Es brent, breiderlach, es brent! (It’s burning, brothers, burning From a Yiddish Poem of the Holocaust
Wake up, America ! Wake up, America! Dennis Kucinich at the 2008 Democratic National Convention
Of all the disturbing news of late, none has been more disturbing to me than this Headline from the website Army News: “Brigade Homeland Tours Start Oct 1. According to the article, “The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade…under the day-to-day control of the U.S. Army North (will be utilized as) an on-call response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks”. (Uuhhh, isn’t that what the National Guard is supposed to do? But, oh, yeah, they’re a little busy now in Anbar Province .) “…this new mission marks the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control to federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities…They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control…” among other duties.
Why is the government expecting the need to deploy an Army Brigade to control civil unrest?
In her recent book, The Shock Doctrine; Disaster Capitalism in Action, Naomi Klein posits that the Right will use the shock of the current economic crisis to push through their policy wishes, including deregulation of the financial industry, school vouchers, far more stringent border controls (in both directions? one must ask), and the privatization of Social Security (“Pass a 21st Century Social Security system giving every young American the opportunity to profit from the rebuilding of the American economy” from Newt Gingrich’s “Eighteen Policy Prescriptions”. Newt fails to say what will happen to the old people who will be caught without the Social Security they paid into during the one or two decades it will take for the economy to recover. Victorians had the solution; they were called “Poorhouses).
And what of the other domestic policies resulting from economic collapse? Argentina, under murderous military dictatorship for many years, (there’s a frightening connection worthy of an entire blog itself), ran up huge, unsupportable debt in failed infrastructure and other projects, the Falklands Islands War and the state’s takeover of private debt. (Is this beginning to sound familiar?). Industries failed and unemployment, figured at only 5% by the government, was actually closer to 20%, the highest at any time since the Great Depression. The state’s acquisition of huge debt it could not repay resulted in gross inflation, as the government printed new money, industry collapsed (read: jobs were outsourced to India), unemployment grew, there were riots, and ultimately, the banks collapsed and closed. Millions were unable to access their accounts and were financially wiped out.
But what if there is a method to this madness? What if there is actually sinister purpose to this economic slide and resulting elimination of social programs? What is the purpose of making all these poor people? When people are struggling day—to-day just to feed their families, when they are physically wiped out from illness and can’t afford health care, they are not going to be politically active; they will just be scrambling for the next meal. They will not be politically active, making trouble for the ruling class.
But what if they do? There were certainly Labor struggles during the great depression; not everyone went down without a fight. What to do?
Here comes the 1st Army Brigade, to the rescue. Klein is right on the money (no pun intended). With riots in the streets, due to the government’s mismanagement of our country’s finances, law and order must prevail.
We’ve seen this before. At the end of World War One, Germany ’s economy was in ruins. Inflation, we all learned in junior high, was so bad that one needed a wheelbarrow full of money just to buy a loaf of bread. Along came a hero, with a compelling, convincing theory about how Germany got into that mess, and how she could get out of it. We all know how that turned out. Hitler also used the Shock Doctrine to very good effect. And let’s not forget that (unlike George W. Bush) Hitler was actually elected, in a free, democratic election, in 1932. Germany, once the most liberal and enlightened state in the world, the shining star of the 19th century Enlightenment, descended into genocidal madness. Brought about by economic collapse. Fed by millenias-old Jew hatred. The economy sucks? Blame it on the rich Jews, they’re just for themselves, and besides, they killed Jesus. Or the Mexicans taking all our jobs. Or the black gangsters, contributing to crime. Or the smart Asians, taking our university spots. Or the Arabs; they’re all terrorists anyway. Think it can’t happen here?
Today I am not one annoyed Jew. Today I am one angry and very frightened Jew.
Heideleh
