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[Octafish]

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[Agnosticsherbet]

1. It would be easier to make an accusation of facisim if Holocaust and 20 million dead were not

the crime associated with them in public awareness.

If we linked them to an alliance of government and Corporation (Corporatism Mussolini called it) we would have an easier time explaining why it is wrong.

Stalin sent 20 million people to death, but the first thing people think about communism is the economic arguments against individual economic liberty.

Finally, linking fascism to militarism is ignoring that militarism is in the DNA of many systems.

[Man from Pickens]

3. it begs the question

What are the features of Fascism that clearly distinguish it from other ideologies?

According to Mussolini (the inventor of the ideology), it is the merger of state and corporate power that defines Fascism.

Between Wall Street and K Street and their equivalents elsewhere, it's hard not to argue that, under this definition, the U.S. and most Western nations are already full-blown Fascist countries.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

19. It certainly does beg the question.

I agree.

[woo me with science]

46. +10000 All these absurd denials take the same form.

We're not being pushed into ovens. We're still typing on the internet! There is no Hitler. But there is an authoritarian corporate state being constructed around us, and it is dismantling our democracy and its protections.

Yes, one definition of fascism is the merging of corporatism and government. The current ongoing fascist takeover has many tentacles: mass surveillance, militarized police, corporatism, the murder of investigative journalism, indefinite detention, persecution of whistleblowers, propaganda machines...

I'm typing on the internet. That PROVES we're free!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5915944

[hifiguy]

4. The Holocaust was a product of Nazism,

which while fascist was unique in many respects. Pure Fascism was defined by Mussolini and his principal ghost writer, philosopher Giovanni Gentile. And militarism is very much a central pillar of fascism.

[Octafish]

17. ''Friendly Fascism'' is how Bertram Gross put it in 1980

The professor served FDR and the New Deal Democrats and is remembered today for his work to reduce poverty. Among his accomplishments, he helped author the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act. Later he taught at CUNY and Wayne State University in Detroit, where he founded the Center for Urban Studies.

Friendly Fascism

The New Face of Power in America

by Bertram Gross
South End Press, 1980, paper

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Friendly_Fascism_BGross.html

INTRO EXCERPT...

Friendly fascism portrays two conflicting trends in the United States and other countries of the so-called "free world."

The first is a slow and powerful drift toward greater concentration of power and wealth in a repressive Big Business-Big Government partnership. This drift leads down the road toward a new and subtly manipulative form of corporatist serfdom. The phrase "friendly fascism" helps distinguish this possible future from the patently vicious corporatism of classic fascism in the past of Germany, Italy and Japan. It also contrasts with the friendly present of the dependent fascisms propped up by the U.S. government in El Salvador, Haiti, Argentina, Chile, South Korea, the Philippines and elsewhere.

The other is a slower and less powerful tendency for individuals and groups to seek greater participation in decisions affecting themselves and others. This trend goes beyond mere reaction to authoritarianism. It transcends the activities of progressive groups or movements and their use of formal democratic machinery. It is nourished by establishment promises-too often rendered false-of more human rights, civil rights and civil liberties. It is embodied in larger values of community, sharing, cooperation, service to others and basic morality as contrasted with crass materialism and dog-eat-dog competition. It affects power relations in the household, workplace, community, school, church, synagogue, and even the labyrinths of private and public bureaucracies. It could lead toward a truer democracy-and for this reason is bitterly fought...

These contradictory trends are woven fine into the fabric of highly industrialized capitalism. The unfolding logic of friendly fascist corporatism is rooted in "capitalist society's transnational growth and the groping responses to mounting crises in a dwindling capitalist world". Mind management and sophisticated repression become more attractive to would-be oligarchs when too many people try to convert democratic promises into reality. On the other hand, the alternative logic of true democracy is rooted in "humankind's long history of resistance to unjustified privilege" and in spontaneous or organized "reaction (other than fright or apathy) to concentrated power...and inequality, injustice or coercion".

A few years ago too many people closed their eyes to the indicators of the first tendency.

But events soon began to change perceptions.

The Ku Klux Klan and American Nazis crept out of the woodwork. An immoral minority of demagogues took to the airwaves. "Let me tell you something about the character of God," orated Jim Robison at a televised meeting personally endorsed by candidate Ronald Reagan. "If necessary, God would raise up a tyrant, a man who may not have the best ethics, to protect the freedom interests of the ethical and the godly." To protect Western oil companies, candidate Jimmy Carter proclaimed presidential willingness to send American troops into the Persian Gulf. Rosalyn Carter went further by telling an lowa campaign audience: "Jimmy is not afraid to declare war." Carter then proved himself unafraid to expand unemployment, presumably as an inflation cure, thereby reneging on his party's past full employment declarations.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/RiseFall_Friend_Fascism_FF.html

The good professor painted an accurate picture of what was to come.

James Madison

EXCERPT...

Despite the sharp differences from classic fascism, there are also some basic similarities. In each, a powerful oligarchy operates outside of, as well as through, the state. Each subverts constitutional government. Each suppresses rising demands for wider participation in decision making, the enforcement and enlargement of human rights, and genuine democracy. Each uses informational control and ideological flimflam to get lower and middle-class support for plans to expand the capital and power of the oligarchy and provide suitable rewards for political, professional, scientific, and cultural supporters.

A major difference is that under friendly fascism Big Government would do less pillaging of, and more pillaging for, Big Business. With much more integration than ever before among transnational corporations, Big Business would run less risk of control by any one state and enjoy more subservience by many states. In turn, stronger government support of transnational corporations, such as the large group of American companies with major holdings in South Africa, requires the active fostering of all latent conflicts among those segments of the American population that may object to this kind of foreign venture. It requires an Establishment with lower levels so extensive that few people or groups can attain significant power outside it, so flexible that many (perhaps most) dissenters and would-be revolutionaries can be incorporated within it. Above all, friendly fascism in any First World country today would \ use sophisticated control technologies far beyond the ken of the classic fascists.

p177
Although American hegemony can scarcely return in its Truman-Eisenhower-Kennedy-Johnson form, this does not necessarily signify the end of the American Century. Nor does communist and socialist advance on some fronts mark American and capitalist retreat on all fronts. There are unmistakable tendencies toward a rather thoroughgoing reconstruction of the entire "Free World." Robert Osgood sees a transitional period of "limited readjustment" and "retrenchment without disengagement," after which America could establish a "more enduring rationale of global influence." Looking at foreign policy under the Nixon administration, Robert W. Tucker sees no intention to "dismantle the empire" but rather a continued commitment to the view that "America must still remain the principal guarantor of a global order now openly and without equivocation identified with the status quo." He describes America as a "settled imperial power shorn of much of the former exuberance." George Liska looks forward to a future in which Americans, having become more mature in the handling of global affairs, will at last be the leaders of a true empire.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Specter_FriendlyFascism_FF.html

You make excellent points, Agnosticsherbet. It is a stretch for those unfamiliar with the history and the news to go from then to now. So, as an old guy who remembers, I try to help people make that connection and build that bridge from then to how things got the way they are today. And when people who lie America into war on Iraq twice and who knows where else and get away with their treasons and mass murder, the fascism's not friendly anymore.

[m-lekktor]

40. I've had this book "Friendly Fascism" for years but never read it yet.

I probably should.

[Octafish]

79. I had a paperback from mid-80s...and an original edition hard cover...

My auntie from California was visiting and took the paperback, promising to mail it back. That was 15 years ago.

Prof. Gross chronicled what the wealthy and the corporations have done to hijack government, destroy the progress of the New Deal, and prepare the road for the war machine.

Then came Reagan and it's really been a very one-sided game ever since.

[m-lekktor]

83. i have probably owned the paperback since mid 90's. I think i assumed it was outdated and never

bothered to read it. I always have a pile of books around unread sadly and I real lots, just too many books and now the kindle!

[Octafish]

91. Keep them in your heart, like in ''Fahrenheit 451.''

Fahrenheit 451 and the importance of oral storytelling and memory keeping

April 2, 2013 | Monika

In Fahrenheit 451, Toronto Public Library's Keep Toronto Reading Festival 2013 book selection, books are burned, history is re-written, memories are lost and re-invented, screen families replace real families and nobody talks to anyone. There are no stories in the society Ray Bradbury has invented.

When Montag escapes from the city he begins to regain a connection with nature, with other people, and with stories. He meets the book people. "...bums on the outside, libraries inside". They memorize, or 'become' a book, and travel the country, bringing the stories and knowledge back to the world. "We'll pass the books on to our children, by word of mouth, and let our children wait, in turn, on the other people."

