VAGUE SPACE

Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism

From 2003... It's not hard to see the exact connection between this list and current conservative Republican orthodoxy but I've highlighted the most obvious examples.  It's pretty shocking.

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each ("Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20):

 

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.  Editors' Note:  Remember the Flag Pin Debate?  The "Mission Accomplished" banner.  The very existence of Fox News graphics.  This is on page 1 of modern Republicanism.

 

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.  Editors' Note:  OK, Obama hasn't exactly closed Guantanamo.  But he did act to end torture as a national policy, which was instituted for the first and only time in American history by the last Republican regime.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.  Editors' Note:  That's pretty much on page 2 of the modern Republican handbook.

Pee into this Cup, Governor Scott, You Asshole

Aasif Mandvi brings out the funny with this perfect report on the hypocrisy of Republican lawmakers in Florida and their oh-so-1980s-style attempts to demonize welfare recipients as drug addicts abusing our taxpayer dollars so the rest of us -- the actual taxpayers -- can continue to avoid casting our angry glare at the corporations and lobbyists and politicians in their pockets who have spent at least the last 10 years actively legislating against both the poor and middle class.  Because -- hey -- if we get pissed about the random welfare mother (read: African-American woman) who bought $150 Nikes at Wal-mart that one time we heard from someone one time who works there, then we might not notice how Bush's tax cuts (still in effect) cost the treasury $1.065 trillion since 2001 on just the top 5% of taxpayers, or including all tax payers, close to $2.5 trillion over the past 10 years - and the top 5% got 52.5% of that benefit in 2010. Or we might not notice how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost our treasury between $1.4 trillion and $3.7 trillion, depending on what factors you include to calculate it (such as lifetime veterans benefits).  Or we might forget that corporate taxes as a percentage of GDP have fallen to an all-time low of less than 1.3% (down from 6% in the 1950s).  In fact total corporate federal taxes paid fell to 12.1% of profits earned from activities within the U.S. in fiscal 2011, according to the Congressional Budget Office. That’s the lowest level since at least 1972. And well below the 25.6% companies paid on average from 1987 to 2008.  If we were taxing corporations at a western world average of ~3% of GDP, that would bring in an additional $300 Billion to the treasury -- or enough to fund the national Food Stamps program (~3.5% of our national budget = $120 Billion) + welfare (also know as TANF = 0.8% of the budget = $30 Billion) + extended unemployment benefits (~4.4% = $145 Billion).  Yes, just making corporations in America pay what they would in the rest of the free world WHILE THEY ARE MAKING RECORD PROFITS AND NOT HIRING MORE AMERICANS would pay for all social assistance programs for the poor every year. 

Vote for GOP = Vote for 1%

The title of this post couldn't be more evident than in this chart of the % share of tax cuts by income proposed by each of the leading GOP candidates for president.  Disregarding the economic reality that cutting taxes during a recession is insanely idiotic and goes against every economic principle of every sane human and disregarding what this loss of revenue for the government would do to the deficit that the GOP claims to care so much about (only when they are not in the presidency), what's so tragically sad is that the GOP's plans to revive a failing economy that has only provided wealth for the richest 1% of Americans is to -- get this -- give huge chunks of money to the 1% of us who aren't suffering in this economy and who haven't been suffering and who, in all analyses, helped bankrupt the economy, and who aren't creating jobs in this economy as it is.  Seriously, if you vote for a candidate espousing these beliefs on the most important issue in 2012, you just -- I can't -- there are no words...

■ Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s $18.1 trillion tax plan would give the richest one percent of
Americans an average tax cut of $391,330, which would be over 190 times as large as the average tax cut of
$1,990 that the middle fifth of Americans would receive.
■ Texas Governor Rick Perry’s $10.5 trillion tax plan would give the richest one percent of Americans an
average tax cut of $272,730, which would be over 270 times as large as the average tax cut of $1,000 that the
middle fifth of Americans would receive.
■ Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney’s $6.6 trillion tax plan would give the richest one percent of
Americans an average tax cut of $126,450, which would be over 100 times as large as the average tax cut of
$1,220 that the middle fifth of Americans would receive.
■ Former Senator Rick Santorum’s $9.4 trillion tax plan would give the richest one percent of Americans an
average tax cut of $217,500, which would be over 100 times as large as the average tax cut of $2,160 that the
middle fifth of Americans would receive.

