FTR-268
Americans Thought They Were Free (Two 30-minute segments.) (Sources are noted in
parentheses.)
This broadcast analyzes the 2000 “election” as a
right-wing/fascist coup. President Elect Bush has been said by associates to
view his governing style as that of “a sort of corporate board chairman who will set broad
goals and trust others to work out the details.” (“Bush Positions
Himself as Chairman of the Board” by Steven Thomma; San Jose Mercury News; 1/6/2001; p. 10A.)
1. Reprising information first
presented in Miscellaneous Archive Show
M-42, the program highlights the fundamentals of Mussolini’s fascist
state—characterized by Il Duce as “the corporate state.” “ON THE CORPORATE STATE: Resolution drafted by the Head of the Italian Government and read by
him on November 13th 1933, before the Assembly of the National
Council of Corporations, on the eve of his important speech. ‘The National
council of Corporations: ‘defines Corporations as the instrument which, under
the aegis of the State, carries out the complete organic and totalitarian
regulation of production with a view to the expansion of the wealth, political
power and well-being of the Italian people;.” (The Corporate State; by Benito Mussolini; Valecchi Publishing;
copyright 1938 [SC]; p. 7.) Mussolini believed that if a society were
structured to benefit corporations and organized along the lines of power
distribution within a corporation, the wealth would “trickle down” and everyone
would live happily ever after. (P.S.—It didn’t work out that way, as
illustrated in M-42, which compares
Mussolini’s Italy with the U.S. under Reagan and George Bush, the elder.)
2. “ ‘[The National Council of Corporations] declares that
the number of Corporations to be formed for the main branches of production
should, on principle, be adequate to meet the real needs of national economy;.”
(Idem.)
3. “[The National Council of Corporations] establishes that the
general staff of each Corporation shall include representatives of State
administration, of the Fascist Party, of capital, of labor and of experts.” (Ibid.; pp. 7-8.)
4. “
‘[The National Council of Corporations] assigns to the Corporations as their
specific tasks: conciliation, consultation (compulsory on problems of major
importance) and the promulgation, through the National Council of Corporations,
of laws regulating the economic activities of the country;.” (Ibid.;
p. 8.)
5. “[The National Council of Corporations] leaves to the Grand
Council of Fascism the decision on the further developments, of a
constitutional and political order, which should result from the effective
formation and practical working of the Corporations.” (Idem.)
6. Further developing the theme
of the 2000 “election” as a coup from the right, the broadcast presents an
article from the The Observer (of
London) which discusses the fact that Al Gore was 140 votes ahead in Florida
when the unofficial recount was suspended for Christmas. (“Right-Wing Coup that
Shames America” by Will Hutton; The
Observer; 12/24/2000; accessed from the web-site of The Guardian at www.guardianunlimited.co.uk
(the two papers are jointly owned.)
7. In addition, this eloquently
worded story details the tortured and conflicted legal reasoning used by the
U.S. Supreme Court to justify their decision and the resultant coup. (Idem.)
8. Significantly, the results
of the unofficial recount are not being reported in the mainstream American
media. The program also sets forth projections by The Miami Herald that Gore is projected as (unofficially) winning
Florida by 23,000 votes. (“Now It’s Unofficial—Al Gore Did Win in Florida” by
Ed Vulliamy; The Guardian;
12/24/2000; accessed at www.guardianunlimited.co.uk.)
FTR#265 highlights conflicts of interest
on behalf of Justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.
9. This program highlights the fact that Justice Sandra Day O’Connor
was upset at the prospect that Gore might win the election, because she and her
husband planned to retire to Florida in the next four years and she didn’t want
a Democrat to name her successor. (Excerpt accessed from the Yahoo Daily News
at http://dailynews.yahoo.com.;
12/17/2000.) Much of the broadcast sets forth information about the role in the
2000 electoral coup played by the CIA-linked, anti-Castro Cuban milieu in
Florida. (This information supplements discussion presented in FTR-259.)
10.
