The Past, Present, and Future of Neoconservatism

[bigdog]

A Few Good People

In the last few years, it has become popular to say that history is determined largely by sweeping inanimate forces of technology, the environment, gender, class or race. We play down the role of individuals - as if the notion that one person can shape history is old-fashioned. But that's hardly the case.

Take Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France. For 60 years, the power of the state in France had steadily increased. Government workers were handed lavish entitlements and retirement packages while French competitiveness diminished in a new globalized world.

Abroad, traditional French foreign policy cynically tried to have it both ways: staying within the protection of the Western democratic alliance but at the same time opportunistically backbiting the United States to gain special commercial and diplomatic favor with authoritarian governments in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

But this spring, a reformer arrived on the scene with visions of France as a world diplomatic player that would be known for its principled behavior and defense of Western values.

Sarkozy almost single-handedly has restored France's friendship with the United States, begun to reform the economy at home and sought to bring back French entrepreneurship and creativity critical for a free, expansive economy.

The more the unions, the French intellectual elite and entrenched socialists slur Sarkozy as a reactionary and American puppet, the more he has vowed that he won't relent until a reformed France can recapture its former commercial and geopolitical prominence.

Sarkozy isn't the only one defying the odds and questioning conventional wisdom.

By early 2007, critics swore that the American effort in Iraq was doomed and the war lost. But Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander there, outlined a different, risky path of sending more Americans into Iraqi communities while radically changing tactics to ensure better security.

In response, prominent members of Congress suggested that his testimony about the surge's good progress was neither candid nor credible ("creative statistics," a "Petraeus village," "facade," "fiction," and "a suspension of disbelief.")

No matter. He kept with the surge strategy when casualties spiked as Americans took the offensive against al-Qaida and reclaimed urban centers. The verdict is still out on whether the new calm and optimism in Iraq will prove permanent.

But the highest compliment now given to Gen. Petraeus is the growing consensus that if he cannot secure Iraq, then there is no other military commander around who can.

Shaping history in a different, more subtle way is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch feminist and politician.

She grew up a Muslim, but ultimately rebelled at the fundamentalist practice of arranged marriage and gender apartheid - and the threats directed toward anyone who questioned such seventh-century intolerance.

When Westerners, especially conservatives, criticize radical Islam on these grounds, they are often libeled as Islamophobes or written off as illiberal. But Hirsi Ali has shown the world that a liberal woman can teach us first-hand about Islamic extremists - their intolerance of religious diversity, subjugation of women, and bullying of moderate Muslims in their midst.

Hirsi Ali has been attacked from every direction, and yet still won't keep quiet. Traditional Middle East fundamentalists, of course, have tried to bully and threaten her. But many secular, liberal Dutch haven't been much better. At first, they thought that this third-world celebrity fit their ideal of the black emancipated feminist.

Now, even as she's damned by radical Islamists for being Westernized, she's equally damned by liberals in her country and elsewhere for acting as if she were some conservative cheerleader of Western values.

Hirsi Ali demands from Muslims the same scrutiny of their religious brethren as other religions do of their own. Theo van Gogh, director of "Submission," a documentary film about women in Islam that Hirsi Ali wrote, was murdered by an Islamic terrorist. Yet Ali has not let threats on her own life impede her mission.

What do all these mavericks who have changed the status quo have in common? First, they not only followed their beliefs with action, but also were willing to endure the inevitable criticism to follow. Second, although they have strong beliefs, none are overtly partisan; all instead seek a common good.

The conservative Sarkozy appointed a socialist as his foreign minister. To this day, partisans can't figure out whether Gen. Petraeus is a Republican or Democrat. Hirsi Ali wants equality for women and greater tolerance of diverse opinion in the Muslim world - and thereby a better understanding between the West and Islam.

Fearless iconoclasts like these three really can make an enormous difference. They remind us that history is not faceless, but can still be changed by just a few brave people after all.

[Le Kiwi]

It all sounds so nice.

But whenever there is a neocon, or a neocon apologist like VD Hanson slinking around, it usually turns into a fiasco.

Victor Davis Hanson - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Anyone still harboring illusions that the neocons are "just normal, concerned citizens" who happen to be in the right place at the right time to save America...have a look here.

Neocontext

[bigdog]

The Nazis Were Marxists

The Nazis were Marxists, no matter what our tainted academia and corrupt media wishes us to believe. Nazis, Bolsheviks, the Ku Klux Klan, Maoists, radical Islam and Facists -- all are on the Left, something that should be increasingly apparent to decent, honorable people in our times.

