Pic of the Moment: Welcome to the Surveillance State

[DFW]

63. Actually, in the case of East Germany, it pretty much did just that

Its founders spent WWII mostly as Stalin's guests, and he trained them to take over the minute the occupation was declared over. They didn't change much from the Nazis. Even their uniforms and their goose-steps were almost identical except for their army helmets. The Gestapo became the Stasi, but that was about the extent of it. They just declared that their part of Germany was "Nazi-free (the 1949 equivalent of "fair and balanced&quot " and all the former nationalist "Beamten" were suddenly socialist "Arbeiter und Bauer." It's no coincidence that the largest group of Neo-Nazis after the fall of the wall was in the East. They had never really experienced a country where elections mattered, and since the reigning "socialists" had declared that no Nazis were ever there, well, then all the fascists laying low could never have had Nazi backgrounds, could they?

Dick Cheney would have loved to lead us in that direction. Obama has nothing of the sort in mind. I graduated from the same high school (if you want to call it that) as W. I never met him, but I know where he's coming from. There were enough like him there, and his dad was the guy who interviewed me. I have spent time with Obama. We are NOT heading in that direction as long as he's president, and I'm confident that we will still not be heading in that direction if Hillary, O'Malley, or anyone else on our radar succeeds him. Obama will probably have a post-presidency like Bill Clinton, organizing charitable initiatives around the world full-time. Look at what W and Cheney are doing. Again, we are not headed in that direction. Easily said, but not easily substantiated if you've lived the real thing.