Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bill who wrote (53991)	6/22/1999 6:00:00 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Alleged rapist. Even scumbags have Constitutional rights. JLA

To: Bill who wrote (53991)	6/22/1999 6:45:00 PM
From: Andrew Martin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

Clinton's 'Gleichschaltung' (EO 13083) and other parallels of his totalitarian 'Third Way' to Hitler and Nazi Germany: Ominous Parallels The attempted preemption of state and local governments by EO13083 offers an ominous echo of the campaign of gleichschaltung — "coordination" — through which Germany's National Socialist (Nazi) Party abolished federalism and created a totalitarian state in 1933. "The plan was deceptively simple and had the advantage of cloaking the seizure of absolute power in legality," wrote left-wing historian William Shirer in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. "The Reichstag would be asked to pass an ‘enabling act' conferring on Hitler's cabinet exclusive legislative powers for four years. Put more simply, the German Parliament would be requested to turn over its constitutional functions to Hitler and take a long vacation. But since this necessitated a change in the constitution, a two-thirds majority was needed to approve it." Like Bill Clinton, Adolf Hitler urged the German Parliament to choose "progress" over "partisanship." He also exploited a terrorist attack (the burning of the Reichstag in February 1933) to obtain legislative support for expanding his executive powers. And, like Bill Clinton, Hitler pursued his consolidation of power through executive decrees. Beginning on March 9, 1933 — two weeks before passage of the Enabling Act — Hitler's government evicted sitting state governments and installed Reich Commissars to replace them. On March 31st, using the powers granted through the Enabling Act, Hitler dissolved all state diets or assemblies (except for the previously Nazified diet in Prussia). On April 7th, Hitler issued a law appointing Reich governors in all states and granting them power to reconstitute state and local governments. Each new governor was a National Socialist Party member and was required to follow "the general policy laid down by the Reich Chancellor." "Thus," concluded Shirer, "within a fortnight of receiving full powers from the Reichstag, Hitler had achieved what Bismarck, Wilhelm II and the Weimar Republic had never dared to attempt: he had abolished the separate powers of the historic states and made them subject to the central authority of the Reich, which was in his hands. He had, for the first time in German history, really unified the Reich by destroying its age-old federal character." By January 30, 1934, Hitler fully consummated his triumph over Germany's federal constitution by issuing a "Law for the Reconstruction of the Reich." Under that measure, according to Shirer, "‘Popular Assemblies' of the states were abolished, the sovereign powers of the states were transferred to the Reich, all state governments were placed under the Reich government and the state governors put under the administration of the Reich Minister of the Interior" — that is, under the head of Germany's nationalized police. As Interior Minister Wilhelm Frick triumphantly observed on that date, "The State governments from now on are merely administrative bodies of the Reich." The parallels between Hitler's executive tyranny and that being fashioned by Bill Clinton are inexact, but instructive nonetheless. In fact, it may be said that President Clinton's bid to consolidate executive power and abolish federalism by decree actually displays greater audacity than Hitler's, given that Hitler's most decisive actions were taken after the German legislature had formally surrendered power through the Enabling Act. (source: geocities.com FReegrards, -Andrew.