In order to live and thrive, stories need to be told, shared, imagined, cherished and passed on to family and community.

CONTINUED...

http://torontopubliclibrary.typepad.com/arts_culture/2013/04/i-remember-i-remember-story-and-memory-in-fahrenheit-451.html

That's us, m-lekktor! That's democracy!

[awoke_in_2003]

21. While we may not be killing people...

in the organized way that Germany did, there is one group of people we (our country) takes great zeal in killing. I get what you are saying- that fascism is an eco-political thing, but we are committing slaughter, too. The scale isn't as large- yet.

[Agnosticsherbet]

36. We don't have to kill people on an industrial scale for facism to be bad.

It is corrosive to individual rights.

The biggest problem in taking this to a wider audience is the statement, "but there are not death camps."

It takes time to show people that death camps aren't necessary for freedoms to evaporate. They are, in fact, gone long before a country reaches that extreme.

[awoke_in_2003]

37. I agree with everything you said. nt

[Scootaloo]

51. Nor are they necessary for inflicting death and misery on a large scale

Of course, pointing that out tends to bump into another interesting American problem. we apparently don't mind mass murder so long as it's the "right kind" of people getting killed.

I suspect this is the horse that pulls the fascism cart in this country. We have such a violent, militaristic, bigoted culture that fascism is basically "plug 'n' play" here

[nolabels]

115. I think most that live in the US would like to evolve a little

Though you do have to consider our origin was made possible by the trigger of a rifle. The people who run it have found that convenient ever since.

Somehow i don't even consider these US states as a culture but more something akin to the idea of a Star-trek Borg ship

It's not that the people who live in it choose to be or live that way but more they are indoctrinated into it.

[hifiguy]

2. i am about a third of the way through Rick Perlstein's remarkable

Before The Storm which is a history of the rise of the modern radical right. (I've already read his Nixonland and The Invisible Bridge) This all began back in the late 1940s and early 1950s in an organized fashion and had its roots going back as far as the plot which was exposed by Smedley Butler back in FDR's first term.

The key figures in this rise of the fascist right were Robert Welch, Fred Koch, William F. Buckley and a number of others, all named and discussed at length by Perlstein. They were all a part of the greedy,paranoid, neo-fascist know-nothingism that has been a feature of US politics since the Gilded Age. Following the end of WW II and the election of the New Deal-accepting Eisenhower, these individuals decided to begin a grass-roots campaign to build and mobilise what can only be called a uniquely American form of fascism. These were the people that stoked the anti-left hysteria most memorably incarnated in McCarthyism, resistance to civil rights, the "movement" to delegitimize and virtually eliminate the New Deal and the idea of a government the purpose of which was to look out for the interests of the working masses. Top military men - obviously not Ike, though, as is easy to document - were a part of this as well.

This was no short-term project, and it didn't begin with the 1970 Powell Memorandum, though the National Association of Manufacturers, which was a prime mover of the beginnings of this effort, was the entity for which Lewis Powell (who I am sure would be horrified by what has happened since) wrote that famous memo.

The Perlstein books are absolutely essential reading to understand the socio-political history which has led this nation to the swamp into which it is now sinking. James Douglass' JFK and the Unspeakable should also be read in conjunction with Perlstein to better understand the MIC elements of this devolution.

Ike was NOT kidding in his farewell address. But the only leader who truly paid attention to him and understood what he was saying was, oddly, JFK, and for doing so he paid the ultimate price.

There's more to be said about this, but I am in a coffee shop and trust that you will supply the backing information which is easily to be had.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

12. Thank you for suggesting that.

I will put them on my to-read list which is only growing laarrrrrrger.

[mikeysnot]

24. just put a hold on it at my local library

just finishing up Capital by Piketty right now...

[hifiguy]

27. Piketty is going on my request list next.

[ReRe]

35. Will pick up those Perlstein books...

... that you recommend, though I have studied back and forth through the 20th century stacks at the library for about 25 yrs now. Without reading Perlstein's books, I have always felt that it all started just after WWII.

For those who can't afford to run out and buy all these books, just go to your library, no matter how small the library is. If they don't have the book, they can still get the book for you if you ask for an ILL (Inter-Library Loan.) They will call you when the book comes in and it's really great, because they only give you two weeks to get the book back. This 2-wk period forces you to read the book ASAP so you can return it on time. No procrastination.

[merrily]

107. Maybe Ike was not kidding, but he what did he do during his years as a

West Point cadet, his years as an officer and his 8 years as President to contain the military industrial complex? Besides the thuggery he and MacArthur visited on the desperate Bonus Army when it occupied DC and a speech on the very last day as President.

[malaise]

5. Must read

Rec

[Fantastic Anarchist]

15. Most definitely.

Another great by Pilger.

[dissentient]

6. Excellent article. We must face the truth that our excessive militarism is destructive

to others, as well as being self-destructive to our own country.
We have made the military an object of worship in this country, hell, more than that sometimes, and its disgusting.

How much more money are we going to throw away on our ever growing war machine until we stop being so stupid?

[Octafish]

80. It's good for the economy. Explaining why permawar is good, Tyler Cowen:

There's money to be made, for one thing.

The Pitfalls of Peace

The Lack of Major Wars May Be Hurting Economic Growth

Tyler Coswen
The New York Times, JUNE 13, 2014

The continuing slowness of economic growth in high-income economies has prompted soul-searching among economists. They have looked to weak demand, rising inequality, Chinese competition, over-regulation, inadequate infrastructure and an exhaustion of new technological ideas as possible culprits.

An additional explanation of slow growth is now receiving attention, however. It is the persistence and expectation of peace.

The world just hasn’t had that much warfare lately, at least not by historical standards. Some of the recent headlines about Iraq or South Sudan make our world sound like a very bloody place, but today’s casualties pale in light of the tens of millions of people killed in the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Even the Vietnam War had many more deaths than any recent war involving an affluent country.

Counterintuitive though it may sound, the greater peacefulness of the world may make the attainment of higher rates of economic growth less urgent and thus less likely. This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.

It may seem repugnant to find a positive side to war in this regard, but a look at American history suggests we cannot dismiss the idea so easily. Fundamental innovations such as nuclear power, the computer and the modern aircraft were all pushed along by an American government eager to defeat the Axis powers or, later, to win the Cold War. The Internet was initially designed to help this country withstand a nuclear exchange, and Silicon Valley had its origins with military contracting, not today’s entrepreneurial social media start-ups. The Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred American interest in science and technology, to the benefit of later economic growth.

War brings an urgency that governments otherwise fail to summon. For instance, the Manhattan Project took six years to produce a working atomic bomb, starting from virtually nothing, and at its peak consumed 0.4 percent of American economic output. It is hard to imagine a comparably speedy and decisive achievement these days.

SNIP...

Living in a largely peaceful world with 2 percent G.D.P. growth has some big advantages that you don’t get with 4 percent growth and many more war deaths. Economic stasis may not feel very impressive, but it’s something our ancestors never quite managed to pull off. The real questions are whether we can do any better, and whether the recent prevalence of peace is a mere temporary bubble just waiting to be burst.

Tyler Cowen is a professor of economics at George Mason University.

SOURCE: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?_r=0

The guy seems to specialize in Big Ticket themes:

Just when I thought, maybe, we had reached bottom and were ready to bounce up -- I discovered there may be no bottom -- for me and the large part of the 99-percent.



Economist Tyler Cowen of George Mason University has seen the future and it looks bleak for most of us. Thankfully, those at the top, though, are in for some more good times. He spoke about his findings with NPR's Steve Inskeep. I almost dropped my smartphone into my coffee while texting during rush hour, listening to the report this morning, I was so steamed.

Tired Of Inequality? One Economist Says It'll Only Get Worse

by NPR STAFF
September 12, 2013 3:05 AM

Economist Tyler Cowen has some advice for what to do about America's income inequality: Get used to it. In his latest book, Average Is Over, Cowen lays out his prediction for where the U.S. economy is heading, like it or not:

"I think we'll see a thinning out of the middle class," he tells NPR's Steve Inskeep. "We'll see a lot of individuals rising up to much greater wealth. And we'll also see more individuals clustering in a kind of lower-middle class existence."

It's a radical change from the America of 40 or 50 years ago. Cowen believes the wealthy will become more numerous, and even more powerful. The elderly will hold on to their benefits ... the young, not so much. Millions of people who might have expected a middle class existence may have to aspire to something else.

SNIP...

