And the devastation as wave after wave swept everything in its path ...
Friday, March 11, 2011
Thursday, March 10, 2011
One of The Greatest Fighting Songs — EVER! Dedicated to The People of Wisconsin
Who gathered defiantly in the Capitol after the cowardly and illegal legislative maneuver and vote by the Republicans. Unbowed, the people chanted: "THE PEOPLE, UNITED, WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED! This fight isn't over; the people have only just begun to fight!
This song by the great Chilean band Quiliapayún was first recorded in 1973, the year of the coup in Chile. Today it is still performed by these bands that survived the Pinochet terror and hung around to reclaim final victory over the fascist dictator. In his face!
This song by the great Chilean band Quiliapayún was first recorded in 1973, the year of the coup in Chile. Today it is still performed by these bands that survived the Pinochet terror and hung around to reclaim final victory over the fascist dictator. In his face!
Stand up to march, the people will win
There is a better life coming
To conquer our happiness
In a clamor a thousand fighting voices strong
Will rise and sing a freedom song
With determination the people will win.
The people, united, will never be defeated!
El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!
El pueblo, unido, jamás será vencido!
American Fascism 101: Yes It Can Happen Here, EVEN Odds
Or, the alternative title: Peter King, American Fascist, Revives McCarthyism to Target Muslim Americans. Congressman Paul Broun, he of Birther conspiracies and the "Obama is a socialist" mindset warned that we must "know our enemy" and the "radicalization" of Islamic youth (no hard evidence was provided, except anecdotal testimony that proves little) is a "tremendous" threat to "national security." Rep. Broun laid out the real or perceived "crisis" in Naomi Klein's shock doctrine (fascist) capitalism. Next up, what remedies and opportunities redound to crony capitalists? And to Republican Rep. Thomas Marino of Pennsylvania: When were the Ku Klux Klan not terrorists?
Congressman Keith Ellison's tears as he told the story of a Muslim American first responder who died trying to save his fellow Americans on 9/11, and then was reviled in death as a traitor, were far more eloquent than anything that was said in this sham hearing. Ellison is one of two Muslim-Americans in the U.S. Congress.
One of the chief characteristics of the fascist state is to justify its strong-arm tactics and squashing of the people's rights by (1) invoking a crisis (real or imagined) as we have seen in previous posts re: Naomi Klein's dissertation on shock doctrine capitalism, and as we see now in Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, whose Republican governors are using the cover of a ginned-up financial and debt "crisis" to crush public employee unions and destroy the autonomy of their towns and municipalities [Michigan], effectively ghettoizing the states in advance of a corporate takeover [Koch brothers regional economic interests — see Gov. Walker spill the beans to fake "David Koch"] plundering its no-longer-public lands and economic resources [utilities in Wisconsin] — and (2) raising the specter of the "enemy within."
The "enemy within" tactic is a time-tested staple of the fascist authoritarian regime to maintain control of a quiescent, terrorized population. From fascism's inception in the early 20th century to the present time, it is illuminating to note how often both totalitarian and purportedly "democratic" states, as this one claims to be, have used this tactic as a means of advancing the undemocratic political aims of the ruling corporate elites. Or maintaining "order" outside the broad definitions of the law.
In Nazi Germany, with its poisonous racist credo, the "enemy within" was the Jew, followed by opposing political institutions and ideologies such as communists and socialists, which were also common "enemies" of Mussolini's fascist Italy. Both of these infamous fascist states used the language of the working class while gutting the power and autonomy of unions. This is precisely what is being done in Wisconsin and the other Republican states waging war on workers and the middle class.
During World War II, the "enemy within" in the United States became Japanese-Americans, who were interned in concentration camps for the duration, although there is no evidence they were ever disloyal to the U.S. They were American citizens whose constitutional rights were violated simply because they were viewed as threats to the state. At war's end, as the Cold War heated up, the "enemy within" became phantom communists in federal goverment. Republican Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, an unshaven demagogue and drunk, made a short-lived career of flashing phony lists of communists in the State Department and high government office. Hollywood, with particular focus on its unions (not unlike the current assault on unions today), was the other target of that particular brand of American Fascism named McCarthyism. Then, as now, Hollywood and the unions were a source of liberal Democratic Party support and funding. Today Glenn Beck's demagogic attacks on President Obama's so-called "Czars" reap millions for his paranoid delusions on network TV.
Post-war fascism and Naomi Klein's shock doctrine thesis can be traced to the beginnings of the Cold War, a "crisis" bookended by two "hot" wars, Korea and Vietnam, which led President Truman to institutionalize the national security state and all presidents that followed to expand the scope and power of covert intelligence and the military-industrial complex. From it sprang the CIA and the many alphabet intelligence and black ops agencies that comprise the post-9/11 national security state under "Homeland" security. Even the name "Homeland" harkens back to the totalitarian state's fascist self-image as the nurturing "fatherland" or "motherland" of its population.
The 9/11 attacks ushered in the final dissolution of the largely fictitious, but at least codified, firewall that set strict limits on "domestic" surveillance in violation of our cherished constitutional rights. The "enemy within" has been a perpetual source of fuel for the fascist national security state. And in shock doctrine capitalism the 9/11 crisis has strengthened the fascist tendencies of the national security state and propelled a further deterioration of our civil liberties.
For definitional purposes, fascism is the authoritarian impulse that previously constitutional democratic states exhibit in squashing the rights and freedoms of the population, acting in brazen violation of the state's constitution and laws. This is an important clarification of the term, because sometimes people will get sidetracked by the various cultural and über-nationalist strains of fascism, e.g., Nazism, to say, "well (whew) that's not us, we're exceptional!" (Which, by itself, the chauvinism attendant to notions of national "exceptionalism" is a common characteristic of the fascist culture. If you think about it, logically, it may feel good to thump your chest and say "we are exceptional, we are the United States" but the claim to "exceptionalism" is wide-ranging and globalist.)
When did Greece become "exceptional"— when the 300 Spartans beat back legions of Persians at Thermopylae? And did it cease being "exceptional" when Socrates died? Did the Roman Empire's "exceptionalism" end after it presided over the death of Jesus Christ? Was the British Empire "exceptional"? How about fascist Italy under Mussolini or Hitler's Nazi Germany? I could go on, but you get the point. There's a word for this kind of sentiment: Jingoism. That's fascist, too.
By contrast, what makes fascism exceptional and distinct — in a perverse kind of way — is that it cannot exist absent a constitutional democratic republican state. Fascism is the ultimate perversion of constitutional democracy and republican government. Very simply, fascism draws its life-blood from the political, social, and economic institutions of constitutional democracy and republican government. Its economic foundation is monopoly capitalism. Think about it.
When CIA-backed military coups swept and toppled South American governments in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and others, the pretext was the alleged threat of communist insurgency; the "enemy within" were labor unions (outlawed), university students (murdered, tortured and "disappeared"), and any and all perceived enemies of the state, including the Catholic Church, which was so threatening to the fascist military dictatorship in Brazil that its news publications were among the few subject to censorship prior to publication. These countries had a foundation in constitutional democratic government, some more aspirational than others, that looked to the United States as a model and adopted our constituional precepts.
The ginned-up "crisis" (communist insurgency) justifying coups d'etat in Latin America was an economic windfall for plundering American transnational corporations. Most of the fascist leadership in these countries were on the CIA payroll, just as today Scott Walker and the GOP generally are bankrolled by the Koch brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a money laundering service for the corporate elites that choose to remain in the shadows, thanks to the radical fascist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court which, in handing down the Citizens United decision, authorized the unlimited monetary theft of our democracy by corporations.
Ironically, globalization is a double-edged sword. For those countries once under the yoke of European and American imperialism eloquently described in Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of Pillage of a Continent, much delayed justice is finally done as the oppressed people of Latin America seized their political and economic destiny by the horns and ousted the corporate exploiters. It has also marked a turning point in the transnational corporate exploitation of emerging markets as once oppressed and subjugated peoples have arisen to assert their rights and freedoms.
Increasingly we see the bizarre phenomenon of the corporate predator turning on itself. Suddenly, these American-in-name-only corporate entities find themselves forging new transnational alliances to survive and remain viable as predatory capitalists. In America, where these companies were once based (most still are but their plants and workers moved to China, Mexico, India, et al), jobs are shipped overseas, communities ravaged, entire political parties bought out, so-called "astro-turf" front groups formed to subvert legitimate expressions of the people's will —such tactics designed to undermine legitimate institutions of democracy, to Latin Americans, were well-known provocations by "La CIA" (pronounced see-ya).
Martin Luther King expressed it beautifully: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." The American people were largely unaware of the crimes committed in their name in far-off lands. Now this criminal and immoral conduct has begun to hit much closer to home, in our communities and our families. We should take heart from the experience of our Latin American brothers and sisters who rebelled against this amorphous monster from a much more precarious position and ultimately triumphed. Just as they did, we must fight back and reclaim our destiny.
