[Mb-civic] The Myth of National Victimhood - All Wrapped and Delivered for Christmas

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

 http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1220-20.htm

Published on Monday, December 20, 2004 by CommonDreams.org  

The Myth of National Victimhood - All Wrapped and 
Delivered for Christmas  

by Thom Hartmann  
  
It's Christmas week - Adolf Hitler's favorite season after he declared 
an official merger of church and state - and, ironically, conservatives 
are using the occasion to mount a new and bizarre attack.

They said liberals are out to destroy Christmas. Cobbling together a 
few anecdotes (unsupportable attacks are always anecdote-based), 
they managed to imply a vast anti-Christian conspiracy bubbling just 
under the belly of America, and pushed that frightening implication 
into the minds of millions of Americans just in time for the holiday 
season. 

Conservatives must constantly attack others (and focus on 
"morality") to keep hidden their own true agenda, which is no less 
than a return to the world of Scrooge & Marley, Inc. They're working 
to bring about a return to Robber Baron feudalism, with a stable, 
rich, and powerful ruling class, and an impoverished, frightened, 
and politically impotent working class. 

But for conservatives to keep the loyalty of the working-class victims 
of their policies (which are shipping American jobs overseas, while 
fighting unions and minimum-wage increases here), they must 
convince people that there is a "them" out there - liberals in this 
case - who are out to destroy America's moral fiber and are thus 
responsible for working-class misery. 

This is an old trick, and one the cons know is very difficult to 
counter. Consider what happened when German militarism in WWI 
led, through the punishing Treaty of Versailles and then later the 
Great Depression, to the collapse of the German economy in the 
1920s and early 1930s. Hitler couldn't blame the militarists and 
corporatist conservatives who had led his nation into WWI and 
mismanaged the economy afterwards, so he pointed to the Jews as 
the "them" responsible for the problems in German society. 

The www.zenpickle.com website (disclosure: Zenpickle is owned by 
Joe McPherson, a former producer of my radio program) features a 
spoof book supposedly by Ann Coulter, titled "Mein Kampf, Second 
Edition." To create "Ann's" book, Joe clipped pieces out of Hitler's 
original and adroitly made a (very) few replacements, such as 
changing "Jews" and "Germany" into "Liberals" and "America." 
Thus, we find on his site: 

Chapter 10: Why American Society Collapsed 

It must be admitted that all this was partly the result of extraordinary 
crafty tactics on the part of Liberals on the one hand, and obvious 
official stupidity or naïveté on the other hand. The Liberals were too 
clever to allow a simultaneous attack to be made on the whole of 
their Press. No one section functioned as cover for the other. ...the 
national papers, also in Liberal hands, knew how to camouflage 
themselves as model examples of objectivity. They studiously 
avoided harsh language, knowing well that blockheads are capable 
of judging only by external appearances and never able to penetrate 
to the real depth and meaning of anything. ... This form of human 
frailty was carefully studied and understood by the Liberal Press.. 

Certainly in days to come the Liberals will raise a tremendous cry 
throughout their newspapers once a hand is laid on their favorite 
nest, once a move is made to put an end to this scandalous Liberal 
Press and once this instrument which shapes public opinion is 
brought under Conservative control and no longer left in the hands 
of Liberals and enemies of the people. I am certain that this will be 
easier for us than it was for our fathers. The scream of the twelve-
inch shrapnel is more penetrating than the hiss from a thousand 
Liberal newspaper vipers. Therefore let them go on with their 
hissing.. 

By means of the Liberal Press, the Liberals spread the colossal 
falsehood about 'American Militarism' throughout the world and tried 
to inculpate America by every possible means, while at the same 
time the Democratic Party refused to assent to the measures that 
were necessary for the adequate training of our national defense 
forces. . 

What soon gave me cause for very serious consideration were the 
activities of the Liberals in certain branches of life, into the mystery 
of which I penetrated little by little. Was there any shady 
undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which 
at least one Liberal did not participate? On putting the probing knife 
carefully to that kind of abscess one immediately discovered, like a 
maggot in a putrescent body, a little Liberal who was often blinded 
by the sudden light. 

In my eyes the charge against Liberalism became a grave one the 
moment I discovered the Liberal activities in the Press, in art, in 
literature and the theatre. All unctuous protests were now more or 
less futile. ... Here was a pestilence, a moral pestilence, with which 
the public was being infected.. 

I was happy at last to know for certain that a Liberal is not an 
American.

Perhaps Joe went to unnecessary effort in converting "Jews" to 
"Liberals" in Hitler's screed, since apparently it's again fashionable 
to be publicly anti-Semitic in America. Last week William Donahue, 
president of the Catholic League, told the nation on MSNBC, 
"Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in 
general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm 
not afraid to say it." 

As you can see, the formula is simple. Identify real problems within 
a society, such as crime, poverty, and unemployment. Invent a 
conspiracy responsible for these problems, say it is led by a specific 
group, and hyperinflate a few anecdotes to make the conspiracy 
seem vast and powerful. Say they are trying to destroy the nation by 
weakening its defenses and corrupting its morals, thus causing the 
economic pains felt by the average person. Rally the people behind 
you in self-defense to restore military strength, moral clarity, and 
empower great wealth and corporations to "create jobs again." 