Some people, he predicts, may just have to find a new definition of happiness that costs less money. Cowen says this widening is the result of a shifting economy. Computers will play a larger role and people who can work with computers can make a lot. He also predicts that everyone will be ruthlessly graded — every slice of their lives, monitored, tracked and recorded.

CONTINUED with link to the audio...

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/12/221425582/tired-of-inequality-one-economist-says-itll-only-get-worse

For some reason, the interview with Steve Inskeep didn't bring up the subject of the GOVERNMENT DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT LIKE IN THE NEW DEAL so I thought I'd bring it up. Older DUers may recall the Democratic Party once actually did do stuff for the average American, from school and work to housing and justice. But, we can't afford that now, obviously, either from an economic or a patriotic POV.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. They are still trying to put the lipstick on the pig by calling it "Patriotism", "Free Market",

and "National Security" and other similarly pleasant sounding rationalizations for Fascism.

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants. Albert Camus

[hifiguy]

8. This was all explained by a master of the technique

"Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, IT IS THE LEADERS of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is TELL THEM THEY ARE BEING ATTACKED, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."

- Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg Trials (emphasis added)

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

9. Sadly, flag waving and calls for "loyalty" still work. Even here on DU.

[merrily]

108. More DLC legacy, I fear.

If Republicans try to claim they are the party of religion, family values, patriotism (really jingoism), defense, etc., try to beat them at their own game (as they defined it).

So, the DLC encourage Democrats "not to hide" their faith. And, when asked why Kerry lost the Presidential, Clinton pointed out that Obama had begun his Senatorial campaign with his pastor at his side. (Yes, we know how that turned out, but this was right after the 2004 election.) And, after Kerry lost he reportedly said something like "I got the religious thing wrong, didn't I?"

Obviously, Democrats can go only so far with religion, without bumping into anti-abortion and homophobia. But, apparently, they can bring their disciplines along for mixing church and state, semi-deifying the military, being "strong on defense," etc.

Meanwhile, increasing sanity on the issues of choice and equal rights has been prevailing throughout the nation, among both rank and file Republicans and rank and file Democrats, esp. in the younger demographics, though the war is far from won yet.

I am going to be interested to see what happens when those cease to be the lines in the sand between the parties as a whole.

[awoke_in_2003]

23. Do you think the Goering...

in his wildest dreams, could have ever have conceived a propaganda machine as complete as ours? If there is life after death (which I don't believe) then he is somewhere smiling.

on edit: we don't even realize we are not free.

[hifiguy]

30. Were there an afterlife. Herr Doktor Goebbels would be

rubbing his hands together and cackling with glee to see the successes of his spiritual successors. He would be most proud of King Toad, Roger Ailes. He has enacted Goebbels' dream - a perfect, non-rebuttable propaganda machine.

[awoke_in_2003]

32. Yep. nt

[Octafish]

42. FOX News' Roger Ailes is a Big Fan of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's favorite NAZI filmmaker.

According to the new biography (and a history going back a ways in GOP circles), The Loudest Voice In The Room: How The Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News — And Divided A Country:

Ailes was “a big fan” of Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler’s notorious favorite filmmaker—not for her Nazi ideology but for her cinematic talent as a propagandist. “Ailes was especially taken by Riefenstahl’s use of camera angles.”

SOURCE: http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2014/01/extraordinary-revelations-about-roger.html

Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviewed Gabriel Sherman, the guy who wrote, the book.

This is the kind of information that Fox viewers might appreciate knowing before watching their television screens.

Something everyone should know: Roger Ailes and the Big Money has been in bed with Big NAZI for a long time.

Ol' OP: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10024342344

There's nothing like a competent propagandist with money for destroying democracy.

[hifiguy]

52. Riefenstahl was a brilliant director.

She invented a number of camera techniques, mostly for "Olympia," that have been in common use ever since. Her technique was superb and groundbreaking.

Fascinating historical figure. I've read a fair amount about her and have never been able to decide whether she was actually a committed Nazi or simply one of those blinkered artists who would work for anyone who gave her total creative control over her work, which she demanded and had. Not even Goebbels was allowed to edit her work.

[appalachiablue]

31. +10 Lately I've been re-studying WWII, Nazism & looking at the SS patches & insignia that Dad

gave me from his time in Germany as a 24 year old 1st Lieut. in the 7th Army, Rhineland Campaign, Liberation of Dachau and Army of Occupation. There's much cause.

[awoke_in_2003]

33. I re-read 1984 around 2006

Orwell nailed a lot of things.

[Mnpaul]

39. "Naturally the common people don't want war"

Rick Steves takes a trip to Iran and talks to the people. Their comments may surprise you.

[Octafish]

43. Thank you, Mnpaul!

I never heard of Rick Steve and went in thinking this is going to expose some ignorance. I didn't think it would be mine.

Haven't seen it all -- but a quarter of the way in -- it is an outstanding report from Steve and his team. And it's like being there.

[Mnpaul]

44. Were you surprised by highway signs in English?

Some of the scenery is amazing. Its not in this video but Iranian youth are absolutely nuts for American muscle cars.

And Rick Steves has some of the best travel videos out there.

[Octafish]

45. The young girl who said, 'I love you, American.'

After Steve brought up how in the USA, state and church are separate, she went on to explain that it is the main cause of alienation between the people and the government in Iran. He also is not ashamed of his own perspectives as an American, which reinforces his reportage.

Agree about the quality of the travel video. This guy sets the mark, from the narrative to the camera work, and especially in his interactions with the people of Iran, from the government guide to the guy selling the fancy ice cream sandwich That group selfie did more to strengthen ties between people than a trillion dollar weapons system sale ever will.

I will look out for Rick Steve's work. And I promise to continue my own journey of becoming a better traveler understanding the people and places of our planet. Thank you very much for this major boost in that process.

PS: I live in metro Detroit. I, too, appreciate muscle cars.

[Bluenorthwest]

67. Steves is the most popular travel writer and travel log videographer in the US and he is great.

During the campaign to legalize cannabis in Oregon in the last election, Steves who is a resident of Washington did a six city tour of Oregon in support of legalization. Free events at which his talk was titled 'Travel As A Political Act'. A short interview from around that time-
http://www.oregonlive.com/marijuana/index.ssf/2014/10/rick_steves_campaigns_for_mari.html

[CanSocDem]

72. That is a great video.

Should berequired viewing for all Americans.

Since American foreign policy has never been based on merit, the bullying of Iran must be because they don't like Israel.

.

[nolabels]

116. I don't know about required viewing but i really liked this one

I have been lurking around DU about 14 yrs trying to pick up what i missed elsewhere and this one plugged a lot of holes

[KingCharlemagne]

59. Technical Note: Goering made these comments to (IIRC) a psychologist while

incarcerated and awaiting trial at Nuremberg. Goering never faced trial because he killed himself with cyanide while in custody before his trial began.

[AzDar]

106. While I'm not sure as to whom or when the comments were made... Goering WAS tried and convicted

on multiple counts @Nuremberg and sentenced to death. He cheated the hangman hours before his scheduled execution by swallowing cyanide.

[KingCharlemagne]

109. Ah, shit, you are 1000% correct and I was mistaken. Goering did indeed face

trial and was convicted. Memory grows dim as I get older. (I'm going to make it a rule henceforth to check all my historical pronouncements before hitting the "Post" button

Thanks for the gracious correction.

[Pooka Fey]

10. K&R

[Octafish]

81. An Unidentified Hero who fought Fascism in Spain

Spanish authorities are trying to identify this man - one of the first American volunteers to die fighting the fascist Franco as part of the famed Abraham Lincoln Brigade during Spain's Civil War.



The unidentified black soldier who died in the Spanish civil war volunteered for the side of the Republicans -- those who believed in the Constitutional government where all the citizens are equal (Democratic) under law. Photograph: Agustí Centelles/El País

Spanish quest to identify black soldier who fought against fascism in civil war

• US volunteer in picture killed in civil war battle
• Authorities plan to present image to Obama next year

bu Giles Tremlett in Barcelona
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 20 December 2009 16.50 GMT

As a volunteer in the International Brigades that fought in Spain's civil war, the unidentified black soldier in the photograph was one of the first Americans to die fighting fascism.

Now Spanish authorities want to put a name to him so they can present his picture to President Barack Obama when he visits Spain next year.

The black and white picture of the African American volunteer forms part of an extraordinary collection of civil war photographs that was bought recently by the Spanish state.

"All we know is that he arrived with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade of American volunteers and that he died in the battle at Brunete ," said Sergi Centelles, whose father, Agustí, took the picture.

