Wikileaks: U.S. Forced Haiti To Nix Raising Its Minimum Wage To 62 Cents
Wikileaks unveils an incredibly infuriating revelation, via the Nation. To sum up: desperately poor Haiti planned to raise its minimum wage from 24 cents per hour to 62 cents, angering the contractors for U.S. corporations such as Levis and Hanes, who pay slave wages to Haitians who sew our clothes. The Obama administration intervened on behalf of those companies, and bullied the Haitian government into setting the mark at 32 cents.
To put things in perspective, upping the hourly wage to 62 cents would have cost Hanes an additional $1.6 million each year. Hanesbrands turned $211 million in profit last year and CEO Richard Noll personally was paid $10 million.
Are The Smurfs Racist, Sexist Fascists?
Meaghan Murphy writes on Fox News:
Sacre bleu! The Smurfs may not be as innocent as they look.
The tribe of little blue creatures who live peacefully among the mushrooms are “steeped in Stalinism and Nazism,” according to a French sociologist.
“Collective work always focuses on self-sufficiency for food and energy,” Antoine Buéno states in Le Petit Livre Bleu (The Little Blue Book). “The Smurfs do not have private property; their leader is Papa Smurf who shows very authoritarian and paternalistic characteristics.”
Buéno also makes the connection that the little blue men’s biggest enemy, the magician Gargamel, seems to have a Jewish background — citing similarities to the anti-Semitic images of the World War II era.
The French writer also claims that the Smurfs do not just resemble Nazis, but sexist Nazis to boot! Smurfette—traditionally the only woman living in the Smurf’s village — allegedly meets the Aryan ideal of beauty with her blonde hair and refined…
Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?
Cynthia McKinney
To add to the discussion started by Danny Schechter’s post Does Fascism Lurk Around The Corner In The USA?, here is the beginning of Chris Hedges’ column from March of last year, Is America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?:
The language of violence always presages violence. I watched it in war after war from Latin America to the Balkans. The impoverishment of a working class and the snuffing out of hope and opportunity always produce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bankrupt, liberal elite, which proves ineffectual against the rich and the criminal, always gets swept aside, in times of economic collapse, before thugs and demagogues emerge to play to the passions of the crowd. I have seen this drama. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in other tongues in other lands. I recognize the same stock characters, the buffoons, charlatans and…
Does Fascism Lurk Around The Corner In The USA?
Benito Mussolini
Fascism is one of those words that sounds like it belongs in the past, conjuring up, as it does, marching jack boots in the streets, charismatic demagogues like Italy’s Mussolini or Spain’s Franco and armed crackdowns on dissent and freedom of expression.
It is a term we are used to reading in histories about World War 2 — not in news stories from present day America.
And yet the word, and the dark reality behind it, is creeping into popular contemporary usage.
Radical activists on the left have never been hesitant to label their opponents with this “F word” whenever governments support laws that limit opposition or overdo national security or abuse human rights. Government paranoia turns critics paranoid.
One example: writer Naomi Wolf forecast fascism creeping into America during the Bush years accelerated by the erosion of democracy, writing:
“It is my argument that, beneath our very noses, George Bush and his administration…
National Anarchists at Folsom Street Fair
From Nick Pell at Red Star Times
I was contacted this morning by Bay Area National Anarchists founder Andrew Yeoman. He felt that I had unfairly maligned his group in my recent article on radical traditionalist website Alternative Right. I don’t really want to get into the specifics of our exchange, however, I would now like to present the videos I referenced (but did not post) in my previous article. The event they are protesting is the Folsom Street Fair, which is a leather / BDSM event, not explicitly a gay pride event.
I stand by my claim that harassment takes place on these videos and that the demonstration attempts to target homosexuals. Indeed, Folsom Street Fair is largely (if not predominantly) an event for the gay leather / BDSM community.
Right-Wing Blog Watch: Alternative Right
From Nick Pell at Red Star Times
Welcome to a new feature on Red Star Times, right-wing blog watch. I am introducing this feature for the sake of keeping a close eye on right-wing blogs, ranging from hardline conservative to outright fascist. My first subject of study is Alternative Right, a particularly noxious website that brands itself as “radical traditionalist.” For those who aren’t familiar with the term, radical traditionalist is a term used by hipsters, goths and faux-erudite who espouse fascist ideology but want a term with more intellectual cache.
Radical traditionalist favorites include Oswald Spengler, Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist. Associated (allegedly) political movements include Eurasianism, metapolitics, third positionism and national anarchism. Alternative right is an exemplar of radical traditionalism and fascism in as much as it begins with hatred of minorities, women and the working class and proceeds to construct a bizarre mish-mash of gobbledygook as “ideology” after…
Raising Arizona: Did A ‘Show Us Your Papers’ Act Become Law in the United States?
Much hubbub occurred over the weekend about Arizona SB1070. Curious to know your thoughts, there was a time where Arizona was the center of libertarianism in this country, and such a law there would have been unthinkable:
State of the Union, 2010
Nick P. at Black Sun Gazette:
Last year the economy entered a free fall. Conditions that haven’t been approximated since the 1930s were the norm. It is time to take a cold, hard look at America as it exists at the beginning of 2010.
It is time to look at things in a way that goes beyond the surface, bullshit analysis of the corporate media. America and the world currently stand at a cross roads. We are in the eye of a perfect storm that combines the worst elements of 1914 and 1929.