The Big Lie which places Nazis on some mythical Far Right was created specifically so that there would be a bogeyman manacled on the wrists of those who wish us to move "too far" in the direction of Ronald Reagan or Barry Goldwater.

The truth about the Nazis was that they were the antithesis of Reagan and Goldwater. Let us consider the original Nazi movement and its evolution. The National Socialist movement began in Austria with Walter Riehl, Rudolf Jung and Hans Knirsch, who were, as M.W. Fodor relates in his book South of Hitler, the three men who founded the National Socialist Party in Austria, and hence indirectly in Germany. In November, 1910, these men launched what they called the Deutschsoziale Arbeiterpartei. That party was successful politically. It established its program at Inglau in 1914.

What was this program? It was against social and political reaction, for the working class, against the church and against the capitalist classes. This party eventually adopted the name Deutsche Nationalsozialistche Arbeiter Partei, which, except for the order of the words, is the same name as "Nazi."

In May 1918, the German National Socialist Workers Party selected the Harkendruez, or swastika, as its symbol. Both Hitler and Anton Drexler, the nominal founder of the Nazi Party, corresponded with this earlier, anti-capitalistic and anti-church party.

Hitler, before the First World War, was highly sympathetic to socialism. Emile Lorimer, in his 1939 book, What Hitler Wants, writes about Hitler during these Vienna years that Hitler already had felt great sympathy for the trade unions and antipathy toward employers. He attended sessions of the Austrian Parliament. Hitler was not, as many have portrayed him, a political neophyte in 1914.

The very term "National Socialist" was not invented by Hitler nor was it unique to Germany. Eduard Benes, President of Czechoslovakia at the time of the Munich Conference, was a leader of the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party. Ironically, at the time of the Munich Conference, out of the fourteen political parties in the Snemovna (the lower chamber of the Czechoslovakian legislature) the party most opposed to Hitler was the Czechoslovak National Socialist Party. The Fascist Party in Czechoslovakia was also anti-Nazi.

The first and only platform of the National Socialist German Workers Party called for very Leftist economic policies. Among other things, this platform called for the death penalty for war profiteering, the confiscation of all income unearned by work, the acquisition of a controlling interest by the people in all big business organizations and so on.

Otto Strasser, the brother and fellow Nazi of Gregor Strasser, who was the second leading Nazi for much of the Nazi Party's existence, in his 1940 book, Hitler and I revealed his ideology before he found a home in the Nazi Party. In his own words Otto Strasser wrote: "I was a young student of law and economics, a Left Wing student leader."

Consider the following text from that platform adopted in Munich on February 20, 1920 and ask yourself whether it sounds like the notional Right or the very real Left:

"We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living. The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and be for the good of all.

Therefore, we demand an end to the power of the financial interests. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. The government must undertake the improvement of public health." [place german accent here][WOW> ZIS SOUNDS LIKE ZE DEMOCRATIC PARTY]

In his 1939 indictment of Nazism, Germany Rampant, Hambloch has an entire chapter on political parties under the German Empire before the First World War and political parties under the Weimar Republic.

Hambloch lists parts of the "Left," "Right" and "Centre" in the German Empire pre-1914, but there are no "Left," "Right" or "Centre" parties in the Weimar Republic, but rather "Weimar Parties, i.e. those who supported the republican constitution," "National Reactionary Parties" and "Revolutionary Parties."

The Nazis are listed, along with the Communist Party of Germany, as the two "Revolutionary Parties." Pointedly, the Nazis were not considered a "National Reactionary Party."

Consider these remarks of Nazi leaders. Hitler on May 1, 1927:

"We are socialists. We are enemies of today's capitalistic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions."

Goebbels, who was the only major Nazi leader who stayed with Hitler to the very end, wrote in Der Angriff in 1928:

"The worker in a capitalist state - that is his greatest misfortune - no longer a human being, no longer a creator, no longer a shaper of things. He has become a machine."

That image sounds almost identical to what Charlie Chaplin, a Marxist, was portraying in his caricature of industrial society, Modern Times. In 1930, Hitler tasked Hans Buchner to clarify what Nazi economic policies were.

What did Buchner elect to call the economic policies of the Nazis? "State socialism."

