Plutocracy Has No Place In America-- But It Is Now Our Effective Form Of Government

For all the fascination with Hitler and Nazis and World War II on the History Channel and History International, Americans are reticent to engage in a serious discussion of what fascism is and how dangerous to the American way of life it still is. Many Americans don't understand that fascism isn't just about exterminating Jews or about TV war-pornography. I'm going to forego mentioning fascism in this post, although I'll be quoting from Glen Yeadon's book Nazi Hydra In America, and instead talk about plutocracy, which wikipedia defines like this:

Plutocracy is rule by the wealthy, or power provided by wealth. The combination of both plutocracy and oligarchy is called plutarchy... [A]ccording to Kevin Phillips, author and political strategist to U.S. President Richard Nixon, the United States is a plutocracy in which there is a "fusion of money and government."



The wealthy minority exerts influence over the political arena via many methods. Most western democracies permit partisan organizations to raise funds for politicians, and political parties frequently accept significant donations from various individuals (either directly or through corporations or advocacy groups)... Many corporations and business interest groups pay lobbyists to maintain constant contact with elected officials, and press them for favorable legislation. Owners of mass media outlets, and the advertisement buyers which financially support them can shape public perception of political issues by controlling the information available to the population and the manner in which it is presented.

At the end of World War II, it was clear that America had defeated the forces of plutocracy on the battlefields. But they were already plotting to destroy democracy and find a different host to infect for their next great battle to take over the world. By the end of 1944 it was obvious the U.S. was going to defeat the Germans and the Japanese. Their legions of supporters among the American plutocrats were frantic to minimize the damage and save as many of their allies (and investments) as possible. Roosevelt was old and sick (and dying) but he held out against Republicans who wanted a soft peace with Germany and a war against the Soviets-- which was the German and plutocratic goal. When the OSS, precursor to the CIA asked FDR for permission to recruit Nazis and bring them to America, FDR refused. Here's what he told Bill Donovan, head of the OSS, on December 1, 1944:

"I do not believe that we should offer any guarantees of protection in post-hostilities periods to Germans who are working for your organization. I think that carrying out of any such guarantees would be difficult and probably we widely misunderstood both in this country and aboard. We may expect that the number of Germans who are anxious to save their skins and property will rapidly increase. Among them may be some who should properly be tried for war crimes or at least arrested for active participation in Nazi activities. Even with the necessary controls you mention I am not prepared to authorize the giving of guarantees."

Nor did he. Right after he died, though, Truman relented a bit-- with strict guidelines... that were stealthily, systematically-- and gleefully-- ignored. But once the GOP retook the White House, and the Dulles Brothers, those pillars of American plutocracy, grabbed the levers of power, the floodgates opened-- and they opened wide. Almost a dozen programs, starting with Project Overcast and then Paperclip, were used to bring tens of thousands of Germans and brutal far right quislings, primarily from Eastern Europe, into the U.S. It was a determined, if semi-secret, wave of right-wing immigration specifically meant by anti-Semites like the Dulles Brothers, to counter the influence of Jews and "leftists" in America. War criminals of every stripe, including mass murderers were resettled in America under the auspices of the Dulles Brothers and, later, Richard Nixon. Did these immigrants make a contribution, as other waves of immigrants have? Well, they certainly made a contribution to Republican Party fortunes in states where they settled-- and being able to continue their work in biological and psychological warfare here brought America Lyme Disease, West Nile Virus, and drug, chemical and radiation tests on unsuspecting Americans... and, a major goal of the international plutocrats-- the Cold War and the rise of plutocracy here in America (see, especially, Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, Michigan, the House of Representatives, Mitt Romney's presidential campaign...).



Yesterday Sam Stein reported on what appear to be an anomaly, a teensy weensy little flip flop by Republican Senate Majority Leader-- and plutocracy fanatic-- Mitch McConnell. Miss McConnell, like Mitt Romney, was for raising taxes on the rich before he was so hysterically against it that he would rather see the country go down the drain. In a 1990 campaign ad, Miss lisped, "Unlike some folks around here, I think everyone should pay their fair share, including the rich." The ad was produced by Roger Ailes, like the Dulles Brothers in their day, a pillar of Plutocracy in ours.

The 1990 campaign ad still stands out for what it says about the political mood of the country-- specifically the mood in economically depressed areas that usually vote Republican. McConnell is known for being one of Congress' more astute political minds. The fact that he once espoused tax code fairness in the heat of a tight election shows that even people from Kentucky, at one point, applauded lawmakers for asking the wealthy to further subsidize the social safety net for the middle class and poor.



"What has been amazing, watching his career, is it doesn't bother him a bit to say whatever he needs to say to get re-elected. Mitch would just say whatever he needed to say," said Jim Cunningham, a long time Democratic operative who managed the campaign of McConnell's 1990 challenger, Harvey Sloane.



In Kentucky, "there was a time when... you could poll people on taxes and they believed that if you needed to raise their taxes, especially to take care of education, you should do it," Cunningham said. "Over the years it seems like folks pay less and less attention. At the same time that the Republican Party in our state has helped them buy into this notion that we don't need to tax the rich because they are the ones who create the jobs."

This week Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and 22 other senators called on Miss McConnell to put job creation first, rather than the deranged rush towards Austerity that is ripping apart the social fabric of England, Greece and a dozen other countries right now.

“For families across the country, the biggest economic problem is high unemployment,” wrote the senators. “As you know, the lack of jobs and anemic growth rate of the economy are not only enormous problems in their own right, causing great pain for millions of Americans, they are a major component of our deficit. Indeed, the loss of revenue resulting from the recession accounts for nearly $4 trillion of the projected deficits over the next 10 years.



“It is therefore appropriate and important that the JSC explicitly embrace job creation as a part of its mission,” they continued. “Targeted investments in economic growth and job creation can complement and even enhance long-term deficit reduction efforts and should be a priority that the JSC embraces.



“Let us be very clear: our fiscal challenge is directly linked to the jobs crisis and we cannot solve the former without tackling the latter.”

maybe if these 23 senators followed former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, they would have sent a copy of their letter to President Obama as well, who really ought to present a bold plan to create jobs if he would like to jumpstart the economy. Reich:

Americans are deeply confused about why the economy is so bad-- and their President isn’t telling them. In fact, the White House apparently has decided to join with Republicans and blame it on the long-term budget deficit.



Before I turn to the President, though, let’s be clear: The lousy economy is due to insufficient demand. Consumers-- who are 70 percent of the economy-- can’t and won’t buy because they’re running out of cash. They can’t borrow against homes that are worth a third less than they were five years ago, and most consumers are bad credit risks anyway because they’re losing their jobs and their wages are dropping.  They also have to start saving for the kids’ college or for retirement, which will cut their spending even more.



Without enough consumers, businesses won’t hire enough people and pay them enough to reverse the vicious cycle. So we’re dead in the water. Even the stock market has caught on to the truth.



Which means government has to step in to boost the economy-- as it has every time the economy has fallen into recession over the last eight downturns. Include the massive spending on World War II that lifted us out of the Great Recession, and it’s nine. The Fed can help, but it can’t do it alone. And it’s least helpful after a huge asset bubble has burst because the financial system won’t channel low interest rates where they’re most needed-- to small businesses and average consumers.



This time we tried one stimulus that was way too small relative to the size of the falloff in demand that started in 2008-- especially given that states and locales cut their spending by almost as much as the federal government increased it.



So we need another-- a bold jobs plan.

 

Which gets me to the President. Even though the President’s two former top economic advisors (Larry Summers and Christy Roemer) have called for a major fiscal boost to the economy, the President has remained mum. Why?



I’m told White House political operatives are against a bold jobs plan. They believe the only jobs plan that could get through Congress would be so watered down as to have almost no impact by Election Day. They also worry the public wouldn’t understand how more government spending in the near term can be consistent with long-term deficit reduction. And they fear Republicans would use any such initiative to further bash Obama as a big spender.



So rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama-- to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia.

People Like Jobs... The Rest Is Just Stuff For A Bunch Of Fascists

Other than his bitterest enemies, who have an agenda that seeks to destroy him and counts the rest of us as collateral damage, everyone told Obama to focus on job creation and leave deficit reduction for after the economy was into a firm rebound. But Obama chose his economic team straight from Wall Street, where captitalism-run-amuck has long since replaced religion, so has wound up with advisors who basically think the same way as Republicans. And how do they think? They think the way they were taught to think by gigantic propaganda efforts going back to the 1930s and set in motion by the unrepentent foremost fascist family in America, the DuPonts. From Glen Yeadon's The Nazi Hydra in America:

Wrapped up in an electioneering jingle and cloaked behind a false flag of patriotism, Lamont du Pont had concealed the very heart of fascism. Hidden behind this thin veil of false patriotism of free enterprise was the root of fascism, corporate rule. Thus began the most blatant fraud ever perpetrated against the American people; in effect, du Pont had dressed up fascism with a smiley face to appeal to the American people. To accomplish this horrific swindle of freedom and liberty, all resources were to be deployed. It would become a full-scaled assault on the rights of the American people for the remainder of the century. This was the forgotten third front of the war, the battle for the minds of the American citizen. Under the banner of this new feckless goddess of free enterprise, a multiprong attack was launched against our freedoms. One prong would question the patriotism of anyone not subscribing to unbridled corporatism, another prong would attack unionism and the third prong would be launched against socialism and communism.

