Democrats can be pro-business and anti-corporatist

Precursor of US corporations

The joint-stock company was the forerunner of the modern corporation. In a JOINT-STOCK VENTURE, stock was sold to investors who provided capital and assumed limited risk.
These companies had proven profitable in the past with trading companies. The risk was small, but the returns could take years.

The joint stock companies wanted to get rich quick through the discovery and mining of gold and silver and used indentured servants and slaves to operate these enterprises

But the colonists quickly discovered that the real gold in America was the land. Land was scarce in Europe.

The land that produced tobacco, rice, timber, and later cotton and other crops.

Colonial America was anti-corporatist

The Declaration of Independence freed Americans not only from Britain but also from the tyranny of British corporations. 

Americans remained deeply suspicious of corporate power for the next 100 years.
Early US corporations were "artificial, invisible, intangible," mere financial tools. They were chartered by individual states, not the federal government, which meant they could be kept under close local scrutiny.
These corporations were automatically dissolved if they violated their charter. 

Railroad magnate J. P. Morgan even understood that corporations must never become so big that they "inhibit freedom to the point where efficiency [is] endangered."

Only two hundred or so corporations operated in the US by the year 1800. They weren't allowed to participate in the political process. They couldn't buy stock in other corporations. 

In 1832, President Andrew Jackson vetoed a motion to extend the charter of the corrupt and tyrannical Second Bank of the United States, and was widely applauded for doing so. 

That same year the state of Pennsylvania revoked the charters of ten banks for operating contrary to the public interest.
Even the enormous industry trusts which protected member corporations from external competitors were no match for the state. By the mid-1800s, antitrust legislation was widely in place.

In the early history of America, the corporation played an important but subordinate role. The people -- not the corporations -- were in control.

Then US corporations became powerful

What happened? How did corporations gain power and eventually start exercising more control than the individuals who created them?

The shift began in the latter part of the nineteenth century. 

The turning point was the Civil War. Corporations made huge profits from procurement contracts and took advantage of the disorder and corruption of the times to buy legislatures, judges and even presidents. 

Corporations became the masters and keepers of business. 

President Abraham Lincoln foresaw the trouble

Lincoln warned that "corporations have been enthroned . . . . An era of corruption in high places will follow and the money power will endeavor to prolong its reign by working on the prejudices of the people . . . until wealth is aggregated in a few hands . . . and the republic is destroyed."

President Lincoln's warning went unheeded. Corporate power continued to increase. State charters could no longer be revoked. 

Corporate profits were no longer be limited. Corporate economic activity could be restrained only by the courts, and in hundreds of cases judges gave corporations minor legal victories which empowered corporations.

Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad

Then came a legal event that would not be understood for decades and would change American history.

In Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad, a dispute over a rail bed route, the US Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation was a "natural person" under the US Constitution and therefore entitled to protection under the Bill of Rights. 

Suddenly, corporations enjoyed the rights and sovereignty previously enjoyed only by the people.

Corporations had the the right to free speech, but corporations are not protected by the Fifth Amendment.

This 1886 decision gave corporations many of the same powers as private citizens.

 

The whole intent of the American Constitution -- that all citizens have one vote, and exercise an equal voice in public debates -- had been undermined.

Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas concluded of Santa Clara ruling "could not be supported by history, logic or reason" and that it was one of the great legal blunders of the nineteenth century . . .

Urantian Sojourn: Corporate Welfare Queens

GE is, of course, is not the only multi-billion corporation to escape paying any income tax. These companies pay their CEOs and chief execs tens of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses.

Rightrdia has written about this before. Microsoft and Cisco Systems, were notorious for paying no corporate taxes for years. The real problem with corporate taxation is that that are too many loopholes.

Ronald Reagan became aware of this when he discovered GE, America's largest corporation, paid no corporate taxes because it filed a 24,000 page tax form that the IRS could not audit. Today GE files 7,000 tax forms and still pays no taxes.

The GOP complains the corporate tax rate (35 per cent) is too high. Of course, this only applies to C-corporations not the small business S-corporations who pass their taxes and income onto owners and share holders.

Could the corporate tax rate be reduced for C-corporations? Only if thousands of tax exemptions were also removed. If the corporations, who are making record profits, won't hire more American workers, it's time to make them ante up. 

From Think Progess :

- BANK OF AMERICA: In 2009, Bank of America didn’t pay a single penny in federal income taxes, exploiting the tax code so as to avoid paying its fair share.

