Tag Archives: hitler

April 23, 2020 · 02:56

It Begins Again: Trump Supporters Embrace Life Unworthy of Life

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The United States is now engaged in a life or death battle on multiple fronts. The first is against the novel Coronavirus 19 pandemic that has killed at least 47,650 Americans and infected at nearly 849,000 more, of which almost 717,000 are still active cases.  Of course we now know that the first deaths occurred in California during February weeks before the first officially recorded deaths began to be counted, there is a strong possibility that many more deaths were chalked up to the Flu and Pneumonia. With barely 1% of the population tested the probability is that hundreds of thousands of others who are probably out roaming about and spreading the virus. Of course many people still go without observing social distancing, unless they are forced to at the grocery store, or do not wear any kind of face mask. The May not care about their lives, but they show a sociopathic distance for the lives of others. Some forget, that the face masks are not simply to to protect themselves, but to protect others, in case the sociopaths are carrying the virus. I had to make two stops on the way home from work and more than half of the people I saw were going about their business without any protection, and one man going into a grocery store had two young boys, neither could have been over 5 or 6 years old. Then I remembered, that the lives of your kids don’t matter neither do the lives of strangers.

The second is against the profound ignorance, pathological narcissism, emotional fragility of a President who does not trust experts be they scientists, Physicians,  economists,  educators, or even military professionals. Instead he relies on his gut instincts, and how the words of experts either support him, or harm his fragile ego.

Because of that he plays to the worst instincts and prejudices of his followers in order to whip them into a frenzy of demonizing, threatening , and if need be, and even harming others. All this to protect his position, power, and fragile, thin skinned ego, he has created a fanatical cult-like following of people who believe that he alone can save them from their misery. It is not that they are inherently bad people, but like their leader they blame others: racial, ethnic, religious, liberals (who they call Communists or Socialists), gays, women, and everyone other than themselves and the political, religious, economic, and ideological propagandists who destroyed their way of life. However, the President’s life hasn’t been destroyed. He is still rich, and is the Chief Executive of the Country, and whether he wins reelection or not, he will be better off than them.

The President’s actions throughout the first outbreaks and reliable intelligence reports of the virulence, spread, and danger presented by COVID-19 ranged from denial, over-optimistic estimates, and deflecting his lack of action in order to blame others. Likewise, he promoted himself as the ultimate victim of anyone who dared tell the truth about what was happening, and repeated conspiracy theories with no scientific, historical, or clinical data to back them up in order to motivate the most violent and conspiracy theory oriented followers to action.

Much of this he did while presiding at daily COVID-19 briefings, often silencing or contradicting well respected scientists like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the Director of the CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, and other experts in order to change the narrative from his multiple failures, to how smart he is and how well he has handled it.

President Trump called himself a wartime President but then publicly at one of these briefings, and then denied all personal responsibility for the deaths and the economic costs of the pandemic. In a very real sense he abdicated his office. One cannot claim to be the final authority unless he or she is also willing  to take responsibility for their actions. This is a trait that Trump shares with the Hitler of the final days who blamed his people for failing him and not being worthy or remaining a nation or a people.

Instead of taking action and shouldering responsibility as so many other American Presidents have done in the hour of crisis, Trump blamed the Chinese, who are quite obviously not without blame for covering the virus spread in their county for at least a month and a half. Then he blamed the World Health Organization, which made an early mistake about the transmission of the virus, but quickly corrected it. From there he went on to blame his political opponents, and the free press and media, rather than his own inability to take responsibility and take decisive actions to stop the virus before it could devastate so many lives and our very national security. Instead he chose meaningless window dressing designed to make him look good and blame others to escape any personal responsibility for his actions. Harry Truman had a sign on his desk that said The Buck Stops Here. For Trump, the only bucks that stop with him are the ones that line his financial bottom line. 

Sadly, President Trump cannot accept responsibility for his actions, and shamelessly claims credit for the success of others. His life is a testimony to this. He has woven a carefully crafted series of excuses and lies about his failures.  In his mind he is the myth that he created: the combat hero who avoided the draft and never saw any military service. He mocks real war heroes, says he is smarter than the generals and admirals, and pardons and praises convicted war criminals. He claims to be the greatest businessman, but has so many corporate bankruptcies and failures that it boggles the mind. He poses as an icon of Christian morality and protector of the Christian Faith, but who lives his life in the most unchristian manner imaginable, to the faithful honest enough to admit it. He has three divorces under his belt, two directly cause by his unfaithfulness where he cheated on his wives, divorced them and married his mistresses. Likewise he admitted to Howard Stern that he has had many mistresses and one night stands. He he cannot dig an abyss deep enough to cover his actions, and words, which are almost always the most base and easily disproven lies. Despite that, he continues to utter the most bold faced lies almost every time he opens his mouth or sends a tweet, and then proclaims that he does not need the forgiveness of God, even as he cannot quote a Bible in its correct context to save his life. Now, in the misst of a raging pandemic which is killing tens of thousands of Americans, he claims to be smarter than highly trained scientists, infectious disease specialists, epidemiologists, virologists, and public health experts.

During the COVID-19 pandemic the President has constantly made many foolish decisions that allowed the virus to spread has taken center stage without taking any personal responsibility, even publicly stating that he didn’t take responsibility for anything, even as the virus claimed an exponential number of victims. Instead he blamed China, which does bear some measure of responsibility, the World Health Organization, which made an initial mistake in the potential for the virus’s spread, but then rapidly on January 5th corrected itself. As it continued to spread he blamed the governors of the states for not being ready, made grandiose promises supplying massive testing programs, ventilators, and PPE for the doctors, nurses, technicians, and EMT and first responders without delivering on them. He could do that as long as the economy appeared strong.

Now his Presidency, which was build around keeping up the economic good times has collapsed around him. He was able to deny, delay, and deflect the blame as long as the economy remained strong. But within weeks the markets had crashed and the unemployment rate jumped from just over 3% to over 10% and continues to rise. These are Great Depression numbers, and real economists and economic historians are predicting a major worldwide recession or depression.

Since March the President has been talking about restarting the economy and reopening business. He wanted that by Easter, but then backed off. He allowed his public health officials to issue guidelines for governors to use in order to begin reopening businesses, and the recommendations were based on good science. But soon protests sponsored by long time right wing and conservative operatives, with links to White Nationalists, extreme Second Amendment Rights groups, and Fundamentalist Christians claiming that their Constitutional rights to Freedom of Religion were being violated by Stay at Home Orders, were being waged on the steps of state capitals, and the President began attacking the governors that were following the guidelines his administration had issued. He tweeted Free Michigan, Free Wisconsin, and “Free” whatever state refused to reopen business. His Attorney General, Bob Barr threatened to “jawbone” states who were in his opinion being too strict in their protective public health and measures with Federal lawsuits and investigations.

