World War. That man was Major General Henning Von Tresckow, a key member of the plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

Tresckow said a number of things that I will quote in the way he said or wrote them. But for every time Tresckow writes or says Hitler, substitute Trump, and when he says Germany, substitute the United States.

In reality that is now where we find ourselves. We are on the verge of a dictatorship of a man who can barely be called sane. Yet, he has a core Cult, of committed followers who will through their own willful avoidance of the truth would support him even if he overthrew the Constitution, and proclaimed dictatorial powers, and unleashed violence against every domestic opponent. He routinely makes those kinds of threats, to the cheers of his Cult. In one of his speeches from March 14th of this year Trump declared:

“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,”

That is not a comfortable thought, but it is the new normal, especially among his supposedly Christian supporters, who include some of the most powerful religious leaders in the country.

Tresckow noted:

“I cannot understand how people can still call themselves Christians and not be furious adversaries of Hitler’s regime.”

I feel the same way about Trump, whose most fervent and loyal supporters are conservative or Evangelical Christians. Honestly, when I read their writing, hear the speeches, and listen to their defense of Trump I see little difference in them and the German Christian movement that turned the Churches into a key part Hitler’s political base. Honestly, I cannot understand how any Christian cannot be a furious adversary of the Trump regime. This is not based on politics at all, but the demands of the Gospel itself. As Jesus taught in Matthew 24:24:

“For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”

Trump is an unbeliever in the greatest sense of the word. Though he presents himself as a defender of Christianity; in thought, word, and deed has made himself a cult-like messiah figure to conservative and Evangelical Christians. He has played on their fears, their racism, their misogyny, their homophobia, and their fear of something that they call socialism. Of course the early church was much more or a practitioner ethics that bordered on socialism, though the term was not yet in use, than the post-Nicea imperial church that has been the face of Christianity in most “Christian” countries since Constantine. This Trump Cult is not Christian: it is an anti-Christian, and anti-humanity personality cult.

Unlike the Third Reich, the situation has not reached the point for any resistier to resort to political violence in response to Trump or his Cult. Instead we must speak the truth and seek to win elections, and not build cult like followings of any of our candidates, and destroy any sense of unity. We have to win with ideas and truth. Even so there is a possibility that we could fail, that is a possibility, and that failure would be the certain end of our Republic, its institutions, and its Constitution as we know it.

Tresckow also said:

“It is almost certain that we will fail. But how will future history judge the German people, if not even a handful of men had the courage to put an end to that criminal?”

We have to put an end to the Trump regime at the ballot box, and even that may not cause him give up without a physical fight. His former attorney, Michael Cohen has said exactly that. Trump is destroying the hard work of Americans and our allies to build a better would, and in almost every country, Trump is destroying the image of the United States, like Tresckow said in his time:

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

Those are import words, but just substitute the name Trump for Hitler. Tresckow was no socialist or liberal, but he believed in freedom. In fact he wrote regarding the Prussian political tradition and how it could be subverted to support evil:

“The idea of freedom can never be disassociated from real Prussia. The real Prussian spirit means a synthesis between restraint and freedom, between voluntary subordination and conscientious leadership, between pride in oneself and consideration for others, between rigor and compassion. Unless a balance is kept between these qualities, the Prussian spirit is in danger of degenerating into soulless routine and narrow-minded dogmatism.”

Truthfully that is a spirit much like the United States that which is engulfing the United States today, soulless routine and narrow minded dogmatism. The tension that exists in the key ideal of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, and the words of Trump and his supporters men who desire to rule by fiat and by extra-Constitutional means, cannot be more marked than it is today.

In the movie adaptation of the plot to kill Hitler Valkyrie: Tresckow is quoted:

“God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find ten righteous men… I have a feeling that for Germany it may come down to one.”

To be sure, Trump is no Hitler, though his words sound more and more Hitlerian every day. I will not call the President a Nazi, though he has give tacit support to Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups and frequently engages in racist diatribes. He is certainly acting as any authoritarian leader would, and we have to heed the warning of Russian dissident Gary Kasparov:

“dictators & would be autocrats do not ask “Why?” when it comes to using power for their advantage. They ask “why not?”

To go back to the words of Tresckow in Valkyrie, in noting it may come down to the actions of one man or woman, my friends, that “one” may come down to you or me. We cannot sit silently by as more and more actions that would have been considered as criminal are perpetrated by the President and his followers.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

8 Comments

Filed under civil rights, ethics, faith, History, holocaust, Loose thoughts and musings, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary, White nationalism

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 29, 2019 · 00:45

If I Couldn’t Laugh I would go Insane: Maintaining my Sanity in the Age of Trump

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Humor matters. No really, in a time like ours when things all around us are deadly serious. Threats of war, environmental disasters, and maybe even the loss of democracy and the destruction of American institutions by the Trump Cabal and his Cult like followers are very real parts of our lives.

