-Caveat Lector- From http://www.thetexasmercury.com/articles/weber/PW20020317.html
}}}>Begin America's Reichstag Fire Osama bin Laden as Useful Idiot Paul Weber In 1933, the German Weimar Republic was tottering on the edge of anarchy. The National Socialist German Worker’s Party had gained a plurality—but not a majority—in the German Reichstag. An election was due to be held, and no one knew whether or not the Nazis, under their shrieking leader, Adolph Hitler, would be able to gain a clear majority. In fact, if anything, the early indications were that the Nazis were losing ground. But a few days before the election, an event transpired that seemed tailor-made for Hitler’s sagging campaign: a fire broke out in the Reichstag Building. The event itself was small and insignificant; what ended up being significant, historically, was how the event was used to catapult the ambitious Nazis into a position of total power. The building itself was only partially damaged, but the Nazis immediately went into propaganda overdrive, blaming the fire on a vast conspiracy of communists and socialists bent on plunging Germany into anarchy and despair. A mentally retarded Dutchman named Marinus Van der Lubbe was arrested and confessed to setting the fire, adding that he had been directed to do so by the communists. The convenient arsonist was given a quick trial and sentenced to death. The rest is history: Hitler rose to power on the tide of panic created by the Reichstag fire, quickly enacted emergency security measures giving him dictatorial control over the entire country, and instituted his twelve-year reign of terror. It was assumed for a long time, among historians, that the Nazis themselves set the fire and took advantage of the half-witted Dutchman to promote their cause. Others who study the case think Van der Lubbe acted entirely on his own, perhaps motivated by nothing more than what usually motivates arsonists: the joy of watching something valuable go up in smoke. Van der Lubbe was, however (in Stalin’s memorable phrase), a convenient and useful idiot, someone who advanced a cause without having any idea what he was doing. Those who wish to gain complete, dictatorial power over a country need some sort of cause celebre to focus people on their cause. The importance of the event is emphatically not the actual harm done, but the efficacy of the symbolism: the sight of the Reichstag, the seat of government, in flames was enough to push the common German citizen just far enough to consider voting for the leader of a bunch of brown-shirted thugs. History is filled with convenient causes celebres, but Americans are in no position, by and large, to understand how these events are used to put the noose around their collective necks. Dumbed down by twelve-year sentences to enforced propaganda camps (sometimes called public schools), a shocking percentage of Americans have absolutely no knowledge of the most basic facts of history. Jay Leno often does an amusing segment of the Tonight Show, in which he asks college freshmen the most basic questions about history: "What countries were allied against us in WWII?", "What century the Civil War was fought in?", and so forth. Amazingly, many college students haven’t the slightest clue, yet somehow they managed to earn good grades in school and are selected to some of the country’s most elite institutions of "learning." I have no doubt that many of these dunderheads go on to study international relations and then get cushy jobs with the foreign service bureaucracy, where they help write policy that explains why the United States must station soldiers in one hundred different countries across the globe. Though these poor creatures are amazingly dull-witted about history, they do know how to sniff out an opportunity to grab some power and perks. I’m sure if you mentioned the Reichstag Fire to virtually anyone in the State Department, you would be greeted with a blank, bovine-like stare. Another now-forgotten cause celebre was the sinking of the battleship USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. The loss of the Maine was tragic, but was certainly not a crippling blow to American naval power. The sinking did serve, however, as a rallying point to get the American people behind the Spanish-American war. Newspapers, always eager for good copy, jumped enthusiastically on the war bandwagon as a way of increasing sales. Stories were cooked up of Spanish agents attaching underwater explosives to the hull of the Maine. Outraged, Americans demanded justice! In short order, we were kicking Spanish butt across the globe, from Cuba to the Philippines. The sheep-like American people rallied behind the president with the war cry of "Remember the Maine! To Hell with Spain!" Over the years, cooler heads have looked at the tragedy of the Maine and concluded that the sinking was most likely due to an accidental explosion of ammunition on board. To have propounded this theory at the time, however, would have been considered treasonous, in much the same manner that those who now question the War on Terror are openly called traitors. I never had much sympathy for Senator Tom Daschle, who is obviously a mewling liberal ready to reach into your wallet any chance he gets, but he certainly didn’t deserve to be called a traitor for his mild, timorous questioning of the course of the war. But you have to