Posts Tagged ‘COMMUNISM’
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In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 27, 2016 at 12:05 am
It didn’t take much for American Right-wingers to start salivating–and celebrating.
All it took was for Russia to move troops into its neighboring territories of Ukraine and Crimea.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right felt dejected. Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hadn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
The torch had barely gone out at the much-ballyhooed 2014 Sochi Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And this, of course, didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”–Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for a reestablishment of the same. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
So it was almost a certainty that, when his chosen puppet, Yanukovych, was sent packing, Putin would find some way to retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he has done so, gradually moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea.
Vladimir Putin
By late March, it was clear that Russia had sufficient forces in both Ukraine and Crimea to wreak any amount of destruction Putin may wish to inflict.
And where there is activity by Russians, there are American Rightists eager–in Shakespeare’s word–to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
Or at least to use such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachussetts who lost the 2012 Presidential election by a wide margin to Barack Obama.
“There’s no question but that the president’s naiveté with regards to Russia,” said Romney on March 23, 2014.
“And unfortunately, not having anticipated Russia’s intentions, the president wasn’t able to shape the kinds of events that may have been able to prevent the kinds of circumstances that you’re seeing in the Ukraine, as well as the things that you’re seeing in Syria.”
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest–and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no other legitimacy than the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
American gunboat
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Similarly, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) forced many nations–such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslavakia–to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion–as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chaing Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans–who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens–want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Syria–even though this civil war pits Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of America’s greatest enemies, against each other.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine–even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PETE SEEGER, PROPAGANDA, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SCAPEGOATING, SHARIA LAW, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 23, 2016 at 12:05 am
Republicans and their Rightist allies have repeatedly compared President Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler. But their propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
Adolf Hitler
Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H1216-0500-002 / CC-BY-SA, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en>, via Wikimedia Commons
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
In recent years, the GOP has targeted gays and lesbians as America’s subversive enemies.These attacks have come as thinly disguised as efforts to “restore religious freedom.”
In December, 2014, Republicans in the Michgan House of Representatives passed “The Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”
The bill would allow public agencies and private businesses to refuse service to anyone under the claim that their “religious beliefs” had been affronted.
And the State government would be legally prevented from intervening if a person claimed that his/her “deeply-held religious beliefs” was the reason for acting–or not acting–in a certain way.
Thus:
- An emergency room doctor could refuse service to a gay or lesbian needing medical care.
- A pharmacist could refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control, or HIV medication.
- A DMV clerk could refuse to give a driver’s license to someone who’s divorced.
- An employer could deny equal pay to women.
The bill seems modeled on a proposed law that the Republican House and Senate in Arizona sent to Governor Jan Brewer in 2014.
Under threat of a nationwide boycott of Arizona if the bill became law, Brewer vetoed it.
Republicans have introduced similar “right-to-discriminate” legislation in other states as well:
- On March 26, 2015, its governor, Mike Pence, signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. This will allow any individual or corporation to cite its religious beliefs as a defense when sued by a private party.
- In Kansas, lawmakers voted to exempt individuals from providing any service that was “contrary to their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
- That bill passed the state’s House chamber on February 11, 2014, triggering national backlash. It stalled in the Senate and didn’t advance beyond that body.
- In January, 2014, South Dakota Republicans introduced a bill to let businesses refuse to serve same-sex couples on the grounds that “businesses are private and that their views on sexual orientation are protected to the same extent as the views of private citizens.”
- The South Dakota bill–which was killed in February, 2014–would have made it illegal for a gay person to file a lawsuit charging discrimination.
Republicans claim they want to “get the government off the backs of the people.” But their fixation on regulating the sexual lives of Americans ensures government intrusions of the most intimate kind.
Since 9/11, Republicans have warned that Muslims are trying to impose Sharia (Islamic law) on America.
Ironically, Right-wing legislators, in elevating religion above the secular law, may have laid the legal foundations for making that possible.
What will happen when some Muslims claim their right–guaranteed in Islamic religious law–to have as many as four wives?
And when they claim that the “religious freedom” laws protect that right?
Republicans have defended such legislation by equating gays with child predators.
In fact, the Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute states that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends, and the majority are men married to women.
Yet Republicans and their Rightist allies have refused to condemn such heterosexual–and Right-wing–child molesters as Dennis Hastert and Josh Duggar.
Josh Duggar, the “all-American” child molester
On May 21, 2015, responding to press leaks, Duggar resigned as director of the Family Research Council, a Right-wing organization dedicated to fighting sexually-oriented issues such as same-sex marriage, abortion and pornography.
In 2002-3, as a 14-15 year-old, Duggar had fondled the breasts and vaginas of five underage girls–four of whom were his own sisters.
And on October 28, 2015, Hastert–Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2007–pleaded guilty to structuring money transactions in a way to avoid requirements to report where the money was going.
Dennis Hastert
The reason: To conceal the truth about his past as a child molester. Hastert had abused four young boys when he was their high school wrestling coach. One was only 14 years old.
Despite such setbacks, the politics of “smear and fear” have been good to Republicans–and their Right-wing allies.
The Republican “base” refuses to learn that those who portray themselves as morally superior are:
- Hypocrites, who are in effect saying: “Do as I say, not as I do,” or
- Fanatics, who intend to force their version of morality on others.
So long as millions of hate-filled Right-wingers support the endless succession of “two minute hates,” Republicans will continue to target an endless series of victims.
The good news: As blacks, Hispanics, women, gays and others become a significant political force, Republicans will stop attacking them and court them for votes.
The bad news: Republicans will move on to find other still-helpless scapegoats for America’s troubles.
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PETE SEEGER, PROPAGANDA, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SCAPEGOATING, SHARIA LAW, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on May 20, 2016 at 12:01 am
In 1953, Red-baiting Wisconsin United States Senator Joseph R. McCarthy finally overstepped himself.