In the aftermath of Attorney General Bob Barr’s release of a three and a half page summary of a 300 page plus report by Special Counsel Robert Muller, in which the Attorney General basically exonerated the President from any wrong-doing without the report being made public or even released to Congressional committees in under 48 hours. The fact that the Mueller probe netted more indictments and convictions than any special counsel in the past 50 years is forgetting, even the media is cowering before Trump and not holding his or Barr’s feet to the fire for not releasing the report.

The fact that Barr is Turing it over to Trump’s lawyers and staff to redact before releasing portions to Congressional investigators or the public is tantamount to obstruction justice by the chief law enforcement officer in the country. No wonder Trump wanted Jeff Sessions out. Despite his personal flaws, politics, and at times sycophantic relation with Trump, Sessions had enough integrity and respect for our institutions not to cover up this report. That’s why Trump fired him. Now Trump has an Attorney General who has written that he would have exonerated Richard Nixon and has rushed to Trump’s Side to suppress the report is more than telling. Barr is the Fox in the henhouse.

Likewise the attacks on Trump opponents by the President, his GOP sycophants in Congress and the Right Wing media have gone way over the top. They know they are hiding criminal activities, and the supposed party of law and morality has no problem with it.

But apart from voting and speaking out I cannot change any of this, so I have to maintain a sense of humor in order to live, thrive, and survive.

Over the past couple of months I have binged watched all eleven seasons of Fraser, the BBC comedy ‘Allo, ‘Allo, the dark comedy After Life with Ricky Gervais and now have started on Cheers.

I need to laugh, especially in times like these.

So I think of Jimmy Buffett’s chorus in the song Changes Of Latitudes, Changes Of Attitudes, which is dear to my heart:

With these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudesNothing remains quite the same.

With all of my running and all of my cunning, If I couldn’t laugh I just would go insane

If we couldn’t laugh we just would go insane, If we weren’t all crazy we would go insane…

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under life, Loose thoughts and musings, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 27, 2019 · 02:30

Life Unworthy Of Life: The Rational of the Trump Budget

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In a previous era a government through its laws, decrees, and policies deemed certain people to be “life unworthy of life.” That government was the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler. The life that was unworthy of life included the physically and mentally handicapped or disabled, those with Downs Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Polio, and people with other neurological conditions. Likewise the mentally ill, those suffering clinical depression, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses were considered to be life unworthy of life. Even the deaf were included, and veterans suffering from what we would now call PTSD or Traumatic Brain Injury. Also included were people labeled as “asocial” a very loose definition that could include almost any metal disorder or criminal act.

Tens of thousands were liquidated at the T-4 Euthanasia centers, most located in hospitals or sanitariums. Mostly gassed with carbon monoxide gas from the exhaust of trucks or Diesel engines, their remains were cremated. Others, especially children were either starved to death or given a lethal injection while they slept. The next of kin of each victim was sent a standard form letter telling them that their relative had died of influenza, typhus, or some other disease. They were given the option of paying for an urn that may or may not have contained the ashes of their loved ones for inurnment near their home town. If they could not afford it the ashes were disposed of in the cemetery where they were killed.

Despite the Nazis attempts to disguise their crime they could not be hidden, and after over 70,000 Germans were Euthanized the official T-4 Euthanasia program was ended in German. The gas chambers and cremation ovens and facilities were disassembled and sent east to Poland, where they and their experienced technicians became key components of the Holocaust of the Jews.

But the Euthanasia program didn’t stop, it simply moved eastward as the SS Einsatzgruppen killed the patients at every mental hospital, sanitarium, old folks home, or orphanage they came across. Inside Germany at the four T4 centers over 80,000 were gassed. At Hartheim in Austria a Party was held on the gassing of the 10,000th victim. Richard Evans wrote:

“At Hartheim the staff held a party to celebrate their ten-thousandth cremation, assembling in the crematorium around the naked body of a recently gassed victim, which was laid out on a stretcher and covered with flowers. One staff member dressed as a clergyman and performed a short ceremony, then beer was distributed to all present. Eventually no fewer than 20,000 were gassed at Hartheim, the same at Sonnenstein, 20,000 at Brandenburg and Bernburg, and another 20,000 at Grafeneck and Hadamar, making a total of 80,000 altogether.”

The tolls in Poland, the Baltic States, and the Soviet Union were much higher, but outside of the T4 program which “officially” ended in 1941.

Now in the United States the laws guaranteeing health care to people are being challenged, the Secretary of Education has removed funding from the Department’s funding request for the Special Olympics, programs for the physically and mentally disabled under the SSI are being cut to the bone, and even care for disabled veterans is being threatened as not being economical because none of them are economically valuable to an administration for which profit is the bottom line, and supposedly pro-life Christians have no problems in cutting such programs because many have bought into the materialistic Prosperity Gospel, whose fawning preachers have anointed President Trump if he were King Cyrus. Criticism of the President cannot be tolerated, and the sick, weak, weak, infirm, or mentally ill, who are not productive have no place in society. Inside the womb they are a political issue, outside the womb they might as well be dead if you listen to Trump’s clique of Reichsbishofs those who cannot produce for the economy should not eat, get medical care, or live. They are life unworthy of life.