As the Nazis began to become a serious political party, in the 1930s, the Nazi deputies introduced a flurry of proposals: (1) to ban trading in stocks and bonds; (2) to nationalize all large banks; (3) to require registration of stock ownership with a state agency; (4) to limit interest by law to five percent; (5) to confiscate all profits acquired by inflation. These measures were not hidden; they were trumpeted on the front pages of Nazi periodicals to ensure that party members knew what the Nazi Party in the Reichstag was doing. Some Nazi proposals sound eerily modern.

The Nazis, for example, proposed that old age and disability benefits (Social Security) be paid out of general revenue, rather than from the contributions of the individual recipient, and that the benefits be indexed to the cost of living.

In 1932, months before the Nazis actually took power, a leading opponent of Nazism writing under the pseudonym Nordicus, in his the book, Hitlerism: The Iron Fist in Germany, notes what Josef Goebbels, leading propagandist for the Nazis, was writing: "War against profiteers, peace with workers!

Destruction of all capitalistic influences on the political system of the country." The same author notes the economic principles of Nazism included support for the general welfare, and that this included old age pensions, the confiscation of war profits, and opposition to capitalism.

The Nazis simply did not ride to power on the backs of wealthy industrialists. In fact, after the Nazis had acquired power and when it would have been very advantageous to have "backed the right horse," Ernst von Borsig, the prominent Berlin industrialist, said that he and his colleagues provided very little support to the Nazis.

As early as 1921, Paul Reush, the leading industrialist in the Ruhr, actively insisted that his company officers not support the Nazis. The Krupp family, famous for producing arms for Germany, opposed Hitler in the 1932 presidential election. Nazis received very little support even from industrialists who would benefit from rearmament until 1930.

Hendrik Willem van Loon, in his 1938 book, Our Battle, written before the Nazi-Bolshevik non-aggression pact and while Nazis were presenting themselves to the world as sworn enemies of Bolshevism, wrote that

Big Business mistrusted a political program which made a point of denouncing with bitterness all those who made profits by loaning out money at interest, and that because Hitler "pretended" to be the enemy of Communists, industrialists would occasionally give him some money, but they were careful not to take sides.

The putative connection between Nazis and industrialists was invented simply for convenience by Communists. Opponents of the Nazis in 1923 claimed that Hugo Stinnes, the leading industrialist in Germany, was providing support to the Nazis.

At this very point in history, not only was Nazi propaganda attacking Stinnes, but Hitler himself specifically attacked Stinnes in his speeches. The Weimar Republic, like the Third Republic of France had no Right in the way that Americans would conceive of it.

Hitler, for example, loathed the Kaiser and Imperial Germany. The Tat Circle, that enigmatic group which influenced Nazism, was profoundly anti-capitalist. The title of Tat Circle member Ferdinand Freid's 1931 bestseller was The End of Capitalism, which asserts that capitalism not only was doomed, but also that it was unjust.

[bigdog]

The Nazis Were Marxists

cont....

The Tat Circle is an example of what passes for the Far Right in the Weimar Republic, and if an anti-capitalism and anti-Christian movement is the Right, one must wonder what the Left in Weimar Germany believed.

Germany never had "capitalism," and in his 1938 book, Germany Puts the Clock Back, Edgar Mower writes that when in April 1931 a number of German industrialists visited Soviet Russia they were enthusiastic about the unlimited authority of the Bolsheviks over the workmen, which was what many of them dreamed about for Germany, noting that German owners long since ceased to believe in anything so vigorous as Western capitalism and competition.

While Nazi rhetoric consistently attacked the rich, the well born, the war profiteers, and the industrialists and while Nazi rhetoric consistently championed the working poor, the old, and the unemployed, how did the Nazis act once they had acquired actual power?

If anything, Nazis in power were more hostile to business and to the "rich" when they ran Germany as when they were seeking power through democratic means.

In 1937, four years after the Nazis gained power, Freund wrote of Hitler in Zero Hour that "Only in domestic affairs did Hitler follow his original plan to the letter." Graf von der Golz, the Deputy Commissar in the Ministry of Economics in a speech to businessmen reported in the Nazi periodical Völkischer Beobachter on July 15, 1934:

"Any organization that represents the interests of the employer will be regarded as illegal and disbanded and the guilty parties will be prosecuted." Fritz Thyssen, one of the industrialists who did help bring the Nazis to power, said in 1940: "Soon Germany will not be any different from Bolshevik Russia; the heads of enterprises who do not fulfill the conditions which the ‘Plan' prescribes will be accused of treason against the German people, and shot."