“Oh, yeah, this happens all the time,” said Robert Willens, a tax accounting expert interviewed by McClatchy. “If you go out and try to make money and you don’t do it, why should the government pay you for your losses?” asked Bob McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice.

The same year, the mega-bank’s top executives received pay “ranging from $6 million to nearly $30 million.”

- BOEING: Despite receiving billions of dollars from the federal government every single year in taxpayer subsidies from the U.S. government, Boeing didn’t “pay a dime of U.S. federal corporate income taxes” between 2008 and 2010.

- CITIGROUP: Citigroup’s deferred income taxes for the third quarter of 2010 amounted to a grand total of $0.00. At the same time, Citigroup has continued to pay its staff lavishly. “

John Havens, the head of Citigroup’s investment bank, is expected to be the bank’s highest paid executive for the second year in a row, with a compensation package worth $9.5 million.”

- EXXON-MOBIL: The oil giant uses offshore subsidiaries in the Caribbean to avoid paying taxes in the United States.

Although Exxon-Mobil paid $15 billion in taxes in 2009, not a penny of those taxes went to the American Treasury. This was the same year that the company overtook Wal-Mart in the Fortune 500.

Meanwhile the total compensation of Exxon-Mobil’s CEO the same year was over $29,000,000.

- GENERAL ELECTRIC: In 2009, General Electric — the world’s largest corporation — filed more than 7,000 tax returns and still paid nothing to U.S. government.

It managed to do this by a tax code that essentially subsidizes companies for losing profits and allows them to set up tax havens overseas.

That same year GE CEO Jeffery Immelt — who recently scored a spot on a White House economic advisory board — “earned total compensation of $9.89 million.”

In 2002, Immelt displayed his lack of economic patriotism, saying, “When I am talking to GE managers, I talk China, China, China, China, China….I am a nut on China. Outsourcing from China is going to grow to 5 billion.”

- WELLS FARGO: Despite being the fourth largest bank in the country, Wells Fargo was able to escape paying federal taxes by writing all of its losses off after its acquisition of Wachovia.

Yet in 2009 the chief executive of Wells Fargo also saw his compensation “more than double” as he earned “a salary of $5.6 million paid in cash and stock and stock awards of more than $13 million.”

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When will America stop kissing corporate asses?

 

Corporate cry babies

If a corporation wants to offshore  a plant, the government says fine and gives them a tax break to move offshore.

If a corporation, which is now a foreign entity, wants to sell its products to the government, no problem! You have the same competitive advantages as a US based corporation.

When did all of the whining start about government regulation start? Do corporations think the government write laws and regulations to keep busy. Most regs are written to counteract documented corporate abuse.

What about labor law? US labor law is very weak. You do have to be paid for the hours you work, but that's about it. There is no law that mandates paid holidays or vacations in the US. Likewise there are no federal laws that mandate comprehensive benefits such as health care or pensions.

Many corporations tout the 401(k)s as pension plans but Congress designed the IRA s to be savings plans, not pension plans. Many corporations do not provide matching contributions, making these corporate IRA's pointless.

In fact, unless there are some solid incentives for signing up for a corporate IRA, an IRA at a credit union is likely safer. IRA management fees are not well-regulated and many  people who were laid off during the Great Recession found more than one third of their corporate IRA contributions had been eaten up by management funds.

US labor unions are weak in the private sector. According to Wikipedia:

Percentage of workforce
▪ Total: 12.4%
▪ Public sector: 36.8%
▪ Private sector: 7.6%

The American fascist system

Ronald Reagan said:

In this present crisis, the government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. 

Reagan cut the tax rate for the most affluent Americans using the Trojan horse "supply side " economics as the basis. Only 12 economists in the US subscribe to this bastardized version of Keynesian economics. One of them is Arthur Laffer,
Reagan's economist.

Reaganomics fractured the middle class and resulted in "deficit politics." it forced the second spouse out of the house and into the job market to make ends meets.

This had some unintended consequences. Kids were no longer supervised at home and the nation's schools began a long decline.

The deregulation mentality of the conservatives also emboldened corporations who offshored their headquarters in foreign countries to avoid taxes. Plants were also offshored and many American workers lost their jobs.

America changed form a manufacturing society to services and administrative banking and financial society. When he financial crisis started in 2007, the banking and mortgage industries collapsed.

