Fascism in America

What do Fascists and Neo-conservatives have in common?  A great deal it turns out.  Most of us were not around during the 1920’s and 1930’s, but a quick reading of history provides some disturbing similarities.  What first got me thinking on this subject was how closely our current Tea Party hysteria and neo-conservative activism seems to resemble the fascist and NAZI hysterias of back then.  So, I looked into it a little more.  I wanted to see how many similarities there were:

(Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism)

WHEW!  What in Hell is going on here?  Yes, there are some dissimilarities too, but the overwhelming sense is we have a huge, Fascist component in our society today - and potentially growing.  They strenuously deny this of course, and even like to claim their opposition are Fascist.  But, the facts say completely differently as shown above.

Robert Paxton defines fascism in “The Anatomy of Fascism” as:

    “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion . . .”

History provides an example in Italy’s Benito Mussolini, often considered the father of Fascism, who deliberately tried to hide the true nature of his doctrine in ambiguity to attract more followers, saying fascists can be "aristocrats or democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians, and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists”.

At first people loved and admired  ‘Il Duce’ - after all, he ‘made the trains run on time’!  A decade later, the same phenomenon occurred when Adolph Hitler modeled Germany’s fascism on Mussolini’s and admired the success of the ancient Roman Empire.

We all know what happened over the next fifteen or twenty years. . . .

Our own country has had many examples of fascism, beginning with the Ku Klux Klan, which shares many, if not all, of the similarities in the chart above.   A close reading of fascism in the United States is alarming.  It has happened here.

Many well-known Americans were fascists, in deed, if not in name, people like Henry Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Tom Watson of IBM, and of course, Joseph McCarthy .  American fascism is almost always supported by corporate America, many who wield more power than nations.

Prior to WWII, our own ‘Fifth Column’ in people like newspaper baron William Randolph Hearst, openly supported German fascism.  Hearst, much like Rupert Murdock’s Fox News of today, fiercely campaigned in print against Roosevelt’s New Deal, with media statements like, “Is our free country piling up deficits, bleeding its citizens white with confiscatory taxation, rushing headlong into national bankruptcy, shoveling out our wealth abroad . . . “.  Sounds eerily familiar doesn’t it?

Many large American companies actively cooperated with Axis nations prior to the war.  IBM built punch-card census databases to identify Jews, and in doing so, heavily contributed to the horrors of the holocaust.  That was for cynical corporate profit only.  Ford, GM, Coca-Cola, Standard Oil, DuPont and many others all had numerous facilities throughout Italy and Germany which operated on behalf of the Axis powers, and further,  had their companies declared as ‘American Property’ not to be bombed or damaged by our forces.  Incredibly, after the war they qualified to collect for damages to their properties.

We seem to have a reincarnation of the same cancer among us today . . .

“Frack You, USA” - Part Two

I recently got the following email, apparently forwarded to everyone in the sender’s address book as suggested by the copy.  Lately I've gotten into the habit of checking for myself every claim made in these mass-forwarded emails.  More often than not I've found them to be part of some political agenda or doctrine - and either only part truth, or indeed, often outright deceitful frauds:


“By the way...this seems to be true. Check it out at the link below!!!


About 6 months ago, the writer was watching a news program on oil and one of the Forbes Bros. was the guest.. The host said to Forbes, "I am going to ask you a direct question and I would like a direct answer;  how much oil does the  U.S.  have in the ground?"  Forbes did not miss a beat, he said, "more than all the  Middle East  put together."  Please read below.

The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April 2008 that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big.  It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since 1995) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and extreme eastern Montana ..... check THIS out:


The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since  Alaska 's  Prudhoe Bay , and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable... at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5..3 trillion.


"When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.." says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.


"This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years," reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette.  It's a formation known as the  Williston   Basin , but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.'  It stretches from Northern Montana, through  North Dakota and into  Canada .  For years,  U. S.  oil exploration has been considered a dead end.  Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves..... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels.  And because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL!

