Keith Ellison under attack for comparing Bush to Hitler

BY ED FELIEN

In the middle of last month Congressman Keith Ellison spoke to a Twin Cities atheist group about the lack of religious tolerance and erosion of civil liberties that have taken place since 9/11. He warned: "It is precisely in the aftermath of a tragedy like 9/11 that we must be most vigilant about our precious civil liberties."
He also said the aftermath of 9/11 was "almost like the Reichstag fire … it put the leader of that country in a position where he could basically have authority to do whatever he wanted."

This comparison alarmed conservatives and apologists for Bush. They thought Ellison went too far, to compare Bush to Hitler. Republicans in Congress called for a reprimand, and the Anti-Defamation League said the comparison "is odious and demeans the victims of 9/11 and the brave American men and women engaged in the war on terror."

The burning of the German parliament building in 1933 was a traumatic event for the German people. The Reichstag was their symbol for democracy and freedom. Hitler hated the parliament-all that debating and discussion. All they wanted to do was tie his hands. He wanted to act and the fire gave him the opportunity to do two contradictory things. He was able to suspend parliament and run the government the way he wanted, and he was able to blame the communists and socialists for the fire and by arresting, assassinating and sending the left to concentration camps he was able to look like he was avenging the wrong done to the German people. Historians aren't sure who set the fire, but it seems most likely it was a single Nazi sympathizer.

Hitler used the fire to begin a reign of terror. His Brown Shirts picked up student leftists at demonstrations and murdered them. Socialists and communists were arrested and sent to concentration camps. He suspended habeas corpus. Hitler declared a state of emergency, and he was not going to let the courts interfere.
First they rounded up the far left, then the left, then the centrists, then the mentally retarded, then the homosexuals, then the gypsies and, finally, after Kristallnacht, in November of 1938, the genocidal pogrom against the Jews began.

All through this consolidation of Nazi power Hitler projected the image of himself as the savior of Germany, defending it from enemies from within and enemies from without.

Are there parallels between Hitler and Bush? Certainly, but there are equally dramatic parallels in American history. The firing on Fort Sumter that began the Civil War ended the right of habeas corpus and restricted freedoms in the North. The sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor that began the Spanish American War was probably caused by an accidental explosion, but it gave the U. S. an excuse to seize Spanish colonies in Cuba and the Philippines and begin an era of modern American imperialism. The sinking of the Lusitania was justification for U. S. entrance into World War I, even though the German government tried to warn Americans not to sail on a British ship into England. The outbreak of World War I gave the Wilson administration the excuse to deport political radicals and stifle dissent. And the attack on Pearl Harbor that began World War II allowed Roosevelt to intern thousands of loyal Japanese Americans without any justification other than racism, and there was hardly a whimper of dissent from the American press.

There are parallels in American history, but the scope and intensity of the repression that Bush has initiated and justified by 9/11 goes further than any previous President in wartime.

He has not just suspended the right of habeas corpus-the right to a fair trial and the right to confront your accusers. He has kidnapped U. S. citizens and foreign nationals off the streets and locked them up in concentration camps and subjected them to torture. The difference between Bush and Hitler in this is quantitative not qualitative; that is, they both did and are doing the same thing, but Hitler did a lot more of it.

They both rule by terror. Bush has modeled his government on George Orwell's "1984": War is Peace; the war on terror is really a war OF terror; The Department of Homeland Security (with its permanent orange level of terror alert) creates insecurity. Bush spies on citizens and wiretaps their phones without any legal or ethical justification. He has asserted a doctrine of pre-emptive war that means he can attack anyone or any country that he feels might become a threat to U. S. vital interests. He declares that his administration is not bound by international law or treaties. If someone in the government disagrees with him, their careers are destroyed; former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times that pointed out the lies in the State of the Union Address that were used to justify the invasion of Iraq, and Bush officials ended his wife's career as a CIA analyst. Dissent is the lifeblood of democracy and Bush has stifled it.

The Nazi Party in Germany was a variant of the European fascist movement. Benito Mussolini was the first successful fascist leader. He led his Black Shirts in a march on Rome in 1922 that changed Italian politics. Hitler staged an unsuccessful beer hall putsch in Munich the following year. Mussolini said, "Corporato il stati." The corporation is the state. Hitler believed capitalists should be "masters in their own house." Bush has taken fascism a step further. Mussolini and Hitler merely supported big business while they were pursuing other national objectives, but Bush has allowed his family big business to direct government policy. In his case, the corporation really is the state.

