From: Mitchel Cohen [mailto:mitchelco...@mindspring.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 7:13 PM
I send this every five years or so, just in case we forget the truthful
history and so make inaccurate strategies based on it, as Wilkerson did,
below.
Setting the Record Straight:
Hitler was NEVER elected
by Mitchel Cohen
On Nov. 22, 2005 -- the 42nd anniversary of the murder of U.S. President
John F. Kennedy -- Amy Goodman interviewed Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who
was U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff from 2002-2005, on
Democracy Now! The topic was Vice President Cheney's attack on on critics of
the Iraq war and his denial that the Bush administration manipulated prewar
intelligence to build support for the invasion.
"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States,
Richard Cheney, and the secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical
issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being
made" Wilkerson had previously said. On Democracy Now! he developed his
blistering critique of the Cheney-Rumsfeld axis and the "Palace Politics"
within the Bush administration. But with the exception of the war against
Iraq, he defended U.S. foreign policy, especially that advocated by Colin
Powell.
At one point, Amy Goodman questioned Col. Wilkerson on the U.S. government's
removal of Pres. Aristide in Haiti, pointing out that Aristide had received
the overwhelming majority of votes in Haiti's presidential elections,
"certainly ... a higher percentage of the vote than President Bush got in
this country." Wilkerson responded by rationalizing the U.S. government's
role in removing the elected president of Haiti, claiming that "it prevented
further bloodshed."
"Please, don't refer to the percentage of vote as equatable to democracy, as
equatable to the kinds of institutions we have reflecting democracy in
America. Hitler was elected by popular vote," Wilkerson said.
Part of Wilkerson's point was a good one: Democracy is not simply the vote
on election day but it is embedded in the institutions of society. However,
instead of taking that to its logical conclusion he then resorted to a
standard script, buttressing the U.S. government's claimed right to remove
foreign leaders (even as he critiqued the Cheney cabal): It doesn't matter
that they were elected; if the election results run contrary to the U.S.
government's or corporations' interests, remove them!
Here, however, Amy Goodman missed a key historical beat in an otherwise
revealing interview. As this same error repeats itself regularly when people
in positions of power argue for curtailment of the democratic rights of the
citizenry because the citizens are too stupid, or poor, or uneducated to
know what's best for themselves, it is important to set the record straight.
*********************************
The fact is, Hitler was NOT elected. He was appointed Chancellor of Germany
by German President Paul von Hindenburg. And this is a distinction with a
very profound difference, at least insofar as it comes to understanding
Democracy historically and in formulating strategy for defeating the
fascists who have seized power in the U.S. today.
The politician that the German voters actually elected was NOT Hitler but
"lesser evil" monarchist Hindenburg. In the initial 1932 presidential
elections Hindenburg, who did not even campaign, defeated Hitler by 49-30
percent, a substantial margin. (The Communist candidate received 13 percent
of that vote.) In the runoff, the 85-year-old Hindenburg increased his total
vote to 53 percent while the Nazis received 36 percent, with 10 percent
going to the Communists.
Given their electoral failure, the Nazis resorted to other means to come to
power. Under the so-called socialists running the government of the pre-Nazi
Weimar Republic, the vast majority of violence and killing was perpetrated
by the Nazi's and the right. The government either refused to prosecute or
investigate or else meted out the tiniest sentences or fines. The Nazis took
advantage of the economic misery of the country and used systematic violence
to create conditions inside Germany that were utterly intolerable, utilizing
the economic depression and global capitalist crisis to destabilize the
society, scapegoat the Jews, attack Communists, and pressure for Hitler to
be appointed as the law and order expert.
The Nazis did elect local politicians to the Reichstag (although never a
majority, not even at the height of their power), and under the leadership
of Hermann Goring they regularly disrupted proceedings with thuggish
behavior, consciously attempting to undermine democracy in Germany. 400,000
stormtroopers under the leadership of SA Chief Ernst Rohm began the
systematic policy of terror against the Communists and Jews. ("The people
want wholesome dread. They want to fear something. They want someone to
frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive." - Ernst Rohm, later to
be betrayed and murdered on Hitler's orders during the Night of the Long
Knives, 1934.)
