Ending The Gestapo Laws
Enforcement of the law in a nation under the rule of law is an arduous task. It requires public servants who exercise judgement, seek justice and always consider the context in which violations of the law occur. The front line of law enforcement is where this human, and humane, sensibility is most important. The prosecutors are the next level. The judges are the next level. The jury is the final arbiter. At each level, we expect wisdom to be exercised, not cunning.
With ten days left in the countdown, we turn to the Gestapo laws under which the enforcers are victimized as much as those upon whom they take enforcement actions. Although none of our candidates, except the fringe elements, have focused on these glaring holes in the fabric of our Government, We The People must. Our remaining, and future, liberties are at stake.
Point of no confidence: March 21, 2007
Point of no return: January 10, 2007 -- Bush announces the surge
This series explores the growing state of no confidence within this Government and what citizens should do when that point is reached by the Government. The first diary started on December 29, 2006, and the last one will be Spring Equinox. IMO, the Government will be in a crisis of no confidence by March 21. This diary is 10 days from the tipping point.
Teachers, social workers and police officers are the front line of the criminal justice system. Each of these groups are paid the least, work the most and receive the least real recognition in the System. That reality is upside down. Since Reagan cursed the nation with the quest for eternal and absolute political power, the most insidious effect has been to cut the pay and the latitude of these workers at the front line of social order. Instead, these are the people who should resolve most issues of misbehavior in our society as a team so fewer cases end up even entering the System.
When law enforcement becomes mechanized, it loses human meaning. When public servants are denigrated as being lazy and "unprofitable", the interests of the public are thrown aside and private entities corrupt and ruin the common weal of the People. When this sentiment is skillfully stirred up and manipulated by the wealthy and powerful for political gain, the People are discarded and the Constitution is ignored.
Such times as these have happened many times in history, and one of the most telling is the rise of the Gestapo in Germany. Our focus here is not to say the current Administration is the same as that of Hilter's Nazi party. Each time this urge emerges into history, the exact motivations and circumstances are never identical. But the urge comes from common desires by those bent on absolute power, and in that commonality is a warning for us all.
The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.
Mark Twain
(Quoted by Nonpartisan on ProgressiveHistorians.com)
The Iron Veil
An iron veil is descending over the executive branch.
Congressman Dan Burton (R) Indiana
Chairman of the Committee on Government Reform
2001
When Dan Burton made this statement, the Bush Administration was just starting to unveil their strategy to "protect America". The Congress was willing to give them wide latitude, trusting that common sense and professional judgement would be exercised witin the broad new powers being granted to the Government. We now know that trust was misplaced.
As long as the [Gestapo]... carries out the will of the leadership, it is acting legally.
Nazi jurist Dr. Werner Best
When the Gestapo consolidated their power in Germany in the 1930s, most of the people who worked in the local offices were clerks -- underpaid, overworked and without hope of advancement or recognition. They processed the paperwork in which citizens denounced each other, creating a faceless and soulless enforcement of laws which furthered the power of leaders -- and had no other purpose. The social order was forced to look orderly. The members of the society experienced constant fear -- of the Government and each other.
Well, when the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
Richard Nixon
David Frost Show
May 19, 1977
Mechanized justice is not justice at all. When laws are reduced to bumper stickers, injustice becomes easy and tempting for those shielded by secrecy laws and empowered by freedom from warrants or public justification of these actions. Human nature being what it is, this power must never be allowed, in any measure, in a free society.
The values Hitler succeeded in tapping, and that he articulated as no one else did in Europe, were values of sacrifice; of comradeship; the transcendence of class divisions; the achievement of a true (as opposed to a false) national community in which everyone would be equal in their sacrifice, and, if necessary, the sacrifice of their lives.
Hitler was able to exploit the same sort of anti-capitalist, anti-bourgeois attitude that the socialists and the communists tried... because he did not come from the higher reaches of society.
He was a little man himself, who had arisen from the masses. He was mass man incarnate, and he therefore was able to call for a mass state; a state in which individualism would no longer be possible, because everybody would need to dedicate themselves to the goals of the community rather than to their own selfish interests. So that here you have a man who was able to appeal to certain utopian feelings that had been developed in Europe before 1914, had been consolidated during the war, and the experience of the war, and he was able to tap into those feelings in a particularly effective way because he really believed in them.