You see, in the authoritarian world where an uninhibited and unhinged executive backed by profit minded billionaires, and equally greedy preachers, such lives; the old and infirm, the disabled, the mentally ill, the young but physically disabled, those with neurological issues, and birth defects stand in the way of profit, stand in the way of a “perfect” society. Such people may not advocate euthanasia per say, gas chambers, or firing squads, but starving them, depriving them of medical care, turning them out of care facilities knowing that their families lack the capability of caring for them, and if they have any capacity for work, work them until they die, so long as they Confess Christ before they die.

How do we know that life does not matter to them? One way is to note the many times that pharmaceutical corporations have increased the costs of previously inexpensive yet vital life saving medicines by thousands of dollars a dose all for profit with little to no pushback from the White House, or the FDA, much less the Senate GOP majority, or the Evangelical supporters of Trump.

Please understand, this dystopian future need not happen if people of any faith, or no faith at all make a stand against a twisted idea of dictatorship backed up by billionaires and corporate entities that suck billions of dollars from the taxpayer and pay almost nothing themselves. Of course they couldn’t do it on their own in not supported by a de facto State Media, and a cult like legion of followers who would follow Trump even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue. His words, not mine.

As I turn 59 today, this does bother me enough to speak out. As a senior military officer facing the end of his career and retirement amid multiple physical and emotional issues, it does matter. I keep two things in mind today. First is that of my own responsibility. In that I am reminded of the words of German General Ludwig Beck who wrote:

“It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.”

And his compatriot, Major General Henning Von Tresckow stated: “We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.”

Historian Timothy Snyder reminds of a certain truth, which should we forget, as I imagine a large number of Trump supporters have:

“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why.”

Those all are hard truths to comprehend. As Americans we always presume that we are the good guys, when in fact many times we have acted in means contrary to the ideals of the Declaration as well as the Constitution, and other laws enacted by Congress. But our republic and its institutions are both resilient and fragile. History has proven this, we have even survived a civil war, but we may not survive an increasingly vindictive and unstable President, his compliant majority in the Senate, and the 35-40% of voters who are in effect no longer Republicans, but the Trump Cult which is largely buttressed by Conservative Evangelical Churches, and inspired by a President who uses force, legal, and extralegal alike to secure his rule.

We live in extraordinary times which call for extraordinary strength if our Republic is to continue in any form that resembles the intentions of the founders and their liberal enlightenment beliefs.

If we do not want to see the return of a full fledged government and industrial sponsored campaign to eradicate life unworthy of life, we have to fight. It is a fight that we did not chose, but if the Republic is to survive without becoming a criminal dictatorship we must speak up.

As Yehuda Bauer said: “Thou shall not be a perpetrator, thou shall not be a victim, and thou shall never, but never, be a bystander.”

The choice is ours.

Until tomorrow, or maybe later tonight,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

3 Comments

Filed under ethics, faith, History, holocaust, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 24, 2019 · 01:16

“You can take our lives and our freedom, but you cannot take our honour. We are defenseless but not honourless.” Remembering the Resistors to the Enabling Act Of 1933

Otto Wels

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I will not be talking about the Mueller report until we know what is actually contained in it. So I will continue to discuss historical events that are relevant in our time.

One of the most relevant as this country and others lurch toward legally elected authoritarian governments is the example of the Hitler’s Enabling Act, or by its full title Gesetz zur Behebung der Not von Volk und Reich (“Law to Remedy the Distress of People and Reich”) came on the heels of the Reichstag Fire Decree and though very short had tremendous repercussions for the German Republic and in effect made Hitler and his administration a dictatorship. The legislative branch, the Reichstag was limited to nothing more than a rubber stamp for the executive, as was the judicial branch, the Reichsrat. It supposedly protected the rights of the President, the Reichstag, and judiciary, but it made Hitler the the sole decider of domestic and social laws, as well as all foreign policy decisions.

The law stated:

The Reichstag has enacted the following law, which is hereby proclaimed with the assent of the Reichsrat, it having been established that the requirements for a constitutional amendment have been fulfilled:

Article One

In addition to the procedure prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich. This includes the laws referred to by Articles 85 Paragraph 2 and Article 87 of the constitution. (Article 85 and 87 dealt with the budgetary process and allocation of funds for advertisement.)

Article Two

Laws enacted by the government of the Reich may deviate from the constitution as long as they do not affect the institutions of the Reichstag and the Reichsrat. The rights of the President remain unaffected.

Article Three:

Laws enacted by the Reich government shall be issued by the Chancellor and announced in the Reich Gazette. They shall take effect on the day following the announcement, unless they prescribe a different date. Articles 68 to 77 of the Constitution do not apply to laws enacted by the Reich government. (These Articles dealt with the legislative process in which the Reichstag, Government, Reichsrat, and President all had specific responsibilities which limited the power of the government to rush laws into force without due process and deliberation, and if needed the approval of the electorate)

Article Four

Treaties of the Reich with foreign states, which relate to matters of Reich legislation, shall for the duration of the validity of these laws not require the consent of the legislative authorities. The Reich government shall enact the legislation necessary to implement these agreements. (This removed the requirement of the Reichstag to approve treaties)

Article Five

This law enters into force on the day of its proclamation. It expires on April 1, 1937; it expires furthermore if the present Reich government is replaced by another.