Is the government the cause of out nation's problems? The answer depends on who is in power. if the GOP holds the presidency, yes. The GOP ignores labor law and environmental regulations and fills the courts with corporate stooges.

Rightardia looks at the GOP as the political arm of US corporations. We don't really make a distinction between US corporations and the Republican Party. It is not a coincidence that most Republican politicians came from the corporate offices. Fox News is the media arm of US corporations.

The Greek fraternity system provides a conservative pipeline to the corporations board and to the GOP. These fraternity brothers and sorority sisters are hardly liberal and many are the products of private and bibble schools. Bob McDonald, the governor of Virgina is a good example.

What we have described her is American corporatist system or fascist system. It is not the same as the fascist systems in Italy or Germany in World War 2. but make no mistake, when you mix corporations with the government on a large scale, you get fascism.

Indeed, Rightardia suggests that the government is the solution. Fascism or corporatism personified by the GOP is the problem. Only the federal government can control corporatism.

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Al Jazeera- The Wikileaks atacks against US neocoporatism

In the words of Thomas Friedman,"the hidden hand of the market will never work without the hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas..."[EPA]

When your Swiss banker throws you overboard, you know you've made some very powerful enemies.

Long famed for hiding money for everyone from Nazis and drug lords to spies and dictators, the Swiss government's banking arm has decided that WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are just too hot even for it to handle.

And so the PostFinance, which runs the country's banks, declared in early December that it had "ended its business relationship with WikiLeaks founder Julian Paul Assange" after accusing Mr. Assange of - gasp! - providing false information about his place of residence.

This move followed similar moves by credit card companies MasterCard and Visa, as well as PayPal and Amazon.com, to no longer process WikiLeaks payments and, in Amazon.com's case, to cease hosting its data.

As I write this, Bank of America has joined the crescendo of corporations taking aim at WikiLeaks, refusing to process payments for it any longer because of "our reasonable belief that WikiLeaks may be engaged in activities that are, among other things, inconsistent with our internal policies for processing payments."

Zeroing in on "neocorporatism"

. . . WikiLeaks both operates outside the system, seeking "Matrix"-style, to use technology - the internet - to "destroy" it by prying it open to public scrutiny, exposing the constant conspiracies of the powerful against the rest of society.

This task, Assange argues, is the most important way to help free the system's millions of often complicit - if not quite willing - victims and in so doing, "change or remove... government and neocorporatist behaviour".

As a political theorist, Assange leaves something to be desired.

"Neocorporatism" describes a system in which capital and labour are enmeshed in an integrated but ultimately dependent relationship with a powerful and autonomous state apparatus.

. . . (It is) an update of the triangular relationship that enabled unprecedented economic growth and gains for the working class in the West in the decades after World War II.

Ideologically, this kind of close working relationship between government, big business and organised labour is the antithesis of the neoliberal system WikiLeaks seeks to combat.

But Assange is right that there is something "neo", if not exactly new, in the way the corporate sector is behaving today and its relationship with government. It lies in the embrace - or better, re-embrace - of finance capitalism and militaristic empire and the military industrial complex that sustains it.

Whether preying on unwitting consumers in middle America or preying on suspected insurgents in the Middle East, these are two of the most secretive sectors of the American economy. They depend on the public knowing as little as possible about their inner workings to secure the greatest possible freedom of action, power and profits.

Noecoporatism is another name for neo-fascism.  An essential belief of fascism is that the government should be run by or be beholden to private enterprise. 

The GOP is, in fact, a neocorporatist polticlal party. The Blue Dogs are the Democratic neocorporatist wing.

The power of secrecy

Assage's abandonment by the Swiss banking system and its American corporate cousins is thus not surprising. Few industries have used secrecy and lack of disclosure more effectively than the banking, financial services and credit card industries.

Indeed, their secretive business practises are central to their constant ability to rake in enormous profits at the expense of working and middle class Americans through monopolising trading systems, charging morally usurious interest rates and fees, and engaging in other practises that would make even the most cold-hearted lone shark blush.

If the grand bargain between workers, capitalists and governments enabled the first two post-World War II generations to move from high school right into the middle class, this road was irreparably damaged by the 1980s, when the neoliberal Right first came to power.

As the United States entered its long and painful era of deindustrialization American foreign policy became more aggressively militaristic; and so joining the military as opposed to GM or Ford became one of the few routes to secure any kind of stable economic future (as long as you stayed in the military).

Not surprisingly, profits from the financial sector surpassed that of manufacturing in the early 1990s and haven't dropped since.