As Leo Strauss - the mentor of the Neoconservatives currently 
controlling much of Washington, DC - pointed out, it's not even 
necessary that the so-called enemies of the nation really be 
enemies. The myth of national Victimhood, when wrapped in the 
language of morality, will elevate a politician to power just as surely 
as will true national victimhood. 

It was the formula Hitler used, and it still works today. It is, in fact, 
the most consistently reliable way for demagogues to gain power. It 
works because it's gradual but relentless, and progressively absorbs 
- and then intimidates or co-opts - both government and the media. 

For example, Milton Mayer, a German Jew who survived Hitler's era 
to write about the experience of Germany in his book They Thought 
They Were Free, noted that: 

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 he 
people could understand it, it could not be released because of 
national security....

As a friend of Mayer's noted, and Mayer recorded in his book: 

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. ... 

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.

In this conversation, Mayer's friend suggests that he wasn't making 
an excuse for not resisting the rise of the fascists, but simply 
pointing out an undisputable reality. This, he suggests, is how 
fascism will always take over a nation. 

"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 they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, 
still, he was not a Socialist, and 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. 

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or 
how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is 
worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and 
the next. You wait for the 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 to 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. 

"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 will 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 your 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.' 

"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. ... 

"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 the 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 Step D. 

"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, your 
people - is not the world you were 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." ... 

Mayer's friend pointed out the terrible challenge faced then by 
average Germans, and today by peoples across the world, as 
governments are taken over by authoritarian, corporatist - fascist - 
regimes. 

"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly 
educated ordinary men?" Mayer's friend asked rhetorically. And, 
without the benefit of a previous and recent and well-remembered 
fascistic regime to refer to, he had to candidly answer: "Frankly, I do 
not know." 

This was the great problem that Mayer and so many in his day 
faced. 

As Mayer's friend noted, "I do not see, even now [how we could 
have stopped it]. 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?" 

And here we are. 

Sinclair Broadcast Group runs right-wing editorials on its stations 
over public airways with no pretense of balance. 

Former MSNBC producer Jeff Cohen tells me that he was ordered 
to always have at least two conservatives on the Donahue show 
whenever one liberal appeared, "and three conservatives to Michael 
Moore." Apparently the Moore Rule at MSNBC now also extends to 
Amy Goodman - a few days after Cohen said this on my radio 
program, I watched MSNBC's Chris Matthews position Goodman 
against three conservatives, and then dismiss her before the show 
ended so the remaining three could make their final points. 

Hundreds of hours a day of right-wing programming pour out of 
radio stations nationwide, and conservative extremists are the most 
common "guests" and "experts" on network news and weekend 
political TV shows. 

The 2004 election may have been stolen with massive nationwide 
fraud - the statistics in New Mexico, Ohio, and Florida are truly 
startling - and Alliance for Democracy lawyer Cliff Arnebeck has 
filed a lawsuit against Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al, suggesting that 
Kerry actually won Ohio. The story was only covered in any depth by 
C-SPAN. 

The possibility that the election of 2002 was also stolen - particularly 
in Georgia, where Max Cleland losing his seat to Saxby Chambliss 
gave Republicans control of the Senate - has never been seriously 
investigated. 

And when a consortium of news organizations recounted the Florida 
2000 vote and it was found that Al Gore actually won the entire state 
- and thus the presidency - no matter what standard was used to 
count the ballots, the corporate news organizations of America 
buried the story (although the New York Times and Washington 
Post at least did report it on 09/12/01). 

Our Attorney General-designate calls the Geneva Conventions 
"quaint"; our Secretary of Defense stands accused of ordering 
torture; our President and Vice President knowingly lie to us and the 
world in order to lead an election-year preemptive war; and 
Congress passes national security bills without reading them - eerily 
like the German Parliament passed the Enabling Acts after the 
Reichstag was burned. 

So how to counter it? 

The experience of 20th century Europe demonstrates that those 
abusing power must be confronted with equally vigorous power. 

In the 1930s, Germans who believed in republican democracy were 
overwhelmed before they realized how completely their civil liberties 
and national institutions had been seized. 

We must not allow it to happen in our nation. 

And, fortunately, there are now groups and people working hard to 
push back against the growing forces of corporatism - fascism - 
here in the United States. They range from web-based news sites, 
to progressive magazines and newspapers, to liberal talk radio 
programs, to groups outing media bias and holding both 
corporations and government accountable. 

But if American democracy is to survive, we must all participate. 

Whether it's standing in a vigil like the Ukrainians did, joining a 
political party, sending money to your favorite reader-supported 
websites and groups, or forwarding articles to friends and speaking 
out in our homes and workplaces, we all must all "consider the end" 
and "resist the beginnings." And we must do so now, today. 

In this holiday season, can we give this gift of democracy to our 
children and our world? 

Please say yes. Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a 
Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a 
nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. 
www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last 
Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," 
"The Edison Gene", and "What Would Jefferson Do?." 

###
 

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