This often forgotten event launched by one of the most notorious fascist of his time is imperative to the understanding of fascism in America following the war. It clearly marks the beginning of the adoption of the fascist ideology by the right-wing in the country. Before Eisenhower's troops ever started to march across North Africa and before the Marines ever started island hopping one bloody atoll after another toward the Japanese homeland a third front of the war was raging in the American homeland, for the control of the people. Tragically, the heroic efforts of the war against fascism were lost as quickly as the Third Reich crumbled into ashes. While our armies were victorious on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific, the battle for the homeland would be lost. The new goddess of free enterprise would replace democracy in America. The war against fascism would be lost. Instead of corporations serving the general interest of society, society would now be forced to serve the general interest of corporations.

The American lexicon was expanded in 1942, never before had the term free enterprise been used. There is no such right listed in the constitution nor does the constitution grant any rights to corporations. While the founding fathers believed in an economy based on capitalism, they were hardly the fools to allow trade to go on unregulated. With one-third of the populace at the time of the revolution being former indentured servants to British corporations, corporations were closely regulated as the chapter on corporate law detailed. However, unregulated corporationism was precisely what Du Pont envisioned in his call for free enterprise. The best summary of free enterprise as envision by Lammont du Pont comes from his speech before a secretive meeting of the resolution committee for the National Manufacturers Association (NAM) on September 17, 1942.

"The way to view the issue is this: Are there common denominators for winning the war and the peace? If there are, then, we should deal with both in 1943. What are they? We will win the war by reducing taxes on corporations, high income brackets, and increasing taxes on lower incomes, by removing unions from any power to tell industry how to produce, how to deal with their employees or anything else, by destroying any and all government agencies that stand in the way of free enterprise."

Du Pont's words are clearly treasonous as he calls for the destruction of any government agency that may stand in his way. It is the same agenda followed by Hitler on assuming power. In addition, as we enter the 21st Century it is the same agenda being put forward by the Republicans and the right-wingers.

The media immediately began extolling the virtues of free enterprise and singing its praises. No mention was ever made of the du Ponts funding of the pro-Nazi Liberty League or the Black Legion. No mention was made of the du Ponts involvement in the fascist plot against the White House a decade ago. This was a full-scale assault against the New Deal and responsible government. The timing of this campaign for free enterprise coincided with the upcoming election. The election would reduce the majority of Democrats considerably. In effect, it left Congress under the control of the Republicans and conservative "Dixiecrats."

Throughout the 1920s and into the 1930s the du Ponts and other munitions makers were embroiled in congressional investigations into war profiteering. Thus as the battle for Midway raged the du Ponts were already covering up their crimes of war profiteering and their dealings with the Nazis during the war. Once again, no mention of war profiteering was ever made in the media, nor was there any mention of the repressive nature of free enterprise as envisioned by du Pont.

Instead, the major media chains flaunted free enterprise as the new goddess to be worshipped.

A month before yesterday's dismal jobs report was released, Randall Forsyth of Barrons asked a crucial question, one that Obama's team should have been looking at all along-- but, clearly, weren't: How long will profits rise at labor's expense?

It has been the best of times for corporate profits, but rather less so for consumer incomes. Corporate earnings have soared 200% since 1990 while real median family incomes have increased by only 2%.

These data come from a recent article entitled, "High Profit Margins and Stagnant Real Incomes: Is Capitalism Working Properly?"

It didn't appear in The Nation but rather in The Bank Credit Analyst, the highly respected, long-time financial and economic research service that would never be thought of as some hotbed of populist fervor. And the author is not Michael Moore but Martin Barnes, the Bank Credit Analyst's long-time managing editor and self-described "dour Scot."

Moreover, rather than calling for a storming of the ramparts, Barnes poses questions of concern for the most self-interested of capitalists. Can the current high level of profit margins be maintained? Even more basically, can the corporate sector continue to prosper while the average consumer struggles?

...Profits from the domestic, non-financial sector have been merely good, not outstanding. Looking at operating cash flow (earnings before interest, taxes and depreciation, or Ebitd) shows a much stronger picture, however. The ratio of corporate selling prices and unit labor costs is a simple proxy for Ebitd margins; productivity gains boost the ratio, and vice versa.

Since the 1990s, the ratio rose because of the Fed's success in crushing inflation, helped by technology and global competition, which brought growth in unit labor costs down to just 1.4% annually from 5% in the prior two decades.

...Looking ahead, Barnes sees cause for concern. Companies have curbed growth in capital investment, and their gains from "aggressive labor shedding" can't be repeated. With continued limited pricing power, non-financial Ebitd margins are likely to be under pressure, but a severe squeeze won't happen until the next recession, which he says a couple of years away.

Bottom line, the main factors that have propelled corporate profits-- cost-cutting, financial profits and overseas earnings-- are waning. Even so, companies have done a far sight better than workers, as noted earlier. Since 2000, they've fallen even further behind; profits are up 70% while real median family incomes are down 2%.

Part of that has been because consumer prices have risen faster than corporate selling prices, which reflect costs of capital goods which have been held down by technology, Barnes notes. "However, it seems clear that labor has not received its fair share in recent years, even when using corporate prices," he adds, falling 4% short of what would be expected based on productivity gains.

"Ultimately, the health of the corporate sector depends on the financial health of its customers. Thus, the divergence between rising profits and weak growth in real consumer incomes will have to change," Barnes asserts.

Consumers had been able to maintain their spending in excess of their income gains in the 1990s and 2000s by going deeper into debt, running up their credit cards and tapping their home equity. "Those days clearly have ended and debt is now an ugly four-letter word in many households," he says.

More than getting raises, growth in real household incomes will depend on employment gains, Barnes contends. Given the weak growth in jobs, notably in the latest employment report showing a dismal 38,000 gain in non-farm payrolls, there is little reason for near-term optimism on that score.

At some point, the divergence between corporate and consumer earnings should shrink.

"The optimistic view is that the corporate sector's healthy financial position will eventually lead to stronger growth in employment and household sector incomes," Barnes writes. "The more negative view is that compares are more interested in expanding overseas operations than in boosting domestic hiring and investment."

The data give more support to the negative view. U.S. direct investment overseas in recent years has been equal to 20% of domestic, non-residential investment-- half again what it was from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s, and more than three times as much as in the 1960s.

It's hard to see corporate profit margins moving higher from here, Barnes concludes, although the real pressure won't come as long as the economy continues to expand.

Equity prices should be able to rise in tandem with earnings, about 4% in the coming year. Not exciting, but a damned sight better than most American families can expect.

Yes... a damned sight better! Yesterday Obama forced himself into a mealy-mouthed Rose Garden statement that started off with him declaring that "Obviously, over the last couple of days, the debate here in Washington has been dominated by issues of debt limit, but what matters most to Americans, and what matters most to me as President, in the wake of the worst downturn in our lifetimes, is getting our economy on a sounder footing more broadly so the American people can have the security they deserve."

Obviously? Who is he kidding? This guy is seriously looking at prospects of an early retirement. He defined "security" as "getting back to a place where businesses consistently grow and are hiring, where new jobs and new opportunity are within reach, where middle-class families once again know the security and peace of mind they’ve felt slipping away for years now."

[T]oday’s job report confirms what most Americans already know: We still have a long way to go and a lot of work to do to give people the security and opportunity that they deserve. 
 
We’ve added more than 2 million new private sector jobs over the past 16 months, but the recession cost us more than 8 million. And that means that we still have a big hole to fill. Each new job that was created last month is good news for the people who are back at work, and for the families that they take care of, and for the communities that they’re a part of. But our economy as a whole just isn’t producing nearly enough jobs for everybody who’s looking.  
 
We’ve always known that we’d have ups and downs on our way back from this recession. And over the past few months, the economy has experienced some tough headwinds-- from natural disasters, to spikes in gas prices, to state and local budget cuts that have cost tens of thousands of cops and firefighters and teachers their jobs. The problems in Greece and in Europe, along with uncertainty over whether the debt limit here in the United States will be raised, have also made businesses hesitant to invest more aggressively. 
 
The economic challenges that we face weren’t created overnight, and they’re not going to be solved overnight. But the American people expect us to act on every single good idea that’s out there. I read letter after letter from folks hit hard by this economy. None of them ask for much. Some of them pour their guts out in these letters. And they want me to know that what they’re looking for is that we have done everything we can to make sure that they are rewarded when they’re living up to their responsibilities, when they’re doing right by their communities, when they’re playing by the rules. That’s what they’re looking for, and they feel like the rules have changed. They feel that leaders on Wall Street and in Washington–- and believe me, no party is exempt–- have let them down. And they wonder if their efforts will ever be reciprocated by their leaders.
 
They also make sure to point out how much pride and faith they have in this country; that as hard as things might be today, they are positive that things can get better. And I believe that we can make things better. How we respond is up to us. There are a few things that we can and should do, right now, to redouble our efforts on behalf of the American people.
 