He attacked the leadership of the United States Army as “a hotbed of traitors” and convened an inquiry through the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Joseph McCarthy
But the hearings backfired, exposing McCarthy as the bullying demagogue he was. A Senate committee voted to condemn his behavior, charging that he had “acted contrary to senatorial ethics and tended to bring the Senate into dishonor and disrepute.”
Although McCarthy remained in the Senate another two and a half years, his political influence had ended.
Yet even without McCarthy, Republicans rode the issue of anti-Communism to victory from 1948 to 1992.
After holding the White House for eight years under Dwight D. Eisenhower, they lost it in 1960 to John F. Kennedy and again in 1964 to Lyndon B. Johnson.
By 1968, with the nation mired in Vietnam and convulsed by antiwar demonstrations and race riots, Americans turned once more to those who preyed upon their fears and hates.
They elected Richard Nixon, who promised to end the Vietnam war and crack down on “uppity” blacks and antiwar demonstrators.
The same strategy re-elected him in 1972.
After Jimmy Carter won the Presidency in 1976 and lost it in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Republicans held the White House until 1992.
During the 1970s and 1980s, they continued to accuse their opponents of being devious agents–or at least unwitting pawns–of “the Communist conspiracy.”
Even as late as 1992, President George H.W. Bush and the Republican establishment charged that Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton might be a KGB plant.
George H.W. Bush
Their evidence: During his tenure at Oxford University in 1969-70, Clinton had briefly visited Moscow.
Thus, the Republican charged that he might have been “programmed” as a real-life “Manchurian candidate” to become, first, Governor of Arkansas–one of America’s poorest states–and then President.
What made this charge all the more absurd: The Soviet Union had officially dissolved in December, 1991.
Republicans continued to accuse their opponents of being “Communists” and “traitors.” But these charges no longer carried the weight they had while the Soviet Union existed.
Right-wingers had to settle for attacking their opponents as “liberals” and “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
Then, on September 11, 2001, Republicans–and their right-wing supporters–at last found a suitable replacement for the Red Menace.
Two highjacked jetliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and one struck the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001
Exit The Red Bogeyman. Enter The Maniacal Muslim.
Consider:
- Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.): On July 13, 2012, she sent letters to the Inspectors General of the Departments of Defense; State; Justice; and Homeland Security, demanding a “a multi-department investigation into potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the United States Government.”
- Rick Santorum: On supporting the racial profiling of Muslims: “Obviously, Muslims would be someone you look at, absolutely.”
- Mitt Romney: “Based on the numbers of American Muslims in our population, I cannot see that a Cabinet position [for a Muslim] would be justified.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors–and audience:
- Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
- Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
- How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists, Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
- The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin
- Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
- To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich
- Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
- Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
- America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
- The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi
- Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio by Brian Jennings
- The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
- Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steven Milloy
- Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
- Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter
- Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris
1984 NOVEL, 9/11, ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BIRTH CONTROL, BLACKS, CBS NEWS, CNN, COMMUNISM, DENNIS HASTERT, DISABLED, DISCRIMINATION, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, EDWARD R. MURROW, ENVIRONMENTALISTS, FACEBOOK, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, GAYS, GEORGE C. MARSHALL, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE ORWELL, GOP, GREAT SOCIETY, HARRY S. TRUMAN, HISPANICS, HIV MEDICATION, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER, JOHN BIRCH SOCIETY, JOHN F. KENNEDY, JOHN STEINBECK, JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY, JOSEPH STALIN, JOSH DUGGAR, KGB, LEE ATWATER, LEON TROTSKY, LESBIANS, LIBERALS, LUCILLE BALL, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, MEDICAL CARE, MEIN KAMPF, MICHAEL DUKAKIS, MICHELLE BACHMANN, MITT ROMNEY, MUSLIMS, NBC NEWS, PETE SEEGER, PROPAGANDA, RELIGION, REPUBLICANS, RICHARD NIXON, RICK SANTORUM, ROBERT WELCH, RODNEY KING RIOTS, SCAPEGOATING, SHARIA LAW, SOCIALISTS, SOVIET UNION, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE RELIGIOUS FREEDOM RESTORATION ACT, THE WASHINGTON POST, TRANSGENDERS, TWITTER, WILLIAM L. SHIRER, WOMEN, WORLD WAR ii
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 19, 2016 at 12:01 am
The Right’s fixation on transgender “dangers” is only the latest in a long string of “enemies” painted by the Republican party.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the “enemy” was blacks. The key to winning votes of racist whites without appearing racist lay in what Republicans called “the Southern Strategy.”
It was this that won Richard Nixon the Presidency in 1968 and 1972 and the White House for George H.W. Bush in 1988.
In a now-infamous 1981 interview, Right-wing political consultant Lee Atwater explained how this worked:
“You start out in 1954 by saying, ‘Nigger, nigger, nigger.’ By 1968 you can’t say ‘nigger’—that hurts you, backfires.
“So you say stuff like, uh, forced busing, states’ rights, and all that stuff, and you’re getting so abstract.
“Now, you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is, blacks get hurt worse than whites.…
“’We want to cut this,’ is much more abstract than even the busing thing, uh, and a hell of a lot more abstract than ‘Nigger, nigger.’
“So anyway you look at it, race is coming on the back burner.”
Lee Atwater
At the end of his life, Atwater recognized the monster he had helped unleash.
Like Reinhard Heydrich–the designer of the “Final Solution” who, on his deathbed, begged forgiveness for his crimes–Atwater, in a 1991 article for Life, apologized to former Democratic Presidential nominee Michael Dukakis for the “naked cruelty” of the 1988 campaign.
But blacks have by no means been the only targets–and victims–of Republican hate campaigns. A partial list of these would include:
- Liberals
- Women
- Socialists
- Secularists
- Disabled
- Environmentalists
- Hispanics
- Gays
- Lesbians
And now transgenders.