The soldier is one of more than 90 African-Americans who volunteered to defend Spain's elected Republican government from a 1936 rightwing military uprising that sparked a three-year civil war.

SNIP...

• If you know who the man in the main photograph is, or can provide any information that might help identify him, please contact [email protected]

SOURCE:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/dec/20/spanish-civil-war-black-fighter

I do not know if he's been ID'd. Either way, I don't want his story forgotten. Thank you, Pooka Fey!

[Fantastic Anarchist]

11. John Pilger is a treasure ...

... love his work, and the film "Palestine is Still the Issue" pretty much opened my eyes. Very much worth the watch.

Thanks for posting!

[Octafish]

34. PRISM and the Rise of a New Fascism (John Pilger)

We Are All Witnesses Now

by JOHN PILGER
CounterPunch WEEKEND EDITION JUNE 21-23, 2013

EXCERPT...

Snowden’s revelation that Washington has used Google, Facebook, Apple and other giants of consumer technology to spy on almost everyone is further evidence of a modern form of fascism. Having nurtured oldfashioned fascists around the world – from Latin America to Africa and Indonesia – the genie has risen at home. Understanding this is as important as understanding the criminal abuse of technology.

Fred Branfman, who exposed the “secret” destruction of tiny Laos by the US air force in the 1960s and 1970s, provides an answer to those who still wonder how a liberal African-American president, a professor of constitutional law, can command such lawlessness. “Under Mr Obama, America is still far from being a classic police-state . . .” he wrote. “But no president has done more to create the infrastructure for a possible future police state.” Why? Because Obama understands that his role is not to indulge those who voted for him but to expand “the most powerful institution in the history of the world, one that has killed, wounded or made homeless well over 20 million human beings, mostly civilians, since 1962”.

In the new American cyberpower, only the revolving doors have changed. The director of Google Ideas, Jared Cohen, was an adviser to Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state in the Bush administration who lied that Saddam Hussein could attack the US with nuclear weapons. Cohen and Google’s executive chairman, Eric Schmidt – they met in the ruins of Iraq – have co-authored a book, The New Digital Age, endorsed as visionary by the former CIA director Michael Hayden and the war criminals Henry Kissinger and Tony Blair. The authors make no mention of the Prism spying programme, revealed by Snowden, that provides the NSA with access to all of us who use Google.

Control and dominance are the two words that make sense of this. These are exercised by political, economic and military design, of which mass surveillance is an essential part, but also by insinuating propaganda into the public consciousness. This was Edward Bernays’s point. His two most successful PR campaigns convinced Americans that they should go to war in 1917 and persuaded women to smoke in public; cigarettes were “torches of freedom” that would hasten women’s liberation.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/06/21/prism-and-the-rise-of-a-new-fascism/

PSh: You are most welcome, Fantastic Anarchist! Thank you for standing against tyranny.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

13. A mixture of fact and fiction.

There are certainly elements that support fascism, in Europe and beyond.

But when I got down to the section where Pilger talks about Ukraine and so how incredibly wrong he is on the facts regarding the events of the last year, it makes it hard to take him seriously and believe him on some of his other factual claims, even if the overall theme of the piece is correct.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

16. What is it you don't believe?

That Svoboda is part of the government, and the use of neo-fascist paramilitaries are terrorizing the populace?

[Tommy_Carcetti]

18. Well, if you must ask....

Svoboda isn't part of the government, at least in terms of the governing coalition. They failed to garner the 5% needed to make them even eligible for the cabinet.

Regarding the neo-fascist paramilitaries--there is one of multiple private paramilitaries not affiliated with the Ukrainian army that reported does have some neo-fascists in their ranks. And that is unfortunate indeed. However, the likes of Parry and company wish to import this one single private paramilitary unit to the Ukrainian government as a whole. So while it's not technically untrue, it is certainly dishonest.

As for Pilger's greater claims in that piece, he tells some major whoppers. Most notably, he repeats the $5 billion line that was rated a "Pants on Fire" lie by Politifact, claims that NATO attempted to seize Russian naval bases in Crimea, denies there was a Russian invasion of Crimea, disputes the media's description of the May 2014 riots in Odessa as "clashes" between pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian groups when in fact that's exactly what they were, and of course repeats the "coup" lie ad nausem.

I just can't take him seriously if he can't take the facts seriously. Sorry.

[newthinking]

38. Baloney, There is more extremist influence in the new government than ever.

People just played musical chairs and there was a fair amount of party switching.

A number of neo-nazi leaders joined the people's front (Party of war) coalition. Lyashko's extremist party moved up to 7.3% and is part of the current government coalition.

More neo-nazi's came into government in individual elections as well.

This is one of the best discussions of what happened:

http://www.workerspower.net/ukraine-votes-fascists-enter-mainstream

Ukraine votes: fascists enter mainstream

Fascists enter mainstream

The main fascist party, Svoboda, saw a decrease in its vote, a result of the swing towards the People’s Front which adopted much of the fascists’ violently Russophobic rhetoric and ran on an ultra-nationalist “war party” platform, with several neo-Nazi “volunteer battalion” commanders running on its ticket.

The overtly neo-Nazi “Right Sector,” a coalition of fascist groups, won 284, 802 votes. In the 2012 election, its largest component UNA-UNSO won just 16,937 votes.

Together, the fascist parties took more than one million votes but failed to cross the threshold. Although their representation in parliament will be limited to leaders elected in single-member constituencies, their real influence lies in their control of the key levers of the state apparatus.

Yuri Michalchyshyn, a Svoboda party ideologue, who holds an honorary medal of the SS Galicia division, called for the Ukrainian air force to turn Slavyansk into a “lunar landscape,” described the holocaust as a “particularly bright period in European history” and founded “the Joseph Goebbels Political Research Center,” quit Svoboda to become head of the propaganda and analysis department of the Ukraine Security Service: the SBU.

When Right-Sector leader Borislav Bereza stated that the Kiev police would begin “cooperation” with the Right Sector, he was simply confirming as policy a situation that has de-facto operated across large parts of Ukraine since the Maidan coup.

We can expect there to be no shortage of voices trying to present the election results as proof not only that Kiev is now a fully functioning parliamentary democracy but that the forces that deposed the previous regime were never as reactionary as some argued.

Identifying such stories as “Putin’s conspiracy theory,” John Lloyd, of the Financial Times, writing in his blog on Reuters website on October 31st, concluded, “More than 40 percent of the vote in this past weekend’s parliamentary elections in Ukraine went to two liberal, pro-European parties, one headed by President Petro Poroshenko, the other by Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk. A third party, the Lviv-based Samopomich (Self-Help) Party, also strongly pro-European, polled more than 10 percent. Only one party that could be accurately labeled far right, the Radical Party, exceeded the 5 percent threshold necessary to win parliamentary seats.”

Given that Mr. Lloyd is generally well informed, this can only be regarded as itself a highly pernicious interpretation. In fact, popular support for far-Right and fascist solutions to Ukraine’s economic and social crisis have become increasingly popular, at least among the 50 per cent who turned out to vote.

As we wrote in our last article, Yatseniuk’s People’s Front party is a coalition of oligarchs and commanders of the “volunteer battalions,” including several prominent neo-Nazis. Dmytro Yarosh, the leader of the Right Sector, was elected in the Dnipropetrovsk region, after the People’s Front deputy withdrew in his favor. Andriy Parubiy, founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party (now Svoboda) is also a prominent member.

Full analysis here:
http://www.workerspower.net/ukraine-votes-fascists-enter-mainstream

[Tommy_Carcetti]

53. If your argument is that the Lyashko Radical Party essentially switched places with Svoboda...

....I just don't get it.

Before the parliamentary elections, Svoboda had roughly 8% of seats in the Rada. After the 2014 elections, they took a nosedive and fell out of the governing coalition. The Radical Party came into the governing coalition in 2014.....barely, at a little over 7%, and ended up with a single member in the 22 person cabinet. At best, Peter was robbed to pay Paul.

And while the Radical Party certainly lives up to its name, while extremely hawkish, it doesn't have the same ultra-nationalistic (some arguing fascist) bent to it as Svoboda did. So it's a different variety of fringe politics that doesn't necessarily fit in with the critics of the Ukrainian government's "neo-Nazi" narrative.

Additionally, we know Poroshenko's not a neo-Nazi, Yatsenyuk's not a neo-Nazi.....it's getting harder and harder to claim that the Ukrainian government is some sort of neo-Nazi junta (although that won't stop some folks from trying.)

