History Unremembered

On February 27th, an anniversary passed which has gone, for the most part, unremembered and unremarked.

It started when the government, in the midst of an economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist. Some, like Sefton Delmer - a London Daily Express reporter on the scene - say they certainly did not, while others, like William Shirer, suggest they did.)

But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.

He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones. - Common Dreams

No, it isn't George W. Bush...But the pattern is disturbingly similar.

I once had a patient whose family was amongst the powerbrokers of pre-WW II Germany, his father had been slain in the "Night of the Long-Knives", Hitler's purging of his opposition. He saw it all, from the burning of the Reichstag, through Hitler's ascendancy to power, through the horrors of WW II, through internment as a German POW.

We didn't talk much prior to the Fall of the World Trade Center. Afterwards though, we began to talk. He spoke of how similar the political events following the Fall were to those which followed on the heels of the burning of the Reichstag. He spoke of how the media lapped up Goerring's propaganda in much the same way the US media now laps up, as if it were manna from heaven, every last gobbet of excrement the Bush administration spews forth. He spoke of how Bush's use of religious language and imagery was like that used by Hitler to justify his actions. "Gott mitt uns."...God is with us.

During that period of history America and Germany, both in dire economic straights, took different courses. Hitler rewared his wealthy supporters with more wealth...allied himself with industry to the detriment of the average person...busted unions...quashed dissent...engaged in ceasless and aggressive nationalistic rhetoric...built up the economy on a mountain of debt and unchecked spending on war.

The US followed a different course with minimum wage laws...aggressive enforcement of anti-trusr laws...increased taxes on corporations and the wealthy...created Social Security...and the WPA to employ hundreds of thousands of Americans to rebuild and renew America's infrastructure.

History gives us a perspective that they didn't have then. We have seen where each path takes us, and we are again at a crossroads. The choice is ours, which course shall we take?

Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. - George Santayana