Something to Think About

In November 1923, Adolf Hitler led an aborted attempt to overthrow the Bavarian/German government in Munich. The Beer Hall Putsch was almost comical; I liken it to The Three Stooges staging a revolt. Except, some people were wounded and died. I won't go into the details, but Hitler was captured after fleein--pretty much following the first shot. He was found hiding in the cellar of one of his follower's sister a day or two later. For staging the putsch, a revolt against the democratically elected Weimar government, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years in Landsberg Prison. He was released after about nine months. Nine months for treason. And again, I won't go into details, but his term was one of those "country club" settings. Several weeks back, I read an article that likened the January 6th events at the Capitol to Hitler's putsch. The warning was, no doubt, that Hitler later succeeded in a more "peaceful" takeover, starting at the end of January 1933. (If nothing else, the failure of his 1923 debacle convinced him any such success would depend on legal efforts.) My initial reaction was to chuckle at this analogy. Could January 6th, led by Viking Helmet Man, be a warning, as the Beer Hall Putsch was? I thought that preposterous--at first. I know my views on Hitler's successful revolution in 1933 (and the next couple of years) are a bit unorthodox. No, I don't think the weaknesses of the Versailles Treaty were the causes and played little role other than as propaganda. More important, far more important were the devastating effects of the Great Depression. Simply put, no Depression no Hitler. Again, I won't go into details. But that caused me to rethink my initial chuckle at the analogy. Hmmm. With the handling of the economy, the enormous federal spending and subsequent inflation on the way, could a coming economic catastrophe spark some far more dire than the January 6th debacle? I don't know, but I'm not chuckling any more. This country seems to be getting more and more divided by the day. I thought of that at the grocery store this afternoon. Last weekend, maybe 55 of the people, customers and employees, wore masks. Today it was far closer to 50-50, probably 60-40 without. The maskless will not be able to convince the masked that masks are not particularly effective. The masked will not convince the maskless that masks work. Biden's speech the other night did nothing to help breech the divide. In fact, it drove a wedge further between groups. His unconstitional actions requiring the vax for employers with 100 or more workers (From what I've read, I think I have that right.) has already created wider divisions. And his language was inflammatory. Calling people "selfish" was an adolescence expected out of Trump. Telling the unvaxxed they will be made to "pay a price" and that he'll use his executive powers to get state's governors who don't comply with his orders "out of the way." Someone somewhere needs to tell this guy this is a democratic republic, not a dictatorship. (Of course, Obama and others have flouted the Constitution, too.) We are citizens, not subjects. He has no "executive powers" to force governors "out of the way" or to make people "pay a price." I guess he's counting on the cowardly compliance of corporate America. Look how quickly US companies/businesses have caved in to the wokesters. After all, when will these companies making inferior products come begging for taxpayer bailouts because they are "too big to fail?" If this division doesn't heal and heal pretty quickly, are we going to see history repeat itself?