Showing posts with label Fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fascism. Show all posts
Monday, June 15, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The March To Fascism And How To Stop It
People know I've been beating the drum, warning of the Fascist trends in our government which have been building for years and are reaching a crisis.
Jack Gildern did a much better post on this subject than I have called Fascism: Foolish Fallacy Or Frightening Fact. I urge you to read it-please.
He starts with a simple definition of Fascism.
Here is the literal definition of Fascism:
fas⋅cism [fash-iz-uhm]
–noun
1. A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
2. The philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.
Of course, we haven't reached this level yet. Exactly when one says something that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck can be described as a duck is always a judgement call. The problem is--- This is not a duck we are talking about here-- It's Fascism!-- or perhaps some other brand of totalitarianism. We test and test for cancer in a way we don't for colds because- it's a deadly and often fatal disease and when we find it we try to kill it and cut it out. (no that was not just a call to kill the president. Our troubles go much deeper than one man. He was actually elected)
I made two comments that prescribe what I think might be the quickest and most effective way to stop this train and get people to think. You need to read the post and comments for context.
Comment One
"One of the best posts on here ever. I think one of the biggest factors at work here is what Hitler called the big lie. Admiting just how bad, Obama is means confronting our own guilt for having elected him and going deeper into just how the government got this out of control means looking at almost a century of guilt.
We as American's as whole- not all, have betrayed our founders and the basic ideals and foundations our country was founded on in exchange for a few favored programs or vague promises.
People need to stop and admit they live a nearly bankrupt and nearly Fascist country and then decide what role they have played in it and what they are going to do about it.
As, I mentioned before-- I think the Tenth Amendment route might be the fastest clearest way to stop this train. There are states and places in the country where enough broad support for individual rights and the Constitution exists. We need to work from there, to both educate and broaden this base and use it to confront the Monstrous powers in Washington.
After all, the Constitution and the founding documents of the country are on our side. If enough people scream that they really matter, and that the law matters and rights and truth matter, something might be done."
Comment Two
Well, I'm going to have to admit to living in "blue states" all my life in either NY or PA.
But my perception from my reading, interactions and occasional travels is that there really are very large chunks of the country that could almost be called "occupied territory" at this point. I mean when was the last time Wyoming, Utah or Alaska voted blue. I think we need to start from there and work to educate the people about just how deeply damaging the federal occupation of their states has been. Instead of working from positions of weakness, we can start from strength where there is already a lot of political and media support and build on that.
The starting point should be for the "occupied states" to one by one re-affirm their commitment to the original Constitution and it's tenth amendment- which in reality is an implied threat to take the clear course out of the union that the Constitution allows.
Hopefully, a chain of firm resolutions by a large number of states that seem very serious will in itself put a radical brake on things. Remember that just by taking these actions, one is calling attention to all the Constitutional and legal violations, which may help more people in other states to wake up and think deeply about what's going on. This will be hard for the media to ignore.
Remember---the Constitution and all the legal traditions of our country are on our side. Every founding document shows a clear intent to protect individuals from out of control federal power and to protect minorities from a possible tyranical majority.
We can't do this blindly so each resolution needs to state clearly the exact Federal moves that would trigger further action. For example, I think every state should declare federal limitations on free speech and the press to be an instant trigger for further action. Moves against the Second Amendment are in close to the same territory.
Jack Gildern did a much better post on this subject than I have called Fascism: Foolish Fallacy Or Frightening Fact. I urge you to read it-please.
He starts with a simple definition of Fascism.
Here is the literal definition of Fascism:
fas⋅cism [fash-iz-uhm]
–noun
1. A governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.
2. The philosophy, principles, or methods of fascism.
Of course, we haven't reached this level yet. Exactly when one says something that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck can be described as a duck is always a judgement call. The problem is--- This is not a duck we are talking about here-- It's Fascism!-- or perhaps some other brand of totalitarianism. We test and test for cancer in a way we don't for colds because- it's a deadly and often fatal disease and when we find it we try to kill it and cut it out. (no that was not just a call to kill the president. Our troubles go much deeper than one man. He was actually elected)
I made two comments that prescribe what I think might be the quickest and most effective way to stop this train and get people to think. You need to read the post and comments for context.
Comment One
"One of the best posts on here ever. I think one of the biggest factors at work here is what Hitler called the big lie. Admiting just how bad, Obama is means confronting our own guilt for having elected him and going deeper into just how the government got this out of control means looking at almost a century of guilt.
We as American's as whole- not all, have betrayed our founders and the basic ideals and foundations our country was founded on in exchange for a few favored programs or vague promises.
People need to stop and admit they live a nearly bankrupt and nearly Fascist country and then decide what role they have played in it and what they are going to do about it.
As, I mentioned before-- I think the Tenth Amendment route might be the fastest clearest way to stop this train. There are states and places in the country where enough broad support for individual rights and the Constitution exists. We need to work from there, to both educate and broaden this base and use it to confront the Monstrous powers in Washington.
After all, the Constitution and the founding documents of the country are on our side. If enough people scream that they really matter, and that the law matters and rights and truth matter, something might be done."
Comment Two
Well, I'm going to have to admit to living in "blue states" all my life in either NY or PA.
But my perception from my reading, interactions and occasional travels is that there really are very large chunks of the country that could almost be called "occupied territory" at this point. I mean when was the last time Wyoming, Utah or Alaska voted blue. I think we need to start from there and work to educate the people about just how deeply damaging the federal occupation of their states has been. Instead of working from positions of weakness, we can start from strength where there is already a lot of political and media support and build on that.
The starting point should be for the "occupied states" to one by one re-affirm their commitment to the original Constitution and it's tenth amendment- which in reality is an implied threat to take the clear course out of the union that the Constitution allows.
Hopefully, a chain of firm resolutions by a large number of states that seem very serious will in itself put a radical brake on things. Remember that just by taking these actions, one is calling attention to all the Constitutional and legal violations, which may help more people in other states to wake up and think deeply about what's going on. This will be hard for the media to ignore.
Remember---the Constitution and all the legal traditions of our country are on our side. Every founding document shows a clear intent to protect individuals from out of control federal power and to protect minorities from a possible tyranical majority.
We can't do this blindly so each resolution needs to state clearly the exact Federal moves that would trigger further action. For example, I think every state should declare federal limitations on free speech and the press to be an instant trigger for further action. Moves against the Second Amendment are in close to the same territory.
Fighting The "Right Wing" Slur
This is a follow up to my earlier post about the misuse of the term "Right Wing".
"You can't get out of school without learning that the term "Right Wing" is a synonym for a close minded, hateful Fascist. Politics, education and media have been so long dominated by the left, creating a situation in which alternate views could be distorted, since people rarely saw them in the flesh. The recent European elections provide a chance to see that views often grouped together as "far right", have little in common."
Even though the European elections brought strong gains for the Tory party and other conventional groups supporting ideas like greater individual freedom and lower taxes, the coverage of the win has focused on one very dark and grim shadow in the form of gains by a truely racist party with links to Nazism as well as a few similar groups across Europe.
I can't fully agree with Daniel Hannan on this one. Even relatively small gains by a party as nasty as the BNP are no joke anywhere, let alone in a place with the history Europe has.(video made before election)
Still, I don't think the article, after article, after article of coverage, particularly in the traditionaly Socialist and pro Labour press is exactly innocent.
"Why do the pundits do it? Partly, to show what nice people they are ("I hate those evil fascists even more than he does!") Partly because some commentators wish that they had had the chance to be part of a struggle against Nazism and, not finding much by way of a genuine fascist menace, build up the paltry BNP as the next best thing. Partly, too, because the BNP is a handy card for quangocrats and their supporters to play against localism ("you couldn't possibly have elected police chiefs; what if the BNP won?")
Above all, though, the BNP is used as an indirect weapon against the mainstream Right. You will have noticed that the party is almost never mentioned without the soubriquet "far Right". The BNP doesn't call itself Right-wing, of course. It favours nationalisation, higher taxes, protectionism and (though it keeps quiet about this) republicanism. It markets itself as "the Labour Party your parents voted for". Its manifesto calls for "the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports," and promises to "restore our economy and land to British ownership" and "to give workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises whose profits their labour creates by encouraging worker shareholder and co-operative schemes".
For years now, long before the BNP had gained almost any traction, Labour leaders and their allies have been giving them press. Tony Brown urged people to the polls to vote against the BNP as have all kinds of musicians, actors and pop star celebrities. As well as well funded website-- called "Hope Not Hate".
