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WELCOME TO THE 1930'S
by RITT GOLDSTEIN
Monday July 14, 2003 at 02:10 PM
Investigative journalist Ritt Goldstein's chilling commentary upon the growth of contemporary fascism.
Versions of this piece have been printed in Europe (ie, Memorie moleste degli anni Trenta, April 30, 2003 - http://www.cdbchieri.it/rassegna_stampa/iraq_goldstein.htm), but while the US maintream media has refused to print it, I felt it time to release this painful truth to America. This piece has never been printed in English.
RITT GOLDSTEIN
WELCOME TO THE 1930'S
By Ritt Goldstein
On the floor of the US Senate, the senior senator from West Virginia, Sen. Robert Byrd, charged that the American people �have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign state�, Iraq. He added, �like it always does, the truth will emerge�.
As regards that truth, �Iraq Bloodbath� had read a wartime headline of Scandanavia�s largest daily, Aftonbladet, corpses dotting a picture of what the Bush administration�s war machine manufactures. The article reported an American officer as saying that mounds of the dead were piled on sidewalks, a large proportion of the dead feared to be civilians. And amid numerous allegations of Administration fabrications, the much proclaimed weapons of mass destruction have yet to be found, most now believing they never existed. But Iraqi democracy has been put on hold, and a Defense Department report (Strategic Assessment 1999) has surfaced which starkly highlights Oil War as Pentagon policy. So as those who perceive themselves grossly wronged threaten to strike back at us, visions of another era�s Blitzkrieg, occupations, attempts to build Empire - is this what they are seeing.
Explaining the Iraq War, of course it is easy to understand that terrorism must be fought, the killing of innocent women and children stopped. But most experts agree that Iraq had no meaningful ties to al Qaeda, and what of dead Iraqi women and children. What of the price our Country's loyal troops have paid and are paying.
As early as 1996, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brezinski described a vision of American empire quite succinctly, discussing �the grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy�. But, only recently is the pressing question of American Empire under debate.
While the horror of the Iraqi conflict is disturbing, more disturbing is the issue of its being a symptom of an older, deadlier disease, a social-disorder which previously claimed the lives of tens of millions. And what if the return of this fatal societal contagion had gone largely unrecognized.
In 2001 Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi trumpeted the superiority of Western values. In retrospect, Berlusconi�s vision of the West �bound to occidentalize and conquer new people� does seem chillingly accurate regarding President Bush�s actions.
Of course, the 1930�s saw Italy attack Ethiopia, and today�s Bush administration has finished Afghanistan, is working on Iraq, and both Iran and Syria have been �warned�. If human nature doesn't essentially change, does history merely repeat.
As regards the nature of such questions, in 1941 the social psychologist Erich Fromm published his classic analysis of the impact of social and psychological forces on society, �Escape from Freedom�. In it Fromm describes how conditions, similar to today�s, meant that human relationships were �poisoned� by a �struggle for the maintenance of power and wealth�by a passionate egocentricity, an insatiable greed�. But of course one cannot just say the Enron, WorldCom, Xerox, Halliburton, and other numerous business scandals provide ample testimony to that. Nor can one merely refer to the seemingly all too valid complaints of mass-exploitation which the anti-globalization movement voices. However, Fromm charged that �individuals were looked upon as �objects� to be used and manipulated, or they were ruthlessly destroyed if it suited one�s own ends�. And such logic does provide good explanation for modern-day robber barons, mass-exploitation, media manipulation and War. And Senator Byrd did charge that the �events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated�.
Escape from Freedom depicts the rise of 1930's fascism. Over a year ago I published an editorial entitled "Deja Vu: The 1930's" - one version contained a WWII picture of the German Wehrmacht marching through a town.
But maybe this isn�t only about the limits of human greed and the capacity for ruthless ambition. Maybe this is also about faith, trust, and the so many good people among us who might have had those precious gifts harshly abused. Maybe, while bombarded by the endless circuses our society cranks out, a lot of good and decent people are just simply and cruelly seduced.
Fromm had observed how leaders have played upon their public, Hitler doing so with protestations that he sought only �peace and freedom�that his actions serve the best interests of civilization�. But hindsight is always easy, and in the 1930�s it must have been extremely difficult for most to appreciate the implications of what was occurring. As repression and world aggression grew, the public�s apprehension and misplaced trust meant that devastating issues were simply explained away.
Paralleling such concerns, several mainstream European articles have recently noted that Nazi Foreign-Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop was condemned by the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunals for conspiring in a War of Aggression. Also noted was that President Bush has committed actions strikingly similar to those for which Mr. von Ribbentrop was hanged. Strengthening the comparison, the US commander of the Iraq War, Gen. Tommy Franks, was charged by Belgium under Crimes Against Humanity statutes.
Perhaps envisioning such circumstances, Fromm had warned that �there is no greater mistake and no graver danger than not to see that in our own society [the US] we are faced with the same phenomenon that is fertile soil for the rise of Fascism anywhere�.
my nightmare, come true
by to resign, or go down fighting?
Tuesday July 15, 2003 at 11:23 PM
Since Vietnam, when I was a teenager, I haven't believed much of what my Government tells me.
Being traumatized along with my fellow citizens to witness airplanes deliberately being crashed into buildings, however, I gave bushcheneycompany the benefit of the doubt after September 11.
My first spoken question that horrific day was: Where is the president? [I know now that he sat reading about goats to 2nd graders in Florida (of all the 50 states, how odd it should in that one!) for the first half hour after the 2nd WTC crash, doing nothing official to address the attack on the nation in that time--not even consulting with advisors.]