Again, contrary to Wilkerson's (and others') claims, the Nazi Party never
received a majority in parliamentary elections. The closest they came before
the seizure of power was in May of 1932, when they received 37 percent of
the total votes, which translated into 230 seats in the Reichstag. Although
this was certainly a sizable minority, it was the fact that it was an
ORGANIZED, VIOLENT minority financed and encouraged by German and American
capitalists that made all the difference.
But the Nazi movement began to decline, as Germany slowly awakened. The
majority of people never voted for Hitler. And in the elections of November
1932, the Nazis lost two million votes and thirty four seats in the
Reichstag. In addition, the Nazi Party was in financial disarray.
But German capitalists, including Krupp and I.G. Farben (with support from a
powerful sector of U.S. capital headed by DuPonts, Ford, etc.) feared the
economic crisis and slow-moving but rising working class, and they pressured
Hindenburg. So, despite his intense dislike and prior rejections of Hitler
and his movement, and under pressure from a number of key German bankers and
industrialists -- and with an enormous and exhausting amount of
behind-the-scenes intrigue by German politicians jockeying for power
befitting a Shakespearean tragedy -- Hindenburg took a number of fateful
steps that led to the Nazi takeover, even as the Nazi movement had begun to
decline, and which resonates in the U.S. today.
As correspondent Jeff Melton notes, Hindenburg took the following steps,
that enabled the Nazis to come to power. He:
1) appointed Hitler chancellor on January 30, 1933;
2) through his henchman, Franz von Papen, he dissolved the Reichstag
(parliament);
3) rescinded the government's ban on Nazi goon squads;
4) banned the Communist Party and its press; and
5) suspended Constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression, press,
assembly, and association.
Thus the German "lesser evil," with the backing of German capitalists, aided
and abetted Hitler's seizure of power. The German financiers and industrial
capitalists funded the Nazi Party's electoral campaign in March of 1933 to
the tune of over 3 million German deutschmarks.
The Nazis campaigned furiously to try to win their first majority and
legally give Hitler absolute control. A week before the elections, on
February 27, 1933, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag. Hitler blamed it on
the Communists in much the same way that Bush et al. blamed 9/11 on secret
cells of Moslem extremists armed only with plastic knives, and hundreds were
rounded up, many of them murdered. Despite all the orchestrated chaos and
media manipulation, however, the majority of people refused to vote for the
Nazis and denied Hitler his majority in the Reichstag. The Nazis ended up
with 44 per cent of the total vote, 17,277,180. Despite massive propaganda
and the brutal crackdown, the other parties held their own. The Center Party
got over four million and the Social Democrats over seven million. The
Communists lost votes but still got over four million votes.
Hitler and the Nazis had been able to succeed in seizing state power after
failing to win an electoral mandate NOT because they had majority popular
support, but because they were armed, disciplined, and violent and had
developed a mass right-wing movement that successfully intimidated the
liberal sectors of German society. They were able to succeed in taking state
power because German anti-fascists were not themselves sufficiently armed,
organized or united, nor did the leading formations, such as the Communist
Party, understand the true dangers of the Nazis until it was too late. As
Hitler himself put it: "Only one thing could have stopped our movement -- if
our adversaries had understood its principle and, from the very first day,
had smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement."
[See Wilhelm Reich's "What Is Class Consciousness?" and "The Mass Psychology
of Fascism" for great insight into the ways the Communist Party leadership
in Germany undermined itself and mimicked the authoritarian framework of the
Nazi's, thus offering no effective alternative in the months under review.]