Each story is a chance to use the terms "Hate", "Right Wing", "Extreme Right Wing" Racist and Fascist again, hoping people link "Right Wing" and bad. Of course a real examination of the BNP's stated platform might show how similar it is to that of the left so no real discussion is allowed. They are racist, hatefull, Fascist and "Right Wing" so they should be banned and not talked about except by us in thousands of short blurbs saying just how right wing and bad they are-- is the spin.
I'll use the a metaphore to try to explain how we got here.
In the Socialist's ideal world we all sit around a huge collective pot into which everyone has thrown their earnings, sweat and labor. From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs.
This blissfull state is usually painted as the end of all troubles since everyone has overcome their "selfishness and greed" to join hands in this hopeful new world. We joyfully wait our turn and watch the poorest exploited folks around the world get served first and then our own poor and then- well it's a long wait.
The big trouble in housing estates in places like Leeds and Manchester is that this waiting around the bowl thing is nothing new. These are the places Labour has controlled for close to a century. They know the game too well. From the lines for places in crime infested public housing to lines for the poor quality national health system, they have seen it all, and know very well the watery drool left in the bowl when they get to it. Now that Europe's already collectivist states have joined together into a grand union run by an even more opaque and elitist bureaucracy, their chances of getting anything seem even slimmer.
If a lot of the traditional left's support comes from people still drunk on Kool Aid and U2 songs, then the BNP's supporters come from people who aren't drunk anymore. Most of them are not well educated, but they know from common sense and personal experience that their countries can't afford to support everyone in the world through foreign aid or allow all of the world's poorest refugees in--and support them on the dole.
They haven't given up as collectivists since that's what they know and were taught was right, but they are now working to protect the people they know; their family; their tribe; their race. Screaming, chanting groups always get the good stuff out of the bowl. Then in walk the true Fascist's who tell them that real men just join a gang and grab the bowl and that history is an endless war between national and racial gangs. This is what is happening.
The only real antidote to this insanity is a system of objective laws to protect the individual's, not the group's rights to their own life, liberty and property. The smear campaign to imply a connection between the growing worldwide movement towards liberty and Fascist groups like the BNP cannot be allowed to stand.
"You can't get out of school without learning that the term "Right Wing" is a synonym for a close minded, hateful Fascist. Politics, education and media have been so long dominated by the left, creating a situation in which alternate views could be distorted, since people rarely saw them in the flesh. The recent European elections provide a chance to see that views often grouped together as "far right", have little in common."
Even though the European elections brought strong gains for the Tory party and other conventional groups supporting ideas like greater individual freedom and lower taxes, the coverage of the win has focused on one very dark and grim shadow in the form of gains by a truely racist party with links to Nazism as well as a few similar groups across Europe.
I can't fully agree with Daniel Hannan on this one. Even relatively small gains by a party as nasty as the BNP are no joke anywhere, let alone in a place with the history Europe has.(video made before election)
Still, I don't think the article, after article, after article of coverage, particularly in the traditionaly Socialist and pro Labour press is exactly innocent.
"Why do the pundits do it? Partly, to show what nice people they are ("I hate those evil fascists even more than he does!") Partly because some commentators wish that they had had the chance to be part of a struggle against Nazism and, not finding much by way of a genuine fascist menace, build up the paltry BNP as the next best thing. Partly, too, because the BNP is a handy card for quangocrats and their supporters to play against localism ("you couldn't possibly have elected police chiefs; what if the BNP won?")
Above all, though, the BNP is used as an indirect weapon against the mainstream Right. You will have noticed that the party is almost never mentioned without the soubriquet "far Right". The BNP doesn't call itself Right-wing, of course. It favours nationalisation, higher taxes, protectionism and (though it keeps quiet about this) republicanism. It markets itself as "the Labour Party your parents voted for". Its manifesto calls for "the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports," and promises to "restore our economy and land to British ownership" and "to give workers a stake in the success and prosperity of the enterprises whose profits their labour creates by encouraging worker shareholder and co-operative schemes".
For years now, long before the BNP had gained almost any traction, Labour leaders and their allies have been giving them press. Tony Brown urged people to the polls to vote against the BNP as have all kinds of musicians, actors and pop star celebrities. As well as well funded website-- called "Hope Not Hate".
Each story is a chance to use the terms "Hate", "Right Wing", "Extreme Right Wing" Racist and Fascist again, hoping people link "Right Wing" and bad. Of course a real examination of the BNP's stated platform might show how similar it is to that of the left so no real discussion is allowed. They are racist, hatefull, Fascist and "Right Wing" so they should be banned and not talked about except by us in thousands of short blurbs saying just how right wing and bad they are-- is the spin.
I'll use the a metaphore to try to explain how we got here.
In the Socialist's ideal world we all sit around a huge collective pot into which everyone has thrown their earnings, sweat and labor. From each according to his ability. To each according to his needs.
This blissfull state is usually painted as the end of all troubles since everyone has overcome their "selfishness and greed" to join hands in this hopeful new world. We joyfully wait our turn and watch the poorest exploited folks around the world get served first and then our own poor and then- well it's a long wait.
The big trouble in housing estates in places like Leeds and Manchester is that this waiting around the bowl thing is nothing new. These are the places Labour has controlled for close to a century. They know the game too well. From the lines for places in crime infested public housing to lines for the poor quality national health system, they have seen it all, and know very well the watery drool left in the bowl when they get to it. Now that Europe's already collectivist states have joined together into a grand union run by an even more opaque and elitist bureaucracy, their chances of getting anything seem even slimmer.
If a lot of the traditional left's support comes from people still drunk on Kool Aid and U2 songs, then the BNP's supporters come from people who aren't drunk anymore. Most of them are not well educated, but they know from common sense and personal experience that their countries can't afford to support everyone in the world through foreign aid or allow all of the world's poorest refugees in--and support them on the dole.
They haven't given up as collectivists since that's what they know and were taught was right, but they are now working to protect the people they know; their family; their tribe; their race. Screaming, chanting groups always get the good stuff out of the bowl. Then in walk the true Fascist's who tell them that real men just join a gang and grab the bowl and that history is an endless war between national and racial gangs. This is what is happening.
The only real antidote to this insanity is a system of objective laws to protect the individual's, not the group's rights to their own life, liberty and property. The smear campaign to imply a connection between the growing worldwide movement towards liberty and Fascist groups like the BNP cannot be allowed to stand.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
What Does "Right Wing" Mean?
This is also something I first put on Smart Girl Politics.
You can't get out of school without learning that the term "Right Wing" is a synonym for a close minded, hateful Fascist. Politics, education and media have been so long dominated by the left, creating a situation in which alternate views could be distorted, since people rarely saw them in the flesh. The recent European elections provide a chance to see that views often grouped together as "far right", have little in common.
Labour and other left wing parties hoped to pose as the alternative to extreme parties like the British National Party.
The BNP, can rightly be called hateful and racist.
"According to its constitution, the BNP is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948."[15] The BNP also proposes "firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home."[16]
It advocates the repeal of all anti-discrimination legislation, and restricts party membership to "indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’". The BNP also accepts white immigrants that are assimilated into one of those ethnicities.[15]"
Further on in the Wikipedia one can see a past linked to anti-semitism although right now they claim to hate muslims more.
"In 1988, The Sunday Times revealed that Holocaust News, a publication that claimed the holocaust was an "evil hoax", was being published by the BNP's then deputy leader, Richard Edmonds, on behalf of a BNP front organisation, the Centre for Historical Review, and distributed by members. John Tyndall, the party's leader, said he was not involved in the publication but that it had his full support.[39]
The 2002 Channel 4 documentary Young, Nazi and Proud featured hidden-camera footage of the then BNP youth leader Mark Collett stating his admiration for Adolf Hitler, and stating "I'd never say this on camera, the Jews have been thrown out of every country including England. It's not just persecution. There's no smoke without fire." It also featured footage of visitors to the party's annual 'Red White and Blue' festival, some of whom wore the legend "88" (code for HH, "Heil Hitler").[40] Collett resigned from the party after the documentary's filming, but rejoined shortly afterwards, with Nick Griffin's approval, on the condition that Collett changed his views on the subject."
But even a mild look at the rest of the party platform has to make one wonder why it's described as being "right wing".
The BNP, endorses high protectionist tarrifs and policies like this.
"Central to the BNP's domestic policies are greater share ownership and the establishment of worker co-operatives. The party advocates the provision of extra resources for "especially gifted children" and the reversal of closures of special needs schools.[16] It has proposed that repossessed homes should become council houses, to prevent these being sold off cheaply to undercut private sellers, and to provide housing for those who need it.[95]
The party supports animal welfare (such as the banning of Halal and Kosher slaughtering and the phasing out of factory farming) and environmental policies, supporting Greenpeace in its fight against Japanese whaling ships and the RSPCA's campaign against the docking of dogs' tails. [96]"
Huh? Do restrictions on free trade and "workers co-operatives sound a bit Socialist to you? Well, they are! In fact, the whole concept of judging people by race or group identity is collectivist at it's core.
