Intimidation through History.

[Savannahmann]

In World War One, the German Army marching through Belgium, Luxemburg, and France could not afford to leave many soldiers behind to guard the lines of supply. So they counted on using terror and intimidation to frighten the population into compliance. The German Generals wrote back that they did not understand why it wasn't working.

Examples include the burning of entire villages, and the mass executions of the townspeople for supposed attacks on German soldiers. Mostly it was skittish young soldiers on guard duty afraid and shooting at shadows. This meant that another guard heard a shot, and returned fire, at his own man, neither of whom were shot, but both of whom reported getting shot at. In every town the would increase the number of hostages, and in every town they ended up executing the hostages because some act of defiance had violated the regulations laid down on the population.

The same thing didn't work in World War II either. The resentment, and then the opposition grew. People may cower while you are there pointing the gun at them, but later they grow resentful, and then go from apathetic, to outright hostile.

No where in history has intimidation ever garnered loyalty to the level it was intended. The Soviets, the East Germans, and the Chinese all have serious mechanisms for intimidation, but all of them had problems with the population. Soviet Citizens would be picked up, tortured into confessing, and then either executed or sent to prison for life. In the end, the citizenry were no more loyal than anyone else. They were an oppressed people. The Chinese protested in Tienanmen square. We know what happened there, but it did not quell dissent. It strengthened the resolve of the people. In East Germany, the people let their displeasure be known in some subtle, and other not so subtle ways.

The incident where Glenn Greenwald's husband was detained is another example of asinine intimidation that historically will go wrong. The Governments are now uniting to save their power, using similar tactics, tactics that have never worked in history.

The Southern States tried to intimidate those who were working to get blacks registered to vote. Some of those brave people were thrown in jail, and some were just vanished without a trace. But for every one who was abused, two more stood up and went to work. People don't like to see the abuse of authority, we don't like it, and we don't react well to it.

So this effort to intimidate the press is destined to backfire, and already we've seen more people moving into the opposition camp. The powers that be are losing support, and hemorrhaging good will in an effort to silence dissent. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023486490

Many times I've said that the first party that realizes this simple fact, and jumps on the bandwagon wins. Will it be our party? If it isn't, then we can expect to be on the outside ranting and raving about how unfair the other guy is being, but we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

We can change, we can evolve on the issue. But we must do so soon. The first ones to the party win.