kehrt nach Haus' geschwind.

The lyrics haunted the opening moments of the Sam Peckinpaugh film, Cross of Iron. In a simple stroke of genius, Peckinpaugh  demonstrated in 4 minutes what writers and other artists failed to accomplish in much longer and loftier works. The dubbing of an innocent child's voice over footage taken from Nazi propaganda and war footage set the tone of the movie, but also served as a reminder about the prevalence of fascism -the reach of the state is everywhere; no one is safe.

Perhaps the longest lasting legacy of JFK is his 1961 inauguration speech, in which he stridently called Americans to "bear any burden...in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty." A generation of babyboomers marked this speech as their political or civic coming of age. Despite their actions in later years, which was filled with youthful hedonism and indiscretion, the babyboomers still buy into President Kennedy's "Call to Action". And now 47 years later, another Democrat recently uttered this promise:

 

 "So when I'm President, I will set a goal for all American middle and high school students to perform 50 hours of service a year, and for all college students to perform 100 hours of service a year. This means that by the time you graduate college, you'll have done 17 weeks of service."

 

Barak Obama, a 46 year old Harvard trained lawyer, has plenty to say to the electorate. The Junior Senator from Illinois, whose curriculum vitae includes the authorship of 2 autobiographies, serving 2 terms as an Illinios state senator, and serving less than 4 years in the US Senate (of which he's spent 2 full years campaigning for President), has gazed upon our nation and found it wanting. His wife, Michelle, is even more critical. On the campaign trail she sniffed:

 

"That we have to compromise and sacrifice for one another in order to get things done. That is why I am here, because Barack Obama is the only person in this who understands that. That before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation."

 

Barak's wife was not finished.  She promised:

 

"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone . . . Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uninformed."

 

Now the exhortation of politicians is nothing new. In times of national crisis it is considered a virtue. Ever since Teddy Rossevelt and Woodrow Wilson, it has become the hallmark of progessive politicians to create crisis in order to "lead" the unwashed masses to Utopia. But problem solving and the mobilization of the masses are just part and parcel of a larger project that began in the late 19th century. Nietszche wasn't the only intellectual who noticed that Europeans were reading the newspapers more than their Bibles. While Nietszche didn't envision the State taking the place of the Roman Curia, a young Italian school-teacher-turned-socialist preached just that. Benito Mussolini's aphorism, "There is no concept of the State which is not fundamentally a concept of life: philosophy or intuition, a system of ideas which develops logically or is gathered up into a vision or into a faith, but which is always, at least virtually, an organic conception of the world". Faith, is a word closely aligned with Revealation, and has since Voltaire's time been considered an enemy of Reason. Mussolini was the first major political activist who dispensed with Scientific Marxism in favor of the German idea of Gemeinschaft - Community. Lenin picked up his cue and soon followed. For the next 8 decades socialism evolved into different strains -each reflecting regional differences based upon the character of the different nations it made itself home in.

 