Really, there is no logical basis for linking the BNP with the Tories, The Independence Party or most other Conservative parties- except to create a smear.The BNP is a classic "Fascist Party", much like the National Socialist party of Germany and the party who gave us Apartheid in South Africa under the strange banner-- Workers of the World Unite For A White South Africa.
You can't get out of school without learning that the term "Right Wing" is a synonym for a close minded, hateful Fascist. Politics, education and media have been so long dominated by the left, creating a situation in which alternate views could be distorted, since people rarely saw them in the flesh. The recent European elections provide a chance to see that views often grouped together as "far right", have little in common.
Labour and other left wing parties hoped to pose as the alternative to extreme parties like the British National Party.
The BNP, can rightly be called hateful and racist.
"According to its constitution, the BNP is "committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration and to restoring, by legal changes, negotiation and consent the overwhelmingly white makeup of the British population that existed in Britain prior to 1948."[15] The BNP also proposes "firm but voluntary incentives for immigrants and their descendants to return home."[16]
It advocates the repeal of all anti-discrimination legislation, and restricts party membership to "indigenous British ethnic groups deriving from the class of ‘Indigenous Caucasian’". The BNP also accepts white immigrants that are assimilated into one of those ethnicities.[15]"
Further on in the Wikipedia one can see a past linked to anti-semitism although right now they claim to hate muslims more.
"In 1988, The Sunday Times revealed that Holocaust News, a publication that claimed the holocaust was an "evil hoax", was being published by the BNP's then deputy leader, Richard Edmonds, on behalf of a BNP front organisation, the Centre for Historical Review, and distributed by members. John Tyndall, the party's leader, said he was not involved in the publication but that it had his full support.[39]
The 2002 Channel 4 documentary Young, Nazi and Proud featured hidden-camera footage of the then BNP youth leader Mark Collett stating his admiration for Adolf Hitler, and stating "I'd never say this on camera, the Jews have been thrown out of every country including England. It's not just persecution. There's no smoke without fire." It also featured footage of visitors to the party's annual 'Red White and Blue' festival, some of whom wore the legend "88" (code for HH, "Heil Hitler").[40] Collett resigned from the party after the documentary's filming, but rejoined shortly afterwards, with Nick Griffin's approval, on the condition that Collett changed his views on the subject."
But even a mild look at the rest of the party platform has to make one wonder why it's described as being "right wing".
The BNP, endorses high protectionist tarrifs and policies like this.
"Central to the BNP's domestic policies are greater share ownership and the establishment of worker co-operatives. The party advocates the provision of extra resources for "especially gifted children" and the reversal of closures of special needs schools.[16] It has proposed that repossessed homes should become council houses, to prevent these being sold off cheaply to undercut private sellers, and to provide housing for those who need it.[95]
The party supports animal welfare (such as the banning of Halal and Kosher slaughtering and the phasing out of factory farming) and environmental policies, supporting Greenpeace in its fight against Japanese whaling ships and the RSPCA's campaign against the docking of dogs' tails. [96]"
Huh? Do restrictions on free trade and "workers co-operatives sound a bit Socialist to you? Well, they are! In fact, the whole concept of judging people by race or group identity is collectivist at it's core.
Really, there is no logical basis for linking the BNP with the Tories, The Independence Party or most other Conservative parties- except to create a smear.The BNP is a classic "Fascist Party", much like the National Socialist party of Germany and the party who gave us Apartheid in South Africa under the strange banner-- Workers of the World Unite For A White South Africa.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Some Thoughts On Sonya Sotomayor
I haven't had time to fully explore the record and views of Obama's Supreme court nominee, but the little I know so far strongly supports my view that Obama can be best described as a Fascist. Here are two previous posts that touch on how fascists and other totalitarians view the law.
Obama Admits To An Illegal, Unconstitutional Agenda
My previous posts, here, here, here and here are filled with dozens of quotes from the nation's founders, showed the pretty stark difference between their ideas and those that seem to drive most politicians today. These ideas were the basis of our Constitution, a document that is supposed to be the supreme law of the land.
In this Interview from 2001, Obama a legal scholar, admits openly that his goals to redistribute wealth are in conflict with the Constitution which was clearly designed to restrain government power. Little, we have seen since indicates things are different now.
I know that far to few Americans on either party have bothered to obey or perhaps even read our Constitution and most have seen power as a tool to do whatever they wished, always in the firm confidence that they would always be the ones wielding it. I hope we have finally woken up.
PPIC And More FDIC Lies (extended quote)
I have to be honest here. I have had strong fears for years that America is sliding rapidly towards fascism or some form of totalitarian government.
One of the biggest myths about this type of regime is that one can spot it by proliferation and strength of it's laws. In fact, totalitarian states are places in which the law is the whim of the king or dictator. Our founders feared this situation and tied leaders to the law with very few "ifs ands or buts". The president, legislators, police and government officials pledge allegiance to the law. Emergency powers are very limited and for the most part were only for use during war.
In contrast, let's look at some fascist and pro fascist political views.
Carl Schmidt
"In 1921, Schmitt became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he published his essay "Die Diktatur" ("On Dictatorship"), in which he discussed the foundations of the newly-established Weimar Republic, emphasising the office of the Reichspräsident. In this essay, Schmitt compared and contrasted what he saw as the effective and ineffective elements of the new constitution of his country. To him, the office of the president could be characterized as a comparatively effective element within the new constitution, because of the power granted to the president to declare a state of emergency. This power, which Schmitt discussed and implicitly praised as dictatorial, was seen as more effective, more in line with the underlying mentality of political power, than the comparatively slow and ineffective processes of legislative political power reached through parliamentary discussion and compromise.
Schmitt was at pains to remove what he saw as a squeamish taboo surrounding the concept of "dictatorship" and to show that, in his eyes, the concept is implicit whenever power is wielded through pathways outside the slow and rusty processes of parliamentary politics:
“If the constitution of a state is democratic, then every exceptional negation of democratic principles, every exercise of state power independent of the approval of the majority, can be called dictatorship.”[citation needed]
For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Although the German concept of Ausnahmezustand is best translated as "state of emergency", it literally means state of exception which,according to Schmitt, frees the executive from any legal restraints to its power that would normally apply. The use of the term "exceptional" has to be underlined here: Schmitt defines sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben has noted. According to Agamben[1], Schmitt's conceptualization of the "state of exception" as belonging to the core-concept of sovereignty was a response to Walter Benjamin's concept of a "pure" or "revolutionary" violence, which didn't enter into any relationship whatsoever with right. Through the state of exception, Schmitt included all types of violence under right. According to Giorgio Agamben, this kind of violence, which necessarily bears a juridical value, is another example of the fusion of right to "bare life" (It. vita nuda, Grk. zoe) that transforms the juridical system into a "death machine," able to perform acts of pure violence as needed for self-legitimation, creating Homo sacer, a being that cannot be "murdered" or "sacrificed" but only killed.
Schmitt opposed what he called "chief constable dictature", or the declaration of a state of emergency in order to save the legal order (a temporary suspension of law, defined itself by moral or legal right): the state of emergency is limited (even if a posteriori, by law), to "sovereign dictature", in which law was suspended, as in the classical state of exception, not to "save the Constitution", but rather to create another Constitution. This is how he theorized Hitler's continual suspension of the legal constitutional order during the Third Reich (the Weimar Republic's Constitution was never abrogated, underlined Giorgio Agamben;[2][citation needed] rather, it was "suspended" for four years, first at February 28, 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, with the suspension renewed every four years, implying a -- continual -- state of emergency)."
Benito Mussolini (actual quote)
"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.... "
I won't go on endlessly about this, power unlimited by law is the defining aspect of all tyranny. At it's most extreme we have the Fuhrer Principle.
"The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors. The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to no one. Giorgio Agamben has argued that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law itself. The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today. The justification for the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors supposedly produced order and prosperity in which those deemed 'worthy' would share."
Tragically, Obama's pick also displays not just a disregard for the constitution and the rule of law, but another ingredient common to most Fascists; racism.
Obama Admits To An Illegal, Unconstitutional Agenda
My previous posts, here, here, here and here are filled with dozens of quotes from the nation's founders, showed the pretty stark difference between their ideas and those that seem to drive most politicians today. These ideas were the basis of our Constitution, a document that is supposed to be the supreme law of the land.
In this Interview from 2001, Obama a legal scholar, admits openly that his goals to redistribute wealth are in conflict with the Constitution which was clearly designed to restrain government power. Little, we have seen since indicates things are different now.