The Nazis on October 16, 1934 raised the highest income tax rate from 40% to 50%, and on February 17, 1939 raised that highest rate again to 55%. A decree of September 9, 1939 again increased income taxes, but exempted incomes of 2,400 Reichmarks a year or less.


Comparative Major European Governments, a 1937 book, notes that through several new laws on December 4, 1934 banking, credits, and stock exchanges passed under complete government control and that the Loan-Stock Law limited stock company dividends to six percent in some cases and to eight percent in others, with profits over that required to be transferred to the Gold Discount Bank, which was in turn required to invest them in government loans or municipal debt service bonds.

Nazi hostility to individual wealth was matched by its hostility to big business. The same act of October 16, 1934 removed the exemption on business taxes for many types of businesses and it increased the progressivity of the business taxes; an act of August 27, 1936 raised the general business tax rate from 20% to 25% and to 30% for each year thereafter;

then on July 25, 1938 corporate profits of more than 100,000 Reichmarks per year were subjected to an additional tax of 35% with that rising to 40% for each year thereafter; and on March 20, 1939, the Nazis imposed an excess profits tax. In four years, Nazis had raised taxes to approximately one fourth of the national income.

Stephen Roberts, in his 1937 book, The House That Hitler Built, noted that compulsory loans had been extracted from banks and insurance companies, and that these grew to such an extent that armament firms complained that they no longer could bear this in addition to all the other assessments like the eight percent Labor Front charges assessed.

Dr. Schacht, an economist who worked for the German government after the Nazis took power, had been compelled to fight with the Leftist economists within the Nazi Party, and that he had refused to join the Nazi Party for a long time. Dr. Schacht had also opposed the anti-Jewish policies of the Nazis as economically unsound.

The Loan Stock Law of December 4, 1934 virtually confiscated all dividends of six percent or, in some cases, eight percent by ordering the beneficiaries of stock dividends to invest those monies in state bonds. Even this was deemed to be too generous to the rich.

The original promise to pay these stockholders in cash or other bonds was revoked in 1937 through the issuance of tax certificates which bore no interest at all, and beyond that, the owners of these tax certificates could not use them to pay their income taxes or their capital profits tax -- they could only use them beginning in April 1952, and then only in installments.

In January 1935, all mortgage banks and similar institutions were authorized to "offer" to owners of obligations issued by them a cut to 4.5% per cent in annual interest, for which the owner was to be compensated through a special payment corresponding to two percent of the face value of the obligation and this was "deemed" accepted unless the owner rejected it "in writing" and "within ten days"; in the latter case he also was forced to deposit the obligation with the credit-giving institution.

David Shoenbaum states in his book, Hitler's Social Revolution, that business was frustrated by the failures of the Nazis and soon began simply reading official scripts. And from the 1937 book, The House That Hitler Built, Roberts dismisses as "fantastic" the stories that Hitler came to power as the nominee of the Thyssen group, noting that Hitler received little money from industrialists until 1930, and the Krupp group, a major armaments builder, opposed Hitler as late as 1932.

Once in power, the Nazis checked the industrialists, grabbed for the state dividends above six percent, forced employers to keep unnecessary workers, made them scrap modern labor-saving machinery, and coerced contributions for all kinds of Party purposes.

The Nazis passed legislation to make it difficult to form or maintain corporations and to limit the authority of directors of corporations or of stockholders in corporations. Directors of corporations, for example, were allowed to grant bonuses only upon condition that they were directly tied to profit and upon condition that the board of directors authorize "voluntary social contributions" to employees, granting employees effectively an automatic share in corporate profits.

Later, the tax on directors' fees was increased from 10% in March 1933 to 20% in February 1939. The capital market in Germany was almost completely closed to private issues and banks were subject to a succession of compulsory levies, confiscated reserves and increasingly high taxes. In March 1939, a decree liquidated virtually all holdings of foreign securities.

The Nazis also simply expropriated, with or without compensation to the business owners, canals, dams, roads and other private enterprises if ownership was deemed in the interest of the Reich.

Even if some compensation was given to the owners, the owners themselves could not request compensation for virtual seizure of their businesses when the government wished to seize them.

The same year, the Reich Supreme Court for Finance and Taxation invalidated claims for tax deductions for two spinning mills in Saxony, noting that prior law could be ignored and that tax laws had to be interpreted according to a "National - Socialistic" perspective, to the great detriment of business.