It is interesting that Col. Wilkerson and other imperialists -- whatever
their value now in helping to rein in the excesses of the brutality of the
Bush regime -- often rationalize their own position by turning to this
shibboleth, that Hitler was elected by the people of Germany and that that
justifies their own sabotaging or overturning of the results of popular
elections when it serves their purpose.
----------------------------------
A more detailed and popular description of the German events -- although
weakened by ignoring the critical role of the Communists and on-the-ground
resistance movements -- can be found on-line at
<http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/dictator.htm>
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/dictator.htm
For Amy Goodman's interview with Wilkerson, see
<http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/22/1515236http://www.Mitch
elCohen.com > http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/22/1515236
http://www.MitchelCohen.com
Ring the bells that still can ring, Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack, a crack in everything, That's how the light gets in.
~ Leonard Cohen
* * *
<http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/27-9>
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/12/27-9
2011s Big Wins Brought to You by Women
by Yifat <http://www.commondreams.org/yifat-susskind> Susskind
<http://www.commondreams.org/> CommonDreams.org: December 27, 2011
2011 was a year of transformations.
<http://www.commondreams.org/sites/commondreams.org/files/imce-images/arab-s
pring-women.jpg> In this Friday, April 1, 2011 photo, Egyptian women chant
slogans as they attend a demonstration in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. As
demonstrations first swelled in Yemen, the regime distributed a photo of
female activist Tawakkul Kamran in a protest with a male colleague --
cutting out others around them -- to taint her for sinfully sitting alone
with a man. Kamran's Nobel peace win draws attention to the role of women in
the Arab Spring uprisings.It began with thousands of people in the Middle
East rising up to demand an end to repressive government and a say in their
futures.
That spirit of transformation continued throughout the year. The world
welcomed the new country of South Sudan, the culmination of a years-long
peace process. A global network of activists sprang into action to thwart a
policy that threatened Afghan women. The United Nations launched a new
agency dedicated to guaranteeing womens human rights worldwide.
What do all these things have in common? These successes, and others, were
made possible by womenin their local communities and in global centers of
powerwho came together to demand change.
Women Grow the Seeds of the Arab Spring
The protests of the Arab Spring took the world by storm. They upended
regimes that had reigned for decades, and women were at the center of it
all.
Western stereotypes of Arab women portray them as one dimensional victims of
oppression. But it was women, often young women, who sounded the call that
brought people to the streets. In Egypt, Asmaa Mahfouz posted a video
calling on people to demonstrate on January 25and it went viral. It started
a wave that could not be stopped. And that wave continued, day after day,
spreading through the region, because women kept its momentum going.
Women know that their work is not over when an old regime crumbles. In
Egypt, women have again taken to the streets to demand an end to the ongoing
military rule. They have been beaten and assaulted, stripped and harassed.
But theyre not stepping down. Our work ahead is to stand by the brave women
who helped topple dictatorships and help them protect the gains theyve
made.
Working for the Peaceful Creation of South Sudan
A generation of Sudanese people grew up in war. Women bore the brunt,
struggling to sustain their families through violence. But through it all,
they organized to demand peace.
The years-long peace process peaked with the creation of the worlds newest
nation in JulySouth Sudan. With communities still recovering from decades
of conflict, many worried that the split would trigger a slide back into
war.
But womens organizations refused to let that happen. Leaders like Fatima
Ahmed, founder of the human rights organization Zenab for Women in
Development, educated voters, trained women as election monitors and spoke
out for peace.
People are still at risk, and continued violent attacks have wracked
communities. But peace is more than just a one-time winit must be nurtured
and lived. So the Sudanese womens movement continues to work for peace and
for protection of womens human rightson both sides of the new border. Now,
Fatima is hard at work advocating for womens human rights in the review of
the Sudanese constitution.
Protecting Womens Shelters in Afghanistan
Naseema knew that her abusive husband was going to kill her if she didnt
escape. Thanks to an activist-run network of womens shelters, she and her
children were able to flee the countryand save their lives.
But under a law proposed by the Afghan government earlier this year, Naseema
could have been forced to return to her husband from the shelter.