Let me give you some examples. Right now, there are over a million construction workers out of work after the housing boom went bust, just as a lot of America needs rebuilding. We connect the two by investing in rebuilding our roads and our bridges and our railways and our infrastructure. And we could put back to work right now some of those construction workers that lost their jobs when the housing market went bust. Right now, we can give our entrepreneurs the chance to let their job-creating ideas move to market faster by streamlining our patent process. That’s pending before Congress right now. That should pass.

He then had the gall to make a pitch for more NAFTA-like job-killing trade bills he's promised Big Business to push through. It made me sick to listen to him giving a Republican pitch with a straight face, making the false claim that these miserable trade agreements will create more jobs. And-- sure enough-- he just couldn't help jumping right back into deficit-land... "[T]o put our economy on a stronger and sounder footing for the future, we’ve got to rein in our deficits and get the government to live within its means, while still making the investments that help put people to work right now and make us more competitive in the future. As I mentioned, we’ve had some good meetings.  We had a good meeting here yesterday with leaders of both parties in Congress. And while real differences remain, we agreed to work through the weekend and meet back here on Sunday." Blecchhh. This guy has lost it entirely. We need to know who to put our trust in from now on-- and it isn't phonies like Barack Obama. It's... these guys (the ones who made the video):

Whose Side Is Ron Johnson On?

During his campaign for the Senate last year, Wisconsin right-wing extremist and multimillionaire Ron Johnson made it clear his vision of America was made in China. And, as you can see here, after China itself got one of several senators, Johnson promised the people of Wisconsin to put his finances into a blind trust after news broke that he-- with his massive holdings of BP stock in his portfolio-- had been defending the company on the campaign trail. That was a year ago this week. He still hasn't done so. Instead, he gave himself a $10 million bonus check after the campaign, an arrangement that more than covers, quite illegally, the millions of his own money he spent on his campaign.

But Johnson is far from the first U.S. Senator who has put his own financial interests ahead of his constituents-- nor is he the first right-wing fanatic to put another country's interests ahead of the U.S.'s. As I was flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong this morning, I was reading in Glen Yeadon's Nazi Hydra in America about two right-wing Members of Congress, Mississippi Democrat John Rankin, a dedicated KKK sociopath, and Michigan Republican George Dondero, who served the interests of the Nazis even after the U.S. military defeated Germany! Both were rabid anti-Semites.

First a little background from Yeadon, writing about the demise of the country's intelligence service, the OSS, at the hands of the triumphant Republican rightists in the 1946 congressional elections.

In March 1946 while McCormack struggled for funding from congress, the chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee charged that a person with strong Soviet leanings had joined the State Department. McCormack demanded a retraction. Instead, congress cut the entire appropriation for his unit. The pro-fascist faction within the State Department had convinced enough influential congressmen that ex-OSS officers were far to the left and committed to a socialization of America and the redistribution of wealth on a global basis.

By mid 1946, Donovan’s OSS had been completely dismantled. The United States would be without an intelligence service. At first, it was suggested that private enterprise could provide the government with intelligence. A former OSS Deputy Director proposed to Watson of IBM the formation of a private intelligence service. The two men raised the initial venture capital. The venture was in vain as President Truman and congress created the CIA in 1947.

In the short space of a year, the government had dissolved the OSS only to recreate it under a new name. This wasn’t a case of a vacillating government. If President Truman had not signed the executive order dissolving the OSS, congress would simply have eliminated any funding for it as it did to the remnants of it in the State Department.

The disbanding of the OSS had an express purpose. The leftists within the OSS would serve as the sacrificial lambs to atone du Pont’s new feckless goddess on the altar of free enterprise. Those that had served their country gallantly during war and who were dedicated to stomping out the last vestige of fascism would now become victims to the fascists within the United States. The American industrialists who willingly supported Hitler during the war had to be protected... In 1946, the Republicans gained control of both chambers of congress. The stage was now set for a wholesale purging of the government of leftists who were dedicated to wiping out fascism.

... While there were members like Morgenthau in the Truman administration who carried on the fight for justice, the Nazis had powerful friends in the halls of Congress to protect them. One such congressman was John Rankin. Excerpts from his speech to the House of Representatives on November 27, 1947 follows below:

"What is taking place at Nuremberg, Germany, is a disgrace to the United States. Every other country has now washed its hands and withdrawn from this Saturalia of persecution. But a racial minority, two and half years after the war closed, are in Nuremberg not only hanging German soldiers but trying German businessmen in the name of the United States."

Note Rankin used the words racial minority to refer to Jews in the above quote. Rankin’s racism and pro-fascist allegiance was already presented in previous chapters. Rankin was not alone in Congress in opposing the trials. George Dondero, Republican representative from Michigan, was another. Dondero was a former mayor of Royal Oak, Michigan, before being elected to the House. Royal Oak was the home of the pro-Nazi priest Father Coughlin and a hotbed for pro-Nazi groups. Dondero described the trials as a result of Jewish and communist treachery. He singled out ten lawyers from the I.G. Farben case including the leading prosecutor Josiah DuBois whom he called a known left-winger from the Treasury Department who had been a student of the Communist Party. Dondero became something of an art critic in the late 1940s and 1950s, dismissing modern art as communist inspired. He labored to censor the worked of abstract artists.

Also, based in Dondero’s district was Dow Chemical. Dow had several cartel arrangements with I.G. Farben and feared that the trial could lead to exposing its full collaboration with I.G and the Nazis.

Today Dondero has a high school named after him in Royal Oak, Michigan. He's even better known as a critic of modern art than as an agent of fascism; same mentality though. According to Wikipedia he asserted that "Cubism aims to destroy by designed disorder... Dadaism aims to destroy by ridicule... Abstractionism aims to destroy by the creation of brainstorms" (CR 16 August 1949; 81st Congress 1st Session, Speech in US House of Representatives). In 1952, Dondero went so far as to tell Congress that modern art was, in fact, a conspiracy by Moscow to spread communism in the United States. This speech won him the International Fine Arts Council's Gold Medal of Honor for "dedicated service to American Art." Rankin remained the most outspoken racist and anti-Semitic fanatic in Congress until he was finally defeated by Thomas Abernathy in 1952.

Ron Johnson is just a freshman, but I suspect he will do a lot more harm than either Dondero or Rankin.

Two Visions Of The Future-- Us Against Them

Two very diverse visions of the future inspired my day in Bangkok yesterday. I wish the BBC video of the Hard Talk discussion with brilliant Thai philosopher Sulak Sivaraksa was available for sharing. He discussed the wrong turn modern society has taken in a tragic pursuit of materialism in the craving for happiness. Instead, I posted a clip of him (above) from 2004 at the Parliament of the World's Religions. I hope you'll get his 21st-century Buddhist perspective from it. [UPDATE: Found it! The 2 clips are posted below; you should watch them. As the BBC points out, "Thailand like many Asian countries, has focused on rising GDP and national income as a sign of success but is that focus misplaced? Sulak Sivaraksa thinks it is. He's a veteran social campaigner, Buddhist activist and writer who has been jailed in Thailand and briefly forced into exile."]

The second inspiration came from Glen Yeadon's book on fascism, Nazi Hydra in America. Their thoughts melded almost seamlessly as Yeadon discussed how in 1942, "The DuPonts, one of the country's 13 controlling families and notorious Nazi sympathizers, dressed fascism up with a smiley face and labeled it with the electioneering jingle of free enterprise... Many prominent Americans-- including the Dulles brothers, Prescott Bush, Averell Harriman, Henry Ford, and the Rockefellers-- deserved to be tried for treason and hanged at Nuremberg." None were punished. In fact... after the death of FDR, they and other native fascists and their movement were the actual victors of World War II, despite U.S. victories on the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific.

It was the leaders of corporate America who willingly entered into the cartel agreements with I.G. Farben that hindered the early war effort. Likewise, it was the leaders of corporate America that funded many of the pro-fascist groups prevalent in the 1930s.

It was these same American corporations that built much of the Third Riech's war machine. GM and Ford built nearly 90 percent of all the three-ton vehicles and nearly 70 percent of all medium and heavy-duty trucks for the Reich. GM also built thousands of bombers for the Luftwaffe. When American forces liberated the Ford plants in Cologne and Berlin, they found destitute foreign workers confined behind barbed wire. Records show that nearly half the labor force of Ford's Cologne plant was slave labor. Shamelessly after the war, both GM and Ford demanded reparations for damages from Allied bombing to their plants. In 1967, GM received $33 million for damages sustained to its Russelsheim plant.

However, unlike the corporations, those forced into slave labor for Ford have yet to be compensated. The issue will be left to die quietly as the victims of slave labor pass away-- as most are now in their 80s. The corporations will continue to hide behind the false claim that they lacked control over their investments in Germany. Such claims are frauds. Almost all American corporations went to great lengths to remain in control of their facilities in Germany. Both Edsel Ford and Robert Sorenson, a high-ranking official at Dearborn, served as directors of Ford Werke A.G. throughout the war years. Furthermore, Edsel Ford sent direct orders to France that Ford was to build trucks for the Nazis once war broke out.