The Bush family fortune for four generations has been tied to the business of war. Ever since Great Grandfather Sam Bush sat on Wilson's War Industries Board in World War I and made parts for Remington revolvers, the Bush family has benefited from war.

Sam's son Prescott wanted to make serious money when he graduated from Yale, so he and some of his buddies went to work for Brown Brothers Harriman. Peace had broken out in the 1920s, and the only hope for war profiteers was in the re-arming of Germany (in violation of the Versailles Treaty). He became Manager of the Union Banking Corporation to trade with Nazi financier Fritz Thyssen. They sold bonds to help finance the re-arming of Germany. They bought a steamship line to ship Remington arms to Germany through a dummy corporation in Holland. He also managed a Silesian coal field that used slave labor from the neighboring Auschwitz Concentration Camp. According to Dutch intelligence sources he took direct management of some of the slave labor camps in Poland to aid Nazi armament industries. Prescott Bush continued working for these interests for almost a year after the U. S. had declared war on Germany. It was not until October of 1942, when the U. S. seized the assets of Union Bank, the steamship line, the Seamless Steel Equipment (suppliers of steel, wire and explosives to the Nazis) and the Silesian-American Company (the coal mining company), that Prescott stopped supplying the Nazi war machine. Of course, at that point he switched sides and started supplying the Allies.

In 1929 Harriman & Company bought Dresser Industries (manufacturers of oil pipeline equipment) and Prescott Bush became a Director. He continued to run Dresser Industries from the board for the rest of his life. His son, George Bush I, went to work there after graduating from Yale. Dresser was quite successful in selling oil pipeline and drilling equipment. It had a virtual worldwide monopoly. The oil drilling equipment in Iraq belonged to Dresser (through their French subsidiary) in violation of U. N. and U. S. sanctions. Using lies and distortions, George Bush II used the tragedy of 9/11 to justify invading Iraq. He wanted control of the oil for his family business. Dick Cheney is chief thug for the Bush family. When George I was President, Cheney was Secretary of Defense. When Bush lost, Cheney became CEO of Halliburton. While CEO he bought Dresser Industries from the Bush family (the details were worked out on a hunting trip) for $8 billion. No cash changed hands, so the Bush family must own controlling interest in Halliburton. When Bush II became President he made Cheney his vice president, and with old family friend Rumsfeld as secretary of defense, they were able to steer multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to Halliburton. With the U. S. and Bush in control of the Iraq government, they are now trying to steal 25 percent of the world's known oil resources for the family business.

With George Bush II as President of the U. S. and as head of the family business, we have the perfect identification of state merging with corporation, the final stage of fascism only dreamt of by Mussolini.

Is Bush a fascist? Is he a Nazi?

Certainly grandfather Prescott was an active and effective collaborator with the Nazis. But it wasn't just the money. Prescott and his father-in-law, George Walker (for whom George I and George II are middle-named), sponsored the Third International Congress of Eugenics on Long Island in the early 1930s, and many of the proposals about forced sterilization and elimination of the feebleminded that were discussed at the conference were later implemented by Nazi Germany.
But is it fair that the sins of the grandfather should be visited upon the children? No. Even if he carries the name(s), even if he inherits the family business and fortune, even if he inherits the political base of fascist elements that were driven from Europe at the end of World War II, he still deserves to be judged on his own actions.

Has he repudiated his family's past connections to Nazi Germany? No.
Has he suppressed civil liberties? Yes.
Has he ruled by terror? Yes.
Has he embarked on total war? Yes.
Has he allowed his family business interests to direct government policy? Yes.
His policy of Peace Through Strength is government policy at the end of a club. The U. S. has no inherent right to rule the world just because it is the strongest militarily, and, yet, that seems to be the only justification Bush needs.
Finally, the shelling of Fallujah, the brutal murder of defenseless Iraqi civilians, has its only parallel in the Nazi atrocities at Guernica and Lidice.
Is Bush a Nazi?

We can be certain that history will judge Bush to have been corrupt, arrogant, dictatorial and brutal. Whether the atrocities he has committed place him in the same rank as Hitler is a judgement for later generations, but we would be blind not to see that he is in the same group. He stands indicted as a petty tyrant, a small fascist running the biggest superpower the world has ever seen.
We should be grateful that Congressman Keith Ellison has at last begun a serious public discussion of this most tragic period in American history.