When the legislation was introduced the debate was muted. While the Communist Party was yet to be banned, deputies of the Communist Party could not attend the session, many had already been arrested and many more were in hiding or had fled the country. Hermann Goering adjusted the rules for a quorum in order to compensate for the lack of members in attendance. Deputies of the Social Democratic Party were also terrorized, hounded, and some arrested, but 94 attended, outnumbered they did not buckle under the Nazi threats, which included the chamber being ringed by armed members of the SA and SS.

The non-Nazi Protestant based conservative parties provided no resistance, but the Catholic Center Party was torn by concerns that the legislation could limit the rights of the Catholic Church. However, they had been outmaneuvered by Hitler who had already negotiated a Concordant with the Vatican. The result was to ensure that the Catholic Center Party would vote for the measure, which passed with a mere 94 deputies opposing it, all members of the Social Democratic Party.

The only member of the Reichstag to speak against the measure was the head of the Social Democrats, Otto Wels. In defiance of Hitler, Goering, the Nazi Deputies, and the threatening SA and SS men uttered words that every resistor in every country threatened by authoritarian leaders who despise the rule of law and the Constitutions that they used to gain power need to hear and proclaim, because the truth can never be silenced:

“You can take our lives and our freedom, but you cannot take our honour. We are defenseless but not honourless.”

Otto Wels died as an exile in France. Many Social Democrats were placed in Concentration Camps and died, likewise some Communists. The Catholic Center Party would find itself betrayed, and many of its leaders would be killed, jailed, or placed in Concentration Camps, and Hitler would persecute opposition members of the Catholic Church as if no Concordat had ever been negotiated.

But eventually the Nazis would be driven from power. Their descendants today must be confronted at all costs. Democracy, and Constitutional republics based on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, which recognizes that all men are created equal, and the Constitution of the United States which was the first to checks and balances between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of government in which the Legislative branch was assumed to be the most important.

We have reached a point in the history of the United States where the Executive Branch, over a period of decades has assumed the powers of dictatorship as the Legislative branch over the corresponding time has surrendered its prerogatives and powers, while the judicial branch had become the domain of politically appointed judges and justices,

One does not know what will happen next, but anyone who values the primary principles of the Declaration and the Constitution must ne willing to take a stand like Otto Wels when confronted with a dictatorship in the making. Even if the President unleashes the power of the police and his own heavily armed supporters against opponents, we must remember like Otto Wels, they can “take our lives and freedom, but they cannot take our honor…”

This is something that anyone committed to the principles of the Declaration and Constitution must take seriously over the next 19 months leading to the next Presidential election. If we fail, the effects will be felt for at least a generation, and the institutions of our government will be transformed in ways that the founders could only imagine in their worst dreams.

Democrats and Never Trump conservatives must keep this in mind. Nothing is guaranteed right now, it is quite possible that Trump and his cult like supporters in Congress and the courts could enact something like the Enabling Act if we are not careful, regardless of the findings of the Mueller investigation or anything else, and we must be careful to watch for the major terrorist attack, or war that could lead to the implementation of already legislated laws, or executive orders that give nearly dictatorial powers to the executive, and which would be supported by a majority of Americans.

So until tomorrow.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under ethics, History, laws and legislation, nazi germany, News and current events, philosophy, Political Commentary, Religion

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 22, 2019 · 00:16

Books, the Freedom Of Speech, and its Limitations

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In his book Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury wrote:

“The books are to remind us what asses and fool we are. They’re Caeser’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, “Remember, Caeser, thou art mortal.” Most of us can’t rush around, talking to everyone, know all the cities of the world, we haven’t time, money or that many friends. The things you’re looking for, Montag, are in the world, but the only way the average chap will ever see ninety-nine per cent of them is in a book. Don’t ask for guarantees. And don’t look to be saved in any one thing, person, machine, or library. Do your own bit of saving, and if you drown, at least die knowing you were headed for shore.”

Books, I prefer physical copies but will read digital ones when they are available and more affordable than hard copies, are the key to comprehending the past, the present, and in preparing for the future. The one constant in history is humanity, as flawed and evil yet as brilliant and good as it can be. Barbara Tuchman wrote:

“Books are the carriers of civilization…They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.”

Unfortunately we now live in an age where many people, including leaders of great nations have stopped reading and have become entranced by the two dimensional television screen that George Orwell reminded us of in 1984. It was a screen that constantly told people what to think and at the same time was able to read their thoughts. It was a device much like cable television news programs, regardless of the ideology presented, or even more pertinent, Presidential News Conferences, speeches, or statements by Presidential spokesmen or the Press Secretary. All of those are one way conversations, the watcher has no control, other than to turn off the machine, but in 1984 only the party elite could turn it off.

In 1984 books were banned, and the language re-written on a daily basis to make it fit the prevailing ideology of the party. In Fahrenheit 451 books were not only banned but burned.

