[extropy-chat] POLITICS: National security
Gennady Ra
anyservice at cris.crimea.ua
Wed Sep 29 11:09:34 UTC 2004
The best prefix to describe the situation: peri-? Perifascist state? Is the game over?
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-- Jim Garrison - New Orleans District Attorney
JFK Assassination Investigation Remarks
"What worries me deeply, and I have seen it exemplified in this case, is
that we in America are in great danger of slowly eroding into a
proto-fascist state. It will be a different kind of fascist state from the
one the Germans evolved; theirs grew out of depression and promised bread
and work, while ours, curiously enough, seems to be emerging from
prosperity. But in the final analysis, it's based on power and on the
inability to put human goals and human conscience above the dictates of the
State. Its origins can be traced in the tremendous war machine we've built
since 1945, the 'military-industrial complex' that Eisenhower vainly warned
us about, which now dominates every aspect of our life. The power of the
states and the Congress has gradually been abandoned to the Executive
Department, because of war conditions; and we've seen the creation of an
arrogant, swollen bureaucratic complex totally unfettered by the checks and
balances of the Constitution.
"In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the
Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can't
spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can't look for
such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won't be there. We won't
build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is
creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more
effective in keeping the populace in line. We're not going to wake up one
morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to
work. But this isn't the test. The test is: What happens to the individual
who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here the process
is more subtle, but the end results are the same. I've learned enough about
the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer
the dreamworld America I once believed in... I've always had a kind of
knee-jerk trust in my Government's basic integrity, whatever political
blunders it may make. But I've come to realize that in Washington, deceiving
and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives
of office. Huey Long once said, 'Fascism will come to America in the name of
anti-fascism.' I'm afraid, based on my own long experience, that fascism
will come to America in the name of national security."
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