I have been asked about my take on
the Reichstag fire on Facebook and I thought I had answered it last night but somehow it didn't load. Now
a slightly expanded response. It's not something I have studied
extensively but I think I know enough to make the following comment. I analogize
it to the JFK assassination so hold on to your hats.
The Reichstag, the Germany 's capitol building in Berlin was devastated by a fire in 1933 just
when the Nazi's had gained control of the Germany Bundestag and Hitler had
formed a government. Wikipedia has an entry on it in
case you want some details. It corresponds to what I had read some years ago
but goes deeper.
The issue is whether the person
accused of setting the fire was an agent of the international communist conspiracy
through the Comintern, a loan nut, or a false flag patsy planted by the Nazis.
The result redounded to the benefit of the Nazi's who used as an argument for justification of giving dictatorial powers to the newly elected Chancellor,
Hitler. From the Nazi's viewpoint it was
either a total success of a devious plot or gift from heaven (or hell).
We have a rough analogy in our own
time in Lee Harvey Oswald. Was he a lone nut assassin? Was he a Fidel Castro operative?
Was he a foil or patsy for hidden (barely) US
interests who regarded Kennedy as a traitor for his settling the Cuban Missile
crisis without war and indicating that he was prepared to withdraw from Vietnam ? To the
extent the plotters may have wanted war with Castro, it didn't work. To the extent they
wanted continued intervention in Vietnam , it did.
The military-industrial complex profited
mightily from the Vietnam War. 56,000 Americans and their families paid dearly (not to mention hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.)
In 1935, Sinclair Lewis wrote a
novel called "It Can't Happen Here" which was a satire about a hypothetical
rise of fascism in the United States . Well that didn't happen
here. Or did it?
When I look at the Trump message of
exclusion and bias and cozing-up to the despot Putin and I realize just how much
he is echoing the bias and prejudices of a significant number of Americans, I
am concerned. Trump is not anti-Semitic. But his dream of a white restoration
to power echo's the Nazi's anti-Semitism. He appeals to our worse impulses.
This is not a promo for my book
"Quantum Christ" but if you are interested:
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