I have either just finished reading, or am in the process of reading John Meacham’s The Soul Of America, the Battle for our Better Angels, Doris Kerns Godwin’s Leadership In Time Of Crisis; Alistair Horne’s The Age Of Napoleon, William Russell’s Berlin Embassy, and have just started Anthony Beevor’s The Battle Of Arnhem, and Norman Friedman’s The British Battleship 1906-1946. I am also re-starting Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and Dan Van Der Vat’s The Pacific Campaign.

Needless to say I have a pattern of other books circling my landing field.

But the fact is we have become a culture that does not read to absorb wisdom, most would rather allow the tele-screen tell us what to do and think. That is a tragedy because it gives the propagandists the opportunity to talk at us without us having the time to digest the facts and determine if what they are saying is the truth or not. The same goes for the massive number of ideologically driven podcasts that do exactly the same thing.

To compensate I have stopped watching all cable television news shows, even those that I agree with from an ideological viewpoint. I prefer to read a diverse spectrum of newspapers, both American and international to get my news. It gives me the chance to think about what was written, fact check it, and try my best to ascertain the truth, even when it is uncomfortable. When I do this I find that even my best interpretations of the truth are full of conflict. If I was an ideological or religious fundamentalist, such might be troubling, but I realize that there are times that a completely ideological, religious, or fundamentalist worldview would lead to disaster.

I had a long Facebook conversation with a number of friends about limiting and even criminalizing Nazi speech. I was called a hypocrite for supporting a UN resolution dealing with this that the Obama Administration voted against. As much as I believe in the First Amendment, the Founders did not intend it to be a suicide pill that would allow extremists to hijack the right of freedom of speech to overthrow the Republic in order to crush the free speech rights of dissidents.

When one criticizes those in power for backing the free speech rights of people or groups who seek to destroy the rights of minorities and those who oppose the traditional rights of the powerful the defenders of absolute free speech, Associate Justice Of the Supreme Court and the Chief American Prosecutor at the major Nuremberg war crimes trials noted that “the Constitution is not a suicide pact.”

Anyone who has read my articles over the past decade knows of my reverence for the First Amendment including the unpopular opinions of minority groups. But there are times that the government and the courts have upheld limitations regarding the abuse and weaponization of the First Amendment against the rights of free speech, freedom or association. The fact that such actions are endorsed by President Trump or his Evangelical Christian supporters when endorsed by their political opponents while at the same time used against groups and that actually defend the rights of minorities against the actions of American White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis that support his stated objectives of silencing all opposition, and attacking the rights of all minorities, including Jews.

So anyway, there is much more to say, but it will have to wait.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under civil rights, Loose thoughts and musings

Tagged as , , , , , ,

March 14, 2019 · 21:57

The Stuff Of Dictators: More Threats Of Violence From the President

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

In 1989 Donald Trump wrote in a full page advertisement in the New York Daily News:  “civil liberties end when an attack on our safety begins.” He said that in relation to the Central Park Five, five teenagers who were falsely accused and convicted of the rape of a jogger in Central Park. In 2002 after the real assailant confessed and his crime verified by DNA evidence. Despite the reality Mr. Trump has continued to speak to that issue and claim that the five falsely convicted and imprisoned men are guilty.

Mr Trump repeated expressed his anger that they did not receive the death penalty, something that by the way is not part of the law in any state. Since becoming President the Mr Trump has suggested all sorts of extrajudicial and unconstitutional remedies to crime. Today he suggested doing that to gun owners who could be considered potential mass murderers. He told a group of Congressmen and Senators, as well as his own Vice President Mike Pence: “You could do exactly what you’re saying, but take the guns first, go through due process second.”

Now personally I don’t think that’s such a bad idea, but it still is unconstitutional. Earlier in the week the President proposed the death penalty to all convicted drug dealers. Again, no love for drug dealers but the President doesn’t get to impose sentences, but the President praised the extermination methods that Philippine President Duterte uses not just to kill suspected drug dealers but political opponents and members of the press. Of course the President has long suggested the political opponents should be jailed and the Press is an “an enemy of the people.” 

As I have written over the past few days in discussing the Reichstag Fire I am very concerned that as the walls close in on the Trump Presidency, that as the Muller investigation implicates more and more of his advisors and quite possibly family members, that as members of his administration like Hope Hicks admit that they lied for him, that the danger to our Republic only rises. I am afraid that there will be a Reichstag Fire moment that will allow the President to through already existing Executive orders and laws to scrap constitutional liberties and establish an authoritarian state. It’s not so much that he has to be popular to do so, the fact is that under threat of attack that most Americans will surrender liberty for the illusion of security. That was demonstrated in 2002 when the Patriot Act, an act so revoltingly un-American and totalitarian in its implications was passed overwhelmingly by both houses of Congress with hardly any resistance.

Today the President again made violent threats against his political opponents. He said:

“I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad,”

That is what concerns me. For a President claim that the Army and Police are his personal protection force, for him to equate them to motorcycle gangs, for him to say that Nazis are fine people is extraordinarily evil and in complete defiance of the oath that he swore when he became President. In the past he has said similar things and during his campaign offered to pay the legal fees of anyone charged with attacking his opponents at his rallies.

