As head of state, Hitler now became Supreme Commander of the armed forces. Normally, soldiers and sailors swear loyalty to the holder of the office of supreme commander, not to a specific person, but the oath became one of personal loyalty to Hitler.
" It's probably unlikely that something like this could happen in the United States, yet in 1940, planning to one day seek a higher office, French Colonel Charles de Gaulle required those who joined him in London to coordinate resistance to the German occupation to sign an oath of loyalty to his person.
Though no well-meaning German wanted what happened to their country, in a dire economic situation, they embraced a leader who held up imaginary enemies and promised to restore their former glory.
" Today, in the United States, the Koch brother's position papers affirm that collective bargaining is not a right, since it does not appear in the Constitution; that children of immigrants born in this country have no claim to citizenship, violating the ancient Anglo-Saxon tradition of jus sol; that the soul of an eight-week old fetus has rights, but health care is a privilege; and finally, that China is a bona fide trading partner, while Cuba is an existential threat.
Glib talk of democracy and rule of law are echoed by promises to "take the country back' to the time of the founders via "second amendment remedies' administered by a population that doesn't know in what state the battle of Concord was fought. Birthers, Tea Partiers and right-wing libertarians take advantage of an educational system that produces ideological illiterates to accuse workers of being at once fascists, communists and socialists, while supporting salami tactics to impose really existing fascism.
The refusal of Wisconsin's workers to be stripped of their legal bargaining rights in 2011 could have marked the beginning of a second American Revolution, adding economic equality to political equality. But the Supreme Court's 2010 decision to allow unlimited corporate spending for elections enabled the governor to overcome their resistance with not even a pretense of legality: as the lone Democratic representative in the Wiscon-sin legislature demanded that the rules of procedure be followed, the Republicans drowned out his voice.
What, exactly, would prevent a similar episode from taking place in the United States House of Representatives? As legislative attempts to muzzle American workers continue, what will be the role of hundreds of militias playing war games in America's woods? Their stated enemy is an encroaching government, but will they fight it in the name of equity, or merely to defend their right to carry weapons, ultimately joining with the police and the army against those "too lazy to work'?
If we do not bear in mind Hitler's rise to power eighty years ago, the dramas of the twentieth century will pale in comparison to what awaits us. Unless national priorities can be reordered to meet the two major threats provoked by runaway capitalism's pursuit of inequality, wars and climate change, actions taken under the guise of saving us from sharia law, coupled with inaction to prevent a climate meltdown will lead to a point of no return.
As Middle East populations increasingly prefer to experiment with hybrid regimes that include Muslim parties but have more in common with the Radical Enlightenment than with runaway capita-lism, notwithstanding the biggest military the world has ever seen and the most sophisticated spying apparatus, the United States will continue unable to impose its will. And yet, if Americans continue to see these rebellions as merely part of the news cycle, the right-wing will gain total control of our lives.
When today's tumultuous events had their first beginnings with the attack on the Twin Towers, few Muslims heeded fundamentalist calls for jihad. But the new generation watching our films and hearing our invitations to "freedom' are becoming increasingly aware that their unelected leaders are our clients and poodles who resist calls for democratization to further our goals.
While in their secret forums such as the Bilderberg Conference, the world's 1% fine tune strategies to eventually escape a devastated planet, resistance grows among an increasingly redundant 99%, provoking the turn from runaway capitalism to fascism in order to prevent open revolt.
A growing phalanx of intellectuals tries to awaken Americans to what is happening. Foremost among them is Chris Hedges, who led an incon-clusive class action suit against the Obama Administration over the FISA Act that allows it to detain Americans indefinitely on charges of aiding the enemy, including journalists reporting on the enemy. A former seminarian, Hedges continues to hope that America can change. But the interna-tional grass roots are beginning to suspect that leaders are neither stupid nor incompetent, and hence that the possibility of electing better ones is an illusion. That realization is buttressed by the fact that the arrow of time is irreversible. Only an increased flow of energy into a system can provoke a change of direction.
An increased flow of energy into a political system can take the form of revolution or war. The Middle East and Africa are experiencing what I call the Reformation of Islam, bound to play out over decades, as did the Reformation of Christianity. However, it should not be permitted to obscure the continuation of a historical fight for equity. It is that fight - and not a Holy Crusade - that has provoked a resurgent fascism.
In Europe we are witnessing a grass roots fascism that is linked to the increasing presence of Muslims in a Christian continent proud of its tradi-tions. European intellectuals are not about to point out that the Old World is confronting an unstop-pable trend that the EU should deal with intelli-gently instead of pretending that the continent is not being transformed.
In the United States we are seeing a top-down fascism incarnated in the ever more intimate alliance between big business and government. And unlike what happened in Germany, where a lone megalomaniac was almost assassinated, to defeat the 1%'s aaggressions will require a global revolution.
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