http://www.sierratimes.com/02/02/23/dorothy.htm

Nothing Has Changed In America oops ... the original said "Austria" By Dorothy Anne Seese: 02.23.02

Sometimes I am utterly shameless, particularly about admitting that "Sound of Music" is among my all-time favorite movies, along with "My Fair Lady", "Casablanca" and "African Queen." With that in mind, let's get to the comment in Sound of Music that keeps ringing in my ears and I cannot explain it.

For those of you who don't remember, or who never saw Sound of Music, there's this weasle-faced Austrian turncoat who has found his niche with the Nazis, and finds himself with a high-ranking position in the Nazi takeover of Austria, which ran the von Trapp family out, on foot, to escape to Switzerland.

Anyway, weasle-face says several times, as the brownshirts come streaming in with their swastikas twirling, "nothing has changed in Austria." In fact, the von Trapp family was permitted to sing at the festival (on the night of their escape) because "it will show that nothing has changed in Austria." Of course, Capt. Gale von Trapp knew that the swastikas, brown shirts and tanks meant that everything had changed in Austria, but he was one of those nonconformist types that tyrants despise, loathe and murder.

As the Hollywood plot indicates (sometimes Hollywood gets a grain of truth, less now than when Sound of Music was made however) when the Nazis, or any tyrannical form of government takes over, there are a few von Trapps and a lot of people like Max, the likable moocher whose ambition is to sponge off the rich and make a name for himself as a theatrical agent. It was nothing to Capt. von Trapp to leave his gorgeous mansion, all his belongings and his wealth to avoid Nazi tyranny. Max, on the other hand, just sort of went along, making the statement to von Trapp, "you know I have no political convictions."

As this is being written, military exercises "against terrorism" are still in progress in North Little Rock, Arkansas, with 300 troops including Marines, doing an exercise in military operations in an American city that has had no terrorism (if one excludes the governorship of Bill Clinton, but to my recollection, he only terrorized women). The Little Rock exercises in whatever will continue until February 22, 2002. Is the number 2/22/02 significant? I haven't heard Art Bell lately, so I don't know.

The next city that reportedly will enjoy the benefit of such exercises could be Boise, Idaho, the capital of the State of Patriots who fled there (and to Montana) to avoid harassment and lead an independent life off the land. Well so much for individualism. But nothing, repeat, nothing has changed in America.

You do understand ... nothing has changed in America? Okay, I wanted to be certain.

The date of this writing is the date the federal government officially took over the airports, which are dutifully reporting that nothing has changed except for the better, with higher paid federal employees and thorough baggage screening. Chairs have now been provided for travelers who are requested to remove their shoes. See how thoughtful the airports have become.

We've had driver's licenses and Social Security cards so long, it won't be a major switch to a national I.D. card ... nothing has changed in America.

The government is now so large we as individuals cannot keep watch over it, so we are told in effect, "trust us, we're your public servants." I wish my Social Security were a bit more like the paycheck my servants get. But as broke as it is, as much of a Ponzi scheme as it would be called in the private sector, Social Security plods along, and nothing has changed in America.

The prevailing attitude of the citizenry toward spy cams and other invasions of privacy forbidden by the Constitution and Bill of Rights evoke many responses to the effect, "well if I'm not doing anything wrong, I have nothing to fear." And if the laws change? Oh ... I forgot. Nothing has changed in America.

Everything I see around me is very different from the United States in which I was born and grew up, but nothing has changed.

Learn the mantra: "Nothing has changed in America, nothing!"

-- Anonymous, February 23, 2002