I know that far to few Americans on either party have bothered to obey or perhaps even read our Constitution and most have seen power as a tool to do whatever they wished, always in the firm confidence that they would always be the ones wielding it. I hope we have finally woken up.
PPIC And More FDIC Lies (extended quote)
I have to be honest here. I have had strong fears for years that America is sliding rapidly towards fascism or some form of totalitarian government.
One of the biggest myths about this type of regime is that one can spot it by proliferation and strength of it's laws. In fact, totalitarian states are places in which the law is the whim of the king or dictator. Our founders feared this situation and tied leaders to the law with very few "ifs ands or buts". The president, legislators, police and government officials pledge allegiance to the law. Emergency powers are very limited and for the most part were only for use during war.
In contrast, let's look at some fascist and pro fascist political views.
Carl Schmidt
"In 1921, Schmitt became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he published his essay "Die Diktatur" ("On Dictatorship"), in which he discussed the foundations of the newly-established Weimar Republic, emphasising the office of the Reichspräsident. In this essay, Schmitt compared and contrasted what he saw as the effective and ineffective elements of the new constitution of his country. To him, the office of the president could be characterized as a comparatively effective element within the new constitution, because of the power granted to the president to declare a state of emergency. This power, which Schmitt discussed and implicitly praised as dictatorial, was seen as more effective, more in line with the underlying mentality of political power, than the comparatively slow and ineffective processes of legislative political power reached through parliamentary discussion and compromise.
Schmitt was at pains to remove what he saw as a squeamish taboo surrounding the concept of "dictatorship" and to show that, in his eyes, the concept is implicit whenever power is wielded through pathways outside the slow and rusty processes of parliamentary politics:
“If the constitution of a state is democratic, then every exceptional negation of democratic principles, every exercise of state power independent of the approval of the majority, can be called dictatorship.”[citation needed]
For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Although the German concept of Ausnahmezustand is best translated as "state of emergency", it literally means state of exception which,according to Schmitt, frees the executive from any legal restraints to its power that would normally apply. The use of the term "exceptional" has to be underlined here: Schmitt defines sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben has noted. According to Agamben[1], Schmitt's conceptualization of the "state of exception" as belonging to the core-concept of sovereignty was a response to Walter Benjamin's concept of a "pure" or "revolutionary" violence, which didn't enter into any relationship whatsoever with right. Through the state of exception, Schmitt included all types of violence under right. According to Giorgio Agamben, this kind of violence, which necessarily bears a juridical value, is another example of the fusion of right to "bare life" (It. vita nuda, Grk. zoe) that transforms the juridical system into a "death machine," able to perform acts of pure violence as needed for self-legitimation, creating Homo sacer, a being that cannot be "murdered" or "sacrificed" but only killed.
Schmitt opposed what he called "chief constable dictature", or the declaration of a state of emergency in order to save the legal order (a temporary suspension of law, defined itself by moral or legal right): the state of emergency is limited (even if a posteriori, by law), to "sovereign dictature", in which law was suspended, as in the classical state of exception, not to "save the Constitution", but rather to create another Constitution. This is how he theorized Hitler's continual suspension of the legal constitutional order during the Third Reich (the Weimar Republic's Constitution was never abrogated, underlined Giorgio Agamben;[2][citation needed] rather, it was "suspended" for four years, first at February 28, 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, with the suspension renewed every four years, implying a -- continual -- state of emergency)."
Benito Mussolini (actual quote)
"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.... "
I won't go on endlessly about this, power unlimited by law is the defining aspect of all tyranny. At it's most extreme we have the Fuhrer Principle.
"The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors. The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to no one. Giorgio Agamben has argued that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law itself. The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today. The justification for the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors supposedly produced order and prosperity in which those deemed 'worthy' would share."
Tragically, Obama's pick also displays not just a disregard for the constitution and the rule of law, but another ingredient common to most Fascists; racism.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Another "Racist Rant"
Obviously, the thoughts expressed in this short interview are not racist, if anything they are just boring basic views held by most people. Like you may have to live within your budget.
What interviews like this show, is just how- extreme, risky and cutting edge, Obama's agenda is. The more than slightly fanatical resolve to paint all conflicting views as racist,unpatriotic or ill informed will hopefully not work and more people will fell free to share their real opinions and concerns-- even in Hollywood.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Silence = Death No More: Pension Funds Speak Up About Chrysler Bankruptcy
I was too depressed and upset to air my feelings when the few remaining Chrysler creditors were threatened into giving in to Obama's illegal Chrysler "deal".
Thankfully, several major pension and retirement plans in the state of Indiana have filed to protect their legally binding contractual rights.
Obama and his administration have tried to paint this as a dispute between "greedy" investors most of whom must be "filthy rich" and poor, helpless union workers. But in fact, these investors were acting on behalf of a wide range of retires and investors whose assets they had a fiduciary duty to protect and who made investments based on what they thought were legally binding criteria.
"Funds representing Indiana teachers and police, as well as a construction infrastructure fund, are seeking the appointment of a trustee in the Chrysler case to protect their rights as holders of first-lien loans to the bankrupt carmaker. They are arguing that the federal government is violating their rights by giving more junior creditors, like the United Auto Workers union, greater recovery on their debt, and that the government is improperly using federal bailout money earmarked for banks to prop up Chrysler.
The pension funds are also seeking to move the Chrysler case to federal district court, a higher authority than the bankruptcy court, to deal with what they argue are constitutional issues.
“As fiduciaries, we can’t allow our retired police officers and teachers to be ripped off by the federal government,” Richard Mourdock, Indiana’s treasurer, said in a statement. “The Indiana state funds suffered losses when the Obama administration overturned more than 100 years of established law by redefining ‘secured creditors’ to mean something less.”"
Of course, the courts which many think are there to protect our rights and enforce the law are looking for excuses to let the law breakers operate at will. They have long since agreed that the executive branch is above the law since it's an emergency, Obama and his pals know better and shouldn't be restrained by the law.
And so it is that one of the last nation's of law has become just another lawless state ruled by imperial whim.
Thankfully, several major pension and retirement plans in the state of Indiana have filed to protect their legally binding contractual rights.
Obama and his administration have tried to paint this as a dispute between "greedy" investors most of whom must be "filthy rich" and poor, helpless union workers. But in fact, these investors were acting on behalf of a wide range of retires and investors whose assets they had a fiduciary duty to protect and who made investments based on what they thought were legally binding criteria.
"Funds representing Indiana teachers and police, as well as a construction infrastructure fund, are seeking the appointment of a trustee in the Chrysler case to protect their rights as holders of first-lien loans to the bankrupt carmaker. They are arguing that the federal government is violating their rights by giving more junior creditors, like the United Auto Workers union, greater recovery on their debt, and that the government is improperly using federal bailout money earmarked for banks to prop up Chrysler.
The pension funds are also seeking to move the Chrysler case to federal district court, a higher authority than the bankruptcy court, to deal with what they argue are constitutional issues.
“As fiduciaries, we can’t allow our retired police officers and teachers to be ripped off by the federal government,” Richard Mourdock, Indiana’s treasurer, said in a statement. “The Indiana state funds suffered losses when the Obama administration overturned more than 100 years of established law by redefining ‘secured creditors’ to mean something less.”"
Of course, the courts which many think are there to protect our rights and enforce the law are looking for excuses to let the law breakers operate at will. They have long since agreed that the executive branch is above the law since it's an emergency, Obama and his pals know better and shouldn't be restrained by the law.
And so it is that one of the last nation's of law has become just another lawless state ruled by imperial whim.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Rule Of Law Vs. Rule Of Thugs
No time to do a more complete comment on this, but David Frum, nailed a real good post about Obama's recent assault on (what's left of) the rule of law.
As a strong Libertarian Republican, I've been very angry about both parties disregard for the rule of law. But, the recent moves by Obama have taken this to a new level. The hide in the cave crowd, which looked so loony to most can now make a strong case that a fully totalitarian state is now weeks or months away.
The thing to understand is that given what we know about what Obama has done already, we can only assume it's the tip of the Iceberg. One thing is clear, this administration -- always thinks the ends justify the means which is the central maxim of the dictator.
Frum focuses on the recent Chrysler "deal" and his threat to withhold Simulus money if California cuts the pay of union workers but sadly one can come up with many, many, many more examples.
Chrysler "deal"
"The trouble was: those assets belonged to somebody else. They belonged to the company's bondholders, who had a legal first claim. Under the administration's plan, those senior-secured creditors would have received just 29¢ on the dollar.