Then leading Republican politicians, pundits, and the OAN and Fox News commentators, who almost all happened to be practicing Evangelical Christians or Conservative Roman Catholics, as well as supposedly Christian preachers began to suggest that some lives are not worth saving. So far they have limited themselves to the elderly, or people with chronic pre-existing medical conditions who require expensive medications or treatments to stay healthy or even remain alive, as worth less than opening businesses while a pandemic is still raging with no effective treatments or vaccine to stop it. While the President and his politically motivated minions didn’t say the exact words, they implied the idea propagated first by American Eugenicists in the 1920’s which were taken up by German Eugenicists in the Weimar Republic, and became key part of the Nazi regime, to cleanse the Aryan Race by eliminating the defective. The Nazis never got a pandemic to justify their actions, but Trump and his cult have been provided with one in order to justify allowing the least, the lost, and the lonely; those who are considered to be a drag on government and private economic resources, to condemn people to death because they are Life unworthy of Life. To me it sounds ironic and hypocritical that many of these same people fight against abortion, for the lives of the pre-born but have never given a damn about the lives of people outside of the womb, or the pre-born that die in American drone strikes in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa.


A Nazi Propaganda Poster Showing the “suffering” of Pure Aryans in supporting Life Unworthy of Life

Yale Historian and Holocaust expert Timothy 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.”

The absolutely immoral and anti-life, but pro-Trump, pro-profit, racist, ageists, and anti-semites motives of these people must be exposed. Their motive is not liberty, but it is death.

As pro-Trump governors in Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Texas, Alaska, and mayors like the Mayor of  begin opening their states even as the virus rages, they will unleash an even worse case situation. Since the virus has an incubation period of 4-14 days there will be a lag between the new infections and when the infections occurred. Georgia, Florida, and Texas promise to be the worst hit states in the beginning of this second wave of infection. First, their governors are the most aggressive in determining to reopen their states, as they oppose and ignore Federal guidelines for reopening that the Trump Administration just put out, even as the President encourages revolt against his own policies. They ignore all the history, experience and science of what slows down a pandemic, and put lives at risk.

Sadly, their efforts will not just endanger them but every worker they put back at work who do not have PPE, and cannot afford to lose another paycheck. Most of these people are minorities, or poor whites. They are also advocating to stop treatment of the elderly and disabled. The Nazis did that, and actually practiced euthanasia. These Trump followers don’t just do that but, but consider their political, racial, and religious beliefs opponents, as life unworthy of life.

The really terrible thing is, that besides the victims whose blood will be on their hands, that many of these protesters have the underlying conditions that would disqualify them from the full extent of treatment if their policies were in place when they become infected. They might assist in the killing of others, but they will not be spared, because they have placed their faith in the social Darwinism, economic eminence, and haughtiness of the Eugenicists, the Nazis, and their own cobbled together incomprehensible philosophy of power, greed, and death.

For them it all comes down to economics, racism, and anti-Semitism. The White Race needs to life and profit, while all others must either die or live as slaves. The truth is that Trump and his most loyal followers only want what is best for themselves, not for others. They do not believe in the words of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Instead they believe that certain lives are worth less than others, and there are no unalienable rights, except for theirs.

Dr. Marc S. Marcozzi wrote:

“Politicized medicine is not a sufficient cause of the mass extermination of human beings, but it seems to be a necessary cause. The Nazi Holocaust did not happen for some inexplicable German reason; it is not an event that we can afford to ignore because we are not Germans or not Nazis. The history of “Germany from 1914 to 1945 is a telescoping of modernity from monarchy, war, and collapse to democracy and the welfare state, and finally to dictatorship, war, and death.” 

Sadly, unless something happens that drives Trump and his cult out of political power, even before the November elections, we may very well see his administration resort to similar measures to deny treatment to and then eventually euthanize the victims of COVID-19. I personally believe that his desire to reopen the economy is less because he thinks that it will bull the nation out of its economic abyss and get him re-elected, but rather that it will kill off the people he and his cult consider to be life unworthy of life.

I have been working on this article for nearly a week. As I mentioned over a week ago I would be doing more reading, studying, and observing in order to not to shoot from the hip and to get the facts right.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

 

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June 16, 2018 · 23:44

A Thousand Years Will Pass and This Guilt Will Not Be Erased: How Genocide Begins

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am posting late today because last night I was too tired to write and over the past few days I have been doing a lot of reading. Let me say up front that the title of this post will be condemned by some people as being hyperbolic, but I do not do hyperbole. I simply analyze current events in the light of history, sometimes unpleasant history.

I have been reading Neil Sheehan’s classic on the Vietnam War A Bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and the United States in Vietnam, Joachim Fest’s Inside Hitler’s Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich, Guenter Lewy’s Perpetrators: The world of the Holocaust Killers, and Carry O’Connor’s book The Butcher of Poland: Hitler’s Lawyer Hans Frank, while skimming through the dairies of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Now admittedly that is a lot of reading and it is important because it gives me a much wider historical view of the present crimes of President Trump and his administration.

What gets me is the vast amount of lies that were told by the leaders of Nazi Germany and the United States in Vietnam to justify murderous polices were in the case of Germany labeled and judged as war crimes, but never admitted by the United States in its misadventure in Vietnam, or for that matter the criminal war against Iraq, a war that I began with by supporting and came away from in 2008 realizing was illegal, immoral, and criminal by any sense of the indictments made by the United States against the leaders of Nazi Germany at Nuremberg.

Now I look at the policies being employed by the Trump administration on the border with Mexico I see the United States using tactics which are so similar to the early actions of the Third Reich that they stir up feelings of dread, especially when those responsible are not held to account by, but actually cheered by his party. The are frightening when officials in high office who allegedly disagree with them still carry them out. They are frightening when the President himself uses them as “bargaining chips” in order to get his agenda passed. They are terrifying when religious people including the Attorney General of the United States misapply Bible verses to support those polices just like was done by the religious leaders of the Third Reich.

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson who served as the organizer and Chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials wrote:

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

One day our nation will find itself at the dock of justice. No nation no-matter how powerful or how exceptional it believes itself to be ever escapes it. We ignore Justice Jackson’s words at our own peril. Frank declared at his trial:

“A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased.” 

Sadly the Trump administration is just getting started and our collective guilt will only multiply as he and his deputies become more aggressive and resort to far more brutal means than they are using today. It won’t be hard for them to do so. While he protests that he hates his administration’s policies but instead of invoking his authority to act against them he blames Democrats for them and says that he is simply obeying the law, but it is not a law. Since the beginning of his campaign in 2015 the President has used the language of dehumanization to describe Mexicans, Central Americans, Blacks, Africans, Arabs, and others. He “jokes” to the Japanese Prime Minister during a moment at the G7 Summit that he will ship 25 million of them to Japan.

Hans Frank

It is not too far of leap to understand that Trump staff member Stephen Miller said today said “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.”

Of course this is a lie. There is no law dictating the separation of families and imprisonment of people who are not criminals, only people who hope for a better life, as most of our immigrant ancestors did. The fact is that Miller is carrying out Trump’s decrees just as Frank did in the 1930s and 1940s. Frank told his fellow jurists in 1936:

“The National Socialist ideology is the foundation of all basic laws, especially as explained in the party program and in the speeches of the Führer … There is no independence of law against National Socialism. Say to yourselves at every decision which you make: ‘How would the Führer decide in my place?’ In every decision ask yourselves: ‘Is this decision compatible with the National Socialist conscience of the German people?’ Then you will have a firm iron foundation which, allied with the unity of the National Socialist People’s State and with your recognition of the eternal nature of the will of Adolf Hitler, will endow your own sphere of decision with the authority of the Third Reich, and this for all time… ‘The law is the will of the Führer.’”