That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 2041 years straight.  And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from 2006!


U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World


Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006 


Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the  Rocky Mountains  lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels.  On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this motherload of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?


They reported this stunning news:  We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth.. Here are the official estimates:  

- 8-times as much oil as  Saudi Arabia

- 18-times as much oil as  Iraq

 - 21-times as much oil as  Kuwait

 - 22-times as much oil as  Iran

- 500-times as much oil as  Yemen

- and it's all right here in the  Western United States  .

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help  America  become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy.....WHY? 


James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire Middle East -more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped.  That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post.


Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find?  Think again!  It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists?


Got your attention yet?  Now, while you're thinking about it, do this:


Pass this along.   If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should stifle yourself the next time you complain about gas prices - by doing NOTHING, you forfeit your right to complain.

Now I just wonder what would happen in this country if every one of you sent this to every one in your address book.


By the way...this is all true. Check it out at the link below!!!


GOOGLE it, or follow this link.  It will blow your mind.


 http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911”

But there's lot's more to this than meets the eye and than this email perhaps wants you to know - the email being forwarded to everyone today simply ignores and leaves out the most important and pertinent parts.  But, such is the way of ’Free Market’ mega-corporations today.

The email's subject actually refers to 'shale oil & gas' which is oil & gas mixed in shale, sand and rock and we’ve known about this stuff for decades.  it is nothing new, except for the extraction technology. (just Google 'Brakken' + ‘Shale’)

Getting at this stuff is very expensive and usually (80% of the time) involves 'Fracking' (Yeah, I know, it's a peculiar word - but it refers to 'Hydraulic Fracturing' - but is perhaps more suggestive of what it really is.  I recently wrote a blog entry on it).  It is expensive, and environmentally potentially devastating to ground water supplies.  That's why the big energy companies are now on an all-out push to make fracking acceptable - hence this email which I strongly suspect is a part of their public relations campaign.  They have the audacity,  to suggest, nay, actually SAY, it is part of a conspiracy by Saudi Arabian oil interests and environmentalists!  Totally Fracking ridiculous!

(I'm an environmentalist myself and I've still not seen any check from Prince Abdullah.  Maybe I should dun him?)

But, there is definitely a conspiracy - by big oil companies to keep ripping off everyone in sight for as long as they possibly can.  (Exxon-Mobil posted $45.2 BILLION in profits in 2008 - but is well off that for '09 - as are most of the rest of us). That's why energy companies deny climate change and block everything they possibly can in renewable energy sources, mass transit, etc.  They've got most legislators in both parties by the short hairs with campaign money, and have managed to have their way since almost forever.  After the most recent Supreme Court decision on corporate 'Free Speech' they pretty well have carte blance now too.  Now, in fact FOREIGN corporations can legally support any political agenda they wish so long as they operate in the USA!  Un-fracking believable!

And judging by their past history,  energy companies will continue to corrupt Congress and our system until they figure out a way to get a monopoly and charge a fee for bio-energy, rainfall and sunlight.  Trashing groundwater supplies over vast areas won't matter one whit to them.  Never has before, so why should it now?

One interesting side note to this is the fact that Exxon-Mobil has a purchase bid in for XTO - a company with fracking technology and shale oil/gas drilling rights - but conditioned their purchase offer on retaining the oil industry exclusion from the Clean Water Act.  That reprehensible exclusion is now under attack in Congress, as well it should be.

Doncha just wish that people and countries and corporations could just tell it like it is for once?  I get so weary and tired of all the deceit.

“Frack You, USA!” - A Corporate War On Americans

Let’s say you’d like to pump poison into the groundwater of your community - never mind why.   Or do the same with combustible fluids. Or carcinogenic agents.  And, let’s say understandably, you don't want to tell anyone what those poisons, combustibles or carcinogenic agents were. And let’s say your actions might even be suspected of causing seismic events on occasion.