Isabel Allende, whom I love and revere as a writer and as a beautiful person, wrote this in the Foreword to Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America:
Congressman Keith Ellison's tears as he told the story of a Muslim American first responder who died trying to save his fellow Americans on 9/11, and then was reviled in death as a traitor, were far more eloquent than anything that was said in this sham hearing. Ellison is one of two Muslim-Americans in the U.S. Congress.
One of the chief characteristics of the fascist state is to justify its strong-arm tactics and squashing of the people's rights by (1) invoking a crisis (real or imagined) as we have seen in previous posts re: Naomi Klein's dissertation on shock doctrine capitalism, and as we see now in Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana, whose Republican governors are using the cover of a ginned-up financial and debt "crisis" to crush public employee unions and destroy the autonomy of their towns and municipalities [Michigan], effectively ghettoizing the states in advance of a corporate takeover [Koch brothers regional economic interests — see Gov. Walker spill the beans to fake "David Koch"] plundering its no-longer-public lands and economic resources [utilities in Wisconsin] — and (2) raising the specter of the "enemy within."
The "enemy within" tactic is a time-tested staple of the fascist authoritarian regime to maintain control of a quiescent, terrorized population. From fascism's inception in the early 20th century to the present time, it is illuminating to note how often both totalitarian and purportedly "democratic" states, as this one claims to be, have used this tactic as a means of advancing the undemocratic political aims of the ruling corporate elites. Or maintaining "order" outside the broad definitions of the law.
In Nazi Germany, with its poisonous racist credo, the "enemy within" was the Jew, followed by opposing political institutions and ideologies such as communists and socialists, which were also common "enemies" of Mussolini's fascist Italy. Both of these infamous fascist states used the language of the working class while gutting the power and autonomy of unions. This is precisely what is being done in Wisconsin and the other Republican states waging war on workers and the middle class.
During World War II, the "enemy within" in the United States became Japanese-Americans, who were interned in concentration camps for the duration, although there is no evidence they were ever disloyal to the U.S. They were American citizens whose constitutional rights were violated simply because they were viewed as threats to the state. At war's end, as the Cold War heated up, the "enemy within" became phantom communists in federal goverment. Republican Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy, an unshaven demagogue and drunk, made a short-lived career of flashing phony lists of communists in the State Department and high government office. Hollywood, with particular focus on its unions (not unlike the current assault on unions today), was the other target of that particular brand of American Fascism named McCarthyism. Then, as now, Hollywood and the unions were a source of liberal Democratic Party support and funding. Today Glenn Beck's demagogic attacks on President Obama's so-called "Czars" reap millions for his paranoid delusions on network TV.
Post-war fascism and Naomi Klein's shock doctrine thesis can be traced to the beginnings of the Cold War, a "crisis" bookended by two "hot" wars, Korea and Vietnam, which led President Truman to institutionalize the national security state and all presidents that followed to expand the scope and power of covert intelligence and the military-industrial complex. From it sprang the CIA and the many alphabet intelligence and black ops agencies that comprise the post-9/11 national security state under "Homeland" security. Even the name "Homeland" harkens back to the totalitarian state's fascist self-image as the nurturing "fatherland" or "motherland" of its population.
The 9/11 attacks ushered in the final dissolution of the largely fictitious, but at least codified, firewall that set strict limits on "domestic" surveillance in violation of our cherished constitutional rights. The "enemy within" has been a perpetual source of fuel for the fascist national security state. And in shock doctrine capitalism the 9/11 crisis has strengthened the fascist tendencies of the national security state and propelled a further deterioration of our civil liberties.
For definitional purposes, fascism is the authoritarian impulse that previously constitutional democratic states exhibit in squashing the rights and freedoms of the population, acting in brazen violation of the state's constitution and laws. This is an important clarification of the term, because sometimes people will get sidetracked by the various cultural and über-nationalist strains of fascism, e.g., Nazism, to say, "well (whew) that's not us, we're exceptional!" (Which, by itself, the chauvinism attendant to notions of national "exceptionalism" is a common characteristic of the fascist culture. If you think about it, logically, it may feel good to thump your chest and say "we are exceptional, we are the United States" but the claim to "exceptionalism" is wide-ranging and globalist.)
When did Greece become "exceptional"— when the 300 Spartans beat back legions of Persians at Thermopylae? And did it cease being "exceptional" when Socrates died? Did the Roman Empire's "exceptionalism" end after it presided over the death of Jesus Christ? Was the British Empire "exceptional"? How about fascist Italy under Mussolini or Hitler's Nazi Germany? I could go on, but you get the point. There's a word for this kind of sentiment: Jingoism. That's fascist, too.
By contrast, what makes fascism exceptional and distinct — in a perverse kind of way — is that it cannot exist absent a constitutional democratic republican state. Fascism is the ultimate perversion of constitutional democracy and republican government. Very simply, fascism draws its life-blood from the political, social, and economic institutions of constitutional democracy and republican government. Its economic foundation is monopoly capitalism. Think about it.
When CIA-backed military coups swept and toppled South American governments in Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, and others, the pretext was the alleged threat of communist insurgency; the "enemy within" were labor unions (outlawed), university students (murdered, tortured and "disappeared"), and any and all perceived enemies of the state, including the Catholic Church, which was so threatening to the fascist military dictatorship in Brazil that its news publications were among the few subject to censorship prior to publication. These countries had a foundation in constitutional democratic government, some more aspirational than others, that looked to the United States as a model and adopted our constituional precepts.
The ginned-up "crisis" (communist insurgency) justifying coups d'etat in Latin America was an economic windfall for plundering American transnational corporations. Most of the fascist leadership in these countries were on the CIA payroll, just as today Scott Walker and the GOP generally are bankrolled by the Koch brothers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a money laundering service for the corporate elites that choose to remain in the shadows, thanks to the radical fascist majority on the U.S. Supreme Court which, in handing down the Citizens United decision, authorized the unlimited monetary theft of our democracy by corporations.
Ironically, globalization is a double-edged sword. For those countries once under the yoke of European and American imperialism eloquently described in Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of Pillage of a Continent, much delayed justice is finally done as the oppressed people of Latin America seized their political and economic destiny by the horns and ousted the corporate exploiters. It has also marked a turning point in the transnational corporate exploitation of emerging markets as once oppressed and subjugated peoples have arisen to assert their rights and freedoms.
Increasingly we see the bizarre phenomenon of the corporate predator turning on itself. Suddenly, these American-in-name-only corporate entities find themselves forging new transnational alliances to survive and remain viable as predatory capitalists. In America, where these companies were once based (most still are but their plants and workers moved to China, Mexico, India, et al), jobs are shipped overseas, communities ravaged, entire political parties bought out, so-called "astro-turf" front groups formed to subvert legitimate expressions of the people's will —such tactics designed to undermine legitimate institutions of democracy, to Latin Americans, were well-known provocations by "La CIA" (pronounced see-ya).
Martin Luther King expressed it beautifully: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." The American people were largely unaware of the crimes committed in their name in far-off lands. Now this criminal and immoral conduct has begun to hit much closer to home, in our communities and our families. We should take heart from the experience of our Latin American brothers and sisters who rebelled against this amorphous monster from a much more precarious position and ultimately triumphed. Just as they did, we must fight back and reclaim our destiny.
Isabel Allende, whom I love and revere as a writer and as a beautiful person, wrote this in the Foreword to Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America:
On September 11, 1973, a military coup ended a century of democratic tradition in Chile and started the long reign of General Augusto Pinochet. Similar coups followed in other countries, and soon half the continent's population was living in terror. This was a strategy designed in Washington and imposed upon the Latin American people by the economic and political forces of the right. In every instance the military acted as mercenaries to the privileged groups in power. Repression was organized on a large scale; torture, concentration camps, censorship, imprisonment without trial, and summary executions became common practices. Thousands of people "disappeared," masses of exiles and refugees left their countries running for their lives. New wounds were added to the old and recent scars that the continent had endured. As Galeano once said: "it's worthwhile to die for things without which it's not worthwhile to live."Democratic constitutional government requires eternal vigilance and proactive involvement and participation by citizens. Otherwise, as we have seen with the emergence of neo- and proto-fascist groups such as the Tea Party, the election of a Republican Congress dominated by its extremist fascist right wing, and of corrupt crony capitalist governors in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Arizona, and Florida, America will not be spared the tragic fate of fascism that other advanced and cultured Western democracies have suffered throughout our recent history.
Wednesday, March 09, 2011
Rachel's Take ... And The TWO PERCENT SOLUTION
Despite the circular tease (insisting over and over again that "it's not about the budget") Rachel offers an incisive connect-the-dots mini seminar below on what's really going on out in those Republican states. It's a coordinated power grab designed to crush (what they think is) the last line of opposition — public employee unions — mopping up the field before setting their sights on the BIG PRIZE: Social Security.