George Orwell’s classic 1949 novel, 1984, serves as a better guide to Republican electioneering than any official statement of the GOP.
1984 is set in a futuristic dictatorship called Oceania, whose constantly alternating mortal enemies are Eurasia and Eastasia.
A daily fixture of life in Oceania is the “Two Minutes Hate.” During this, Party members must watch a film depicting the Party’s enemies and express their hatred for them in exactly two minutes.
Chief among these is Emmanuel Goldstein, who is obviously based on Leon Trotsky, the longtime antagonist of Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union for almost 30 years.
The “Two Minutes Hate” serves as a form of brainwashing, whose purpose is to whip ordinary citizens into a frenzy of hatred and loathing for whoever the Party designates as its–and their–mortal enemies.
Since the end of World War II, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-approved thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence–by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
Joseph McCarthy
Elected to the Senate in 1946, he rose to national prominence on February 9, 1950, after giving a fiery speech in Wheeling, West Virginia:
“The State Department is infested with communists. I have here in my hand a list of 205—a list of names that were made known to the Secretary of State as being members of the Communist Party and who nevertheless are still working and shaping policy in the State Department.”
Americans were already growing increasingly fearful of Communism:
- Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had not withdrawn the Red Army from the countries it had occupied in Eastern Europe during World War II.
- In 1948, the Soviet Union developed–and demonstrated–its own atomic bomb, an achievement U.S. scientists had claimed would not happen for at least a decade.
- In 1949, China fell to the triumphant armies of Mao Tse Tung.
But anti-communism as a lever to political advancement sharply accelerated following McCarthy’s speech. Republicans–resentful at being denied the White House since 1932–seized upon anti-communism as their passport to power.
No American–no matter how prominent–was safe from the accusation of being a Communist or a Communist sympathizer–”a Comsymp” or “fellow traveler” in the style of the era.
Among those accused:
- Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who had overseen America’s strategy for defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan
- President Harry S. Truman
- Playwrights Lillian Hellman and Arthur Miller
- Actors Charlie Chaplin, Zero Mostel, Lloyd Bridges, Howard Da Silva, Edward G. Robinson and John Garfield
- Composers Arron Copland and Elmer Bernstein
- Physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, who presided over the creation of America’s atomic bomb
- Actresses Lee Grant, Delores del Rio, Ruth Gordon and Lucille Ball
- Journalists Edward R. Murrow and William L. Shirer, who had chronicled the rise of Nazi Germany
- Folksinger Pete Seeger
- Writers Irwin Shaw, Howard Fast, John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammett
Even “untouchable” Republicans became targets for such slander.
The most prominent of these was President Dwight D. Eisenhower–labeled ”a conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy” by Robert Welch, who founded the John Birch Society in 1958.
ABC NEWS, ADOLF HITLER, AL QAEDA, ANN COULTER, ARIZONA SHOOTINGS, ASSASSINATION, BARACK OBAMA, BILL CLINTON, BILL O'REILLY, BIRTHERS, BOBBY JINDAL, CBS NEWS, CHRISTINA-TAYLOR GREEN, CNN, COMMUNISM, CONFEDERATE FLAB, CRIME, DYLANN ROOF, FACEBOOK, FBI, GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, GEORGE H.W. BUSH, GEORGE W. BUSH, GLENN BECK, HATE GROUPS, HEALTHCARE, JBE BUSH, JOSEPH MCCARTHY, MEIN KAMPF, MICHELLE BACHMANN, NBC NEWS, NEWT GINGRICH, OBAMACARE, OSAMA BIN LADEN, RICHARD NIXON, RICK PERRY, RICK SANTORUM, RODNEY KING RIOTS, ROLLING STONE, RUSH LIMBAUGH, Sarah Palin, SEAN HANNITY, Secret Service, SOVIET UNION, SPIRO AGNEW, TEA PARTY, THE CHICAGO SUN-TIMES, THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES, THE NEW YORK TIMES, THE WASHINGTON POST, TWITTER, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE JOHN ROLL, U.S. MARSHALS SERVICE, WHITE SUPREMACISTS
In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 17, 2016 at 12:05 am
When President Barack Obama set out to provide healthcare for all Americans–-and not simply the wealthiest 1%–-Republicans tried to frighten voters with lies.
The most infamous of these was that healthcare reform would lead to wholesale murder by government “death panels,” as Sarah Palin put it.
Despite being the party of the extreme Right, Republicans delight in portraying Obama as the ultimate Fascist: Adolf Hitler.
At their rallies they brandish doctored photos of Obama sporting a Hitler forelock and toothbrush mustache.
And they claim he plans to set up concentration camps for those who disagree with him.
They also claim he intends to “take away our guns–just like Hitler.”
In fact:
- Rather than disarming Germans, Adolf Hitler armed his fellow citizens and created the mightiest war machine Western Europe had ever seen; and;
- Rather than confiscating Americans’ firearms, Obama has signed legislation allowing guns to be brought onto Amtrak and into national marks.
Even more ominously, heavily-armed Right-wingers have showed up at places where Obama was scheduled to speak.
In August, 2009, about a dozen people carrying guns, including one with a military-style rifle, milled among protesters outside a Phoenix convention center where President Obama was giving a speech.
A week earlier, during Obama’s healthcare town hall in New Hampshire, a man carrying a sign reading “It is time to water the tree of liberty” stood outside with a pistol strapped to his leg.
On August 28, 2010, an armed Obama protester was arrested by police at the Alaska State Fair, where the President was scheduled to speak.
According to the Secret Service, Obama is the target of more than 30 death threats a day and is the most threatened President in history. The heightened danger he faces is stretching the Secret Service to its limits.
Secret Service agents guarding President Obama
Since Obama took office in 2009, the rate of threats against him has increased 400%.