[JDPriestly]

26. His statement about how the greater number of Russian deaths in

WWII proves Russia won the war is also false.

In the book, Ike's Spies, the author explains why US and British casualties were so low. In one word, the Allies had ENIGMA.

They were reading Hitler's commands to his troops in the West and in Africa. That is why they were able to win with as few casualties as they did. They used their troops so as to win without tipping he Germans off that they knew where the Germans would concentrate their troops, just what the commands were.

The Russians did not have the advantage of being able to predict almost with certainty where the Germans would concentrate troops, where German troops would move, etc.

Of course, when the German troops were not acting under the command of headquarters and the Allies could not decode the orders, that advantage was lost. It was also lost when Eisenhower and the Command determined that they would reveal the existence of ENIGMA and their knowledge of German commands if they were not careful.

Ike's Spies is an interesting book although it does favor Eisenhower a bit and does not fully explore history when it comes to the transition between Eisenhower and Kennedy. I think it paints Eisenhower in a more positive light than he deserves at time, but the discussion about his tactics in WWII is worth reading.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

28. Stalin was a psychopath and didn't care about the well-being of his troops.

Hence the high number of Soviet deaths.

[JDPriestly]

29. That was the view of my father after the war.

[KingCharlemagne]

61. Not to disagree per se (not having read the book you reference), why didn't the U.S. and U.K.

share ENIGMA Intel with the USSR? After all, the U.S.and U.K. were allied with the USSR. That's some shabby treatment of an ally (if we did not share intel about enemy troop dispositions with our Soviet allies).

Yes, children, the U.S. was allied with the dirty fucking Commies ( ) against Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy during World War II.

[ND-Dem]

76. +100. I'd guess because they wanted Russia to lose, or at least be weakened. Either way,

the Soviets won the land war against Hitler.

[KingCharlemagne]

78. I did not seek to pick a fight (npi) with that poster, but the USSR defeated the

Wehrmacht and Nazi Germany along a 2,000-mile front while the U.S. and U.K. were playing at war in North Africa. (Stalingrad was won for the Soviets long before D-Day.)

The quip about whether one preferred Churchill to Hitler depending on whether one lived in Brussels or Bombay comes to mind. But ancient history, I suppose, eh?

[sabrina 1]

50. There really is not doubt about the 'elements' of Fascism, now in the Government of Kiev, or in.

rest of Europe. They have always been there, but now it appears we are willing to turn a blind eye to who we are funding.

What is it you are denying? That they have 'reformed'? Frankly this is their business, but when our tax dollars are involved, it becomes OUR business and the American people have a right to know just who is being supported by their tax dollars.

I'm still waiting or the Corporate Media to provide some facts, ANY facts about the makeup of that government BEFORE more of our money goes into yet another disastrous 'proxy war'.

[bobthedrummer]

14. I think our fascism is fueled by the dominionists in the New Apostolic Reformation/NAR Sir.

New Apostolic Reformation (Wikipedia)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Apostolic_Reformation

New Apostolic Reformation Posts Archive (Right Wing Watch)
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/new-apostolic-reformation

Fascist Pharisees all wearing the Flag. As a non-NAR anti-fascist Christian I stand against them too.

K&R

[ND-Dem]

77. & the ones in the government.

[Octafish]

90. The Dominionists believe it is their BIRTHRIGHT to rule over planet Earth.

Sad bunch of morons, really. But, they're powerful. And they're loaded.

Thank goodness we got PNAC and Leo Strauss on our side. Oops.

Sorry, Gen. Clapper! There goes the blackmail.

[stupidicus]

20. it's been a long time since it wasn't the issue imo

the only difference is that more people these days are taking the idea seriously -- kinda like the way they've been behind the curve on the "thirdwayers"...

Back in the early, pre-war Bush days and beyond, I got grief from dems/repugs alike for arguing that Bush was merely putting a more militaristic face on it. The idea was also fertilized by the patriot act, illegal wiretaps, torture, etc.

ANd throughout most of his admin the only diff between his brownshirts and the others, was the use of a rhetorical club as opposed to the kind they really (and likely still do) wanted to use in his defense.

[Octafish]

92. Korea...Vietnam...Brazil...Nicaragua...Panama...Iraq...Iraq...Afghanistan...Iraq...

Wars without End for Profits without Cease.

It's justified by the corrupt Corporate Owned News, authorized by a corrupt Congress, Judiciary, and Executive, piratized by Wall Street and its Banksters, and cheered by the masses standing up for the national anthem at the football game on Sunday.

Plus, it keeps the population down.

What's not to like?

[appalachiablue]

22. Rising fascism is relevant to Claire Conner, child of early John Birch Society leadership member

parents. Her portrait of the radical right, anti-communist, anti federal government conservative group founded of the 1950s is covered in her recent book, "Wrapped in the Flag". The work is written from her unique perspective as a close insider who was made to become a Birch member by her parents at age 13 in 1959. Fortunately Claire left that environment, has since spoken widely and sounds severe warnings about the serious dangers of growing neo Birch influence. The group didn't die out in the late 1960s, it went underground. Claire has posted here on DU and is a newly welcomed member.

Fred Koch of Kansas, head of Koch Industries and father of the Koch brothers Charles and David was a co-founder of the John Birch Society. The Koch patriarch and family are extensively covered in Daniel Schulman's 2014 book, "Sons of Wichita: How the Koch Brothers Became America's Most Powerful and Private Dynasty".

*The JBS was named for a Baptist missionary and military intel officer, John Birch who was killed by communist forces in China in 1945, post WWII. The society was set up by founder Robert Welch in Mass., then Indiana in 1958 and its HQ is in Wisconsin. Founding principles of the group are Christianity, anti-communism and anti-collectivism, belief in limited government powers and opposition to: wealth redistribution, Civil Rights, the UN, free trade agreements and other international institutions.

[Octafish]

93. Know your Tea Party Roots: Koch Fortune came courtesy of Josef Stalin and USSR

The Roots of Stalin in the Tea Party Movement

The Koch family, America's biggest financial backers of the Tea Party, would not be the billionaires they are today were it not for the godless empire of the USSR.

By Yasha Levine
AlterNet, April 16, 2010

The Tea Party movement's dirty little secret is that its chief financial backers owe their family fortune to the granddaddy of all their hatred: Stalin's godless empire of the USSR. The secretive oil billionaires of the Koch family, the main supporters of the right-wing groups that orchestrated the Tea Party movement, would not have the means to bankroll their favorite causes had it not been for the pile of money the family made working for the Bolsheviks in the late 1920s and early 1930s, building refineries, training Communist engineers and laying down the foundation of Soviet oil infrastructure.

The comrades were good to the Kochs. Today Koch Industries has grown into the second-largest private company in America. With an annual revenue of $100 billion, the company was just $6.3 billion shy of first place in 2008. Ownership is kept strictly in the family, with the company being split roughly between brothers Charles and David Koch, who are worth about $20 billion apiece and are infamous as the largest sponsors of right-wing causes. They bankroll scores of free-market and libertarian think tanks, institutes and advocacy groups. Greenpeace estimates that the Koch family shelled out $25 million from 2005 to 2008 funding the "climate denial machine," which means they outspent Exxon Mobile three to one.

I first learned about the Kochs in February 2009, when my colleague Mark Ames and I were looking into the strange origins of the then-nascent Tea Party movement. Our investigation led us again and again to a handful of right-wing advocacy groups directly tied to the Kochs. We were the first to connect the dots and debunk the Tea Party movement's "grassroots" front, exposing it as billionaire-backed astroturf campaign run by free-market advocacy groups FreedomWorks and Americans For Prosperity, both of which are closely linked to the Koch brothers.

But the Tea Party movement -- and the Koch family's obscene wealth -- go back more than half a century, all the way to grandpa Fredrick C. Koch, one of the founding members of the far-right John Birch Society which was convinced that socialism was taking over America through unions, colored people, Jews, homosexuals, the Kennedys and even Dwight D. Eisenhower.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/146504/the_roots_of_stalin_in_the_tea_party_movement



Most importantly: Thank you , appalachiablue, for the heads up on Ms. Conner. Wow!

http://claireconner.com/facts-behind-story/people-players/

[appalachiablue]

25. Thanks for the excellent Pilger article and deep comments that generate further exploration.

Several years ago I began to re-study fascism and Nazism. Like many I had associated fascism with the European ideology of the 1930s and 1940s that was vanquished in WWII. My father was one of many who assisted that effort. I realized a year ago how there was good reason to continue education of the menace that never left.

