Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
-Gustave Gilbert, German speaking intelligence officer and psychologist, interviewed and recorded the observations of Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichmarshal and Luftwafe Chief during Nurenburg Trials, 1946
What Herman Goering described was the effectiveness of using Problem-Reaction-Solution to carry out an agenda contrary to the goals of the public. The Nazi's burned the Reichstag building and later blamed it on a mentally disabled man they labeled as a communist using this method.
Göring and Goebbels, with Hitler's approval, hatched a plan to cause panic by burning the Reichstag building and blaming the Communists. The Reichstag was the building in Berlin where the elected members of the republic met to conduct the daily business of government.
By a weird coincidence, there was also in Berlin a deranged Communist conducting a one-man uprising. An arsonist named Marinus van der Lubbe, 24, from Holland, had been wandering around Berlin for a week attempting to burn government buildings to protest capitalism and start a revolt. On February 27, he decided to burn the Reichstag building.
Carrying incendiary devices, he spent all day lurking around the building, before breaking in around 9 p.m. He took off his shirt, lit it on fire, then went to work using it as his torch.
The exact sequence of events will never be known, but Nazi storm troopers under the direction of Göring were also involved in torching the place. They had befriended the arsonist and may have known or even encouraged him to burn the Reichstag that night. The storm troopers, led by SA leader Karl Ernst, used the underground tunnel that connected Göring's residence with the cellar in the Reichstag. They entered the building, scattered gasoline and incendiaries, then hurried back through the tunnel.
However the Nazis were not the first to take advantage of the people using Problem - Reaction - Solution.
The emperor Nero ruled Rome from 54 to 68 AD. On the night of July 19, 64 A.D., a fire broke out among the shops lining the Circus Maximus, Rome's mammoth chariot stadium. When the smoke cleared, 10 of Rome's 14 districts were in ruin. The 800-year-old Temple of Jupiter Stator and the Atrium Vestae, the hearth of the Vestal Virgins, were gone. Two thirds of Rome had been destroyed.
History has blamed Nero for the disaster, implying that he started the fire so that he could bypass the senate and rebuild Rome to his liking. Much of what is known about the great fire of Rome comes from the aristocrat and historian Tacitus, who claimed that Nero watched Rome burn while merrily playing his fiddle. Gangs of thugs prevented citizens from fighting the fire with threats of torture, Tacitus wrote. There is some support for the theory that Nero leveled the city on purpose: the Domus Aurea, Nero's majestic series of villas and pavilions set upon a landscaped park and a man-made lake, was built in the wake of the fire.
Neither human effort nor princely largesse nor divine appeasement was able to dispel the scandal that the fire (which burned much of Rome in 64 CE) was believed to have been commanded (by the emperor Nero). So, to do away with the rumor, Nero substituted as culprits those who were commonly called "Christians," who were hated because of their absurdities. And he inflicted them with the most extraordinary punishments.
Thousands of years later the same principle is being used to carry out agendas on behalf of the elite.
The neoconservative movement was founded by Leo Strauss, a professor at the University of Chicago. His and the movement’s principles are striking and clear. They see the goal of foreign policy to be dominance on a global scale using military might. The public is perceived as mindless barbarians who are savage in nature. The only way to rectify this nature of humans is to have the few noble elite at the top control and command the masses by deception. Those at the top he dubbed “the wise” and those at the bottom “the vulgar”. Anyone who does not buy into the idea of war is to be attacked for “lack of patriotism and exposing the world to danger.”
Even more striking is not the fact that such an evil philosophy exists, but that many of our leaders during the Bush administration subscribed to it. The Project for a New American Century is a Washington D.C. based neoconservative think-tank which houses many important officials - some who studied and earned PhDs directly under Leo Strauss. To name only a few - Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz (Deputy Secretary of State), Lewis Libby (Chief of Staff for VP Cheney), Richard Perle, and more. An enormous amount of power and influence was held by this group of wise, elite men.
Only a year before the attacks on 9/11, PNAC produced a report entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”, which would lay the foundation for United States foreign policy under Bush. The goals stated in this report were to increase US global dominance using military forces and dramatically increase the defense budget.
The goals of the US military were to “defend the American homeland; fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars; perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in critical regions; transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs”.
Section V of the report entitled “Creating Tomorrow’s Dominant Force” begins “to preserve American military preeminence in the coming decades, the Department of Defense must move more aggressively to experiment with new technologies and operational concepts, and seek to exploit the emerging revolution in military affairs.”
The authors stated the goal to be a “transformation” of attitude and US foreign policy which would increase the defense budget and allow the US military the capability to enforce it’s agenda worldwide.
However, winning over the public and enacting this transformation wouldn’t be that easy. Admitting the difficulty, the report states “…The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.”
Sadly, a year later such an event did occur when multiple attacks were carried out on US soil which ultimately provided the public's motivation for the global “war on terror" conveniently fulfilling the goals of the neo-conservatives and PNAC.
Between Each of these events numerous other instances have been carried out or allowed to happen using the Problem-Reaction-Solution paradigm including but not limited to: The Spanish American War, WW1, WW2 and Vietnam.
Thousands of years old and boldly brazen, the Problem - Reaction - Solution method for carrying out war and violence is still being used yet hidden from view of the public. Both Herman Goering and Leo Strauss would agree that deceiving the masses to bring them to the bidding of their leaders has, and will continue to be, profoundly successful.
I urge you to take a closer look at the history of The United States' armed conflict and the deception used to persuade the masses of it's necessity. Informing yourself of this past will increase your understanding of the present.
New American Century is a 10 part documentary outlining PNAC and just such a history.