I suppose I may be an alarmist, but watching the corporate organized chaos shouting down free speech and information, raises the specter of the darkest time modern history.

I have learned that you can often tell what your opposition is up to by what they call you. For example, the radical right now calls the media "brown shirts." That's a reference to Nazi thugs who terrorized Germany in days before the Hitler came to power as Nazi enforcers and in the days after Hitler came to power as an arm (temporary) of the government.

The fact is that what eventually brought Hitler to power was an alliance with business interests, particularly the arms industry leaders like the Krupp family. When one listens to the ignorant tirades of Palin and Joe the Plumber, not to mention 95% of Fox so-called News, one hears the echoes of Germany in the late 1920'2, early 1930's.

There was a soothing syrup refrain form the Roosevelt bashing media about the Nazis: ”It can't happen here.” But Huey Long, who was a heart a populist styled fascist himself, once noted that America would go fascist long before it could ever go communist.

A word of warning to the medical industries brown shirts. Once Hitler came to power, he used the black-shirted Gestapo to eliminate the brown shirts’ leadership in the “night of long knives.”

The issue isn’t whether these tactics can work in America. They have worked on America. See Miami 2000 and Swift Boats 2004.

I want neither a fascist America nor a communist one. But I feel like I am in a time warp. Am I watching the first clips of a 2050 documentary in the making: It did happen here?

http://Johnklotz.blogspot.com

That the insecure are prey to malevolent forces telling lies is not new news. That the mainstream media has put limits (blinders) on its reporting isn't exactly news either.

What they have ignored for so often is a terrible truth. That right wing fanatics supported by corporate wealth have been a driving force in this country for decades.

I am not the first to sense that corporate financed rage of today reminiscent of the JFK era. The day of his assassination there was an full page newspaper advertisement attacking JFK and as I recall headed: "Wanted for Treason."

I do not believe that Oswald was a lone nut gunman, but to raise the issue has been for decades taboo. You don't cut it in mainstream media if you do raise it. Thus the likes of Charlie Rose rise to the top.

So while the mainstream media tailors its coverage to avoid unpleasant, dark realities unless somehow their nose is shoved into the mess, the radical right goes on.

There is line from Dallas to the "Golden Triangle" of Vietnam, to Watergate, to Iran gate (and Dan Quayle and George Bush) to the poor benighted, ignorant souls hectoring heir congressmen. It's a line that as a society we have refused to trace and now we are again paying the price. The line actually begins much earlier with the World Anti-Communist League and the China Lobby which spawned Roy Cohn and Joe McCarthy (in that order). You might even want to draw it back further to Hollywood tycoons helping kill the Townsend pension plan in California in the thirties.

I find my comfort and my goad in St. John: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." A priest I respect once gave a sermon on that and said they are very nice words, but in order to know the truth, one must pay a price.

The problem is, that without the truth, we are all slaves.

Johnklotz.blogspot.com

It always amazes me how some liberals think Obama is betraying "principle" becasue he doesn't jut snap his fingers and announce a single payer plan.

Robert Reich to the contrary, it's just not that simple. And given the so-called wisdom of of the founding fathers, the Seanate will alwys be a tussle. There aren't 60 firm votes for signle payer and likely there would barely be a maajority in the House.

Well why doesn't he try any? some might ask. Maybe it's because he really wants to accomplish something. Push the ball down the road a bit.

Truman couldn't do it. Kennedy and Johnson couldn't do it. Carter couldn't do it and Clinton couldn't do it. The skinny kid with the big ears just might accomplish more in terms of health care than anybody has to date.

But the Left should cut him some slack becausee he is trying to deal with enormous forces arrayed against change.

What little I saw of the Town Hall was just terrific. He is a master communicator and the best weapon we got. Was before and still is now.

http://johnklotz.blogspot.com

Is that guy going to be 35 in 2012? If so, I think Joe the Plumber has found his VP candidate.