Historian Robert Wohl
George Bush believed himself to be such a small man, and Karl Rove cast this image writ large. A "compassionate conservative" who believed in "small government" and who said he would represent the little guy in Washington, George Bush championed the "oppressed" religious right. The parallels with Hitler are not absolute, but enough exist to be telling. Self-conscious and not well-spoken, the junior George Bush was not the heir apparent to the legacy of his father. But by leveraging the perceived slights against the conservative Christians, he found a powerful engine of voluteerism and pent-up thrist for vengence on the rest of society.
When given the opportunity for a stereotype upon which to heap all the anger and resentment from a national insult, the temptation to take the opportunity by those who can is simply too great to resist. Humanists and liberals could be conflated with terrorists and drug dealers, and power beyond imagination to carry out the Neoconservative vision of Pax Americana was there for the taking. The War On Drugs laid the foundation, mythically and legally, for the War On Terrorism. For those who craved absolute power and a permanent majority rule, who could resist? One would be a fool (or a true patriot) to let the opportunity pass by. The altruism of true patriotism was just too abstract and wishy-washy for those bent on "educating" a nation and bringing its citizens to heel.
In keeping with the purpose and aim of the decree the additional measures ... will be directed against the Communists in the first instance, but then also against those who co-operate with the Communists and who support or encourage their criminal aims.... I would point out that any necessary measures against members or establishments of other than Communist, anarchist or Social Democratic parties can only be justified by the decree ... if they serve to help the defense against such Communist activities in the widest sense.
Herman Göring
The Reichstag Fire Decree article on Wikipedia
When Charles D. Stimson came out to intimidate lawyers defending Guantanamo detainees, and when attorneys for terrorism suspects are recorded in conversations with their clients and even imprisoned for conveying "messages" from them to the public, this Government skates as close to this line as they are presently allowed without crossing it. Those in power have no time, nor want to spend the money, to have such "quibbling" with their grand designs.
Those in power want to exercise that power, not have it dissipated and interpreted and "watered down" by "activist judges". When we hear these words, we know the seeds of tyranny have found fallow ground. "Zero tolerance" is a tyrant's doctrine, not the wisdom of an enlightened people. "Three strikes and you're out" is another. The citizens who support such ideas are sheep being led to the slaughter. The leaders who promote these ideas must be purged from the body politic of our republican democracy.
Destroying Law Enforcement With Police Entitlement
When police officials come to believe they are entitled to do "whatever it takes" to accomplish a goal they are told by political leaders to achieve, law enforcement is destroyed. Instead, police begin to believe they are above the law, and citizens are encouraged to worship the police (as the current network television glut of "crime dramas" seek to do) instead of expect them to act with restraint, humanity and professionalism. These mythologies damage the police officers themselves as much as they damage our liberties as citizens.
Instead of arming SWAT teams with surplus weapons, we need them to be able to work in a team effort to resolve conflicts among citizens peacefully and to refer citizens to other professionals who can help restore order -- something our prison systems cannot do under any circumstances. Prisons simply hide disorder, concentrate it and then dump it back on our streets like untreated sewage dumped into our rivers.
Police departments cannot get involved in the shadowy world of intelligence. The wall between intelligence and law enforcement is not only necessary, it is imperative. Law enforcement must be careful, meticulous and subject to judicial review and restraint. Intelligence is the art of rumor, gossip, dirty tricks and suspicion. It does not belong in our Government at all, but especially not in law enforcement.
Police officers who use weapons in carrying out their duties will be covered by me. Whoever misguidedly fails in this duty can expect disciplinary action.
Order of Hermann Göring to Prussian Police, February 1933.
The Riechstag Burns
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
Imagine yourself as a police officer who had learned to peacefully enforce the law with their fellow citizens suddenly confronted with orders like this. Do you quit? If you don't, how do you face your neighbors and friends after starting to follow it? Once you do follow it, how can you stop?
The Emergency Decree stated: "Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.
The Riechstag Burns
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
I have seen numerous interviews with gang members talking about the initiations gangs employ, one of which is to commit a murder. Once initiated in this way, the gang member is held by bonds stronger than chains. Fellow gang members know what you have done, and can rat you out. The more you do it, the more you may come to accept it as "reality". When those who enforce the laws of our nation are initiated by crossing the lines of human decency with respect to their fellow citizens, they are similarly set on a road to hell.
Every bullet which leaves the barrel of a police pistol now is my bullet. If one calls this murder, then I have murdered. I ordered this. I back it up. I assume the responsibility, and I am not afraid to do so.