But these profits and the economic growth they generated have relied disproportionately on government and consumer debt and a hollowing out of the manufacturing sector, which together helped make the US the "sick man of the globe", as one senior corporate economist.

Activist Post: Citizens United puts US on path to fascism

Daniel Tencer, Raw Story

The US Supreme Court's striking down of nearly a century's worth of campaign finance laws means the US government can now be "bought" and the country may be headed for fascism, says an outgoing Democratic House representative.

In an interview this week, Rep. John Hall (D-NY), who lost his seat in the mid-term elections, told the New York Observer that he sees a threat to American democracy in the court's ruling.

I learned when I was in social studies class in school that corporate ownership or corporate control of government is called fascism. So that's really the question -- is that the destination if this court decision goes unchecked?

The Citizens United decision ended decades of campaign finance regulation.  Corporations, unions and other groups can now spend unlimited amounts on political campaigns without having to identify themselves.

see the rest of the story at http://www.activistpost.com/2010/12/democratic-lawmaker-citizens-united.html

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Dangerous Intersection: Fascist sponsored bad science

The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (TASSC), originally called APCO, was hatched in 1984 as a subsidiary of the Washington, D.C. law firm Arnold & Porter.

This firm is best known for its years of representing the giant tobacco conglomerate Philip Morris. APCO set up fake “grassroots” organizations around the country to do the bidding of Big Tobacco. APCO is now defunct and was replaced by TASSC. TASSC was established in to Europe using Dr. George Carlo.

All of a sudden, “normal, everyday, in-no-way-employed-by-Philip Morris Americans” were popping up everywhere. And it turned out they were outraged — outraged! — by exactly the things APCO’s clients hated (such as, the government telling tobacco companies what to do).

In particular, they were “furious” that regular people had the right to sue big corporations  like Philip Morris.(For details, see the 2000 report “The CALA Files” (PDF) by my friends and colleagues Carl Deal and Joanne Doroshow.)

Right about now you may be wondering: how many Americans get pushed off a cliff by Big Tobacco every year? The answer is 443,000 Americans die every year due to smoking. That’s a big cliff.

With this success under their belts, APCO created “The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition.” TASSC, funded partly by Exxon, had a leading role in a planned campaign by the fossil fuel industry to create doubt about global warming.

The problem for Big Oil speaking out against global warming, according to the campaign’s own leaked documents, was that the public could see the “vested interest” that oil companies had in opposing environmental laws. APCO’s job was to help conceal those oil company interests.

And boy, have they ever succeeded.

source: http://dangerousintersection.org/

See http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=APCO_Worldwide

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HYSTERICAL RAISINS: Republican Koch Suckers

Is there a vast corporate conspiracy behind the Tea Party and the midterm resurgence of the far right?

Some evidence involves the well-documented role of the billionaire Koch brothers, their Americans for Prosperity front group and other Koch-funded entities. 

Now a secret letter from Charles Koch shows that the tentacles of the “Kochtopus” include a high-level “network” of corporate, lobbying, nonprofit, and media organisations that meet regularly to plot right-wing strategy.

The Koch family knows how top do this with its family connections to Nazi Germany. Koch Industries is the child of the violence of Buchenwald,  widely regarded as one of wartime Germany’s most notorious “death camps”. It also has connections to the John Birch Society. 

This is corporatism, a polite word for American fascism.

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LT Saloon: Imagine if a Nazi War reenactor had been a progresive or liberal

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MoveOn.org: Target Ain't People

Videos like this make the Rightardia staffers stand up and cheer.

We saw some of this during the health-care debate with the Billionaires for WealthCare troupe.

We suspect the corporate weenies in Target are having a fit over this video.

Target had it taxes raised in Illinois when it took a tax incentive, but didn't hire the workers it had promised, too.

Rightardia is not a big fan of Target because of its return policy. See http://www.consumeraffairs.com/retail/target_returns.html  

BestBuy is next. Moveon.org knows how to pick them.

Rightardia tries to avoid BestBuy because we feel like we are under surveillance the minute we enter the store.

A word to the wise on BestBuy. Never finance anything at BestBuy unless you are into masochism.

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Dangerous Intersection: United corporations of America

By Erich Vieth on July 17th, 2010

Photo by Erich Vieth

As part of the biggest Fourth of July celebration in St. Louis, Missouri, one could see corporate flags waving on the same staffs as American flags, which is apparently exactly where they belong. To me, this arrangement symbolizes the almost complete corporate take-over of the United States.

