Hitler's Playbook: Bush and the Abuse of Power

According to David Gergen (1999), the 2000 election was about raw political power. He termed it a hinge point in history. The last time the GOP controlled the White House and the Congress was when "Ike" was in charge and he didn't want to rock the boat. "Conservatives have very different ideas in mind if they can grab the helm now." What Gergen and other members of the media didn't mention to the American people is that if the Far Right could control the White House and Congress, they could also control the judiciary and the fate and face of America for generations to come.

And grab the helm they did, not by winning the White House by a majority, but by Supreme Court fiat ( with at least two judges violating several statutes of Title 28 Sec. 455 of the Judicial and Judiciary Procedure). Even with the legitimacy of the Bush presidency in question, the Conservatives -- those with the Far Right agenda -- grabbed the raw political power that Gergen predicted would be the outcome of that election. The abuse of power in the guise of pushing an agenda which the majority of the electorate voted against would now become a perverted rule of law. The Far Right transformed into the Far Reich. We need only to look at Bush's nominations and appointments to fully appreciate this tactic. Corporate America's cronies were placed in every powerful position within the Bush administration. From Alcoa's O'Neil as Secretary of Treasury to Enron's White as the Secretary of Army, this administration represents Totalitarian Corporatism. And what precisely does Totalitarian Corporatism look like and how does this play out in the United States? Will the outcomes be any different for America than they were for Germany?

When most people hear the word "fascism" they think of racism and anti-Semitism, the hallmarks of the totalitarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. But do not forget there is an economic policy component of fascism known as "corporatism," an essential ingredient of economic totalitarianism (DiLorenzo 1994). This is why corporate leaders played key roles in financing Hitler as Chancellor and George W. Bush's run for the White House. Corporate heads from the United States, England and Germany financed Hitler's rise to power. These same powerful worldwide forces from the Military-Industrial Complex, Oil, Energy, and Media spent millions of dollars to influence the American 2000 election. And when the election could not be bought, they used five members of the United States Supreme Court to stop the Florida vote, thereby giving election "victory" to the eldest son of George Herbert Walker Bush. Now why was this election so important to the Far Right forces? And having gained the White House, what -- besides greed and power -- motivates them to change the face of America? Why would a political party supposedly dedicated to "states' rights" use the Supreme Court to usurp those rights? Why would a political party with slogans such as "get the government off our backs" move to take over the government and all its vast financial resources? There is only one explanation. Totalitarian corporate industrial policy. From the Department of Energy to the Departments of Justice and Defense, the Bush administration has worked to establish policies that do not serve the interests of the people, but serve the interests of rich and powerful corporations.

"Totalitarianism is a form of government in which all societal resources are monopolized by the state in an effort to penetrate and control all aspects of public and private life, through the state's use of propaganda, terror, and technology. Totalitarian ideologies reject the existing society as corrupt, immoral, and beyond reform. They project an alternative society in which these wrongs are to be redressed, and provide plans and programs for realizing the alternative order." http://www.remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html