So the Cat Food Commission is proposing that poor and middle-class Americans do all the heavy lifting when it comes to "putting our fiscal house in order". This should come as no great surprise. "Serious" Washington chin-scratchers are indebted to the rich and despise the very idea of entitlements. Always have, always will.
How, then, do right-wing austerity thugs in the mold of Alan Simpson plan to get themselves elected if they're sending the vast majority of voters straight to the poorhouse? That's simple. They'll use four time-honored Republican strategies:
1) Get people to fear and distrust their government. Tactics: congenital right-wing incompetence (see Hurricane Katrina); intentional underfunding of critical services; incessant anti-government propaganda from Fox News and the right-wing hate machine.
2) Lower people's expectations - permanently. That's what they mean when they tell you to "tighten your belt". You'll be hearing that every day for the rest of your life.
3) Exploit the enemy within.Illegal immigrants.Gays. Muslims. Various ethnic groups. Liberals. The unemployed. Scapegoat groups of people whom your target voters can blame for the misery you're causing them. Use whatever group works at the time.
4) Exploit the enemy without. When in trouble - start a war. Works like a charm.
After two diaries in a row on the emerging fascist threat, this may seem rather tame by comparison--a note on the spread of anti-federalist ideology in the realm of education. But when you recall the role that federal courts played in desegregating Southern Schools and how central that was to Civil Rights Movement, suddenly things start to get a lot clearer.
Senate candidates Ken Buck (R-CO) and Sharron Angle (R-NV) have both received significant attention for their absurd claim the federal Department of Education is unconstitutional, but because House races generally receive much less media attention than the higher-profile Senate contests, it's unclear just how common this radical position is among the GOP's full slate of candidates.
A questionnaire circulated by Liberty Central, the right-wing group led by Supreme Court spouse Ginni Thomas, sheds a great deal of light on this question - and the answer is not pretty. Of the 60 candidate questionnaires submitted by current GOP nominees for a House or Senate seat that ThinkProgress reviewed for this report, at least 49 adopt a view that would declare much - if not all - of federal education policy unconstitutional.
The Liberty Central questionnaire includes the following question:
The overwhelming majority of GOP candidates who submitted this questionnaire answered “no” to this question, a position that would drastically limit the federal government’s ability to help struggling schools, and which could also threaten Medicaid and other essential programs. Several of these candidates offered ahistorical, ideological and occasionally paranoid constitutional theories:
For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes.
Sure sounds like tyranny to me, right? Federal government meddling where it was never meant to be,until the progress of human history utterly changed the nature of the world we live in, but fortunately, our Constitution had enough breadth in its founding vision and enough foresight in how it was framed to allow it to adjust, largely because of the General Welfare clause--which can be found both in the Preamble and in the powers of Congress, a sticky little "detail" that our aspiring fascist rulers are eager to bury beneath anything they can lay their hands on, as Think Progress goes on to illustrate:
...a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Then laying out its development, which started thus:
In the first stage, a mature industrial state facing some kind of crisis breeds a new, rural movement that's based on nationalist renewal. This movement invariably rejects reason and glorifies raw emotion, promises to restore lost national pride, co-opts the nation's traditional myths for its own purposes, and insists that the country must be purged of the toxic influence of outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their current misery.
(Sound familiar yet?)
In the second stage, the movement takes root, turns into a real political party, and seizes a seat at the table.
I also featured a clip from Countdown of Sharron Angle's latest attack ad on Harry Reid, all about the threat of illegal immigration and crime:
This ad is, in fact, a perfect embodiment of what Paxton was writing about. We already saw this in Arizona with Jan Brewer and SB-1070. The immigrant/crime narrative was a very big part of that, with Brewer making outlandish claims about beheaded bodies in the desert that obviously had no basis in fact, In fact, the entire attempt to link crime and immigration is driven almost entirely by the anti-immigrant logic of proto-fascism, with a sprinkling of a few annecdotal incidents that in turn are highlighted in the media precisely because they fit this narrative so well.
But when one looks at statistics, one discovers that the immigrant/crime connection is precisely the opposite of that alleged: immigrants are far less likely to be perpetrators of crime. If anything, they're more likely to be victimized--particularly undocumented ones who are afraid of turning to the police. That was the reason for LA's Special Order 40, instituted by the very conservative Chief Daryl Gates, precisely to encourage all immigrants to cooperate with police, to enable them to do their job. This not only protected immigrant communities, it protected everyone, since crime allowed to fester in one sub-community may eventually produce threats to others as well.