Under Trump and his supporters this is our future and we will all be condemned because we allowed it to happen. When it is all said and done I am sure than many, if not most of us will echo the words of Martin Niemoller “first they came for… and I said nothing.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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September 17, 2017 · 20:55

The Path of Remembrance: A Visit to Dachau

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Holocaust survivor Yehuda Bauer wrote: “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.”

The picture that you see above is the memorial to the Unknown Prisoner at Dachau. The words: “Den Toten zur Ehr, den Lebenden zur Mahnung” [To Honor the Dead, to Warn the Living] are engraved at its base.

Yesterday, Munich time, I took short excursion to Dachau in order to visit the Concentration Camp. I have been to Dachau a number of times beginning back in 1996. For me as a historian of the period the trip is both for learning and for meditation, for beyond its historical significance this is a holy place, a place made holy by the blood of tens of thousands of victims of one of the most evil regimes in history. The crimes committed by the staff of Totenkopfverbande SS guards from it’s inception were intended to terrorize and dehumanize the inmates who included political prisoners, religious objectors, Jews, and homosexuals. They were not there because they were convicted of any crimes, in fact many had actually been exonerated by courts, or had served what ever sentence they had been convicted of, but upon release were picked up by the SS and taken to Dachau.

Prisoners were told on arrival:

Here you are, and you’re not in a sanatorium! You’ll have got that already. Anyone who hasn’t grasped that will soon be made to. You can rely on that . . . You’re not prison inmates here, serving a sentence imposed by the courts, you’re just ‘prisoners’ pure and simple, and if you don’t know what that means, you’ll soon find out. You’re dishonourable and defenceless! You’re without rights! Your fate is a slave’s fate! Amen.

In the Camp they were subject to punishment for even the most minor or perceived infractions, beatings, whippings, and other punishments were meted out by guards who themselves were punished if they showed any mercy or human kindness to a prisoner. “While an offender sentenced to a term in prison knew when he was going to get out, release for the concentration camp inmate was determined by the whim of a quarterly review board, and could be delayed by the malice of any of the SS guards.”

Theodore Eicke, the commandant who systematized the Concentration Camp system created a world that his subordinate, and the later Commandant of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoess described:

“It was Eicke’s intention that his SS-men, by means of continuous instruction and suitable orders concerning the dangerous criminality of the inmates, should be made basically ill-disposed towards the prisoners. They were to ‘treat them rough’, and to root out once and for all any sympathy they might feel for them. By such means, he succeeded in engendering in simple-natured men a hatred and antipathy for the prisoners which an outsider will find hard to imagine.”

Even a brutal man like Hoess found the brutality hard to watch, he recalled the “malicious evil-minded, basically bad, brutal, inferior, common creatures’ amongst the guards, who compensated for their sense of inferiority by venting their anger on the prisoners. The atmosphere of hatred was total.”

In the twelve years of its existence the staff of Dachau, through mistreatment, execution by bullet, gallows, through being used as subjects in grotesque medical experiments, by “execution by work,” or untreated illness and disease, murdered 41,566 prisoners. The point to be remembered is that despite this incredible number of murders that Dachau was not an extermination camp.

I took the S-Bahn from Munich-East to Dachau, a trip of about 30 minutes. While there I read the chapter in Richard Evans book Third Reich in Power that described the establishment and operations of Dachau and the other early Concentration Camps, from which all of the quotes above this are from. When I got off the train I had a choice of taking a bus to the camp or walking to it via the path known as the Weg des Erinnerns or Path of Remembrance. I chose the walk which was about two miles. Along it there were markers with parts of the history of Dachau and what the prisoners experienced from getting off a train to getting to the camp. The path winds through the town along the street now named Friedenstrasse, (Peace Street) and through John F. Kennedy Platz.

As I neared the camp the signs pointed out the SS Training School and housing for the SS guards. Then it left the paved road and went onto a trail which was uncovered in 2004. This trail is named Strasse der KZ – Opfer, or the Street of the Concentration Camp Victims, or perhaps better translated, “Sacrificial Victims” which was the path that the prisoners took from the SS barracks to the camp itself. It ended at the Hauptwache, the main guardhouse which also functioned as the entrance to the camp.

I went through the wrought iron gate with the cynical words Arbeit Mach Frei, work makes you free in the center of it. On entering to the right is the camp’s administration and headquarters building which now serves as a museum. Since I spent a lot of time at the museum last year I went left which took me down the western perimeter of the camp with its barbed wire fences and guard tower with the foundations of the camps prisoner barracks to my right.

Eventually I reached the location of the execution grounds and the crematorium. I had been there in 1996 but the weather was so cold and damp that I didn’t stay long and I have never found the pictures that I took then. Today I spent more time there, for it is truly the holy place in the camp. Even though there were a good number of people there, including a tour group, it was very quiet. I heard very few words as I walked the area. The first thing I did was to walk the execution grounds around the crematorium. In front of the building the former location of the camp gallows was marked. Behind the building was a memorial with a Star of David crowned with a Menorah and a marker to the thousands of unknown victims. Walking to the right of it down a gravel path that winds through a small grove of trees along the camp wall there were other markers to where the ashes of those murdered were unceremoniously deposited between 1933 and 1945.

But perhaps the most chilling marker was at the place where SS guards executed prisoners up close and personal with a pistol shot to the nape of the neck. The wall behind where they knelt still stands a long with the blood ditch. After that I walked to the crematorium. At the south end there is the delousing station. The camp was designed with a gas chamber for which there is no credible information of it ever being used. Instead, prisoners who were no longer fit for work were either given lethal injections in the infirmary, sent to extermination camps, or the former T4 Euthanasia site in Hardheim.

Had it been used the the procedure would have been much like the other camps where the unknowing prisoners walked in their camp uniforms which were then removed so they could go into a waiting area before they entered the “shower” or as it is marked over the entrance, the Brausbad. At Dachau this cynically named room was the a gas chamber that was designed to hold up to 150 prisoners. Once they were in the chamber the specially constructed doors which would make the chamber airtight were shut. Then SS men on the roof would release canisters of Zyklon-B gas into it. Within minutes the prisoners were dead, their bodies showing their final agony as many tried to escape the chamber. This was common at other camps as well as in the extermination camps.

Once the executioners had determined that the prisoners were dead and the gas was evacuated from the chamber, other prisoners would enter to remove the bodies to another waiting room, in which the bodies were staged before they were taken to the four chamber crematorium for cremation. Their ashes were then deposited in the areas nearby. At the end of the building another waiting room contained bodies of other prisoners who had been executed by pistol, or died of beatings, whippings, or disease.

The walk through those areas of the camp as well as the walk up the Path of Remembrance brought me close to tears at many points as I imagined what it must have been like. I was in a somber mood when I left that area and walked past the Russian Orthodox, Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish religious shines along the north edge of the camp. I think that the Jewish one was the most poignant to me. Across it were the words of Psalm 9:21 in German, and as one walks down into it a hole at the top off the monument’s roof allows light to stream into the darkness.