These Republican extremists — American Fascists — see an opportunity to privatize Social Security where George W. Bush failed, using the pretext (with Goebbels disciple Frank Luntz's buzzwords) that we're "broke" (how many times have you heard that scumbag Scott Walker repeat this after creating an artificial deficit with his tax cuts for the rich) and in "financial crisis."
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Chris Matthews is complicit in this scheme, having used his big megaphone Hardball platform to stab the middle class (forget liberals) in the back advancing the phony argument, along with his Politico pals, that Social Security is in crisis and needs cutting. Typically for the Dean of the Idiot Punditocracy, he had the gall to suggest We, The People are the problem because we refuse to accept his IP Beltway alternate reality paradigm and instead (in Chris's condescending view) push it on the politicians to make the "tough choices" for us.
Please. Chris the POLL VAULTER only likes to cite those polls that reinforce his prejudice. We, The People have already declared our solutions, clearly and unambiguously. Except that Chris chooses to ignore those polls because he doesn't like the solution: The American people, in overwhelming numbers have called for raising taxes on Chris and his rich IP Politico pals in order to cut the deficit and contribute their fair share to fixing minor decades-into-the-future issues with Social Security while bringing government expenditures into balance. It's not about liberal-conservative or Chris's idiotic 40-yard line analogies. When the rubber meets the road, Chris stands up for his class.
It's all about CLASS WARFARE: Rich vs. poor, haves vs. have-nots. TWO PERCENT. The top two percent of the American people, those earning a quarter million and more, are driving this phony financial crisis. And so we need a TWO PERCENT SOLUTION.
Yo, Cenk! Set your dumbass colleague Chris straight, willya? Cenk Uygur is the SAMURAI LIBERAL who immediately follows Hardball to debunk the idiocies and inanities spouted by the host in the previous hour of programming. Cenk, famous for his wingnut android-hunting exploits as head honcho of the online Young Turks, even looks a little like John Belushi. Think of Cenk as John "Bluto" Blutarsky and Chris as Dean Vernon Wormer trying to get back at the (frat house) "netroots" libs for partying too hard and knocking down his supercilious Beltway constructs.
But what would that make MSNBC? Hmm ... Question for Rachel: If the ultimate aim of "Big Government Conservatism" is to privatize government out of existence, what's so "Big Government" about it?
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, Chris Matthews is complicit in this scheme, having used his big megaphone Hardball platform to stab the middle class (forget liberals) in the back advancing the phony argument, along with his Politico pals, that Social Security is in crisis and needs cutting. Typically for the Dean of the Idiot Punditocracy, he had the gall to suggest We, The People are the problem because we refuse to accept his IP Beltway alternate reality paradigm and instead (in Chris's condescending view) push it on the politicians to make the "tough choices" for us.
Please. Chris the POLL VAULTER only likes to cite those polls that reinforce his prejudice. We, The People have already declared our solutions, clearly and unambiguously. Except that Chris chooses to ignore those polls because he doesn't like the solution: The American people, in overwhelming numbers have called for raising taxes on Chris and his rich IP Politico pals in order to cut the deficit and contribute their fair share to fixing minor decades-into-the-future issues with Social Security while bringing government expenditures into balance. It's not about liberal-conservative or Chris's idiotic 40-yard line analogies. When the rubber meets the road, Chris stands up for his class.
It's all about CLASS WARFARE: Rich vs. poor, haves vs. have-nots. TWO PERCENT. The top two percent of the American people, those earning a quarter million and more, are driving this phony financial crisis. And so we need a TWO PERCENT SOLUTION.
But what would that make MSNBC? Hmm ... Question for Rachel: If the ultimate aim of "Big Government Conservatism" is to privatize government out of existence, what's so "Big Government" about it?
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
"THEY REALLY WANT A CORPORATE MONOPOLY STATE"
Thank you, Naomi Klein. And Rachel, you're forgiven for offering the worst euphemism for American Fascism yet: "Big Government Conservatism." Oh Please. Ouch. A corporate monopoly state is the very definition of a fascist state. Or, as Naomi said: "government by fiat"— i.e. fascism.
Her seminal work "The Shock Doctrine — The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is, in essence, the redefinition of fascism for our time. The premise that crisis (in most cases, but not always, a manufactured one) triggers a shock to the political system, as Ms Klein said, is an old idea. Hitler's final putsch, after years building a strong ideologically extreme and fanatically loyal Nazi movement, was the Reichstag fire. It was used as a pretext to eliminate the remaining roadblocks and opponents to the minority Nazi Party and Hitler's rise to power. The 9/11 terror attacks were a traumatic shock to the American system which led to the subordination of our individual freedoms to the national security state.
Klein's thesis holds that politicians are taking advantage of real and created crises to ram through unpopular privatization schemes to transfer wealth from the people to the corporations. Call it what you will — corporatism, crony capitalism — still it traces its lineage directly to Mussolini and Hitler and the Nazis. They were 20th century. We're 21st. The difference for our times is that charismatic leaders have been replaced by richly rewarded and more manageable right wing bureaucrats, functionaries, and yes men ... like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Michigan's Rick Snyder. The similarity is that their coups and crisis-advantage power grabs are as old school democracy-squashing fascism as they have ever been.
Her seminal work "The Shock Doctrine — The Rise of Disaster Capitalism" is, in essence, the redefinition of fascism for our time. The premise that crisis (in most cases, but not always, a manufactured one) triggers a shock to the political system, as Ms Klein said, is an old idea. Hitler's final putsch, after years building a strong ideologically extreme and fanatically loyal Nazi movement, was the Reichstag fire. It was used as a pretext to eliminate the remaining roadblocks and opponents to the minority Nazi Party and Hitler's rise to power. The 9/11 terror attacks were a traumatic shock to the American system which led to the subordination of our individual freedoms to the national security state.
Klein's thesis holds that politicians are taking advantage of real and created crises to ram through unpopular privatization schemes to transfer wealth from the people to the corporations. Call it what you will — corporatism, crony capitalism — still it traces its lineage directly to Mussolini and Hitler and the Nazis. They were 20th century. We're 21st. The difference for our times is that charismatic leaders have been replaced by richly rewarded and more manageable right wing bureaucrats, functionaries, and yes men ... like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Michigan's Rick Snyder. The similarity is that their coups and crisis-advantage power grabs are as old school democracy-squashing fascism as they have ever been.
Memo to Rachel re: Michael Steele — Standing on high principle by denying those bastards in Steele's party a quorum to ram their criminal bill through the Wisconsin Legislature is the highest form of public service. Abraham Lincoln jumped out a window in his legislature rather than give the opposing party a quorum. I'll take Abe any day and forever over a partisan hack like Steele.
Rachel, Rachel ... Incidentally, the Koch Brothers are "libertarians" and so is America's Dark Lord of the Sith and most prominent fascist, Dick Cheney of ... WYOMING.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Anatomy of A Wingnut Smear: FASCISM On The March In The US of A
It began with the Teabagger proto-fascists, masking their racism and fear of the President's name and skin color behind idiotic 1774 costumes (tendentiously fascistic folks are BIG on uniforms). Then Newt Gingrich, angling to corner the fear and loathing constituency of right wing haters, fueled the flames of bigotry and odium, as he did before with the Islamic Center controversy in New York, by raising yet another fearsome boogie man — which he and tag teammate Mike Huckabee knew, going in, to be false — our MAU-MAU president. (Can't you just picture Newt and the Huckster leading the witch hunt and burning in the Salem Witch Trials?) Incidentally, it's no accident that "mau" means evil in Portuguese; it's malo in Spanish — close enough. Obviously, Newt and Mike are trying to nail down the Obama haters and fascist sympathizers in the Latin American community. Here's Newt (he got a great reception in the wingnut media), throwing his bomb:
Finally, Glenn Beck closes the sale with night after night of wild conspiracies scaring the shit out of insecure xenophobic white people — ranging from Charlie Sheen (WINNING!), Planned Parenthood, to George Soros and a sinister Caliphate poised to engulf us all in a bacchanal of Sharia Law. Naturally, Beck works in the Birther conspiracy angle that the President wasn’t born in Hawaii but Kenya, etc. etc. in which strange inter-generational conspirators (possibly time travelers, possibly lizard people?) engineered it so that a phony newspaper birth notice is published and a look-alike stand-in named Barry with a killer three-point shot makes his way through high school in Hawaii.
In the meantime, the real Barack Obama was being SECRETLY schooled in the evil MAU-MAU anti-British, anti-imperialist … ANTI-AMERICAN doctrine to exact their revenge on the evil ugly white Americans 40 years later! WOW! This whimsical piece is titled:
“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”Just to put this psycho-babble in language us regular people can understand ...When Newt claims such speculative garbage is the “most accurate, predictive model for his (Obama’s) behavior” he sounds like every racetrack tout trying to sell you on a can’t lose system to spot the next Kentucky Derby winner.