First she quickly reviewed the foundations of those posts in Robert Paxton's Anatomy of Fascism, first citing Paxton's definition, then some key stages in the development of fascism, and finally a set of three questions to ask if you've crossed the line to the stage where there's no turning back. There are very few movements that cross this line, but the ones that do enter into decades-long nightmares. Could we be next? With that in mind, she then looks at three possible outcomes of the coming election. All this, obviously, was written before Lauren Valle had her head stomped on by Rand Paul's thugs. But it provides the historically appropriate background for understanding what we saw happening. Perhaps--just perhaps--this violent thuggery got out ahead itself, and tipped its hands to the wider public in time to turn the tide. We won't really know until late election night. But it's well worth reviewing what Robinson warned us of.
First off, there's Paxton's definition:
Paxton defined fascism as:
...a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
There there's Paxton's stages. She doesn't go through them all--as she did in her original. But she goes through enough:
In the first stage, a mature industrial state facing some kind of crisis breeds a new, rural movement that's based on nationalist renewal. This movement invariably rejects reason and glorifies raw emotion, promises to restore lost national pride, co-opts the nation's traditional myths for its own purposes, and insists that the country must be purged of the toxic influence of outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their current misery.
(Sound familiar yet?)
In the second stage, the movement takes root, turns into a real political party, and seizes a seat at the table. Success at this stage, Paxton writes, "depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner."
(Paging the Party of No....)
In the face of this deadlock, the corporate elites forge an alliance with rural nationalists, creating an unholy marriage that, if it continues, will soon breed a fascist state. And, of course, this is precisely what's happening now between the Koch Brothers, the oil companies, Americans for Prosperity, and the Tea Party.
And, of course, candidates like Sharron Angle:
This is where most proto-fascist movements die, primarily because of "the basic authoritarian ineptitude of their leadership," as Robinson puts it. Now, however, we have some of the slickest, most experienced professionals around. But there are also some real loose cannons and wild cards as well. So were definitely still could get lucky. We can use all the luck we can get:
To be perfectly honest, I wasn't expecting Arizona Governor Jan Brewer would sign SB 1070 on Friday. I knew the teabaggers wanted their racism codified into law, but "show me your papers or go to jail" was so fascist I just couldn't imagine anyone wanting to declare a race war over such grounds. I was wrong.
As the messages to Boycott Arizona begin to fill my inbox and feeds, I wanted to escalate. My Mom's side is Latino and I'm actually a lot darker skinned than my name might suggest. My first thought was that beyond the boycott, we also needed to apply pressure through socially responsible investment. That's when I started thinking about the State of California's role in helping end Apartheid by pulling money out of South Africa. Then I knew the move.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) has over $200 billion in investments and a history of activism. A few years back, they charted a new approach towards investing in emerging markets, requiring countries to provide, "evidence of political stability, humane labor laws, a fair and functional legal system." I want CalPERS to take the same approach to investments in Arizona companies and real estate holdings in the state. On all three counts, Arizona fails.
Next, I needed a mechanism to spread the word. I decided upon Act.ly, which isn't a boring old petition site, but a list of everyone who has decided to broadcast their position on a move to everyone who follows them on Twitter -- petitions 2.0. Quickly, big names in progressive politics jumped on board and the first 250 to sign are followed by 187,133 people (obviously with overlap, if you look who has signed you should be following most of them).
Act.ly provided an immediate way to kickstart this move, identifying who supports it concurrent with the researching going on to bring this move into the real world on Monday. If you'd like to see CalPERS make this move, please join. After the jump, you can see the chronology of how this move rolled out via tweets and retweets. And please use the comments for ideas.
[The New York Times reports that Glenn Beck, in his closing speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference described "progressivism" as a cancer, "the disease in America." Let there be no doubt that this is nothing more than the stench of fascism, which relies on treating one's political opponents as what Carl Schmitt, the great (I use that word advisedly) Weimar political theorist (who ended up supporting Hitler's takeover in 1933), termed "enemies" who were viewed ultimately as subhuman (as "cancers" are), ulutimately fit to be eradicated "by any means necessary....
It is past time for Republicans to be called on whether or not they tolerate millions of their fellow citizens being called "cancers" and "diseases." We are indeed in a true moment of cultural and political warfare, in which Glenn Beck has made very clear that he has no regard whatsoever for the most basic notions of civility (which begin by granting the possibility that one's opponents simply disagree rather than are "cancers" to be ripped out of the body politic).