hand it to the politicians of 1898; they really knew how to make the public eat out of their hands. Before those wicked Spaniards knew what had happened, we had taken over the Philippines, as well as a lot of strategically-useful territory that would prove valuable in a whole series of twentieth-century wars. In the negotiations with Spain that ended the war, none of the newly-conquered territories had any say in their own fates. The Philippines, having fought for years to gain independence from Spain, suddenly found themselves a conquered territory of the United States. Now we come to the events of 9/11. A gang of fanatics, most of them from Saudi Arabia, hijacked some domestic flights and completed a suicide mission that resulted in the destruction of the World Trade Center, as well as significant damage to the Pentagon. About 3,000 people died in these attacks. Certainly, the attacks were an atrocity, but can we really say—as the propagandists have insisted since that day— that "freedom itself is under attack?" Are we to believe that the armies of Saudi Arabia and Iraq will soon be marching down Broadway? Atrocious as the attacks were, can we honestly say we are in danger of being subjugated by a foreign power? As is often the case, propaganda ministries often tell the truth, in an ironic sort of way. Freedom is definitely under attack—only the threat comes from this side of the Atlantic, with the command centers of anti- freedom forces working overtime from offices along the Potomac. The fanatics who commandeered those airplanes have indeed proved themselves to be the most useful of idiots for any politician in Washington looking for a quick and easy way to create a new fiefdom to rule. We now have the bizarre, Orwellian Office of Homeland Security, which has managed to panic Americans with vague, dark warnings of unspecified terrorist plans, though no further atrocities have happened in America since 9/11. The actions taken allegedly to prevent another hijacking—frisking little old ladies waiting to get on the plane—have nothing to do with increasing security, but everything with making Americans feel threatened and debased. The most effective means of preventing hijackings—arming the pilots—has been summarily rejected. On the other hand, post 9/11, it’s unlikely that terrorists will be able to complete a suicide mission on an airplane on such a huge scale, because any pilot in a hijacking situation today is going to depressurize the cabin, tilt the plane forty-five degrees, and toss the hijackers around the plane like to many loose melons. The main reason the 9/11 hijackings came off so well for the terrorists was that Americans have been trained for years to give criminals whatever they want, to give in to their demands, to wait for the police and professionals to handle the situation. If there is anything good to come out of 9/11, it’s the fact that fewer Americans will just lie down and take it next time someone attempts such an atrocity. The useful idiots who flew planes into buildings have plunged us into a situation in which the president could plausibly declare a state of emergency and suspend most of our freedoms. You think there is an inviolable right to freedom of speech or the press? Guess again; those rights were suspended in the Civil War, World War I, and World War II. The right to keep and bear arms? That one is practically gone already; one more American Reichstag fire should be enough to cancel the Second Amendment. After the Reichstag Fire, Hitler was able to invoke Article 40 of the Weimar Constitution, suspending rights to free speech and association, closing down the individual state governments, and establishing his own department of homeland security, the SS and SA. Ask yourself: Is there anything nowadays, given the general ignorance and disregard of the Constitution among both politicians and the dumbed-down populace, that the President could not do? Could he bomb Libya or Iraq or Iran without consulting Congress (much less getting a declaration of war from them)? Could he close down annoying newspapers and websites that "undercut the morale" of the war effort? Could he authorize conscription to ensure we have enough soldiers to enforce our wills on countries across the globe? Could he commandeer American industries in the "national interest" and force them to produce at a loss for the sake of the war effort? Osama bin Laden, assuming he is the mastermind behind 9/11, probably hoped to unite the Muslim world against the United States. Given the likelihood of American overreaction in places as far apart as Korea, Iraq, Libya, and China, he has a good chance of succeeding. In the wake of 9/ 11, the unthinkable is now on the table: observe how often radio talk show hosts speak openly of nuking this or that country. Observe how the Pentagon now considers conducting pre-emptive nuclear strikes against nations if they resist American hegemony, as was recently leaked to a reporter for the LA Times. Acts like the Reichstag Fire, the sinking of the Maine and 9/11 serve as excuses to cancel freedoms and widen political control for those in power. In this sense, the deranged operatives who masterminded the 9/11 attacks were most useful idiots indeed. Paul Weber’s novel, Transfiguration, is available at http://www.xlibris.com/ Transfiguration.html. 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