Finishing that I walked down the eastern wall and fence, once again noticing the guard towers, but about halfway down I turned right and walked over to the center street between the rows of prisoner barracks, the street known as Appelallee where the prisoners were assembled multiple times per day for head count and inspection purposes. As I walked down that street which is now lined with trees and markers denoting which prisoner block was at each spot I could almost see the images of the emaciated prisoners falling out for inspection and their brutal guards.

Finally I arrived back at the area in front of the headquarters building which due to a recent commemoration was decorated with wreaths from the German government, the State of Bavaria, Israel, Romania, and other nations. The words Never Again were prominently displayed. As I walked out of the camp I saw a dedication in English, German, French, and Russian which said:

May the example of those who were exterminated here between 1933 and 1945 because they resisted Naziism – help to unite the living for the defense of peace, and freedom and in respect for their fellow man.

I left the camp and decided to take the bus back to the train station where twenty minutes later I was back on a S-Bahn train to Munich.

You may wonder why I took the time to go into such detail about this walk. The answer is the same that I choose to walk civil war battlefields, it is to being to try to understand what the people there were seeing and experiencing. Of course there were the prisoners who were so savagely treated by their jailers. Then there were the bystanders, the citizens of Dachau and other German cities who watched as Jews, political enemies, and others were marched to the camp, which was not a secret installation. Finally, there were the perpetrators, very few of whom were punished for their actions.

But another reason is that the survivors, be they victims, perpetrators, or bystanders are rapidly passing away. Soon none will be left. When that happens it is up to us the living to ensure that this is not forgotten and that those murdered at Dachau, the other Concentration Camps, the extermination camps, and those killed by the murder squads that went from one end of Europe to the other in a systematic attempt to wipe every Jew that they could find off of the face of the earth. Yes, there were other victims, but the Nazi crusade against the Jews knew no boundaries, physical or time included. Unlike every other genocide it extended beyond national borders, or time; it was an eschatological crusade that by the will of Hitler was limited by only one factor, the complete military defeat that was inflicted on Nazi Germany by those who she attacked.

Finally, the story must be told because there are those who either claim it didn’t happen, or are tired of talking about it. In Germany those include leaders of the new-Nazi AfD (Alternative for Germany) Party. In the United States, Britain, and other nations there are members of many new-Nazi and Alt-Right groups who desire very much the same thing, but if decent people decide not to speak out, if we remain silent, there is nothing anywhere that will keep these ideological descendants of Hitler from beginning it again, if not to the Jews, to other despised racial, religious, ethnic, or ideological groups. We live in a world where demagogues take advantage of people’s legitimate anxieties and deeply ingrained prejudices to stir up ungodly anger and hatred in order to both gain new followers and to incite those followers to a campaign of violence.

Doctor Timothy 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.”

Today among other things I will visit sites associated with Sophie Scholl. She was a young Christian college student who led the opposition group the White Rose, which during 1941-1943 attempted to tell the truth about what the Nazis were doing. They were found out, and most after trial were beheaded in Munich. There is a small marker to her and the group just about a block from the hotel on the wall of a building. Her grave is in a cemetery less than a mile from the hotel.

The one thing about Germany as opposed to other nations, including Japan in China, Korea, and much of Asia, Russia and the mass exterminations of Stalin’s time, Belgium in the Congo, Britain in many of its colonies, much of Eastern Europe, Turkey, and yes, even the United States has faced its responsibility to remember the victims of their most evil and lawless government. If only other nations would take such deliberate steps to acknowledge their crimes. It may have taken over a generation for that to become a part of Germany’s being and part of their moral voice today. In Germany the monuments stand not to the perpetrators, but to the victims. An they are not just monuments, dedicated to memory, but the German words Denkmal and gedenkstatte contain the German word for think, meaning that they are not just there for people to remember a mythological past, but rather to be a part of the now living the history of those days for the living to ponder and to serve as a warning that it can happen again.

In a world where nothing is guaranteed and where those who deny or minimize the Holocaust attempt to find legitimacy and to silence good people I have to speak up. I cannot allow myself to become a bystander and let it all happen again, not to the Jews or anyone else.

So until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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September 2, 2016 · 00:05

When Despots Gain Power


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have returned home from my vacation in time to spend some time relaxing over the Labor Day weekend while hopefully dodging the worst of what will be Tropical Storm Hermine. I am going to be writing a number of articles as well as pictures from our time in Huntington, West Virginia this weekend, articles that will deal with history, art and culture, as well as social and political commentary. 

Yesterday I posted a short article about how despots come to power referencing the words of British military historian B.H. Liddell-Hart in his book Why Don’t We Learn from History?  Since I gave a brief introduction to that work yesterday I will not repeat the introduction. Instead I will go to the second part of how he described despots, or what we commonly call dictators today. 

Yesterday I briefly discussed Liddell-Hart’s understanding of the important differences between democracy and dictatorship and why despite all the inefficiency of the former that it is infinitely preferable to the latter or for that matter any other form of government. 

Since I left off and let you my friends and readers meditate on how despots come to power, I will now finish with what Liddell-Hart said about what happens after a despot takes power. He is right of course. Since the French Revolution we can look to Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, three generations of North Korean Kims, Mussolini, Ceausescu, Pol Pot, the Castros, Pinocet, Mugabe, not to mention the multitude of other despots of the Middle East, Africa, Asia, the Americas, and Europe, but I digress. 

Liddell-Hart wrote:

We learn from history that time does little to alter the psychology of dictatorship. The effect of power on the mind of the man who possesses it, especially when he has gained it by successful aggression, tends to be remarkably similar in every age and in every country.

Yesterday I asked you my readers to compare what Liddell-Hart said about how despots come to power and think about how what he said is evidenced in the campaign of Donald Trump. So that being said, Liddell-Hart noted that once a despot achieves power that their reign is marked by the following types of events:

On gaining power: 

They soon begin to rid themselves of their chief helpers, “discovering” that those who brought about the new order have suddenly become traitors to it. 

They suppress criticism on one pretext or another and punish anyone who mentions facts which, however true, are unfavourable to their policy. They enlist religion on their side, if possible, or, if its leaders are not compliant, foster a new kind of religion subservient to their ends. 

They spend public money lavishly on material works of a striking kind, in compensation for the freedom of spirit and thought of which they have robbed the public. 

They manipulate the currency to make the economic position of the state appear better than it is in reality. 

They ultimately make war on some other state as a means of diverting attention from internal conditions and allowing discontent to explode outward. 

They use the rallying cry of patriotism as a means of riveting the chains of their personal authority more firmly on the people. 

They expand the superstructure of the state while undermining its foundations by breeding sycophants at the expense of self-respecting collaborators, by appealing to the popular taste for the grandiose and sensational instead of true values, and by fostering a romantic instead of a realistic view, thus ensuring the ultimate collapse, under their successors if not themselves, of what they have created. 

This political confidence trick, itself a familiar string of tricks, has been repeated all down the ages. Yet it rarely fails to take in a fresh generation.

Now pause for a moment. Donald Trump has not been elected to anything, but compare his business career and current political campaign rhetoric to Liddell-Hart’s words about despots in power. And since I am tired I will leave you to contemplate Liddell-Hart’s words from a half-century ago and imagine a Trump presidency. 

