Billmon: 04/20 – Moon of Alabama

April 21, 2005

Billmon: 04/20

“Bankruptcy should always be a last resort in our legal system. If someone does not pay his or her debts, the rest of society ends up paying them.”

I. The Lessons of Munich

The Fuehrer thanked Chamberlain for his words and told him that he had similar hopes. As he had already stated several times, the Czech problem was the last territorial demand which he had to make in Europe.

Posted by on April 21, 2005 at 05:36 UTC | Permalink

Comments

to Billmon:
I’m afraid you missed an even more appropriate historical comparison: Hitler’s Enabling Act of 1933.
I quote:
Just before the vote, Hitler made a speech to the Reichstag in which he pledged to use restraint. “The government will make use of these powers only insofar as they are essential for carrying out vitally necessary measures…The number of cases in which an internal necessity exists for having recourse to such a law is in itself a limited one.” Hitler told the Reichstag.
He also promised an end to unemployment and pledged to promote peace with France, Great Britain and the Soviet Union. But in order to do all this, Hitler said, he first needed the Enabling Act.
A two thirds majority was needed, since the law would actually alter the German constitution. Hitler needed 31 non-Nazi votes to pass it. He got those votes from the Center Party after making a false promise to restore some basic rights already taken away by decree.

Posted by: Lupin | Apr 21 2005 6:54 utc | 1

I forgot to add the the Enabling Act was officially called the Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.

Posted by: Lupin | Apr 21 2005 6:57 utc | 2

Lupin: re “centrists”

The only things in the center of the road are yellow stripes and dead armadillos – Jim Hightower

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. – Martin Luther King. Letter from the Birmingham Jail

The tyranny of this dictatorship isn’t primarily the fault of Big Business, not of the demagogues who do their dirty work. It’s the fault of Doremus Jessup! Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest – Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here

And that’s why I’m turning you in, so love me, love me, love me, I’m a liberal – Phil Ochs

Posted by: citizen k | Apr 21 2005 8:18 utc | 3

Chamberlain’s biggest problem was that he was moving at 19th century speed when Hitler was moving at 20th century. Chamberlain actually negotiated two Munich treaties. The first treaty was overturned within about two days by Hitler who increased his demands on the Czechs before they had even had a chance to respond to the first, which was passed to them by Chamberlain for review. At that point Chamberlain should have realized that Hitler was a snake and untrustworthy, not six months later when Hitler absorbed the rest of Czechoslovakia (or is was it Czecho-Slovakia at the time) and created the fascist rump state of Slovakia under a nasty little cleric’s rule. Had Chamberlain been half as smart as he thought he was, he would have realized that it was better to fight in the fall of 1938 than to trust the word of a man who had already demonstrated his dishonesty. Ultimately, Chamberlain understood that and extended its protection to Poland, with its autrocratic ruler and indefensible borders and worse ethnic German problems than Czechoslovakia.

Posted by: PrahaPartizan | Apr 21 2005 10:36 utc | 4

Quote:
Had Chamberlain been half as smart as he thought he was, he would have realized that it was better to fight in the fall of 1938…
***
It wouldn’t be good for business, I suppose…

Posted by: vbo | Apr 21 2005 14:40 utc | 5

Not to mention Bush’s plans not to pay back the Social Security Trust Fund.

Posted by: liz | Apr 21 2005 14:55 utc | 6

Re: Debt To Society
I don’t have anything wry or deeply insightful to say about this topic; I simply have to register my disgust at the overt contempt the present American administration has shown to its working poor. I would like to see a reasonably impartial study done in which the cost to society of individual bankruptcies is shown side-by-side with the cost to society of corporate malfeasances (such as George’s younger brother Neal’s catastrophic Savings & Loan dealings).
What is so despicable about this new legislation is that it does not even pretend to be anything more noble than class warfare. There is no provision in it to limit corporate bankruptcy proceedings, it merely (!) puts another fetter upon the nigh hopeless financial situation of the poorest classes. It is difficult to see how this is not a very long stride towards returning to feudalism.

Posted by: Monolycus | Apr 21 2005 14:59 utc | 7

Thanks. I had never realized before that the “Chamberlin” appeasement so beloved by militarists everywhere as a reason for militarising, really start long before Chamberlin, with accomodators in the German legislature.
Provides a different persepctive on DeLay and Frist and Santorum. They are the first line of Chamberlin sell outs. The ones who start it.

Posted by: razor | Apr 21 2005 17:03 utc | 8

Bad, bad example. I invoke Godwin’s Law. Seriously, WTF has Munich 1938 to do with US judicial nominations in 2005?
In the first case the result was a loss of souvereignity by the Czech Republic and a world war.
In the second case the result will be accepting ca. 10 judges, whom the Dems rejected before (but gave their thumbs up to 205 other judicial candidates).
Right or wrong, the second problem does not justify a ‘You’re a Nazi!’ analogies.

Posted by: MarcinGomulka | Apr 21 2005 17:39 utc | 9

MG
If the argument is that these judges are the very people intended for promotion to positions where they will finally release this country from constitutional limits to government, that they are slated to deliver a 21st century and American version of last century’s legislative and German abandonment of constitutional government – in that case, arguably, the historical analogy is quite precise.
Do you see any data that would support this argument?

Posted by: citizen | Apr 21 2005 18:26 utc | 10

Oops,I was thinking of something else besides Munich. So, sticking to Munich…
I think this analogy works if you are a legislator considering whether or not to vote to get rid of the filibuster. It’s about which way to vote and the enormity of the costs which grow out of earlier and smaller costs.
That is, “stop protecting those little guys” results in no one being protected anymore – which is a kind of hog-heaven for our home grown fascists. When was the last time the worlds most advanced producer of weapons of destruction seemed to be losing the ability to control itself rationally? Munich?

Posted by: citizen | Apr 21 2005 18:34 utc | 11

Bad, bad example. I invoke Godwin’s Law
“To live outside the law you have to be honest.”
Bob Dylan

Posted by: Billmon | Apr 21 2005 20:04 utc | 12

must be honest

Posted by: razor | Apr 21 2005 21:36 utc | 13

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