Mar. 13, 2006 - 21:00 MST

THE PAST RETURNS ?

I remember as a child I puzzled over the old saw, "There is nothing new under the sun." Then as I aged it became somewhat plain to me that the only real things that were new were babies. But for only a short while until the world forced them into some ideological mold -- then they weren't new anymore ---- just more of the same.

James Aloysius Farrell, The Denver Post Washington Bureau Chief in his Sunday March 12 editorial column serves to remind us of things past that might be again in the near future, perhaps. In full -- italics and bolds mine:

THE WAY OF HOLLERITH

WASHINGTON

"Along with its more gruesome and horrific artifacts, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a mundane relic on display; a Hollerith data processing machine.

This banal card-sorting device, manufactured by a subsidiary of IBM, was used to expedite the murder of millions of Jews and other Holocaust victims. Hollerith machines kept the trains on time. The Gestapo used Hollerith in the death camps."

"We are recording the individual characteristics of every single member of the nation onto a little card" so that Adolf Hitler could calculate what "unhealthy conditions must be cured by corrective interventions," bragged the head of IBM's German subsidiary in 1934."

"The museum's Hollerith display offers a warning of how American scientists and businesses, following the trail of capitalist logic, can slide into the embrace of evil."

"It is a particularly relevant lesson now, as the cream of the U.S. high-tech industry has been found cooperating with Chinese leaders to censor the internet and jail dissidents."

"The Chinese "system of forced labor camps is still full to capacity, with an estimated 6 million people," Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J.., reminded representatives from Google, Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Yahoo! at a congressional hearing last month."

"Smith also said, China's "Draconian one-child-per-couple policy has made brothers and sisters illegal and coerced abortion commonplace . . . ."Political and religious dissidents are systematically persecuted and tortured."

"Microsoft has shut down Chinese blogs. Google helped China build a censored search engine. Yahoo! surrendered data that led to the imprisonment of dissidents. Cisco offers security forces a 21st century Hollerith: a data system called PoliceNet."

These are no Old Economy cave-dwellers. These Internet companies are America's pride, born with noble purpose, the supposed champions of individual freedom and creativity."

" But China is a "BIG CAKE, said dissident Harry Wu. The tech firms "want money." And the money is having the smells of blood."

"The companies argue, accurately, that they are obliged to comply with Chinese law. And they note how U.S. foreign policy, for four decades, has been centered on the belief that prolonged exposure to Western freedoms, free-market capitalism and subersive tools like the internet will shatter China's totalitarian regime."

"As long as the internet remains its rambunctious self, "we anticipate the Chinese government will find it very difficult, in fact perhaps an exercise in futility, to try to control the flow of information," said James Keith, a senior State Department adviser."

"Laws that crack down on U.S. firms doing business in China could prove counterproductive."

"A withdrawal from China of companies that were committed to building the Internet based on global standards would have the effect of potential balkanization of the Internet, and a closing down of information availability reather than an expansion of it," warned Cisco vice president Mark Chandler."

"And veteran China hand and business author James McGregor, at a sold-out conference on China at the American Enterprise Institute last week, said Americans should recognize the limits of U.S. power after our experience in Iraq. "We can't control anybody. Have we learned any lessons in the last five years ?" McGregor said. "China is funding our budget deficit. When President Bush goes to China, he's meeting with our biggest banker."

"More engagement, not less, is the answer, said McGregor. China may be too big to coerce, but its people can be converted."

"Think of yourself as a totalitarian dictatorship. It's the last thing you want: a couple of hundred thousand American businessmen and grad students running around China making friends with your people," he said. "The power we have is the power of nibbling."

"Nibbling takes years, and patience, and vigilance. And we will need to look to our own souls, lest we become, like the masters of the Holleriths, THAT WHICH WE FEAR."

"These companies tell us they will change China," warned Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., the only Holocaust survivor in congress. "BUT CHINA HAS ALREADY CHANGED THEM."

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And the arms and munitions makers have always maintained that they can't help what people do with thing they have bought from them - - - - and go ahead and sell, sell, sell.

Justification in the name of money and profit it seems to me is self delusion, almost a delirium of hypocrisy. And the companies and corporatins come into a country and abide by the country's laws which defeat human rights and use the alibi, "well, we do business here and just abide by their laws."

Then too, some of those who preach the bit about converting another country to freedom and democracy by exposure to us are deluding themselves and those they convice of their philosophy -- from our experience in Viet Nam an through the present time.

From what I have read, China has factories manufacturing things for Walmart. If that is true, then what we buy there that is made in China profits prisons and torture for the masses in China.

It is becoming more and more unpopular to mention Bush and Hitler in the same breath, yet some of the things he is saying and doing are reminiscent of Hitler's actions, some of the grabbing for power, complete control and strong armed surveillance via wiretaps is typical of someone trying for dictatorship - - - - and perhaps fooling us by crying TERRORIST ACTIVITIES and all that we have prevented by the laws now renewed.

How soon will the words of Pastor Neimoller become pertinent again ?

They say that nations which do not learn from history are due to repeat it again. Perhaps now, THE PAST RETURNS ? . . . . . . . . . . .

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