[Octafish]

110. Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

Kansas, too.



Eugenics and the Nazis -- the California connection

by Edwin Black
Sunday, November 9, 2003

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

CONTINUED...

http://www.waragainsttheweak.com/offSiteArchive/www.sfgate.com/index.html

Evil will continue for as long as some people continue to believe they're better than other people. Understandable, going by what their own eyes and ears show them. However, through education and experience, awakening, if not enlightenment, perhaps.

[woo me with science]

41. K&R Time to start calling things, and politicians, what they are.

Corporate "Republicans" and corporate "Democrats" are ushering in fascism.

Let's call them what they are.

[JEB]

47. Most excellent post and thread following.

Important stuff discussed by thoughtful informed people. Why I come here.

[JEB]

48. Just stumbled across this

over at Common Dreams.

http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/28/fascism-coming-alive-again

Fascism is Coming Alive Again
by
Eric Margolis

The wildly exaggerated threat of so-called Islamic terrorism is being shamelessly used by some western governments to boost their flagging fortunes at a time of economic malaise.

Marketing fear is a sure-fire political ploy, as the Bush administration showed. But if you think promotion of “terrorism” hysteria in order to curtail democratic freedoms is something new, have a look at Germany, 1933.

<snip>
We must be very careful. Islamophobia and terror hysteria fit worryingly into the template created by former Columbia University Professor Robert Paxton in his brilliant analysis, “The Anatomy of Fascism.”

Paxton sharply defines fascism, a dreadfully over and misused term, as distinct from conservative regimes. For example, he terms 1930’s Italy and Germany as Fascist states, but Franco’s Spain as conservative.

Hallmarks of fascism:

“a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of any traditional solutions;
belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment that justifies any action without legal or moral limits, against its internal and external foes;
need for authority by natural leaders (always male) culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s destiny; and superiority of his instincts over abstract and universal reason.”

Other traits of Fascism: militarism and historical triumphalism; glorification of war as a purification and nation-building process.

Intense propaganda about inflated military “heroes.” Sending small numbers of troops or warplanes to fight or bomb miscreant Arabs in the Mideast is a reliable Viagra for small nations with feeble military budgets.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

More at
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/02/28/fascism-coming-alive-again

[Octafish]

86. Thank you for the heads-up, JEB! Margolis is TOPS!

"Scared people readily accept dictators."

[sabrina 1]

49. Inconvenient facts are never welcome, which doesn't make them NOT facts.

Just look at who are allies in many of those places have been and are.

I would like to know what the Iraq 'War' was all about, now that we know for sure the War Criminals lied about what they SAID it was about?

There has never been an explanation as to why we went there and killed untold numbers of people, destabilizing the entire region and are now planning to go back, to do WHAT?

Thanks for the OP, Octafish. Until Americans face these facts, things are only going to get worse.

The war drums are beating again and this time, it appears some on the Left are fully on board.

[KingCharlemagne]

62. I always found Norman Mailer's analysis of the 'real' reasons we invaded and occupied

Iraq the most convincing. In brief, Mailer argued that the U.S. and U.K. invaded and occupied Iraq not because their economies needed its oil per se but, rather, because the U.S. and U.K. wished to put their fingers on Iraq's oil spigot, thereby acquiring strategic dominance and pressure over the emerging Asian economies of China and India, countries whose economies will need access to petroleum to maintain their rates of growth.

The anti-war protesters who cried "No blood for Oil" may have ultimately gotten it right, even if many of them mistakenly believed the war was fought for direct access to Iraqi oil.

It's Imperialism 101, sketched out 100 years ago by V.I. Lenin and elaborated on by many of his intellectual heirs in the century since.

[JonLP24]

96. I'll have to look for that

If it is easy to find online, even better.

I never did figure it out. I figure either defense contractor profits or something long-term given Iraq is strategically in the middle of Southwest Asia with maybe future intentions pointing to Syria or Iran. The US doesn't care about south of the border, Jordan is a huge rendition ally.

I do know it has something to do with oil or who has the oil. US doesn't care about much outside of its border unless oil is involved.

[KingCharlemagne]

98. I would have read this piece by Mailer quite some time ago (at least one

re-install of Windows 7 in the interim), so I have lost the source or bookmark now. (Maybe the New York Review of Books?) I remember thinking at the time that it was the explanation that made the most sense, once one recognized the transparent lies behind the official explanation (WMD and ties to al Qaeda).

[JonLP24]

99. I knew the Bush lies were BS

especially the freedom & democracy as well as the human rights concerns (there are usually better candidates for regime change on those issues) given

but the ulterior motives were more difficult to figure out. Strangely, Afghanistan was much easier and the OP article points to history indicating the US had a long term economic interest in who was governing the country even though it is predominantly viewed as a "legitimate" war.

[Yorktown]

54. Orwell says Pilger is wrong

Yet in the same liberal societies, whose war-making elites urge us never to forget, the accelerating danger of a modern kind of fascism is suppressed; for it is their fascism.

is one of the most offensive sentences I had the misfortune to read.

To compare liberal societies with fascism is an insult to all the citizens of liberal societies who fought and died for Liberty.

It's an insult to all those who had to fear for their lives because of Fascism, Communism, Nazism, Putinism, Kim Il Sungism or whatever.

Orwell, who certainly was solidly to the Left, but had the common sense to differentiate between Left and Communism, wrote it best:

The real division is not between conservatives and revolutionaries but between authoritarians and libertarians.

Anyone claiming the US is an authoritarian country is living in cuckoo land.

Anyone claiming Russia, Syria or Iran are libertarian countries is living in cuckoo land.

[frankfacts]

57. Hope your military runs out of people to kill

Before we run out of people

[KingCharlemagne]

63. Ah, but Orwell would also I think agree with Lenin's observation:

Bourgeois states are most varied in form, but their essence is the same: all these states, whatever their form, in the final analysis are inevitably the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch02.htm

Fascism, according to Lenin's intellectual heir Trotsky, represents the decay and end stage of capitalism.

ETA: Source for Lenin quote.

[Yorktown]

64. And Trostky was, as usual, wrong

Fascism, according to Lenin's intellectual heir Trotsky, represents the decay and end stage of capitalism.

is exactly the opposite of what Orwell wrote.

The real opposition is between authoritarians (among which, fascists) and libertarians (the bourgeoisie of the Enlightenment, Locke, Hume, Voltaire, the bourgeoisie which ended up writing the US Constitution)

Now, to see on which side Trostsky was on, just ask Russian historians.

Trotsky bears a great deal of responsibility both for the victory of the Red Army in the civil war, and for the establishment of a one-party authoritarian state with its apparatus for ruthlessly suppressing dissent.... He was in ideologist and practitioner of the Red Terror. He despised 'bourgeois democracy'; he believed that spinelessness and soft-heartedness would destroy the revolution, and that the suppression of the propertied classes and political opponents would clear the historical arena for socialism. He was the initiator of concentration camps, compulsory 'labour camps,' and the militarization of labour, and the state takeover of trade unions. Trotsky was implicated in many practices which would become standard in the Stalin era, including summary executions

(Vladimir Cherniaev, a leading Russian historian)

Going back to the OP's central thesis: was Trotsky a libertarian or a Red fascist?

[KingCharlemagne]

65. "Trotsky was a Red fascist" - you heard it here first, folks! - nt

[Yorktown]

66. Is this Democratic Underground, or Communist Underground?

Try telling the MSM that the line of the Democratic Party is that Trotsky was not a Red Fascist,

and you can wave hello to 20 years of Republican rule.


Trotsky was part of the collective madness of the first years of the Soviet Revolution.

August 1918, the Bolsheviks instructed Felix Dzerzhinsky to commence a Red Terror, announced in 1 September 1918 issue of the Krasnaya Gazeta (Red Gazette).[58] Regarding the Red Terror Trotsky wrote:

The bourgeoisie today is a falling class... We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.

Trotsky was one of the organizers of the Red Terror.

Back to the original post thesis, the US is a fascist regime, but Trotsky was OK???

[KingCharlemagne]

68. I actually disagree with the thesis of the author Pilger referenced in the OP and agree

with you that calling the U.S. 'fascist' is doing a serious disservice to the term 'fascism' (at least as it has been historically used). But I also disagree with you that Trotsky was a 'fascist'. The "Red Terror" and destruction of the bourgeoisie were done in the interests of furthering the onset of the dictatorship of the proletariat and not to play out some oblique psycho-drama between authoritarians and libertarians, as you would have it.

