Most people throw up their hands, say "Everybody knows that, but whaddya gonna do?" and continue on in their mute approval of such injustice. Not Chamba. He utilizes the public forum of community radio to challenge listeners to consider the alternative viewpoint to the mainstream media and then take action.

Wither we goest? Beyond the present attack on Iraq, there is the larger question of the abyss our great nation is plummeting into. Wednesday, March 26th, Jeff Kane visits Rabble Rousing. Join us as two old guys who have been around the block some, speak of the state of our nation, the direction we seem to be heading, and what, if anything, we can do about it. Your brief comments are welcome. Rabble Rousing on KVMR. Wednesdays, Noon to 1:00 PM.

February 27th, acclaimed investigative journalist Greg Palest returned to Rabble Rousing, to give us the British and European perspective and involvement in America's plans to steal Iraq's oil.

Is the 401-k tax plan a great safety net or an incredible scam and hoax? This Rabble Rousing interviews authors, William Wolman & Anne Colamosca of the book, "The Great 401K Hoax" that may change your thinking, and your retirement plans. Rabble Rousing on KVMR.

William Wolman is Chief Economist at BusinessWeek magazine and a regular commentator on CNBC television. Anne Colamosca writes for a variety of national publications, including The New Republic, the Christian Science Monitor, and Columbia Journalism Review.

Elizabeth Roberts just returned from spending 2 months in Iraq. This Wednesday, she speaks with Rabble Rousing about the feelings of the Iraqi people, who are facing impending war, as well as what we in America can do to possibly lessen their suffering.

Who is really running our govt, and what is their overall plan? What exactly is this "New World Order"? This Wednesday, Rabble Rousing plays an incredibly informative tape featuring Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute. He names names and answers more questions than you thought you had. Fascinating.

This wed on rabble rousing, author Eric Hofshmid, author of "Painful Questions, an analysis of the 9-11 attack" demolishes the official story of the collapse of the twin towers, speculates on what actually hit the Pentagon, and offers other perspectives that will curl your toes. Tell your "still trusting the govt" friends to listen in.

The archived audio is recorded as a 24 kps mono MP3 file. Depending on how your browser is set up to handle audio files may require you to first download the just over 10 Mb MP3 file. If you have difficulty with them please e-mail our web guy.

In Dec of 1941, just after the Japanese attacked the united states at pearl harbor, American pres Franklin Delanor Roosevelt characterized that day as a day of infamy. Well, it looks very much like today, 19 march 2003, will go down in history as an even greater day of infamy. For today, baring a miracle, the united states will effectively set back human kinds progress in creating a world ruled by law, and negotiation, by at least 50 years. In 1945, the world created the united nations, in an attempt to provide a mechanism for avoiding war. One can argue as to how effective that body has been, but the fact remains that without the UN, the world is reduced to nations acting very much like a pack of hungry snarling dogs, willing to murder and enslave in pursuit of narrow selfish interests. Today the united states is going to say to the world, once and for all, screw you. Might makes right. We'll do anything we want, any time we want, to anyone we want. For exactly the same reason that a dog licks its genitals-because we can. Try and stop us. We dare you. This is indeed a day of infamy. Ask not for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

I'm sorry, but in times such as these, for my own sanity, I must occasionally delve into humor. Did you hear the latest this morning, from whatever govt. idiot was speaking the party line? The am govt. is now claiming that over 30 nations are backing the upcoming slaughter. Only one problem. 30 of these war mongering nations are remaining anonymous. You heard that right the us govt. is claiming 30 nations secretly support the us unprecedented attack on a defenseless people, simply to steal their resources, but we cant tell you who they are. If this isn't govt. propaganda straight out of George Orwells 1984, I don't know what is. Will any thinking person believe this crap?. Unfortunately, I met one yesterday. He will. At softball practice I was astounded to meet a fellow player I formerly had great respect for. He is a thinking caring person, and he totally believes the crap mainstream media is feeding him. He quoted me every bs excuse and mistruth the govt. is spouting, concerning why Sadism is a threat and must be stopped. He eloquently tied in every convoluted reason going back 50 years. but the thing I found most revealing was the anger in his voice. I have been taught that anger is never the true emotion. Whenever you encounter anger, in yourself or in another, the deeper underlying emotion is fear. And I never had the opportunity to ask him, brother what do you fear? We can agree to disagree, even over an issue as sensitive as this one, but why the anger? Where is your fear? What is it that has you so fearful that you shut off your critical reasoning and believe an obviously lying govt.? You listeners might consider asking that question of the people in your world who honestly believe the us govt. is doing the right thing, in ignoring . the deeply felt opinions of the vast majority of the citizens of the world, and a significant % of its own citizens.

One nation, deluded into believing it is acting under god, scared shitless, and about to do terrible things to a defense less people unfortunate enuff to be subjugated by a megalomaniac dictator. Excuse me, I'm falling for govt. propaganda myself. We could care less about megalomaniac dictators. We arm and keep in power equally evil dictators all over the planet. If Iraq's most valuable natural resource were pistachio nuts, rather than oil, we would sit watching while he slaughtered every one of his citizens, and all his neighbors as well. Its about oil, and nothing else. If the middle east did not have oil, Americans would not even know there was a middle east. Desert isn't it? Bunch of ragheads live there right? Today is indeed a day of infamy.

Let us pray that the carnage is over quickly, with a minimum amount of suffering. And let us insist that our do nothing elected representatives find the courage, moral conviction, and money to help rebuild a shattered Iraq, once we finish destroying it. Recent history is not comforting. Our promises to Yugoslavia evaporated into nothing. Our promises regarding Afghanistan were hollow lies. Since destroying Afghanistan the us govt. has done nothing for its citizens to rebuild their shattered nation. All aid to Afghanistan has come from private humanitarian efforts. The united states position is very clear. We don't have money to help rebuild, but we have endless supplies of money to destroy. We are the most powerful nation on earth. And if you have what we want, we will take it.

The united nations was a terrific idea, but the world seems to be returning to the blatant colonialism of times we thought were past. Scary, very scary. And most scary of all, for Americans, is the inescapable fact that we have completely lost control of our own govt. geo. bush and his cronies are running amok, and who or what is there to stop them? Do not ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.

Ok, one final yet important point. Everyone, I mean everyone is under tension right now. We are all scared of what is about to happen, and some of us are also afraid of the consequences for years to come. The American govt., in our names, has not chosen a path of wisdom. And every thinking American must now realize that we can no longer pretend to be a nation of moral, caring, loving people. Our great nation is now revealed to the world, as lying, bribing, manipulating, bullying, cowards . Everyone, I mean everyone, in their heart of hearts, is scared. Some hide it with anger, but beneath the anger is fear. So cut everyone around you a little slack. These are crazy times, everyone is going to be just a little bit crazy. Be nice to your fellow Americans. Give em more space on the freeways, be polite when you go out in public, treat your friends and loved ones with special tenderness. Make no mistake about it, we are all scared.

The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.

It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, 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 relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.

Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified 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," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.

Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.

Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.

To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.

Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)

Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.

Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.

His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly 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 terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.

He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.

His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.

To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.

But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.

With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.

It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.

In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."

To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.

Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.

A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.

As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.

February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."

Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.

We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.

Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.

Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.

To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.

Thom Hartmann is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached. Here's a link to Thom Hartmann's web site

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