Can you do that without worrying about being arrested, or being responsible for the consequences? Of course not! You’d immediately be arrested, thrown in jail, declared a terrorist and likely suffer rendition to some country where torture is allowed - and everyone in the country would cheer!

That is, unless you represent an energy company like Halliburton. And, pumping such a witches’ brew into the nation’s groundwater stood to make you lot's of money. And say, not incidentally, your former CEO was the Vice President of the United States of America. Such were the ingredients needed to have a special law passed for you, and companies like yours to pump whatever you wished into the nation’s groundwater - and not even tell anyone what is was! For, after all it is your special recipe, and a proprietary one at that, and disclosing the ingredients publicly would make it easy for someone to steal your secret recipe. Heaven forbid!

So, you and your friends go to work to get a special law passed exempting you from liability. The law is known as the “Energy Policy Act of 2005”. I don’t know for sure whether the acronym “EPA” is an corporate sneer at the Environmental Protection Agency or not, but I suspect it was. The law was vigorously championed by VP Cheney and his cohorts in the energy business like Tom Delay, and other corporate socialism types. Note also however, that 36 Democrats joined 48 Republican senators to pass the bill. Then senators Obama, Biden, Clinton, Reid, and Boxer were all among those who voted FOR the bill.  Senator John McCain did not, Sarah Palin notwithstanding.

The new law exempted the petroleum industry practice of “Fracking” (Hydraulic Fracturing) from the Clean Water Act. Fracking is the pumping under high pressure of fluids, including many extremely toxic and hazardous substances into the ground, to ‘fracture’ rock layers and force recoverable natural gas to extraction wellheads. Strongly supported by the American Petroleum Institute, the exemption was passed into law and signed by President Bush, becoming colloquially known in the industry as the “Halliburton Loophole”.

So, is there really a problem?  It is estimated that minimum of 100,000 gallons of fracking liquids is used for each well, 80% of the time. According to Abrahm Lustgarten, of ProPublica,  “in 2007, there were 449,000 gas wells in 32 states, thirty percent more than in 2000. By 2012 the nation could be drilling 32,000 new wells a year . .” Hmm, let’s see . . . . 450,000 times 100,000 gallons equals about 45,000,000,000 gallons. Gee, after awhile we’d be talking about a real quantity in the groundwater, wouldn’t we? By my math that is equivalent to about 216 SQUARE MILES covered by a toxic cocktail one foot deep.  To date this stuff is scattered in the ground waters of 32 states, and the industry has big plans for the future. In fact, in one case, EXXON-MOBIL has written into their purchase contract for a smaller company the provision the deal is null and void if the Energy Policy Act is repealed!

Fracking liquids can include hydrochloric acid, surfactants, solvents, lubricants, and corrosion inhibitors. No one really knows because the companies doing the pumping don't have to tell.  It is said to contain many of the same carcinogenic chemicals found in household Drano and such things you probably wouldn't want to drink, or even get on your skin. But, under the ‘Energy Policy Act” the companies who use this stuff don’t have to tell anyone the ingredients.  It is their propriety ’secret recipe’ (their words), and to disclose the actual mix would put them at  ‘competitive disadvantages’! (No, I’m not making this up.  I don’t have enough arrogance for that.  I have to leave that to the industries themselves.)

Besides the act shielding energy companies from responsibility, or even disclosing the ingredients of their toxic cocktails, the EPA too,  under Bush has been complicit. That’s right, the Environmental Protection Agency, the group which is tasked to PROTECT people and the environment itself engaged in onerous duplicity: “Under Christine Todd Whitman's tenure as Administrator, the EPA engaged in SECRET negotiations with industry, while supposedly addressing drinking water issues related to the drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." In 2004, the EPA undertook a study on the issue and "the EPA, despite its scientific judgment that there was a potential risk to groundwater supplies, which their report clearly says, then went ahead and very surprisingly concluded that there was no risk to groundwater,"

So much for ethics in the Bush administration. But, we already knew the score on that.  But, the Obama Administration too?  You betcha!

