True or False: Blackwater is the 21st Century's version of the SA brownshirts.

[leftofthedial]

I say True.

[MethuenProgressive]

1. False.

I wish people would learn more about history before comparing everything and every one to Nazis.

[rudeboy666]

4. Concur

It seems that any authoritarian tendency or action on the part of the opposition is automatically labeled 'Nazi' (or its derivatives).

[leftofthedial]

27. I carefully said a 21st century version of the SA

I didn't casually label them "Nazis"

[seemslikeadream]

13. If they would learn more from history

they would KNOW they are the brownshirts

They have even turned on our own soldiers, how brown do ya have to get?

[leftofthedial]

25. I know plenty of history

an extra-national military force serving the political interests of a group with clear fascist leanings

how is that not comparable to the SA?

[Evergreen Emerald]

2. You just scared me.

Ohmygod. I had not thought of that. I cannot get the image of the head of blackwater at the congressional hearings with that disrespectful smirk on his face. They have no regard for American authority or law. They are brownshirts.

[cali]

3. False. Eric Prince would

have fit right in, but this isn't about ideology a tenth as much as it is about big bucks.

[Bobbieo]

5. And SA means? Secret Army - Please spell out!

[Didereaux]

15. well the $$$ are near the top but...

You forget that Prince is a religious zealot and ideologue, and that trumps greed almost always. I haven't one iota of doubt that he would participate or gladly lead an overthrow of the government. Cheney and Rumsfeld have shown over and over that they grasp human psychology and simple history at a level near the chimps: they will never understand what they unleashed.

imo

[Chimpy McCokespoon]

16. You don't think Blackwater is about ideology?

Eric Prince is all about Rove, Delay, Gingrich and the rest who are trying to create a permanent Republican one party state.

[RainDog]

24. Prince is an ideologue

his dad got Gary Bauer going, Prince aligns with Dobson. Scahill's book about Blackwater is good. In fascism, money and power are synomymous with "might makes right." Cheney wants his private military. again, Jesus Plus Nothing, from Jeff Sharlet, is an important article about this american form of fascism that is stronger than it has ever been. the kind during WWII wasn't so aligned with a religious block.

not only that, but, as noted many times before, Blackwater employs mercenaries from Pinochet's Chile, Apartheid South Africa... Prince apparently has no problem with hiring people who participated in death squads. Cheney, remember, supported the Apartheid Gov. until it fell. He's no great friend of Mandala's to this day.

no fascist movement is ever the same... there are distinct characteristics of one nation vs another that determine who aligns with fascism. In this country, as Sinclair Lewis noted, the religious right make up one of the most dangerous sects in this nation. Look at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, too, and their coercion of non-fundies from officers.

to me, to say "x is our x" in relation to fascism is only to draw a parallel to something that people know of from history so that they can see the dangers of, say, a private military that is obtaining its own weapons, planes, trying to create outposts in the south, north (Chicago) and west (San Diego.) They are dangerous, and not just because of the money.

[leftofthedial]

26. you haven't been paying attention if:

a) you don't think Blackwater and Prince are motivated by an ideology

and

b) you don't think that "big bucks" ARE an ideology--it's all about power

[DS1]

6. Yes, and the Marines are Bush's SS

because they clap louder

:eyes:


This was actually posted here

[tanyev]

7. Potentially true.

The foundation has been laid, but hopefully the recent spotlight on their actions and even more hopefully a regime change in 2008 will prevent it from becoming much worse.

[backscatter712]

8. True.

Blackwater is a private army. The SA started off as a private army.

Too many people don't have a clue how close we are to totalitarianism.

Maybe the people who say "False" are right in that the volume hasn't been turned up as high, but don't think it can't happen. The establishment of fascism is an incremental process. We're just earlier in the process.

Bobbieo: SA = Sturmabteilung - the official name for Hitler's "brownshirts".

[L. Coyote]

9. WORSE. They answer to a single corporate CEO, not a government.

[msongs]

10. goons and thugs that would kill anybody for $$$$? hmmmmm nt

[Bitwit1234]

11. The republican administration COULD be called Fascist and they deserve the title

Fascism requires the government in charge to be in collisions or controlled by corporations. This administration definitely can be said that.I don't think there is any sensible person in this country does not realize the similarities of the bush administration to the Nazi regime. Every single thing they have done comes from the pro type of the Fascism government.

Religion.....
Censuring the media....
Dissolving most of the social programs..
Playing on so call patriotism....
Discriminating against certain groups....
AND NOW BLACKWATER...............

And I am damn sure there are plenty more. Calling the bush regime NAZI or Fascist is one hundred per cent. Disprove...

[DS1]

21. collisions eh?

[mmonk]

12. True in a sense. Close enough.

They are not restricted by laws and are loyal to the administration. They are a private paramilitary. Many authoritarian governments have had a variation of this.

[happyslug]

14. But the SA was the ONLY Nazi Organization NOT found guilty at Nuremberg

The SA was more street mob than actual soldiers thus to compare them to Black-water is incorrect, the more likely comparison would be the mob that intimidated the Vote counters in Florida in the 2000 re-count (The SA job was to intimidate voters NOT insurgents)

Black-water is more like the Warren-SS, armed troops whose job is NOT to fight to contests elections, but to fight people who opposed the Nazis and fought the Nazis (Waffen SS like Black-water were noted for excessive violence against civilians and enemy soldiers).