We’re in an ominous environment right now. We have a thoroughly corrupt Congress (Dick Durbin: “The banks frankly own the place”) and a Supreme Court filled with corporation-idolizing free market fundamentalists.

If you think it’s already bad, here’s what’s about to happen. This upcoming ruling by the United States Supreme Court will make clean money legislation unworkable. Citizens United was apparently just the beginning of a terrible trend.

There are relatively few politicians speaking up with passion. Sheldon Whitehouse is one of the few. We need massive marches across America. We need millions of people to turn off their damned TVs and iPods and get up and march, but I don’t see it happening.

Most of the people I talk with don’t care that money buys elections, even while they go to Fourth of July celebrations and give lip service to “America is the world’s greatest country.”

Rightardia comment: Americans live in a over commercialized society and have forgotten that corporatism and fascism are the same animal. Ad FDR stated:


The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group.


In Europe. the fascists was defeated when World War 2 ended. The US infrastructure never experienced the horrors of a world war. The fascist America Firsters and similar groups were left alive and well in the US.


We now have militias organized around the country that are similar to the SA Brownshirts that brought Hitler to power.  We have a neo-Nazi's patrolling the Arizona border with Mexico and neo-confederates in the South and West that oppose the federal government. The Tea Party movement is fueled by racism against the president.


Is this worrisome? Yes, but it could also be fascism's last gasp in the US. The right wing knows that America is changing and it will no longer be a white or Christian nation by 2016. This may be the beginning of the end for the GOP which will become a regional political party with permanent minority status. It is just a matter of time.

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Rightardia admits we whored for big oil

Everybody on the Internet knows that Rightardia sold out for big bucks and ran this Stephan Colbert infomercial on our web site for big oil: http://tinyurl.com/37x8dev

But the money was good so our writers are convinced that they can pimp and shill for US corporations as well as any conservative.

Take a look at some of our right wing themes.

Big Oil

1. Cuban communists sabotaged the Deepwater Horizon oil platform so a Chinese communist oil company could take all of the oil in the gulf of for themselves.

We are certain wingnuts will embrace this argument without much trouble using Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin as our favorite conservative talking dogs. A communist conspiracy theory always works well with the conservative base. Fox News will love this PR campaign.

2. Big oil justs mines and drills for energy. Its our customers who burn our product and cause global warming.

3. The dinosaurs never complained about global warming and they thrived for nearly 135 million years.

4. When the US goes into the next ice age, Americans will be grateful for global warming.

Immigration

1. Don't panic if you are Hispanic. Republicans have used the cheap Latin agricultural labor for years. Just don't try to vote or have babies while you are in the US.

2. A real American plays, football, not soccer. Throw away you soccer balls and vuvuzelas and play a real American sport instead of that socialist sport, soccer.

government

1. Small government and big business work best. America was more manly when Republicans owned it and we didn't have to deal with pesky government regulations or labor unions.

2. Fascism is misunderstood. The American version is a lot kindler and gentler than the European version. Americans were happy with corporate towns and stores and liked it when out bosses told them how to vote in elections. It was a simpler time that was better for everyone.

Military-industrial complex 

1. War is good for the economy and creates jobs. It's a lot more fun to bomb enemy cities and create crispy critters than to pay unemployment benefits and issue food stamps.

2. War is good for the Republican soul and good for business.

Religion

If you go to church every week, you will be a more obedient workers and less concerned about you pay and benefits and more concerned with salvation. This works for corporate America.

Education

1. The pointy headed Democrats have ruined public education that needs to get back to the basics.

2. Education's purpose is to produce workers for corporate America. Our kid's heads don't need to be filled up with ideas about, art, music, history and civics that causes confusion makes them question corporate and government authority.

There you have it. Rightardia will send you a detailed proposal with an Excel spreadsheet that will show you how Rightardia can represent your corporation or right wing think tank.

Face up to it. Progressives have a lot more imagination than those pasty faced corporate drones who work for you.

If we can shill and whore for big oil, we can shill and whore for anyone. Shilling is the American corporate way!

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Book on Hitler Youth warns of fascist dangers in the US

High on the list of the Third Reich's atrocities was its use of state power to undermine the most basic of human rights and the subordination of all other social institutions to the prerogatives of the Party.