Peace

Padre Steve+

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July 21, 2016 · 22:36

Prelude to Tyranny


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Was amazed last night when Senator Ted Cruz; a man I have never had anything good to say about; went into the seething, hate filled arena in Cleveland hosting the coronation of Donald Trump and made a speech that probably destroyed his political career. Standing firm as delegates screamed angry and even violent epitaphs at him, he refused to endorse Trump. Instead, he told Republicans to vote their conscience. Some delegates became so enraged that Cruz’s wife had to be escorted out for her own safety. 

Now personally I wouldn’t give a bag of donuts for Cruz, and I have frequently criticized his very theocratic vision of America, but I admired his courage last night. During the campaign Trump did all that he could to destroy Cruz, even accusing Ted’s nutcase father of being connected to the assassination of President Kennedy. Cruz had nothing to gain from what he did had he even given a weak endorsement he would have saved his career in Trump’s GOP, a party that no longer resembles that of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, or Ronald Reagan. But had he done that, he would have been safe.

But he didn’t and I applaud his Trump has recreated the GOP in his image, and Cruz will have no place in it. Nor will any Republican who has raised a voice against him. They are considered traitors by Trump and his loyalists, and those who attempt to placate him should they have second thoughts about their opposition, will find that they will pay a heavy price, even if Trump loses the election. Trump and his stalwart base will never forgive or forget, and the words that some of his supporters which threaten violence, will likely be followed with real violence. This is not normal. It is not what our founders intended, it is the nature of an anti-democratic and violent mass movement. 

You might wonder why I say this, after all we are more advanced in this country than to stoop to such actions, but to people who nurse fanatical grievances, this is quite normal. American philosopher Eric Hoffer wrote, “Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.” For many of Trump’s followers, especially the religious ones, the Trump candidacy has become a holy crusade and all opponents within and outside the GOP are agents of the Devil himself, while those who are faithful are the elect, who lose themselves in the movement, for it and its leader are greater than them, which excuses them from personal responsibility for any violence. This was true in Revolutionary France, Nazi Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and the Soviet Union. 

Hoffer wrote, 

“There is also this: when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

The responses among the faithful, especially some conservative who I know on social media to what Cruz did is frightening. Just a few months ago many of them saw Cruz as their political savior, a man who was going to bring the Christian Dominionist agenda into the Presidency. Now he is called a traitor, a liar, and worse by the same people, who now have transferred their allegiance to Trump just as quickly as conservative German Christians dumped their political affiliations in old line conservative parties, including those which were political wings of churches for the Nazis. 

Since I have already read the leaked text of Trump’s speech I will wait until tomorrow to discuss it. But for what I see it is filled with lies and distortions to instill fear and unite people behind him as the only person who can fix it. It is the same line of attack used by Hitler to vault into the Chancellorship, and well, you know the rest. Hitler had his conservative opponents jailed, including opponents in the Nazi Party, sent to concentration camps, or murdered as quickly as he did others, even faster than he did to the Jews. So if I was Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham or one of the others GOP leaders who have criticized Trump, I would watch my back. 

So if you plan on watching Trump’s speech I suggest that you start drinking heavily. As for me I am following Andrew Sullivan’s live blog over at the nymag.com as I watch the speech, which reminds me of Triumph of the Will without the Hitlerian charm. 

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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July 20, 2016 · 17:29

A Descent into Collective Madness: When All You have Left is Hate…


Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The great American philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.” Last night the Republican convention managed to sink deeper into the realm of collective madness than any American political party ever has. 

A no point in the evening was a case made for the positive merits of the GOP nominee, Donald Trump. Instead the headlining speakers,mNew Jersey governor Chris Christie and retired neuro-surgeon, failed presidential candidate religious fanatic Ben Carson set the tone for not just the convention, but the campaign. Without a positive message all they had left was to stoke a white-hot inferno of hatred toward Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Christie used his speech not to promote Trump, but to turn policy decisions made in part by Clinton into crimes and soon he had the delegates, conditioned by over twenty years of anti-Hillary hate and propaganda preached by right-wing talk radio and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones, Ruch Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and the entirety of the Fox News network worked into a frenzy, arms outstretched like Nuremberg rally attendees dying out “lock her up!” Not to be outdone, Carson went off script and related Hillary to Lucifer through Saul Alinsky proving Hoffer correct. To continue the madness a Trump delagate and a leader of the Veterans for Trump said today that “Hillary should be taken to a firing line and shot.” 

The fact that many in the media are treating this a politics as usual miss the all too important insight that these are the exact phrases used by Nazi to demonize their opponents as they marched toward power, which they then later put into action once power was gained. Those who believed that the Nazi’s words were hyperbole found out too late that they actually meant them. 

The troubling thing as that of vein before he won the nomination Trump has endorsed physical violence against opponents and even promised to pay the legal fees of supporters who assault opponents, tried to shut down judges, and banned reporters who criticize him from his campaign events. The fact that he is doing this should send shivers into anyone concerned with civil liberties, and not just liberals. Already the Republicans who have voiced opposition to Trump are being run out of the party and demonized as traitors. 

Once ensconced in power Trump will use his executive powers in ways never imagined by the Founders. He has no respect for the separation of powers and will ignore the Constitution, Congress, and the Courts anytime that he desires, and sadly, if he has a Republican majority in Congress, he will get all that desires. Like the Nazi dominated Reichstag, Congress will become nothing more than a rubber stamp for Trump’s edicts. Those conservatives who thought they would be able to restrain Trump will, like the German conservatives of the 1930s will be disappointed. Those who don’t support him will be purged. 

Hatred has become the sole motivation for anyone to support Trump, and it is no wonder. Hoffer correctly noted, 

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all unifying agents. It pulls and whirls the individual away from his own self, makes him oblivious of his weal and future, frees him of jealousies and self-seeking. He becomes an anonymous particle quivering with a craving to fuse and coalesce with his like into one flaming mass.” 

But then hatred is all the GOP has left to offer. As a former lifelong Republican the spectacle is profoundly disturbing.

Until tomorrow.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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March 8, 2016 · 07:00

The Kitchen Sink


Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Ted Cruz appears to have blunted, for the moment Donald Trump’s drive for the Republican presidential nomination. I don’t think it will be much in the long term, but it shows how desperate the GOP is to find a way to keep the real estate mogul from getting enough delegates from securing the nomination outright. we will see more of that play out tonight and a week from now in some very big, delegate rich states.

The GOP is cleaving itself into two parties. One is that of the leaders who for the last thirty plus years has promised stoked the anger of various parts of the party base but election after election done little than to humor the people that it relies upon to retain power. Large parts of the GOP base have been left out of the economic recovery, which has primarily benefits corporations, and feel like they have been abandoned by the party. The party has gone out of its way to channel this anger at minorities, immigrants, women, gays, and Muslims and away from themselves. For years the strategy worked, but like all strategies that simply deflect anger towards others rather than solve the underlying problems their followers have to deal with is collapsing on itself.