Fred Solop, a Northern Arizona University political scientist, said the incidents in New Hampshire and Arizona could signal the beginning of a disturbing trend.
“When you start to bring guns to political rallies, it does layer on another level of concern and significance,” Solop said. “It actually becomes quite scary for many people. It creates a chilling effect in the ability of our society to carry on honest communication.”
The way to prevent such tragedies in the future is to hold fully accountable not just the shooters but those who deliberately point them toward their targets and repeatedly scream: “Kill the traitors!”
Americans must shed their naive belief that “America is exempt from the political corruption of other countries.” And they must see the Republicans’ lust for absolute power at any price as the danger it presents to the future of the Republic.
Among the steps that need to be taken:
First, the families and friends of the Tucson massacre victims should file civil lawsuits against Sarah Palin and every other Republican who created the firestorm of hate that consumed 19 victims.
And survivors of the massacre at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church should do likewise against those Right-wing groups that influenced Dylann Roof to snuff out nine innocent lives because they were black.
A legal precedent for such lawsuits emerged 20 years ago, and still remains viable.
On November 13, 1988 in Portland, Oregon, three white supremacist members of East Side White Pride and White Aryan Resistance (WAR) beat to death Mulugeta Seraw, an Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college.
Morris Dees and the Southern Poverty Law Center filed a civil suit (Berhanu v. Metzger) against Tom Metzger, founder of WAR. They argued that WAR influenced Seraw’s killers by encouraging their group, East Side White Pride, to commit violence.
Tom and John Metzger were found civilly liable under the doctrine of vicarious liability, in which one can be liable for a tort committed by a subordinate or by another person who is taking instructions.
In October 1990, the jury returned the largest civil verdict in Oregon history at the time—$12.5 million—against Metzger and WAR. The Metzgers’ house was seized, and most of WAR’s profits went to paying off the judgment.
Second, the FBI and Justice Department should launch an all-out investigation into not simply right-wing hate groups but those political leaders who openly or secretly encourage and support their activities.
Those who are found doing so should be indicted and prosecuted under the Patriot Act and the Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act.
Third, the Secret Service should immediately adopt the policy that no one but sworn law enforcement officers will be allowed to carry firearms within the immediate vicinity of the President. And it should enforce that policy through its elite countersniper teams.
Finally, President Obama should do what President Clinton failed to do at the time of the 1995 Right-wing truck-bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building: He should publicly condemn those Republicans who give “aid and comfort” to the right-wing extremists whose support they openly court.
Unless such steps are taken, outrages such as the Tucson slaughter will continue to remain a needless “mystery.” And those outrages will continue until a Republican version of the swastika permanently flies over the capitol dome and the White House.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 16, 2016 at 12:01 am
The electoral success of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Red-baiting treason slanders proved too alluring for other Republicans to resist.
Joseph McCarthy
Among those who have greatly profited from hurling similar charges are:
- President Richard Nixon
- His vice president, Spiro Agnew
- Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich
- Former Congressman Dick Armey
- President George W. Bush
- Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin
- Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann
- Rush Limbaugh
- Glenn Beck
- Sean Hannity
- Bill O’Reilly.
During the 1992 Presidential campaign, Republicans tried to paint Bill Clinton as a brainwashed “Manchurian candidate” because he had briefly visited the Soviet Union during his college years.
After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Republicans lost their “soft on Communism” slander-line. So they tried to persuade voters that Democrats were “soft on crime.”
When riots flared in 1992 after the acquittal of LAPD officers who had savagely beaten Rodney King, President George H.W. Bush blamed the carnage on the “Great Society” programs of the 1960s.
George H.W. Bush
After losing the White House to Clinton at the polls in 1992 and 1996, Republicans tried to oust him another way: By impeaching him over a tryst with a penis-loving intern named Monica Lewinsky.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted to impeach, but the effort was defeated in the Democratically-controlled Senate.
The 2008 election of Barack Obama pushed the Republican “treason chorus” to new heights of infamy.
Barack Obama
Almost immediately after Obama took office, he came under attack by an industry of Right-wing book authors such as Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.
The following titles vividly reveal the hates, fears and ambitions of their authors–and audience:
- Conservative Victory: Defeating Obama’s Radical Agenda by Sean Hannity
- Obama Zombies: How the Liberal Machine Brainwashed My Generation by Jason Mattera
- How Barack Obama is Bankrupting the U.S. Economy by Stephen Moore
- Let Freedom Ring: Winning the War of Liberty over Liberalism by Sean Hannity
- The Manchurian President: Barack Obama’s Ties to Communists,Socialists and Other Anti-American Extremists by Aaron Klein
- The Blueprint: Obama’s Plan to Subvert the Constitution and Build an Imperial Presidency by Ken Blackwell
- Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies by Michelle Malkin
- Why Obama’s Government Takeover of Health Care Will Be a Disaster by David Gratzer
- To Save America: Stopping Obama’s Secular-Socialist Machine by Newt Gingrich
- Obama’s Radical Transformation of America: Year One by Joshua Muravchik
- How the Obama Administration Threatens to Undermine Our Elections by John Fund
- Power Grab: How Obama’s Green Policicies Will Steal Your Freedom and Bankrupt America by Christopher C. Horner
- The Bad Science and Bad Policy of Obama’s Global Warning Agenda by Roy W. Spencer
- America’s March to Socialism: Why We’re One Step Closer to Giant Missile Parades by Glenn Beck
- Obama’s Betrayal of Israel by Michael Ledeen
- The Obama Nation: Leftist Politics and the Cult of Personality by Jerome R. Corsi
- The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise and Unexamined Agenda of the Media’s Favorite Candidate by David Freddoso
- Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio by Brian Jennings
- The War On Success: How the Obama Agenda Is Shattering the American Dream by Tommy Newberry
- Green Hell: How Environmentalists Plan to Control Your Life and What You Can Do to Stop Them by Steven Milloy
- Liberalism is a Mental Disorder: Savage Solutions by Michael Savage
- Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism by Ann Coulter
- How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must): The World According to Ann Coulter by Ann Coulter
- Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right by Ann Coulter
- If Democrats Had Any Brains, They’d Be Republicans by Ann Coulter
- Guilty: Liberal “Victims” and Their Assault on America by Ann Coulter
- Catastrophe: How Obama, Congress and the Special Interests Are Transforming…a Slump into a Crash, Freedom Into Socialism and a Disaster into a Catastrophe….And How to Fight Back by Dick Morris
Consider the vocabulary Right-wingers use to describe their political adversaries:
“Liberals,” “radicals, “bankrupting,” “treason,” subversion,” “slander,” “terrorism,” “betrayal,” “catastrophe,” “shattering the American dream,” “leftists,” “Communists,” “government takeover,” “socialism,” “power grab,” “secularism,” “environmentalism.”