“This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president,” Gingrich tells us.
“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”
“This horse here, Newt The Fearandloathing Grinch, is a cinch to finish first,” says the tout … “followed by Racist Huckster. Our system rates 'em higher than that crowd favorite … (lowering voice conspiratorially) They say he was born in KENYA! He just don’t fit in with our North American thoroughbred colony, know what I mean?”Mike Huckabee, doing penance for having having had a surprise outbreak of decency when defending the First Lady from her racist critics, the Pigman and a despicable racist cartoon published on Breitbart's site, quickly fell back into the fascist fold, with a vengeance. He doubled down on Gingrich's smear, with plenty more of his own, to a wingnut radio host:
“What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya . . . One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American. If you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”And to Mr. Taco/Falafel suckie-face, Bill-O The Clown, the Huckster recalled all those magical Boys Scout meetings most Americans never took part in. And Little League, too. Gee, I thought soccer — that weird game foreigners play with their feet —was the popular kid's sport. Surprised they didn't invent a story about Obama playing soccer. I mean, legend has it that the Aztecs played it using the heads of their foes for balls. Imagine what Newt and the Huckster could do with such material! But Mr. Obama was partial to basketball — a true-blue American sport ... played by lots of black kids.
HUCKABEE: This is not a kid who grew up—The wingnuts may even have uncovered video of the Mau-Mau school they claim President Obama attended:
BILL-O THE CLOWN, HOST: Sure.
HUCKABEE: — you know, going to Boy Scout meetings and playing Little League baseball in a small town.
MR. TACO/FALAFEL SUCKIE FACE, BILL-O THE CLOWN: No, he is not a traditional—he is not a traditional guy.
Finally, Glenn Beck closes the sale with night after night of wild conspiracies scaring the shit out of insecure xenophobic white people — ranging from Charlie Sheen (WINNING!), Planned Parenthood, to George Soros and a sinister Caliphate poised to engulf us all in a bacchanal of Sharia Law. Naturally, Beck works in the Birther conspiracy angle that the President wasn’t born in Hawaii but Kenya, etc. etc. in which strange inter-generational conspirators (possibly time travelers, possibly lizard people?) engineered it so that a phony newspaper birth notice is published and a look-alike stand-in named Barry with a killer three-point shot makes his way through high school in Hawaii.
In the meantime, the real Barack Obama was being SECRETLY schooled in the evil MAU-MAU anti-British, anti-imperialist … ANTI-AMERICAN doctrine to exact their revenge on the evil ugly white Americans 40 years later! WOW! This whimsical piece is titled:
“BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID. BARACK OBAMA IS COMING TO TAKE AWAY YOUR PUPPY.”
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Friday, March 04, 2011
Hillary Has An Attack of Progressivism ... Criticizing U.S. Media
The Secretary of State echoed one of the themes of this blog lately: (a) that the U.S. media (mostly MSM, i.e. corporate) sucks and (b) you should watch more Al Jazeera if you want to know what's really going on here and in the world around us. It's funny how these things happen. I was aware of Al Jazeera (the "terrorist network" right wing smear which was patent nonsense) and watched it infrequently. Then the Egyptian crisis hit, following Tunisia and Yemen, and the Huffington Post began streaming Al Jazeera's live video feed from Tahrir Square in Cairo. It was a revelation.
The only similarity Al Jazeera seems to share with the U.S. corporate MSM is that its foreign correspondents speak with a British accent — a vestige of Britain's imperial colonialism that is actually not such a bad a thing. After the MSM cut its news divisions to the bone in favor of reality-infotainment, Jersey Shore/Snooki et al, it contracted with a number of "foreign" foreign correspondents, guys and gals with amusing British, Aussie/New Zealand, and South African accents.
Aussies like Michael Ware are just plain crazy. Bravery, recklessness and the rush of war notwithstanding, there's no substitute for the cool and thoughtful reporting of Richard Engel, who knows the culture about which he reports and takes no unnecessary risks. NBC lucked out with Richard, but as good as he is, he can't carry their entire foreign correspondents desk, aka Richard's desk. Which is where Al Jazeera comes in. Here's Secretary Clinton:
Media critic Jeff Jarvis put it more bluntly contrasting our "celebrity-obsessed" MSM with Al Jazeera:
Even as the wingnuts in Rightwingville treat climate change as a liberal conspiracy because (a) Al Gore is associated with it, and (b) Big Oil owns them, the scientific community has ever more urgently sounded the alarm that we need to begin addressing this issue in a serious policy way. Common sense tells those of us who haven't been sleepwalking for the past 20 years that climate change is real. Despite wingnuts parroting the polluters' propaganda, new studies just released by the authoritative scientific publication Nature confirmed what many of us surmised from observation alone: that extreme weather events are caused by (repeat after me, wingnuts at the Daily Caller:) global warming that "cannot be explained by natural, internal fluctuations of the climate system alone;" increased moisture in the atmosphere leading to heavier precipitation.
A related and vastly under-reported story in this country is the looming worldwide food shortage leading to widespread hunger and political instability in many parts of the world. The uprising in Egypt and other countries of the Middle East was triggered in part by the rising cost of food. The region imports most of its food. Some staples, like wheat, were in short supply owing to climate change disruptions of the crop. And it's only going to get worse.
This is how Al Jazeera covered the question of global food shortages in a recent program. It's serious, comprehensive, and informative. The kind of thorough reporting that the MSM reserves in this country for the Charlie Sheen novella:
The only similarity Al Jazeera seems to share with the U.S. corporate MSM is that its foreign correspondents speak with a British accent — a vestige of Britain's imperial colonialism that is actually not such a bad a thing. After the MSM cut its news divisions to the bone in favor of reality-infotainment, Jersey Shore/Snooki et al, it contracted with a number of "foreign" foreign correspondents, guys and gals with amusing British, Aussie/New Zealand, and South African accents.
Aussies like Michael Ware are just plain crazy. Bravery, recklessness and the rush of war notwithstanding, there's no substitute for the cool and thoughtful reporting of Richard Engel, who knows the culture about which he reports and takes no unnecessary risks. NBC lucked out with Richard, but as good as he is, he can't carry their entire foreign correspondents desk, aka Richard's desk. Which is where Al Jazeera comes in. Here's Secretary Clinton:
Media critic Jeff Jarvis put it more bluntly contrasting our "celebrity-obsessed" MSM with Al Jazeera:
Case in point. The MSM has barely scratched the surface of two of the most important issues that go to the very heart of our survival as a species and manifest in ever-increasing social and political convulsions: Climate science and looming world food shortages."Vital, world-changing news is occurring in the Middle East and no one — not the xenophobic or celebrity-obsessed or cut-to-the-bone American media-can bring the perspective, insight, and on-the-scene reporting Al Jazeera English can."
Even as the wingnuts in Rightwingville treat climate change as a liberal conspiracy because (a) Al Gore is associated with it, and (b) Big Oil owns them, the scientific community has ever more urgently sounded the alarm that we need to begin addressing this issue in a serious policy way. Common sense tells those of us who haven't been sleepwalking for the past 20 years that climate change is real. Despite wingnuts parroting the polluters' propaganda, new studies just released by the authoritative scientific publication Nature confirmed what many of us surmised from observation alone: that extreme weather events are caused by (repeat after me, wingnuts at the Daily Caller:) global warming that "cannot be explained by natural, internal fluctuations of the climate system alone;" increased moisture in the atmosphere leading to heavier precipitation.
The research directly links rising greenhouse-gas levels with the growing intensity of rain and snow in the Northern Hemisphere, and the increased risk of flooding in the United Kingdom.You wouldn't know it from watching Fox or reading the wingnut blogs. All you need to know about this climate change denial hit job, with the usual quotes lifted out of context from very detailed scientific analyses, is the name of chief global warming denier, Lord Christopher Monckton, cited as an authority on the science. Monckton is neither a scientist nor does he have any background in science whatsoever: "He shows up at events to make his global warming-denying case at the behest of groups funded by dirty energy interests such as Friends of America and The Heartland Institute." Naturally, this makes Monckton a favorite witness of Republican/Teabaggers, witch doctors & alchemists like James Inhofe and those who don't care at all because the Rapture is coming to take them away.
This is how Al Jazeera covered the question of global food shortages in a recent program. It's serious, comprehensive, and informative. The kind of thorough reporting that the MSM reserves in this country for the Charlie Sheen novella:
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Which Side Are you On?
Natalie Merchant's powerful version of "Which Side Are You On" tells it all. Unions make us strong. ALL OF US. Unions built this country. Unions built the middle class. Unions gave us the 40-hour work week, the weekend, a decent standard of living wage and benefits, safety in the workplace, and a seat at the table for workers.
