With all this Palin nonsense permeating the board I thought I'd do something that would bring us together a little more.
A Disturbing Scenario
*The nation's leader knew that there were plans for a major act of terrorism against the country. Previous attempts had failed, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they'd succeed.
*Finally, in a a bold terrorist act, a major national symbol was destroyed, and the leader used the opportunity to declare "war on terrorism"...
*...and establish his legitimacy as a leader--even though he hadn't won a majority in the previous election.
*He referred to the heinous act as a "sign from God" and declared an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors: ...a people, who traced their origins to the Middle East and motivation for their "evil" deeds in their religion.
*Soon, the first prison was holding terrorist suspects.
*In a national outburst of patriotism, flags were displayed everywhere, even printed in newspapers.
*Within weeks of the terrorist attack--in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it--the nation's now-popular leader pushed through legislation that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus
*Police could now intercept mail...and wiretap phones. Suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without acces to their lawyers.
*Police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
*Within the first months after the terrorist attack, instead of referring to the nation by its usual name, he began to use the term "homeland."
*As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sown.
*Within a year of the terrorist attack, the leader's advisors determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necesary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the nation, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single powerful leader.
*And, perhaps the most important, he invited his supporters in industry into the halls of government to help build his new detention camps, his new military, and his new empire which, he said, would ultimately herald peace. Industry and government worked hand-in-glove, in a new type of pseudo-democracy sustained by war.
*The time is 1933. The leader is Adolf Hitler.
*The Reichstag--Germany's parliament building--was gutted by a fire started by a Dutch terrorist.
*Americans remember Hitler's Office of Reich Security (the Reichssicherheitshauptam t) simply by its most famous agency's (the Schutzstaffel) initials: the S.S.
*And you know the rest of the story.
(from 'We The People: A Call To Take Back America', by Thom Hartmann)
What a series of coincidences this is.