Some Mitt-specific data after the jump...

Pity the Billionaire

Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank

Thomas Frank, the best-selling author of What's the Matter with Kansas?, the book that explores why voters in southern and rural states vote against their economic interests by voting for Republican economic policies, is back with a new book that explores the more recent phenomenon of the Tea Party rise and how the collapse of the economy in 2008 resulted inexplicably in a populist surge that celebrated an extension of free-market policies that actually caused the collapse, instead of a reversal of policies toward more economic regulation, taxation, and governmental intervention as happened after the Great Depression.  For me, this book went a long, long way to explaining this shocking diconnect in American discourse (and worldwide, for that matter, as Europe has followed the same austerity-based destructive path to recovery as we did) and helped explain the "why" of the Tea Party's rise and why there continue to be a large swath of the American public so disenchanted with government that they have actually bought the Republican talking points of lower taxes and less regulations and "job creators" hook-line-and-sinker, even though these prescriptions are in fact anethema to economic growth (because, and I've said this a million times, without demand from the poor and middle class, the job creators ain't going to create jobs no matter how low you make their taxes...)  The book was written before the Occupy Wall Street revolution that came this fall, and if Frank had waited, he would probably say that was exactly the rebellious movement that would have been expected after the collapse of the economy in 2008, the protests against the people and corporations who collapsed the economy, not the protests against the government that the Tea Party represented and that millions of misinformed middle and lower-class Americans continue to thrust their misplaced anger (or on each other, the other poor "living high on handouts with their cell phones and nice sneakers", one of the most BS attack lines created by the wealthy so we don't notice how the government has stacked things so nicely towards them and not the actual poor, who, you know, are fucking poor).  But I think Frank would say Occupy came too late at this point and even as it's changed the narrative of some in the media, it's not enough outrage and, crucially, there's no political party in the country and very few actual politicians (Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are a couple exceptions) who are giving voice to the 99% in the halls of power.  One wonders what it will take to change the narrative or to actually fix things in this country from the state that they are in.  But understanding how we got to this point -- the rise of far-right economic fervor in the face of a massive economic collapse predicated on policies proscripted out of far-right economic theory-- makes this informative book a must-read for all Americans.

Recall Walker

Last winter in Wisconsin, we saw the start of a pushback by the middle class against the rich overlords who had just abducted our government by proxy, a theme that continued later that year on a national level with Occupy Wall Street and all its local derivations.  Finally the Americans who were being hurt by the right-wing policies of our government the past 10 or 30 years (depending on how far back you want to go) were speaking up en masse about the inequality of opportunity and the tilt in our political system that gives all the tax breaks and all the wealth to the people who are already rich and have just gotten richer.  But it all started in Wisconsin, a politically middle-of-the-road cheese-loving state that unwittingly voted in Scott Walker as governor in the tea party wave of 2010 (by a bare margin) and had some severe buyers' remorse almost immediately.  One of Walker's first acts -- with a Republican State Senate and State House eagerly rubber-stamping his actions -- was a massive tax cut for corporations.  His next act -- eliminating 100 years of collective bargaining rights for public employees.  Yeah he also cut education funding by $800M and has tried to gut environmental legislation and tried to supress voters' rights -- you know, standard Republican governing -- but it was the collective bargaining rights for teachers and other public employees that began the outrage, particularly since it was a fight being repeated all across the country.  Ohio recently voted to repeal their collective bargaining elimination law enacted by its brand-new Republican governor.  Indiana is having a fight right at this moment between protestors and Republicans in charge who are trying to pass the "end the rights of all public unions to break them and any and all opposition against GOP corporate power" (in fact, some Republicans are even coming out against Mitch Daniels' draconian bill this week).  In Florida the same fight is happening under its new governor.  A fight between the people and the far-right kleptocrats they (and the rich people supporting them) elected in 2010.  And all of these governors are horribly unpopular, polling at massive unfavorables in their states, and all their policy positions are universally disdained, even among Republican voters.  All kinds of buyers' remorse.  But again, it all started with Wisconsin.  And last week, United Wisconsin handed in 1 million signatures in a petition to recall Scott Walker just a year after he was elected.  Bravo, Wisconsin, bravo.