The new law would have shifted control of womens shelters from the
courageous womens organizations that now run them to government officials
who could determine entry based on virginity tests and choose to send women
back to abusive husbands.
Womens rights activists, in Afghanistan and beyond, mobilized to prevent
this terrible move. And we won: the bill was scrapped. Now, Afghan women
still have the freedom to turnno questions askedto shelters where they can
escape life-threatening violence and abuse.
Launch of UN Women
For decades, advocates fought for the full recognition of womens human
rights. The United Nations was a key site of this struggle. Yet womens
human rights endeavors at the UN were chronically underfunded. UN bodies set
up to address womens issues were small, disjointed and lacked authority.
All of that began to change in 2011 with the launch of UN Women, an agency
dedicated to guaranteeing womens human rights. For years, leaders like
Charlotte Bunch, the founder of the Center for Womens Global Leadership,
organized a concerted campaign, strategized with activists worldwide and
lobbied with UN representativesall to make UN Women a reality.
Despite this milestone, many challenges lie ahead. Countries have been slow
to direct funding to the fledgling agency. This is a serious blow to an
agency mandated to improve conditions for half of the worlds people. But
just as we fought to create UN Women, we must stand by the agency to keep it
strongfor the sake of women worldwide counting on it.
Women Stand Up for Peace
Time and again, we see that peace cannot be won without the voices and
leadership of women. In war, women are often specifically targeted with
violence, including rape and sexual assault. Whats more, women often
sustain the most vulnerable in their communities, including children and the
elderly. Yet, too often, women are denied a seat at the peace negotiating
table.
But in 2011, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to three women. It was a rare
recognition of the integral role women play in demanding peace and
rebuilding their communities.
In Liberia, Leymah Gbowee led a protest movement of women who held years of
vigils for peace. They refused to be silent and demanded that militants lay
down their arms. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf became Liberias first female
president, paving the way to recovery. Another winner, Tawakul Karman, is a
Yemeni peace activist. Her demands for greater press freedoms, the release
of political prisoners and the removal of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah
Saleh finally led to his resignation.
A Global Call for Justice
2011 began with popular uprising in the Arab world. And as 2011 comes to a
close, the uprisings have circled the globe. The Occupy Wall Street
movement, in New York City and around the world, reveals a growing refusal
to go along with business as usual. The 99%, suffering for years under
neoliberal policies that benefit the rich and impoverish the poor, are
taking a stand.
And the movement isnt going away anytime soon. Its demands resonate in
communities worldwide that are all too familiar with the destructiveness of
economic policies that treat basic necessities as tradable commodities
instead of as human rights.
There are viable alternatives to neoliberal policies. They have already been
articulated by women who confront daily the heaviest burdens of economic
injustice. These women are Guatemalan women factory workers who organize for
fair labor practices and Iraqi women who take a stand against the takeover
of their government by oil companies. They offer the solutions that we all
need and that resonate with the calls of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
We enter 2012 into a changed world, one that has been remade by the
committed work of women activists. With each win, the forward momentum
continues. Well remember 2011 for its uprisings and revolutions. Let it be
also a forerunner to new possibilities in 2012.
<http://www.commondreams.org/yifat-susskind> Yifat Susskind
Yifat Susskind is the Executive Director of MADRE <http://www.madre.org/> ,
an international women's human rights organization. She has worked with
womens human rights activists from Latin America, the Middle East, Asia and
Africa to create programs in their communities to address women's health,
violence against women, economic and environmental justice and peace
building. She has also written extensively on US foreign policy and womens
human rights and her critical analysis has appeared in online and print
publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Foreign Policy
in Focus and The W Effect: Bushs War on Women, published by the Feminist
Press in 2004. Ms. Susskind has been featured as a commentator on CNN,
National Public Radio, and BBC Radio.
more Yifat Susskind <http://www.commondreams.org/yifat-susskind>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com
laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