The angry crowd that menaced (and consequently affected) the Miami-Dade
election officials was summoned by Radio Mambi, closely connected to the
Anti-Castro Cuban community in Miami. (“Miami’s Cuban Americans May Get the
Last Word” by Peter Dale Scott; Pacific News Service web site; http://pacificnews.org; 12/4/2000.)
11.
The political milieu that generated the furor over Elian Gonzalez is
identical to that involved with intimidating the Miami election officials, and
has historical links to the Bush faction of the CIA. (Idem.)
12.
Highlighting these connections in more detail, the broadcast sets forth
the role of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and its founder Jorge
Mas Canosa in setting up Radio Mambi. (“Miami-Dade Reversal—A Cuban terrorist
Payback to Bush Family?’ by Peter Dale Scott; Pacific News Service web site; http://pacificnews.org; 12/7/2000.)
13.
The program sets forth
informed speculation that the CIA (under William Casey) precipitated the
founding of CANF in 1981. (Idem.)
14.
Two of Mas Canosa’s proteges
in CANF were the brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo, both implicated in the
assassination of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier. (Idem.) (For more
on the connections between the milieu of the Letelier assassination and the
Florida electoral shenanigans, see the aforementioned FTR-259. For more on the Republican mob in Miami, see also FTR-265.)
15.
The elder George Bush was
closely connected to this milieu, and deflected inquiries into the Letelier
assassination that led in the direction of the CIA supported coup in Chile.
(Idem.)
16.
The broadcast also details the
connections of this milieu to Cuban-Americans involved in the Contra support
effort in the 1980’s. (Idem.) This, too, was detailed in FTR-259.)
17.
Next, the discussion
illuminates the role of a Cuban-American splinter group (Vigilia Mambisa) in
the agitation that forced the halting of the recount. (Unpublished update by
Professor Scott to “Miami’s Cuban Americans May Get the Last Word” by Peter
Dale Scott; Pacific News Service web site; http://pacificnews.org;
12/4/2000; made available to Mr. Emory by a kind listener.)
18.
The program also sets forth
links between Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the CANF milieu, the Contra support
effort, and the failure of the Broward Federal Savings & Loan Association.
(Unpublished update by Professor Scott to “Miami-Dade Reversal—A Cuban
terrorist Payback to Bush Family?” by Peter Dale Scott; Pacific News Service
web site; http://pacificnews.org;
12/7/2000; made available to Mr. Emory by a kind listener.)
19.
An “ex” CIA officer (Charles
Kane) allegedly participated in a scheme to deliver some of the fraudulent
absentee ballots that helped tip Florida to Bush. (“Absentee Ballot Fraud in 5
Florida Counties” by David E. Scheim; Associate Press; 12/7/2000; at http://www.campaignwatch.org.) In FTR-259, the deliberate and fraudulent
exclusion of African American voters in Florida was discussed. Many of them
were labeled as “felons” and consequently prevented from voting.
20.
One certified felon who had
his voting rights restored by Jeb Bush in time to vote was Nixon’s ruthless
aide Charles Colson. (St. Petersburg
Times; 10/10/2000.) (For more on Colson, see also: G-3, Miscellaneous Archive
Show M-3 and FTR-253.)
21.
The program concludes with an
account of a German university professor’s account of what it was like to live
during the rise of Hitler. Note the similarity to aspects of the contemporary
political landscape. Consider George W. Bush (whom Mr. Emory
views as a point element and front for the Underground Reich) and Hitler. “What happened
here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being
governed by surprise, to receiving decisions deliberated in secret, to believing
that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on
information which the people could not understand because of nationality
security, so dangerous that even if the people the people could understand it,
it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with
Hitler, their trust in him may have incidentally have reassured those who would
otherwise have worried about it. Their trust in him made it easier to reassure
others who might have worried about it.
‘’This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap,
took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not
even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true
patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real crises and reforms too) so
occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the
whole process of the Government growing remoter and remoter .” (TheyThought they Were Free: The Germans 1933-1945; by
Milton Mayer; copyright 1955 [SC]; University of Chicago Press; ISBN
0-226-51190-1; pp. 166-167.)
