An American Gulag

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

A famous Texas scandal spawned a legend and a movie: "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. Many, not familiar with Texas scandals, probably thought it referred to the state legislature where various "favors" and "special considerations" are sold to special interests and various lobbys. But --it's not a whorehouse; it's just a circle jerk.

Of late, Texas has taken political prostitution to levels not seen since A. Hitler pimped his "Third Reich" to corporate 'johns' --I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp! All would get big, juicy, sexy government contracts if they but joined his crazy, evil scheme to enslave the world and exterminate jews, gypsies and anyone else not liked by Hitler, his cult of Nazis, his hand-picked perverts, whack-jobs, and a panoply of marginal and otherwise ineffective types, in fact, those who would be failures in a normal world. And those are the Nazis!! The GOP may be worse.

The scam is often repeated in various ways by the American GOP but the Texas model, cooked up by Herrs Bush and Perry, may have outdone Hitler's blunt approach but, in the end, it's all Nazism. Hitler met 'industrialists' Thyssen, Krupp and several representatives of I.G. Farben --the makers of Zyklon 'B'. The meeting is described in some detail by William Shirer in 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'.

Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)

The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.

Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen ...We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."

All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)

----William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34

There are other, corroborating sources for this meeting.

Hitler did not intend to share his power with coalition partners. After the dissolution of the Reichstag, he hoped to win an absolute majority for the NSDAP with a massive election campaign. To finance the electoral battle, he sought support from Germany’s leading industrialists. In a meeting held on February 20, 1933, Hitler and Hermann Göring (1893-1946) explained the benefits that industry leaders would derive from an NSDAP victory: political stability, the complete elimination of the Communist threat and, not least, a lucrative rearmament policy.

Among those present at the meeting was George von Schnitzler, a board member of I.G. Farben, then the world’s largest chemical conglomerate. (I.G. Farben would eventually go on to produce the Zyklon B gas used in Nazi death camps). In the following affidavit, given in English on November 10, 1945, Schnitzler describes the purpose of the meeting and provides the names of others in attendance that day.

The TX gulag system differs very little from concentration camps. To be expected, they look modern from the outside. But, like Hitler's string of concentration and death camps, they are the work of 'private enterprise' contracted by 'government'; it is private enterprise which benefits from the Faustian deals that created them. Reduced to its essence, Hitler's 'Nazi' scheme systematically murdered millions and just as systematically reduced as many to slavery amid unimaginably horrible conditions.

--German History in Documents and Images, Volume 7. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Georg von Schnitzler on Hitler’s Appeal to Leading German Industrialists on February 20, 1933 (Affidavit, November 10, 1945)

A 'party' is what it does! If the basics of this 'privatization scheme' are repeated by Texas Republicans with similar/same results, then in what way does it differ from 'fascism' or 'corporatism' or "Nazism'? In Texas, politicians have been known to say: "if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck!" Indeed! One is what what does! A political party is what it does! The GOP has repeated the Hitler model in Texas with respect to its gulag of prisons! Am I to call the Texas GOP 'boy scouts' because they are not in Germany? Of course not! I will call them what they are and what they are, in fact and deed, are fascists!

The Texas GOP Learned From Hitler's Mistakes

The Bush family has worked to establish the same or similar model in Texas. The fruition is seen in the Texas gulag of corporate-owned prisons. The roots of this horrific outcome may be traced to Nixon-Bush overtures to China. Bush Sr's efforts to set it all up are too often forgotten by writers focused upon Nixon's largely ceremonial trip to the Forbidden City. Recall that Bush SR was ambassador to China under Nixon, that it was Nixon that took the U.S. off the gold standard; but it was most certainly Bush Sr who cut the deals in advance of Nixon's largely ceremonial trip.

It was, therefore, Bush Sr who sold us out to China. Like a bad penny, a Bush always seems to turn up when one researches China, oil, the U.S. imbalance of trade with China, oil wars, and other 'rotten' things.

“There is something rotten in Houston”

That Texas would eventually play a role in the grand scheme of things was inevitable. It was an oil producing state; later, an oil refining state. And Texas has a history of often rampant lawlessness. Now –my great uncle, Lawson 'Loss' Hart, was on the right side of the law. As a federal marshal, he tracked down, outdrew, shot and killed the infamous outlaw --Bill Dalton of the notorious Dalton gang. We could use a few more 'Harts' who might, likewise, track down the lawless Bushes, the crooked gang called GOP!

Bush SR's choice of Houston as his permanent residence was unfortunate for Houston. I recall speaking with Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz (middle 70s)! The occasion of that specific conversation was a 'smear job' that was making the rounds, a 'smear job' that might as well have had 'G O P' stamped on it with a copyright date. Hofheinz said to me: "There is something rotten in Houston!" It was as much his tone and demeanor as the sentence itself that sent chills down one's spine.

The mayor's comments came during an organized but shadowy campaign of rumor and villification against him. The rumor surfaced immediately following an infamous 'reception' for the Sr Bush at the venerable old Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. I believe that it was already envisioned, decided, that the Senior Bush would --one day --become President, and that Jr (Shrub) would, likewise, occupy the White House one day. Thus --in two generations the GOP would effect what Sr himself referred to as a 'new world order'.

The resulting fascist prison model that is now in place and operating in Texas is proof that they have not yet failed in their mission. As Hitler made promises to Thyssen, Krupp, Farben et al, one wonders: did Bush and Perry promise to subvert Texas education, in fact, reducing the state to dead last in high school graduations? Is this the crux of the deal? Essentially --we trash education and thus ensure the prisons a full house!

Texas became a different state after the election of Ronald Reagan

I thought it ironic that the man most responsible for the GOP infestations in Texas --Tom DeLay --was, himself, a roach exterminator by trade. GOP strong-holds with which I am most familiar were/are GOP infestations in Brazoria county and Fort Bend County. It was in Fort Bend County that Tom DeLay built up a base that would eventually allow him to gerrymander the state, making Texas safe for fascism.

Brazoria County got a new Republican High Sheriff who set out on a course of absolutely zero tolerance. So many were arrested he had to build his own little mini prison in the county. I am surprised that he was not awarded a title: 'Duke'.

The GOP/right wing inclined would rather build a prison than prevent the crimes that fill it. Why? That's easy! There is less easy money to be made locking folk up when crime rates are in decline! For the same reason, the right wing would rather not "waste tax payer money" to educate a child. Better to let him take to the streets, rob a convenience store, perhaps shoot someone, get arrested, sentenced and locked up in a corporate prison where the GOP's corporate/wealthy base and support could make an easy buck by warehousing him.

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus." population."

--Scrooge

But the Texas GOP has done Scrooge one better: they are making a profit off both their deaths and incarceration.

WHERE is the will to win? When the right wing has succeeded in destroying civilized society if not the world, the left will have failed to save it!

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