This week, Professor Kevin Barrett at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has come under fire (again) from the national media for likening President Bush to Adolph Hitler. Howls of protests, calling Professor Barrett a lunatic, can be heard up and down the dial from Fox News' Bill O'Reilly to radio's Rush Limbaugh and all of the other "liberal" media.Since my heart leaps with joy and glee when neocons get worked up into a lather, I decided to look into this matter myself. There have been a lot of posts in comments on this blog on the similarities between Bush Co and the Nazi Regime. Several people who post here have vehemently refuted such a comparison, calling people who draw such a juxtaposition insane. Some politicos that I have talked to personally say that the current Necon leadership purposefully modeled their approach to seizing power based on Nazi Germany. The question is: how accurate is any of this?
Professor Barrett's main point is that 9-11 was an inside job similar to the burning of the Reichstag in 1933 in Germany. Without reading a single iota of Barrett's research, I went to Wikipedia and looked up what exactly happened at Reichstag. I urge you all to read the full article on Wikipedia. The link is here.
What I read there was appalling.
To sum up, The Reichstag Fire was essentially the beginning of Nazi Germany. On February 27, 1933 authorities were summoned to the Reichstag, Germany's parliament, which was on fire in several places. They found a shirtless man there named Marinus van der Lubbe, a known Communist. Blame was initially placed on him and 3 other Communists who were sent to trial for arson in early March of 1933.Coincidently, on March 5, 1933 general elections were to be held, at the request of Hitler, to determine whether or not the German constitution should be dissolved, more seats given to Nazis in the government, and Hitler's Enabling Act be passed. This act essentially allowed Hitler to act without the approval of Parliament. Up until this election, the Nazis only had 32 percent of the seats in the government. After the fire and running on a campaign of "see how evil communists can be," the Nazis won 44 percent of the vote. They then proceeded to buy off the other parties in government so they could have the two thirds vote they needed to pass the Enabling Act. And they did.
As the years have gone by, many historians have wondered how such a massive fire could have been started by one man. According to the article, "Considering the speed with which the fire engulfed the building, van der Lubbe's reputation as a mentally disturbed arsonist hungry for fame, and cryptic comments by leading Nazi officials, it is generally believed the Nazi hierarchy was involved in order to reap political gain-and it obviously did."
Does any of this sound familiar to any of you at all?
Look, I'm not saying that Barrett is 100 percent accurate. I still think Al Qaeda was behind the attacks. But he makes a compelling point about the parallels between the Reichstag Fire and 9-11. Think about how strikingingly similar the two incidents are....how each country reacted in the same way, giving unwavering support to the government out of fear....how questions remain about the 9-11 attacks and who knew what and when. Did they let it happen so we, as a nation, would fall in line? And how the elections played out, comparing 1933 to 2002 and 2004, as a result of these actions is quite simply eerie.
I know that some of you will say I am nuts, paranoid, and blah blah blah but I think a lot of these accusations are worthy, at least, of further investigation. They say that those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Currently, I have an extraordinary sense of deja vu.
1 comment:
Without question there is an interesting degree of comparison, and the point about being doomed to repeat history is well taken. No surprise here, but I ultimately reject the direct comparison between the two events. If in no other way I think the direct comparison stops with a statement such as "gave unwavering support to the government." The Patriot Act, as obvious a symbol of the supposed unwavering support as there is, not only had a sunset clause but also was as broad/complex as it was because of the litany of issues that affect society today that really weren't factors in the '30s. Ease of financial transactions, ease of communications, ease of travel, availability of dangerous information and materials, destructive power of an individual or small group....all issues that were quite different in 2001 than in the '30s. If this is evidence of some grandiose plot to take over the country, it seems both ham-handed in its approach and ill-conceived in its outcome.
In the right context I think Mr. Barrett and his ideas are perfectly valid. Examples:
** If he is speaking to the difficulties in knowing and appreciating exactly what happened without the detachment of historical perspective.
** If he is speaking to how other cultures view what it is that happened.
However, that's not the message he is delivering nor the context in which he's doing it, so I have no issue with him being vilified and with rejecting his theories as the ravings of somebody who must desperately want attention.
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