The same is true of almost all other American corporations that had investments in Germany. Many took extraordinary means to remain in control, oftentimes through shell corporations in Switzerland. These same corporations sought the help of the Dulles brothers in concealing their treacherous dealings from our own government. With the first step toward remaining in control or in concealing their dealings with the Nazis, these corporations became traitors to their country, war criminals and morally responsible for the resulting Holocaust and the deaths of thousands of GIs.

...Although the Allied forces were victorious on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific, tragically, the war against fascism was lost on the home front. In the 1946 election, the Republicans gained control of both chambers of Congress. True to their pro-big business agenda and their past support of fascists over 200 anti-union bills would flood Congress. The rehabilitated Fred Hartley, who had supported Japan and Germany up until the moment Pearl Harbor was bombed, would co-author the anti-union Taft-Hartley act. The fascist group Christian America would successfully lobby several Southern and Midwestern states to pass anti-union right to work laws. One could argue that such measures were not full-blown fascism but that is the danger of creeping fascism. Such steps as the anti-union measures were only the first steps on a slippery slope towards fascism. However, anytime the government enacts a law placing the rights of corporations or the elite ahead of the people it is an act of fascism or more properly another step towards fascism.

Fascism is an inherent problem of any economy based on capitalism. It's insidious as corporations grow and become more powerful, more and more laws are passed favoring large corporations and the rights of the people are damned. Fascism has never appeared first in its full-blown totalitarian state. It took Hitler six years to consolidate his power into a fully fascist state. Fascism always assumes power in gradual steps. It destroys our rights one at a time until suddenly it blossoms into full-blown fascism, a totalitarian society controlled by the corporate elite.

If you follow this blog at all, you've probably noticed that I keep harping on this general story and on Yeadon's work. It's that last paragraph, and that last sentence: "Fascism has never appeared first in its full-blown totalitarian state." What Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin, what John Kasich is doing in Ohio, what Rick Scott is doing in Florida, what Rick Snyder is doing in Michigan, what Chris Christie is doing in New Jersey... all states where Nazi war criminals were resettled (illegally) in great numbers after WWII, is heading directly towards the fascist state their financiers have always wanted.

It's serious; I hope you're paying attention. And it's why we need strong, smart fighters in government, rather than compromised, compromising hacks with good campaign slogans.

UPDATE: The Sulak Sivaraksa Hard Talk videos:

Joe McCarthy Would Have Loved The Republican Presidential Debate Last Night

If the clowns running for the Republican presidential nomination can be taken seriously... well, who couldn't be? I'm in China, and the TV stations in my hotel room didn't carry the thing live, but they showed excerpts. And I don't think they hunted around looking for segments to make the candidates out to look like idiots. That just came naturally. Actually, I just shut it off right after I saw a semi-dustup between Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich over the suitability of American Muslims to serve the country. Cain was bad enough... trying to cover his ass after coming out like a bigot a week or two ago. But Newt... Jesus! This is supposed to be an idea man and a historian!

He started bellowing about how we would have to give certain people-- and since the topic was Muslims, they were clearly the certain people he had in mind-- some kind of loyalty test. He didn't mention-- at least not in the excerpt-- that they could be called the Joe McCarthy Memorial Loyalty Tests.

And he got worse. He was hyperventilating about how Nazis infiltrated the U.S. government during World War II. But he didn't mention that they infiltrated through their ideological brothers in the Republican Party. I happened to bring my copy of The Nazi Hydra in America by Glen Yeadon with me to China. Republicans in Congress and their media and corporate allies did everything they could to undermine the U.S. and the war effort again their beloved Nazis-- even passing along military secrets.

Rainbow 5 was the battle plan developed by the military in case war broke out. Publishing the plan [by the right-wing Chicago Tribune, a GOP mouthpiece] or leaking information about the plan would be the equivalent of publishing or leaking the battle order of the Pentagon during the Cold War. Unquestionably, leaking such a plan was an act of treason. ... Amazing as it may seem, no one was charged with treason or sedition, not the Chicago Tribune, not Sen. Wheeler and not the army officer that delivered the papers to Wheeler despite an FBI investigation. Remember this was the battle plan in case war broke out. It was top secret and fewer than a dozen copies of the report were ever produced.

...The most astonishing aspect of the publication of the Rainbow Plans was that charges of treason were never brought to bear, even after the end of the war. Most Americans are unaware of the plans ever having been leaked, and is yet another example of how high-level fascists within the United States were immune from prosecution. This brief look at Wedemeyer and his circle of friends reveals that even within the Army there was a group of officers sympathetic to the fascist cause.

However, the majority of support for fascism and opposition to the war came from the leaders of corporate America. It was the leaders of corporate America who were behind the plot to seize the White House and install a fascist government. It was the leaders of corporate America who were building the Third Reich's war machine as the statement from the US Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd, noted. And it would be the leaders of corporate America who went on a sit down strike to prevent the production of war munitions first for the Lend Lease program and then for our own troops once war was declared.

Between 1940 and 1945 there was a dramatic evolution in the tactics employed by the native fascists within America. The first phase of this evolution was marked by the sit-down strike during the summer of 1940. Prior to this time and throughout the remainder of 1940, corporate America opposed the entry of the United States into the European war. Considerable opposition was raised against Roosevelt's Lend Lease program and several contracts to supply Britain with war munitions were rejected outright by corporate America. One such example being the rejection of a contract to build Rolls Royce engines for the RAF by Ford Motor Company. Other corporations hid behind the terms of the cartel agreements with I.G. Farben and other German corporations. Such was the case of du Pont furnishing the British with inferior cartridges lacking tetrazine. However, by far the most damaging aspect of this phase was the sit-down strike of 1940, which reveals the complacency of corporate America toward Nazi Germany.

The need for aircraft was one of the most pressing needs as the ominous clouds of war gathered on the horizon. Aircraft production required massive amounts of aluminum. However, aluminum production in the United States was controlled by a virtual monopoly held by the American Aluminum Company of America (Alcoa). Alcoa had signed a cartel agreement through a slight of hand with German interests in the late 1920s. Alcoa was controlled and owned by Andrew Mellon, one of the participants in the plot against FDR and steadfastly delayed increasing production. George Seldes recorded the following quotes about Alcoa: "If America loses the war it can thank the Aluminum Corporation of America" Secretary of Interior Harold Ickles, June 26,1941.

By its cartel agreement with I.G. Farben controlled by Hitler, Alcoa sabotaged the aluminum program of the US air force. The Truman Committee heard testimony that Alcoa's representative, A.H. Bunker a dollar a year head of the aluminum section of the OPM prevented work on our $600,000,000 aluminum expansion program.

Congressman Pierce of Oregon said in May 1941: "To date 137 days or 371/2% of a year's production has been wasted in the effort to protect Alcoa's monopolistic position. This delay translated into planes means 10,000 fighters or 1,665 bombers."

...Wrapped up in an electioneering jingle and cloaked behind a false flag of patriotism, Lamont du Pont had concealed the very heart of fascism. Hidden behind this thin veil of false patriotism of free enterprise was the root of fascism, corporate rule. Thus began the most blatant fraud ever perpetrated against the American people; in effect, du Pont had dressed up fascism with a smiley face to appeal to the American people. To accomplish this horrific swindle of freedom and liberty, all resources were to be deployed. It would become a full-scaled assault on the rights of the American people for the remainder of the century. This was the forgotten third front of the war, the battle for the minds of the American citizen. Under the banner of this new feckless goddess of free enterprise, a multiprong attack was launched against our freedoms. One prong would question the patriotism of anyone not subscribing to unbridled corporatism, another prong would attack unionism and the third prong would be launched against socialism and communism.

This often forgotten event launched by one of the most notorious fascist of his time is imperative to the understanding of fascism in America following the war. It clearly marks the beginning of the adoption of the fascist ideology by the right-wing in the country. Before Eisenhower's troops ever started to march across North Africa and before the Marines ever started island hopping one bloody atoll after another toward the Japanese homeland a third front of the war was raging in the American homeland, for the control of the people. Tragically, the heroic efforts of the war against fascism were lost as quickly as the Third Reich crumbled into ashes. While our armies were victorious on the battlefields of Europe and the South Pacific, the battle for the homeland would be lost. The new goddess of free enterprise would replace democracy in America. The war against fascism would be lost. Instead of corporations serving the general interest of society, society would now be forced to serve the general interest of corporations.

The American lexicon was expanded in 1942, never before had the term free enterprise been used. There is no such right listed in the constitution nor does the constitution grant any rights to corporations. While the founding fathers believed in an economy based on capitalism, they were hardly the fools to allow trade to go on unregulated. With one-third of the populace at the time of the revolution being former indentured servants to British corporations, corporations were closely regulated as the chapter on corporate law detailed. However, unregulated corporationism was precisely what Du Pont envisioned in his call for free enterprise. The best summary of free enterprise as envision by Lammont du Pont comes from his speech before a secretive meeting of the resolution committee for the National Manufacturers Association (NAM) on September 17, 1942.

"The way to view the issue is this: Are there common denominators for winning the war and the peace? If there are, then, we should deal with both in 1943. What are they? We will win the war by reducing taxes on corporations, high income brackets, and increasing taxes on lower incomes, by removing unions from any power to tell industry how to produce, how to deal with their employees or anything else, by destroying any and all government agencies that stand in the way of free enterprise."