FWIW, Trotsky led the Red Army against, and defeated decisively, actual White Russian proto-fascists. But 'red Fascist' it is. Sigh.

Your red-baiting has now been noted and so I believe our conversation has now reached an end.

[Yorktown]

69. Well, I do hope Democrats are not Reds..

It's depressing enough to see republicans denying Darwin or saying the planet is 6000 years old

If now Democrats start saying Lenin and Trostky were cool guys,

I'm going to start enquiring about citizenship requirements in Norway.

[Octafish]

84. Orwell never knew Pilger. What do you think he'd say about ''Money trumps peace''?

The very words George Walker Bush uttered Feb. 14, 2007 at a White House press conference. Then he laughs. Also telling is no member of the nation's callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to ask the giggling mass murderer a follow-up.

I remember Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention.

As for the giggling mass murderer's father: Poppy: Bush Sr told the FBI he was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Welcome to DU, Yorktown.

[Yorktown]

100. Orwell/Pilger: duh, no kidding. As for GW, he was the pits.

I probably posted 100 posts,

and I wrote at least 5 times GW was one of the worst US Presidents ever.

As for Orwell and Pilger, I am aware time travel hasn't been invented yet

[Octafish]

111. I'm so glad you understand. As for Bush, he lied America into a war of aggression. That's NAZI.

And because he's not in jail, that's NAZI too.

[ND-Dem]

88. He also said:

It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it; consequently, the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using the word if it were tied down to any one meaning.

And:

Ideas may not change, but emphasis shifts constantly. It could be claimed, for example, that the most important part of Marx's theory is contained in the saying: ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ But before Marx developed it, what force had that saying had? Who had paid any attention to it? Who had inferred from it — what it certainly implies — that laws, religions and moral codes are all a superstructure built over existing property relations? It was Christ, according to the Gospel, who uttered the text, but it was Marx who brought it to life. And ever since he did so the motives of politicians, priests, judges, moralists and millionaires have been under the deepest suspicion — which, of course, is why they hate him so much.

and:

Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic Socialism, as I understand it.

Orwell said lots of things. One quote doesn't define the man.

[Yorktown]

101. None of your quotes is far left

Orwell was never a Marxist. He could probably be best described as a social-democrat in the European sense of the term, coming from the self-described "Tory-anarchism" of his young adult life, which I suppose could be translated/approximated as Libertarian.

[ND-Dem]

102. libertarian my ass.

"As far as my purely personal preferences went I would have liked to join the Anarchists." George Orwell - Homage to Catalonia page 116

"The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle." ibid page 4

"Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senor' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou,' and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenas Dias.' Tipping had been forbidden by law since the time of Primo de Rivera; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor cars, they had all been commandeered, and alll the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black...ibid page 5

"Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gypsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes." ibid page 6

"In practice the democratic 'revolutionary' type of discipline is more reliable than might be expected. In a workers's army discipline is theoretically voluntary. It is based on class-loyalty, whereas the discipline of a bourgeois conscript army is based ultimately on fear...In the militias the bullying and abuse that go on in an ordinary army would never have been tolerated for a moment." ibid page 28

"The estates of the big pro-Fascist landlords were in many places seized by the peasants. Along with the collectivization of industry and transport there was an attempt to set up the rough beginnings of a workers' government by means of local committees, workers' patrols to replace the old pro-capitalist police forces, workers' militias based on the trade-unions, and so forth." ibid page 50

"In Catalonia, for the first few months, most of the actual power was in the hands of the Anarcho-Syndicalists, who controlled most of the key industries. The thing that had happened in Spain was, in fact, not merely a civil war, but the beginning of a revolution. It is this fact that the anti-Fascist press outside of Spain has made it its special business to obscure." ibid page 50

"Except Russia and Mexico no country had had the decency to come to the rescue of the Government, and Mexico, for obvious reasons, could not supply arms in large quantities." ibid page 53

"As usual, the breaking-up of the militias was done in the name of military efficiency; and no one denied that a thorough military reorganization was needed. It would, however, have been quite possible to reorganize the militias and make them more efficient while keeping them under direct control of the trade-unions; the main purpose of the change was to make sure that the Anarchists did not possess an army of their own." ibid page 55

"During the first two months of the war it was the Anarchists more than anyone else who had saved the situation, and much later than this the Anarchist militia, in spite of their indiscipline, were notoriously the best fighters among the purely Spanish forces." ibid page 62

"I have described how were armed, or not armed, on the Aragon front. There is very little doubt that arms were deliberately withheld lest too many of them should get into the hands of the Anarchists, who would afterwards use them for a revolutionary purpose...What was more important was that once the war had been narrowed down to a 'war for democracy' it became impossible to make any large scale appeal for working class aid abroad." ibid page 68

"I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites." ibid pages 103-104

"Many of the normal motives of civilized life-snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.-had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master." ibid page 104

"One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this." ibid page 104

From Orwell's Collected Essays:

"If I had understood the situation a bit better I should probably have joined the Anarchists." George Orwell - Collected Essays; Vol 1 page 289

[Yorktown]

103. Correct me if I am wrong, but your quotes are post Spain

It's Orwell himself who called himself a Tory-anarchist. Tory = right wing, anarchist = not conservative; hence my approximation right wing not conservative = Libertarian.

It is true that Orwell was won over by the bottom-up egalitarian communes of the anarcho-syndicalists of Spain.

But he was equally horrified by the well documented appalling Soviet-style violence of the Spanish Communists.

So it could be said Orwell moved from right wing Libertarian to Social Democrat with a libertarian flavor. (libertarian rather than anarchist as Orwell wrote against Anarchy)

[ND-Dem]

105. Tories are the british conservative party. anarchist has nothing to do with "not conservative".

Libertarian in the American sense has nothing to do with either.

Orwell stopped calling himself a tory anarchist after the Spanish civil war began. He called himself a democratic socialist for most of his life and at the end of his life.

Orwell is perhaps the most unlikely of figures associated with the practise of tory anarchism
and this paper will examine him in the context of other figures that have been viewed in this
way (Evelyn Waugh, Richard Ingrams, and Spike Milligan). In so doing it will clarify the
ways in which Orwell characterises the practise by drawing out the idea that tory anarchism is
a moral and cultural critique of the modern world, a stance, tone or temper, rather than an
overt political ideology. Orwell was, of course, a committed democratic socialist in his
political activism but he was also something else, as he himself commented: ‘when I was
eighteen I was both a snob and a revolutionary. I was against all authority’. Until 1934, at
least, he referred to himself as a ‘tory anarchist’. Thus writers such as John New singer
describe Orwell as a ‘Tory socialist’ (Newsinger, 1999: 48; Colls, 2002: 219). As has often
been observed Orwell was a conservative in everything except his politics. The contradiction
in his character between his democratic socialist politics and his conservative cultural
leanings is manifest in a number of factors: his critical commentaries on English culture and
custom, his ideas on patriotism and his critical reflections on class, racism and empire.

http://evenements.univ-lille3.fr/colloque-george-orwell/abstracts/vendredi-09h30.pdf

he never called himself a communist. or a libertarian. or a right-winger. or a conservative.

I don't know what you mean when you say orwell wrote "against Anarchy."

[raouldukelives]

55. K&R nt

[frankfacts]

56. We live under a military dictatorship and it's planetary in its scope n/t

[Octafish]

112. That explains the warmongers and banksters walking free.

They're the MIC's "job creators" -- meaning future employers -- and, thus, are protected citizens.

The rest of us are useless eaters, mopes to pick up their tab, and cannon fodder until the drones go online.

A hearty welcome to DU, frankfacts!

[Tommy_Carcetti]

58. Pilger's ultimate point is undone by his own hypocrisy and willingness to engage in propoganda.

Last edited Sun Mar 1, 2015, 12:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Such as this:

Nuland’s coup did not go to plan. Nato was prevented from seizing Russia’s historic, legitimate, warm-water naval base in Crimea. The mostly Russian population of Crimea — illegally annexed to Ukraine by Nikita Krushchev in 1954 — voted overwhelmingly to return to Russia, as they had done in the 1990s. The referendum was voluntary, popular and internationally observed. There was no invasion.

There is so much blatant misinformation in that single four-sentence paragraph, most notably the laughable claim that there was no Russian invasion of Crimea.

But let's focus in on Pilger's claim that the controversial March 16, 2014 plebiscite in Crimea was "internationally observed." Because the way you'd read it, you think he's claiming there was a reputable organization such as the UN or OSCE that observed the referendum. In fact, however, neither of those organizations or any similar group monitored the Crimean referendum.

