Lines from a future history book.

[theweaselking]

It started when the government, in the midst of an economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.

He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world.

His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious buildings were ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the ruins, surrounded by national media. "This," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism. To get his patriotic legislation passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful.

He orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity.

Within a year of the terrorist attack, he determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation. He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough.

He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to prepare for war. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center. Soon more contracts would follow. Industry flourished.

He also reached out to the churches, declaring that the nation had clear Christian roots, that any nation that didn't openly support religion was morally bankrupt, and that his administration would openly and proudly provide both moral and financial support to initiatives based on faith to provide social services.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students started an active program opposing him, and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, his corruption of religious leaders, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had demolished the nation's most conspicuous buildings was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to maintain their prosperity.

He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck.

And then Bush invaded Iraq, right?

No, don't be silly. Bush isn't the protagonist of this piece. Bush wouldn't even be born for another eight years, during these events.

The person being described is Adolph Hitler.

Comments

[anivair.livejournal.com]

You are a god among men, sir.

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

"And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones."

I can't tie this to either of the dictators. It seems likely in Hitler's case, given his and the SS's fascination with the paranormal, though I hadn't heard of it before now, but which secret society did Bush join? The Masons?

[harald387.livejournal.com]

Skull & Bones.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Skull & Bones. It's a "fraternity" at Yale that accepts a few new students a year, picking from the best, the brightest, and the children of past members.

Guess which Bush was. Hint: George Bush Sr was a member of Skull & Bones.

A twisted Dan-Brown-esque version of it was featured in the abysmally bad movie "The Skulls".

[jerril]

Hitler had pretty much ZERO interest in the paranormal. He was a materialist, and not particularly religious himself, nor was he spiritual or superstitious. However, some of his henchmen were very occult-minded, and their reputation rubbed off on him by association.

Was Hitler actually a member of the Thule society, or is that more urban myth? I know many of his henchmen were, so I expect he did join for political connections (like joining the Masons for business and political advancement).

[torrain.livejournal.com]

...it doesn't say he did. As you noted, it could simply have been political.

> Was Hitler actually a member of the Thule society, or is that more
> urban myth?

If it's myth, it's within sneezing distance of reality. The Thule Society was merged with a worker's group (and yet I've seen references to it after that point? Dammit, I can't get a decent history source here) and became the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (DAP) in early 1919. Hitler joined in late 1919. The DAP was renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party in early 1920.

(Yeah, well, we know where *that* went.)

Depending on how hard the mysticism was overridden by the socialism at the time Hitler joined--which I really cannot speak to--you can argue about whether he joined a group with a bizarre initiation ritual or just hung out with some of the people they associated with. My understanding is that the Thule Society was distinct from the DAP in name, but I have no idea how the DAP was running initiations or how closely they were affiliated early on.

(Hm. He had Parkinson's Disease. Who knew?)

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. In school, we were taugh that the allies only won at Normandy because Hitler's Astrologer told him the Allies would hit further north so most of his forces were up there.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

And there's a different bunch who believe that the Battle OF Britain would have been lost if the Germans had continued to attack military instead of civilian targets for just one more day - and that a bunch of pagans were performing a Great Ritual(tm) to force the Germans to switch targets, and then they did switch targets, in the very nick of time.

This does not make either story true, or false. Nor does it mean that the actions (Germans in the wrong place, Germans attacking London instead of the British airfields) happened for the reasons the stories say they did.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm just pointing it out. Who really knows for sure

[torrain.livejournal.com]

...well, that was chilling.

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to make an exception to Godwin's Law for this.

[catlin.livejournal.com]

*shudders* How... Disturbingly true.

[rgovrebo.livejournal.com]

Great stuff, but why the hell do they insist on spelling Adolf's first name in French?

[altarr.livejournal.com]

and I totally remember killing the undead with my chaingun as well

[altarr.livejournal.com]

First off, if you are going to post something, please post the whole piece and not just the bits which others chose to replicate.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-22.htm


Second, if you cannot see that this was written to intentionally draw references to current day events which are thinly connected at best, non-existent for the most part, then I pray the oxygen reaches your brain soon to ease your mental suffering.

Think for yourself once in a while, dont let yourself be led of a cliff with the rest of the lemmings by someone espousing fear.

Look in the mirror sometime, while you profess to fight control, you realize not that you are being controlled.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

> if you are going to post something, please post the whole piece

Maybe you missed the part about "removing the explicitly German and 1920s references for more generic ones."

> if you cannot see that this was written to intentionally draw
> references to current day events

That was, in fact, the entire point.

> which are thinly connected at best, non-existent for the most
> part,

Got an example of one?

Agreeing with the writer that Bush is a fascist-wannabe, that some of his actions and most of his objectives are criminal, and that his scapegoating of minorities and perpetual undefined War On Terra are a blatant power grab riding on the back of the easily frightened sorts who desperately want ANYONE to save them from the horrible mooslim darkie terruhrists who stalk them through the vacant corridors of their mind? That's not "being led off a cliff". That's "refusing to be led off a cliff" - or did you not notice that Bush & Co desperately want you to be so afraid that you don't object, ever, to anything they want to do?

Pointing out the similarities between Bush's open attempt to institute a fascist state and Hitler's successful completion of the same agenda, by the same methods? Perfectly legit, and the parallels are clear. The largest problem with the comparison is, of course, the Holocaust, and so anyone who wants to deny the clear evidence of fascist leanings needs only to say "OMG! Yore saying Bush is teh genocidal!!!1!" to dismiss the entire 1930s.

[altarr.livejournal.com]

spell check would make you appear far more intelligent than you are.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

I understand that satire is a complicated concept, but you should look it up. It will aid you greatly in the future.

So would reading your own userinfo, once in a while.