Du Pont's words are clearly treasonous as he calls for the destruction of any government agency that may stand in his way. It is the same agenda followed by Hitler on assuming power. In addition, as we enter the 21st Century it is the same agenda being put forward by the Republicans and the right-wingers.

...According to Seldes, the thirteen most powerful families in the United States and members of NAM are as follows: Ford, du Pont, Rockefeller, Mellon, McCormick, Hartford, Harkness, Duke, Pew, Pitcairn, Clark, Reynolds and Kress. Of these, five were involved in the plot of against Roosevelt: du Pont, Mellon, Pew, Pitcairn and Clark. With the possible exception of three, all of these families had close connections with fascism and arming Hitler... Men could be drafted to serve the country, but capital was exempt. Any attempt to draft capital would have been met with immediate cries of communism from the right-wing and pro-Nazi groups. The nation's security was held hostage by the same corporations that built Hitler's war machine and whose senior management and owners supported many of the pro-fascist groups.

And the biggest of the pro-fascist groups was then-- as it is now-- the Republican Party.

No, this isn't a group "wanted" poster. It's the Republican presidential field as represented last night in New Hampshire. Just think: One of these people could be our next president.

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The Media Has Always Been And Will Always Be Liberal-- Just Ask Any Republican

It was probably apparent to astute observers since the day Obama was elected that the Republican Party would do their worst in trying to delegitimize him and to even go so far as to punish America for electing him, all in the service of recapturing the government for their never changing fascist agenda. From day one Kyl, the #2 man in the Senate Republican caucus, said they would block his nominees, while Jim DeMint started off the year by talking about "breaking him" and bringing on his "Waterloo." Meanwhile, the GOP's top communications force, Rush Limbaugh, has only gotten more hysterical and more extreme since his "I want him to fail" fit at the beginning of his term. Wednesday we tried to demonstrate how driving up the unemployment rate has been Republican Party policy since Obama became president. Thursday Robert Parry did a brilliant analysis of Republican strategy over at AlterNet. The whole thing is very much worth reading (which is why I provided the link) but below are some takeaways:

Modern Republicans have a simple approach to politics when they are not in the White House: Make America as ungovernable as possible by using almost any means available, from challenging the legitimacy of opponents to spreading lies and disinformation to sabotaging the economy.

Over the past four decades or so, the Republicans have simply not played by the old give-and-take rules of politics. Indeed, if one were to step back and assess this Republican approach, what you would see is something akin to how the CIA has destabilized target countries, especially those that seek to organize themselves in defiance of capitalist orthodoxy.

...Obviously, given the wealth of the American elites, the relative proportion of the propaganda funding is derived more domestically in the United States than it would be in a place like Chile (or some other unfortunate Third World country that has gotten on Washington’s bad side).

But the concept remains the same: Control as much as possible what the population gets to see and hear; create chaos for your opponent’s government, economically and politically; blame if for the mess; and establish in the minds of the voters that their only way out is to submit, that the pain will stop once your side is back in power.

Today’s Republicans have fully embraced this concept of political warfare, whereas the Democrats generally have tried to play by the old rules, acquiescing when Republicans are in office with the goal of “making government work,” even if the Republicans are setting the agenda.

Unlike the Democrats and the Left, the Republicans and the Right have prepared themselves for this battle, almost as if they are following a CIA training manual. They have invested tens of billions of dollars in a propaganda infrastructure that operates 24/7, year-round, to spot and exploit missteps by political enemies.

Parry is only just beginning and, again, I urge you to read his entire post. I just want to add that the right-wing control of the media is something they've been perfecting since the ruling elites were stung by the muckrakers in the early 1900s. As we saw last month, the robber barons simply got together at bought enough of the media to control the conventional wisdom from then on. It's worse than ever now. Glen Yeadon has a subchapter in his book, The Nazi Hydra in America called "The Press Sells Out To The Nazis," and while it certainly did, I want to draw on some of his research that emphasizes how the Republicans have used the media to further they far right political agenda (rather than Hitler's, which is well documented by Yeadon). In the 1930s, with only 3 or 4 exceptions "all the large newspaper columnists and radio commentators were right wing reactionaries... The 1930s media was overtly pro-fascist, especially the major chains of newspapers. Hearst admired Mussolini and even paid him to write articles for his upstart United Press wire services. Mussolini was paid $1,750 per article an amount that would be the equivalent of about $17,000 today. The articles were poorly written by Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini's mistress." Hearst tried to get Hitler as well. How different is it today? Do you watch Fox News? Or even Meet The Press?

The situation remains unchanged in the 21st Century. The columnists and the radio mouthpieces are almost fully hard right in their views. ... Today the media is even more consolidated than the media in the 1940s, less than ten corporations control over eighty percent of the airwaves and press. The Republicans have repeated the lie that the media is biased to the left so many times that many people buy into it-- even though the reverse is true. ... In the sixty years that have followed WWII the Republican Party and the far right wing extremists have adopted the philosophy at the heart of fascism, corporate rule. It is the basis for the intense hatred of unions and working people. In the entire eight years of the Reagan administration the minimum wage was not raised once although inflation still raged through the early 80s.

What does the video below have to do with the stuff above? Use your imagination

Interest In America In Mladic's Trial Is Much Less Than It Should Be

Mladic & DuPont-- at least one fascist will face trial

Most Americans don't know who Ratko Mladic is, where Srebrenica, Serbia, Bosnia or even the Hague are, or why a war crimes tribunal is important-- and important to us here in the U.S.A. Mladic was the chief of staff of the Serb Bosnian army in the early '90's. In 1995 he was indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Srebrenica massacre, Europe's biggest mass murder case since the Nazi defeat. He'd been "hiding," basically in plain sight, for 16 years. The only reason he was "found" was because the EU refused to consider admitting Serbia until they turned him over. He is still a hero to right-wingers in Serbia who are bitter and fuming he was turned in.

I woke up at 1:30 AM Friday to watch the first proceedings live from the Hague on TV. I've always been a firm believer that when criminals from among the ruling elite get away with their crimes-- as happens 99.9% of the time-- the tragedy is epic and bound to be compounded over time. They rarely slink off to lick their wounds and count their lucky stars. And no country is worse in that department than our own. [Glenn Greenwald writes about this tendency of America's elites to see themselves above the law over at Salon this morning.]

Thursday we saw how most Americans rue the fact that Wall Street's top executives are getting off scot-free for the criminal activities that brought on the economic devastation for millions of families. We're not looking backwards... we're moving on. It's an American mantra, carefully inculcated by the ruling elites and the mass media they own. Many people were angry that recent American politicians guilty of outrageous crimes, from Kissinger to Bush and Cheney, were never brought up on any kinds of charges. But that's as traditional in America as mom and rhubarb pie. Let's turn to my current favorite book, The Nazi Hydra in America by Glen Yeadon for a brief look at how America let all the big name Nazi traitors-- even the ones who tried to overthrow FDR in a coup-- get away without even facing a trial, let alone a firing squad. Most of these families have continued pushing an extreme right-wing fascist agenda, even today. Many of the same families who financed the rise of Hitler and Mussolini-- some of who were called out by Senator Harry Truman as outright traitors for trading with Germany and sabotaging U.S. war efforts-- have provided the money for the teabagger astroturf movement and have backed fascist governors, particularly in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan, each of which was a hotbed of pro-Nazi activity in the 1930s. Today we have the Koch's funding their own homegrown fascist movements here in America. As Yeadon reminds us, "As of yet, no one has exposed, in a comprehensive manner, the connections between the 1930's fascists and today's American right wing. Many of the events of the decade have been quietly swept under the rug, such as the plot against Roosevelt. The press downplayed the assassination attempt at the time and even today, most people are still unaware of it... The Nazis found willing accompanists in the media, the halls of Congress, as well as corporate boardrooms."

There are numerous parallels between the fascist groups of the 1930s and the far right groups of today, they are as striking as they are disturbing, and should stand as a vanguard, warning of the hidden agenda of right wing elements in this country. Among the many common elements between yesterday's fascists and today's far right groups are the intense hatred of minorities and unions, isolationism, destructive division, nationalism and religion.

Only the little seditionist and traitors have been rounded up by the FBI. The real Nazi Fifth Column in America remains immune. And yet there is evidence that those in both countries who place profits above patriotism-- and fascism is based entirely on profits although all of its propaganda speaks of patriotism-- have conspired to make America part of the Nazi Big Business system. Thurman Arnold, assistant district attorney of the United States, his assistant, Norman Littell, and several congressional investigations, have produced incontrovertible evidence that some of our biggest monopolies entered into secret agreements with the Nazi cartels and divided the world among them. Most notorious of all was Alcoa, the Mellon-Davis-Duke monopoly which is largely responsible for America not having sufficient aluminum with which to build airplanes before and after Pearl Harbor, while Germany had an unlimited supply. Of the Aluminum Corporation sabotage, and that of other leading companies, the press said very little, but several books have now been written out of the official record.