For more on the SA see the following:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERsa.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

[mmonk]

20. That's closer I think. You are right IMO.

[leftofthedial]

28. the SA were a paramilitary private gang of thugs

Blackwater is more sophisticated and, if anything, MORE ideological

but these are more sophisticated times and the religious zealots are completely out of control

I see your analogy, but the SS were an official arm of the state...of course, the "State" soon became personally equated to Hitler.

[mitchum]

17. I dunno...private armies led by authoritarian Catholics certainly predates the Nazis...

welcome to the fucking middle ages

[leftofthedial]

29. LOL

and it ain't funny

[dkofos]

18. No, that would be the YOUNG REPUBLICANS.

[ThePowerofWill]

19. I say false.

Blackwater is more akin to say the Pinkerton's of the 1800's. Think of the old robber baron days and how they used private security as their own little armies. Not the SA, but a sample of the regressive era leading us back to the golden age of the industrialist.

I have been getting very concerned at the wealthy, and the way they can hire security. This hired security can seriously fuck you up, and just be doing their job in the eyes of the law.

Ah, GOP policy dragging us back to the 1800's-early 1900's.

[tanyev]

22. Yep. For many years I thought they were trying to drag us back to the 50s.

It's finally become apparent that they are trying to drag us back to the Gilded Age.

[ThePowerofWill]

31. Thats what their after the "Gilded Age".

The 50's were much too progressive for them. Strong unions, emerging middle class, beginning of the civil rights movement, all that middle classdom allowing so many more to attend college, which fueled what we saw in the 60's. No they don't want the 50's again.

The thing i find funny is this. There have been two great Repub Presidents i admire greatly Lincoln, and T. Roosevelt. Lincoln ended slavery in the South, Roosevelt began the dismantling of corporate power. The Repub's of this day are working furiously too undo the work of their two greatest representatives.

I've been saying this for awhile. The GOP's new motto should be "The Republican party draggin America back 100 yrs."

[leftofthedial]

32. more like the dark ages

the actual powers used the jingoistic bigoted idiots who DO want us to go back to the "safe white 50's" to get raygun elected.

they used the note-quite-uber-wealthy who DO want a return to the 1880's or 1920's to get bush into power.

the real agenda, though, is a return to a time more akin to the feudal dark ages

[ThePowerofWill]

34. Something i found funny in your remark.

The "safe white 50's" So few realize those "safe white 50's" are/were a media driven fantasy.

[leftofthedial]

36. hence the quotation marks

[leftofthedial]

30. they are descendants of the Pinkertons

but much more military

and being used in foreign occupation?

[ThePowerofWill]

33. I'll agree with that point about being a bit more militaristic.

The foreign use.....well it is the 21st century gotta think on a global level. :P

[Hutzpa]

23. And there are South Africans

amongs them too.

[Swamp Rat]

35. True. All they need to do is wear little skull & bones lapel pins, and voila!

[stimbox]

37. Mostly true.

More like Italy's Blackshirts.

[in_cog_ni_to]

38. Well, yes they are in fact. The psycho-in-chief's very own PRIVATE military.

What else could they be called? Blackwater/Brownshirts....

In 1921 Adolf Hitler formed his own private army called Sturm Abteilung (Storm Section). The SA (also known as stormtroopers or brownshirts) were instructed to disrupt the meetings of political opponents and to protect Hitler from revenge attacks. Captain Ernst Roehm of the Bavarian Army played an important role in recruiting these men, and became the SA's first leader.

Hitler's stormtroopers were often former members of the Freikorps (right-wing private armies who flourished during the period that followed the First World War) and had considerable experience in using violence against their rivals.

The SA wore grey jackets, brown shirts (khaki shirts originally intended for soldiers in Africa but purchased in bulk from the German Army by the Nazi Party), swastika armbands, ski-caps, knee-breeches, thick woolen socks and combat boots. Accompanied by bands of musicians and carrying swastika flags, they would parade through the streets of Munich. At the end of the march Hitler would make one of his passionate speeches that encouraged his supporters to carry out acts of violence against Jews and his left-wing political opponents.

When Ernst Roehm left Germany to work in Bolivia in 1925, Heinrich Himmler took over the leadership of the SA. However, in 1931 Hitler recalled Roehm to Germany and asked him to head the SA. In just over a year Roehm expanded it from 70,000 to 170,000 members. By 1934 the SA had grown to 4,500,000 men.

In 1933, General Werner von Blomberg, Hitler's minister of war, and Walther von Reichenau, chief liaison officer between the German Army and the Nazi Party, became increasingly concerned about the growing power of the SA. Ernst Roehm had been given a seat on the National Defence Council and began to demand more say over military matters. On 2nd October 1933, Roehm sent a letter to Reichenau that said: "I regard the Reichswehr now only as a training school for the German people. The conduct of war, and therefore of mobilization as well, in the future is the task of the SA.<snip>

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERsa.htm

[alfredo]

39. Illegal combatants