For those of you who do not belong to a union, and that is most working Americans, count your blessings that unions exist. Because of the union, you enjoy a competitive salary and your job is protected, to the minimum extent that it is, by fair labor practices rules. Because of competition from union workers, your corporate employer cannot drive wages to the ground, in a race to the bottomless pit of workers who do not and cannot earn a living wage.
If not for the union, the hostile corporate takeover of our lives would have been complete. Employers who run a non-union shop are compelled by the looming presence of the union to provide their workers with competitive salaries. They have been "persuaded" by the union to provide health and retirement benefits. Corporations, but for the few exceptions of mom-and-pop businesses in Frank Capra or Disney films, do not have a social conscience; they do not provide good salaries and benefits and good working conditions out of the goodness of their heart.
They do it because the presence of the union in our midst, in our lives, in our family, compels them to offer competitive salaries and benefits, or lose their best and brightest workers to competitors that follow the union standard, and offer union wages. The invisible presence of the union dictates the extent to which corporations can get away with abuses in the workplace and oppressing workers. There was a time in the United States when "Made in the USA" carried with it a union stamp that said "union made". There was a time in this country that Americans gazed upon that union label and knew this was the best product in the world made by the greatest nation on earth and the world's best workers. That symbol, that union logo proudly stamped on an American-made product embodied the American Dream.
The Wisconsin 14, the Democratic state senators who "fled" to the great state of Illinois, land of Lincoln, so they would not be a party to the further destruction of the American Dream are true patriots. It is the corporations who fled to China and India and to those "right-to-work" countries with inhuman sweat shops branded by Tom Delay as "the future of capitalism," in search of profit-driven slave labor in the land of communists and dictators — it is those corporations that are the traitors and seditionists. For hasn't a right wing Supreme Court determined them to be "persons"?
And it is this radical right Republican Party of Huckabee and Palin and Gingrich, of Teabaggers and Koch brothers, the political appendage of the fascist corporate state, whose propaganda arm is Fox and the Limbaugh network of right wing radio, that has been exposed in Wisconsin for its corrupt crony capitalism and dictatorial "overreach." Yes, overreach has become the word du jour among the few remaining Republicans of conscience who had deluded themselves into removing "fascist" from their political dictionary and who suddenly awoke to the realization that they have been part of a filthy scheme, a "classic overreach." It was a rude awakening, and they don't like it.
If you don't like the word "fascism"... or rather, your corporate owners forbid its use? — Fine. Be that way. With your head in the sand or, in the case of the ignorant Teabaggers, up their asses. Rachel is really really good at conjuring up a thousand-and-one euphemisms for the "F" word. Still it's unfortunate that only Noam Chomsky and a few independent souls dare raise the specter of fascism in America. Fascism easily adapts to its culture. That is why it isn't easily detected. After all, one characteristic of fascism is über-nationalist. How about some useful myths about the Boston Tea Party, the Founding Fathers, and our Constitution, anyone?
Most people think "fascism" they think Hitler or Mussolini. But that's the European brand. The American brand is uniquely American. It's the KKK, the militias, the John Birch Society, elements of the Tea Party. And it holds a controlling interest in the Republican Party. Every time you hear someone like Mike Huckabee conjure up a story out of whole cloth that our President was influenced by the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, where he grew up (?) — think fascism. It is the classic fascist divide and conquer technique to pit us against them: Black versus white, American-born versus foreign-born (the lie here is to extend xenophobia, fear of foreigners — hordes of invading illegal immigrants — to President Obama), Aryan versus Jew.
Many delusionals out there still believe we live in a "free enterprise system." As if it can be found in crony capitalism and the big corporate monopolies, in Big Oil receiving government welfare subsidies, in chemical industries and mountain top removal mining polluting our rivers and streams, the air we breathe, and despoiling our environment forever, in Big Ag getting government subsidies and the food industry cutting corners with the safety of our food supply, or in the military industrial complex, the Halliburtons and tens of thousands of government contractors driving our perpetual war machine while lining their pockets with the taxpayer's money at a horrific cost of blood and treasure.
As if.
And if we dare decry any of this, the too big to fail banks playing casino games with our retirement funds and ravaging the only equity left the middle class, that of our homes — then these corporate sharks will deploy armies of lobbyists and bundles of cash to buy off every single politician in state and federal government that they can, and defeat us at the polls with lies upon lies upon lies whose unlimited funds were enabled by a radicalized right wing interventionist Supreme Court. An intervention which began with the judicial coup d'etat of the 2000 presidential election: Two decisions, Bush v. Gore and Citizens United closing the circle and shifting the balance in favor of crony capitalism and the fascist power grab we see today. The corporate elites have coordinated with their political and propaganda arms the final assault on the union aimed at destroying the last vestige of the middle class — public employee unions — that stands in the way of making this hostile takeover of government complete. And then the enshrinement of fascism as the ruling political doctrine of America will become a reality.
Fascism is exactly what is happening here and until it is recognized as such this cancer cannot be exorcised from our body politic. (My recommendation: watch more Al Jazeera, BBC, Democracy Now, and read the Guardian if you want to find out what's really going on. And of course, keep reading the independent progressive blogs. Because the state of American corporate "news" media is piss poor, and getting worse. In fact, it's one more sign of creeping fascism.) Arm yourself with the facts. And with the grounding that only true history can give you, because there's a lot of revisionism out there, so you must be diligent and persistent to know the truth.
And then act to take back our country. Stand with the people of Wisconsin. We are at a tipping point. This is a turning point in our history. We are approaching critical mass in our struggle to beat back the hostile corporate takeover of our country. This is a war on the middle class and an assault on the American Dream and on the values that made this country great. This is a fight we cannot lose.
It's that important.
For those of you who do not belong to a union, and that is most working Americans, count your blessings that unions exist. Because of the union, you enjoy a competitive salary and your job is protected, to the minimum extent that it is, by fair labor practices rules. Because of competition from union workers, your corporate employer cannot drive wages to the ground, in a race to the bottomless pit of workers who do not and cannot earn a living wage.
If not for the union, the hostile corporate takeover of our lives would have been complete. Employers who run a non-union shop are compelled by the looming presence of the union to provide their workers with competitive salaries. They have been "persuaded" by the union to provide health and retirement benefits. Corporations, but for the few exceptions of mom-and-pop businesses in Frank Capra or Disney films, do not have a social conscience; they do not provide good salaries and benefits and good working conditions out of the goodness of their heart.
They do it because the presence of the union in our midst, in our lives, in our family, compels them to offer competitive salaries and benefits, or lose their best and brightest workers to competitors that follow the union standard, and offer union wages. The invisible presence of the union dictates the extent to which corporations can get away with abuses in the workplace and oppressing workers. There was a time in the United States when "Made in the USA" carried with it a union stamp that said "union made". There was a time in this country that Americans gazed upon that union label and knew this was the best product in the world made by the greatest nation on earth and the world's best workers. That symbol, that union logo proudly stamped on an American-made product embodied the American Dream.
The Wisconsin 14, the Democratic state senators who "fled" to the great state of Illinois, land of Lincoln, so they would not be a party to the further destruction of the American Dream are true patriots. It is the corporations who fled to China and India and to those "right-to-work" countries with inhuman sweat shops branded by Tom Delay as "the future of capitalism," in search of profit-driven slave labor in the land of communists and dictators — it is those corporations that are the traitors and seditionists. For hasn't a right wing Supreme Court determined them to be "persons"?
And it is this radical right Republican Party of Huckabee and Palin and Gingrich, of Teabaggers and Koch brothers, the political appendage of the fascist corporate state, whose propaganda arm is Fox and the Limbaugh network of right wing radio, that has been exposed in Wisconsin for its corrupt crony capitalism and dictatorial "overreach." Yes, overreach has become the word du jour among the few remaining Republicans of conscience who had deluded themselves into removing "fascist" from their political dictionary and who suddenly awoke to the realization that they have been part of a filthy scheme, a "classic overreach." It was a rude awakening, and they don't like it.
If you don't like the word "fascism"... or rather, your corporate owners forbid its use? — Fine. Be that way. With your head in the sand or, in the case of the ignorant Teabaggers, up their asses. Rachel is really really good at conjuring up a thousand-and-one euphemisms for the "F" word. Still it's unfortunate that only Noam Chomsky and a few independent souls dare raise the specter of fascism in America. Fascism easily adapts to its culture. That is why it isn't easily detected. After all, one characteristic of fascism is über-nationalist. How about some useful myths about the Boston Tea Party, the Founding Fathers, and our Constitution, anyone?
Most people think "fascism" they think Hitler or Mussolini. But that's the European brand. The American brand is uniquely American. It's the KKK, the militias, the John Birch Society, elements of the Tea Party. And it holds a controlling interest in the Republican Party. Every time you hear someone like Mike Huckabee conjure up a story out of whole cloth that our President was influenced by the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya, where he grew up (?) — think fascism. It is the classic fascist divide and conquer technique to pit us against them: Black versus white, American-born versus foreign-born (the lie here is to extend xenophobia, fear of foreigners — hordes of invading illegal immigrants — to President Obama), Aryan versus Jew.
 |
As if.
