Papiere Bitte
By Doris Colmes

06/01/05 "ICH" - - Those were the magic words of the
time: “Papiere Bitte. (Translation: “Papers, Please.”)
Hearing those words, even now, causes dull
echoes of sounds akin to bodies hitting dirt, or
bullets penetrating flesh to thud into my mind.
Because, if those papers weren’t correctly in order,
or, if you were a Jew sneakily present in any place
(including the grocery store) which displayed the
usual “NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED” sign, you were dead
meat--literally. And, yes, of course I’m talking
about my childhood as a little Jewish kid in Nazi
Germany.

No one ever forgets stench. Whether it is a
long-forgotten encounter with a ripe skunk, or a ripe
egg, or a ripe decomposing body, once one of those
odors has been brain-documented, then even the
slightest tinge of such an aroma pops back up
immediately, along with the circumstances under which
it first offended the nostrils.

And, that’s what’s happening now. I smell the
long-forgotten skunk, the long-forgotten rot of
fascism. What is happening all around can no longer
be denied. . What I ran away from so desperately in
1938 is coming back full circle. Only the jack-boots
have not yet arrived.

America quite literally saved my life. The love and
gratitude deep in my heart for this country will never
go away. But I’m scared now. Haunted by deep fear for
the generations to come, who may wind up as I did –
looking over their shoulders, scurrying for cover,
mute with terror. And it hurts.

Think I’m some kinda elderly nut-job neurotically
manufacturing dictatorship? Well, let’s look at the
82 billion dollar defense bill passed just a few weeks
ago, which (with a vote tally of 100 to 0) had the
Real ID Act hidden inside it. This law allows a
national identification process in which each and
every person in the U.S.A. will be on computer.

This ID will be based on driver’s license
applications, although it isn’t just for driving.
Just like the infamous “Internal Passport” of Nazi
Germany, no one will need it unless needing to fly,
cash checks, apply for jobs, walk the streets, enter
federal buildings -- or drive. As stated in TIME
magazine on May 15, 2005 , “If you are a wealthy
recluse with liquid assets, it doesn’t concern you.”
Everyone else better watch out! Well, maybe that
wealthy recluse had better watch out also. After all,
he/she might be of a forbidden religion, or of
suspicious racial origin.

Legal “ID Theft” and legal “illegal surveillance?”
[1][1]”The Real ID Act links driver’s licenses of all
states, creating a data base including the private
details of
every single U.S. citizen. It mandates that your
driver’s license share a common machine-readable
digital photo of you, all the better to track your
every movement. It hands the federal government
unfunded mandate power to dictate what data all states
must collect for license holders, including everything
from fingerprints to retinal scans”. And, if you
don’t drive, you’ll still need to submit to the
national ID card. How else, after all, will the cop
who doesn’t like the shape of your face, or the fact
that you are (God Forbid) wearing a turban get to
arrest you? Yes, “Papiere Bitte” has come home to
roost.

And, folks, that’s only the beginning. More
technically sophisticated techniques will be
implemented as they occur. If the Nazis had had
electronic surveillance, phone bugging and all else
that the Patriot Act not only condones but advises,
there would have been an even tighter grip on the
populace.

After all, the Patriot Act is modeled directly after
Gestapo methods: Those 3:00 AM home intrusions –
without warrant or reason for arrest – will get our
undesirable “domestic terrorists” straight to the
nearest version of Guantanamo with no need for trial.
The USA is currently building thirty seven “detention
centers” nationwide, and they’ll soon be filled with
persons who protest too much, or are simply of the
wrong nationality. After all, it worked very well in
Germany , successfully eliminating Jews, Gypsies, and
anyone willing to stand up, and refuse to “Hail
Hitler.”

What’s next? Well, it’s already happening: The
Geneva Conventions were initiated after WW II to
prevent the insane war crimes and crimes against
humanity perpetrated by Nazi Germany from ever
happening again. Now, with blithe disregard of all of
the above, the U.S.A. not only institutes torture (not
just physical, but deliberately mental and emotional)
on its prisoners, but actually exports these folks to
countries in which such torture is governmentally
approved. What the U.S. domestic prison system has
kept hidden for years, is now right out there for
everyone to applaud. How long it will take before the
prison guards tie together the legs of a woman in
labor and then make bets on how long it will take her
to die? After all, that’s what guards did for fun in
Nazi Germany. Abu Ghraib, anyone?

So, you ask, “If that’s all true, why doesn’t the
media expose it all?” Now, that’s such a classic
example of Nazi strategy, it’s almost funny. The
Nazis took over the media, folks. No newspaper
published a single sentence without governmental
approval, and propaganda was fed to the populace
instead of news. Sound familiar? A TIME magazine
article, (April, 2005), gave illustrated examples of
how the current administration administers this
process.

And, last but certainly not least, the Nazis took over
the German government in its entirety with one simple
maneuver: They simply took over the courts. You
know, like it’s happening right now, today, even as we
speak: Our filibuster was busted, and those neo-con
activist judges are a-sittin’ on the bench, ready to
take over the Supreme Court. Because, once that
Supreme Court is co-opted, hey, driver’s license ID
cards are gonna be the least of our worries. Ask me.
I know!

Doris is an independent writer and may be contacted
at: dhcolmes@msn.com

[1][1] Jim Babka, Canyon Lake Week , Canyon Lake , TX
5-11-2005

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