For a failing company to shuffle assets so as to favor some creditors over others with a stronger claim is a very serious wrong, potentially even a crime. There's a sound economic reason for this rule of law: Bondholders accept lower returns in good times in exchange for greater security in bad times. Protecting bondholders in bad times ensures that future borrowers will be able to borrow in good times."
California "deal"
"The state of California faces a desperate fiscal situation. California now has the worst credit rating of any American state. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic majority legislature have struggled to balance the books, as they are constitutionally obliged to do. They have raised taxes dramatically, but they have also cut some programs. Among the cuts: a $2-an-hour cut in the wages of home health-care workers.
Those workers were unionized, and their union -- the Service Employees International Union - carries clout in Obama's Washington. On Thursday, California state officials told the Los Angeles Times that they had received a warning: The federal government would deny California $6.8-billion in stimulus funds unless the wage cut was rescinded. Since the wage cut will save only about $74-million, the state will have little choice but to surrender."
What's happening is a clear pattern of intimidation using all the force of the state sending the message-- do what we say- or else!
As a strong Libertarian Republican, I've been very angry about both parties disregard for the rule of law. But, the recent moves by Obama have taken this to a new level. The hide in the cave crowd, which looked so loony to most can now make a strong case that a fully totalitarian state is now weeks or months away.
The thing to understand is that given what we know about what Obama has done already, we can only assume it's the tip of the Iceberg. One thing is clear, this administration -- always thinks the ends justify the means which is the central maxim of the dictator.
Frum focuses on the recent Chrysler "deal" and his threat to withhold Simulus money if California cuts the pay of union workers but sadly one can come up with many, many, many more examples.
Chrysler "deal"
"The trouble was: those assets belonged to somebody else. They belonged to the company's bondholders, who had a legal first claim. Under the administration's plan, those senior-secured creditors would have received just 29¢ on the dollar.
For a failing company to shuffle assets so as to favor some creditors over others with a stronger claim is a very serious wrong, potentially even a crime. There's a sound economic reason for this rule of law: Bondholders accept lower returns in good times in exchange for greater security in bad times. Protecting bondholders in bad times ensures that future borrowers will be able to borrow in good times."
California "deal"
"The state of California faces a desperate fiscal situation. California now has the worst credit rating of any American state. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Democratic majority legislature have struggled to balance the books, as they are constitutionally obliged to do. They have raised taxes dramatically, but they have also cut some programs. Among the cuts: a $2-an-hour cut in the wages of home health-care workers.
Those workers were unionized, and their union -- the Service Employees International Union - carries clout in Obama's Washington. On Thursday, California state officials told the Los Angeles Times that they had received a warning: The federal government would deny California $6.8-billion in stimulus funds unless the wage cut was rescinded. Since the wage cut will save only about $74-million, the state will have little choice but to surrender."
What's happening is a clear pattern of intimidation using all the force of the state sending the message-- do what we say- or else!
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Independent Media In A Fascist State
I want to do a more detailed post on this subject, but here are a few thoughts.
Our founders had a very clear opinion that all rights and liberties were interconnected and that attacks one right one would cause the collapse of all others. For example, they didn't think a person, company or group could keep their independence from the state without an absolute right to their private property and contract rights. How could a newspaper, or any person be fully free from government coercion in a place where, the state controlled media licenses which they could pull at will, or provided subsidies and hand outs.
Th Fascist state goes to great extremes to make sure that nothing and nobody can be fully independent but it doesn't always do this by directly seizing all private property. Instead it uses a process of subsidies, licenses and other state powers to threaten and control the flow of ideas, much like the king did only on a bigger scale.
Please keep this in mind when looking at current media reporting. The three major networks are always under the threat of having their licenses revoked if they don't act in whatever the current leader or gang considers "the public interest".
Of course, we know on top of this, there is now "public TV" and "public radio" which get a large chunk of their money directly from the government which should, for any sane person exclude them as a possibly objective source of news about the state.
However, the ever increasing bailouts have added a new ingredient to the mix.
Can GE, which owns NBC and MSNBC and other media assets, really be considered an independent company anymore? Remember, that GE has taken billions of dollars in TARP money to shore up it's troubled and huge GE Capital unit. It's also almost surely on the "too big to fail list" of companies that administration has said will never be allowed to go down. How many of their toxic assets have been bought by the FED is a secret as are those of many huge banks that owe it money in some way.
Add to this the fact that GE is also a huge defense contractor and has a host of units hoping to cash in on "stimulus spending" and you have to question if it can have any independence at all.
Our founders had a very clear opinion that all rights and liberties were interconnected and that attacks one right one would cause the collapse of all others. For example, they didn't think a person, company or group could keep their independence from the state without an absolute right to their private property and contract rights. How could a newspaper, or any person be fully free from government coercion in a place where, the state controlled media licenses which they could pull at will, or provided subsidies and hand outs.
Th Fascist state goes to great extremes to make sure that nothing and nobody can be fully independent but it doesn't always do this by directly seizing all private property. Instead it uses a process of subsidies, licenses and other state powers to threaten and control the flow of ideas, much like the king did only on a bigger scale.
Please keep this in mind when looking at current media reporting. The three major networks are always under the threat of having their licenses revoked if they don't act in whatever the current leader or gang considers "the public interest".
Of course, we know on top of this, there is now "public TV" and "public radio" which get a large chunk of their money directly from the government which should, for any sane person exclude them as a possibly objective source of news about the state.
However, the ever increasing bailouts have added a new ingredient to the mix.
Can GE, which owns NBC and MSNBC and other media assets, really be considered an independent company anymore? Remember, that GE has taken billions of dollars in TARP money to shore up it's troubled and huge GE Capital unit. It's also almost surely on the "too big to fail list" of companies that administration has said will never be allowed to go down. How many of their toxic assets have been bought by the FED is a secret as are those of many huge banks that owe it money in some way.
Add to this the fact that GE is also a huge defense contractor and has a host of units hoping to cash in on "stimulus spending" and you have to question if it can have any independence at all.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Why Do People Vote For Collectivists?
This post was originally posted on Tea Party Patriots.
One of the great mysteries in social and political science is that a large number of people who personally, experienced the failures and horrors of Collectivist rule still want more of it. This is obviously one of the reasons.
"In contrast, the enlargement of the state always means an attack on responsibility. Under a communist regime, self-responsibility is eliminated. The more a government intrudes into citizens’ lives, the less people feel a sense of responsibility for their actions. Bureaucrats do not typically have full responsibility for their actions. Politicians, central bankers, and judges do not pay for their mistakes. They experience a kind of immunity from bearing blame for the consequences of their actions during the time they are in power.
The same holds true for police officials, public surgeons, public school teachers, etc. All mistakes that are made by public employees are often paid for by others. The bill is paid by taxpayers, by people sent to jail mistakenly, by people killed in public hospitals, by Iraqi citizens, etc. Not even people who earn private salaries are fully responsible under the State. Under the larger and larger safety nets created by the state, firms get more and more dependant on public help in order to survive. Big companies lobby for subsidies, duties on imports, and other kinds of help. Banks and large industries such as airlines hope to be declared “too big to fail.”
Individuals are also less and less responsible. In Europe many people grow up with the idea that the State owes them something: jobs, health, free education, vacations, happiness, and deliverance from despair. People are led to believe that the State will always care about their problems and address their community concerns. People are made to believe that whatever they do (they lose their job, they get sick, they become depressed) the State will be there to help.
The perverse result of all this is that citizens no longer bear full responsibility for their actions. All this can be explained through the concept of the moral hazard. The mechanism works as follows: on the one hand the responsibility of public employees is transferred to everyone affected by their mistakes (among these, the taxpayers); on the other hand, taxpayers demand also for a shift of their responsibility to the State. Given the taxes they pay, they should get something back, shouldn't they?"
Needless, to say this places the costs of "society" on anyone who takes responsibility for anything.
One of the great mysteries in social and political science is that a large number of people who personally, experienced the failures and horrors of Collectivist rule still want more of it. This is obviously one of the reasons.
"In contrast, the enlargement of the state always means an attack on responsibility. Under a communist regime, self-responsibility is eliminated. The more a government intrudes into citizens’ lives, the less people feel a sense of responsibility for their actions. Bureaucrats do not typically have full responsibility for their actions. Politicians, central bankers, and judges do not pay for their mistakes. They experience a kind of immunity from bearing blame for the consequences of their actions during the time they are in power.
The same holds true for police officials, public surgeons, public school teachers, etc. All mistakes that are made by public employees are often paid for by others. The bill is paid by taxpayers, by people sent to jail mistakenly, by people killed in public hospitals, by Iraqi citizens, etc. Not even people who earn private salaries are fully responsible under the State. Under the larger and larger safety nets created by the state, firms get more and more dependant on public help in order to survive. Big companies lobby for subsidies, duties on imports, and other kinds of help. Banks and large industries such as airlines hope to be declared “too big to fail.”
