Recently, there’s been a series of diaries detailing how the Bush administration is thumbing his nose at Democracy, both through his claims of executive privilege and through his executive order signings which set up a foundation for a quasi-dictatorship.
Link here for today’s excellent diary on the topic
Wait a second..... quasi-dictatorship? Through an obscure executive signing? How could this happen in a democracy?
Let’s look at this – because this has happened before. Let us let history be our guide.
In 1923 a young Austrian, who was a war veteran after serving the Kaiser in the War for his adopted fatherland, Germany, attempted to overthrow the government put in place following the Treaty of Versailles. This attempt failed miserably and landed this German in the cushiest of cushy imprisonments. While there, he wrote his memoirs, and continued galvanizing his ultra-right wing political party in opposition to the liberalism of what he perceived to be a communist threat to the fatherland.
Once released from prison, he continued his drive for political greatness, pushing members of his party into greater and greater positions of power. Of course, he had a whole team of propagandists behind him.
Eventually, Mr. Schicklgruber achieved office himself. In 1933, in a totally legal process, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
The dictator who we think of didn’t exist at this point. Germany was still a politically democratic state, with opposition parties, and dissent.
All that changed not even a month later on the night of February 27, 1933 when the Reichstag (the government building, like the Capitol Building) was set on fire. The ensuing trial of a poor Dutch drug addict named Marinus van der Lubbe was nothing more than pure theater. Van der Lubbe was "seen" in the area around the Reichstag and he was poor and he was a dreaded communist – so Chancellor Hitler had his scapegoat.... Van der Lubbe was ultimately beheaded.
Communists were clearly trying to attack the German way of life. Communists hated their freedom. Communists were attacking them. They were going to all die at the hands of some goddamned communists!!!!
Hitler’s response was swift – on February 28, 1933 he issued the Reichstag Fire Decree – suspending Habeas Corpus and outlawing the German Communist Party.
Outlawing Habeas Corpus... where have we heard that before?
Hitler had chipped away at the first of the freedoms he would take from the German people.
Following Van der Lubbe’s trial, Hitler convinced President von Hindenberg to push through the German Enabling Act, which allowed Hitler to defend the fatherland against the "Communist Threat" however he saw fit, without having to follow the democratic process
Again – through totally legal means, we now have a dictator
The enabling act had a deadline for expiration, in 1937. It was extended – twice – because at that point the legislative body in Germany was too chickenshit and scared to stand up to Hitler.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Three years ago, MoveOn ran their "Bush in 30 Seconds" campaign. Two ads were submitted which openly compared Bush to Hitler.
This is one of them
At the time, I was against the comparison. It’s not fair, and to a certain extent it’s still not fair to compare Bush to Hitler. Let’s not lose sign of the fact that Hitler slaughtered 12 million "undesirables". But the similarities to how Bush took office and how Hitler took office are disturbing.
It certainly does sound familiar
Especially when George issues his own enabling act.