Should a war break out, should there be a major terrorist attack, or anything that severely disrupts the country the mechanisms are in place for the President to declare the situation extraordinary and to take power. The thing is that no President has acted in such a way, but President Trump has repeatedly suggested violating the Constitution and praised foreign leaders like Dutarte, Putin, and Erdogan, men who all use such circumstances and laws to their advantage.

Timothy Snyder wrote:

“For tyrants, the lesson of the Reichstag fire is that one moment of shock enables an eternity of submission. For us, the lesson is that our natural fear and grief must not enable the destruction of our institutions. Courage does not mean not fearing, or not grieving. It does mean recognizing and resisting terror management right away, from the moment of the attack, precisely when it seems most difficult to do so. After the Reichstag fire, Hannah Arendt wrote that “I was no longer of the opinion that one can simply be a bystander.”

Of course Mr Trump has a hard core of loyal supporters who in his words would remain loyal to him “even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue.” Some are actually quite frightening, but in truth I am more frightened by the vast number of people in this country of every part of the political spectrum cannot tell the difference between fact and fiction or true and false, people how simply go along with the flow, especially in times of crisis.  Hannah Arendt, who saw the Nazi takeover of Germany in the beginning wrote:

“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist.”

In a world such as the one that we live today it is those who simply go with the flow or are easily persuaded into accepting what in normal times they would not accept because the times are exceptional, or in a crisis believe what they are told and regardless of what happens to fellow citizens or neighbors turn their backs on injustice. Most are totally ordinary and unremarkable and are no different than so many others who committed terrible crimes against humanity and too part in genocide.

British Historian Laurence Rees wrote:

“human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it’s just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice.” 

When people feel that a crisis makes a situation exceptional to the point that normal codes of conduct, social mores, laws, and ethics are Christopher Browning wrote in his book Ordinary Men:

“I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce “ordinary men” to become their “willing executioners.” 

My question is: when the crisis finally comes, what will Americans do?

I want to be hopeful. I am not a fatalist. I believe that we can all given the opportunity rise to greatness and defend our Constitution, civil liberties, and embody the principles of the Declaration of Independence. It has happened before. But that being said human history, especially the history of the past century shows us that more often than not that most people do not rise to the occasion. Snyder wrote:

“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why.”

In our time that is the most important consideration. With the complete Trumpification of the Republican Party that day is today. he has for all intents and purposes given political cover for his supporters to commit violence on his behalf. The peril is mounting.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under civil rights, culture, ethics, faith, History, laws and legislation, Military, nazi germany, News and current events

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

March 3, 2019 · 23:59

Nuremberg at National Harbor: CPAC 2019

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

On March 5th 1933 the Nazi Party secured enough seats in the German Reichstag to form a coalition government with the German People’s Nationalist Party (DVNP). The Nazis won 43.9% of the vote in an election in which Hitler expected to gain an absolute majority. Hitler had gained power through the appointment of President Hindenburg on January 30th following a series of failed attempts by Conservative party leaders to form a stable government. In the month preceding the election Hitler gained the upper hand when a Dutch Communist, acting alone set fire to the Reichstag building. Historian Timothy Snyder wrote:

“Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.”

In the wake of the Reichstag Fire and under Article 48 of the the Reichstag Fire Decree Hitler mobilized 50,000 SA and SS men as auxiliary police in Prussia. Opposition parties were harassed, their newspapers shut down, leaders, especially Communists, jailed. Hermann Goering issued an order that police could open fire on any opposition. One really couldn’t call it free, but it would be the last contested election held in Germany until after her defeat and Hitler’s death.

Within two weeks the now Nazi controlled Reichstag voted for the Enabling Act, a law that in effect made it obsolete. The Act gave Hitler dictatorial powers, powers he would never willingly give up.

Within three months all the other German political parties were either banned or dissolved themselves. Independent newspapers were closed, or placed under Nazi propaganda supervision. Members of racial or religious minorities were persecuted and saw their citizenship rights curtailed or abolished. Political opponents or dissenting pastors and priests were placed in Concentration Camps.

Less than two weeks ago President Trump declared a National Emergency on the Southern Border with Mexico in order to build his wall. He is also working to overthrow Venezuelan Dictator Maduro, of itself not particularly objectionable as Maduro is a tyrant, unfortunately the President is not taking steps to deal with the huge number of refugees that any move to overthrow Maduro will bring. Tens of thousands of people will head to our border to be met with rejection. There is little morality or strategic sense to it.

I won’t go into the influence of foreign governments working on the President’s behalf in 2016 now, that will be exposed by any number of ongoing investigations as well as those beginning in the House of Representatives.

The was a poll that came out today that said that four in ten people would vote to re-elect President Trump, a man who Saturday led a rally of cult like followers, malcontents, religious fanatics, conspiracy theorists, and hate filled propagandists. The President’s speech was full of racist tropes, scurrilous accusations, profanity, and lie after lie. He threatened opponents, including those of his own party.

