Obama Administration Closing the Door to Ensure "Transparent and Open Government"

In a November 12, 2009 article titled "Obama Administration Intends to Purge Republicans From the Civil Service," Erick Ericson of www.redstate.com revealed a memo released by the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) dated November 5, 2009. In that memo, the Director, John Berry, provided his policy changes regarding the hiring of not only future personnel, effective January 1, 2010, but also retroactively going as far back as five years. Mr. Berry states that the purposes of this policy change are because he "believe(s) we must hold ourselves and the government to a higher standard, one that honors and supports the President's strong commitment to a Government that is transparent and open."

The memo states further that "agencies must seek prior approval from OPM before they can appoint a current or recent political appointee to a competitive or non-political excepted service position at any level...." In doing this, Mr. Berry is placing greater restrictions on who may fill lower level positions and making sure those positions are approving of "the President's strong commitment to a Government that is transparent and open."

When comparing the ideology of this memo with the standards of history, it displays a similarity with the philosophies and tactics of two other persons specifically: one being the words of Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto; and the other being found in the speeches of Adolf Hitler, shortly after he had come to power in Nazi Germany.

Marx describes the purposes of Communism to be the "formation of the proletariat (workers) into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy (middle class/small business), conquest of political power by the proletariat" (pp 222-3). One of the tactics to ensure control, once one has achieved it, is to change the rules (if one must indeed abide by rules), ensuring that one's opponents do not achieve an advantage and regain power.

Hitler also realized this throughout his career as leader of the National Socialist Party and after he had gained the chancellorship of the Reich in 1933, on July 14 of that same year, he had a law passed stating that the National Socialist party was the only legitimate political party and that establishment of any new parties would result in punishment by "penal servitude."

In a speech given on May 1, 1934, before he had achieved full dictatorship by receiving the Presidency to go with his Chancellorship at the end of July of '34, Hitler spoke of his domestic adversaries who criticized his policies by stating, (o)nly a person who is better able to solve a problem is justified in criticizing. We (the Nazis) have come to terms with the problem in Germany better than our former opponents and current critics. We thus do not intend to allow the necessary authority accorded to the nation's leadership to be attacked by those who perceive nihilism as the only fitting framework for their own futile activities" (p 168). He further explains later in this same speech that "...we have thus eliminated all those organizations that we were forced to regard as breeding grounds for phenomena that undermine the self, cause discord in the Volk (society), and lead ultimately to national and economic ruin" (ibid).

This ideal of following the political party line without reservation was still in place nearly five years later when Hitler, in giving a speech commemorating the sixth anniversary of his Chancellorship on January 30, 1939, stated, "(i)n assigning men to posts of leadership in state and party, attitude and character are to be valued more highly than so-called purely scientific or supposed mental qualifications" (p 181).

While the particular case of this memo can seemingly be insulated from President Obama, as Mr. Berry states in that document, he is supporting the President's philosophy, if not his directive. Either way, one can hardly believe that President Obama disapproves of this tactic as he and his fellow Democrats in Congress continue to encroach upon the United States' middle class and its waning freedoms.

http://www.redstate.com/erick/2009/11/12/obama-administration-intends-to-purge-republicans-from-the-civil-service/

http://www.chcoc.gov/Transmittals/TransmittalDetails.aspx?TransmittalId=2588

Domarus, Max. Patrick Romane, ed. The Essential Hitler: Speeches and Commentary. Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, Inc., 2007.

Marx, Karl and Frederick Engels. tr, Martin Milligan. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 Karl Marx and the Communist Manifesto. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1988.