Hermann Göring
The Riechstag Burns
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
After the fire, Göring raided the Communist party headquarters, ostensibly to obtain evidence, but:
Two days later, they raided Communist headquarters in Berlin. Göring falsely claimed he had uncovered plans for a Communist uprising in the raid. But he actually uncovered the membership list of the Communist party and intended to arrest every one of the four thousand members.
The Riechstag Burns
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
Law Engorgement
When the German parliment, called the Reichstag, saw the building in which they met burned, they reacted with fear. They wanted to punish the perpetrators. Vengence burned bright on the night those fires were ignited, and political opportunists were poised to strike. The opportunists swiftly moved in two steps:
- The Enabling Act
- The Reichstag Fire Decrees
When Gonzales invaded the Congressional offices of Representative William J. Jefferson, what other information could the FBI have obtained? If such violations of the separation of powers is now standard procedure, what could they discover in the future? When government agents set up shop at First Data's credit card center in Omaha, as discussed in Ron Suskind's The One Percent Doctrine, or at a telephone company's data center for call activity, what information can they obtain? If one citizen or group of citizens is deprived of their liberty for political reasons from any of these actions, the Constitution is violated.
This law would hand over the constitutional functions of the Reichstag to Hitler, including the power to make laws, control the budget and approve treaties with foreign governments.
Hitler Becomes Dictator
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
The leader of the Reigstag signed two of three decrees which followed:
Later that same day, Hindenburg signed two decrees put before him by Hitler. The first offered full pardons to all Nazis currently in prison. The prison doors sprang open and out came an assortment of Nazi thugs and murderers.
The second decree signed by the befuddled old man allowed for the arrest of anyone suspected of maliciously criticizing the government and the Nazi party.
A third decree signed only by Hitler and Papen allowed for the establishment of special courts to try political offenders. These courts were conducted in the military style of a court-martial without a jury and usually with no counsel for the defense.
Hitler Becomes Dictator
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
Since 9-11, the groundwork of the Federalist Elves was used to create the same conditions as Hitler and Goering sought in the one-two punch of these laws and decrees. The Patriot Act and the Presidential findings allowing illegal wiretapping gave the Bush Administration these same powers -- almost. Note how carefully the Bush Administration has skirted the directness of Hilter's actions. The burning of the German parliment building was used as a catalyst just as 9-11 has been used by the Bush Administration.
Unlike Germany, the Bush Administration has been careful to use private contractors with high clearances to do their dirty work -- and they cannot be tried, much less imprisoned. The Administration cannot outright arrest political opponents -- just have them watched for possible links to terrorists. They do have the power to use military tribunals to try citizens, but have so far stayed behind carefully-drawn lines.
But the Administration and its allies are close. They are obviously seeking the same power. They only have less than two years left to get there.
In Germany, there were now constant Nazi rallies, parades, marches and meetings amid the relentless propaganda of Goebbels and the omnipresent swastika. For those who remained there was an odd mixture of fear and optimism in the air.
Now, for the first time as dictator, Adolf Hitler turned his attention to the driving force which had propelled him into politics in the first place, his hatred of the Jews. It began with a simple boycott on April 1, 1933, and would end years later in the greatest tragedy in all of human history.
Hitler Becomes Dictator
The History Place - The Rise Of Adolf Hitler
The "odd mixture of fear and optimism" is the remnant of the Curse of Reagan in our time. His optimism is often cited, especially by those entranced by his power, but the fear behind it is the dynamo of how the power being obtained -- sucked from the soul of the People through the taking away of their liberty.
History Is Not Fate
As powerful as the parallels between the rise of the Nazi party, and the one leader who inherited it, may be, the parallels are never perfect. History does not repeat like a circle, it evolves like a spiral. There are always choices along the way and imperfections in all manifestations of power. Germany in the 1930s is not the same as America in the dawning of the 21st century. Our Constitution is not the same as that of the German republic. The similarities are striking, but the differences are telling.
The Bush Administration has not been able to grab power as directly as Hilter's party could. The People of the United States are not as desperate for vindication from Vietnam as Germany was from World War One. The economic web of globalization means our enemies need us to live as a consumer society and still look to us for technological leadership even as they try to emulate and surpass us. This difference comes from the gnosis of the People. What we know cannot be taken by force. What we can do if called upon is as unknowable to our adversaries as it is to ourselves.