The "international observers" were in fact hand picked by Russia itself, with numerous "observers" coming from the "Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections", a sham Russian based group considered to be far-right in orientation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Observatory_for_Democracy_and_Elections

Eurasian Observatory for Democracy and Elections (EODE) is a Russia-based far-right non-governmental organization which on its website claims that it monitors elections.[1][2] According to its website, it specializes in the "self-proclaimed republics" (Abkhazia, Transdnistria, Nagorno-Karabakh).[3][1] It is led by the Belgian far-right activist Luc Michel.[4] EODE's other leader is Jean-Pierre Vandersmissen. Both Michel and Vandermissen are followers of the Belgian Neo-Nazi politician Jean-François Thiriart.[5][6][7]

A run down of these "observers" finds that many of them were affiliated with extremist groups, including some groups considered to be far-right or fascist:

http://anton-shekhovtsov.blogspot.com/2014/03/pro-russian-extremists-observe.html

So Pilger writes an opinion piece about the dangers of fascism in the world, which is all fine and good, except he totally glosses over fascists groups when it interferes with his own narrative.

Gotcha.

[Yorktown]

70. Bingo. nt.

[JonLP24]

97. WTH is a radical right wing populist?

Obviously not an independent source but I take the word that a lot of the international observers are also members of a political party. Whether the label is correct I'd probably disagree.

In any case, with or without a referendum Crimeans have been unable to vote in Ukraine elections so unlikely they have someone that is representative of their interests currently in government but Western Ukraine political groups all fail miserable in past elections, only a narrow majority voted for Ukraine independence in 1991, the population is predominantly -- very heavily Russian speaking but polls before & after show and considering the circumstances a majority would have voted "Yes" or put into a self-rule "yes"

The results of the survey, conducted April 21-29, 2014, showed that 83% of Crimeans felt that the results of the March 16 referendum on Crimea’s status likely reflected the views of most people there. This view is shared only by 30% in the rest of the country. Most Crimeans (74%) also responded that they believe that life would be better as part of Russia.

http://www.bbg.gov/blog/2014/06/03/ukraine-political-attitudes-split-crimeans-turning-to-russian-sources-for-news/

[Tommy_Carcetti]

114. The tea party is branded as right wing populism.

Granted, given the tail wags the dog, the reality is anything but, but the whole "Taxed Enough Already?", poor blue collar folk can't succeed because they supposedly are overtaxed, etc. sentiment is intended to arouse a populist type sentiment. Same could be said for the anti-immigration crowd, the idea that "they" are "taking" "our" jobs.

The difference between right-wing populism and left-wing populism is that right-wing populism is targeted at a specific audience (in this country, that being white Christians) whereas left-wing populism is inclusive of all the disadvantaged. And thereby left-wing populism is much more genuine a sentiment. But that doesn't stop those on the right from trying to mimic it.

Interesting poll results, although it should be noted that the question asked was whether they thought the majority of citizens would have voted to be annexed into Russia, not whether they personally agreed. So that doesn't necessarily mean 83% wanted to join Russia, it only meant that 83% believed there was sufficient public sentiment to win a vote.

But even with that in mind, the process was a complete sham and accomplished by brute force and foreign intervention. It was not a natural expression, and everything about the process--from the short run up to the election to the ballot wording to the shady credentials of the international "observers" stunk of illegitimacy.

[JonLP24]

117. You can find opinion polls before & since

that point to the same thing. Everything regarding elections that take place in Ukraine is very shady, all-of-it, except the referendums are not accepted or the results are viewed with suspicion when the parts where these referendums take place were parts that Western Ukraine political factions did poorly in. Pretty much every national election is split down the middle with Crimea receiving the strongest East support.

Given all that has happened, majority speak Russian and the country has very political identity splits, the guy -- the one that was actually received a majority of a popular vote wanted to make Russian an official language which pissed off a lot of people. Long term, politicized issues, there are many things that are polarizing and have been for years. I doubt most would want to continue to participating in a corrupt & problematic structure of government so either self-rule or would prefer the Russians at-this-point. Unfortunately, we don't get to hear their voices either way.

The labels they use doesn't mean it is accurate in what it is they're explaining but I'd have to look into the details myself to get an accurate issue. "Overtaxed" has been in the Republican platform ever since I remember it, immigration is a big part of it but a lot of issues are politicized with scary foreigners. The far right in Ukraine has a big problem with Russophobia. But you have "extreme left" & "extreme right" here, I don't doubt they are members of a political party but digging dipper would give a better context.

[NuclearDem]

113. Obviously no invasion.

That's why this exists:



"For the return of Crimea."

[MinM]

60. Jeb Bush

Jeb Bush has very shady past, all tied up with Bush family horde of secrets of the worst kind. http://buff.ly/1wy5Ab4

[Octafish]

95. How the elite talk in code: ''That way there will be no chance for misunderstanding.''

It's almost an ENIGMA, what the rich and powerful say. It's to hide what they do.



Case in point: One Neil Mallon Pierce Bush, son of then-president George Herbert Walker Bush and caught with his hand in a billion-dollar S&L cookie jar called Silverado Savings & Loan. Here's what Poppy did for his Number 3 Son:

How the Elite Talk in Code

EXCERPT...

A perfect example of code talk comes from a true master insider, George H.W. Bush, when his son, Neil, was caught red handed in the middle of the S&L crisis as a director of Sliverado Bank.

Did Bush lay out his cards and call in his operatives and say pull some strings, get my son out of this investigation (Remember Bush was president at the time.) No. Bush is too smooth. In his published collection of letters, All The Best, George Bush, he shows us how the heat is delicately taken off Neil. On page 449, there is this letter to Thomas Ludlow Ashley.

Ashley is a Yale University grad, and member of the secret society Skull and Bones along with Bush. Here's the letter:

The Honorable Thomas Ludlow Ashley
Association of Bank Holding Companies
Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Lud,

Thank you for your good memo December 8th.

I would appreciate any help you can give Neil. He tells me he never had any insider dealings. He got off the Board early--long before I was elected President. The Denver paper apparently ran a very nice editorial about him on that. He is an outside director, and thus I guess has liability, but I can't believe his name would appear in the paper if it was Jones not Bush. In any event, I know that the guy is totally honest. I saw him in Denver and I think he is worried about the publicity and the "shame". I tell him not to worry about that but any advice you can give as this matter unfolds would be greatly appreciated by me. If it turns out there has been some marginal call, or he has done something wrong, needless to say there will be no intervention from his dad. But, I'm quite confident this is not true...

Warm regards,

George

Notice how smooth. No talk about getting Ashley anything for taking care of the matter. The nice touch about if Neil "has done something wrong", but the clear finish, he didn't.

CONTINUED...

http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/how-elite-talk-in-code.html

When it comes to money and power, it really is a small world. We'd hear it more often, if only we were privy to the conversation.

Thank you for the heads-up and links, MinM. Much to see and much to learn.

PS: That image of Jebthro n Poppy is frightening. I can see what scared Michael Moore about the guy.

[JEB]

71. Important quote...

“To initiate a war of aggression…,” said the Nuremberg Tribunal judges in 1946, “is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

[KingCharlemagne]

73. 'International law,' like the Geneva Conventions, is so quaint and obsolete. We're on a

fast track back to pre-Westphalia (1648) conditions.

"Bring it on!" taunted the chimpster.

[JEB]

82. Letting our own war criminals slide

is a big step into Fascism imho.

[ND-Dem]

74. "the cult of superiority" = +100

[ND-Dem]

75. I was curious about that cartoon. It says: 6 million Nazi voters : fodder for a big mouth,

and I chose the fish!

And on the small fish: With God for Hitler and Capital

[Octafish]

85. John Heartfield (born: Helmut Herzfeld)

"6 Millionen Naziwähler: Futter für ein großes Maul."
"Und den Fisch hab ich gewählt!"

"6 million Nazi voters: food for a big mouth."
" And I select the fish!"

The Extraordinary Anti-Nazi Photomontages of John Heartfield

http://www.kuriositas.com/2011/06/extraordinary-anti-nazi-photomontages.html

Like most bloggers, I don't avert my eyes. I plagiarize:

[Purveyor]

87. kick. Thanks for posting. +1 eom

[Cleita]

89. K&R

[woo me with science]

94. kick

[Initech]

104. Fascism = merging of corporate wealth and state power

Not good for anybody.

Oh and American Sniper is "Stolz Der Nation" from Inglorious Basterds.