BHL, a man of strong opinions and a very high opinion of himself.

BY BERNARD HENRI-LEVY

[from the February 27, 2006 issue of The Nation]
REPUBLISHED AS A PUBLIC SERVICE

Editorial Caveat: Who is this diagnostician for the American Left?: In French and US establishment journals, Bernard-Henri Levy, or BHL, as he is commonly known, is one of the best-acclaimed “philosophes” and authors in France today. But when it comes to Henri-Levy, surely probably one of the great “poseurs” and leftist apostates on the world stage, such accolades are to be taken with a huge lump of salt. Indeed, a new biography by French journalists Jade Lindgaard and Xavier de la Porte is the first in a series of seven acerbic critiques of BHL to be released in the coming years and marks an unprecedented attack on the high-profile academic. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: Many liberals and people on the left have grown accustomed to invoking the word “Fascism” when defining just about any oppressive regime that restricts civil liberties, assaults workers’ organizations, or does the bidding for the rich. Unfortunately, there is a broad spectrum of rightwing authoritarian regimes that also do just that, without being, technically speaking, “Fascist.” In fact, both rightwing military dictatorships and fascism have similar class programs, the repression of labor being a top priority, and a number of other overlapping features, but the distinguishing trait of a genuine fascist regime is not just its reactionary, fiercely anti-communist character, but the fact that it rests on a one-party state with a mass base usually drawn from the petit bourgeoisie and the lower middle class. Fascism is therefore a type of rightwing mass movement feeding off of racism, fierce chauvinism, often malignant nativism (as manifested, for example, in anti-semitism), and grandiose warmongering goals. The essay below, by renowned political analyst Michael Parenti, clarifies and expands many of these points. But before we go there, consider what Benito Mussolini himself had to say about the nature of fascism: Read the rest of this entry »

We only wish it were a gross exaggeration.

BY ALLEN L ROLAND

It is not terrorism that motivates George Bush, or patriotism, or even profiteering. It is fear, pure and simple: Fear of the truth, fear of the world, fear of any data that collides with his faith-based bubble-encapsuled worldview, and fear most of all of the people he would represent : —William Pitt

I have always felt that what Cheney & Bush feared most was that the public would finally wise up to their neocon coup and empire building schemes and rise up against them. That their spy programs and internment camps were not set up to protect the country against terrorists ~ but, instead, to protect the government from an outraged public that had finally seen through this administration’s massive deceptions and lies ~ that began with the 9/11 coverup and continues now with the illegal occupation and oil grab of Iraq along with the current flawed and failed surge. Read the rest of this entry »

The Caudillo in winter, fading into history with all honors and total impunity. Certainly persona most grata in Washington.

BY VICENTE NAVARRO; September 15-16, 2007

According to conventional wisdom in Spain and in the U.S., in Spain’s transition from the Franco dictatorship to democracy, it was King Juan Carlos, with the assistance of the U.S. government (first the Ford administration, then the Carter administration), who brought democracy to Spain. In this interpretation of events taking place from 1975, when the dictator died, to 1978, when the first democratically elected government was installed, the U.S. government actively supported the development of democracy in Spain. Read the rest of this entry »

John McCain a militaristic plutocrat of unregulated fascistic temperament. Thank you, GOP for giving America another great politician…

BY JUSTIN RAIMONDO, Editorial Director, Antiwar.com (Libertarian)
Dateline: April 13, 2007 | Antiwar.com

He’s volatile – and, in the White House, he’d be dangerous

John McCain was really caught off guard not only by the reaction to his recent walk in the Iraqi marketplace – ringed by a veritable wall of security, while US army helicopters hovered overhead – but also by subsequent events on the ground. “I just returned from my fifth visit to Iraq,” he told the cadets in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute: Read the rest of this entry »

BY WILLIAM BLUM \ DATELINE: August 10, 2007
Read this or George W. Bush will be president the rest of your life
Simulpost at author’s site: www.killinghope.org

On several occasions I’ve been presented with the argument that contrary to widespread opinion in the anti-war movement and on the left, oil was not really a factor in the the United States invasion and occupation of Iraq. The argument’s key, perhaps sole, point is that the oil companies did not push for the war.

Responding to only this particular point: firstly, the executives of multinational corporations are not in the habit of making public statements concerning vital issues of American foreign policy, either for or against. And we don’t know what the oil company executives said in private to high Washington officials, although we do know that such executives have a lot more access to such officials than you or I, like at Cheney’s secret gatherings. More importantly, we have to distinguish between oil as a fuel and oil as a political weapon. Read the rest of this entry »

BY STEVE LENDMAN
Dateline: Thursday, August 09, 2007

Marjorie Cohn is a distinguished law professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego where she’s taught since 1991 and is the current president of the National Lawyers Guild. She’s also been a criminal defense attorney at the trial and appellate levels, is an author, and has written many articles for professional journals, other publications, and for noted web sites such as Global Research, ZNet, CounterPunch, AfterDowning Street, Common Dreams, AlterNet and others. Her long record of achievements, distinctions and awards is broad and varied for her teaching, writing and her work as a lawyer and activist for peace, social and economic justice. Read the rest of this entry »

The inescapable flagwaving idiots’ brigade on display.

BY “SL”
CLASSIC ARCHIVES
(This was a t r u t h o u t Reader Submission)
t r u t h o u t is a fraternal site | Friday 09 January 2004

Dear Sir,

My family was one of Hitler’s victims. We lost a lot under the Nazi occupation, including an uncle who died in the camps and a cousin killed by a booby trap. I was terrified when my father went ballistic after finding my brother and me playing with a hand grenade. (I was only 12 at the time, and my brother insisted the grenade was safe.) I remember the rubble and the hardships of ‘austerity’ - and the bomb craters from Allied bombs. As late as the 1980s, I had to take detours while bombs were being removed - they litter the countryside, buried under parking lots,buildings, and in the canals and rivers to this day. Believe me, I learned a lot about Hitler while I was growing up, both in Europe and here in the US - both my parents were in the war and talked about it constantly, unlike most American families. I spent my earliest years with the second-hand fear that trickled down from their PTSD - undiagnosed and untreated in those days. Read the rest of this entry »

BY JOHN BUCHANAN
Originally at The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 1, October 10, 2003

Jokes may not be too far from the mark when one studies the historical record, most of it carefully kept under wraps for decades.

PART ONE

WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his “enemy national” partners. Read the rest of this entry »

By Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington DC
Dateline: Saturday September 25, 2004 / The Guardian (UK)

Far-fetched satire or irrefutable revelations?

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today’s president

Read the rest of this entry »