It is this unbridled corporatism that is the very heart of fascism. ... Here we have the heart of the problem of the next century: corporate power. Corporations have acquired too much power. They have become so powerful they can openly flaunt our labor laws, our environmental laws and even sell materials for weapons of mass destruction without fear. The problem has become so widespread, and corporations have become so powerful, that society now serves the corporations rather than corporations serving society.

In short, as we progress into the new century, the right wing issues at the forefront of today's political scene are nothing more than recycled pro-fascist issues of the 30s. It is an agenda of corporate rule. The GATS treaty currently being negotiated and the now-dead Multi-Lateral Investment Agreement, are nothing more than attempts to go global with fascist corporatism.

...There is no better place to begin studying the fascism of the 1930s than to start with the one element that was common to all of these fascist groups, and at the heart of their ideology. Fortunately, such an element exists simply it was the visceral hatred of Roosevelt and liberalism by the native fascist. ... There is no better event to begin with than the attempted coup d'état against Roosevelt financed by Irénée du Pont along with the Morgans and a few other wealthy industrialists of the time. Others involved with the plot were Robert Clark, heir to the Singer Sewing machine corporation, Grayson Murphy, Director of Goodyear, and the Pew family of Sun Oil. During the war, all three of these corporations were involved in aiding of the Nazi empire. Singer's plant located on the east side of the Elba was used to manufacture machine guns. Today, Singer has given up the sewing machine business and is now engaged in defense contracting.

Central to the plot were two groups: the American Legion and the Liberty League. The American Legion was formed and financed by the Morgans and Murphy in 1919 to be used primary to break strikes. Several high-ranking officials from the American Legion were associated with the plot: William Doyle, a former state commander of the American Legion and Gerald MacGuire, a former commander of the Connecticut American Legion.

Irénée, the power behind the du Pont throne at the time, held a controlling interest in General Motors. He was an avid fascist and supporter of Hitler, tracking Hitler's career closely from the 1920s. On September 7, 1926, du Pont gave a speech before the American Chemical Society, in which he advocated the creation of a race of supermen. Injecting special drugs into them during childhood would create these supermen. Not every child would receive such injections; du Pont insisted that only those of pure blood would get the injections.

Throughout the 1930s, the du Ponts invested heavily in Hitler's Germany through their corporate empire. General Motors under the control of the du Pont family had invested thirty million dollars alone into I.G. Farben. Wendell Swint, du Pont's foreign relation's director knew that I.G. and Krupp had arranged to contribute one half of a percent of its payroll to the Nazi party. Swint testified before the 1934 Munitions Hearings that du Pont was fully aware that it was financing the Nazis through the Opal division of General Motors. Even more telling is the amount of financial backing the du Ponts provided pro-Hitler groups in the United States. Starting in 1933, du Pont provided financing for the American Liberty Lobby, Clark's Crusaders (who claimed 1,200,000 members) and the Liberty League.

The press, largely owned by the plotters and other pro-fascist elements, covered the whole thing up (including the NY Times). The Democrats didn't move in for the kill for a variety of reasons, one of which is that FDR had the same kind of "Blue Dog" problem we do today. Yeadon points out that "At least two prominent Democrats who had been presidential candidates had been involved: John Davis, who now was a lawyer for the Morgans, and Al Smith, now a crony of the du Ponts." They made it easier for the plotters and the Republicans, who were actively collaborating with Hitler, to walk away unscathed. Collaborating? You bet. "With its pro-business agenda, and the fascist views of the leaders of corporate America, the Republican Party soon became laden with fascists... [A]s early as 1934, the Republican Party was collaborating with Nazis and pro-fascist groups at a high level... Just as the backers of Hitler's were rich industrialists, so were the backers of fascism in the United States. Corporate America willingly entered into cartel agreements, which, in effect, granted them a monopoly. A second aspect of fascism that appealed to big business was its extreme anti-unionism. Professor Gaetano Salvemini of Harvard was quoted in the undergraduate daily, that a new fascism threatened America, the fascism of corporate business enterprise in this country. He also believed that 100% of American big business was in sympathy with fascism. At the very least support, for fascism was widespread among industrialists in this country, as the following quote from the New York Times from the Ambassador to Germany, William Dodd shows:

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime. On (the ship) a fellow passenger, who is a prominent executive of one of the largest corporations, told me point blank that he would be ready to take definite action to bring fascism into America if President Roosevelt continued his progressive policies.

Certain American industrialist had a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help fascism occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.

Propagandists for the fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions."

The collaboration between the Republican Party and the Nazis was an ongoing effort throughout the 1930s. However, it would not reach epidemic proportions until the 1940 election. With the European continent already embroiled in war, and President Roosevelt espousing pro-British views, the Nazis were desperate to keep the United States out of the war. In a bizarre plot full of intrigue involving Texas oilman William Rhodes Davis, labor leader John L. Lewis, and Mexico, Nazis provided extensive funding to the Republican Party for the 1940 election... [A] major proportion ranging from 15% to over 33% of the Republican campaign funds in 1940 came directly from the Nazis. Considering the fact the major industrialists were active supporters of the Nazis and large donors to the Republican Party, well over 50% of the Republican campaign funding in 1940 came either directly from Nazis in Berlin or those within the United States. ... With the Battle of the Bulge raging in Europe the Republican candidate, Dewey lashed out against Roosevelt, that his call for unconditional surrender was prolonging the war and costing American lives.

...Wall Street and corporate America built Hitler's war machine. Once war was ominous and the Roosevelt administration started to build up American defense corporate America went on strike. Many of the deals arranged between corporate America and the Nazis, border on the line of treason.

...During WWI, the auto industry came close to committing treason. Throughout 1917, the auto companies refused to cut production by 25% in the second half of the year, thereby denying the defense industry much needed production space and a substantial amount of iron and coal that would have been better used for defense production. In the 1941, General Motors announced it would produce no new models until 1943. General Motors promptly broke that pledge and produced new models in 1942.

On March 26, 1942, Senator Truman accused Standard Oil of treason. Standard had delivered the new tetraethyl lead gas additive to both Germany and Japan. Standard was the major supplier of oil to both the Nazis and Japan. In his appearance before the Senate committee, Farish, the president of Standard, was asked if Standard had delivered the oil to Japan that made the attack on Pearl Harbor possible. He answered that Standard Oil was an international company. Standard’s buffed its image with an advertising campaign that promoted the virtues of Standard products, and was helped along by the willingness of the major papers.

Unless you never watch any TV at all, you haven't missed the flood of ads from Big Energy buffing their public images with lies about how great they are. They run all day and all night. We'll save the specifics for another post of how Germany under Hitler bought dozens of Republican congressmen and senators. Just let me leave you with one more little vignette about crime and punishment. No one was ever punished for any of this, although General Electric, which cooperated with the Nazis in holding back U.S. airplane manufacturing and other war production, did face a trial. They were even found guilty in January of 1947.

Under indictment were GE Vice President Zay Jeffries, President W.G. Robbins of the Carboloy Co., and Walter M. Stearns, former GE trade manager and Gustav Krupp. Krupp was not present as he was  being held in Germany for war crimes. Ironically during the trial Jeffries accused union leaders as having "un-American objectives" and denounced high wages.

Throughout the trial General Electric's lawyers fought bitterly against the introduction of captured Nazi documents. In one such document Walter Stearns was quoted as telling the Germans that while GE intended to fix prices, "this must never be expressed in the contract itself or in any correspondence which might come into the files of GE." Other documents quoted Jefferies threatening the president of a competitor: "We’ll either buy you out or break you." The jury found that General Electric, its subsidiaries, and company officials were guilty on five counts of criminal conspiracy. Ironically, no further charges-- such as sedition or hindering the war effort were leveled against the conspirators. Despite pleads from the Department of Justice for heavy sentences; Judge John C. Knox handed down only minor fines. Stearns and Jeffries were fined $2,500 each and Robbins $1,000. GE and Carboloy were fined $20,000 each and International General Electric only $10,000.

Shock Troops For Plutocracy

Friday we took a little look at how the oligarchs and plutocrats and their right-wing political parties have been able to subvert a free press by literally buying out the media. But that isn't the only way today's brand of fascist-oriented Republicans is so similar to the fascists who called the shots in the GOP in the 1920s and '30s. Back then they needed shock troops on the streets too, kind of like the brainless Teabaggers the corporate interests were able to cobble together over the past couple of years. Again, I'm turning to Glen Yeadon's compelling and exhaustive book The Nazi Hydra In America:

[S]uperpatriot groups gathered their strength from the right wing, not the general public, their financial support coming directly from corporations and the rich elite. The National Civic Federation received most of its support from V. Everit Macy, August Belmont and Elbert Gary. Likewise, the National Protective League was supported by T. Coleman du Pont, Henry Frick, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. While the National Civic Federation was under the direction of Matthew Woll as acting president, it collaborated closely with Nazi agents in this country. Another group from the 1920s that underwent the transformation from a nativist group to fascism was Harry Jung's American Vigilant Intelligence Federation.