What "Beckism" presages is more terrorist violence like that conducted in Austin, Texas, where a demented citizen flew into an IRS building and killed a true American "hero" a/k/a known as a public servant who had dedicated his life to tax collection. One might remember that Justice Holmes called taxes "the price we pay for civilization." Part of our move toward fascism is to view as "heroes" only those who carry guns and are prepared to risk their lives while preparing to inflict fatal violence on others. We must recognize that all public servants are, in their own ways, "heroes." The Republican Party for the past generation has systematically viewed all public servants, save for the military, as chumps, who if they had any real talent, would be working in the private sector (perhaps in Goldman Sachs, etc.). I truly fear for our country.
Hear! Hear!
We need to dramatically raise the cost for Republicans to continue indulging the growth of protofascism. Dramatically
After seeing Capitalism: A Love Story today, I thought I'd give my own review in response to the one by metamars.
Two big criticisms are made against the otherwise excellent film, only one of which stands up under scrutiny. Yes, Obama is left virtually unscathed by Moore's damning critique of Congressional acquiescence to Wall Street's fear-mongering. As we all witnessed during last year's debacle, Obama was one of the chief proponents of the Wall Street bailout in the U.S. Senate, pushing for the no-strings-attached version that ultimately passed. That Obama is as responsible as any other player in the nation's economic meltdown and the massive swindle that accompanied it cannot be ignored or denied, and Moore's acknowledgment that Wall Street contributed heavily to Obama seems like a punch undeservedly pulled.
The second big critique is that while the film's message rouses outrage, little or nothing is given in the way of what can actually be done about all of it. Having now seen the film myself, I can see all kinds of ways in which We the People can fight back - not the least of which is using the power of the vote. But there's more, much more, that can be done, and Moore illustrates them with great relish.
Factory workers denied their final paychecks when the company shut down its site took barricaded themselves inside and refused to leave until they got the money owed to them.
People whose home was foreclosed upon found aid in the form of an organization formed to keep families in their houses by way of squatting. Police were called out, only to leave without enforcing the order to vacate after it became clear that no one was leaving.
I saw a bread-making factory, a co-op, meaning that each employee owns a piece of that factory and helps run it through a democratic process. The CEO has no more or less say in how the company is run than anyone else, and surprisingly (or so Moore depicts) everyone makes at least a somewhat decent wage.
Last, and by no means least, is the power of the ballot. Moore calls for a democratic revolution in Capitalism: A Love Story, the kind expressed at the ballot box. Yes, We the people do have the power of the vote, and therefore wield far more power collectively than the top one percent of Americans. Why else do you think there is such massive effort expended to disenfranchise us at the polling station? Why else do you think we are encouraged to self-segregate ourselves along racial, religious, and class lines? Why else do you think we are discouraged from even mentioning forming and using third political parties as a means of reshaping the two major ones? It's because the powerful know that if We the People were to truly rise up at election time and vote in genuine representatives to replace the corporate whores, their days of power would be over. Sure, they have the military and gobs of money, but if they were to drop the pretense of democracy by going all-out in their war against us, the rich would lose their only real weapon: our compliance.
Resistance through noncompliance worked for India. It can work for us - if we have the will to use it.
All through the dark years of the Bush Administration, progressives watched in horror as Constitutional protections vanished, nativist rhetoric ratcheted up, hate speech turned into intimidation and violence, and the president of the United States seized for himself powers only demanded by history's worst dictators. With each new outrage, the small handful of us who'd made ourselves experts on right-wing culture and politics would hear once again from worried readers: Is this it? Have we finally become a fascist state? Are we there yet?
Previously, the answer had been "As bad as this looks: no -- we are not there yet.". Now, though...
In tracking the mileage on this trip to perdition, many of us relied on the work of historian Robert Paxton, who is probably the world's pre-eminent scholar on the subject of how countries turn fascist. In a 1998 paper published in The Journal of Modern History [pdf], Paxton argued that the best way to recognize emerging fascist movements isn't by their rhetoric, their politics, or their aesthetics. Rather, he said, mature democracies turn fascist by a recognizable process, a set of five stages that may be the most important family resemblance that links all the whole motley collection of 20th Century fascisms together. According to our reading of Paxton's stages, we weren't there yet. There were certain signs -- one in particular -- we were keeping an eye out for, and we just weren't seeing it.
And now we are. In fact, if you know what you're looking for, it's suddenly everywhere.
Ah, for the good old days when angry white supremacist guys attacked our black President and Latina Supreme Court nominee as racists. That the week before last. This last week its fascist thugs hurling accusations of fascism.
I'm nostalgic for the good old days simply because the new ones have brought us to the brink of mass violence. There have already been some blows, and a hyping of threats (from TPM):
Based on the news that health care events are edging into violence, an anti-health care reform protester in New Mexico named Scott Oskay is calling on his hundreds of online followers to bring firearms to town halls, and to 'badly hurt' SEIU and ACORN counter protesters.
