Since this time it’s been widely accepted worldwide that nothing positive has stemmed from these atrocities, barring a one single exception: the critically acclaimed major motion picture Swing Kids, a charming story of a rebellious group of German teenagers in the 1940s who fight off the pressure to become Hitler Youth by evoking the power and spirit of swing dancing.

When a government terrorizes its own people, who benefits? The government itself does not. In fact, it suffers. With an unhappy citizenry and a climate of control looming over the heads of every man, woman and child within its borders, the only safe refuge becomes their minds. And when this begins, when thought-crime becomes the only crime committable, a revolution is soon to follow. For the government and government organizations in charge of a country, this spells bad news. So, for whom does the advantage lie? The answer is simple: for the people in charge of the government. The people who desire constant and perpetual money, influence, and power are those who benefit from corruption.

A common tactic used to secure themselves as the Never-Ending Leaders of their Frightened Herds of Beaten and Abused People is the nationalization of certain requisite influential and important markets, usually including pharmaceutical companies, oil reserves, real-estate, farmland, and, more recently, internet and telecommunication services. The previous example, the Burmese protests, happened due to backlash from the Burmese people over the government removing fuel subsidies, which caused the price of diesel and petrol to suddenly rise, in some cases as much as 100%.

Why would a government employ such tactics and practices? It’s usually done by a rogue few in order to allow, through the use of bribery, monetary/business influence, resource control, or force, those who are in power to stay in power indefinitely.

These ideals are not exclusive to foreign countries, however. The United States of America has had its share of near-fascism moments, the most famous and far-reaching of which being the Watergate scandal. In 1972, President Nixon and his staff used their influence, power, and resources to cover a massive array of crimes and abuses, which included campaign fraud, political espionage and sabotage, illegal break-ins, improper tax audits, illegal wiretapping on a massive scale, and a secret slush fund laundered in Mexico to pay those who conducted these operations. More recently, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) was exposed to be participating in massive illegal warrantless wiretapping practices, for the purposes of detecting and battling international terrorist threats, specifically those of the al-Qaeda regime, as well as allying itself with such powerful private-sector businesses as AT&T to create a large-scale data-mining operation. AT&T provided the NSA with its customers’ phone and internet records, an act of privacy invasion so appalling that it makes what happened next seem absolutely par-for-the-course. 