U.S. Government Claims – Just Like the Nazis – That the Truth Is
Too Complicated and Dangerous To Disclose to the Public
by George Washington
Washington's
Blog
History Repeats
…
In the classic
history of Nazi Germany, They
Thought They Were Free, Milton Mayer writes:
“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, or so dangerous that, even
if the people could not understand it, it could not be released
because of national security. And their sense of identification
with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this
gap and reassured those who would otherwise 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
reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the
slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing
remoter and remoter.
Similarly,
America has – little by little – gone from a nation
of laws to a nation of powerful
men making laws in secret. Indeed, even Congress doesn’t
know half of what
others are doing.
Secretive,
unaccountable agencies are making life
and death decisions which effect our most basic rights. They
provide “secret evidence” to courts which cannot be
checked … and often withhold any such “evidence”
even from the judges. For
example:
“I
find myself stuck in a paradoxical situation in which I cannot
solve a problem because of contradictory constraints and rules
– a veritable Catch-22,” the judge wrote. “I
can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that
effectively allow the Executive Branch of our Government to proclaim
as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible
with our Constitution and laws, while keeping the reasons for
their conclusion a secret.”
The government
uses “secret evidence” to spy
on Americans, prosecute leaking
or terrorism
charges (even against U.S.
soldiers) and even assassinate
people.
And the government
goes
after whistleblowers … and reporters who say
too much (and see
this).
U.S. government
spokesmen pretend – just as the Nazis – that:
- The situation
is so complicated that the government has to act on information
which the people could not understand
- It is so
dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it
could not be released because of national security
As FireDogLake
notes:
Like the
iron fist of the Nazis … Americans must submit to “roving
surveillance” and warrantless searches, without the requirement
of a Judge’s authorization. Surveillance laws are part of a larger
arsenal of weapons against political dissidents and whistle blowers.
Most Americans
don’t know the Patriot Act authorizes secret charges relying
on secret evidence and secret grand jury statements.
Under the Patriot Act, Americans have no right to know who has
accused them of what criminal activities, or the dates of the
alleged offense.
They’re not
even told what law was broken. The government has power to lock
up Americans on military bases or other prisons without a hearing
or trial. We can be detained indefinitely without any rights of
due process at all.
All of this
happened in Germany – as in America today – because
the governments whipped
up so much fear of attack by
demonizing the enemy and declaring an open-ended war that people
became complacent and stopped thinking for themselves.
Read
the rest of the article
January
22, 2013
George
Washington blogs at Washington's
Blog.
Copyright
© 2013 Washington's
Blog
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