In "Life In The Hitler Youth" by Jennifer Keeley, the reader learns of the Nazi subversion ofthe family and realizes the disturbing parallels that can be drawn with developments unfolding in our own nation and the Republican family values agenda that includes ideological indoctrination by evangelical churches.

According to Keeley, all of German life (including the minutest detail of one's personal life) was brought under Nazi control through the policy of Gleichschaltung or coordination so that all of society and culture reflected National Socialism .

As such, the 1936 Law Concerning The Hitler Youth decreed that all of German youth were to be incorporated under the banner of this organization. The Hitler Youth or Hitler Jugend became the source of manpower for the Nazi SS.

When reading "Life In The Hitler Youth", one comes away with an uneasiness in the pit of the stomach when one realizes the similarities of the philosophies justifying a number of the programs in Nazi Germany and the United States of America.

Although the United States is nothing like Nazi Germany in terms of destroying innocent human lives, if Americans do not now get a grip on certain ideological trends festering below the surface of public policy, the nation could very easily find it self sliding in this kind of downward direction.

As Norm Chomsky has pointed out, the US took over the international role of the Germans after World War 2. The US also had a robust fascist movement in it prior to World War 2 called the Bund. Many American corporations were also openly sympathetic to the Nazis prior the the war.

In the Nazi and other fascist systems, it is not so much the individual created in the image of God protected by a set of unchanging eternal laws that matters but rather the larger group that counts.

For example, the 1936 Law Concerning The Hitler Youth read in part, "The whole of German youth is to be educated,outside the parental home and school, in the Hitler Youth physically, intellectually, and morally in the spirit of National Socialism for service to the nation and community."

As evidenced in one of Hitler’s speeches: "learn...that life for you must mean sacrifice, sacrifice of your personal freedom, sacrifice of your free time, sacrifice of many of the small pleasures of life; sacrifices when you take on yourself charges, not for the individual, not for yourself alone...but for your small, and yet so great community."

"To teach Hitler Youth the importance of their Volk community, the National Socialists suggested members participate in a form of land service. Although not obligated to do so by any mandate or decree, every year young people ... were expected to help the Volk community...This was designed to teach young people about putting the needs of the community before their own ."

The US had similar programs with Herbert Hoover's Civilain Conservation Corps that put many jobless Americans back to work. The objective of such programs --- be they either in a dictatorship or even in a representative democracy --- is ultimately to undermine the loyalty of its participants in regards to other authorities such as family or religion and to replace it with an absolute fealty to the organs of the state.

This is similar to GOP 'family values" rhetoric in which conservatives claim to represent the true American way of life.

The first phase of this program was innocent enough as it consisted of scheduling so many activities and meetings that the good Nazi family had to take part in that they were basically kept running around, away from one another,and unable to reflect more critically about what they were being lured into.

This wasn't really all that much different than what is going on in many of these Emergent and Purpose Driven megachurches these days where activities and meetings are scheduled multiple nights per week and parents are told you are less than an ideal Christian if you only show up for the traditional scheduled Sunday and perhaps Wednesday services.

These same techniques are used by both the Mormon church an the Church of Scientology. Those running afoul of National Socialist authorities underwent a process of scrutiny by the social service agencies of that day in a manner those under suspicions other than quantifiable physical abuse.

Parents refusing to go along with the Hitler Youth agenda could have their children taken away on the grounds of being "politically unreliable." One might say such parents failed to have their children "properly socialized."

Common to all forms of collectivism --- be they the communist, fascistic, or even more democratic and less blatantly homicidal varieties --- is the aspiration to so totally order the existences of those living under these systems.

Of course, the Germans believed God was on their side and Hitler may have even wanted to create a new uniquely German religion. The communists were blatantly atheistic early on, bout the Nazis wanted to manipulate religion to benefit the Nazi moment.

Keeley writes, "Finally, the Nazis attempted to replace Christianity with National Socialist ideology in the lives of youth. Some National Socialists expressed discontent with the so-called Jewish roots of Christianity...The Nazis began to remove symbols, such as the cross, from schools, but they also painted the Tuetonic crosses on their aircraft and tanks.

A prayer children were required to recite in order to receive a free school lunch:

Fuehrer, my Fuehrer, bequeathed to me by the Lord, protect and preserve me as long as I live. Thou hast rescued Germany from deepest distress. I thank thee for my daily bread. Abideth thou long with me, forsaketh me not, Fuehrer my Fuehrer, my faith and my light. Heil mein Fuehrer .