And if we dare decry any of this, the too big to fail banks playing casino games with our retirement funds and ravaging the only equity left the middle class, that of our homes — then these corporate sharks will deploy armies of lobbyists and bundles of cash to buy off every single politician in state and federal government that they can, and defeat us at the polls with lies upon lies upon lies whose unlimited funds were enabled by a radicalized right wing interventionist Supreme Court. An intervention which began with the judicial coup d'etat of the 2000 presidential election: Two decisions, Bush v. Gore and Citizens United closing the circle and shifting the balance in favor of crony capitalism and the fascist power grab we see today. The corporate elites have coordinated with their political and propaganda arms the final assault on the union aimed at destroying the last vestige of the middle class — public employee unions — that stands in the way of making this hostile takeover of government complete. And then the enshrinement of fascism as the ruling political doctrine of America will become a reality.
Fascism is exactly what is happening here and until it is recognized as such this cancer cannot be exorcised from our body politic. (My recommendation: watch more Al Jazeera, BBC, Democracy Now, and read the Guardian if you want to find out what's really going on. And of course, keep reading the independent progressive blogs. Because the state of American corporate "news" media is piss poor, and getting worse. In fact, it's one more sign of creeping fascism.) Arm yourself with the facts. And with the grounding that only true history can give you, because there's a lot of revisionism out there, so you must be diligent and persistent to know the truth.
And then act to take back our country. Stand with the people of Wisconsin. We are at a tipping point. This is a turning point in our history. We are approaching critical mass in our struggle to beat back the hostile corporate takeover of our country. This is a war on the middle class and an assault on the American Dream and on the values that made this country great. This is a fight we cannot lose.
It's that important.
Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours and provided supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, speech, Aug. 30, 1960
With all their faults, trade-unions have done more for humanity than any other organization of men that ever existed. They have done more for decency, for honesty, for education, for the betterment of the race, for the developing of character in man, than any other association of men.
CLARENCE DARROW, The Railroand Trainman, Nov. 1909
To a right-winger, unions are awful. Why do right-wingers hate unions? Because collective bargaining is the power that a worker has against the corporation. Right-wingers hate that.
JANEANE GAROFALO, Majority Report, Jun. 3, 2005
Wednesday, March 02, 2011
Woody Guthrie: ALL YOU FASCISTS ARE BOUND TO LOSE!
C'mon Rachel, all you MSNBCers, sing along ... You can do it!
The Voices of Wisconsin
This new ad from the Progressive Change Campaign Committee is compelling. Watch it. This is our moment, people. This is when we stand with the people of Wisconsin and FIGHT BACK. This is the moment we begin to take our country back (yes, Teabaggers, you heard it right) from the corporate elites and billionaire activists like the brothers Koch. This is the moment we begin demanding justice and fairness and accountability from the politicians and criminals who nearly brought our country down and who still act as if they own us. They do not. With their arrogant sense of entitlement, they act as if the law does not apply to them, as if they can continue to rip us off with impunity even as we bailed them out. They cannot and will not. Enough, already. They have awoken a sleeping giant and we have begun fighting back. WE WILL WIN.
And while we may not have an ally in the White House, the President can still tag along and choose to lead. Mr. Obama is no Teddy Roosevelt. He's no FDR or Truman or RFK. But at least he's stopped sucking up to the oligarchs. Reluctantly. Rachel noted, correctly, that economic populism is at the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. The sooner President Obama realizes he cannot redefine big "D" Democratic politics as some kind of bizarre mutation between the Democratic Party and the corporate elites, the sooner he will stop trying to disparage and ignore the progressive heart and soul of the Democratic Party. When President Obama said to a gathering of Republican governors, "it helps no one" to vilify unions, he sounded hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than defiant. He sounded like a moderate Republican struggling with divided allegiances. He did not sound like a Democrat.
There's still time to jump on this bandwagon, Mr. President. Because the people are way ahead of you. We could use a little more Obama drama from the White House. No pain inflicted on the enemies of the people, no gain.
And while we may not have an ally in the White House, the President can still tag along and choose to lead. Mr. Obama is no Teddy Roosevelt. He's no FDR or Truman or RFK. But at least he's stopped sucking up to the oligarchs. Reluctantly. Rachel noted, correctly, that economic populism is at the heart and soul of the Democratic Party. The sooner President Obama realizes he cannot redefine big "D" Democratic politics as some kind of bizarre mutation between the Democratic Party and the corporate elites, the sooner he will stop trying to disparage and ignore the progressive heart and soul of the Democratic Party. When President Obama said to a gathering of Republican governors, "it helps no one" to vilify unions, he sounded hurt rather than angry, disappointed rather than defiant. He sounded like a moderate Republican struggling with divided allegiances. He did not sound like a Democrat.
There's still time to jump on this bandwagon, Mr. President. Because the people are way ahead of you. We could use a little more Obama drama from the White House. No pain inflicted on the enemies of the people, no gain.
Tuesday, March 01, 2011
Musical Interlude: Pete Seeger/Jefferson Airplane, VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA, "GOT A REVOLUTION!"
This is for our brothers and sisters and the good & valiant people of Wisconsin fighting back against the tyrannical Scott Wanker, GO/Tea Party, and the Koch-head corporations. We're fighting back! SOLIDARITY FOREVER!
Tea Party Remedial Ed: WE, The AMERICAN PEOPLE, REJECT Your 'Right-To-Work' States Nightmare
This is for those PATHETIC ignorant Teabagger TOOLS bused in FROM OUT OF STATE to Madison last week by the Koch brothers to pit their piggly numbers — a herd of hundreds compared to the 70,000 people who turned out to protest Wisconsin governor Scott WANKER's TYRANNICAL regime — yo, Teabaggers, do you understand the meaning of irony? Saturday, the anti-Walker crowd swelled to more than 100,000 and the Teabaggers were nowhere to be found. I think the carpetbaggin' Teabaggers were SHAMED into not prolonging their sham demonstration by real GRASSROOTS people fighting for their LEGITIMATE rights.
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll of the American people's attitude to unions and what is happening in Wisconsin follows:
Solid majorities of WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STAND WITH THE UNION:
61 percent of US think public employee salaries (averaging about $50,000 for college educated workers, including the top professions — doctors, lawyers, research scientists, teachers, police officers, firefighters) and benefits are about right or too low.
60 percent of US oppose taking away the collective bargaining rights of unions.
56 percent of US oppose cutting the pay of public employees in order to reduce state budget deficits. (It is important to note that the Wisconsin public employee unions have already agreed to the pay cuts and individual payroll benefits contributions demanded by the Governor.
48 percent to 37 percent of US believe the unions have the right amount or too little influence in American politics today. (This figure, a solid plurality just shy of a majority, reflects the effectiveness of right wing and corporate-financed propaganda to lie to, deceive, and confuse the American people with falsehoods and biased information.)
By 45 to 41 percent the American people believe states are trying to reduce public employee benefits to reduce deficits rather than weaken unions. Once again, this reflects the national picture, which includes states with Democratic governors and some Republican governors who are running away from Walker as fast as they can.
Given the choice of raising taxes, decreasing public employee benefits, decreasing roads and transportation funding, decreasing funding for education, 41 percent of the American people chose raising taxes. This is significant because it goes against the mantra and article of faith of the radical right Republican/Tea Party that they have some sort of mandate from WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE to cut essential spending programs in order to give us a tax cut. If the question were asked, should we raise taxes on the rich and the corporations in order to reduce state budget deficits WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE would have overwhelmingly said: YES!
A PPP Wisconsin poll shows that today the November election results would flip, with 52% to 45% of Wisconsinites saying they'd vote for the Democratic candidate, Tom Barrett, in a hypothetical re-do of the Wisconsin gubernatorial race.
Heard on the radio from a retired educator, Margaret, in Wisconsin:
In a related development, Geekdom's revolutionary hackers vanguard —ANONYMOUS — infamous for "laying cyber siege" to opponents of WikiLeaks has jumped into the Wisconsin fray on the side of the workers. ANONYMOUS attacked the Koch brothers financed Americans for Prosperity website, posting this ANONYMOUS Manifesto on the Koch brothers front site Anonymous appropriated in the name of the people:
The latest New York Times/CBS News poll of the American people's attitude to unions and what is happening in Wisconsin follows:
Solid majorities of WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE STAND WITH THE UNION:
61 percent of US think public employee salaries (averaging about $50,000 for college educated workers, including the top professions — doctors, lawyers, research scientists, teachers, police officers, firefighters) and benefits are about right or too low.
60 percent of US oppose taking away the collective bargaining rights of unions.
56 percent of US oppose cutting the pay of public employees in order to reduce state budget deficits. (It is important to note that the Wisconsin public employee unions have already agreed to the pay cuts and individual payroll benefits contributions demanded by the Governor.
