February 27, 1933. That was the rise of Hitler. Democracy died that day in Germany. Those in charge received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed.

You see, the people were distracted by their unelected “leader”, a man who was chosen for the position by the elites. He wasn’t supposed to be there. Many citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. But he knew… They’d all be punished in the end. They dismissed him as a simpleton. He had simple, inflammatory rhetoric and knew how to have passionate speeches. But even his younger days in the occult didn’t stop his rise to power. For this gentleman knew…

He knew the terrorist was going to strike (just not where or when). So when an aide brought him word that the nation’s most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified that it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.

You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history.

“The fire is beginning.”

That fire was used not to declare war on a nation but a tactic: terrorism. This terrorism had to have originated with a group of people of Middle Eastern origin who rationalized their acts using religion.

Two weeks later, suspected allies were held in prison and patriotism erupted everywhere with the leader’s flag. Within four weeks of the attack, the nations leader had pushed through legislation – in the name of fighting terrorism and the philosophy that spawned it – which suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Now police could intercept mail and wiretap phones; terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and no access to lawyers. Police could sneak into people’s homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

And people went along because he promised sunset provisions.

But the people got gradual increases in state sponsored terrorism. More people began to be arrested for suspicious acts. Pretty soon, the nation was referred to as “the homeland” in 1934. The beginning of an us-vs-them mentality pursued.

Then the push for more military war powers began. His argument? “Any international body that didn’t act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He withdrew his country form the League of Nations in October 1933 and negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Anthony Eden in the United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

To get the evangelicals of his country he proclaimed a need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation with his “New Christianity”. Every man in the growing army wore a belt buckle that declared Gott mit uns – God is with us- and most of them fervently believed it was true.

Within a year of the attack, the nation’s leader began to coordinate various local police and federal agencies around the nation around Middle Eastern terrorism. What would eventually occur is that this national agency that was mandated to protect the security of the homeland, dealt with the press and had them at their disposal. They asked people to phone in suspicious neighbors.

And yet, that program began to grab opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out. Then the thirst for more power began… He reached out to industry and forged an alliance with them by bringing former executives of the nation’s largest corporations into high government positions. Government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against terrorists in the homeland and to prepare for wars overseas. Powerful alliances with industries culminated into one of the first large-scale detention centers for enemies of the state.

And yet, voices began to dissent.

Students started an active program against him called the White Rose Society and leaders of neary nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric.

So he created a diversion to get away from the crony capitalism he’d implemented, the questions of his illegitimate rise to power, and the civil libertarians who voiced concerns about the people being held in detentions without due process or access to attorneys or family.

And so, Adolf Hitler began his grandstanding for war. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self defense. Months of lobbying and international debate ensued and he was allowed to annex Austria. To deal with the damage, Hitler and his “friends” in the radio began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. If you questioned him, you were labeled unpatriotic, “anti-German,” or “not a good German” while you were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation’s valiant men in uniform. It was the most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage earning people against the intellectuals and liberals critical of his policy.

And so to divert attention away from his policies, he focused the nation on war. There was violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders and the epidemic of crony capitalism was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class’s way of life.

Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told his people that giving in to this leader’s new first-strike doctrine for a second time would bring “peace for our time”.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. Germany was fully at war and all internal dissent suppressed in the name of national security.

By the way… The office for the security of the homeland? That was the schutzstaffel. We know it in the US as the SS.

The US has been going down the same fascist path as other nations with the very same results… We created an aristocracy with Reagan, fought wars while eliminating public services under both Bushes, attacked our poor with crippling poverty under Clinton and Obama, while turning our democracy into a police state for the past 40 years.

Tread lightly… Our republic cannot stay on this path without dire consequences in the near future.