There are about 4.3 million voting age citizens in Wisconsin.  They got 1 million signatures to recall the governor, or about a quarter of all potential voters in the state.  The million signatures is 46% of the total that actually voted in the election in 2010, or just shy of the 1.1 million that voted for Walker.  Without even an election, he's got close to the number of people who want him out of office as who actually went to the ballots to vote him in just on year ago.  That's how hated this slimy fucker is.  And how dedicated the signature-gathering force was, these dedicated citizens who literally stood out in the freezing cold of Wisconsin the past 2 months and collected 1 million signatures in 60 days to end the reign of this horrible governor. 

This is all on the heels of an impressive reversal of US Senate opinions on PIPA and SOPA by a single day of protest from Wikipedia and Google and other Internet sites.  Seriously, when you think of the great strides that Americans are making to take the country back from the powerful and the moneyed and the downright evil that have controlled our policies for at least the last decade, these past few months are quite heartening to see.  Congrats, Wisconsin.  If it weren't so damn cold there, I'd fly out and give you all a big hug.

SOPA STRIKE

OK, I'm clueless about HTML and website design shit even though I've been blogging for like 6 years now.  I probably should have read a book or something.  But I couldn't figure out how to black out this website for a day to support the strike.  If I could have, this is what you would have seen:

Unfortunalely, as I said I'm clueless, but in case you don't know what's going on, read my post from yesterday or the excellent description by BoingBoing about what we're trying to fight and why:

Boing Boing could never co-exist with a SOPA world: we could not ever link to another website unless we were sure that no links to anything that infringes copyright appeared on that site. So in order to link to a URL on LiveJournal or WordPress or Twitter or Blogspot, we'd have to first confirm that no one had ever made an infringing link, anywhere on that site. Making one link would require checking millions (even tens of millions) of pages, just to be sure that we weren't in some way impinging on the ability of five Hollywood studios, four multinational record labels, and six global publishers to maximize their profits.

 If we failed to take this precaution, our finances could be frozen, our ad broker forced to pull ads from our site, and depending on which version of the bill goes to the vote, our domains confiscated, and, because our server is in Canada, our IP address would be added to a US-wide blacklist that every ISP in the country would be required to censor.

This is the part of the post where I'm supposed to say something reasonable like, "Everyone agrees that piracy is wrong, but this is the wrong way to fight it."

But you know what? Screw that.

Even though a substantial portion of my living comes from the entertainment industry, I don't think that any amount of "piracy" justifies this kind of depraved indifference to the consequences of one's actions. Big Content haven't just declared war on Boing Boing and Reddit and the rest of the "fun" Internet: they've declared war on every person who uses the net to publicize police brutality, every oppressed person in the Arab Spring who used the net to organize protests and publicize the blood spilled by their oppressors, every abused kid who used the net to reveal her father as a brutalizer of children, every gay kid who used the net to discover that life is worth living despite the torment she's experiencing, every grassroots political campaigner who uses the net to make her community a better place -- as well as the scientists who collaborate online, the rescue workers who coordinate online, the makers who trade tips online, the people with rare diseases who support each other online, and the independent creators who use the Internet to earn their livings.