In effect, these superpatriot groups, along with the American Legion, were bridging the chasm between the rich elite and the general population. These groups were fashioned in such a way as to appeal to a large segment of the population by invoking a false sense of patriotism, while the directors and operating officers remained fully under the control of the elite. Secondary to the patriotism of these groups was a very conservative economic agenda. With the exception of the National Civic Federation, all of these groups were virulently antiunion. The National Civic Federation included a few trade unionists on its board of directors, but still maintained an aggressive open shop policy. ... Newspapers ran scare headlines to shock the public and harden public opinion against unions [and reactionary] clergymen such as David Burrell of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City claimed the Bible not only proved the closed chop was unpatriotic, but also unchristian...

In the post-war period, the membership of these patriot groups was relatively small. However, they exerted an influence that far outstripped their numbers. Their propaganda efforts were well-funded and well-organized.

...In 1924, the Hearst papers, the American Legion, and the Ku Klux Klan led the charge for the "American-ization" of school books, loyalty oaths for teachers, and harsher immigration legislation. These three organizations would become deeply tied to fascism in the following decade. Several members of the American Legion were involved in the fascist plot of 1934 against FDR. The Hearst papers would become an open propaganda outlet for the Nazis and fascism. The Klan would go on to form an alliance with the American Bund. ... Two factors with roots in the late 1800s set the stage for the rebirth of the Klan. The first was massive immigration from Europe. The American Protective Association, formed in 1887, was virulently anti-alien. The group was particularly strong in the Midwest, where the Klan became strong in the 1920s. The other factor was the populist movement of the 1890s which sought to unite blacks and poorer whites against mill owners and the conservative elite of the South.

It's like nothing seems to have changed 8 or 9 decades later! The wealthy and privileged elites will always fight with all they've got to maintain the status quo... or-- like today and like the '20's-- eradicate social progress and move society backwards. And finding ground troops is never difficult or even very expensive.

Plutocrats And Their Republican Party Have Always Wanted To Just Make Things Better

Yesterday we talked a little about how Republican state governments have taken such harmful and extreme positions-- particularly in states like Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, Maine, Arizona and Michigan-- that voters are expressing, and acting on, very high levels of buyer's remorse. Others haven't woken up yet; even Skeletor (R-FL) still has almost 30% of his state's voters behind him. Perhaps these people recall when conservatives were even worse and think that in retrospect it's not that bad... at least not yet.

The last time the GOP and an overly-entitled plutocracy they serve, a plutocracy, like ours, that hasn't been slapped down in a very, very long time-- thank you Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama-- the conservatives went a lot further towards forcing their dark, dystopian vision on the nation. I was just reading the part in Glen Yeadon's book Nazi Hydra In America where he talks about how Hitler learned all about eugenics from American conservatives, just as he had cribbed so much of his virulent anti-Semitism from Henry Ford.

By the turn of the century, women were still barred from voting. Racial hatred was the norm. Native Americans had been segregated on reservations Blacks and Asians were considered second class citizens and undesirables. Vigilantes often dispensed what passed for justice at the end of a hangman’s rope. From 1889 until 1918, 3,224 people were lynched. More often than not, the victim was black although 702 of the victims were white. Moreover, the hangings were carried out for trivial reasons such as staring at a white girl, offensive language, or other such minor infractions.

Eugenics would soon become a cure all for society’s problems. Criminal analysis would move racial hatred and criminal behavior into the realm of heredity and eugenic cleaning. Disease and physical afflictions, such as tuberculosis and epilepsy, were also considered hereditary disorders.

...In mid July 1911, the special committee met in Manhattan and systematically plotted a campaign to purge the blood of American people of the deteriorating influence of these undesirable anti-social classes. Ten classes of the socially unfit were identified. The classes were as follows in the rank given by the committee: feeble minded, pauper, alcoholics, criminals including petty criminals, epileptics, the insane, the constitutionally weak, those predisposed to certain diseases, the deformed, and finally the blind and deaf. Not only did the ABA target the individuals afflicted, but also targeted their extended families as well. The group agreed that sterilization of the extended families was desirable.

The eugenic committee had endorsed a very ambitious plan. The plan prioritized the sterilization of those receiving custodial care, including those in poor houses, insane asylums, prisons, and any others under state care. This group contained approximately one million people. The plan called for the further sterilization of borderline cases of some seven million people deemed by the ABA to be totally unfit to become useful parents or citizens. The estimated eleven million people targeted for the first wave was more than ten percent of the population. After the first wave was completed, the plan called for the sterilization of the extended families of those deemed unfit.

Moreover, the committee sought to bypass the court system in ordering the steril-ization. They attempted to define the steril-ization as a police function. ... About the same time, Dr. Harry Clay Sharp was castrating inmates at the Indiana Reformatory to cure convicts of masturbation. Again, the procedure was conducted outside of the law. In 1899 Sharp read an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The article, written by Dr Albert Ochsner advocated the sterilization of all convicts with vasectomies. After reading the article, Sharp performed the procedure on scores of inmates without anesthetics.

By 1906, Sharp claimed to have performed 206 vasectomies, even though the procedure was still not legal. While Sharp was very influential in the passage of Indiana’s sterilization law, he was by no means alone. Reverend Oscar McCulloch, the pastor of the Indianapolis’s Plymouth Congregational Church, was a leading reformer and advocate of public charity while harboring a deep hate for the poor. Indiana law specified a compulsory servitude for its paupers. They could be farmed out to the highest bidder. MuCulloch performed his own genealogical survey of Indiana’s wandering tribe of paupers called the Tribe of Ishmael. MuCulloch’s survey of the Tribe of Ishmael quickly became a centerpiece of eugenics studies. MuCulloch preached to his congregation that the paupers were parasites and preordained to be nothing more. ... Washington State passed a bill mandating sterilization of habitual criminals and rapists. Connecticut passed a law allowing the medical staff to examine patients of two asylums for the feebleminded and their family trees to determine if the patients should be sterilized. California enacted a bill that allowed castration or sterilization of convicts and residents of the state home for the feebleminded.

In the next two years, additional states passed eugenic sterilization laws. Iowa passed perhaps the most inclusive law, allowing the sterilization of criminals, idiots, feebleminded, imbeciles, drunkards, drug fiends, epileptics, and moral or sexual perverts. Nevada, New Jersey and New York were among the states to pass sterilization laws.

The same parasitic families that are bankrolling the Republican Party today, bankrolled the rise of Hitler and bankrolled the attempted coup d'etat against FDR, bankrolled the takeover of the American media and... the American eugenics movement. They never get punished and they just get more monstrous with each generation. Today they've brought us Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, John Kasich, Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Rick Scott...

Michele Bachmann Loves Her Some Jews

Virtually everything about Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann's extreme right, Know Nothing political reeks of all the classic strains of anti-Semitism. Except, anti-Semitism is no longer in fashion among the evangelical right in America. Right wing extremists like Bachmann have found easier scapegoats to replace Jews of late-- gays and immigrants particularly-- and Jews, particularly Israeli Jews-- are now seen as absolutely essential to their fevered, deranged vision of Armageddon. Few Jews are taken in by the partisan hysteria by Bachmann and her ilk about President Obama's mainstream policies on an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. Take a look at the string of consecutive tweets above... a little obsessive for a self-styled teabagger candidate for president? The tweets and her hysterical shrieking about Israel are certainly not primarily aimed at Jews anyway, but at evangelical GOP primary voters in Iowa and South Carolina.

J Street has watched as the far right of the GOP has made common cause with the Likkud and attempted to pry loose Jewish American voters from their Democratic roots. They've been trying since the post-Nixon '70s and it's never worked. Even last year, they reportedthat the American Jewish community stood its ground as a fundamentally liberal and progressive constituency in the midst of a huge Republican wave election. American Jews remain strongly supportive of President Obama and his Middle East policy, as well as the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement's positions on the Middle East." The polling was unambiguous.

So is the history. American Jews tend to recall the role Republicans and extreme rightists like Bachmann played in the holocaust when Republican and Big Business titans of the '20s and '30s financed the rise of the Nazi Party and-- at least in the case of Ford and IBM-- the holocaust itself. A few passages from Glen Yeadon's book Nazi Hydra in America for anyone of the Jewish persuasion unaware of what good friends the Michele Bachmanns of the world have always been to the Jewish people. And it goes way beyond just the Bush family and Prescott Bush hiring Allen Dulles to hide his Nazi assets instead of divesting himself of Nazi money and activities.

[Secretary of the Treasury Andrew] Mellon and [the Harding Administration's crooked Attorney General, Harry] Daugherty were not the only officials sympathetic toward IG Farben and Germany. There were many more, some of whom became Nazi supporters in the 1930s. Besides supporters in the government, IG Farben found a multitude of support on Wall Street. Many from Wall Street later rose to high government positions, particularly in the OSS during the war, and as economic advisors during the postwar denazification period... [A]ctions by the 1920s Republican administrations had an enormous [detrimental] effect on the US war effort in the 1940s. ... Almost 70 percent of the money flowing into Germany during the 1930s came from U.S. investors... Both United Fruit and Standard Oil of New Jersey continued to trade with the Nazis after the outbreak of war... By 1934, John Foster Dulles was publicly supporting Nazi philosophy... The most significant action Dulles took during the war severely crippled America's war effort... one way to get an airport named for you in the capital of the U.S.