Popularized in part by conservative blogger Michelle Malkin, the hashtag symbol he's using, #iamthemob, has gone viral on twitter, appearing several times a minute according to a recent search.
Anti-reform activists have scheduled a protest outside SEIU Missouri offices tomorrow, and officials there are taking these threats seriously.
On the other hand, there's an upside to this sharply increased threat level, which is two-fold: First, it has the potential to lead to lead to a sharp rejection of what the movement conservatives are up to. Second, it's a whole lot easier to document the projection involved. That's because the dynamic of wealthy special interests supporting street thuggery against "the left" is exactly how both Mussolini and Hitler came to power.
Jewish American peace activist groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) are beginning to become exasperated over Israel's progressive leaning toward ethnocentric fascism, as indicated by this review of recent untoward, anti-democracy developments by the right wing government. Requiring loyalty oaths from Palestinian-Arab citizens, outlawing anniversary celebrations of Nakba Day, the day of the year that Palestinians commemorate the "catastrophe," the ethnic cleansing of 1948, and other rules such as denial of Israel as a Jewish state, which seem intent on discriminating against Israel's minority Arab population, are cited.
Muzzlewatch, JVP's propaganda watch site, recently published this news about what is essentially the curtailment of free speech in Israel.
It has been so easy lately for anyone who disagrees with anyone else in politics to label them as radically as possible. In the past week or so, for instance, I've heard Obama, with his handling of the Economy and his goals for healthcare and education, called a "socialist", a "communist", a "fascist" and other things, some too nasty to mention.
Both parties (the major, parties, that is... the hundreds of mini-parties, those single-issue groupings of certain individuals, are prime offenders at name calling, but have relatively little effect) are guilty of this kind of stuff... and they do it to themselves as well as the other side (just look at what Republicans are doing to Michael Steele and what Paul Krugman is pumping out about Obama.)
Italy today is experiencing an unprecedented racism and xenophobia. What began as a hate for a religion, Islam, has moved on to race, ethnicity and old fashioned hatred of different skin colours.
A Roma (Gypsy) woman in Milan. Recently, the Italian government decided to fingerprint all Gypsies, including children. What began as a targeted campaign against Muslims is now spreading to become a larger, white supremacist movement under color of a Fascist political takeover.
Gabriele Marranci is an anthropologist who was born and raised in Italy. He is currently doing research in Singapore, but he frequently visits and is closely attuned through family and friends to Italy. Link to complete essay after excerpt.
Gabriele Marranci writes: In Italy, in a new and unrecognisable Italy, everybody is losing. Yet only few Italians seem to notice this. Italy is today probably the most concerning and least friendly country of the EU, marked by the return, from bottom-up, of a fascination with a defeating, and defeated, past called Fascism. Notwithstanding the similarity in the terminology, dress styles, and references (the Lega Nord, the most social nationalist party of Italy, has 'green shirts' only because it cannot refer to brown ones), this revival of fascism is not like the historical one.
The progressive stages of xenophobia that has marked the home of pizza and 'bel canto' began with the fear of Muslims and their cultures. The great majority of Italians, though not hating Muslims, have formed chimerias about Islam. Fallaci helped after September 11 to develop them from 'concerns' and 'fear' of a different unknown religion, to hate for whomever practiced that religion. She wished to bomb mosques, or at least one of them. Although Fallaci and others (in particular within the Lega Nord ) were responsible for, not always cleverly disguised, ideological incitement toward violence, there were other individuals who decided (as usually happens) to make real, what Fallaci and others fantasised about.
The reality is that Italians, the majority of them, do not care. Too busy with economic issues and social instability, endemic unemployment, workers alienation and unbelievable exploitation (my sister had to work without salary for months as 'probation' before she was granted a temporary contract of three months), the majority of Italians remain silent; a minority celebrated the beginning of the new crusades, and a few others, often from the radical left, protested. Lega Nord, with the European MP Mario Borghezio took part in the planned, but than forbidden, Nazi event against Islam organized in Cologne. An event that even Robert Spencer felt the need to distance himself from and rejected.
Lega Nord is a social nationalist, populist party, and a dangerous one, whose main force comes from the fear of others and the idea that immigrants can take over the white-celtic man. Vulgar in its language, reminiscent in its populism of Fascism, Lega Nord, mixes a fake Celticism (to replace Aryanism) with a new idea of the- again fake and historically nonexistent- superior nation, the Padania, Lega Nord shifts recently from targeting mainly Muslims to all not-white (hence non-Celtic) foreigners.