48 percent to 37 percent of US believe the unions have the right amount or too little influence in American politics today. (This figure, a solid plurality just shy of a majority, reflects the effectiveness of right wing and corporate-financed propaganda to lie to, deceive, and confuse the American people with falsehoods and biased information.)
By 45 to 41 percent the American people believe states are trying to reduce public employee benefits to reduce deficits rather than weaken unions. Once again, this reflects the national picture, which includes states with Democratic governors and some Republican governors who are running away from Walker as fast as they can.
Given the choice of raising taxes, decreasing public employee benefits, decreasing roads and transportation funding, decreasing funding for education, 41 percent of the American people chose raising taxes. This is significant because it goes against the mantra and article of faith of the radical right Republican/Tea Party that they have some sort of mandate from WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE to cut essential spending programs in order to give us a tax cut. If the question were asked, should we raise taxes on the rich and the corporations in order to reduce state budget deficits WE, THE AMERICAN PEOPLE would have overwhelmingly said: YES!
A PPP Wisconsin poll shows that today the November election results would flip, with 52% to 45% of Wisconsinites saying they'd vote for the Democratic candidate, Tom Barrett, in a hypothetical re-do of the Wisconsin gubernatorial race.
Heard on the radio from a retired educator, Margaret, in Wisconsin:
"WE'RE THE ANTIDOTE TO THIS GOVERNOR WHO SLITHERS AROUND IN THE DARK SHADOWS."How's that for vivid, poetic imagery? See, that's the point. Our highly educated teachers deserve every last penny they receive from us. AND THEN SOME. In Wisconsin, we have a governor who did not graduate college and has shown nothing but contempt for teachers and the critically important role they have in our society. Schoolyard bullies are typically dropouts; but they can go on to become statehouse bullies. Walker's lack of formal education shows.
AWESOME! Internet GEEKS of the World, UNITE! Let the ruling classes tremble at the people's revolution. The people have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win!Dear Citizens of the United States of America,
It has come to our attention that the brothers, David and Charles Koch—the billionaire owners of Koch Industries—have long attempted to usurp American Democracy. Their actions to undermine the legitimate political process in Wisconsin are the final straw. Starting today we fight back.
Koch Industries, and oligarchs like them, have most recently started to manipulate the political agenda in Wisconsin. Governor Walker's union-busting budget plan contains a clause that went nearly un-noticed. This clause would allow the sale of publicly owned utility plants in Wisconsin to private parties (specifically, Koch Industries) at any price, no matter how low, without a public bidding process. The Koch's have helped to fuel the unrest in Wisconsin and the drive behind the bill to eliminate the collective bargaining power of unions in a bid to gain a monopoly over the state's power supplies.
The Koch brothers have made a science of fabricating 'grassroots' organizations and advertising campaigns to support them in an attempt to sway voters based on their falsehoods. Americans for Prosperity, Club for Growth and Citizens United are just a few of these organizations. In a world where corporate money has become the lifeblood of political influence, the labor unions are one of the few ways citizens have to fight against corporate greed. Anonymous cannot ignore the plight of the citizen-workers of Wisconsin, or the opportunity to fight for the people in America's broken political system. For these reasons, we feel that the Koch brothers threaten the United States democratic system and, by extension, all freedom-loving individuals everywhere. As such, we have no choice but to spread the word of the Koch brothers' political manipulation, their single-minded intent and the insidious truth of their actions in Wisconsin, for all to witness.
Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse — is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the mean time we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries' paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.
Monday, February 28, 2011
The Question No One Dared Ask: Are Rumsfeld And Cheney Lizard People Who Eat Human Flesh?!?
But comedian Louis C.K. did, at his first opportunity to question former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. And did so insistently, while never getting a direct denial from Rumsfeld! He was speaking for a small subculture of patriotic Americans who believe there is a cosmic-Earth conspiracy by hostile alien lizard people to enslave humans and establish a one-world cosmic government. Sort of a "V" without the LCILF, which greatly reduces its credibility.
Here is the audio of the breakthrough interview:
And here is the astounding VIDEO EVIDENCE compiled by the Lizard People conspiracy buffs:
MY Oscar Goes To ... Anne Hathaway!
Is it just me, or didn't you think she was a breath of fresh air as Oscar night host — her sidekick, his name escapes me, was a simpatico second banana ... Sparkling, beautiful and "gorgeous" (she gave Kirk Douglas a rise), funny and charming, Anne's still a self-effacing sweetheart through and through, a Jersey girl at heart by way of Brooklyn. I'll bet she's a Mets fan, too!
Most disappointing aspect of the Oscars: In times such as these, when it's most needed, the absence of the political fire and brimstone of yesteryear. The few pro-union expressions, though welcome, were muted and wimpy afterthoughts by backbench honorees 'oh-by-the-way I'd like to thank my union crew' ... When it was the perfect occasion for someone, anyone, to raise a fist and shout, "Go union, Go Wisconsin!"
Not that it would have gotten through. The Oscars, like any self-respecting fascist entertainment program, has time-delay censorship in place with the corporate censor's finger flitting nervously between the mute and cut buttons from beginning to end. (Maybe that's why we don't see Jack Nicholson at these gatherings any longer; or for that matter, Alec Baldwin, this year.) Instead we got more of the contagion afflicting award shows: Narcissism gone wild. More 'how can I grab the most outrageous headline for memyselfandI' crap, this time from Melissa Leo, who milked her best supporting actress award for all of its self-promoting worth referring to last year's winner Kate Winslet, "it looked so FUCKING easy!"
Ironically, in an Oscar year in which class and social standing were front and center, from the regal King's Speech to the blue-collar Fighter, no one was there to connect the dots to the broader world context in which we live right now. This was Melissa's missed opportunity to say something for the hard-working people, for the unions, for the people who struggle from paycheck to paycheck every fucking day to put food on their tables.
Colin Firth is such a good actor that I actually thought he was about to have a heave-ho accident onstage, in front of billions. (Maybe he was!) It certainly added dramatic tension to his acceptance speech. And was there something wrong with Randy Newman's microphone? He won anyway, though. For the nth time.
Most disappointing aspect of the Oscars: In times such as these, when it's most needed, the absence of the political fire and brimstone of yesteryear. The few pro-union expressions, though welcome, were muted and wimpy afterthoughts by backbench honorees 'oh-by-the-way I'd like to thank my union crew' ... When it was the perfect occasion for someone, anyone, to raise a fist and shout, "Go union, Go Wisconsin!"
Not that it would have gotten through. The Oscars, like any self-respecting fascist entertainment program, has time-delay censorship in place with the corporate censor's finger flitting nervously between the mute and cut buttons from beginning to end. (Maybe that's why we don't see Jack Nicholson at these gatherings any longer; or for that matter, Alec Baldwin, this year.) Instead we got more of the contagion afflicting award shows: Narcissism gone wild. More 'how can I grab the most outrageous headline for memyselfandI' crap, this time from Melissa Leo, who milked her best supporting actress award for all of its self-promoting worth referring to last year's winner Kate Winslet, "it looked so FUCKING easy!"
Ironically, in an Oscar year in which class and social standing were front and center, from the regal King's Speech to the blue-collar Fighter, no one was there to connect the dots to the broader world context in which we live right now. This was Melissa's missed opportunity to say something for the hard-working people, for the unions, for the people who struggle from paycheck to paycheck every fucking day to put food on their tables.
Colin Firth is such a good actor that I actually thought he was about to have a heave-ho accident onstage, in front of billions. (Maybe he was!) It certainly added dramatic tension to his acceptance speech. And was there something wrong with Randy Newman's microphone? He won anyway, though. For the nth time.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Not All Republicans Are Idiots, Freaks, Racists, etc.
Only those who believe Barack is a socialist Kenyan-born Muslim and proclaim through their triple chins, between farts, in their racist cartoons that Michelle is an obese black woman who wants to steal our dessert. Although, that's most ot them, I think.
Israeli YouTube Spoof of Qaddafi Crazy(ness) Goes Viral — in The ARAB WORLD
This satirical video of the weird megalomaniacal Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has been embraced across the Arab Middle East as a symbol of the Lybian uprising and their own quest for freedom. What makes it cool and noteworthy is that it was created by Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist, musician and Internaut, in Tel Aviv. Alooshe was inspired to create this spoof by Qaddafi's speech vowing to go “inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway” pursuing protesters. Alooshe defined the speech as a "classic hit." What followed was a remixed tune which he created in a few hours setting Qaddafi's words to a hip-hop rap centered around Qaddafi's repetition of the word "zanqua" which means alleyway. The uploaded tune was titled "Zenga-Zenga" and soon went viral on YouTube with more than 400,000 hits, and counting.
