by Bill Rouchell
I am 81 years old, and I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children and grandchildren as I am now.
This apostle of Machiavelli, this Obama a man who speaks with forked tongue. This charlatan campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure! We could then be call the United Union of Socialist States. God help us. Change is indeed coming, and when it comes, America will never be the same again!
Even when my wife and I lived in Germany for five years, I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking demagogue rabble-rouser from the streets of Munich, not too unlike the man from Chicago at the helm of our country today. The average German knew next to nothing about him. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and without a teleprompter. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. People, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his 'brown shirts' would bully them into submission.
Then when he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand (the Great Depression). Slowly but surely he seized the controls of German state power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids were forced to join a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think and how to behave. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating and installing gun control to disarm the folks, health care for all, better wages, better jobs and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe and across the world – none of which he could have done with out compliant media, just like what we are suffering through now! Did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and change. And the people surely got what they voted for. (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.) Read your history books. 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' would be a good place to begin.
Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s, while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet prime minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. Please keep in mind that at that time Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, science laboratories and universities. And in less than six years, a shorter time span than just two terms of the U.S. presidency, it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course – the road to hell is always paved with them.
As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust, and it does!), I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have one more latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.
Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid of 'Veritas' or to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe – and why I believe it. I pray I am wrong, but I do not think I am. I firmly believe that history is man's best guide if only people will study it. Since many of you enjoy senior citizen status or will sometime in the not too distant future, I thought you might be interested in this. Let me add that we seniors have a target on our backs; the powers to be feel we are not cost effective. So it would be in the nations best interest to let us fade away even with help if found necessary. I sincerely hope time will prove me wrong.
