Yes, and Janette Howard is in a constant battle with the Prime Minister to stop him growing a square moustache and revealing his true colours as the Fuhrer of the Fourth Reich Australia.

I didn't think there was anything more foolish and insulting than commentators comparing Australia to Nazi Germany until I read this.

Now I realise there is something worse - writing an entire piece comparing Australia with 1933 Germany with one qualifier in the middle about "not wanting to pretend that we’re living in Nazi Germany or that the Australian police bear any resemblance to the SS."

Let's just take a look at what the author has done.

Smith has taken two points (racial/religious tension and police powers) which have been common across history and geography and inferred there is a link between the most evil regime of the 20th century and modern-day Australia.

Where is the comparison between the prevailing economic conditions of depression-era Germany and our booming economy.

Where is the film footage of a rabid hate-filled Australian Prime Minister stirring the emotions of hundreds of thousands of people in open rallies.

Where is the record of anyone in the current government, let alone the leadership group, trying to violently overthrow the democratically elected government.

Where is Howard's Mein Kampf outlining his hatred of Muslims and ethnic minorities and his final solution.

And for that matter, where is the burning of any building, let alone the Parliament, by supporters of the Coalition Government or the Communists, er I mean Greens.

If this is the kind of flimsy logic Mr Smith preaches in his youth work, he is wasting his talent. Surely there is a place at a university for the Good Reverend, where his anti-middle Australia, anti-Howard sermon would be applauded.

t.u.s

Dave Smith asserts (rather alarmingly) that the rioting made its mark in normally peaceful Dulwich Hill. I say alarmingly because I live in Dulwich Hill and was at home during the period of the riots. I think my lived experience versus Dave Smith's assertion shows what a beat up this whole episode is. Who were the Dulwich Hill rioters? Fanatical golfing lesbians on the Marrickville course pissed off when they hit a slice?

We've had article after article blowing these riots out of all proportion (or is that "riots"?). And this media hysteria on this forum, on talkback radio and elsewhere has given governments the excuse to introduce intrusive legislation which will inevitably be misused. It really is amazing that Australians say they don't trust politicians and yet are happy to see them acquire new powers.

That said, I agree with TUS that the Nazi comparison is absurd. About as stupid as calling the Greens "communists".

Comparing 21st Century Australia to Early 20th Century Germany is oranges and apples. I don't know what the answer is, barely know what the question is. But, the harrowing, riotous scenes that were witnessed by most of Australia and the rest of the world were courtesy of the Media, and therefore NOT typical of the situation, I am sure.

However, I do find it horrible and disturbing to see these things happen. But it is not unique. It os not terribly outstanding, or even uncommon. Look at what happens every day in Redfern, Macquarrie Fields, Palm Island and an awful lot of Aboriginal Communities right through remote Australia. The location is what was unique, not the violence!

"The scent of the burning Reichstag that I can smell in the background".

It would have been more prudent for Reverend Smith not to have had his nostrils attached to the "background" of the Reichstag fire, but like a good "retriever", on the foreground of the collapse of the twin towers. The latter would have given him a stronger scent of the present greater danger that free democratic countries are facing.

But it's obvious that his "scent", morally, politically, and intelectually, is too weak to sense this greater danger posed by fundamentalist Islam.

Go to my blog for more: http://congeorgekotzabasis.blogspot.com

Thanks David, although you will find more ideological similarities between the Greens and the communists than you will between Howard and Hitler ;)

God gave Australians beaches so thay can stick their heads in the sand as we see from the above comments. Aussies don't like facts, don't like history disturbing the sun drenched, beer sodden, afternoons with anyhting like a reality test. Facism is alive and well and rising like bread in that hot oven called the Australian Parliament. Rising like testosterone in the gym pumped youth of Cronulla and the sunburbs of western Sydney. The Nazi styled leather hats of the NSW police bring back memories of goose stepping goons, but here everything is too laid back for that - it's too hot to march. Better to just smash in the doors of the leftie terrorists and bang them up in stainless steel boxes for a while. Stop up the mouths of the leftie euthanisia communists with long prison terms for opening them. We live on a knife edge now. Which way the balance tips will be left to the next Federal Government. I for one am looking to retire overseas and far away. Fascists were not on my list of benefits when I emigrated here in 1969.
Barfenzie

Why put terror suspects in “quotes” as though suggesting that they are not terror suspects. They are definitely suspected, and that’s why they are in jail. They may be found guilty or not guilty, but to suggest that they are not suspects is ridiculous, and who says that the evidence against them is pretty feeble? Perhaps he sees himself as Australia’s Noam Chomsky – that old lefty adorns everything he deems as wrong with quotation marks.

Fr. Smith seems to be the only person in Australia who doesn’t know what a person of Middle Eastern appearance looks like, but he insists on preaching to people who do: telling us what we already know and what most of us clearly approve of in the war against terror.

Smith gets the feeling that things in the country will never be the same again. They probably won’t, but of course Smith’s feelings say it is Australia’s fault. It has nothing to do with Islamist terrorists.

