What I believe confounds the issue is - the actual persons within the current US Administration and how they got there, the record of consolidating many government agencies under military control, the original Ari Fleisher remark which set the tone for supine media ever since:

Watch what you say.

These are steps actually outlined in 1935 in the Sinclair Lewis novel (!) It Can't Happen Here (and of course it is textbook, dystopian process seen in many other places). And while all are part and parcel of the paranoid style of Murican politics generally: the events we have seen are also entirely consistent with the prelude to the installation of a militarty dictatorship - anywhere.

We have succumbed to such phrases as.. "this War shall continue for a long time" plus the drumbeat of this already being? an Official unDeclared War -- with mere token public discussion - always under the rubric that, "to question the Government is implicitly treasonous". That such a counter-American idea can fly today: is a further reason to worry.

I see Schultz's intelligent summation as being sufficient to make the case - under other circumstances. The question shall apparently come down to whether the mistrust of this Admin's agenda, its competence and its honesty -- will outweigh his argument (??)

I also expect to see next: "evidence" to support the precipitate and largely sole-US action. For obvious reasons, the 'chain of evidence' (in forensic terms) shall not be disclosed == again leading to..

Whom Do You Trust? At all.


My take,

Ashton

Commander in Chief and his Veep.

Yet the arguments of Schulze - in a situation where the evidence seemed far less likely to have been manufactured - could persuade. That's all I give his argument, which I believe is nullified by the dishonesty and other attributes of this not-elected regime. IIRC a similar 'public rationale' was made preceding the attack on Pearl Harbor (not that the Japanese govt. then needed even the pretense of a plebiscite). We had cut off their access to oil, scrap metal from US etc. as a response to their local aggression.

Obviously the current US government would flee from any idea of a US plebiscite. As obviously: the US populace is already considered to be under ~~ wartime martial law - exactly to the extent that tomorrow's Admin. decision opts to escalate further curtailment of civil rights. Does anyone here doubt that possibility exists - Now? We've heard the unchanged rhetoric and seen the utter disdain, nonresponse to every yes..but reference to the Constitution, to date.

Since I am one of those who believe that we are living under a coup d'etat - of course my skepticism of the forthcoming dog & pony show of 'evidence' could hardly become larger.

I believe that a lot of people are about to be snuffed; each death amd maimimg shall create and multiply new dedicated hatred of the US and all it stands for: at first merely by the 2-20? family members and then exponentially / not geometrically. And the US populace shall become even more inured to its decline in all qualities we once associated with 'a civilization'.

We know this, as does anyone not on life-support as a vegetable. The scary thing is: probably deep-down Dubya doesn't know this nor does Cheney. Or worse; sorta 'know' but imagine it does not matter, because we can bomb Anyone back to the Stone Age, and Will.

Even the timing/ploy of presenting evidence - is like a M$ product announcement (just after a superior one is shipping elsewhere) ... it fills the space which might be taken up by citizens organizing demonstrations before their representatives. That took years to get rolling re the gradual escalation of Vietnam on through to insanity. There are not years available for meeting the present [most likely] deadlines.

I have little idea of how much longer the current US consumer will continue to graze, accept the escalation of unConstitutional directives - and 'buy more stuff to keep the Economy from total collapse' while putting more flags on the car antenna. But under martial law... can curfew be far behind?


Sieg Heil Y'all

In Politics forum, [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/content/show?contentid=50885| Silverlock]. posted a ref to a (apparently very well buried) attempted US coup d'etat - before the USSC one in 2000. This was planned as consequence of FDR's New Deal, in '34.

I found another ref. to a book printed in 1967! -- Are Muricans so disinterested (apart from my own ignorance of this rumored event) that.. no use has been made of the Freedom of Information Act: 68 years after the 'fact' and by now 35 years after the '67 book ?? Apparently - yup. I have to look further into this now, of course.

But the book I'm reading now, goes to your comments. From my post below S's linked one,

But Sinclair Lewis captured perfectly a sizable US group enamored of fascism, shiny boots and Efficient Authority, just like the Duke of Windsor and his Murican innamorata. Today such reactionaries seem to be calling selves some flavor of 'conservative': which was also the term used by the nascent Nazis - per a book I'm reading now, and which seems germane to this topic too:

The Revolution of Nihilism Warning to the West, by Hermann Rauschning. Publ in German (from Paris!) in May '39, just before Poland / WW-II opening. "Hermann Rauschning, the National Socialist President of the Danzig Senate in 1933-1934 who was ousted from the Hitler movement a short time later and then made a new life for himself as a professional anti-Nazi". I'll later do a review of this book, which I thought.. appeared even earlier (??) and obviously was not heeded by 'The West' or anyone else. A damning analysis of the Hows and Whys of Nazi accession.

There's some controversy about Rauschning, which I have to better sort out - he claims an intimacy with Hitler which appears dubious. But he *was* in Danzig, obviously became disaffected, and the controversy is hardly relevant to the analysis.

It's the clearest description I've seen, though he may overuse some academic words of 'political theory' - still he doesn't use them as blab-words. By dissecting the utterly 'content-free' "principles" of the Party and its elite.. I at last begin to grok the milieu, whereas before.. much was fuzzy about *HOW* the fat-cat industrialists ever *imagined* !! they'd take over after H. ascended.

Oddly too - I also heard today, thanks to Wade's posting of a link for an Oz interview [in Politics too?] with Hunter S. Thompson, via audio link.. his reminder of the precursor steps for the installation of a "temporary" military dictat, and how those steps so closely resemble the Ashcroftian processes since 9/11.

Back to your description: yes 'drumbeat' on all the Corp-controlled channels, and with some recent unheroic behaviour (re Palestinians vs Jews) at PBS, our public pseudo-BBC. It is indeed G\ufffdbbelsian propaganda, though not as clever nor [to suit our sensibilities] quiiite as strident. Yet. As Brandioch opines: look for a new revelation that Saddam abuses little girls. Then we will know the strike is imminent.

I'm barely old enough to recall live the anti-Jap caricatures, towards last of WW-II - and the slogans. This time the racism is muted but sub-rosa always there. And no, not in my lifetime did I expect to see Twice! as stark and unprincipled manipulation - right out of the textbook.

Practical difficulties though, for any nefarious schedules:

The world response - Germans didn't get to hear much of that.

Election coming in November - tip the House? retain Senate Dem majority? = depending on Dubya actions day by day, now.

Lastly and perhaps decisively - Dubya ain't no orator; he barely speaks the language. We all know what Hitler was; unequalled - maybe even by Marc Antony.

Anyway, we're both old enough to have heard certain facsimiles of this blatant manipulation via meeja - Live! and that makes the repetition even more horrific (and sadder - proves the assertion that homo-sap learns nothing from history).

I await the opposition here, to unbury itself from whatever consuming frolics are engaging most-all thus far. What Will It Take? is my question. I'm not optimistic.. feel rather that: 'events' shall likely curb any Dubya-Cheney Joint Dictat -- than imagine impeachment via an awakened and irate populace (!)

This entire week has been a circus of bathos, maudlin sentimentality re the 9/11 anniversary - orchestrated by daily sound bites from Dubya or Cheney. It's evident that this is aimed to submerge the Iraq venture opposition but enhance the appetite for Revenge: Anywhere. (I don't agree with Hunter Thompson's suggestion that 9/11 might be the time Dubya attacks! though it certainly ain't impossible)


Luck to us all,

Ashton