Not Again?!
Another movie of which I am fond is “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” One scene depicts the ship of the protagonists being tracked by missiles in an attempt to destroy it. One of the protagonists activates the ship’s “improbability drive,” which transforms the missiles into a whale and a pot of petunias. As they plummet toward the ground, the narrator reprises the thoughts of the whale and the petunias. From the petunias, we hear: “Not again?!”
I read several resonating sentences in the last few minutes:
“One ‘so strong a truth’ of the [political party’s] movement, which [the leader] never made any secret of, was that if the party ever took over [the national government] it would stamp out a [citizen’s] personal freedom. . . .”
“The political power in [this government] no longer resided, as it had since the birth of the Republic, in the people and in the body which expressed the people’s will. . . .”
“On the day following [the incident] . . . he prevailed on . . . to sign a decree ‘for the protection of the people and the state’ suspending the [essential sections] of the constitution which guaranteed individual and civil liberties. . . . The one-party totalitarian State had been achieved with scarcely a ripple of opposition or defiance, and within four months after the [incident] had abdicated its democratic responsibilities.”
Further, “. . . any [work] was condemned [to censorship] ‘which acts subversively on our future or strikes at the root of [approved] thought, the [caricature of our national unity] and the driving forces of our people. . . .'”
“In order to pursue a policy of [unified] culture, it is necessary to gather together the creative artists in all spheres into a unified organization under the leadership of [the presiding national party]. The [presiding national party] must not only determine the lines of progress, mental and spiritual, but also lead and organize the professions.”
“Every manuscript of a book or a play had to be submitted to the [moral leaders] before it could be approved for publication or production.”
“Section 14 of the Press Law ordered editors ‘to keep out of the newspapers anything which in any manner is misleading to the public, mixes selfish aims with community aims, tends to weaken the strength of the [national political party], outwardly or inwardly, the common will of the [caricature of our national unity], the defense of [the nation], its culture and economy . . . or offends the honor and dignity of [the caricature of our national unity].”
“. . . [A] steady diet over the years of falsifications and distortions made a certain impression on one’s mind and often misled it.”
Well, here we are, again.
In the run-up to that political party’s rise to power, it wielded a propaganda arm unlike anything seen before. Only one-sided narratives emerged from the “official” press. Opposing voices were absent. Dissenters were punished professionally and economically (and later, physically). Prominent and powerful business leaders rallied around the party to express their support, and use their services to support the cause. The political party in power established auxiliary law enforcement to track and protect against terrorists.
“In reality, science like every other human product, is racial and conditioned by [ancestry].”
“The . . . universities failed, while there was still time, to oppose publicly with all their power the destruction of knowledge and of the democratic state. They failed to keep the beacon of freedom and right burning during the night of tyranny.”
I never thought that in my lifetime I would see a political party founded in the United States so thoroughly repeat the abuses of power once seen in the most reviled political establishment of the 20th century. Welcome to the 21st century, and congratulations Democrats for making us say, “Oh no, not again.” And, they have the temerity to call conservatives “Nazis,” and “fascists.”
Reference;
William L. Shirer. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany. New York: RosettaBooks, 2011.