posted on Mar, 15 2008 @ 02:22 AM
I believe that the German term "Reichsfeinde" or Enemy of the Empire would be a more appropriate analogy than that of a Witch. Also, while we're
making comparisons, Orwell's concept of "Goldstein" would fit well here as he was used in a very similar manner as is Osama Bin Laden, to justify
extremist repression against the domestic population.
I think that if you read Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum's book, "Salem Possessed" that you would find that the social realities of Salem in the
1690's are vastly different than that which exists today in the US. The concepts of "witch" and "terrorist" are drastically different. If you
look at groups like the Russian "Narodnaya Volya" the German "Bader Meinhof Gang" and the Algerian followers of Franz Fanon you would find very
little in common with their politically motivated violence and the demonic concepts associated with witch hunting.
We also need to look at scale and persistance, while the Salem Witch Hunt was indeed symptomatic of a much larger phenomon of Witch Hunting in Europe
in general, within the American colonies it was almost a rather unique event. It was very nearly insulated to this small Puritan comminity and died
out rather rapidly, as compared to some of the more massive episodes of Mass Burnings of Witches in Germany earlier that century.
Terrorism today appears to be a global phenomon, which can indeed be seen as an outgrowth of a largely US dominated global media. In Imperialist
Germany the term "Reichsfiende" was used in a very similar manner within the German media to combat a rising socialist movment. Bismark used this
tecnique to outlaw the German Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschland (SPD) party.
Later, under Nazism and after the fabled "Stab in the Back" the term "Jewish-Bolshevik" became intertwined with the term "Reichsfiende" by the
ever-so-popular Nazi Minister of Propoganda, Joseph Goebbels. This was not due to a fanatical rise of antisemitism in Germany at the time, it was
merly a continuation of Bismark's class war against the Left.
Today the term "Terrorist" is used to brand Leftist movements globally, the US is branding the Venezuelan Chavistas as terrorists - simply because
they stand in the way of US Corporate Imperailism. The "War against Terror" is a Macrocosm of the class war being waged at an international level
where as Hitler's "Mein Kampf" was a class war waged at the National level.