The contempt for human rights on display with SOPA and PIPA is more than foolish. Foolishness can be excused. It's more than greed. Greed is only to be expected. It is evil, and it must be fought.

SOPA Strike is compiling a list of sites that are also going dark for Jan 18. If you want an Internet where human rights, free speech and the rule of law are not subordinated to the entertainment industry's profits, I hope you'll join us on it.

Go here.  Join the fight by writing your Congressman.  They really do listen, a bunch of minds have already been changed on one of those rubber-stamp style bills that politicians on both sides really haven't read and don't care about but now that we are fighting back, they are taking notice.  The MPAA isn't stopping, though, we need to keep fighting. 

Wikipedia, Reddit, WordPress, et. al. to Go Dark Tomorrow

Some of the most popular websites on the Internet are shutting down tomorrow as part of a nationwide day of protest against censorship online. 

On Jan. 18, the English version of Wikipedia will go down for 24-hours to protest the U.S. anti-piracy laws - Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). FYI, that's midnight tonight. [...]

Wikipedia joins sites like MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and the ICanHasCheezBurger network. Google, Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr will not be joining the day of protest, however, all have expressed their stance against the bills.

This action comes on the heels of a tremendous amount of momentum for opponents of SOPA and PIPA. The DNS portions of the bills have been removed, SOPA has been effectively shelved, the White House came out against the bills as currently written, and opposition to PIPA is mounting ahead of a scheduled Jan. 24 vote.

For your reference, SOPA and PIPA were pushed by the large media companies like Universal and Disney and Fox and Warner Brothers (owners of NBC, MSNBC, Fox, FoxNews, ABC, and CNN), among others, to try to stop the piracy of their movies and music on the Internet through draconian measures that would allow a rights holder to get the government to shut down an entire website at its request if a copyrighted material appeared on that site.  The law as written was so ridiculous that little kids singing along to the radio on YouTube or Facebook would be violating it.  But you probably haven't heard anything about it because the major media companies own all the major television news stations (see above) and are the ones pushing this legislation.  Fortunately, blogs and other non-corporate websites like Wikipedia and Google have drummed up support to try to stop this legislation from moving forward.

The passage of these two bills once seemed like a foregone conclusion. However, a transpartisan tech coalition has fomented a widespread online revolt that might result in not just the defeat of SOPA and PIPA, but also in the emergence of a powerful new constituency that will play an important role on all future public policy affecting the internet.

Please, contact your senators and tell them to oppose PIPA.

10:19 AM PT: Google will not be participating in the blackout, but will have an action link on its homepage.

10:57 AM PT: A complete list of websites participating in tomorrow's blackout can be found at sopastrike.com.

Stephen Colbert for President (of South Carolina?)

Stephen Colbert, host of the The Colbert Report, has paved the way for a presidential bid by transferring control of his political fundraising organisation to his former boss Jon Stewart.

Lampooning the campaign finance rules that permit such fundraising groups, known as super pacs, Colbert announced it would be renamed the "Definitely Not Coordinated with Stephen Colbert Super Pac."

The move potentially paves the way for Colbert to enter the Republican presidential primary in South Carolina, his home state. Campaigning politicians are prohibited from simultaneously running super pacs, or political action committees.

Colbert merely hinted at such a decision, which he had hyped ahead of Thursday's show. He announced the formation of "an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the president of the United States of South Carolina"

Stewart and Colbert discussed the peculiar legalities of their arrangement. With Colbert's lawyer, Trevor Potter, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, they spelled out that while Colbert was legally forbidden from participating in strategy and advertising with the super pac, he could still talk about his plans on his TV show and even volunteer for the group.

Stewart declared Colbert vice-president of youth outreach for the super pac. Along with Potter, the three joined hands like a sports team and, with thick irony, cheered in unison: "Non-co-ordination!

Colbert has been using his super pac, launched in May 2011, to parody the electoral system's contradictions and potential conflicts of interest.