He also tells us that multiculturalism is “never discussed”. Apparently he only writes, never reads. As for the need for Muslims to be heard – hell’s bells, all we hear is Muslims moaning and groaning because the host population doesn’t want to accede to their alien ways.

The Nazi and German rubbish is just too silly to comment on. Fr. Smith has clearly shown that the Muslims are not only religion with wacko preachers.

I think it's a bit of a worry that father Dave remembers what burning Reichstag smells like.

The points made by Dave are consistent with the characteristics of fascism identified in this article
http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html
Just consider how much of Howard's agenda conforms with these characteristics, and be afraid, very afraid.
Of course the deniers will say it couldn't happen here, but thats what good folk of Germany thought too until it did happen. of course if you were one of the chosen in Germany and prepared to turn a blind eye to what was going on you could live quite comfortably. Even now, 60 years after the end of WWII the German people recognise that what happened under Hitler was evil and would never go back to fascism.

While I am concerned about giving governments new powers, people should get it into their heads that fascism here is a long way off. In Italy in the early 1920s and Germany in the early 1930s there were mass fascist parties with thousands of followers including a substantial street presence of paramilitary squads. Italy and Germany were in deep economic and political crises. Fascists were, effectively, the government in waiting.

So, where are they in Australia today? Not even One Nation (with its pathetic rabble and policy-free agenda) in its heyday would qualify. There is no New Guard and white supremacists in contemporary Australia are marginalised. Even the Lebanese gangs would make short work of them in a showdown.

Using the term "fascist" to describe intrusive laws allows the governments which have introduced those laws to marginalise its critics. Like I said, I don't like this conservative "nanny state" (a better description that "fascism" in my opinion) and its creeping intrusions but let's have some historical perspective here.

Am I reading the same piece as everyone else? It seems that most of the posters here don't think to clearly and don’t know their history very well. They also show that they aren’t understanding what the author was trying to say. Now it may come as a surprise to some of you but not all Germans is 35 when they voted Hitler into power were Nazis. Most Germans didn't want the Jew killed yet it happened. The Nazi were able to because racism is a easy thing to incite but a hard thing to quell. Not many people were able to foresee what was going to happen in Europe in 1935. Now if you believe there is not people and groups out there trying to fan the flames (for their own ends)then you really have got your eyes closed. I suggest people have a read of sort of stuff in the media at the time to get a insight to how it happens. See how it comes to be that the majority watch as a small group take control and do terrible things.

So getting back to what Father Bob was talking about why is there still racist (on all sides) in this day and age in Australia.
I would also like to remind people to have a look at John Howard past voting on racial issue in the past. He is willing to play the race card when it suits him. The next post is extract from a letter written in 1933.

I hope I have put it clear enough to realize that the Jewish problem in Germany is a question of life or death of the German race. If such development as was tolerated before Hitler came should be permitted to continue it should be obvious for everyone that in the course of time the face of the German population would change considerably. Germany, as you know, has a population of 66 million people. Among these 66 million are but about 600,000 Jewish citizen. Under those circumstances as described above this small percentage in the course of time could increase rapidly because of conditions of life being more protected against all hardship, marriages being made easier because of professional and business protection which safeguard in turn enables the Jewish woman to give birth to children.

I hope you see that Hitlers anti-Semitism is not directed against the Jewish religion nor against each single Jew. No Jewish citizen here is being molested. News to the contrary are lies and nonsense. Such news naturally are being spread by Jews, since the Jews realize very well, as the newspaper "Jewish Chronicle" published in South Afrika recently admitted, that the Jewish fight for world control through the Hitler Revolution in Germany has received a setback of 100 years of strenuous work.

There is a saying (I can't remember its author unfortunately) to the effect that 'history repeats itself but never in the same way the second time around'. In other words, if an historical parallel is being drawn, it would be very surprising if the details were the same.

The lesson of the burning of the Reichstag is that Governments can and do panic their populations into accepting draconian measures that would otherwise be rejected. The evidence I have heard seems to indicate that Van der Lubbe was an unwitting pawn of the Nazis, meaning that the Nazis deliberately and cynically planned the whole thing. However, it is not necessary for a Government to have instigated an incident for the Reichstag parallel to apply. It is only necessary for that Government to use the incident to whip up popular prejudice in order to strip away legal and civil rights