Italy today is experiencing an unprecedented (and unusual in its violence even during historical fascism before the German-imposed racial laws) racism and xenophobia. So unexpected and violent has been the phenomenon that even a post-Fascist like Gianfranco Fini (today president of the Parliament) had to raise the alarm. There is no area of Italian civil society which has not been affected by this new wind of xenophobia and violent racism.
Recently during the match for the World Cup qualification in Sofia, the Italian supporters started to invoke the 'Duce', sung 'Fascist songs' and attacked the hosts because they were 'communist', despite the historical changes in Bulgaria. Children are not spared from this white supremacist new culture: finger prints for little Roma (Gypsy) even when they are Italian, vandalism of children's work representing their perception of multiculturalism, attempts to form 'migrants only' classrooms and impose an 'Italian-ness test' for entry into Italian schools on children of legal migrants. I have been informed of racism within school and even Sunday Church schools.
What began as a hate for a religion, Islam, has moved on to race, ethnicity and old fashioned hatred of different skin colours.
Friday, at DKos, BarbinMD sampled the press take on the state of play following Childer's romp in MS-01. In shortened versions, from the New York Times:
Republican defeat... waves of apprehension across an already troubled party... heavy losses in the fall... a once-steadfast Republican district... foreshadowing more losses for the party in November... level of distress was evident... the Republican Party had been severely damaged... could lose 20 seats in the House and 6 in the Senate... putting into play Southern seats that were once solidly Republican... the string of Republican losses suggested a problem with the Republican label... vast dissatisfaction, frustration and discouragement...
Stunned House Republicans... their third straight election defeat in once-friendly territory... the worst since Watergate and far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost 30 seats... President Bush is unpopular... Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee enjoyed a cash advantage of $44 million to $7 million... We're not going to be able to scare people into voting Republican... the loss of three seats in special elections was a significant blow... They are canaries in the coal mine, warning of far greater losses in the fall...
House Republicans turned on themselves yesterday... contemplating widespread Democratic gains in November... decried their leadership as out of touch with the political catastrophe they face... "The Change You Deserve" -- came under mocking fire... mirrors the advertising slogan for the antidepressant Effexor... a deficiency in our message and a loss of confidence in the American people... ..Republican strategists were downcast... fail to understand the deep seeded antipathy toward the President, the war, gas prices, the economy, foreclosures... a tense closed-door meeting... I've never seen members so frustrated or demoralized...
After that, D-Day went on to cite a whole boatload of BushCo dirty laundry that's come out in the last month.
And yet, despite all this whole lotta shakin' goin' on from below, all these cracks in the conservative hegemonic order of things, it's still the case--as I pointed out in a diary last weekend--that "A List of 50 Top Pundits Illustrates Conservative Hegemony In Action". And so it was no surprise that today Glenn Greenwald wrote about the continued prominance given to a kindergarden gay-baiting screed at the Washington Post in place of serious commentary on Edwards' endorsement of Barack Obama.
All of which is to say, this was a week in which the battle-lines of this election cycle were sharply drawn.
Italy's new parliament met for the first time today with applause for Rome's mayor-elect, Gianni Alemanno, a day after followers celebrated his triumph with straight-arm salutes and fascist-era chants.
Alemanno, a former neo-fascist youth leader, took 54% of the vote in a run-off on Sunday and Monday, crushing his rival, Francesco Rutelli, a deputy prime minister in the last, centre-left government.
Silvio Berlusconi, who won a general election earlier this month, welcomed the latest evidence of Italy's leap to the right by declaring: "We are the new Falange". Although he took care to wrap his remark in a classical context, his choice of words appeared to be a nod and a wink to his most extreme supporters.
The original Falange - the word means "phalanx" - was the Spanish fascist party, founded in the 1930s, which supplied Francisco Franco's dictatorship with its ideological underpinning.
The worst days of history are not necessarily behind us, and Western democracies are not necessarily tolerant.
"I don't know what the left wants [but] we are ready," he told reporters. "If they want conflicts, I have 300,000 men always on hand."
On Monday night, the area around Rome's city hall rang to chants of "Duce! Duce!", the term adopted by Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, equivalent to the German "Führer". Supporters of the new mayor gave the fascist Roman straight-arm salutes.
Now that Mr. Reid will be making a critical decision on the FISA legislation and we need so desperately our Representaitives to be vocal about their opposition to immunity, let's be clear about where Kucinich stands:
"I object to any immunity for telecommunications companies and demand a full accounting of these companies' involvement to Congress and to the American public. When corporations cooperate with the government to strip people of their Constitutional rights, that is a text book description of fascism. There must not be any place in America for this type of conduct." -Dennis Kucinich
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