Oops

 

We the People

 

Warning from the past

The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.

Quote from Henry Wallace in 1944.

All Children (And Books) Left Behind

 

Reject GOP Fascism. Do not follow the lies of the Cult.

 

There are 14 points defining fascism according to Dr. Lawrence Britt: 1) near fanaticism with nationalism, 2) disdain for an individual’s human rights, 3) identification of enemies, i.e. black or brown people, 4) supremacy of the military, 5) rampant sexism, 6) attempted control of mass media, 7) obsession with security, i.e. walls, 8) church and state co-mingled, 9) protection of corporations, 10) suppression of labor unions, 11) no respect for the arts or intellectuals, 12) obsession with crime and punishment, 13) widespread corruption and cronyism, and 14) fraudulent elections.

Sound familiar? All we can do is Vote, Vote, Vote.

update:

Fascism in its many forms

     The Italian neofascists were learning from the U.S. reactionaries how to achieve fascism's class goals within the confines of quasi-democratic forms: 

• use an upbeat, Reaganesque optimism; 
• replace the jackbooted militarists with media-hyped crowd pleasers; 
• convince people that government is the enemy - especially its social service sector - while strengthening the repressive capacities of the state; 
• instigate racist hostility and antagonisms between the resident population and immigrants; 
• preach the mythical virtues of the free market; 
• and pursue tax and spending measures that redistribute income upward.

    All conservative ideologies justify existing inequities as the natural order of things, inevitable outcomes of human nature. If the very rich are naturally so much more capable than the rest of us, why must they be provided with so many artificial privileges under the law, so many bailouts, subsidies and other special considerations - at our expense? Their "naturally superior talents" include unprincipled and illegal subterfuge such as price-fixing, stock manipulation, insider trading, fraud, tax evasion, the legal enforcement of unfair competition, ecological spoliation, harmful products and unsafe work conditions. One might expect naturally superior people not to act in such rapacious and venal ways. Differences in talent and capacity as might exist between individuals do not excuse the crimes and injustices that are endemic to the corporate business system.

     Fascism historically has been used to secure the interests of large capitalist interests against the demands of popular democracy. Then and now, fascism has made irrational mass appeals in order to secure the rational ends of class domination.

    Some writers stress the "irrational" features of fascism. By doing so, they over look the rational politico-economic functions that fascism performed. Much of politics is the rational manipulation of irrational symbols. Certainly, this is true of fascist ideology, whose emotive appeals have served a class-control function.

    Fascism is a false revolution. It cultivates the appearance of popular politics and a revolutionary aura without offering a genuine revolutionary class content. It propagates a "New Order" while serving the same old moneyed interests. Its leaders are not guilty of confusion but of deception. That they work hard to mislead the public does not mean they themselves are misled.

• Blackshirts and Reds by Michael Parenti

Madison Cawthorn reminds me of someone....

We've been here before.

I'm old enough to remember the Nazis were the bad guys... and we beat them.

Ken Burns protecting America

A Dump Truck of News

The GOP debate from several viewpoints.  Fact checking. Lack of presidential qualities. And how much nuking and bombing do they want?  Because fear works... or at least it did during the Bush era.  Will it work again? Because the GOP really really really wants to start WWIII because that's what they're good at.  War.  Because it's good business.

Tom Tomorrow.

Who let the fascist dogs out?  The GOP thought they could contain them....kept feeding them raw meat... encouraging them to distrust government...

(And why AREN'T we talking about the Saudi role in terrorism?)

If everyone is going to carry a gun, we need this new invention to stop bleeding to be a mandatory item too.

Homes on Mars.

This El Nino seems to be extra special.

Badass women of WWII.

Liberals live in their own bubble too.

George Bush ignored several pre-9/11 warnings to avoid a paper trail... but we knew this.

The melting of the permafrost brings all sorts of things to light.

The Bible?  Or the Koran?

Mr. Rogers was truly an excellent man.

George Takei takes on mayor who thought interment was a good idea.

British Muslims tell off Daesh.

Wednesday whiffles

Hunting the mysterious hum.

Planting false memories in mice.  Where could this possibly lead?

What teachers make.

Flying Spaghetti Monster statue in front of Tennessee courthouse.

Genetically altering oranges in order to save them.  Not all GMO food is bad.  Chipotle restaurants first ones to try and not serve any GMO food.

Fascism on the rise around the world.

9th Grade Science Project Finds Plants Don’t Grow Near Wi-Fi

Cassandra would wonder why nothing has changed...

Fascism rises from the depths of Greece's despair

A neo-Nazi party that wants work camps for immigrants is on course to win its first seats in parliament on Sunday

Because we need somebody like FDR right about now...

I'll quote again Roosevelt's prescient statement:

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

Koch brothers? Meet FDR

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Headlines

Sometimes earlier technology is better:

Rare Austin which stood in garage for 50 years discovered... and starts first time!

Try not to piss off your crazy armed-to-the-teeth base!:

In the Wake of Arrests in Three States, Right-Wingers Rush to Defend Terror Suspects, Criticize FBI

In one word: No. In three: PLEASE GOD, NO!:

Is America ‘Yearning For Fascism?'

Frank Rich tries to explain the fever pitch of hysteria:

The Rage Is Not About Health Care

In one word: Yes. In elventy: WTF, just do it! We're drying up and blowing away here!:

Can Wastewater Save California's Parched Farmland?

The destruction of the ocean habitats continues:

Mysterious whale die-off is largest on record

When in doubt... take off clothes:

Man cites boredom after arrest on streaking charge

When you've tried to blenderize and mangle the word 'fascist'

So it means liberal, you must call all others liars when they complain about the swastikas.

