Last night I was reading Josh Marshall's 'Talking Points' and saw
this . I then went looking for the original Slate
article... It immediately brought back memories of a film class I had in college in the 70s where they showed Leni Riefenstahl's
Triumph of the Will... about the 1933 'Nuremberg Rally'... a powerful but contraversial film to this very day. Regardless of how you feel about Riefenstahl... this is a film you should
see.
Coincidentally at the same time I took the film class I was taking '20th century history' and was reading about the rise of the Reich... the two in combination were influential & sobering... the kind of experience one doesn't get in a typical Chemical Engineering curriculum... I must have been sick of thermodynamics and organic chemistry at the time.
Needless to say - when yesterday I read about the Florida Bush rallies and the oaths it sent shivers down my spine.
I don't know how many of you are familiar with 'Will' and the Nuremberg Rallies... there were many more than the one rally Riefenstahl filmed. If you are interested in more detail about German propaganda and the Reich in general - I encourage you to go
here...
If you do so and click around, you will find a link to the oath sworn by Nazi party loyalists to Hitler (initiated and led by Rudolf Hess) at the 1934 Nuremberg Rally... Some tidbtis from the oath:
German men, German women, German boys, German girls, over a million of you are gathered in many places in all of Germany!
On this the anniversary of the proclamation of the party's program, you will together swear an oath of loyalty and obedience to Adolf Hitler. You will display to the world what has long been obvious to you, and what you have expressed in past years, often unconsciously.
[...]
Political leaders! Leaders of the Labor Service, the forces of labor! Women's leaders, HJ leaders! Leaders of the BDM! You will now take an oath to Adolf Hitler!
Your oath is not a mere formality; you do not swear this oath to someone unknown to you. You do not swear in hope, but with certainty. Fate has made it easy for you to take this oath without condition or reservation. Never in history has a people taken an oath to a leader with such absolute confidence as the German people have in Adolf Hitler. You have the enormous joy of taking an oath to a man who is the embodiment of a leader. You take an oath to the fighter who demonstrated his leadership over a decade, who always acts correctly and who always chose the right way, even when at times the larger part of his movement failed to understand why,
You take an oath to a man whom you know follows the laws of providence, which he obeys independently of the influence of earthly powers, who leads the German people rightly, and who will guide Germany's fate. Through your oath you bind yourselves to a man who -- that is our faith -- was sent to us by higher powers. Do not seek Adolf Hitler with your mind. You will find him through he strength of your hearts!
Adolf Hitler is Germany and Germany is Adolf Hitler. He who takes an oath to Hitler takes an oath to Germany!
Now I will agree it is a long stretch to compare the above oath with the Florida GOP oath...
"I want you to stand, raise your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty. I care about my family. I care about my country. Because I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect George W. Bush as president of the United States."
But it is disturbing. It was also disturbing to my 82 year old father who remembers seeing cinema footage of the Nuremburg Rallies as a child of the dust bowl depression and later saw the 'end game' as a veteran of WWII.
I don't think we should make too much of these oaths... not yet. Just understand the historical precedents. It should be one more motivation to do a little extra this Tuesday.
Have a good weekend all.