Notwithstanding comments about Dulwich Hill, Smith belatedly points out chillingly that converts to the Australian Patriotic League have risen sharply. This is of deep and abiding concern and NEEDS to be dealt with at local, state and federal level. A racist undercurrent of zealous, misguided young people who 'think they're doing the right thing', draping themselves in OUR flag engaged in blind ignorant thuggery is not a country I want. However this government has shown repeatedly that it is prepared to let 'free speech' have its way, especially when it serves their ends by effectively shifting the boundaries of public discourse ever further to the right; which they have done ever since that appalling Hanson woman was allowed to say her ignorant racist piece without censure from the House. I recall when people in their teens and twenties were the ones who espoused slightly leftish views of tolerance. Nowadays they're rightish views of apathy and intolerance; blithely ignorant of the consequences. Never thought I'd say this but way too many people are not quite what we'd term the sharpest. Why are so many people so bloody ignorant? What is wrong with having friends and neighbours who're a bit different from oneself? The angst of the Cronulla riots MAY have had something to do with turf. Then again, it had as much to do with misguided anger over being culturally and socially excluded; which is the case with many if not most ethnic based groups. Admittedly, most dont express their frustrations so negatively as to bash lifeguards. That was one of the lowest acts imaginable and a direct strike against a great aussie icon. That said, its time we ALL made an effort to not turn such a blind eye. We ARE a racist society; albeit one with a generally tolerant heart, we still leave way too many on the fringes. Lets start turning that around, because, in my view, if ever we do face a real act of terrorism on aussie soil, you can bet it will be a home grown affair....born out of frustration more than idealogy.

Hello from the US. I hate truncating articles like this...

Father Smith, maybe you need to take a sabattical from Australia, so you can see your country in a little perspective -- perhaps to Baghdad or Gaza, or an evangelizing tour of Saudi Arabia. Sometimes when one is in a place all his life, he has trouble seeing the forest for the trees. That's why I'm glad my children are living overseas, learning about the world. My daughter and her husband spent their anniversary last month, for instance, in Bali. The hotel keeper informed them that they were only the second foreign couple to stay there since the last round of terrorist attacks. When my son went to visit China for the first time, he had some trouble getting back into the US, because all flights were grounded. Our lives are intimately connected with the carryings-on of certain people, and to be fair to "people of Middle Eastern Appearance", such as Jews, Armenians and Assyrians, I'll be specific: They are Arabs, Moslem Arabs -- People who burn American flags for entertainment, get their jollies off by kidnapping and beheading "people of European appearance" and everyone else who doesn't agreee with them (including fellow Arab Moslems), and who dance in the streets and pass out candy whenever Americans and Australians suffer. As for the Jews, Armenians and Assyrians, they're some of the best people on the planet -- just so you know I'm not racist. It turns my stomach when I read about what these people are doing in Australia.

I don't altogether criticize your article. I hate your "sensitivity" towards the hoodlums that are causing innocent people so much grief, but it's a treat to read someone who actually knows that the Reichstag was in Germany.

Cheers to all you Dulwich Hillers. I lived there in the 1960s. You've got a wonderful country :-)

Too many superlatives, too many dollars dumped into the pot of multi-culturalism for far too long, to retract on what was done at Cronulla.

I lived in & went to school in the Eastern subs and later on became a 'Westy'. The undercurrent has always been there, a subtle, diffused anger at being working class - the Silvertails getting the better jobs, preferential treatment etc. It breeds discontent, festering through the generations. I am now the father of two teenage boys of 'mixed race'. Recently I found out my own heritage was 'Ethnic- Indigenous Australian'.

Deal with it, dump your ethnic prejudices from the old country, learn to live in harmony - could it really hurt just to try it for real?

Are we going to see a repeat? I would say so. Legislation didn't work in Nazi Germany either, nor will any repressive, draconian laws enacted in the states or Federally.

As for the comparisons of Nazi Germany. Look at what the successive Federal governments have done in the last 15 - 20 years, followed up by their state & territory mates. Now we have Victoria about to introduce a suite of 'Mickey Mouse' Human Rights legislation. A travesty of what the UN attempted to do with the DOHR in 1948.

In the vein of creating 'bogeymen' in the forms of Anti semitic,anti Arab, Anti Immigrant and such, the architects of the schemes have orchestrated a very careful (if not perhaps illogical) social engineering experiment.

Ah.... conspiracy theorist I hear them cry!

Take a look at the over-arching reasons behind the 'War On Terror', and see nothing more than a shallow, lie filled premise behind it.

Transfer this to our 'fears' of what precisely - because even the eminent academics can not tell you precisely just what a 'terrorist' is per se.

Hyperbole and hot wind, like a cyclone warning in the Top End.
Some run about clearing up the debris, preparing for the worst,-others just stock up on beer and see what happens.

I'm left wondering if other posters were reading the same article to the one I read (as another poster has previously stated).

Dave Smith is asking a question we all should ask when a government seeks to reduce our freedoms and pointing to a worse case scenario for when it goes bad. I didn't see him suggesting that JH has been working on the goose step and the stiff arm salute or ordering a large batch of those special shower heads.

Thinking about the things the PM gets blamed for on these threads is kind of amusing. On the one hand we have those who insist that he is a rabid racist determined to see non-whites suffer for the crime of being non-white, behind every bad thing that happens to non-whites in this country. On the other hand we have those who would see him charged with treason for letting his personal passion for muslims and other ethnic groups ruin this country as he attempts to hand the country over to them on a platter.

Now that is confusing.

R0bert