Mosque attacks Paris
© UnknownWhat is Europe doing?
I remember first reading Sebastian Haffner's Defying Hitler back in 2009. It shook me to the core to read about one man's experience with Nazi Germany, and the persecution he experienced simply trying to maintain his common sense during days of utter darkness. So many lies were taken at face value by his peers, until they finally changed and it became dangerous to speak to them. A tipping point was reached. It became impossible to speak out, despite the fact that social life continued on "as normal". History has recorded what followed. Speech could prove lethal, just as lethal as having the wrong religion, ethnicity, or skin color.

Sebastian's memoirs gave us an insight into what experiencing life under 'the totalitarian beast' looks and smells like. As an American I'd felt the strange change myself, from 9/11 to the expansion of the War on Terror, Homeland Security, and Total Information Awareness. Now 'The Scum' is not the Jew and the Communist, but the "Islamo-fascist".

We knew that a modern "Defying Hitler" would not have a Hitler to defy. It would not have a Bush, or an Obama, or an Osama, to defy. We were always treated to some new terrorist, evil dictator, or conspiracy. There were no symbols, like the Swastika, soaked with the blood and dread of a generation.

I remember when Red Pill Press first published Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes. The 'essential psychopath' described in that book was identified as the primary source of evil throughout history. The average individual's acceptance of authoritarianism, and their lack of a resilient 'endo moral-skeleton', were also key ingredients in allowing the genesis and infectious spread of evil. After a long enough period of "good times", people always forget what their previous struggle was essentially about (they might remember the symbols and stories, but not the essential meaning of it), what their ancestors stood for, and then they fall for anything.

And then there are the spell-binding effects of character-disturbed people, with their juvenile interpretations of reality. Free to voice their jaded opinions of others, they de-humanize the vulnerable and make them easy prey for others. And since so few seem capable of seeing the difference between a normal, healthy view of others and a pathological one, the masses adopt a more disturbed mindset through the press and propaganda. After all, it's human nature to conform. And, as James Thurber writes, "Why do you have to be a nonconformist like everybody else?"

After 9/11, a sense of evil was felt, but it was obscured by being at once everywhere and nowhere. Without needing to be told, we felt evil out there, but this conflicted with our rational belief that there is no such thing as evil. And yet we were told where this evil was coming from: 'terrorists', doublespeak for Muslims, millions of which were killed, displaced, raped, and tortured in order to somehow expiate this evil. There were moments right after 9/11 and the opening of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where people hoped that mass protests could prevent this. It was obvious what was coming. And it was terrifying. I knew a farmer who had started a local protest against the war in Afghanistan. He was subject to death threats. He maintained his psychological hygiene by providing for the local organic community, reading, and limiting company to those he could trust.

History is stuck on repeat, with 'Reichstag fires' occurring time and time again, fanning the flames, keeping us all on a low boil until the cooking is done. And now in 2015 it seems the Reichstag flames are approaching peak intensity.

Nazi Germany's rag Der Stürmer, which regularly published anti-Semitic - and occasionally anti-Christian - cartoons and articles before and after the Nazis came to power, was quick to capitalize on the Reichstag fire. It was presented as 'undeniable proof' to Germans that the Jews were plotting their demise, and laid the groundwork for the 'Final Solution'.

Cartoonists and writers for the Charlie Hebdo magazine were recently massacred in their office. Hebdo had long since been publishing anti-Islamic cartoons, and in the aftermath of the massacre, the media has been fanning the flames of religious hatred.

Ever since the Paris attacks, I've felt a despondency I haven't felt before. My heart has sunk at the realization that indeed, the light is gone. Though year after year hope was held out that terrorism would not take the heart and soul of the West, in the end it seems it has. The Paris massacre was indeed France's 9/11.

