A Condemned Nation Forgets History

Common Dreams yesterday posted a piece by author Thom Hartmann illustrating the parallels between the events of the past few years here in the US and the events that led up to a very crucial period in 20th century European history that is just a bit eerie in its verisimilitude. I'm sure the True Believers out there would dismiss this out of hand, but it's hard to deny that much of what we've seen happen here since Preznit No Moral Compass came to power is looking awfully familiar...

"This weekend - February 27th - is the 72nd anniversary, but the corporate media most likely won't cover it. The generation that experienced this history firsthand is now largely dead, and only a few of us dare hear their ghosts.

"It started when the government, in the midst of an economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed...

"But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.

"He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

"His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones..."

There's more, plenty more, and you owe it to yourselves to read it and let others know about it. Because it can happen here -- it is happening here.