Blowing Smoke - Michael Wolraich [91]
We saw the Homeland Security department say that people like you and me need to be put on a terrorist watch list. They say that Christian conservatives, pro life people, pro Second Amendment people, veterans even need to be put on a terrorist watch list.37
Finally, Broun complimented Beck, “I really appreciate what you do in bringing forth all this information about the czars, about what’s going on in the federal government, and I just praise God for you and what you’ve been doing on your radio and TV programs.”
In Representative Broun, Beck had clearly found a kindred spirit. As he put it, “I can’t make this piece of the puzzle fit, unless this piece is about building some kind of thug-ocracy.”bz Then he posed one of his trademark challenging questions to President Obama:
Mr. President, is your civilian national security force to protect us from things the Missouri State Police, your own Homeland Security and the liberal Southern Law Poverty Center have come out and said were a threat: militia groups; tea party goers; folks with “Don’t Tread on Me” flags; me; Sarah Palin?38
But President Obama did not respond, thereby confirming Beck’s suspicions.
Neither Broun nor Beck, however, described the context of the speech in which Obama unloaded his bombshell. He was discussing his plan to expand the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps—the Federal volunteer program created by Bill Clinton and enlarged by George W. Bush. Here is the next sentence after the bit that Beck quoted so abundantly:
We need to use technology to connect people to service. We’ll expand USA Freedom Corps to create online networks where Americans can browse opportunities to volunteer. You’ll be able to search by category, time commitment and skill sets. You’ll be able to rate service opportunities, build service networks, and create your own service pages to track your hours and activities.39
We can only speculate about what opportunities Obama planned to include in the volunteer database. Storm trooper? Grand inquisitor? Jackbooted thug? Obama also envisioned a social network in which volunteers would create their own “service pages” to track their activities. What might a typical “service page” look like?
A Reichstag Moment
But how could Obama possibly expect to get away with such an outrageous scheme? Is this not America, land of the free, home of the brave? Surely, Americans will not sit still once Obama finally unleashes his brutal volunteers, and they howl forth from their hellholes in Berkeley and Washington, DC, into the pristine heartland of the Real America.
This is where we get to the really scary stuff. Remember Al Gore’s Nazi-derived fear tactics? In an interview with Christopher Ruddy, the founder of NewsMax magazine, Glenn explained that what he truly feared was a “Reichstag moment.” The Reichstag building in Berlin is the home of the German parliament. In 1933, weeks after Hitler became chancellor of Germany, the building caught fire in a suspected arson attack. Hitler used the fire to justify mass arrests and media crack-downs, enabling him to consolidate power. Thus, Beck feared that some disaster would give the Obama administration an excuse to seize totalitarian powers. He explained, “I fear an event. I fear a Reichstag moment. God forbid, another 9/11. Something that will turn this machine on, and power will be seized, and voices will be silenced.”40
Christopher Ruddy neglected to press Beck on the unintended irony of the Reichstag reference—Hitler had blamed the Reichstag fire on a fabricated communist conspiracy, alleging that the fire was meant to initiate the Marxist revolution. Instead, Ruddy asked, “If it happens, what should Americans do to fight it?” to which Beck responded with a grim flourish of sheer nonsense, “Read the Constitution.