Trumps supporters are not a monolithic group, while the majority are white and at least nominally Christian there are others. While some blatantly White Supremacist leaders and groups are supporting Trump, there are many, people who are frustrated and angry about other issues. A lot are older people, retirees who feel that they have lost “their country” while others are people who lost businesses or high paying jobs in the last economic downturn, or have seen their jobs sent overseas. I know a number of former small business owners who had well established and profitable businesses lose them and see major corporations get tax breaks and government bailouts while they were left behind.

The GOP establishment assumed that 2016 would be more of the same. However, they did not could on Donald Trump and his ability to capitalize on the rage that they have stoked for decades. Some compare Trump to the GOP’s version of Frankenstein, and to some extent that is a good analogy. In some ways it is like how German conservatives in the 1920s paved the way to Hitler by demonizing their opponents and paralyzing the government. Like the current GOP power elites they fed the anger and frustration of people who finally rejected them and turned to an outsider. Like the GOP did Trump they thought that they could control Hitler. Mind you I am not comparing Trump to Hitler, despite the similarities in style, stated policy as well as the behavior of people toward non-Trump attendees at his rallies which a so similar to Hitler’s Brwonshirt things that it makes my head swim; but I am directly addressing the dynamics at play in the party.

From 1930 to January 1933 German conservative elites hoped to channel support away from Hitler by supporting the elderly conservative Field Marshal Paul Von Himdenberg for President against Hitler, and by having Hindenberg appoint a succession of “anyone but Hitler” as Chancellor. They failed and in a desperate attempt to control they appointed Hitler as Chancellor and once in power he used legal means to outmaneuver his opponents and within six months elimited all opposition political parties.

With Trump gaining more and more of the frustrated and angry vote the GOP establishment is attempting to find a way to stop Trump, even to the point of rallying around Ted Cruz, a man that they loath. But the Trump supporters are not going to tolerate it, and neither will Trump. In fact if you look at the comments of Trump supporters they despise the party establishment and the media, including some of Fox News who have come out against Trump. They feel that the attack on Trump are unfair and unwarranted, and the crocodile tears of the GOP leadership aside, Trump is only saying what many of them have railed about for years, just in much cruder terms.


In next few weeks the GOP establishment will do everything in their power to try to subvert, derail, and undermine the Trump campaign. Former GOP standard bearer Mitt Romney launched a furious assault on Trump only to be jumped on by Trump and his supporters. The more the GOP leadership does this, the more that Trump and his supporters will fight back. By some chance if they screed in keeping Trump from getting and outright majority of delegates at best it will be a Pyrrhic victory and only the charred remains of the Grand Old Party will remain.

We are watching a political party self-destruct and when it completes its self-immolation it will signal the end of an era. We are in an era of seismic political change, and what is happening to the Republicans cannot be dismissed as something that cannot happen to the Democrats as well.

None of us can know what will follow this and Democrats, especially the  Democratic Party leadership and elites should learn from what is happening to the Republicans. Right now there are many frustrated and angry Democrats and progressives who are as tired of their elites and power brokers as are angry Republicans and they are turning out in large numbers to support an outsider, Bernie Sanders. Democrats need to make sure that they do not dismiss his supporters and assume that they will voter for Hillary Clinton in November.

All that being said, the GOP fight is on and the opposing sides will throw in everything that they can to win, even the kitchen sink.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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May 8, 2015 · 15:35

V.E. Day at 70: Remember Sacrifice 

dscn0044

Seventy years ago World War Two in Europe officially ended. It is hard to believe that it has been that long. The men and women who fought in the war, known as the Greatest Generation now had endured the collapse of one world order after the First World War, the Great Depression and finally fought the Second World War which on May 8th 1945 was ending in Europe even as it raged on in Asia and the Pacific.

For most Americans the 1920s and 1930s were decades of isolationism, where idealists believed that the United States could stay out of the wars and rumors of wars. In 1939 Hitler’s legions stormed across Europe after bamboozling the British, French and even the Soviet Union about their intentions. Even so in 1939 many Americans believed that we could remain neutral in any conflict, but by mid-1941, with France and most of Europe under Nazi rule, with Hitler’s armies advancing on Moscow and Great Britian standing alone the writing on the wall was growing increasing legible. As such the reluctant nation began to mobilize large numbers of soldiers and to build up its Navy and Air Force, and on December 7th 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and other U.S. Installations thoughout the Western Pacific and a day later Nazi Germany declared war on the United States. The latter was really a huge mistake by Hitler who had he been thinking should have done everything in his power to keep the United States out of Europe. It would be a fatal mistake.

The United States and Britian determined that Germany was a greater threat than Japan decided that the defeat of Germany took precedence and devoted their efforts to that. Even so U.S. Forces in the Pacific, primarily built around the Navy took the offensive against Japan in August 1942 at Guadalcanal. But in Europe the U.S. And Britian invaded North Africa to drive the Germans and their Italian allies out, moved in to Sicily and Itslly, knocking the Itslians out of the war in 1943. At sea allied naval forces won the Battle of the Atlantic against Hitler’s U-Boats which had sunk thousands of ships totaling millions of tons of cargo and lost lives. American war materials and supplies provided massive assistance to the British and to the Soviet Union, the latter whose Red Army had broken the back of the vaunted Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and who by 1944 were on the offensive. In the air the United States Army Air Corps and the British Royal Air Force  waged a non-stop air campaign to defeat Hitler’s Luftwaffe and bomb German industrial targets and population centers. 

Then on June 6th 1944 came D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe, Hitler meddled in the affairs of his commanders ordering a no-retreat policy in Normandy. After a brutal campaign the Allies broke out of Normandy liberating France, much of Belgium and about half of the Netherlands by the end of September. The Germans launched a last ditch offensive against the Americans in December 1994, that battle, nicknamed the Battle of the Bulge hastened the end of the war. By the early Spring of 1945 the American, British, French and Soviet forces, aided by military forces of liberated nations were closing in on the heart of Germany. With the American Army on the Elbe River and the Soviets battling street by street in Berlin and just blocks away, Hitler committed suicide in his Fuhrer Bunker on April 30th 1945. Within days his successor, Admiral Karl Donitz was seeking an end to the war. Forced to surrender unconditionally Donitz ordered German forces to surrender on May 8th 1945. 

General Dwight Eisenhower issued his announcement of the endo of the war: 

eisenhower ve day message

 

ny times ve day

 

Men and women of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

The crusade on which we embarked in the early summer of 1944 has reached its glorious conclusion . . .

“Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply, have astonished the world. Even before the final week of the conflict, you had put 5,000,000 of the enemy permanently out of the war. You have taken in stride military tasks so difficult as to be classed by many doubters as impossible. You have confused, defeated and destroyed your savagely fighting foe. On the road to victory you have endured every discomfort and privation and have surmounted every obstacle ingenuity and desperation could throw in your path. You did not pause until our front was firmly joined up with the great Red Army coming from the East, and other Allied Forces, coming from the South.

Full victory in Europe has been attained. 

Eisenhower’s announcement of the end of the war is shown in the link below. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR99iTgKedc

Now the men and women of the Greatest Generation are passing away, most of those that I personally knew have died. The young ones who are still with us are in their late 80s and early 90s, most if not all will be gone in the next 10-15 years. 

