Strange Parallels

In an article posted at World Net Daily (see here) we are told: "The official website of President-Elect Barack Obama, Change.gov, originally announced that Obama would 'require' all middle school through college students to participate in community service programs; but after a flurry of blogs protested children being drafted into Obama's proposed youth corps, the website's wording was softened."Interestingly, as Dusty Sklar notes in her book "The Nazis and the Occult, German youth had always been highly organized. In the Weimar Republic some 4.5 million boys and girls under twenty-one were members of organizations connected with the National Board of German Youth Associations. UNDER HITLER, THE YOUTH MOVEMENT BECAME A HOLY CRUSADE. BY THE END OF 1934, THE HITLER YOUTH INCLUDED 6 MILLION MEMBERS, RANGING IN AGE FROM TEN TO EIGHTEEN...PARENTS AND CHURCH GROUPS WERE IN JEOPARDY IF THEY FAILED ACTIVELY TO SUPPORT THE HITLER YOUTH, SO THAT EVENTUALLY ALL THE YOUNG IN GERMANY, ACCORDING TO THE CONTEMPORARY OBSERVER, STEPHEN H. ROBERTS, WERE 'STAMPED INTO THE SAME MOULD' AND EMERGED 'AS "UNQUESTIONING AUTOMATA, PHYSICALLY FIT AND MENTAL SPONGES FOR THE OFFICIAL HITLER HERO-WORSHIP",' WITH THE SLOGAN 'COMMAND AND WE FOLLOW...THE STANDARD IS MORE THAN DEATH'...The brainwashing actually began in the cradle. Even the fairy tales read to babies instilled the propaganda that the Fuhrer had been sent from heaven to kill the wicked enemy who was eager to devour little children...The system of indoctrination was perfect. At ten, each boy joined the Young Folk: and each girl, the Union of German Maidens. THEY RECEIVED UNIFORMS AND TOOK A PLEDGE TO DEVOTE THEIR LIVES TO THE FUHRER. "HIS WILL WAS TO BE THEIR WILL". HITLER KNEW WELL HOW TO ACCOMPLISH THIS:"This youth learns nothing else than to think German, to act German, and if these boys enter our organization at the age of 10,...then 4 years later they come from the Jungfolk into the Hitler Youth, and we keep them there for another 4 years, and then we certainly don't give them back into the hands of the originators of our old classes and estates, but take them straight into the party, into the Labour Front, the SA or the SS, the NSKK, and so on. And if they are there for another 2 years or a year and a half and still haven't become complete National Socialists, then they go into the Labour Service and are polished for another 6 or 7 months, all with a symbol, the German spade. And any class consciousness or pride of status that may be left here and there is taken over by the Wehrmacht for further treatment for 2 years, and when they come back after 2, 3, or 4 years, we take them straight into the SA, SS, and so on again, so that they shall in no case suffer a relapse, and they don't feel free again as long as they live...'" (The Nazis and the Occult,pp. 109-110)."...we get a much more dangerous situation when propaganda moves out of its original orbit; when it ceases to be exercised on behalf of a number of competing movements and parties within the State, and instead is taken over by the State itself; "when the State, in short, begins to behave as if it were itself a movement or a party". Contemporary history shows us clearly enough that the scourge called 'the single party' paves the way for that other scourge, State propaganda. The single party is always the root from which modern dictatorships spring and from which they draw their strength.." (Gabriel Marcel, Man Against Mass Society, p. 50). Related reading here.