Is fracking actually dangerous? You can judge for yourself. There have been hundreds,  probably thousands of of anecdotal and documented cases of severe contamination. In Texas 16 cows died from drinking contaminated groundwater, 10 in Louisiana - but what the heck, Texas and Louisiana have cows to burn. But, there are also lot’s of horror stories concerning humans too. There are documented cases of household water supplies catching fire. Some residents have been instructed to leave their windows open to prevent a build up of explosive gases coming from their faucets. And, there are cases of houses actually exploding. Now, that might get your attention!

There is a move by some senators to repeal the exemption energy companies how enjoy courtesy of the Bush Administration. But, as you might expect, that is being vigorously fought by the industry and the American petroleum Institute, who have so far poured nearly two million dollars into lobbying.

And, as recently as January 15, 2010, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said “he would not favor a ban on " fracking . .“ After all, what is public health when it comes at the expense of corporate greed and profit?

Further Reading:

Energy Policy Act
American petroleum Institute
Hydraulic Fracturing
Newsweek
National Public Radio
Anecdotal  
Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act

"Everybody Complains About It, But Nobody Does Anything About it"

Mark Twain famously said, ‘Everybody complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it.” Twain has been dead now some ninety-seven years, and the weather is not considered a political issue, except in extraordinary circumstances as in Hurricane Katrina.

But if routine weather were a political issue and someone tried to do something about it, I know they would be slammed for it.

Such is the case with the health care system in the United States. Everyone knows it is broken, and that it fails to provide even minimally adequate care for the majority of Americans, and that it is overpriced. Michael Moore is being roundly slammed and criticized for daring to make a movie called ‘Sicko’, exposing the hypocrisy of health care in the United States, the richest and most powerful nation in the world. The government and health care industry are pulling out all the stops to 'prove' Moore is merely a 'rabble-rousing' radical.

But, the truth is the truth, even when presented sensationally as Moore does in his movie.

US health care costs are now *16% of our GDP. In 2005 we in the US spent $2 TRILLION, or $6,700 per person on health care. Yet we still have nearly 50 million people totally without coverage. Those who do have coverage often personally spend fortunes beyond their insurance to receive the care they need.

To compare, Switzerland spends 10.9% of GDP, Germany 10.7%, Canada 9.7% and France 9.5%. ALL these countries provide health care for ALL their citizens. France, which spends proportionally the least, is widely recognized as having the best health care system in the world. The US is the ONLY industrialized country in the world without universal health care.

Why is this? In a word ‘Corporatism’, which is now our de facto system of government. Forget ‘capitalism’ or ‘democracy’, or even ‘republic’. Today, the US is ruled by corporations in a system very close to outright Fascism. Corporations are in control. They regularly buy elections and politicians, who then favor the corporations over the people, always, invariably. Giant hospital conglomerates, and pharmaceutical manufacturers are given a free pass to gouge at will. We are even prohibited by law from buying drugs overseas and importing them into our country for our own use by laws in favor of pharmaceutical companies, some of which are not even American!

Other industrialized countries are more truly democratic, and not just in name and claim only as in the US. Canada promises health care for ‘the least of us and the best of us’. In Britain they say, ‘if we an find the money to kill people, we can find the money to help people.”

In the US, ‘no premium charge is too high, and no illness too small to be considered preexisting’. Anything to avoid paying and to up profits. After all, isn’t that what corporatism is all about?

It is a shameful fact that our political leaders have sold out to the corporations and turned democracy in the US into hypocrisy. But why should they care? They’ve got full coverage don’t they? Under the political retirement system, the politicians don’t even have to rely on social security like the rest of us - they’ve got their own cushy, special system which pays them a very comfortable income, and provides full and complete medical coverage for the rest of their lives.

But, only because we allow it.

* Source: National Coalition on Healthcare