In the US, the Germanic strain of socialism found a ready home. While National Socialism died a violent death in Berlin in 1945, the theoretical underpinnings of Fascism remained most agreeable to our post-war intelligentsia. Enlightenment ideas such as Enlightened Self Interest, and Constitutional Democracy were not enough. Imported terms such as values, commitment and charisma injected a bit of the irrational into our civic and political virtue. The religious impulse, now dead, would re-enter into political life through the back door. Faith in the Almighty would be replaced by Belief in The Cause. Never mind that Nazi Germany recently taught the world a most unpleasant lesson concerning politics and the irrational. The various Youth Movements of the 1960s had one thing in common: they were all fascist in nature in spite of their Marxist rhetoric; they were all about value commitment. Men and women would no longer look to God but to the State or the Party. As the religious sentiment in our civic life was repressed there grew a tendency to further adapt or purloin its ideas. The idea that political commitment can also be a spiritual experience is not a new one, but it surely was considered  a novelty in the US. This idea found its home with Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun. Lerner mixes the socialism of the Isreali kibbutz, new age spirituality, and pop pyschology, in order to confect a social arrangement that eerily resembles Nazi Germany - or at the very least comes out as Jonah Goldberg would call Liberal Fascism. The State, in Lerner's view, would not only provide jobs, vocational training, and ensure labor standards, but also the State would provide both spiritual and pyschological guidance. The State would "co-ordinate" all aspects of the individual. The Nazis had a word for this:  Gleichschaltung - or coordination. In Learner's Utopia, the institutions that in millenia past provided "meaning" to the person (churches, civic associations, and the extended family) would be replaced by a benevolent state. The First Lady Hillary Clinton caused quite a stir in 1993 when she delivered her "Politics of Meaning" speech. Clinton, a Methodist, found nothing theologically offensive in what Lerner, a Reformed Jew, wrote. As a matter of fact, they are both kindred spirits, despite their different confessions.  Both Clinton and Lerner are devoted socialists where religion, or better yet religiosity is at the service of the State. Both Yaweh and Christ can be reconciled if they can be woven in the same Seamless Garment.

 

We now can frame the ideas or utterances of the Obamas if seen through the perspective of History. From Teddy Roosevelt's Muscular Christianity through the pop-spirituality of Rabbi Michael Lerner, no matter who's the writer, there remains the shadow of The State. Today, most people are so used to the idea of an all-encompassing State, that Obama's campagin rhetoric elicits either shrugs or sympathy. Ideas, which in decades past would have engendered horror, today are considered mainstream. When Obama proposed making school aged children no more than corvees of the state (forced conscription into a federally mandated Community Service Corps) he received a standing ovation. To my surprise, many of my conservative acquaintances thought this was also a good idea. It was all about
'giving back to our Community," and "teaching our young people to respect and appreciate what they've got." When I politely reminded them about a) the Constitutional prohibitions against indentured servitude and b) our Constitutional rights come with no conditions, and c) the civic virtues which they would like returned are actually religious virtues (namely Caritas or better known as Charity) and are taught in the home and the church, and not at a community center staffed by federally funded social workers. 

 

Many people may think that this little essay is a bit strident in itself. Obama, after all, is just a politician and is only appealing to his base. All of this talk of Nazis and Fascists is a bit much. For everyone, toute le monde, knows it cannot happen over here. There are constitutional protections and all that. My answer to the first response is that unlike other politicians, Obama is quite up front and has made his promises in full view of the cameras. In the age of You Tube there is no pulling a Clinton (the famous tactic of Bill Clinton of giving one speech in the morning endorsing an action, and then giving another speech later that day diametrically opposing his earlier speech). It should also be remembered that Obama has carefully cultivated the persona of Der Fuehrer. Obama and his handlers know full well the power of today's media age. Emphasis on his youth and virility mirror that of Hitler. During his recent trip to Berlin, his handlers demanded that he be given permission to deliver a speech at the historic Brandenberg Tor; after politely being denied this, they managed to get access to the famous Victory Column. The predicted photo op lacked even a hint of irony. I seriously doubt any dedicated Democrat in past decades would even consider selecting such a symbol of past Prussian aggression. In an age where the Fuehrer Prinzip at times appears to be making a comeback (even Christian Conservatives have built institutions with emphasis on Leadership), it is only a matter of time before the electorate demands a Leader who can inspire the kind of confidence only a Feld Marschall can deliver. And as far as Constitutional protections go, one need only look at recent cases such as the Kelo case to see what could happen to even our enumerated rights. As we learned with Prussia and then the 2nd Reich, the lack of institutional and constitutional protections provided the Nazis a means to capture the 1933 elections. And Hitler didn't even have the Internet. Today, with all of the technology the Federal goverment has at its disposal, and a judiciary that cannot be depended upon to protect basic constitutional rights, and a large swath of the citizenry already dependent on "benevolent" goverment, it does give one pause when someone like Obama enters the political stage.