Religion was clearly enmeshed in the Nazi movement and Hitler was clearly obsessed with the occult and religious icons.

source: EtherZone.com by Frederick Meekins

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RT: In court we trust?

Rightardia has been banging the corporatism drum for a long time. The GOP has been populated by  corporate shills, pimps and whores as long as Rightardia can remember. 

Prior to the election of Obama, the GOP controlled the presidency for for 20 or 28 years and they filled the vacant Supreme Court positions with hard right idelogues such as Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Antonin G. Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito. The Supreme Court has become subordinated to corporate interests.


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Bush factor in the National Debt and Deficit

June 11th, 2010 by Karina

Yesterday, Republican Leader Boehner claimed the Bush tax cuts enacted under Republican controlled Congresses did not lead to the deficit:

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday defended tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush, saying they did not lead to the deficit that currently confronts the country.

“It’s not the marginal tax rates … that’s not what led to the budget deficit,” he told reporters, adding, “The revenue problem we have today is a result of what happened in the economic collapse some 18 months ago.”

In fact, the Bush-era tax cuts are the largest contributor to the deficit:

The Bush 2001 tax cuts added $1,350 billion and the Bush 2003 tax cuts added $348.7 billion to the deficit. Compare that to major legislation the Democratic-led 111th Congress has passed:

Other lasting legacies of the Bush Administration on our national debt and deficit include:

The article on Leader Boehner’s comments continued:

He also said that slashing marginal tax rates has actually buoyed revenue levels.

“We’ve seen over the last 30 years that lower marginal tax rates have led to a growing economy, more employment and more people paying taxes,” he said.

During the Bush administration the country netted the creation of 1 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The low job figure was a direct result of the financial crisis the country was entering when Bush left office. But experts have claimed that job creation was anemic under Bush when compared to other two-term presidents.

President Bush actually holds the worst job creation record in 75 years and left office with 673,000 fewer private sector jobs than when he started—100% of his net job creation of 1.08 million jobs were in government:

Posted in Economic News, Fiscal Responsibility, Labor and American Jobs, Correcting the Record

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Rightardia.blogspot.com
editor: Middle Class Warrior

The day the Supreme Court released the Incredible Fascist

 
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Glen Beck: Obama is a socialist

The right wing just can't make up its mind. Lately, most of the righties have been calling Obama a fascist.

Now they are calling him a socialist. Is Obama on the left or the right? Part of the problem is that many conservatives have a murky understanding of politics and confuse fascism with socialism.

In fact, fascism and socialism aren't even in the same category. Fascism is a political philosophy that is based on capitalist or syndicalist economics.

Communism is the opposite political philosophy that prefers socialist economics. Fascism represents the extreme right wing view while communism represents the extreme left. Neither extreme political philosophy has worked well.

The fascist powers, Germany and Italy, were defeated in World War 2. The first communist government, the USSR, collapsed under its own weight.

Most governments today use a mix of socialist and capitalist economics. This includes both the US and Red China. There is no country that is completely capitalist or socialist.

Glen Beck blurs the lines between the left and right. Beck suggests progressives are prone to violence although most political violence in this country has been on the right. It is not the progressives who are have an obsession with guns and ammo.

Beck says progressives resort to name-calling, shouting, and accusations of racism. Rightardia says turnabout is fair play. The left has been turning the other cheek for far too long.

Beck claims "progressive historians" are "on a mission to make sure Nazis are right. . ." and that they defend Stalin and Mao.

Well, no progressive that Rightardia knows has much use for any of these people. Progressives are repelled by fascists and Nazis who have held racist and ultra-nationalist views.

Although Stalin killed millions of his own people, he also defeated the Nazis and brought the Russians into the 20th Century.

Mao is considered the Father of Modern China. Progressives would suggest that the Russians and Chinese would be the best judges of their old leaders.

Beck is "declaring war" on the "very bad" progressive movement. How is the progressive movement bad? It helped elect Obama and ended dysfunctional Republican rule.

Beck plans to continue "to correct the history that progressives have tried to erase." Good luck, Mr. Beck. Rightardia has people who have read the history books and in most cases history has not been particularly kind to Republicans.

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The GOP is turning into a fascist party

It is clear the far right wing symbolised by Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck and Fox News is fascist. The Conservative club for Growth has been trying to purge moderates from the Party. Hardliners Sarah Palin and Fred Thomson attacked Dede Scozzafava in the NY district 23 race and crossed party lines to endorse the Conservative Party candidate.