As Secretary of State Dulles used Sullivan & Cromwell to help carry on his support for former Nazi businessmen. He supported Republican Sen. Everett Dirksen's bill to return all property held by APC to its previous owners... Nazis and their collaborators.

Prominent GOP fascists, John Foster & Allen Dulles

John Foster Dulles became a director of IG Farben, while his brother served on the board of a leading German bank that became closely associated with the Nazis. Both were masters at drawing up arrangements hiding American corporations Nazi involvement. Following WWII, as head of the CIA, Allen Dulles as in an ideal position to continue the cover-up of American corporate involvement with the Nazis, as well as helping scores of war criminals escape justice.

...Even the bluest of the "blue chips," IBM, actively sought business with the Nazis during the war. Dehomag, IBM's German subsidiary, supplied the Hollerith machines that played a prominent role in the Holocaust. Without Hollerith machines the efficiency with which the Holocaust was carried out would have been impossible. The roundup of the Jews would have been slowed to a snail's pace by forcing the Nazis to divert additional manpower to the task of locating their Jewish victims. Hollerith machines were located in every concentration camp and were serviced by Dehomag representatives under the full appraisal of the New York office.

The inclusion of IBM provides a look at the mindset of corporate America. Edwin Black's IBM and the Holocaust details the ruthlessness of corporate America in its pursuit of profits. When the Nazis came to power, IBM was under the direction of Thomas Watson, who actively sought out a contract to provide the equipment for the Nazi census.

Up until then, Watson's career had been less than ethically stellar. Watson learned his business skills from John Patterson, the ruthless founder of the National Cash Register (NCR). Watson rose quickly in the ranks of NCR, learning to use frivolous lawsuits against competitors, as well as the threat of lawsuits against competitors' customers. At NCR, Watson was placed in charge of driving out competitors selling used equipment. He quickly adopted the tactics of the robber barons to establish a monopoly by using predatory pricing, threats of lawsuits, bribes and even smashed storefronts. On February 22, 1912, Watson was indicted for criminal conspiracy to restrain trade and found guilty.

The criminal behavior and lack of ethics illustrated by Watson's early career was pervasive between the wars. When the Nazis seized power, Watson saw an opportunity to expand in Germany. In the depths of the Great Depression, Watson increased IBM's investment in Germany by nearly a million dollars. Even more gratifying was the secret pact Watson concluded in October, 1933 which gave Dehomag commercial powers beyond the German borders. Previously, all IBM subsidiaries had been confined to a single country. With Dehomag now established as the defacto "IBM Europe," the Nazis were able to conduct statistical services throughout Europe. In effect, Watson had established a cartel much like I.G. Farben's.

... In 1940, Professor Gaetano Salvemini of Harvard was quote as saying that 100 percent of American big business was sympathetic to fascism. Corporate America's support for fascism was so great that U.S. Ambassador to Germany William Dodd proclaimed:

"A clique of U.S. industrialists is hell-bent to bring a fascist state to supplant our democratic government and is working closely with the fascist regime in Germany and Italy. I have had plenty of opportunity in my post in Berlin to witness how close some of our American ruling families are to the Nazi regime...

Certain American industrialists [Mellons, duPonts, Rockefellers, Bushes, Fords, Morgans...] has a great deal to do with bringing fascist regimes into being in both Germany and Italy. They extended aid to help Fascism to occupy the seat of power, and they are helping to keep it there.

Propagandists for the fascist groups try to dismiss the fascist scare. We should be aware of the symptoms. When industrialists ignore laws designed for social and economic progress they will seek recourse to a fascist state when the institutions of our government compel them to comply with the provisions.

Americans have never been told the truth about the extent of corporate America's involvement with the Nazis. The media has spoon-fed Americans into believing that only a handful of companies traded with the Nazis. Nothing could be further from the truth. In reality, well over 300 American corporations were arming Nazi Germany during the war in violation of the law.

Many of these corporations took extraordinary steps to maintain communication with their German offices and to conceal their Nazi involvement from the U.S. government. They could have severed all links with Nazi Germany, but instead chose to continue support a regime at war with their own country. In doing so, these corporations became willing accomplices to the Holocaust, traitors to their country and guilty of war crimes. Those responsible for such actions and crimes should have received justice at the end of a hangman's noose. Sadly, none were even charged.

And Obama is hardly the first Democratic president to have trouble with fascist Members of Congress. Among the Republican Party caucus in Congress who were working for the Nazis during FDR's time were Stephen Day (R-IL), Hamilton Fish (R-NY), John Alexander (R-MN), Philip Bennett (R-MO), Usher Burdick (R-ND), Cliff Clevenger (R-OH), Henry Dworshak (R-ID), Clare Hoffman (R-MI), Bartell Jonlman (R-MI), Harold Knutson (R-MN), Gerald Nye (R-ND), Paul Shafer (R-MI), Henrik Shipstead (R-MN), William Stratton (R-IL), and Jacob Thorkelson (R-MT). Not all Nazis in Congress were Republicans but the vast majority were and this isn't surprising because the Republican Party "employed known Nazis in election campaigns... Most of the members of Congress came from the upper Midwest, especially Minnesota and Michigan where there were strong anti-union movements, and several ministries that preached the Nazi line of hatred of Jews... The Democratic Party tried to purge fascists from its ranks in the primary, unlike the Republican Party, which made no such attempts, and even encouraged the Nazis with anti-Jewish campaigns."

In regards to their enemies, the Roosevelt and Clinton administrations have several similarities. Clinton was plagued by the vicious smears inspired by Richard Mellon Scaife while it was Irénée du Pont hatching the plots against FDR. Both Presidents faced a hostile press for the most part. Additionally, both faced bitter opposition from the Republicans. Neither enjoyed bipartisan support in any notable sense of the word. In fact, the Republicans many of whom were openly pro-fascist opposed every effort of Roosevelt to prepare for the coming war.

Roosevelt had numerous bitter enemies within Congress. Some were openly pro-fascist. The Nazis in Germany sought throughout the 1930s a cause by which they could ignite the native fascists in America and prevent the U.S. from entering the war. The American Bund was first proposed as such an element in which all Americans of German extraction would rally behind.

...Nye’s opposed all major defense measures in the Senate. He led the fight against Lend Lease and he openly collaborated with many groups seeking appeasement regardless of their political leanings. On the floor of the Senate he charged that the British and not German submarines had sunk the Robin Moor, only later did he withdraw the baseless charge. He initiated a probe of Hollywood, but the investigation failed after he admitted that he had not seen the movies that he had labeled as "war propaganda." He arranged for a Bund member to air his defeatist views before the Senate and later used his congressional frank to mail copies of the speech to thousands. As a member of Congress, he was perhaps the biggest booster for the American First Committee.

Nye also praised the virulent anti-Semitic Gerald Smith for publishing The Cross and the Flag.

...There is no better way to establish the fascist nature of many of these congressmen than quoting them. One such Congressman and Steuben Society member was Republican House member John Schafer from Wisconsin. His congressional record was one of complete opposition to any defense measure. In speaking with Carlson, investigative reporter posing as a pro-fascist, Schafer was quoted as follows talking about a revolution against democracy:

"The Bloody kind. There will be purges and Roosevelt will be cleaned right off the earth along with the Jews. We’ll have a military dictatorship to save the country."

Schafer leaves little doubt as to his feelings about democracy in the quote. Another Senator, Republican Rufus Holman from Oregon, openly praised Hitler on the floor of the Senate. The small excerpt below from the speech leaves no real doubt as to his pro-Nazi views.

"I doubt if the right is all on one side among the present belligerents. At Least Hitler has broken the control of the international bankers and traders over the rewards for the labor of the common people of Germany.

In my opinion it would be advantageous if the control of the international bankers and traders over the wages and savings and the manner of living of the people of England could be broken by the English people, and if the control of the international bankers and traders over the wages and savings and the manner of living of the people of the United States could be broken by the people of the United States."

The code words of international bankers and traders meant Jews. Holman inserted several pro-Nazi propaganda pieces into the congressional record as well. Nor was this the only time Holman had praised Hitler. As Oregon’s State Treasurer, he had praised Hitler’s sterilization program resulting in the amendment of Oregon’s sodomy law in 1935 to include all moral degenerates and sexual perverts whether, they had committed a crime or not. Oregon at the time used castration rather than vasectomy.

Republican Senator Thomas Schall from Minnesota placed material from James True in the Congressional Record. True was a notorious Jew baiter and inventor of the infamous Kike Killer, a nightstick.

Republican Representative Louis McFadden of Pennsylvania was another Congressman that supported True. McFadden believed in the international Jewish conspiracy. He believed the Jews were not suffering from persecution in Germany under Hitler. He was virulent in his opposition to Roosevelt’s plan to allow 200,000 Jews to emigrate to the U.S. He believed those that supported such a plan, like Secretary of Labor, Frances Perkins were part of the conspiracy by the "Jewish-controlled administration." McFadden believed Perkins real name was that of a Russian Jewess, Matilda Wutski.

Do you think if history was taught in schools, Americans would be electing neo-fascist politicians like Scott Walker, Rick Snyder, Chris Christie, John Kasich... and Michele Bachmann?