Even when private property rights were suspended by the Nazis in the interests of the "people's community," if there was any compensation to the property owners, "speculative gains" were taxed away.

Vera Micheles Dean in her 1939 book, Europe in Retreat, written before the Second World War began, said that the Nazis had introduced into Germany a form of graduated Bolshevism, focusing first upon Jewish bankers, industrialists and businessmen, but then upon other businesses, noting that the Nazi goal, from which it had not deviated, was to establish an egalitarian society in which everyone is equal and subordinate to the state.


The same year Time Magazine wrote that the "most cruel joke of all" has been how Hitler treated those capitalists and small businessmen who thought National Socialism would save them from radicalism. Some businesses had been expropriated; some were subjected to a capital tax; all had profits strictly controlled; and all were subjected to intense government regulation.

The Nazi regime also had taken over big estates and in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism. The same year Dorothy Thompson wrote that, having robbed the Jews, the Nazis were beginning to rob the Church, and later will almost certainly expropriate the property of the bourgeoisie.

Rauschning in 1938 wrote of Nazi economic policies, "The expropriation of property will inevitably follow, as well as the complete abolition of private enterprise."

Lunn noted the very same year that the decline of economic conditions in Germany was because of socialism and bureaucracy which was leading Germany toward foreign adventures. Two years later, in 1941, Karl Lowenstein wrote that even if industry and big business had helped Hitler into power, these men found a much sterner master in National Socialism.

The Nazis regulated business to death and they were completely indifferent to the effect this had upon businessmen, who the Left often had presented as the secret masters of Nazism.

The Anatomy of Nazism, published by the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith in 1961, noted that many industrialists who had supported Hitler found out that the Nazis were their masters, not servants, and that an enormous amount of private correspondence was simply new bureaucratic red tape imposed by a vast, new Nazi system of controls.

Fodor the following year wrote that now there was no doubt that the National Socialist regime truly justified the second part of its name, which a few years ago probably was only "window-dressing."

In 1941, former Nazi boss of Danzig, Hermann Rauschning, wrote that the last part of the German Revolution was Nazism, which was just as much a realization of Marxist as of nationalist ideas, and he notes that the only ones who refuse to admit this are supporters of Marxist theories and Nazis themselves.


Rauschning also writes in his book that Marxism itself was part of a single great revolutionary movement which included Marxist Socialism, Nazism, Communist Bolshevism, Fascism and nihilism. Rauschning knew Hitler well and repudiated him and his movement at great risk before the rest of the world recognized the full danger of Nazism.

Karl Lowenstein in the 1940 book, Governments of Continental Europe, writes that there was a convergence in Bolshevism and National Socialism regarding private property, and that this was clear long before Hitler and Stalin became allies.

Such things as freedom of contract, inviolability of private property, and the right to dispose of one's estate were cited as examples of the deep-reaching restrictions in both totalitarian states. National Socialists were socialists.

They had nothing but contempt for what socialists call "capitalism" or what normal people call economic freedom. While it is convenient to portray Nazis as beholden to industrialists and militarists, even from the earliest days Nazis loathed not only industrialists in general but armament makers in particular.

The Nazis raised taxes, punished profits, reduced the power of owners, of managers, and of directors and championed the right of the state or the party to "protect" Germany and German workers from abuses of "capitalists

Nazis were Marxists, through and through.

Although Nazi condemned Bolshevism, the particular incarnation of Marx in Russia, and although the Nazis often bickered and fought with Fascism, the particular incarnation of Marx in Italy, Hitler and his ghastly accomplices were always and forever absolutely committed to that which we have come to call the "Far Left." Nazis were Marxists.

[Le Kiwi]

This is brilliant !! Bigdogma excells in his scavenging for propaganda trash !

American Thinker: The Nazis Were Marxists

Now the neocons are trying to shuffle away from the tag "nazi" !

"Oh no, they were closer to communists, not at all like us !"

Soon reich-wing "righters" like Bruce Wanker will be calling Liberals "nazis", and the "Amerikkkan Non-Thinker" will be able to run pieces like "A vote for Hillary is a vote for a nazi", and then the revisionism will be complete, history will have been re-written, and we have ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia.