Individuals are also less and less responsible. In Europe many people grow up with the idea that the State owes them something: jobs, health, free education, vacations, happiness, and deliverance from despair. People are led to believe that the State will always care about their problems and address their community concerns. People are made to believe that whatever they do (they lose their job, they get sick, they become depressed) the State will be there to help.
The perverse result of all this is that citizens no longer bear full responsibility for their actions. All this can be explained through the concept of the moral hazard. The mechanism works as follows: on the one hand the responsibility of public employees is transferred to everyone affected by their mistakes (among these, the taxpayers); on the other hand, taxpayers demand also for a shift of their responsibility to the State. Given the taxes they pay, they should get something back, shouldn't they?"
Needless, to say this places the costs of "society" on anyone who takes responsibility for anything.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Fascism Update : Bank America Forced To Buy Merrill Lynch
This might be a short post-- with a lot of typos and scant references. I work a lot online and it seems like four or five major government crimes or proposed crimes pop up each day.
I consider the word Fascism, to best describe the current flavor of our government.
"Other than nationalization of certain industries, private property was allowed, but property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state.[154] For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labor than he would find profitable."[155] According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, dirigisme was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.[156] The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7: "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then goes on to say in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."[citation needed]
Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual."[157] They also introduced price controls and other types of economic planning measures.[153]"
In order to understand this one needs to think about the nature of government power. The state, as we know has no money assets apart from the property and lives of it's citizens. What it does have is the ability to use force.
Our founders knew and feared this power and aimed it to be used to defend the lives and property of it's people against state or criminal aggression and to act as an impartial arbiter in legal disputes. The whole purpose and design of the Constitution was to do this.
Fascist's, like all collectivist's see the state as an end in itself that should not be restrained by law or any kind of absolute truth. Anything the leader or gang in charge want to do at any given moment is the law. They always know best. In a state in like this, it matters very little who technically owns anything since everyone does what they are told. Property becomes an illusion.
Here is an example of Fascism in action. And yes it happened during the Bush Administration.
"NEW YORK -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. threatened to remove the management and board of Bank of America unless it acquired ailing investment house Merrill Lynch late last year, according documents released today by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo."
Bank America had foolishly jumped at the chance to buy what it thought was cheap company, but was still in a period when it could back out of the deal, legally, if Merrill's numbers were much worse than expected--- which they were.
In steps Paulson to say, in effect-- it's an emergency and we are in charge -- the law and your shareholder's rights don't matter anymore.
"On Dec. 21, after Lewis told Paulson the bank still wanted to exit the merger, Paulson told Lewis its management and board would be replaced if the bank were to invoke the material event clause.
Secretary Paulson's threat swayed Lewis, Cuomo said in the letter.
According to Secretary Paulson, after he stated that the management and the Board could be removed, Lewis replied, 'that makes it simple. Let's deescalate,' " the letter states. "Lewis admits that Secretary Paulson's threat changed his mind about . . . terminating the deal."
Cuomo said Paulson has told him he made the threat at the request of Bernanke."
I consider the word Fascism, to best describe the current flavor of our government.
"Other than nationalization of certain industries, private property was allowed, but property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state.[154] For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labor than he would find profitable."[155] According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, dirigisme was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.[156] The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7: "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then goes on to say in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."[citation needed]
Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual."[157] They also introduced price controls and other types of economic planning measures.[153]"
In order to understand this one needs to think about the nature of government power. The state, as we know has no money assets apart from the property and lives of it's citizens. What it does have is the ability to use force.
Our founders knew and feared this power and aimed it to be used to defend the lives and property of it's people against state or criminal aggression and to act as an impartial arbiter in legal disputes. The whole purpose and design of the Constitution was to do this.
Fascist's, like all collectivist's see the state as an end in itself that should not be restrained by law or any kind of absolute truth. Anything the leader or gang in charge want to do at any given moment is the law. They always know best. In a state in like this, it matters very little who technically owns anything since everyone does what they are told. Property becomes an illusion.
Here is an example of Fascism in action. And yes it happened during the Bush Administration.
"NEW YORK -- Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and former Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. threatened to remove the management and board of Bank of America unless it acquired ailing investment house Merrill Lynch late last year, according documents released today by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo."
Bank America had foolishly jumped at the chance to buy what it thought was cheap company, but was still in a period when it could back out of the deal, legally, if Merrill's numbers were much worse than expected--- which they were.
In steps Paulson to say, in effect-- it's an emergency and we are in charge -- the law and your shareholder's rights don't matter anymore.
"On Dec. 21, after Lewis told Paulson the bank still wanted to exit the merger, Paulson told Lewis its management and board would be replaced if the bank were to invoke the material event clause.
Secretary Paulson's threat swayed Lewis, Cuomo said in the letter.
According to Secretary Paulson, after he stated that the management and the Board could be removed, Lewis replied, 'that makes it simple. Let's deescalate,' " the letter states. "Lewis admits that Secretary Paulson's threat changed his mind about . . . terminating the deal."
Cuomo said Paulson has told him he made the threat at the request of Bernanke."
Monday, April 20, 2009
Using The Other F-Word
One word that is popping up on signs at tea parties is Fascism and it clearly seems to have invoked more than a little fear on the traditional left. In spite of their common use of the word, they have gone to elaborate lengths to obscure it's true meaning and philisophical roots.
Study the meaning of this word. Go to the Wikipedia and you will see the similarities between Obama's current policies and Fascism. The founders of our country were true Liberals and opposed these ideas with their lives.
My last post about the PPIP program implied that many of Obama's policies and methods were not socialist, but corporatist or fascist.
Steve Malanga, who I think I remember from Crains, NY has written a great little primer on this. He correctly points out that corporatist policies often gain popularty in periods of crisis and are in fact attempts by elites and existing power bases to limit and resist change.Let's start with definitions.
Corporatism
"Historically, corporatism refers to a political or economic system in which power is held by civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and/or professional groups. These civic assemblies are known as corporations (not the same as the legally incorporated business entities known as corporations, though some are such). Corporations are unelected bodies with an internal hierarchy; their purpose is to exert control over the social and economic life of their respective areas. Thus, for example, a steel corporation would be a cartel composed of all the business leaders in the steel industry, coming together to discuss a common policy on prices and wages. When the political and economic power of a country rests in the hands of such groups, then a corporatist system is in place."
I can't paste in the whole definition but corporatism works through a complex of "public/private partnerships which ossify power through force.
"Political scientists may also use the term corporatism to describe a practice whereby a state, through the process of licensing and regulating officially-incorporated social, religious, economic, or popular organizations, effectively co-opts their leadership or circumscribes their ability to challenge state authority by establishing the state as the source of their legitimacy, as well as sometimes running them, either directly or indirectly through corporations. This usage is particularly common in the area of East Asian studies, and is sometimes also referred to as state corporatism."
Fascism
Fascism, can be described as a much broader ideology but fascist economic ideas are basically corporatist.
"The fascists opposed both international socialism and liberal capitalism, arguing that their views represented a third way. They claimed to provide a realistic economic alternative that was neither laissez-faire capitalism nor communism.[19] They favoured corporatism and class collaboration, believing that the existence of inequality and separate social classes was beneficial (contrary to the views of socialists).[20] Fascists argued that the state had a role in mediating relations between these classes (contrary to the views of liberal capitalists).[21]
An inherent aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigisme[22], meaning an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence, and effectively controls production and allocation of resources. In general, apart from the nationalizations of some industries, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state.[23]"
Getting to Malanga's piece
"But we are entering quite a different age right now, one in which the President of the United States and his hand-selected industrial overseers fire the chief executive of General Motors and chart the company’s next moves in order to preserve it. Conservative critics of the president have said that the government’s GM strategy is one of many examples of an America drifting toward socialism. But President Obama is not a socialist. If his agenda harks back to anything, it is to corporatism, the notion that elite groups of individuals molded together into committees or public-private boards can guide society and coordinate the economy from the top town and manage change by evolution, not revolution. It is a turn-of-the 20th century philosophy, updated for the dawn of the 21st century, which positions itself as an antidote to the kind of messy capitalism that has transformed the Fortune 500 and every corner of our economy in the last half century. To do so corporatism seeks to substitute the wisdom of the few for the hundreds of millions of individual actions and transactions of the many that set the direction of the economy from the bottom up."
I urge one to read and think about it and I leave with one last definition. Obama's ideas are in stark contrast those of our nation's founders.