Rather than doing the adult, common sense thing and actually agree that introducing Nazi references into the health care debate is, y'know, wrong, Goldberg, professional apologist and fact-checker's nightmare, tried to explain how the Nazi stuff wasn't really that bad.

Tell us again, Jonah, how all liberal hippie vegans are like Hitler because he was a vegetarian too!

Later in the book, the connections between liberalism and fascism grow even flimsier. For instance, did you know that "Hitler claimed to be a dedicated vegetarian" and that he would "talk for hours about the advantages of a meatless diet and the imperative to eat whole grains?" Sounds a lot like that long-haired hippie uncle who drives that hybrid car to family reunions every year, no? And gee, did you realize that the Nazis had a vigorous animal protection program, just like what the vegefascists at PETA are advocating? Oh sure, Goldberg says, you could argue that "animal rights activism was a major concern of pre-Nazi Germany" and that "the animal rights movement shouldn't be associated with Nazi Germany." But that doesn't get animal rights activists off the hook, because their "conventionally leftist views were held by the Nazis," which suggests that "Nazism isn't as alien to mainstream progressive thought as some would have us believe." (To appreciate how absurd this comparison is, try applying it to a local store that has a "no shoes, no service" policy. As in, "Sure a lot of people wore shoes in pre-Nazi Germany, but the local store owner's insistence that his customers wear them shows that Nazism isn't as alien to his views as some would have us believe.")

The attempt at logic just boggles the mind.

Update: Glenn Greenwald goes into this silliness in depth: GOP political tactics and media inanity in a nutshell

Pitchforks aimed in the wrong direction

Matt Taibbi explains what is going on with Glenn Beck and the conservatives:

This must be a terrible time to be a right-winger. A vicious paradox has been thrust upon the once-ascendant conservatives. On the one hand they are out of power, and so must necessarily rail against the Obama administration. On the other hand they have to vilify, as dangerous anticapitalist activity, the grass-roots protests against the Geithner bailouts and the excess of companies like AIG. That leaves them with no recourse but to dream up wholesale lunacies along the lines of Glenn Beck’s recent “Fascism With a Happy Face” rants, which link the protesting “populists” and the Obama adminstration somehow and imagine them as one single nefarious, connected, ongoing effort to install a totalitarian regime.

This is not a simple rhetorical accomplishment. It requires serious mental gymnastics to describe the Obama administration — particularly the Obama administration of recent weeks, which has given away billions to Wall Street and bent over backwards to avoid nationalization and pursue a policy that preserves the private for-profit status of the bailed-out banks — as a militaristic dictatorship of anti-wealth, anti-private property forces. You have to somehow explain the Geithner/Paulson decisions to hand over trillions of taxpayer dollars to the rich bankers as the formal policy expression of progressive rage against the rich. Not easy. In order to pull off this argument, in fact, you have to grease the wheels with a lot of apocalyptic language and imagery, invoking as Beck did massive pictures of Stalin and Orwell and Mussolini (side by side with shots of Geithner, Obama and Bernanke), scenes of workers storming the Winter Palace interspersed with anti-AIG protests, etc. — and then maybe you have to add a crazy new twist, like switching from complaints of “socialism” to warnings of “fascism.” Rhetorically, this is the equivalent of trying to paint a picture by hurling huge handfuls of paint at the canvas. It’s desperate, last-ditch-ish behavior.

Go read the whole thing.

Gimme that old time religion

That needs a scapegoat to beat to death in the village square:

Discussing actions by individual protesters of Proposition 8, Newt Gingrich stated: "I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion."

Apparently nobody in the Republican party has taken the trouncing they received this past election to mean they need to stop dragging out the same hate-filled talking points and blaming everything from acne to Alzheimer's on them. Obviously the islamofascist-marxist-terrorist-socialist-communityorganizer-sympathizer carnard has served them so well.

crossposted at SteveAudio

If you are reading this, you're probably on the list

To be rounded up. Pack a toothbrush:

Govt. May Have Massive Surveillance Program For Use In ‘National Emergency,’ 8 Million ‘Potential Suspects’

Last year, former deputy attorney general James Comey revealed that in 2004, he refused to “certify” the legality of certain aspects of the National Security Agency (NSA) spy program. Comey witnessed Alberto Gonzales and Andrew Card try to force a bed-ridden John Ashcroft to approve the program. Comey, however, did not publicly give specifics as to what program he opposed.

CAP’s Peter Swire wrote on ThinkProgress at the time that Comey’s testimony implied that “other programs exist for domestic spying” outside of the NSA program. Radar’s Christopher Ketcham suggests that another spy program does exist: “Main Core,” a program that authorizes “computer searches through massive [unspecified] electronic databases” in order to discover “potential threats” in the event of a “national emergency”:

According to a senior government official…”There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” … One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

Remember the ten easy steps to fascism:

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law

This explains all those secret private prisons around the country, the odd obsession that Cheney and Rumsfeld had about playing shadow government games, Cheney's claim that the Vice President was outside the law and the Constitution, the indifference to foreign workers, the ICE raids, Blackwater mercenaries, Gitmo, Tasers being issued to police and being scrubbed from autopsy reports, identifying every crime and misdemeanor as terrorism, and the officious arrogance of the airport security, doesn't it?

These loyal Bushies must have been promised really neat uniforms and high glossy black boots so they could shock and awe their craven neighbors. Is that why they gutted the treasury? To create a depression that would make Americans desperate to support a fascist regime? It might have worked when Georgie's grandfather Prescott Bush tried to start a coup against FDR.

Are they hoping another terrorist strike will do the trick?


crossposted at SteveAudio and American Street