And while the Right lusts to constantly compare Obama to Adolf Hitler, its propaganda campaign draws heavily on the Nazi leader’s own advice.
In Mein Kampf, Hitler laid out his formula for successful propaganda: “All effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials.
“Those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotypical formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward.”
Among the lies most “persistently repeated” by Republicans about Obama:
Obama isn’t an American citizen. The reason: To “prove” that he is an illegitimate President, and should be removed from office.
Even the President’s releasing of the long-form version of his birth certificate in 2011–showing that he was born in Hawaii, not Kenya–didn’t end these falsehoods.
The long-form version of President Obama’s birth certificate
Oaama is a secret Muslim who intends to betray America to his Islamic masters.
In fact, Obama has eliminated far more Al Qaeda leaders than George W. Bush ever did–including the most sought-after one of all: Osama bin Laden.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 13, 2016 at 12:11 am
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.”
So wrote Rolling Stone writer in a blistering June 19, 2015 editorial. The touchstone was the slaughter of nine black worshipers by a white supremacist at a South Carolina black church.
But the proof of Republican culpability in political violence goes back much further.
Consider:
Gabrille Giffords, 40, is a moderate Democrat who narrowly wins re-election in November, 2010, against a Republican Tea Party candidate.
Her support of President Obama’s health care reform law has made her a target for violent rhetoric–-especially from former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
In March, 2010, Palin releases a map featuring 20 House Democrats that uses cross-hairs images to show their districts. In case her supporters don’t get the message, she later writes on Twitter: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!”
Sarah Palin’s “Crosshairs” Map
As the campaign continues, Giffords finds her Tucson office vandalized after the House passes the healthcare overhaul in March.
Giffords senses that she has become a target for removal–in more than political terms. In an interview after the vandalizing of her office, she refers to the animosity against her by conservatives.
She specifically cites Palin’s decision to list her seat as one of the top “targets” in the midterm elections.
“For example, we’re on Sarah Palin’s targeted list, but the thing is, that the way that she has it depicted has the cross-hairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they have to realize that there are consequences to that action,” Giffords tells MSNBC.
At one of her rallies, her aides call the police after an attendee drops a gun.
Giffords may have seen the spectre of violence closing in on her. In April, 2010, she supported Rep. Raúl Grijalva after he had to close two offices when he and his staff received threats.
He had called for a boycott of Arizona businesses in opposition to the state’s controversial immigration law.
“I am deeply troubled about reports that Congressman Grijalva and members of his staff have been subjected to death threats,” Giffords said.
“This is not how we, as Americans, express our political differences. Intimidation has no place in our representative democracy. Such acts only make it more difficult for us to resolve our differences.”
But intimidation–-and worse–-does have a place among the tactics used by influential Republicans in the pursuit of absolute power.
Increasingly, Republicans have repeatedly aimed violent–-and violence-arousing–-rhetoric at their Democratic opponents. This is not a case of careless language that is simply misinterpreted, with tragic results.
Republicans like Sarah Palin fully understand the constituency they are trying to reach: Those masses of alienated, uneducated Americans who live only for their guns and hardline religious beliefs–and who can be easily manipulated by perceived threats to either.
If a “nutcases” assaults a Democratic politician and misses, then the Republican establishment claims to be shocked–-shocked!–-that such a thing could have happened.
And if the attempt proves successful–-as the January 8, 2011 Tucson shootings did–-then Republicans weep crocodile tears for public consumption.
The difference is that, in this case, they rejoice in knowing that Democratic ranks have been thinned and their opponents are even more on the defensive, for fear of the same happening to them.
Consider the following:
- Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Tex.) yelled “baby killer” at Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) on the House floor.
- Florida GOP Congressional candidate Allen West, referring to his Democratic opponent, Rep. Ron Klein, told Tea Party activists: You’ve got to make the fellow scared to come out of his house. That’s the only way that you’re going to win. That’s the only way you’re going to get these people’s attention.”
- Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) said Tea Partiers had “every right” to use racist and homophobic slurs against Democrats, justifying it via Democrats’ “totalitarian tactics.”
- Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she wanted her constituents “armed and dangerous” against the Obama administration.
- Sarah Palin told her supporters: “Get in their face and argue with them. No matter how tough it gets, never retreat, instead RELOAD!”
- Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building.”
- Senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.) “We’re going to keep building the party until we’re hunting Democrats with dogs.”
- Rep. Louisa M. Slauter (D-NY) received a phone message threatening sniper attacks against lawmakers and their families.
Since the end of World War 11, Republicans have regularly hurled the charge of “treason” against anyone who dared to run against them for office or think other than Republican-sponsored thoughts.
Republicans had been locked out of the White House from 1933 to 1952, during the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman.
Determined to regain the Presidency by any means, they found that attacking the integrity of their fellow Americans a highly effective tactic.
