Category Archives: Fascism

Reality Check For America’s Armchair Warriors

China, Fascism, Foreign Policy, Liberty, Military, Republicans, Russia

Said Dwight Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. … we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.”

And that was then.

Nevertheless, Mitt Romney (“I will insist on a military so powerful no one would ever think of challenging it”), and Rick Santorum (“I will not cut one penny out of military spending”) both decry the “gutting” of the military by Obama. They are following a not-so proud tradition. A “former president George W. Bush told his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner, ‘The best way to revitalize the economy is war, and the US has grown stronger with war.'”

“In 2009 alone,” reports RT, “the United States was responsible for almost half of the world’s total military spending – 46 per cent, or 712 billion US dollars. Since then, the figures have only grown, to the point that American military spending now exceeds that of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined. The US has more than 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world.”

Wikipedia confirms that assessment.

SWIFT Iranian Eviction

Economy, Ethics, Fascism, Foreign Policy, Iran, Media, Propaganda

CNN’s inane wishy-washy Fareed Zakaria boasted the other day about the foreign-policy achievements of Barack Obama. Since the president’s reign of terror abroad began, the Iranian currency had lost 65 percent of its value. Like all fixtures of mainstream media, Zombie Zakaria has some appetite for destruction.

So how is Obama accomplishing this great feat against innocent Iranian economic actors? Via RT:

US wants Iran evicted from SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication], an independent financial clearinghouse that is crucial to the country’s oil sales. This could immediately cripple Tehran’s financial lifeline, but would come with its own costs for the world economy.
Iran’s eviction from SWIFT could drive forward the current slow pressure campaign of sanctions aimed at persuading Iran to drop its nuclear program. It might also buy time for the US to persuade Israel not to launch a pre-emptive military strike on Iran this spring.
The bitter truth is, the plan might actually backfire on western nations themselves as it could send oil prices soaring and undercut the reputation of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT). The Brussels-based organization is a banking hub used by virtually every nation and corporation around the world. …
More than 40 Iranian banks and institutions use SWIFT to process financial transactions, and losing access to that flow of international funds could badly damage the Islamic republic’s economy. It would also probably hurt average Iranians more than the welter of existing banking sanctions already in place since prices for household goods would rise while the value of Iranian currency would drop.

Gingrich To Glenn: ‘I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican’

Elections, Fascism, Glenn Beck, Government, Republicans, Socialism, The State

I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican. In fact, if I were going to characterize my—on health where I come from, I’m a Theodore Roosevelt Republican and I believe government can lean in the regulatory leaning is okay.—Newt Gingrich (the gibberish too).

To some—perhaps many—Republicans, to be a Theodore Roosevelt Republican is quite respectable. Therein lies the rub. If you’re the type of (Robert) Taft Republican who values your life, liberty and property—then Teddy Roosevelt, “the guy who started the Progressive Party,” and was a proponent of “progressive ideals”—is bad news.

If you didn’t already know Newt was bad news; then Glenn Beck makes it abundantly clear. Especially politically poignant is Newt’s folksy retelling of Teddy’s food safety awakening.

About “‘TR’s drummed up a phony ‘food safety crisis,'” Thomas J. DiLorenzo observed the following:

… there were no epidemics related to commercial food processing” in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Roosevelt’s “pure food laws” were aimed “at protecting producers,” not the general public. For example, as Powell recounts, some of these early laws set exceptionally high regulatory standards on imported foods as a form of veiled protectionism. Food inspection laws during the Roosevelt era were invariably favored by larger corporations who understood that the laws would disproportionately harm their smaller competitors. “The 1906 Pure Food And Drugs Act empowered the Agriculture Department’s notorious quack, Harvey Washington Wiley, to conduct crazy crusades against foods competing with the interest groups he served” (mostly larger corporate interests).

In Into the Cannibal’s Pot, I mention the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos whom TR killed.

In all, TR was happiest when he was killing. Like many a mass murderer, TR began his career by killing animals, one biographer alleging that “after an argument with his girlfriend a young Teddy Roosevelt went home and shot his neighbor’s dog.”

Glenn mocks the self-important Speaker: “… So you’re a minimum regulation guy on making sure the people don’t fall into the vats of sausage?”

Yes, Newt Gingrich got mince-up well in the Glenn grinder.

One Nation Under Inflation

Debt, EU, Europe, Fascism, Federal Reserve Bank, Federalism, Political Philosophy, Regulation, Socialism, States' Rights

“When it grows up, the EU wants to be just like the US. That was Jose Manuel Barroso’s message to his host at the US Public Broadcasting Service.” The excerpt is is from “One Nation Under Inflation,” now on WND.COM:

“The EU Commission president, a chap called Jose Manuel Barroso, told PBS’s Jeffrey Brown, on November 28, that the European suprastate is not quite up to American statist standards.

Barroso lamented that the EU lacks America’s level of ‘convergence’: ‘We have a common currency, but not, for instance, a common treasury,’ said this slick operator. Fiscal discipline (one wonders what our commissar means by that) can only come about with more ‘pooling of sovereignty.’

The Commission’s president certainly sees the US as a model ‘fiscal union,’ with a high degree of ‘fiscal policy’ ‘integration’ throughout; and is almost envious of the fact that the US federal government possesses ‘the instruments’ that have allowed it to accumulate enormous liabilities: Evidently, America’s debt-to-GDP ratio is larger than the European Union’s.

In a nutshell: Barroso longs for Brussels to be able to do the necessary tinkering to keep the PIIGS of the Eurozone —Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, and Spain—living at the expense of their more industrious, austere neighbors to the north. (Presiding European bureaucrats like himself live-it-up no matter where they reside.) The EU, complained its Capo di tutti capi, needs to create those “instruments.”

When it comes to Newspeak, Barroso still beats Obama.

In any event, when it grows up, the EU wants to be just like the US. That was Jose Manuel Barroso’s message to his host at the US Public Broadcasting Service. So successfully has the Unites States government submerged the sovereignty of its states that a top European technocrat longs to be like us. We must be in worse shape than we imagined. …”

The complete column, The excerpt is is from “One Nation Under Inflation,” now on WND.COM. Read it.

My book, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” is available from Amazon. (Don’t forget those reviews; they help.)

A Kindle copy is also on sale.

Barnes and Noble is always well-stocked and ships within 24 hours.

Still better, shipping is free and prompt if you purchase Into the Cannibal’s Pot from The Publisher. Inquire about an Xmas special on bulk buys.