So as you think about today, remember those men and women. Remember the evil that they fought to defeat and hope that if Americans, and by the way I don’t just mean the professional military which has been fighting our wars for the past 14 years, but all Americans have to make such sacrifices again, that we will be up to it. Sadly, I don’t know if we would be. 

That may sound harsh but that generation sacrificed to win the war. Their political leaders did not cut taxes and then telli people to go shopping while the less than one percent that constituted the military went and fought the wars. No they gave up things, and millions served in the military or in war related industries. When I came home from Iraq I was stunned at just how distant the country was from the war. Unlike World War II only a few Americans even have skin in the game that we call war. That is so different than World War II. But that my friends is just my opinion. 

So please don’t forget that true greatness requires both sacrifice and magnanimity. 

Peace

Padre Steve+ 

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September 3, 2013 · 16:18

Would You Crucify Him? The Hard Question Christians Need to Ask Themselves Today

IMG_0643-726257

Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him…, my religious friend?
Would you crucify Him…, talking ’bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He’d walk right here among you once again?

Well it’s another Jousting at Windmills Day at Padre Steve’s World and today we go back in history to a time the called the 70s.

Back in the late 1970s John Michael Talbot, a former rocker turned early contemporary Christian music artist became a Catholic and a lay Franciscan. Around that time he participated in a recording with a number of other artists from that early part of the CCM era, Second Chapter of Acts, Keith Greene, Barry McGuire and his brother Terry to perform a musical about the book of Acts called Firewind. In it John Michael wrote and performed a song that has haunted me ever since. It is a song that forces me to look at my life and the way that I treat others in the light of the demands of the Gospel. It is called Would You Crucify Him?

It really is one of the most haunting, and to use Evangelical Speak “convicting” songs I have ever heard. Unfortunately I think that the message of the song is often unheard or ignored by most Christians. I think this is the case since the time of Constantine when the Church gained the political backing of the State. Since then in almost every clime and place that the Church has enjoyed that privileged status it is almost always used in ways that would so grieve Jesus.

One cannot read the Gospels nor many of the Old Testament Prophets and think anything else. The harshest condemnations found in Jesus’ message almost always were directed at the religious establishment which used its power for its own gain. It was they who quite often despised the those that Jesus showed the greatest compassion and love: the alien, the woman, the leper, the tax collector, the criminal, the hated Roman occupiers of Palestine and others on the margins of society who were looked upon with scorn by the religious people of his day.

The sad thing is scorn and distain for the people that Jesus reached out to the most that is so often the case today among the leaders of what has to be called the political Religious Right. Unfortunately that attitude is so widespread among those people’s disciples that hatred in the name of Jesus is the new normal. The attitude is one of entitlement and privilege that frankly is scary. Rather than reach out in love and care to those different and than them they viciously attack them supposedly to “obey God and follow the Bible.” It is sad to say that quite often that we are no different than the Pharisees of Jesus’ day.

I have felt the sharpness of those attacks. Though I am a Christian I have been called a Nazi, a Communist, a Socialist an apostate and even most recently “Hitler’s Love Child” by a Twitter Troll and worse. The invective that I have been exposed to after my return from Iraq suffering from PTSD and questioning faith and struggling to believe in God again even while trying to minister to people facing death in ICUs and ERs really changed me. When faith returned it was different and I am glad for that and now for that matter really don’t give a damn what “Conservative Christians” think of me.

Unfortunately those that call me these things are all self identified Conservative Christians, mostly Evangelicals but sometimes Catholics and Mainline Christians who also identify themselves as Patriots who believe in the Constitution, whatever that means. The fact that I have sworn an oath to defend that Constitution and their rights under it and have done so for 32 years in both the Army and Navy in peace and war is lost on them. Instead I am the Nazi because I dare criticize their practice of the faith and stand up for those that they hate.

As a historian who has spent much of my academic life studying Weimar and the Nazi regime I have to say that those that most resemble the Nazis today are Conservative Christians, the whole God and Country crowd. The same understanding of faith that allowed “Conservative Bible Believing” German Christians to wholeheartedly support the Hitler regime and for those Evangelicals that want to claim the Martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer as a “Conservative” they had better think again. If they had actually read his books, writings and sermons they would find that he and most of the other leaders of the Confessing Church weren’t conservative at all, not in the sense that modern “Conservative Christians” understand the word.

Thus I have become a bit sensitive and when I see people who wrap themselves in the flag and claim the banner of the Cross mistreat others bothers me. There is a quote often misattributed to Sinclair Lewis that says “When Fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” The quote actually appears to be a condensation of his thoughts and writings but taken in the context of when it appeared in the 1930s is quite correct. Hitler, Mussolini, Franco all co-opted the conservative Christians of their nations by appealing to their fears of atheistic Communism and Socialism as well as minorities, Jews, homosexuals and any other group.

The fact that many justify their assaults on others not like them by claiming that “the other side is just as bad or just as hateful” miss the whole point of Jesus who was quite empathetic about telling his disciples to “turn the other cheek” and “repay evil with good.” The really sad thing is that there will be probably at least one person at some time that visits this site and comments on this article who either tells me that I have misunderstood Jesus or cites another Bible verse to justify hating and mistreating others.

I am appalled at the way self identified Christians rant at people they disagree with, disapprove of or simply hate. I am appalled when I see them make common cause with non-Christian ideologues like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and others who spew venom at liberals, gays, women, blacks, Moslems, immigrants and others on a daily basis. Because of this I have taken up the causes a support the liberties of these people because they are the people that Jesus would have done the same for in his day.

But back to the song. Talbot and others like him came out of the 1960s and large parts of the Christian church condemned the whole youth revolution of the time. The things said by preachers of the hippies and the war protesters and those that were in the rock and roll music scene were and are shameful. So when a few churches began welcoming the “Jesus Freaks” who came out of it it was pretty cool.

The Talbots, Barry McGuire and others were among the first and they were quite revolutionary for their day. Barry McGuire’s song Don’t Blame God for the Sins of America is terrifying, especially when one sees just the incestuous relationship between much of the Christian Right, big business and the industries that promote war and violence.

Of course this was before established “Christian” record companies sensed the chance to make a fast buck by commercializing “Contemporary Christian Music” bought up the original small market Christian labels such as Sparrow, Birdwing and Maranatha! Music and turned it into a pile of very profitable slick rubbish. The fact is that there is not an Evangelical Christian entertainment conglomerate that would ever allow an artist to record a song like Don’t Blame God or Would You Crucify Him? today.

The first time I heard Would You Crucify Him? in 1979 on Firewind I cried. It struck my heart and I realized how easy it would be for me to be just like the Pharisees, Sadducees or the Imperial Church that used religion to keep power and crush the weak or those that questioned them.

Take the time to let the lyrics of the song set in. If you claim to be any kind of Christian please don’t blow them off.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5pAyKWbtOU

Sometimes, in the cool of the evenin’
Truth comes like a Lover in the wind
Sometimes, when my thoughts have gone misleadin’
She’ll ask that same old question once again…

Chorus:
Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him…, my old friend?
Would you crucify Him…, talking ’bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He’d walk right here among you once again?

