I'm very concerned about the country. Our country has problems. "The divisions we witnessed in 2000 and 2004 will become painfully evident in a deep US recession or depression" Part 1 is pro-liberal comments on Republican Fascism. Part 2 is a hypothetical post-election environment that I think every American should consider. I recommend reading part 2 first if you can't stomach my comparisons of Republican Neofascism to modern fascists in pre-War Germany and Italy.
Great...
So Obama wins, but the fire's not out. The divisions we've seen in the 2000 and 2004 elections will very likely become painfully evident in a severe recession or depression. This is when fascism grows best: look at Hitler's and Mussolini's rise to power. Their countries were suffering from economic depression and war reparations costs and severe social unrest...their countrymen were struggling to get by and, in not so eloquent words, were pissed...in Germany, their depression was far worse than it was in the U.S. Both Mussolini and Hitler capitalized on their country's social unrest and economic struggles. These struggles opened a wide avenue for facsist politics to grow into a national operational mode.
The scary truth: Our country has $54 trillion private debt and around $10 to as much as $20 trillion in public debt. This doesn't even account for social security, which is starting to be paid out this year to baby boomers. This amounts to Americans being in the hole around $115,000 per person. Our GDP is about $14 trillion per year. The only reason our GDP has grown the last 30 years is because we have gone further and further into debt. Our economy is based on debt. Debt has frozen with the collapse of our financial industry. As homes start foreclosing we will see more and more Americans on the streets, very likely reaching several to possibly tens of millions. Unemployment is already around 10-15% if you take into account the actual figure that describes underemployment and unemployment (not the diluted figure that the government prints out every month). Millions, possibly anywhere from 15-30 million Americans, could be on the streets without jobs in the next 1-5 years.
Now consider the vulnerability of the dollar. You may have noticed that the dollar gained strength this week despite a huge drop in the markets. This is called a dead cat bounce...don't ask me where it came from, but it has to do with throwing a dead cat down on the ground and seeing it bounce back up and then land back on the ground dead as a nail. The point is: our country is going deeper into debt with the bailout (there very well may be another one in a few months), more money is going to be printed (risking monetary inflation), and the dollar runs the risk of being dumped by countries and organizations around the world in the next 3-6 months. If the dollar gets dumped by OPEC and they take on the Euro as their currency of exchange, the dollar is going to take a HUGE hit. If countries, such as China, start dumping the dollar because they want to hold on to safer commodities, the dollar will take a HUGE hit. Sure, the FDIC now guarantees up to $250,000 and even your money market account, but if your dollar goes from being worth .75euro cents to less than .50E and possibly .25E, the proverbial shit is going to hit the fan.
Obviously, this is not a a friendly approach to understanding the state of our country, and it's by no means a complex, highly analytical, footnote-based, dissection of what's happening. However, the economic and financial turmoil that exists could very well lead to very divisive political unrest in the U.S. This is probably the biggest concern, other than probably your investments in the market. There is an adage that I learned from my history teacher and mentor at Wartburg College. It's to this effect, "give the hungry and the homeless guns and you have a revolution." My friends, this is not a simple time to be an American. This is a time of utter complexity. It is a time to dig deep and to try to understand. As our country slips into the vulnerability of economic distress, very much is at stake. Be wise, and be diligent in your attempt to understand, and read your f-ing newspapers, at minimum.
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Background on Goebbels and Propaganda, from http://www.psywarrior.com/...
JOSEPH GOEBBELS ON PROPAGANDA:
1897 -1945
German Nazi Party member Joseph Goebbels became Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister in 1933, which gave him power over all German radio, press, cinema, and theater.
In 1925 Goebbels met the party leader Adolf Hitler. In 1926 he was made Gauleiter, or party leader, for the region of Berlin, and in 1927 he founded and became editor of the official National Socialist periodical Der Angriff (The Attack). He was elected to the Reichstag, the German parliament, in 1928. By exploiting mob emotions and by employing all modern methods of propaganda Goebbels helped Hitler into power.
His work as a propagandist materially aided Hitler's rise to power in 1933. When Hitler seized power in 1933, Goebbels was appointed Reichsminister for propaganda and national enlightenment. From then until his death, Goebbels used all media of education and communications to further Nazi propagandistic aims, instilling in the Germans the concept of their leader as a veritable god and of their destiny as the rulers of the world. In 1938 he became a member of the Hitler cabinet council. Late in World War II, in 1944, Hitler placed him in charge of total mobilization.
As Reichsminister for Propaganda and National Enlightenment, Goebbels was given complete control over radio, press, cinema, and theater; later he also regimented all German culture. Goebbels placed his undeniable intelligence and his brilliant insight into mass psychology entirely at the service of his party. His most virulent propaganda was against the Jews. As a hypnotic orator he was second only to Hitler, and in his staging of mass meetings and parades he was unsurpassed. Utterly cynical, he seems to have believed only in the self-justification of power. He remained loyal to Hitler until the end. On May 1, 1945, as Soviet troops were storming Berlin, Goebbels committed suicide.
Listed below are the principles purported to summarize what made Goebbels tick or fail to tick. They may be thought of as his intellectual legacy. Whether the legacy has been reliably deduced is a methodological question. Whether it is valid is a psychological matter. Whether or when parts of it should be utilized in a democratic society are profound and disturbing problems of a political and ethical nature.
GOEBBELS' PRINCIPLES OF PROPAGANDA
Based upon Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, published in Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings edited for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.
- Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.
- Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.
a. It must issue all the propaganda directives.
b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.
c. It must oversee other agencies' activities which have propaganda consequences
- The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action.
- Propaganda must affect the enemy's policy and action.
a. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence
b. By openly disseminating propaganda whose content or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions
c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself
d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity
- Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign
- To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.
- Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.
- The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.
- Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.
- Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy's prestige or lends support to the propagandist's own objective.
- Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.
- Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.
- Propaganda must be carefully timed.
a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.
b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment
c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness
- Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.
a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses
b. They must be capable of being easily learned
c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations
d. They must be boomerang-proof
- Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.
- Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.
a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat
b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves
- Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.
a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated
b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective
- Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.
- Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.