The President appeared possessed, as if he was under the influence of Amphetamines. It was frightening to watch, more so than any speech I have ever seen him give, and I actually attended one of his rallies in October 2016. I compared it to a Nuremberg Party Rally, the kind that followed Hitler’s takeover.

I mused upon the numbers, 43.9%, not even a majority of the vote, just like 2016 when he lost the popular voted by over 3 million votes. The President’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen warned us last week that if Trump loses the election, that there will not be a smooth transition of power. Neither Trump nor his followers will abide it.

Historian Timothy Snyder wrote:

“The hero of a David Lodge novel says that you don’t know, when you make love for the last time, that you are making love for the last time. Voting is like that. Some of the Germans who voted for the Nazi Party in 1932 no doubt understood that this might be the last meaningfully free election for some time, but most did not. Some of the Czechs and Slovaks who voted for the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1946 probably realized that they were voting for the end of democracy, but most assumed they would have another chance. No doubt the Russians who voted in 1990 did not think that this would be the last free and fair election in their country’s history, which (thus far) it has been. Any election can be the last, or at least the last in the lifetime of the person casting the vote.”

Imagine, a militant minority led by an unstable and volatile con man ruling in an authoritarian state after overwhelming its Constitution and institutions. It is already beginning.

Milton Mayer wrote of an encounter with a German colleague at a German University after the war. His friend noted:

“How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.”

So take these words into your hearts and minds. “Resist the beginnings… Consider the end.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under ethics, History, holocaust, Loose thoughts and musings, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

February 27, 2019 · 21:14

The Reichstag Fire Decree and Trump’s Potential Actions

partridge if you can't be a dictator

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Yesterday I wrote about the Reichstag Fire and the resultant Order of the President of the Reich for the Protection of People and State or as it is more often known as the Reichstag Fire Decree. I wrote about how perilously close that I really believe that we are to a Reichstag Fire moment in our country today.

That has not changed. In fact the President declared a National Emergency over an imaginary crisis at the U.S. – Mexican border, an act that he said that he did not have to proclaim as he made the declaration.

On February 27th 1933 Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party which was still a minority party in a coalition government of partners that wouldn’t have minded his failure, became recipients of of a political gift that allowed them to seize power under the very provisions of the Republic and Constitution that they despised. A Dutch Communist The very next day Hitler with the backing of President Paul von Hindenburg issued a decree under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution which though directed at the German Communist Party, which was banned along with its publications, applied to every political party in Germany.

Barely three weeks later the Reichstag, now emptied of Communists deputies gave its approval to the Enabling Act which gave the central government. Their abdication Of their Constitutional role allowed Hitler to enact laws without the approval of the Reichstag, effectively ending any sort of parliamentary democracy and eviscerating the constitution. 

These acts gave the central government in Berlin to usurp State governments in States where non-Nazi parties held democratic majorities and to outlaw political opposition. The only party to oppose the Nazi moves toward dictatorship were the Social Democrats who voted against both laws. Their party was banned shortly after the Enabling Act was passed. Their leader in the Reichstag, Otto Weis proclaimed the last free words uttered in the Reichstag:

“No Enabling Law can give you the power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible … You can take our lives and our freedom, but you cannot take our honour. We are defenseless but not honourless.” 

The other political parties in Germany, including the conservative parties and center parties who had allied themselves with Hitler voted to dissolve themselves by the end of July 1933. None of the conservative opposition wanted to face the wrath of Hitler or his newly established extrajudicial Concentration Camps which were not run by the Ministry of Justice, but the Nazi Party.

In Germany it was the burning of the Reichstag but in any crisis the same could happen here. I think this is very possible with President Trump and a compliant Republican Party which has surrendered any sense of responsibility, including the defense of things that it fought against for years in order to maintain power by supporting a man that just two years ago most mocked and opposed; so much like the non-Nazi German conservatives and Hitler. That was demonstrated today as Michael Cohen, the President’s former lawyer and “fixer” testified before Congress. His testimony was compelling, credible, and backed up by documentary evidence, including documents signed by the President signed after he took office. All the Republicans could do was attack the messenger, they never challenged a single fact.

Now let’s think about today and lets let our minds wander into possibilities that are much more likely than they would have been a few years ago. So let’s take a journey to a future where most of us would not want to go. I mean really, I don’t want these things to happen, if not for any other reasons than things than effect me.  I want to attend my 40th high school reunion on September 1st and a trip to Germany to the Oktoberfest and to visit our German friends later that month.  So some things are about me, I mean if were going to lose all of our freedoms I want to get a few bucket list items in, but I digress, let’s go back to the unimaginable.

Rather than standing up for truth, the Republicans, like the non-Nazi German Conservatives in 1933 are more concerned with holding power to fulfill their agenda than with the character of the man they are backing. Today Cohen warned them when they attacked him:

As Mr. Cohen told Republican lawmakers, “I did the same thing that you’re doing now. For 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”

He then issued this warning to them: “The more people that follow Mr. Trump — as I did blindly — are going to suffer the same consequences that I’m suffering.” Mr. Cohen later explained the ethos of Trumpworld: “Everybody’s job at the Trump Organization is to protect Mr. Trump. Every day most of us knew we were coming and we were going to lie for him about something. That became the norm.”