She’s askin’, How many times have you looked down to the harlot
Lookin’ through her tears, pretendin’ you don’t know?
For once you were just like her, how can you be now so self righteous
When in the name of the Lord you throw the first stone

So now I turn to you through your years of your robes and stained-glass windows
Do you vainly echo your prayers “to please the Lord?”
Profess the Marriage with your tongue, but your mind dreams like the harlot
But if the Judge looks to your thoughts can’t you guess your reward?

Would you crucify Him
Would you crucify Him…, my religious friend?
Would you crucify Him…, talking ’bout the sweet Lord Jesus
If He’d walk right here among you once again?

Yet how many times have you quoted from your Bible
To justify your eye for your eye and your tooth for your tooth?
You say that He didn’t mean what He was plainly sayin’
But like the Pharisee, my friend, you’re an educated fool!

Copyright John Michael Talbot 1979 from the Album Firewind

Peace

Padre Steve+

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February 22, 2011 · 19:53

Göttdammerung in Libya: Shades of Hitler as Gaddafi Promises to Die as a Martyr

“Muammar Gaddafi is not the president, he is the leader of the revolution. He has nothing to lose. Revolution means sacrifice until the very end of your life”

“I am a fighter, a revolutionary from tents … I will die as a martyr at the end… I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired … when i do, everything will burn.”

Muammar Gaddafi on Libyan State TV 22 February 2011


Libya’s brutal dictator of over 40 years Muammar Gaddafi has cast the die in favor of destroying his country in order to save his regime. In a speech that conjures up visions of Hitler in 1945 a rambling madman blaming external enemies and equating him with the nation while demonizing his own people who have risen up in revolt against him.

Gaddafi Speech

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122216458913596.html

The speech was surreal as it was translated with Gaddafi standing in the remains of his home that was bombed by the United States in 1986.  Alone at a podium without the usual crowd of adoring sycophants delivered a rambling narcissistic speech that bordered on the absurd while at the same time making credible threats against the protestors and anyone who opposes him which were already being backed up by Mercenaries and pro-Gaddafi thugs using heavy weapons and helicopter gunships. So far at least 300 people have been killed with unconfirmed reports that many more have died in opposing Gaddafi.  With the eastern part of the country now in rebel hands with the support of military units it remains to be seen how Gaddafi sends his loyalists and mercenaries against the still fragile control of his opponents.

His speech appeared to be devoid of reality when he stated that “I haven’t even started giving the orders to use bullets” but then said that “any use of force against authority of state will be sentenced to death”

He has promised harsh retribution and made a very pointed reference to the Chinese suppression of the 1990 Tiananmen Square protests promising to “fight to the last drop of blood” stating:

“When Tiananmen Square happened, tanks were sent in to deal with them. It’s not a joke. Do whatever it takes to stay united… People in front of tanks were crushed. The unity of China is more important than those people in Tiananmen Square.”

His remarks about his opponents were even more macabre and almost seemed to be snatched out of the Bizzaro World of delusions and contradictions. Some of those comments are

“They are a group that are sick, taking hallucinatory drugs… They were given drugs, like in Tunisia, are just imitating… We won’t lose victory from these greasy rats and cats…. They should be given a lesson and stop taking drugs. They’re not good for you, for your heart. Don’t destroy the country… Shame on you, you gangsters. Surrender, give up all weapons, or they’ll have massacres, drugged kids with machine guns… tonight and tomorrow, youth, all of you, not those who are rats on drugs–form committees for security.”

Speaking of the protestors he claimed that “They are just imitating Egypt and Tunisia” and that they “want to turn Libya into an Islamic state” even going so far as the say “They are turning Libya into an (Islamic) emirate of Zawahri and Bin Laden, a new Afghanistan.”

His megalomania and narcissism was on display as he spoke of Libya’s newfound prominence in the news “Libya wants glory, Libya wants to be at the pinnacle, at the pinnacle of the world.”

Gaddafi cajoled his supporters into taking action against his opponents in a display of self adulation by speaking of himself in the third person:

“If you love Muammar Gaddafi you will go out and secure Libya’s streets”

“You men and women who love Gaddafi …get out of your homes and fill the streets,” he said. “Leave your homes and attack them in their lairs … Starting tomorrow the cordons will be lifted, go out and fight them.”

“If weapons are not handed over… we will announce the holy march, I will call on millions from one desert to another to cleanse Libya house by house…”

Göttdammerung on the Streets of Tripoli (ABC News)

This is a tremendously dangerous situation for the Middle East as well as the world economy.  If this escalates into a full blown civil war between Gaddafi’s tribe and its dwindling number of allies and the other Libyan tribes that Gaddafi has previously been able to rely on to secure his power there could be great destruction in Libya.  It is believed that many of the larger tribes are now supporting Gaddafi’s overthrow even tribes that are historic rivals in tribal politics. Even more than the military, tribal support is of the utmost importance in the success of any revolt against him.

Libya at one time had WMD and it cannot be ruled out that Gaddafi has not clandestinely acquired some types of chemical agents which could be used against his own people. Additionally Libyan agents loyal to Gaddafi could undertake terrorist attacks on countries that he believes are against him as well as Libyan dissidents abroad. Other anti-Western regimes in the region and the world have much to fear as what happens in Libya could happen in them, the Syrians and Iranians have to be watching this with concern as well as their South American ally Hugo Chavez.

All of this impacts the world in many ways particularly in the oil and natural gas prices but also a direct financial impact in Africa where Libya has supplied funding that supports a number of critical African nations.  The east where the protestors have taken control is the home of much of its oil production which oil workers have promised to curtail if Gaddafi continues his attacks on the Libyan people. Robert Baer in Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2052961,00.html reports that Gaddafi has stated that he knows that “he knows he cannot retake Libya with the forces he has. But what he can do is make the rebellious tribes and army officers regret their disloyalty, turning Libya into another Somalia.” He quotes a source that quotes Gaddafi as saying “I have the money and arms to fight for a long time.”  Of the measures Baer’s source reports is that “Gaddafi has ordered security services to start sabotaging oil facilities. They will start by blowing up several oil pipelines, cutting off flow to Mediterranean ports.”  One can only imagine the chaos that this would sow in the country, the region and in the oil markets.

As the flames of protest and revolution gain intensity throughout the region it is important to realize that things will not go back to what they were. We are facing one of the most dangerous situations with a myriad of possible outcomes many of which will bring about more instability, possible terrorism and maybe a regional war or series of wars. Russian Federation President Dmitry Medvedev commented on the situation saying that “this will mean fires for years and the spread of extremism in the future. We need to look this straight in the eyes.”

In the midst of Gaddafi’s macabre Göttdammerung the flames or protest, revolution and possibly even freedom continue to spread and no one knows what country that they will ignite next. Somehow I do not think that this will remain an isolated Middle Eastern phenomenon but will spread. I believe that many nations where peoples are repressed, poverty stricken or feel alienated from their governments will see such movements with very unpredictable consequences. This is beginning to shape up like the post World War One period of the breakup of empires, the post colonial chaos and the fall of the Iron Curtain coupled with a world-wide economic crisis that has the world teetering on the brink of a financial crisis on the order of the Great Depression all wrapped into one.

My we live in interesting times.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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