Not to overstate its significance, given the intractable and byzantine nature of the quest for peace between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East — but this could well be the beginning of something new and exciting; the instant, generational rapport, a communion between young Arabs and Israelis in a language they understand far more intuitively than their backward-looking elders. It is the language of the new social media — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — and in the ease with which it creates a common culture, it transcends ancient tribal rivalries and blood feuds. It is an internet culture with a language that is spoken and created by 30-somethings and under, one that recognizes no artificial boundaries created by European colonial powers and knows little of ancient enmities and religious wars, or Jihad. It is a culture and a language that empowers Lybian youth to embrace a video created by an Israeli as a symbol of their struggle for freedom against the tyranny of Qaddafi's dictatorial rule. With no pride or prejudice of ownership — what a radical concept!
The closest historical comparison that comes to mind is America's opening to China in 1972. When President Nixon set foot on Chinese soil he might as well have been a visiting dignitary to an alien world at the other end of the galaxy. It was such an amazing thing that a close-up of Nixon's handshake with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai "was at least as powerful as Armstrong's lunar step. It sent the world a clear message that the two countries were resolved to move forward with relations." But the first glimmers of a thaw in relations really began with a much more random occurrence between the young people of both nations:
The U.S. table tennis team was invited by the PRC to tour mainland China for a series of exhibition matches in a nation that prides itself on its ping-pong prowess. The tour was dubbed “ping-pong diplomacy.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
Like those young athletes who forged a bond of friendship based on the common language of their sport, the video created by a young Israeli has become a symbol of the Arab youth's quest for freedom and dignity quite apart from official sanction or artificial cultural differences at the geopolitical sphere. Then, as now, the kids were way ahead of the "grown-ups." They ended the war in Vietnam and paved the way for a thawing of the Cold War. Who can say what history is yet to be written by this new generation of protesters in these heady days of deep social and political transformation? Their message for the "grown-ups" and tyrants is, resistance is futile. The time is now for America and our UN allies to stop Qaddafi's bloodshed and jump aboard the freedom train blazing its way through the Arab world. They're asking us: "America, whose side are you on?" Our values demand that we stand with the people. That is our answer.
Not to overstate the significance of a video satire, created by an Israeli, that went on to become the symbol of aspirational Arab freedom — but it could be the start of something big. Something profound.
Not to overstate its significance, given the intractable and byzantine nature of the quest for peace between Arabs and Israelis in the Middle East — but this could well be the beginning of something new and exciting; the instant, generational rapport, a communion between young Arabs and Israelis in a language they understand far more intuitively than their backward-looking elders. It is the language of the new social media — Twitter, Facebook, YouTube — and in the ease with which it creates a common culture, it transcends ancient tribal rivalries and blood feuds. It is an internet culture with a language that is spoken and created by 30-somethings and under, one that recognizes no artificial boundaries created by European colonial powers and knows little of ancient enmities and religious wars, or Jihad. It is a culture and a language that empowers Lybian youth to embrace a video created by an Israeli as a symbol of their struggle for freedom against the tyranny of Qaddafi's dictatorial rule. With no pride or prejudice of ownership — what a radical concept!
The closest historical comparison that comes to mind is America's opening to China in 1972. When President Nixon set foot on Chinese soil he might as well have been a visiting dignitary to an alien world at the other end of the galaxy. It was such an amazing thing that a close-up of Nixon's handshake with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai "was at least as powerful as Armstrong's lunar step. It sent the world a clear message that the two countries were resolved to move forward with relations." But the first glimmers of a thaw in relations really began with a much more random occurrence between the young people of both nations:
The rapprochement process was stalled by U.S. actions in Indochina until on April 6, 1971 the young American ping pong player, Glenn Cowan, missed his U.S. team bus and was waved by a Chinese table tennis player onto the bus of the Chinese team at the 31st World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan. Cowan spoke with the Chinese players in a friendly fashion, and the Chinese player, Zhuang Zedong, a three-time World Men's Singles Champion, presented him with a silk-screen portrait of the famous Huangshan Mountains. While this had been a purely spontaneous gesture of friendship between two athletes, the PRC chose to treat it as an officially sanctioned outreach … According to sources of information from the PRC, the friendly contact between Zhuang Zedong and Glenn Cowan, as well as the photograph of the two players in Dacankao, had an impact on Mao's decision making.
The U.S. table tennis team was invited by the PRC to tour mainland China for a series of exhibition matches in a nation that prides itself on its ping-pong prowess. The tour was dubbed “ping-pong diplomacy.” And the rest, as they say, is history.
Like those young athletes who forged a bond of friendship based on the common language of their sport, the video created by a young Israeli has become a symbol of the Arab youth's quest for freedom and dignity quite apart from official sanction or artificial cultural differences at the geopolitical sphere. Then, as now, the kids were way ahead of the "grown-ups." They ended the war in Vietnam and paved the way for a thawing of the Cold War. Who can say what history is yet to be written by this new generation of protesters in these heady days of deep social and political transformation? Their message for the "grown-ups" and tyrants is, resistance is futile. The time is now for America and our UN allies to stop Qaddafi's bloodshed and jump aboard the freedom train blazing its way through the Arab world. They're asking us: "America, whose side are you on?" Our values demand that we stand with the people. That is our answer.
Not to overstate the significance of a video satire, created by an Israeli, that went on to become the symbol of aspirational Arab freedom — but it could be the start of something big. Something profound.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Union Busting Is Just The Tip of The Iceberg in Wisconsin
As Wisconsin public employee unions struggle for the life of their union in Wisconsin, this is only one element of a much broader plan by radical right wing Republicans to turn the state over to corporations, including Koch brother interests, with disastrous consequences for the middle class. Think Progress enumerates the top ten disastrous policies overlooked amid the union crisis in the nightmare union-busting bill Governor Walker has tried to ram through the Wisconsin legislature.
Governor Wanker's Hero, Ronnie RayGun, All For Union Rights — In POLAND!
"Conservatives may be shocked to learn that their idol Reagan was once a union boss himself. Reagan was the only president in American history to have belonged to a union, the AFL-CIO affiliated Screen Actors Guild. And he even served six terms as president of the organized labor group. Additionally, Reagan was a staunch advocate for the collective bargaining rights of one of the world’s most famous and most influential trade unions, Poland’s Solidarity movement."
100,000 Plus Rally for Unions in Madison, Thousands More Natiowide — Where IS The MSM?
Shame on MSNBC/NBC/CNN/CBS/ABC and the rest of these corporate media conglomerates. If not for the blogs, Tweeter, and other FREE non-corporate social media the news blackout would have been virtually complete. The corporate media's non-coverage of the pro-union protests has been shameful. With Fox cornering the lies and propaganda pro-Republican coverage, its allies in the so-called "liberal media" employ the non-coverage strategy to get around charges of bias. The bias is more of a benign corporate elitism exemplified by simply ignoring thorny anti-corporate stories. The network suits are chummy with enemies of the people, Rupert and Roger. Enemies of the people = enemies of the union = news blackout.
Memo to Rachel: Add an empty video file labeled "Wisconsin Pro-Union Protests, 100K+, 2-26-11" to your "Brokaw shelf", why dontcha.
Memo to David Gregory: Let me guess — Nothing but softballs tossed at Gov. Walker, while buying into his "budget crisis" narrative; that MTP had to be pressured by progressive blogs into booking AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, the only Sunday show to invite a union leader, is DISGRACEFUL. Surprise us by asking tough questions, AND THE ALL-IMPORTANT FOLLOW-UP. Not holding out breath.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops came out in support of the Wisconsin union — Hear, hear:
For photos and more coverage of nationwide rally, check out MoveOn site.
Memo to Rachel: Add an empty video file labeled "Wisconsin Pro-Union Protests, 100K+, 2-26-11" to your "Brokaw shelf", why dontcha.
Memo to David Gregory: Let me guess — Nothing but softballs tossed at Gov. Walker, while buying into his "budget crisis" narrative; that MTP had to be pressured by progressive blogs into booking AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, the only Sunday show to invite a union leader, is DISGRACEFUL. Surprise us by asking tough questions, AND THE ALL-IMPORTANT FOLLOW-UP. Not holding out breath.
Meanwhile, the Catholic Bishops came out in support of the Wisconsin union — Hear, hear:
“You and our brother bishops in Wisconsin are offering a timely reminder of what the Church teaches on the rights and duties of workers, including the right to form and belong to unions and other associations, and the obligation to address difficult problems with respect for the rights and needs of all. As you insist, ‘hard times do not nullify the moral obligation each of us has to respect the legitimate rights of workers.’”
Memo to Chris: This is your bailiwick; how about giving the Church a platform when they're on the side of social justice for workers. Their moral authority holds sway with millions of Americans, and the Catholic Church can be as helpful here as they were standing up to South American dictators.“Catholic teaching and your statement remind us these are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous human dimensions. The debates over worker representation and collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice, participation and how workers can have a voice in the workplace and economy.”
For photos and more coverage of nationwide rally, check out MoveOn site.
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