Gods, but the desperation of the neocon filth is palpable, the sour sweat stench of fear as they wiggle their scaly bodies away from the assimilation that is only natural of the neocons with fascism and nazism. Don't be fooled, people, they are exactly the same.
Don't believe me ? Here, cut through the hype and desperate spin of the "American Thinker" (I crack up every time I write that.... ) and see exactly what the neocons ressemble once you peel away their plastic smirks and elegant pontification.

Fascism Anyone?

Laurence W. Britt

The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.

Free Inquiry readers may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism. And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have been imitated by protofascist regimes at various times in the twentieth century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their visual similarities.
Beyond the visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures, developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others, but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.
5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources, economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national security. Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on religion.

9. Power of corporations protected. Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless. The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt. Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts. Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal. Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and punishment. Most of these regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power, leading to rampant abuse. “Normal” and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption. Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters, destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Does any of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America, officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press, honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.

Note
1. Defined as a “political movement or regime tending toward or imitating Fascism”—Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary.
References
Andrews, Kevin. Greece in the Dark. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1980. Chabod, Frederico. A History of Italian Fascism. London: Weidenfeld, 1963. Cooper, Marc. Pinochet and Me. New York: Verso, 2001. Cornwell, John. Hitler as Pope. New York: Viking, 1999. de Figuerio, Antonio. Portugal—Fifty Years of Dictatorship. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1976. Eatwell, Roger. Fascism, A History. New York: Penguin, 1995. Fest, Joachim C. The Face of the Third Reich. New York: Pantheon, 1970. Gallo, Max. Mussolini’s Italy. New York: MacMillan, 1973. Kershaw, Ian. Hitler (two volumes). New York: Norton, 1999. Laqueur, Walter. Fascism, Past, Present, and Future. New York: Oxford, 1996. Papandreau, Andreas. Democracy at Gunpoint. New York: Penguin Books, 1971. Phillips, Peter. Censored 2001: 25 Years of Censored News. New York: Seven Stories. 2001. Sharp, M.E. Indonesia Beyond Suharto. Armonk, 1999. Verdugo, Patricia. Chile, Pinochet, and the Caravan of Death. Coral Gables, Florida: North-South Center Press, 2001. Yglesias, Jose. The Franco Years. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1977.

Any questions ? Note any similarities ? Anyone still in any doubt as to who calls the shots behind the chimp ? Anyone still not understand what a neocon is ? Is anyone still neo-conned ?

[bigdog]

great news

An Old Face Resurfaces

Don't ever say the Bush administration doesn't take care of its own. Nearly three years after Paul Wolfowitz resigned as deputy Defense secretary and six months after his stormy departure as president of the World Bank—amid allegations that he improperly awarded a raise to his girlfriend—he's in line to return to public service.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters.

The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters. "We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job," said one senior official.

Wolfowitz, now a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, will replace former senator Fred Thompson, who quit over the summer to run for president. Although officials declined to say how Rice came to choose him, Wolfowitz began his government career in the 1970s in the State Department as an arms-control expert; he forged a relationship with Rice during the 2000 presidential campaign, when they both served as top foreign-policy advisers to the then candidate Bush.

But his selection has raised more than a few eyebrows within State because he'll be providing advice on some of the same issues that critics say the administration got spectacularly wrong when Wolfowitz was pushing the case for the Iraq War at the Pentagon. (One of the department sources called the appointment "amazing.")

At least Wolfowitz, who did not return calls seeking comment, will have like-minded company: other panel members include Robert Joseph, the former National Security Council official in charge of Iraq WMD intelligence, and ex-CIA director James Woolsey, both strong allies during the Iraq debate.

The sources said Wolfowitz has already accepted Rice's offer to fill the part-time position, though it won't be announced until the completion of a standard check for conflicts of interest. But he won't have to worry about any complaints from pesky Democrats. The position doesn't require Senate confirmation.

[Le Kiwi]

He's such a vital part of the neocon "New World Order" that they were like an even stupider headless chickenhawk without his comb-licking presence. Even his frequent slitherings from the quasi-fascist AEI funk-hole to whisper in Dick's ear were too taxing for Dear Leader, he wanted his Wolfie near to him, to hear the sinister hiss of his rasping voice, watch the serpentine shape as it glistened in the pallid lighting of the Donsgone War Room, sliding markers towards Syria and Iran.....

The only empty chair at the cabal is that left by Don, and once he comes crawling back into the dark space left open for him, the Horsemen will be ready to go and ride forth on another glorious neocon SNAFU.....