Seventeen months later, in late February 2003, I tripped across a photograph of the burning Pentagon on September 11 while doing research online for a historical 'on-this-date' almanac I was publishing on a freelance basis for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
I will never, ever, be the same again.
What I saw--or more correctly, did NOT see--has changed me forever.
It suddenly dawned on me that I could see no wreckage of a commercial aircraft. Sickened, I searched for days and long nights for all photographs of the Pentagon taken on that awful day.
Fellow citizens, I believe now that we, en masse (you should pardon the French), have been tricked. Bamboozled. Duped. Hornswaggled. Fooled.
Fellow citizens, I believe that we have been taken over, by our own.
Please, read the mission statement of the Project for a New American Century. Please, note who the authors of this website are.
I am desperately trying to save my beloved country from the people currently in charge of it. But the deeper I dig, the worse it gets.
Perhaps, my country never really was mine in the way I thought it was.
Read the long, convoluted text of the 'patriot' act of October 26, 2001: Its draconian provisions apply to citizens as well as to non-citizens.
What is happening today with my beloved country, the United States of America, is my nightmare come true. We seem now to believe that the Earth ought to be the United States of the Planet.
I object, strenuously.
Suggested readings: "1984," "Animal Farm," "Lord of the Flies," and "Brave New World."
An Experiment
by Prodigal Yunzer
Friday July 18, 2003 at 10:31 AM
Take a cinder block (the Pentagon) and drop it square onto an empty Iron City aluminum can (airplane). Try it from arm's length, perhaps longer distances. Now imagine the can being half filled with kerosene and an ability to accelerate the collision to approaching 500 mph. Do you think you'd have a lot more, or less of the can to look at? You people watch too much television and movies. If the Army finds a functioning nuclear warhead in Iraq, you won't accept it unless they show it to you with dissonant orchestral background music, a countdown LED timer, and Kiefer Sutherland sweating over needlenosed pliers.
THE DIFFICULT TRUTH
by Not Stupid
Monday July 21, 2003 at 09:26 AM
In reading the previous comments two things struck me: that both individuals were deeply committed to their positions, that both appeared to negate what are established facts. But, the issue at hand is an emotional one, and Mr. Bush has indeed misled far too many of us for far too long.
As "Welcome to the 1930's" highlighted, "Fromm had observed how leaders have played upon their public, Hitler doing so with protestations that he sought only 'peace and freedom�that his actions serve the best interests of civilization'. But hindsight is always easy, and in the 1930�s it must have been extremely difficult for most to appreciate the implications of what was occurring. As repression and world aggression grew, the public�s apprehension and misplaced trust meant that devastating issues were simply explained away."
In another Goldstein article, "Defence redefined
means securing cheap energy" (26 December 2002 SMH -
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/12/25/1040511092926.html), he reports how leading elements of our military advocated Bush's lying to sell War to America.
As regards such lies and the issue raised regarding nuclear weapons and Saddam, while I won't point out that North Korea has nuclear weapons and presents more of a threat than Iraq ever did, I will point out that the Niger information allegedly from British Intelligence has been reported by the Associated Press as originating with an ITALIAN JOURNALIST, not the Brits or their Intelligence community.
That AP article follows, providing a sad indictment as to how far we have come down a road Fromm and Goldstein both warned of.
Italian Says She Gave U.S. Uranium Info
Associated Press (Los Angeles Times)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0720-08.htm
ROME - A journalist for an Italian news magazine has come forward, saying it was she who turned over to U.S. diplomats some documents purportedly showing that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger. The documents turned out to be forgeries.
In an interview published Saturday, Corriere della Sera, a leading Italian daily, quoted Elisabetta Burba as saying her source "in the past proved to be reliable." The journalist, who writes for the weekly Panorama, refused to reveal her source.
"I realized that this could be a worldwide scoop, but that's exactly why I was very worried," Burba was quoted as saying. "If it turned out to be a hoax, and I published it, I would have ended my career."
The documents, later declared by experts to be forgeries, served as part of the basis for President Bush's assertion in his State of Union address in January that Saddam Hussein was trying to get hold of material that could be used for nuclear weapons.
Bush attributed the information to the British government. Both the Bush administration and that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair have been under growing fire for using flawed intelligence to justify going to war against Iraq.
It has been previously reported that the U.S. Embassy in Rome received the documents from a journalist. The documents were shown to CIA personnel in Rome and sent to State Department headquarters in Washington.
Corriere della Sera quoted the journalist as saying she went to Niger to try to check out the authenticity of the documents. Burba told the paper she was suspicious because the documents spoke of such a large amount of uranium � 500 tons � and were short on details on how the uranium would be transported and arrangements for final delivery.
After her return from Africa, she said she told Panorama's top editor "the story seemed fake to me." After discussions at the magazine, one of the publications in Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi's media empire, Burba brought the documents to the U.S. Embassy.
"I went by myself and give them the dossier. No one said anything more to me and in any case the decision not to publish it was already taken � with no further way to check out the reliability of those papers, we chose not to risk. I informed my source that I wasn't going to write anything and for me that affair was forgotten," Burba was quoted as saying.
There was no answer at Burba's home Saturday. Offices of Panorama were closed for the weekend.
i killed my television in 1980
by words do not make appear an airplane
Monday July 21, 2003 at 10:10 PM
Please, fellow citizens, look at the pictures yourselves. See if you can see any wreckage of a Boeing 757 commercial aircraft. See if you can even see an airplane-shaped hole in the Pentagon's granite wall, which stood intact for 1/2 hour before collapsing into a tidy heap.
Here's a URL to start with: http://www.msnbc.com/news/720851.asp?cp1=1
Funny, I didn't think shadows had outlines.... And, not by the way, where is this aircraft the announcer speaks of?
For crying out loud, people ~ LOOK!
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