This has now become the norm of the Republican Party, which if I need to remind you I served and believed from the time that I volunteered for Gerald Ford’s campaign before I could vote in 1976 until I left the party following my return from Iraq in 2008. I stopped defending the indefensible eleven years ago.

I would say close your eyes but then you wouldn’t be able to read unless you have some sort of software that turns my written words into spoken words, or unless you want me to start a podcast. If you want the latter make it worth it by doing something to get me a few extra bucks for more beer before everything goes to hell.

Let us imagine that following increased tensions in Venezuela that a real or alleged terrorist group claiming to support the Venezuelan dictator Maduro attacks the NY Subway and the Washington Metro subway systems with Sarin and phosgene nerve gas. Another alleged Venezuelan terrorist shoots down an American Airlines Airbus 330 with a SAM 7 as it attempted to land In Philadelphia. In the attacks, thousands of people die. In another attack a heavily armed terrorist group attacks the Mall of American with assault rifles, RPGs, and grenades. Between Miami and the Bahamas an explosion rocks a Disney Cruise Ship, killing many passengers and crew and leaving it disabled and requiring Coast Guard and U.S. Navy assistance to save the ship and bring her back to port.

While Federal, State and local law enforcement investigate at the points of attack, the FBI, CIA and NSA attempted to ascertain if and what foreign power or terrorist groups were behind the attacks. Venezuela was at the top of the list, but Iran, Hezbollah, North Korea, and even Russia were suspects, but it took time to find the culprits.

In the mean time the country went into a panic. Retribution was the watchword. Thousands of people were killed and injured in the attacks. Following them the subways, airports and maritime ports shut down. The economy went into shock. Prices soared and Wall Street crashed, dumping some 30% of its value in three days. Prices for imported goods skyrocketed, and all commercial air traffic was grounded leaving millions of people stranded. It didn’t matter that the President’s Fixer Michael Cohen had implicated the President in high crimes and misdemeanors, just a week before, emotion, hatred and the desire for revenge ruled the day. Trump understood that better than most.

In response the President invoked measures from National Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/Homeland Security Presidential Directive HSPD-20 of 4 May 2007, while Congress by a wide margin grants him the authority to pursue the attackers both at home and abroad. Neither the President’s opponents in the GOP or most Democrats object, after all it was about national security and the nation had been attacked; people had died, and the economy was in a major crisis.

The President, whose poll numbers were cratering and was coming closer to being implicated in by the Muller investigation uses these new powers to shut down opposition to him, including the Muller investigation in the name of national security, the siren song of all tyrants.

Democrats in Congress finally realized that they have been outmaneuvered in the crisis but it was now too late. Their protests about the illegalities and questions needing to be answered go nowhere and they are labeled enemies of the state, as are responsible journalists who seek to uncover the truth. Those protesting the violations of the Constitution are jailed indefinitely without being charged in Federal and State facilities as well as for profit prisons.

But the Venezuelan connection to the terrorist attacks was disproven and even though the CIA and FBI put Russia at the center of the attacks, aided by North Korean agents the reports were initially disregarded by the administration.

As the investigation lead to the North Koreans, the President, who had spent two years trying to say that the North Koreans were not a threat and holding summits to North Korean dictator Kim Jun Un, rapidly turned on his heal and ordered attacks on North Korea, leading to a nuclear exchange and major land war on the Korean Peninsula.

While North Korea was obliterated, South Korea and Japan also took massive hits, as did the American bases on Okinawa, Guam, and Pearl Harbor, all of which are hit by North Korean nuclear missiles. Trump then declared Martial law is and ordered 2020 elections postponed indefinitely with the promise that once the crisis is over that they will be restored. Despite the disasters the President’s approval rating shot up from under 40% to nearly 65%. A Supreme Court Justice who went along with the emergency degrees would later say:

“There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within, and successfully attacked by enemies abroad. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that – can you understand what Trump meant to us. Because he said to us: ‘Lift your heads! Make America Great Again! Be proud to be American! There are devils among us. Liberals, Jews, Muslims, Immigrants, Gays! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.” (*adapted from the speech of Ernst Janning in Judgment at Nuremberg) 

Thankfully none of this has not happened, but if Americans fail to appreciate the danger that lays ahead then all bets are off. Those who cooperate in moves to damage and undermine the American experiment in democracy and a constitutional republic with its safeguards and checks and balances will be show by their inaction and lack of resistance the truth of historian Dr. Timothy Snyder’s words: “The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.”

However, during the Cohen hearings today most Congressional Republicans in showed that if push came to shove that they would toss aside the Constitution in order to defend a man they have sold their souls to.

Those that might doubt my concerns need only to look at the life and actions of President Trump, the cunning of Russia, North Korea, and the hyper-partisan nature and gullibility of much of the American electorate, and the response of the United States government and populace during past crises and threats to our national existence.

That cannot be allowed to happen. If it does, it will harm every American, no-matter what their political beliefs or affiliation is.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under ethics, History, laws and legislation, leadership, national security, nazi germany, News and current events

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,