A Public Policy Polling survey released on Tuesday found Colbert is polling ahead of former Utah governor Jon Huntsman in South Carolina. According to the survey, Colbert has 5% of the vote and Huntsman has 4%.

Reading out the figures on his Wednesday show, Colbert said: "This just got real."

 

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Yet Another Example of Religious Idiocy

In a mostly forgettable and unnecessary opinion piece in Monday's USA Today, Gary Bauer, a right-wing religious blowhard of significance a decade or two ago, writes a column titled "Why We should Apply a Religious Test" that I honestly couldn't ignore.  In his idiotic tract, which I guess is a shot at Mitt Romney's Mormon beliefs (even if not mentioned, it's the only possible reason I can think of for why this piece appears at this time), Mr. Bauer acknowledges the Constitutional basis for NOT applying a religious test for public office:  "That is what the Founders addressed when they wrote what could be the Constitution's most emphatic statement: 'No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.'"  And then he writes an entire piece about why we should ignore what he just said was the "Constitution's most emphatic statement."  Interesting logic there.  And by interesting, I mean of course, insane.  One wonders how this piece got past the USA Today editorial review board with such an outstandingly flawed basic premise:  "Yeah, yeah, I know that one of the founding principles of this very nation was to not include one's religion as a basis for public office, but hey -- here's why I think you should kind of sort of ignore that even though I don't at any point try to refute that such a part of the Constitution is valid and necessary."  But OK, let's move off the lackadaisical writing or adherence to logic and move to the part of the piece that made me want to read on... the opener (my notes in italics):

A thought experiment: Imagine a presidential candidate. He has spent years in politics, rising to become a trusted leader in his party. He also has spent time in the business world (Mitt Romney!), has an impeccable personal life (Mitt Romney!!!), a deep understanding of the issues, and is eloquent in speech and moderate in temperament.  (For fuck's sake, can he just say he's writing to tear down Mitt Romney because he's not super-fundamentalist enough!)  Sounds like a dream candidate, right?

(and here's where it gets good)

But imagine that, along with those qualities, the candidate is also a Wiccan, a modern pagan. It's not an implausible idea. Some estimates put the number of American Wiccans at more than 100,000. It's safe to say most voters would at least have a few questions for our hypothetical candidate. After all, Wicca involves magic, spell-casting and sorcery — not exactly mainstream religious practices. But would this candidate's beliefs make you question his fitness for office? Would you oppose him based solely on his faith?

So Romney isn't a Wiccan, he's a Mormon, and the Mormon religion has a pretty whacked-out origin story and some weird beliefs that Mr. Bauer clearly doesn't want in the Oval Office.  I have a feeling he doesn't want him in the Oval Office for reasons that have more to do with past positions of moderation on issues like abortion or gay rights (since changed, of course, so Romney can make it through the GOP primary) than any fear or hatred of Mormonism, but yeah, it's there, and that's the easy target Bauer goes for, in his couched "Wiccan" way.

Republican Presidents are Horrible Job Creators

Wealthy Republican politicians who keep asking for stupid middle class people to vote for them are pushing for not only a continuation of policies and politics that bankrupted the economy just 3 years ago but actually want further tax cuts for the richest (Romney's latest plan would save the top 0.01% $450,000(!) a year, seriously, while raising taxes on those making under $40K a year) and less regulation of EVERYTHING -- seriously, just read a Republican -- any Republican -- plan for "reviving the economy" and it will emphasize furthering the one thing that all economists and observers univerally agree helped create the recession -- a lack of regulation -- somehow representing the failure to regulate financial lending practices as something we need even less of, not more of.  It's like bizarro stupidity.  But for the eternally dumb, maybe this fancy chart might sway your opinion.  It's got fancy colors and all.  Up is bad (higher unemployment).  Down is good.  Democratic presidents bring unemployment down with policies like stimulus or raising taxes or decreasing debts.  Republicans bankrupt the economy to give tax breaks to the top 0.01%.  It's that simple.  Who exactly are you voting for next year?