22.
“ ‘The dictatorship, and the whole process
of its coming into being, was, above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for
people who did not want to think anyway.
I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my
colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you.
Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never
had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental
things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous
changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of
the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about
these things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?” (Ibid.; pp. 167-168.)
23.
“ ‘To live in this process is absolutely not
to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater
degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to
develop. Each step was so small, so
inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless
one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one
understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little
measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no
more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn
growing. One day it is over his
head.’” (Ibid.; p. 168.)
24.
“ ‘How is this to be avoided, among ordinary
men, even highly educated extraordinary men? Frankly, I
do not know. I do not see, even
now. Many, many times since it all
happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the
beginnings’ and ‘Consider the
end.’ But one must foresee the end in
order to resist, or even see, the beginnings.
One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be
done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have changed here before they went as far as they
did; they didn’t, but they might
have. And everyone counts on that might.’” (Idem.)
25.
“ ‘Your Little Men, your Nazi friends, were
not against National Socialism in principle.
Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew
better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor
Niemoller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke
too modestly of himself) and said that when the Nazis attacked the communists
he was a little uneasy but, after all he was not a communist, and so he did
nothing and then the schools, the press, the Jews , and so on, and he was
always uneasier but still he did nothing.
And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something, but then it was too late. “Yes I
said” (Ibid.; pp.168-169.)
26.
“You see,” my colleague went on, “one
doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me this is true. Each act, each shocking occasion, is worse
than the last, but only a little worse.
You wait for the next and the next. You wait for that one great shocking
occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in
resisting somehow. You don’t want to
act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make
trouble.’ Why not?--Well, you are not
in the habit of doing it. And it is not
just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine
uncertainty.” (Ibid.;
p. 169.)
27.
“Uncertainty is a very important factor,
and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is
happy one hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the
government painted on walls and fences in Germany, outside the great cities
perhaps, there is not even this. In the
university community, in you own community, you speak privately to your
colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They
say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or you’re an alarmist.” (Idem.)
28.
“And
you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this,
and you can’t prove it. These are the
beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end and how
do you know or even surmise the end? On
the one hand your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you
as pessimistic or even neurotic. You
are left with your close friends, who are, naturally people who have always
thought as you have.” (Ibid.;
p. 169-170.)
29.
“But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged
themselves in their work. You no longer
see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little
organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest
friends you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from
the reality of things. This weakens
your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to
what? It is clearer all the time that,
if you are dong to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then
you are obviously a troublemaker. So you
wait, and you wait.” “But the one great
shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you never
comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had
come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would
have been sufficiently shocked if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in’43
had come immediately after the ‘German firm’ stickers on the windows of
non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course
this isn’t the way it happens. In
between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each
of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and if you did not make
a stand at Step B, why should you at step C.
And so on to D.” (Ibid.;
p.170-171.)
30.
“And
one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them all rush
in upon you the burden of self deception has grown too heavy, and some minor
incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying “Jew swine’
collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed
and changed completely under your nose.
The world you live in—your nation hour people –is not the world you were
born in at all. The forms are all
there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the
mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed,
because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is
changed. Now you live in a world of
hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves;
when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility, even
to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in
order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.” (Ibid.;
p.171.)
31.
“You have gone almost all the way
yourself. Life is a continuing process,
a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any
effort on your part. On this new level
you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new
principles. You have accepted things
that your father, even in Germany, could have imagined. (Idem.)
32.
“Suddenly
it all comes down, all at once. You see
what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done
(for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing).” (Ibid.; pp. 171-172) This
account is presented so that listeners may compare their own subjective
reactions to the 2000 “electoral coup” with the professor’s reaction to the
rise of Hitler. (See also: G1-4, RFA #s
29-35, 37, 38 as well as FTR #’s
244, 248, 249, 254, 255, 256, 259, 265.) (Recorded on 1/7/2001.)