by Lou Caverly
Can we trust prominent observers who claim America is headed for a Nazi-like tyranny? Is William Lewis and Gary Francchi’s DVD documentary on FEMA camps pure fantasy? Was Jesse Ventura’s television conspiracy expose′ on the American “Gulag” only a fairy tale? If so, why was his program taken off the air? Astute political and military watchers who document camp “aspects,” such as barbed wire turned inward and much more, include Alex Jones, Dr. Carl Sanders and retired Joint Chiefs Action Officer, Alexander B. Cuppett. Whether or not these reports are true, another very tangible indication that America is headed for tyranny is the Patriot Act.
It doesn’t take a sophisticated eyewitness to feel shock upon hearing that the newly elected “Tea Party” House of Representatives voted to renew the Patriot Act. Can we relax, drifting along, secure in the knowledge that all these draconian provisions will continue to “preserve” our liberties in the coming years? Secretive “National Security Letters,” warrantless searches continuing and even eventual detention camps?
History teaches that things are not always what they appear to be in complacent times – times when it seems no sudden vicissitudes will ever shake our reality. One might do well to consider this excerpt from William L. Shirer’s The Nightmare Years [http://www.traces.org/shirer.html]:
There were some Jews in those early years of the Nazi dictatorship who did not seem to realize the predicament they were in and that it was bound to get worse. A rather surprising number, we thought, especially among the more affluent, believed that somehow things would get better for them. They had their roots and their stake in Germany, felt they were good Germans, and were loath to leave. The virulent anti-Semitism, they thought, would pass. They did not take kindly to our counsel that they ought to leave while they could. They begged us to mind our own business. We ran into a number of them one weekend at Bad Saarow
a popular resort not far from Berlin. I noted in my diary:
Bad Saarow, April 21, 1935. (Easter) [http://books.google.com/books?id=rEnDts1bJ2kC&pg=PT188&lpg=PT188&dq=Bad+Saarow,+April+21,+1935&source=bl&ots=K5VgJulLSs&sig=rv5ccKp6_z27PanX7JkflozvRtY&hl=en&ei=ZDyjTcHwKsjf0gGc3eD7BA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Bad%20Saarow%2C%20April%2021%2C%201935&f=false]
Taking the Easter weekend off. The hotel mainly filled with Jews and we are a little surprised to see so many of them still prospering and apparently unafraid. I think they are unduly optimistic.
These people could not grasp the fact that new laws were in place that would put them in grave danger. Many of these laws came about as a response to a 1933-style “terrorist” attack, the burning of the German Reichstag [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Burning_the_Reichstag] (parliament) building. It was this act of arson (now almost universally acknowledged to have been perpetrated by the Nazis themselves) that allowed Adolf Hitler to assume absolute power. The day after the fire, February 28, 1933, President Hindenburg signed a decree “for the Protection of the People and the State.” Ironically, this suspended sections of the German constitution that guaranteed civil liberties. Then, on March 23, not even two months after Hitler had been appointed Chancellor, the Reichstag adopted the “Enabling Act” – the “Law for Removing the Distress of People and Reich.” By this act the Reichstag surrendered its powers to Hitler. As Shirer remarks, “Thus was parliamentary democracy finally interred in Germany. Except for the arrest of the Communists and some of the Social Democratic deputies, it was all done quite legally, though accompanied by terror.” [Interestingly, March 23, seventy-two years later, 2005, marked the signing by the US, Mexico and Canada of the “Security and Prosperity Partnership,” weakening national sovereignty and validating “open borders.”]
In a similar way, the United States Congress adopted the Patriot Act [http://w2.eff.org/patriot/] soon after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. It, too, was a response to terrorism, though various analysts claim it had been at least partially written up even before 9-11. The 2003 version had the Orwellian “double-speak” title: “The Domestic Security Enhancement Act.” We know how effectively and diabolically the Nazi regime made use of their new powers during their twelve years of control over Germany and, later, much of Europe. Hitler and his henchmen used the Enabling Act and similar legislation to bring the German populace into total submission and perpetrate unspeakable evil.
No American can be complacent in the next few years ahead. We must not be like the unfortunate Jews that William L. Shirer saw at the resort in 1935. Each of us must become fully aware and vocal, so that no new “Nuremberg Laws” and subsequent Hitlerian “decrees” can come about in America. We cannot choose apathy that leads to the continued erosion of freedom, and perhaps much more horrific events in our cherished America.
Throughout the late 1990’s in the Clintonian years, my wife Elizabeth had often asked me whether my knowledge of World War II led me to believe that Hitlerian control could ever overtake America. “Never!” was always my vociferous reply.
Then, as Almighty God began opening to us doors of knowledge about history’s secret rulers and machinations, Elizabeth again posed the question to me on the way home from a Saturday evening concert. I recounted to her Shirer’s account of the 1935 Bad Saarow incident. I then surprised my wife by saying I was no longer sure such things could never happen in our country. When we got home, my wife walked over to turn on a light in our living room. A book tumbled down on her foot. “This is an amazing coincidence!” she cried. “Shirer’s The Nightmare Years… What we were just talking about!”
Three days later, Tuesday, September 11, 2001, the World Trade Towers came down. America had changed.