During the 1950s, Wisconsin Senator Joseph R. McCarthy rode a wave of paranoia to national prominence–by attacking the patriotism of anyone who disagreed with him.
The fact that McCarthy never uncovered one actual case of treason was conveniently overlooked during his lifetiAL me.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on May 12, 2016 at 12:28 am
On June 17, 2015, Dylann Roof, a white high school dropout, gunned down three black men and six black women at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
At 21, Roof was unemployed, dividing his time between playing video games and taking drugs.
Dylann Roof
The signs of Roof’s malignant racism were evident long before he turned mass murderer:
- He had posed for a photo sitting on the hood of his parents’ car–whose license plate bore a Confederate flag.
- He had posed for pictures wearing a jacket sporting the white supremacist flags of Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
- He told a friend that he hoped “to start a civil war” between the black and white races.
- Roof reportedly told friends and neighbors of his plans to kill people.
- In the midst of his massacre of unarmed worshippers, he told one of his victims: “You’ve raped our women, and you are taking over the country.” Then Roof shot him.
The evidence makes clear that Roof’s slaughter was racially motivated. Yet one Republican Presidential candidate after another has refused to acknowledge it.
Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida: “I don’t know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.”
Rick Santorum, former United States Senator from Pennsylvania: “You talk about the importance of prayer in this time and we’re now seeing assaults on our religious liberty we’ve never seen before. It’s a time for deeper reflection beyond this horrible situation.”
Bobby Jindal, former governor of Louisiana: “I don’t think we’ll ever know what was going on in his mind.”
But Rolling Stone magazine writer Jeb Lund left no doubt as to what–and who–was ultimately responsible for this crime: Racism and Republicans.
In a June 19, 2015 editorial–published two days after the massacre–Lund noted: “This [crime] is political because American movement conservatism has already made these kinds of killings political.
“The Republican Party has weaponized its supporters, made violence a virtue and, with almost every pronouncement for 50 years, given them an enemy politicized, racialized and indivisible.
“Movement conservatives have fetishized a tendentious and ahistorical reading of the Second Amendment to the point that the Constitution itself somehow paradoxically ‘legitimizes’ an armed insurrection against the government created by it.
“Those leading said insurrection are swaddled by the blanket exculpation of patriotism. At the same time, they have synonymized the Democratic Party with illegitimacy and abuse of the American order.
“This is no longer an argument about whether one party’s beliefs are beneficial or harmful, but an attitude that labels leftism so antithetical to the American idea that empowering it on any level is an act of usurpation.”
Click here: The Charleston Shooter: Racist, Violent, and Yes – Political | Rolling Stone
Lund is absolutely right. And the evidence for this was on display long before Dylann Roof opened fire on “uppity blacks” praying in their own church.
Consider:
On January 8, 2011, Democratic Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson, Arizona. After a miraculous recovery, she continues to struggle with language and has lost 50% of her vision in both eyes.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords
She vowed to return to her former Congressional duties, but was forced to resign for health reasons in 2012.
Giffords was only one victim of a shooting spree that claimed the lives of six people and left 13 others wounded.
Also killed was Arizona’s chief U.S. District judge, John Roll, who had just stopped by to see his friend Giffords after celebrating Mass.
Although the actual shooter, Jared Lee Loughner, was immediately arrested, those who fanned the flames of political violence that consumed 19 people that day have remained unpunished.
Consider the circumstances behind the shootings:
John Roll is Arizona’s chief federal judge. Appointed in 2006, he wins acclaim as a respected jurist and leader who pushes to beef up the court’s strained bench to handle a growing number of border crime-related cases.
In 2009, he becomes a target for threats after allowing a $32 million civil-rights lawsuit by illegal aliens to proceed against a local rancher. The case arouses the fury of local talk radio hosts, who encourage their audiences to threaten Roll’s life.
In one afternoon, Roll logs more than 200 threatening phone calls. Callers threaten the judge and his family. They post personal information about Roll online.
Roll and his wife are placed under fulltime protection by deputy U.S. marshals. Roll finds living under security “unnerving and invasive.”
Authorities identify four men believed responsible for the threats. But Roll declines to press charges on the advice of the Marshals Service.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on May 11, 2016 at 12:01 am
On February 6, 2011, Ronald Reagan, if he had been alive, would have been 100 years old.
Publishers rushed to put out worshipful tributes to his eight years as President. Network political programs such as “This Week” and “Meet the Press” assembled surviving members of his administration to re-live the “glory days” of Reagan’s—and their—time in power.
This is where it all started going wrong for America—a Right-wing legacy of huge Federal deficits, tax-cuts for the rich, bloated military budgets and cutbacks in government programs to aid the poor and middle-class.
Ronald Reagan
The Republican party, of course, has done the most to create and promote this “cult of Reagan.” And it has done so for the same reason the Communist party of the Soviet Union created and fostered the “cult of Lenin.”
No two men could have been more different than Vladimir Lenin and Ronald Reagan. Lenin created the Soviet Union in 1917 and became its first in a series of absolute dictators. Reagan spent his life fighting Communism, most notably as President.
Vladimir Lenin
So it’s ironic that both men, in death, got essentially the same funeral—and for the same reason: To sanctify and legitimize their respective organizations—and the authority of their potential successors.
Lenin died in 1924 and was immediately succeeded by Joseph Stalin. Stalin knew that, despite Communism’s official atheistic stance, most Russians remained loyal to the Russian Orthodox Church.
So in giving Lenin’s funeral oration, Stalin used the language of religion to confer sainthood upon a militant atheist–and upon his successor, Stalin himself.
Funeral for Vladimir Lenin
Stalin and his fellow Communists immediately launched the “cult of Lenin,” depicting him as a fatherly, all-wise leader whose genius could only be bestowed upon his closest disciples.
Lenin’s extensive political writings were treated as divine writ, and were used to justify everything Stalin and his own successors wanted to do.
