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 »

A creature of the system, a “mechanic” who knows how to work the machine, Bill Clinton has made a career of phoney populism all his life. He has successfully fooled a great may people while remaining sturdily on the center-right, what Beltway insiders like to call “the Third Way.” Unfortunately, fronting for a decomposing but still murderous capitalism is not the way to cure what ails America.

By David Nasaw
Dateline: Sunday, September 23, 2007 [Reproduced under Sec 17, US Code]
This piece suggested by and in simulpost at makingthemaccountable.com

“Giving,” Bill Clinton’s folksy first-person tour of worthy causes and the good people who support them, is so relentlessly upbeat that only the most churlish professor would say a discouraging word about the book. But the former president is so intent on celebrating 21st-century philanthropy — and highlighting his and Hillary’s role in promoting “the explosion of private citizens doing public good” — that he blithely ignores a hard reality: Philanthropy and democracy don’t get along nearly as seamlessly as “Giving” would have us believe. Read the rest of this entry »

As a disciple of Ayn Rand, Greenspan shares her notion that selfish pursuits are morally salutary.
BY MIKE WHITNEY Dateline: Wed Sep 19, 2007

SIMULPOSTED AT
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18411.htm

Alan Greenspan’s appearance on 60 Minutes was preceded with all the pomp and ceremony of a royal wedding. The public relations blitz dragged out for a whole week.

What profound truisms would the elusive former-fed master divulge to the News Magazine’s withered-coquette, Leslie Stahl? Would he produce his crystal ball and forecast America’s blurry economic future in mangled Fed-speak? Or would he focus on the startling gyrations in the stock market and the “frothy” conditions in the slumping housing market? The suspense was nearly unbearable. Read the rest of this entry »

Sheehan friends and relatives in demonstration in Virginia. Cindy presents a HUGE problem to the system’s apologists: a person of unshakable conviction who is firmly “on the left.” So far efforts at character assessination have failed, but should she gain public office, the most likely tack will be to kill her credibility with faint praise, suggesting she’s too “naive” about the world, she’s a one-trick pony, and so on. Media whores have their work cut out for them with Cindy.

BY CINDY SHEEHAN Dateline: September 19th, 2007

I am consistently amazed at things that right-wing nut jobs throw at me to justify their support of an unjustifiable war. Seriously, when you watch Generals, Ambassadors, Senators and Congress Reps and pundits who still cheerlead for a miserable, failed and murderous policy you can almost see the skepticism in their eyes, too. They know they are lying for their masters now, if they, like George and Dick didn’t always know they were lying. Read the rest of this entry »

“Hiya folks, I’m John Kerry. I’m full of shit and how do you like it?!” Extrapolate Kerry’s name for any name in the Democrats’ leadership roster, not to mention the GOP, and you get closer to the unspoken truth.

BY BILL VAN AUKEN Dateline: 19 September 2007 World Socialist Web Site | A fraternal site

Little more than 10 months after winning the leadership of both houses of the US Congress thanks to a swelling tide of opposition to the war in Iraq, the Democratic Party has largely abandoned even the pretense of a struggle to bring the war to an end. 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 »

BUSH UNMASKED, By Molly Ivins. FROM THE CLASSIC FILES OF ALLEN L ROLAND Dateline: Tuesday, September 18, 2007


“Out Bush murderer!” screams this billboard in Uruguay during Bush’s recent trip to Latin America. Apparently many foreigners see what “W” is all about better than many Americans.

It’s not that he’s mean. It’s just that when it comes to seeing how his policies affect people, George W. Bush doesn’t have a clue : —Molly Ivins

TO FULLY UNDERSTAND George W Bush ~ you must listen to fellow Texan and columnist Molly Ivins who interprets why George Bush ” is genuinely disconnected from the impact of his decisions on people .” Read the rest of this entry »

EDITORS’ PREAMBLE: Boyish and all-American-looking GOP language whore Frank Luntz has perverted further (a feat in itself!) the sordid and utterly immoral “art” of political p.r. The raves he receives by fellow establishment whores like Time Magazine are eloquent commentary on how “American civilization” operates in corporate terms. On his own website, he touts his horn thusly:

“Frank Luntz is one of the most honored communication professionals in America today. “Time Magazine” named him one of “50 of America’s most promising leaders aged 40 and under” and he is the “hottest pollster” in America according to the “Boston Globe.” Frank was named one of the four “Top Research Minds” by Business Week and was the winner of the coveted Washington Post “Crystal Ball” award for being the most accurate pundit in 1992. Public Television’s Bill Moyers had this to say about Frank: “He’s a magician with a gift for the politics of words and what words best connect with the hearts and minds of the public.” Said comedian Al Franken: ” Asking Frank Luntz if he understands public opinion is like asking Julia Childs if she knows how to make a soufflé.” 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 »

The beneath-contempt supreme turncoat and opportunist Zionist warmonger Lieberman. This kind of scum tipifies the DLC.
ANNALS OF SPINELESSNESS
A. Alexander, May 20th, 2007
By the \ Opinion Piece

By mid-2006 it looked like the DC Democrats had learned their lesson. It appeared they had finally realized that the Democratic Leadership Council’s (DLC’s) political playbook, was little more than the perfect recipe for becoming an irrelevant political party. During the last election cycle the once spine-challenged DLC smitten Republican wannabe DC Democrats, had actually embraced their base and began confronting the GOP’s failed anti-working class policies. The result was electoral victory. Read the rest of this entry »