The GOP has opposed the UN and international treaties for years. Its prefers a war like the blitzkrieg the US launched against Iraq to diplomacy. it violated the Geneva conventions during the conduct of the Iraq War and showed a disdain for human rights by torturing insurgents.

The Republicans overspend on the military which has created a huge national debt and budget deficit. George W. Bush was the only president to cut taxes and start a war which doubled the national debt.

Republicans support traditional Christian values with a male dominated head of household. A conservative newspaper, the NY Post, was sued by a female editor. who alleged rampant sexism and racism. Rush Limbaugh refers to women who support feminist causes as Femi-Nazis. That's pretty funny coming from the arch-fascist of the GOP himself. 

Fox News and right wing talk radio are excellent examples of the GOP's attempt to control the media.

Conservatives believe the US is  Christian nation. Many right wingers viewed the Iraq war as us (the Christians) against them (the Muslims).

The hallmark of the GOP is the protection of corporate power. It is falling all over itself to protect the dysfunctional health care industry.  When a Republican is elected president, it ignores labor laws and less than 1 in 10 workers is now in a union. Right to Work Laws that the GOP supports has weakened unions.

Paul Krugman has written about the anti-intellectualism of the Republicans. Krugman has called GOP the 'party of the stupid.' Republicans even made a lot of political noise when the Economic Stimulus included a modest $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the efforts of states such as Florida who is charging juvenile offenders as adults. The US has the highest percentage of population incarcerated of any other nation in the world. Yet the US has permissive gun laws.

The cronyism and the corruption of the GOP lead to the financial meltdown. This is why the Democrats swept the elections in 2008.

George W. Bush was elected in 2001 because Florida Republicans suppressed the black vote by illegally purging blacks with misdemeanors from the voter rolls. The Republicans have had an ongoing effort to suppress voting in the US for many years. Why do you think Republicans have such a great disdain for ACORN?

Americans need to call Republicans what they really are. They are fascists, pure and simple. There is no reason to sugar-coat what they are. Most of the moderates have left or are leaving the Republican party.

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LtSaloon.org Quote Quiz

by RS Janes on Fri, Oct 23, 2009

Time for a quiz? I thought so. Grab your paper and pencil and no cheating with the Google machine. As you read, you’ll catch on to the theme of this baker’s dozen of questionable quotes:

1. “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

2. “Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

3. “War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and imposes the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to make it.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

4. “We must be prepared to face our responsibilities and be willing to use force if necessary.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

5. “The fate of nations is intimately bound up with their powers of reproduction.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

6. “The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

7. “The Liberal State is a mask behind which there is no face; it is a scaffolding behind which there is no building.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama
 
8. “Obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

9. “Direct threats require decisive action.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

10. “I cannot be mistaken – what I say and do is historical.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Dick Cheney
D. Barack Obama

11. “When we have won the war, who will question our methods?”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Ann Coulter
D. Barack Obama

12. “While the form of treachery varies slightly from case to case, liberals always manage to take the position that most undermines [the nation's] security.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Ann Coulter
D. Barack Obama

13. “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep repeating it, and eventually they will believe it.”
A. Benito Mussolini
B. Adolf Hitler
C. Ann Coulter
D. Barack Obama

And here are the answers:

1. A. Benito Mussolini
2. A. Benny again!
3. A. Still Il Duce.
4. C. This one’s from Dick.
5. A. Benito is back!
6. B. Der Fuhrer said this.
7. A. Back to Benny.
8. B. Hitler again.
9. C. Dick at his finest.
10. B. That Paperhangin’ SOB said this.
11. B. Hitler again.
12. C. Ann Coultergeist.
13. B. Back to Adolf.
Contact the author at editor@ltsaloon.org
© 2009 R.S. Janes. LTSaloon.org

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What is fascism?

click graphic to enlarge

Benito Mussolini created the fascist movement. This is what he said:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

This is what FDR, who fought the Axis Powers, said about fascism:

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”



The Greeks called the people who owned the government 'oligarchs.' This was the basis of the central struggle between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians preferred democratic control of the government while the the Spartans wanted an elite group to rule.


The health care struggle could be framed as a struggle between corporate fascists and the federal government. The CEOs and the boards represent the oligarchs who control the American health care system. In 1946 the health care industry was even exempted from anti-trust law and became a cartel.

What party has been supporting the corporatists and the fascists? Why that would be the GOP.


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