A classic example: Although Lenin died 20 years before the American creation of the atomic bomb, Lenin was hailed by the Soviets as the “father” of “Soviet nuclear physics.”
Similarly, the Republican party wasted no time turning its own former leader, Ronald Reagan, into a modern-day saint of mythical proportions.
They have done so for the same reason that Stalin deliberately forged a cult around the dead Lenin—to create a “holy” figure of whom other Republicans can claim to be true disciples.
Funeral for Ronald Reagan
These deliberate fictions conveniently ignore a series of ugly truths:
- Reagan was only one of a series of Presidents who held the line against the Soviet Union.
- His budgets were just as stained with red ink as those of all previous Presidents.
- Far from standing up to Iranian terrorists, Reagan sold them our most sophisticated missiles in a weak-kneed exchange for American hostages. Then he went on television and brazenly lied that any such “arms for hostages” deal had ever happened.
- By the end of his term, 138 Reagan administration officials had been investigated, indicted or convicted for official misconduct and/or criminal violations.
- His “trickle-down” Reganomics brought prosperity to only the wealthiest 1% of Americans, proving that “a rising tide lifted some yachts.”
- By drastically shrinking the tax-base, bloating the defense budget and destroying programs to benefit the poor and middle-class, Reagan produced a $1 trillion deficit—which only the Clinton Administration eliminated.
- Reagan believed that government should not help the impoverished. Those who lacked wealth to buy such necessities as housing and medical insurance were written off as unimportant.
- John F. Kennedy had praised government service as an honor. Reagan repeatedly said that “the best and the brightest” could be found only in business.
- This denigration of government service continues among Republicans to this day–defaming the very institutions they lust to control.
- Although he often berated the poor for their “laziness,” Reagan adhered to a “banker’s hours” schedule: During his working hours in the Oval Office, he often had blocks of free time–two to three hours. He would call for his fan mail and answer it.
- Reagan saw no need to protect America’s fragile environment against corporate polluters, eager to enrich themselves at its expense: “Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let’s not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources.”
Reagan famously attacked “welfare queens” and sought to deny government benefits for the poor. But he didn’t hesitate to enrich himself at public expense.
- Before his Presidency ended, 18 wealthy Californians contributed $156,000 apiece to buy him a 7,200 square-foot mansion overlooking Beverly Hills.
- Reagan signed a multi-million dollar deal to write his Presidential memoirs and publish a collection of his speeches.
- He signed an exclusive contract with a Washington lecture bureau, which paid him $50,000 per speech given in the United States and $100,000 overseas. This made him the highest-paid speaker in the country.
- These monies came in addition to his Presidential pension of $99,500 a year for life and his $30,000 annual pension as a former governor of California.
- At a cost to the government of $10 million annually, Reagan—a millionaire who could afford private security—continued to receive lifetime Secret Service protection from 40 fulltime agents.
The “cult of Lenin” died when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The “cult of Reagan” continues to flourish, and will do so for as long as the Republican party finds voters willing to believe in it.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics on February 16, 2016 at 12:10 am
When Osama bin Laden died, two weapons were within easy reach–an AK-47 assault rifle and a Russian-made nine-millimeter Makarov pistol.
But according to his wife, Amal, he was shot by Navy SEALS before he could reach either one.
A SEAL flashed coded news of bin Laden’s death to the Pentagon and the White House Situation Room, where President Barack Obama and the topmost officials of his administration anxiously followed events via a closed-circuit television.
“Geronimo E-KIA” read the message: “Geronimo [bin Laden] E-KIA [Enemy Killed in Action].”
The entire raid–including Intelligence sweeps of the compound–was over in less than 40 minutes. The SEALS moved quickly because they rightly feared that the Pakistani army would intervene to protect bin Laden.
Bin Laden had been living undisturbed at a large compound in Abbottabad for at least five years, just a short distance from Pakistan’s version of West Point.
Furthermore, the ISI–Pakistan’s Intelligence agency–had long been riddled with Al-Qaeda sympathizers, if not agents.
Within 24 hours of his death, Bin Laden’s body was transported to the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson for final rites and burial at sea.
U.S.S. Carl Vinson
President Obama and other U.S. officials feared that his grave site would become a memorial for members of Al-Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations.
In the late evening of May 1, 2011, the White House surprised major television networks by informing them that the President had a major announcement to make.
At 11:35 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, the President appeared at a podium in the East Room of the White House.
“Good evening. Tonight I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States had conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda, and a terrorist who’s responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children….
“For over two decades, bin Laden has been Al-Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s efforts to defeat Al-Qaeda.”
He added that “no Americans were harmed” in the raid and that the SEALS had taken care to avoid civilian casualties.
President Barack Obama announcing Osama bin Laden’s death
Like Ernesto “Che” Guevara, bin Laden had become a pale, largely irrelevant figure by the time of his death.
Knowing he was the world’s most wanted man, he imprisoned himself within a fortified compound–which he never left.
Afraid to use a phone or the Internet, he relayed orders–which were often ignored–via the cumbersome use of couriers. All trash generated by the inhabitants of the compound was burned within its walls.
Ironically, the lack of Internet and phone lines to the compound–and the burning of its trash–had led CIA officials to suspect that Osama bin Laden might be hiding there.
Pakistan was outraged. Officially an American ally, its territory had been secretly invaded by American military forces. Even more embarrassing: For years, Pakistani Intelligence had denied knowing bin Laden’s whereabouts.
Meanwhile, leaders of Islamic expansionist groups rallied to praise the dead bin Laden. Among these was his son, Omar, who denounced his father’s killing as a “criminal” act, and his burial at sea as demeaning to the Islamic faith.
In a letter published on the website of Islamic ideologue Abu Walid al-Masri, the younger bin Laden said the former Al-Qaeda leader’s children reserved the right to take legal action in the United States and internationally to “determine the true fate of our vanished father.”