French authorities have arrested 54 people and famous comedian Dieudonne for exercising their free speech. This came right on the heels of a massive rally in Paris that was, supposedly, to extol the virtues of free speech. Across France there have been violent attacks against Muslims for their religious views and ethnicity. More than 50 violent incidents, including shootings and bombings, have occurred. Germany is now considering implementing "Jihadist identity cards" too, while leaders across the EU are reaching out to their NSA partners to help maintain all airline passenger data. A Belgian counter-terrorism raid in the town of Verviers resulted in two dead, while more operations were under way in Brussels to avert a "Belgian Hebdo". Meanwhile the EU continues to push to monitor all cyberspace in order to avert another terrorist attack, and Obama has scheduled a February 18th security summit that amounts to a Trans-Atlantic boot on humanity's face.

All of this while the people clamor for their right to "free speech" in the face of the "Muslim menace":
The lockdown of the populace is already ramping up. The EU is currently discussing the creation of a European Passenger Name Record database (national ID database), meaning officials hope to create a centralized database with a file on every single citizen. Think the no-fly list is a terrifying concept? Wait until it becomes publicly accepted for all web comments, Facebook posts, and blog posts to be added to an ongoing record that determines whether you are allowed to travel. Wait until it becomes a mainstream notion that every travel destination you visit, is tracked, recorded on permanent record, and scrutinized by some pencil necked bureaucrat who then determines whether or not you are suspect. Apparently, French officials are supportive of the idea. And given the proclamations of "unity" surrounding the upcoming summit, I suspect actions undertaken in Europe will eventually be exported to the United States.
Perhaps thanks to all the hypocrisy, people have become confused about what all of this really means, and more specifically people have forgotten how easily a group of pathological leaders can whip a population into state of collective insanity. History has largely been ignored, and the French have apparently forgotten the words of Voltaire: "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." Der Stürmer provides an excellent case study in the limits of freedom of speech.

Der Stürmer was proud of its incitement to hatred, as an insidious method of educating the masses in the mindset of National Socialism:
The war has forced us to give up much we formerly thought was necessary. It has also forced us to give up the "politeness" that in reality is a weakness. A boxer in the ring must use his fists to defend himself against his opponent. A fencer can only win when he uses his sword. We as a people will survive this war only if we eliminate weakness and "politeness" and respond to the Jews with an equal hatred.
Replace the word "Jews" in the above quote with "Muslims" and this is precisely the kind of rhetoric we are hearing today.

Yet Der Stürmer was not free to spread incendiary hate speech. The Nuremberg Trials ruled that Julius Streicher, the editor of Der Stürmer, was guilty of crimes against humanity for his speeches and publications against the Jews:
Streicher's opponents complained to authorities that Der Stürmer violated a statute against religious offense with his constant promulgation of the "blood libel" - the medieval accusation that Jews killed Christian children to use their blood to make matzoh. Streicher argued that his accusations were based on race, not religion, and that his communications were political speech, and therefore protected by the German constitution.
...
Julius Streicher was not a member of the military and did not take part in planning the Holocaust, or the invasion of other nations. Yet his pivotal role in inciting the extermination of Jews was significant enough, in the prosecutors' judgment, to include him in the indictment of Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal - which sat in Nuremberg, where Streicher had once been an unchallenged authority. Most of the evidence against Streicher came from his numerous speeches and articles over the years. In essence, prosecutors contended that Streicher's articles and speeches were so incendiary that he was an accessory to murder, and therefore as culpable as those who actually ordered the mass extermination of Jews (such as Hans Frank and Ernst Kaltenbrunner). They further argued that he kept them up when he was well aware Jews were being slaughtered.
And you can now hear the spirit of Streicher echoing across Europe.

What are we to make of these developments, coming so soon after the EU was forced to sever critical ties with, and to polarize against, Russia, putting its member states in economic jeopardy, and left holding the bill for the destruction of Ukraine? What happens when you have a worsening economic situation combined with the overt scapegoating of a minority population with perpetual 'war' in the background?