Classical Liberalism
"Classical liberalism holds that individual rights are natural, inherent, or inalienable, and exist independently of government. Thomas Jefferson called these inalienable rights: "...rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."[25] For classical liberalism, rights are of a negative nature—rights that require that other individuals (and governments) refrain from interfering with individual liberty, whereas social liberalism (also called modern liberalism or welfare liberalism) holds that individuals have a right to be provided with certain benefits or services by others.[26] Unlike social liberals, classical liberals are "hostile to the welfare state."[9] They do not have an interest in material equality but only in "equality before the law."[27] Classical liberalism is critical of social liberalism and takes offense at group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights.[28]"
Study the meaning of this word. Go to the Wikipedia and you will see the similarities between Obama's current policies and Fascism. The founders of our country were true Liberals and opposed these ideas with their lives.
My last post about the PPIP program implied that many of Obama's policies and methods were not socialist, but corporatist or fascist.
Steve Malanga, who I think I remember from Crains, NY has written a great little primer on this. He correctly points out that corporatist policies often gain popularty in periods of crisis and are in fact attempts by elites and existing power bases to limit and resist change.Let's start with definitions.
Corporatism
"Historically, corporatism refers to a political or economic system in which power is held by civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and/or professional groups. These civic assemblies are known as corporations (not the same as the legally incorporated business entities known as corporations, though some are such). Corporations are unelected bodies with an internal hierarchy; their purpose is to exert control over the social and economic life of their respective areas. Thus, for example, a steel corporation would be a cartel composed of all the business leaders in the steel industry, coming together to discuss a common policy on prices and wages. When the political and economic power of a country rests in the hands of such groups, then a corporatist system is in place."
I can't paste in the whole definition but corporatism works through a complex of "public/private partnerships which ossify power through force.
"Political scientists may also use the term corporatism to describe a practice whereby a state, through the process of licensing and regulating officially-incorporated social, religious, economic, or popular organizations, effectively co-opts their leadership or circumscribes their ability to challenge state authority by establishing the state as the source of their legitimacy, as well as sometimes running them, either directly or indirectly through corporations. This usage is particularly common in the area of East Asian studies, and is sometimes also referred to as state corporatism."
Fascism
Fascism, can be described as a much broader ideology but fascist economic ideas are basically corporatist.
"The fascists opposed both international socialism and liberal capitalism, arguing that their views represented a third way. They claimed to provide a realistic economic alternative that was neither laissez-faire capitalism nor communism.[19] They favoured corporatism and class collaboration, believing that the existence of inequality and separate social classes was beneficial (contrary to the views of socialists).[20] Fascists argued that the state had a role in mediating relations between these classes (contrary to the views of liberal capitalists).[21]
An inherent aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigisme[22], meaning an economy where the government exerts strong directive influence, and effectively controls production and allocation of resources. In general, apart from the nationalizations of some industries, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state.[23]"
Getting to Malanga's piece
"But we are entering quite a different age right now, one in which the President of the United States and his hand-selected industrial overseers fire the chief executive of General Motors and chart the company’s next moves in order to preserve it. Conservative critics of the president have said that the government’s GM strategy is one of many examples of an America drifting toward socialism. But President Obama is not a socialist. If his agenda harks back to anything, it is to corporatism, the notion that elite groups of individuals molded together into committees or public-private boards can guide society and coordinate the economy from the top town and manage change by evolution, not revolution. It is a turn-of-the 20th century philosophy, updated for the dawn of the 21st century, which positions itself as an antidote to the kind of messy capitalism that has transformed the Fortune 500 and every corner of our economy in the last half century. To do so corporatism seeks to substitute the wisdom of the few for the hundreds of millions of individual actions and transactions of the many that set the direction of the economy from the bottom up."
I urge one to read and think about it and I leave with one last definition. Obama's ideas are in stark contrast those of our nation's founders.
Classical Liberalism
"Classical liberalism holds that individual rights are natural, inherent, or inalienable, and exist independently of government. Thomas Jefferson called these inalienable rights: "...rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law', because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."[25] For classical liberalism, rights are of a negative nature—rights that require that other individuals (and governments) refrain from interfering with individual liberty, whereas social liberalism (also called modern liberalism or welfare liberalism) holds that individuals have a right to be provided with certain benefits or services by others.[26] Unlike social liberals, classical liberals are "hostile to the welfare state."[9] They do not have an interest in material equality but only in "equality before the law."[27] Classical liberalism is critical of social liberalism and takes offense at group rights being pursued at the expense of individual rights.[28]"
PPIC And More FDIC Lies
I have to be honest here. I have had strong fears for years that America is sliding rapidly towards fascism or some form of totalitarian government.
One of the biggest myths about this type of regime is that one can spot it by proliferation and strength of it's laws. In fact, totalitarian states are places in which the law is the whim of the king or dictator. Our founders feared this situation and tied leaders to the law with very few "if's ands or buts". The president, legislators, police and government officials pledge allegance to the law. Emergency powers are very limited and for the most part were only for use during war.
In contrast, let's look at some fascist and pro fascist political views.
Carl Schmidt
"In 1921, Schmitt became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he published his essay "Die Diktatur" ("On Dictatorship"), in which he discussed the foundations of the newly-established Weimar Republic, emphasising the office of the Reichspräsident. In this essay, Schmitt compared and contrasted what he saw as the effective and ineffective elements of the new constitution of his country. To him, the office of the president could be characterized as a comparatively effective element within the new constitution, because of the power granted to the president to declare a state of emergency. This power, which Schmitt discussed and implicitly praised as dictatorial, was seen as more effective, more in line with the underlying mentality of political power, than the comparatively slow and ineffective processes of legislative political power reached through parliamentary discussion and compromise.
Schmitt was at pains to remove what he saw as a squeamish taboo surrounding the concept of "dictatorship" and to show that, in his eyes, the concept is implicit whenever power is wielded through pathways outside the slow and rusty processes of parliamentary politics:
“If the constitution of a state is democratic, then every exceptional negation of democratic principles, every exercise of state power independent of the approval of the majority, can be called dictatorship.”[citation needed]
For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Although the German concept of Ausnahmezustand is best translated as "state of emergency", it literally means state of exception which,according to Schmitt, frees the executive from any legal restraints to its power that would normally apply. The use of the term "exceptional" has to be underlined here: Schmitt defines sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben has noted. According to Agamben[1], Schmitt's conceptualization of the "state of exception" as belonging to the core-concept of sovereignty was a response to Walter Benjamin's concept of a "pure" or "revolutionary" violence, which didn't enter into any relationship whatsoever with right. Through the state of exception, Schmitt included all types of violence under right. According to Giorgio Agamben, this kind of violence, which necessarily bears a juridical value, is another example of the fusion of right to "bare life" (It. vita nuda, Grk. zoe) that transforms the juridical system into a "death machine," able to perform acts of pure violence as needed for self-legitimation, creating Homo sacer, a being that cannot be "murdered" or "sacrificed" but only killed.
Schmitt opposed what he called "chief constable dictature", or the declaration of a state of emergency in order to save the legal order (a temporary suspension of law, defined itself by moral or legal right): the state of emergency is limited (even if a posteriori, by law), to "sovereign dictature", in which law was suspended, as in the classical state of exception, not to "save the Constitution", but rather to create another Constitution. This is how he theorized Hitler's continual suspension of the legal constitutional order during the Third Reich (the Weimar Republic's Constitution was never abrogated, underlined Giorgio Agamben;[2][citation needed] rather, it was "suspended" for four years, first at February 28, 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, with the suspension renewed every four years, implying a -- continual -- state of emergency)."
Benito Mussolini (actual quote)
"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.... "
I won't go on endlessly about this, power unlimited by law is the defining aspect of all tyrany. At it's most exteme we have the Fuhrer Principle.
"The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors. The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to no one. Giorgio Agamben has argued that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law itself. The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today. The justification for the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors supposedly produced order and prosperity in which those deemed 'worthy' would share."
We all should know, the checks put in place by our system to control state power. Congress debates and makes clear laws, the president and the executive branch carry them out and the Supreme court makes sure they conform to the "supreme law" of the constitution which of course can be changed. The whole process places difficult, slow and messy roadblocks in the path of those who "just want to get things done", in times of crisis or "emergency".
Listing all the recent "emergency measures" of dubious legality would take too long or might not be possible at all since many are secret. The recent PPIP plan is an example.
"In the fine print of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner’s plan to lend as much as $1 trillion to private investors to help them buy toxic assets from our nation’s banks, you’ll find some details of how the F.D.I.C is trying to stabilize the system by adding more risk, not less, to the system.