Bin Laden’s death drew protests from hundreds of people in the city of Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan, who burned American flags and paid homage to the late terrorist leader.
On May 13, a pair of Taliban suicide bombers attacked paramilitary police recruits eagerly heading home for a break after months of training, killing 80 people. It was the first act of retaliation for the killing of bin Laden.
Americans reacted differently.
Almost as Obama was addressing the nation, cheering crowds gathered outside the White House and in New York City’s Times Square. Many of them shouted “USA! USA! USA!” and waved American flags in celebration.
Celebration also broke out at the site of the former World Trade Center, the primary victim of the September 11 attacks.
For the next two weeks, Americans continued to rejoice. Much of their feelings were best expressed in grisly humor on websites and late night comedy shows such as “Tonight” and “Late Night With David Letterman.”
Killing Osama bin Laden removed Al-Qaeda’s most important member. But its treasury of secret materials–such as computer hard-drives, DVDs, notebooks, diaries–proved even more important to American military and Intelligence officials.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, many Vietnam protesters marched carrying blown-up photos of Ernesto “Che” Guevara or tacked them to the walls of their dormitory rooms.
Most of these college students were members of the middle-class which Guevara had so despised.
Going on five years since the death of bin Laden, his poster has been noticeably absent from American college campuses–and everywhere else in the United States.
It remains to be seen whether, decades from now, Osama bin Laden will attain the iconic status of Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
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SPHERES OF INFLUENCE: OURS AND THEIRS
In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on September 27, 2016 at 12:05 amIt didn’t take much for American Right-wingers to start salivating–and celebrating.
All it took was for Russia to move troops into its neighboring territories of Ukraine and Crimea.
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the American Right felt dejected. Accusing Democrats of being “terrorist-lovers” just hadn’t been as profitable as accusing them of being “Communists.”
The torch had barely gone out at the much-ballyhooed 2014 Sochi Olympics when Russian President Vladimir Putin began menacing the Ukraine.
Even while the Olympics played out on television, Ukrainians had rioted in Kiev and evicted their corrupt, luxury-loving president, Victor Yanukovych.
And this, of course, didn’t sit well with his “sponsor”–Putin.
Yanukovych had rejected a pending European Union association agreement. He had chosen instead to pursue a Russian loan bailout and closer ties with Russia.
And that had sat well with Putin.
Since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Putin had yearned for a reestablishment of the same. He had called that breakup “the greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
So it was almost a certainty that, when his chosen puppet, Yanukovych, was sent packing, Putin would find some way to retaliate.
And since late February, 2014, he has done so, gradually moving Russian troops into Ukraine and its autonomous republic, Crimea.
Vladimir Putin
By late March, it was clear that Russia had sufficient forces in both Ukraine and Crimea to wreak any amount of destruction Putin may wish to inflict.
And where there is activity by Russians, there are American Rightists eager–in Shakespeare’s word–to “cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war.”
Or at least to use such events to their own political advantage.
Right-wingers such as Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachussetts who lost the 2012 Presidential election by a wide margin to Barack Obama.
“There’s no question but that the president’s naiveté with regards to Russia,” said Romney on March 23, 2014.
“And unfortunately, not having anticipated Russia’s intentions, the president wasn’t able to shape the kinds of events that may have been able to prevent the kinds of circumstances that you’re seeing in the Ukraine, as well as the things that you’re seeing in Syria.”
All of which overlooks a number of brutal political truths.
First, all great powers have spheres of interest–and jealously guard them.
For the United States, it’s Latin and Central America, as established by the Monroe Doctrine.
And just what is the Monroe Doctrine?
It’s a statement made by President James Monroe in his 1823 annual message to Congress, which warned European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere.
It has no other legitimacy than the willingness of the United States to use armed force to back it up. When the United States no longer has the will or resources to enforce the Doctrine, it will cease to have meaning.
For the Soviet Union, its spheres of influence include the Ukraine. Long known as “the breadbasket of Russia,” in 2011, it was the world’s third-largest grain exporter.
Russia will no more give up access to that breadbasket than the United States would part with the rich farming states of the Midwest.
Second, spheres of influence often prove disastrous to those smaller countries affected.
Throughout Latin and Central America, the United States remains highly unpopular for its brutal use of “gunboat diplomacy” during the 20th century.
American gunboat
Among those countries invaded or controlled by America: Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Columbia, Panama and the Dominican Republic.
The resulting anger has led many Latin and Central Americans to support Communist Cuba, even though its political oppression and economic failure are universally apparent.
Similarly, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) forced many nations–such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslavakia–to submit to the will of Moscow.
The alternative? The threat of Soviet invasion–as occurred in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
Third, even “great powers” are not all-powerful.
In 1949, after a long civil war, the forces of Mao Tse-tung defeated the Nationalist armies of Chaing Kai-Shek, who withdrew to Taiwan.
China had never been a territory of the United States. Nor could the United States have prevented Mao from defeating the corrupt, ineptly-led Nationalist forces.
Even so, Republican Senators and Representatives such as Richard Nixon and Joseph McCarthy eagerly blamed President Harry S. Truman and the Democrats for “losing China.”
The fear of being accused of “losing” another country led Presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon to tragically commit the United States to “roll back” Communism in Cuba and Vietnam.
Now Republicans–who claim the United States can’t afford to provide healthcare for its poorest citizens–want to turn the national budget over to the Pentagon.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Syria–even though this civil war pits Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, two of America’s greatest enemies, against each other.
They want the United States to “intervene” in Ukraine–even though this would mean going to war with the only nuclear power capable of turning America into an atomic graveyard.
Before plunging into conflicts that don’t concern us and where there is absolutely nothing to “win,” Americans would do well to remember the above-stated lessons of history. And to learn from them.
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