The Patriot Act and its revisions have had to stop short of taking absolute power away from a full citizen of the nation, even though it now can treat foreign nationals within our borders as the Nazis could treat citizens who were not members of the Party. We still have two parties, and they are not in power one over the other. The nation is as evenly divided as a nation can be, with a large bloc of independents and an even larger bloc of nonvoters who still expect to be left to pursue their own happiness without government interference. The industrialists must play their cards between the parties carefully. There is much risk in that game for them, and that risk stays their hand even now.
The failure of the Curse of Reagan lies in this difference. Instead of a world war, We The People can choose instead to see the truth. The truth is that we cannot tolerate Gestapo laws any longer. These remnants of the 20th century have no place in the 21st. No nations which can be savaged and conquered in secret. Every war from now on will be played out somewhere in living color on hundreds of media channels, human being to human being. The global economy cannot tolerate total devastation of any nation. Citizens of all nations will eventually have access to all the information available to any other.
We are now the ones to break this spell and retire this curse. Even our enemies wish it to be done. "They" do not hate us for our liberty -- they crave their own liberty and are determined to conceive and live it for themselves without dictate from us.
We The People, in order to form a more perfect union, once again assert that the source of our liberties and our rights flow not from any human source and are not protected by any small cabal of human beings. Only something beyond us, call it Providence or call it by other names, can be the source of such things. If any human being could be its source, then it would vanish with their death. But We, the United States Of America, and hundreds of other republics and democracies around the world have already sustained that hope past the boundaries of death of any one generation, and that breaks the lie that any human beings can protect the rest of us.
The hardest thing to do is face up to the risk we must bear as free citizens. The hardest thing for our leaders to face is the fact they are not the source of anything -- they are simply entrusted with serving Us as We confer these rights and liberties upon each other. Hilter was addled with the delusion he could bring about something which would last thousands of years. Reagan was addled with the delusion that the Republican party could become permanent, and others like Karl Rove drank that poison whole.
It is left to us to finish the work we started by forcing Nixon to resign, and delayed while Reagan and the Bushes played at tyranny. But their tyranny has run its course and we have now grown tired of their leadership. We have finally come to the gnosis that we must lead, all together or not at all.
End The Gestapo Laws
The Gestapo laws must forever be banished for this century of progress to begin:
- The FISA court must go
- All warrants must be public and must be absolute
- The Government cannot conduct undercover operations or secret surveillence of any citizen, ever
- The RICO act must go
- Mandatory sentencing, the Patriot Act, the money laundering laws and the whole infrastructure of the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism must be repealed
- The DEA and the Department of Homeland Security must go
- The Fifth Command of the military and the Space Corps must go
- The TSA must go
Hundreds of billions of dollars would thus be freed up as our prisons empty out of political prisoners and citizens who should not be in prison. These dollars can go into education, social and medical serives and effective law enforcement. Real security issues such as funding first responders and fire fighters can be addressed. Our infrastructure, from roads to levees to distributed power grids no terrorist or enemy could take completely down, can be rebuilt.
Everything Congress has allowed Nixon, Reagan, and both Bush Administrations to enact must be ripped down and blocked by statute. The whole arc of this forty-year effort to undermine our rights and set the stage for the crisis in which we find ourselves now must be recognized and outlawed forever.
Prosecuters must be stripped of their power to force admissions of guilt and avoid jury trial. The number of cases even allowed to reach them must be cut to real offenses such as violence against persons or property. Judges must be freed to judge. Social workers must stop re-engineering families who do not need re-engineering, instead focusing on realistic case loads and rich resources to bring to bear on real conflicts among citizens. Teachers must have the resources to teach. Anyone who wants medical assistance, including mental health services, must be able to obtain it. These workers on the front line of our social safety net must be paid much more than they are now and be held to higher standards of privacy and confidentiality on all fronts.
The Federal Government only has three jobs according to the writers of The Federalist: to defend our territory against invasion and disaster on a scale greater than one State can handle; to keep trade free of piracy among lawful businesses obeying ratified treaties; and to make sure individual States do not impose tariffs on trade among themselves. The death penalty and any Federal control over the State militias must be cast aside. The Government cannot be allowed to execute any citizen for any reason.
The Federal Government can be a fair referee among competing interests and demand honesty in business dealings across State lines and national boundaries. It cannot participate in, or favor, any of those dealings itself. None of its essential duties can be turned over to private enterprises, and any work done by private enterprises for Us must be done in broad daylight, not in the shadows of secrecy and the cover of night.