It’s going to be insuring 85 percent of the debt, provided by the Treasury, that private investors will use to subsidize their acquisitions of toxic assets. The program, extraordinary in its size and scope, is the equivalent of TARP 2.0. Only this time, Congress didn’t get a chance to vote."http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/the-taxpayer-takes-the-risk-in-fdics-no-risk-insurance/#statute"
The action is a clear attempt to stuff evade the real risks and obligations being taken on by current and future taxpayers and also those who might lend the government money and to get around any need to appropriate more money.
One of the biggest myths about this type of regime is that one can spot it by proliferation and strength of it's laws. In fact, totalitarian states are places in which the law is the whim of the king or dictator. Our founders feared this situation and tied leaders to the law with very few "if's ands or buts". The president, legislators, police and government officials pledge allegance to the law. Emergency powers are very limited and for the most part were only for use during war.
In contrast, let's look at some fascist and pro fascist political views.
Carl Schmidt
"In 1921, Schmitt became a professor at the University of Greifswald, where he published his essay "Die Diktatur" ("On Dictatorship"), in which he discussed the foundations of the newly-established Weimar Republic, emphasising the office of the Reichspräsident. In this essay, Schmitt compared and contrasted what he saw as the effective and ineffective elements of the new constitution of his country. To him, the office of the president could be characterized as a comparatively effective element within the new constitution, because of the power granted to the president to declare a state of emergency. This power, which Schmitt discussed and implicitly praised as dictatorial, was seen as more effective, more in line with the underlying mentality of political power, than the comparatively slow and ineffective processes of legislative political power reached through parliamentary discussion and compromise.
Schmitt was at pains to remove what he saw as a squeamish taboo surrounding the concept of "dictatorship" and to show that, in his eyes, the concept is implicit whenever power is wielded through pathways outside the slow and rusty processes of parliamentary politics:
“If the constitution of a state is democratic, then every exceptional negation of democratic principles, every exercise of state power independent of the approval of the majority, can be called dictatorship.”[citation needed]
For Schmitt, every government capable of decisive action must include a dictatorial element within its constitution. Although the German concept of Ausnahmezustand is best translated as "state of emergency", it literally means state of exception which,according to Schmitt, frees the executive from any legal restraints to its power that would normally apply. The use of the term "exceptional" has to be underlined here: Schmitt defines sovereignty as the power to decide the instauration of state of exception, as Giorgio Agamben has noted. According to Agamben[1], Schmitt's conceptualization of the "state of exception" as belonging to the core-concept of sovereignty was a response to Walter Benjamin's concept of a "pure" or "revolutionary" violence, which didn't enter into any relationship whatsoever with right. Through the state of exception, Schmitt included all types of violence under right. According to Giorgio Agamben, this kind of violence, which necessarily bears a juridical value, is another example of the fusion of right to "bare life" (It. vita nuda, Grk. zoe) that transforms the juridical system into a "death machine," able to perform acts of pure violence as needed for self-legitimation, creating Homo sacer, a being that cannot be "murdered" or "sacrificed" but only killed.
Schmitt opposed what he called "chief constable dictature", or the declaration of a state of emergency in order to save the legal order (a temporary suspension of law, defined itself by moral or legal right): the state of emergency is limited (even if a posteriori, by law), to "sovereign dictature", in which law was suspended, as in the classical state of exception, not to "save the Constitution", but rather to create another Constitution. This is how he theorized Hitler's continual suspension of the legal constitutional order during the Third Reich (the Weimar Republic's Constitution was never abrogated, underlined Giorgio Agamben;[2][citation needed] rather, it was "suspended" for four years, first at February 28, 1933 Reichstag Fire Decree, with the suspension renewed every four years, implying a -- continual -- state of emergency)."
Benito Mussolini (actual quote)
"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.... "
I won't go on endlessly about this, power unlimited by law is the defining aspect of all tyrany. At it's most exteme we have the Fuhrer Principle.
"The ideology of the Führerprinzip sees each organization as a hierarchy of leaders, where every leader (Führer, in German) has absolute responsibility in his own area, demands absolute obedience from those below him and answers only to his superiors. The supreme leader, Adolf Hitler, answered to no one. Giorgio Agamben has argued that Hitler saw himself as an incarnation of auctoritas, and as the living law itself. The Führerprinzip paralleled the functionality of military organizations, which continue to use a similar authority structure today. The justification for the civil use of the Führerprinzip was that unquestioning obedience to superiors supposedly produced order and prosperity in which those deemed 'worthy' would share."
We all should know, the checks put in place by our system to control state power. Congress debates and makes clear laws, the president and the executive branch carry them out and the Supreme court makes sure they conform to the "supreme law" of the constitution which of course can be changed. The whole process places difficult, slow and messy roadblocks in the path of those who "just want to get things done", in times of crisis or "emergency".
Listing all the recent "emergency measures" of dubious legality would take too long or might not be possible at all since many are secret. The recent PPIP plan is an example.
"In the fine print of Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner’s plan to lend as much as $1 trillion to private investors to help them buy toxic assets from our nation’s banks, you’ll find some details of how the F.D.I.C is trying to stabilize the system by adding more risk, not less, to the system.
It’s going to be insuring 85 percent of the debt, provided by the Treasury, that private investors will use to subsidize their acquisitions of toxic assets. The program, extraordinary in its size and scope, is the equivalent of TARP 2.0. Only this time, Congress didn’t get a chance to vote."http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/the-taxpayer-takes-the-risk-in-fdics-no-risk-insurance/#statute"
The action is a clear attempt to stuff evade the real risks and obligations being taken on by current and future taxpayers and also those who might lend the government money and to get around any need to appropriate more money.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Hope And Change During German Simulus Program
See, the NY Times "Liberal" was right. Look at all those hopeful faces during Hitler's 1934 stimulus program.
NY Times Liberal Say's Fascism Ain't So Bad
I said in recent posts that not all of our so called liberals are advocating pure "socialism", but rather something that could be better described as Fascism. Almost none have said so honestly, untill now.
A few days ago a NY Times writer-- wrote this
"In the summer of 1933, just as they will do on Thursday, heads of government and their finance ministers met in London to talk about a global economic crisis. They accomplished little and went home to battle the crisis in their own ways.
More than any other country, Germany — Nazi Germany — then set out on a serious stimulus program. The government built up the military, expanded the autobahn, put up stadiums for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and built monuments to the Nazi Party across Munich and Berlin.
The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn’t look kindly on collective bargaining. But Germany did escape the Great Depression faster than other countries. Corporate profits boomed, and unemployment sank (and not because of slave labor, which didn’t become widespread until later). Harold James, an economic historian, says that the young liberal economists studying under John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s began to debate whether Hitler had solved unemployment.
No sane person enjoys mixing nuance and Nazis, but this bit of economic history has a particular importance this week. In the run-up to the G-20 meeting, European leaders have resisted calls for more government spending. Last week, the European Union president, Mirek Topolanek, echoed a line from AC/DC — whom he had just heard in concert — and described the Obama administration’s stimulus plan as “a road to hell.”
The rest of his story painted a smiley face on an unspeakable evil that has killed millions and seemed to say we shouldn't be afraid of fascist ideas.
Perhaps the Czech Prime Minister has a better grip on reality and history after the hell his nation and Europe went through under both fascist-- and the Communist control. He knows the road to serfdom when he sees it.
Still think these people are Liberals????
A few days ago a NY Times writer-- wrote this
"In the summer of 1933, just as they will do on Thursday, heads of government and their finance ministers met in London to talk about a global economic crisis. They accomplished little and went home to battle the crisis in their own ways.
More than any other country, Germany — Nazi Germany — then set out on a serious stimulus program. The government built up the military, expanded the autobahn, put up stadiums for the 1936 Berlin Olympics and built monuments to the Nazi Party across Munich and Berlin.
The economic benefits of this vast works program never flowed to most workers, because fascism doesn’t look kindly on collective bargaining. But Germany did escape the Great Depression faster than other countries. Corporate profits boomed, and unemployment sank (and not because of slave labor, which didn’t become widespread until later). Harold James, an economic historian, says that the young liberal economists studying under John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s began to debate whether Hitler had solved unemployment.
No sane person enjoys mixing nuance and Nazis, but this bit of economic history has a particular importance this week. In the run-up to the G-20 meeting, European leaders have resisted calls for more government spending. Last week, the European Union president, Mirek Topolanek, echoed a line from AC/DC — whom he had just heard in concert — and described the Obama administration’s stimulus plan as “a road to hell.”
The rest of his story painted a smiley face on an unspeakable evil that has killed millions and seemed to say we shouldn't be afraid of fascist ideas.
Perhaps the Czech Prime Minister has a better grip on reality and history after the hell his nation and Europe went through under both fascist-- and the Communist control. He knows the road to serfdom when he sees it.
Still think these people are Liberals????
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