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FTR #268 Americans Thought They Were Free

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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. 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. It did­n’t work out that way, as shown by a com­par­i­son of Mus­solin­i’s Italy to 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.)

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.)

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 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.

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, 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, 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.)

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.)

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, 12/4/2000; made avail­able 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; 12/7/2000; made avail­able 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; Asso­ci­at­ed Press; 12/7/2000.)

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.)

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.)

(Record­ed on 1/29/2001)

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