By taking away all laws passed by Congress or imposed by Administrations which exceed these authorities, we remove forever the temptation to emulate the tyranny of Nazi Germany or any other forms this craving for power has taken on our planet since the beginning of human history. Wars can only be declared by Congress, and must be explicitly so declared and renewed every two years or the machinery of war must stand down. Therefore, the War Powers Resolution of 1971 must go as well. Only the force sufficient to protect free trade among nations and assure that our ratified treaties are respected can be maintained in the interim. The Peace Dividend must return as promised and be allowed to run its natural course without artificial wars.
"Soft" wars allowed by Congress in this act lead to Presidents claiming "special powers" in "time of war", which lead to Gestapo law opportunities. We cannot allow this fiction to be created again. In addition, every war must be explicitly approved by Congress every two years or it stops. Period.
Our dependence on petroleum must end. Most of our pseudowars now revolve around oil and oil-producing countries. Oil itself has become the cause of conflict, and our only way out is to end our dependence on it. This necessity is a sacrifice which will be painful, but will draw us together and become a source of pride for us all. It is not beyond our grasp or ability. Anyone who says they know we cannot do this is simply unwilling to pursue it. Some come by this doubt honestly, but they must be forced to throw aside the doubts and pitch in. Some come by this doubt dishonestly, and they must be forced out of business. No longer can our troops be asked to die for one barrel of oil. Pax Americana is a pipe dream which must be discarded and cast on the ash heap of history. We must stand down worldwide so the whole world can stand up, and learn the hard lessons in that standing as we have, and will, and must.
Freedom From False "Security"
The 20th century is over. As a nation, we have to get over it. Until We The People do, its legacy will blind us to the promise of the 21st century and the progress we can make freed of fear, of want, of intolerance and of tyranny. We have work to do, happiness to pursue and hope to bring to a weary world full of human avarice, natural change and the woes of injustice. A world which looked to us for leadership and progress into a bright future now fears how much we have lost our way. The Gestapo Laws reflect that loss of direction, of optimism, of hope. They weaken us and insult our friends. They denegrate the meaning of citizenship and the rights of human beings everywhere. Ending these laws will be hard work, but it will be honest work, and we will be and feel better for doing it.
No more secrets in the halls of government. No more military adventures to impose liberty as we conceive it on those whose cultures we do not understand. No more prohibitions of any behavior among consenting adults in the privacy of their own property. No more prohibitions of any substance a citizen can grow on their own and prepare for their personal use. No more crossing the lines of decency and tolerance among citizens. No more imposing morality on any group of citizens to protect the sensibilities of another group of citizens.
No more acting as if the world is going to end before our children realize their old age. No more gloating over the misfortunes of others. No more turning a blind eye to the deaths of innocients for which we are responsible and which we could have prevented by acting sensibly, responsibly and rationally.
We either live together or we don't. We either know everything the Government is doing in our name or we dissolve that Government by removing the sovereignty we alone can grant it. We either evolve as a society and adapt to the world as it is -- or we cower in fear one of the other and all of the universe as it is.
End the Gestapo laws. Now. Forever. Without quibbling. Our own liberty awaits us, as well as the liberty of peoples worldwide. As Jimi Hendrix said, "I'll catch you on the other side. Don't be late." Someday humankind will make it through this passage of doubt and mutual suspicion. By all rights, We The People -- the free citizens of the United States of America -- should lead the way through.
We have done it before. With minimum faith and risk shared equally among us, we can do it again. When we do, there will be no place for a Gestapo there. Might as well leave that baggage behind now and be done with it. It will feel good when we do. It will feel, and be, right.
And that is a feeling we haven't allowed each other to have for far too long.
See you again in five days as the countdown to no confidence continues.
The Series
Introduction to the series
T-80: Inflection Points & Catastrophes
Owning the key moments of our time
T-70: False Doctrines
Centralized Authority, Pre-emptive War
T-60: The Powell Doctrines
The Powell Memo, The Powell Doctrine, They3, People7, The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy (VRWC), Overton hypercubes
T-50: Clean Out The Barn
T-40: Knowing The Right Path
T-30: Standing Up
T-20: High Noon In America
Next: T-5: Liberty Without Borders
Please feel free to use this as a common thread. Pimp your own diaries, links and ideas without shame, because I want to hear from you. Promote the words of others that our fellow citizens need to hear when the point of no confidence is reached. Identify inflection points, realized and gathering, that you see. This power is the power of the Internet, of this online community and of the People. Use it now as more and more citizens need real ideas and real debate. Prepare yourselves for the moment for which many of us have worked decades: a chance to finish the work left undone after the resignation of Nixon.
Crossposted at Progressive Historians