Tuesday Morning Nightmare News Roundup
From Black Sun Gazette
Hey kids. Sorry I’ve been a little incommunicado as of late. I had to move Fort Black Sun Gazette and it was really time consuming. I’ve also ended my life as a jizz-mopper to be a full-time freelance writer. All in all, it’s going really well. But you aren’t here to hear about my personal life. You’re here to get information that gets you pissed. To welcome myself back to the site, I’d like to give you this morning’s nightmare roundup of news you can’t use. Read this and get pissed. Then take action.
A Beginner’s Guide to Fascism, Part IV
Chris M. at Black Sun Gazette
One way to fight fascism is to get some historical perspective. Fascism is distinct from capitalism and socialism. It’s as silly for the left to say capitalists and fascists are the same, just as it ridiculous for the right to say that socialists and fascists are the same. Take a look at the people in the Nazi’s concentration camps – Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Communists, Anarchists and Trade Unionists – not capitalists. The answer is organizing among the working class, paying special attention to the working poor, reaching out to the lower middle class who were some of the biggest early supporters of the fascists. I urge people to read stuff by people who were eyewitnesses to the rise of fascism like Daniel Guerin (an anarchist) and Leon Trotsky.
An Ethical Question: Does a Nazi Deserve a Place Among Philosophers?
Patricia Cohen investigates in the New York Times:
For decades the German philosopher Martin Heidegger has been the subject of passionate debate. His critique of Western thought and technology has penetrated deeply into architecture, psychology and literary theory and inspired some of the most influential intellectual movements of the 20th century. Yet he was also a fervent Nazi.
Now a soon-to-be published book in English has revived the long-running debate about whether the man can be separated from his philosophy. Drawing on new evidence, the author, Emmanuel Faye, argues fascist and racist ideas are so woven into the fabric of Heidegger’s theories that they no longer deserve to be called philosophy. As a result Mr. Faye declares, Heidegger’s works and the many fields built on them need to be re-examined lest they spread sinister ideas as dangerous to modern thought as “the Nazi movement was to the physical existence of the exterminated…
A Beginner’s Guide to Fascism, Part III
From Chris M. at Black Sun Gazette
Some think fascism in America will resemble Nazi Germany, but I think it will it will look more like Fascist Italy. People picture skinheads and Klansmen, but in Italy it was different. Fascists used racist rhetoric, like Slavs were backwards and Africans were savages, but these were typical attitudes in Europe at the time. Institutionalized racism didn’t occur til 1938 when Mussolini under pressure from Hitler passed anti-Jewish laws. Italo Balbo the charismatic right hand of Benito protested this change. Hell, Mussolini even had a Jewish mistress. The fascists of today will look a lot like the very familiar, mostly white, working and middle class.
A Beginner’s Guide to Fascism, Part II
From Chris M. at Black Sun Gazette
At first, Mussolini opposed World War I. He was a socialist and raised in radical working class family who named him after Benito Juarez. Later, he joined joined the pro-war socialists who advocated Italy joining France and Great Britain against the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires. They argued that these empires were more oppresive and by fighting a “revolutionary war” they could create new opportunities for the Italian working class and liberate the subjects of the evil empires. Italy was victorious in battle, but was swimming in debt due to the war. Italy also failed to get the former German colonies in Africa or any of Austria’s former possessions in the Balkans.
A Beginner’s Guide to Fascism, Part I
From Chris M. at Black Sun Gazette
Fascism is complex and sometimes contradictory ideology. While it may be fun to call Bush Hitler and Obama Stalin, it doesn’t make it so, they are both capitalists. Democrats and Republicans have been playing good cop, bad cop for the capitalist system for well over a hundred years now. This doesn’t mean fascism can’t happen here in the good old USA. We should examine where fascism came from, what is it, and how it works. By knowing these things we can figure out what fascism might look like in America and how we can fight it.
Open Thread: Oath Keepers
From Black Sun Gazette
I am somewhat bewildered at the inability of my readers to see the Oath Keepers as the threat to American democracy that they clearly are. It’s almost as if my British friends were to say that the BNP were stand up guys, using their platform as the ultimate means of appraisal. Indeed, the constant recourse to the “Declaration of Orders We Will Not Obey”- as if this stood outside of a broader social context, and their framing was without meaning- is particularly troubling. As is the sentiment, repeated by people intelligent and politically savvy enough to know better, that the Oath Keepers are worthy of praise because they “defend the Constitution” or some other vague, trans-class expression of support.
Full Article at Black Sun Gazette
Fascism Watch: Oath Keepers and the BNP
From Black Sun Gazette
There are more troubling signs of a growing fascist movement not only domestically, but internationally. It seems that the problem is far more advanced than I would have originally thought. Once again, the sum total of recent history (Clinton impeachment, Bush v. Gore, the 2004 election), current social conditions, rising street level right wing movements, disaffected soldiers coming back from Iraq, the history of fascist movements, and the piss poor track record of declining powers, paints a very grim picture of a growing fascist movement both at home and abroad. The Democrats will not protect you. The only way to stop them is through militant action in the streets.
Fascism Watch: Police and Military Lining Up Against Obama
Klint Finley writes for Mutate:
To their credit, the “Oath Keepers” acknowledge the Patriot Act’s erosion of civil liberties as well. But where were they during the 8 years that Bush was president? Obama gets 400% more death threats than Bush but still lets people carry assault rifles around him, and the Oathers think that they’re being persecuted? Bush had people hauled away for wearing the wrong t-shirts.
I have little good to say about Obama, but I can’t say that his administration is less tolerant of dissent than Bush’s.
From the Oather’s Declaration of Orders We Will NOT Obey: “We will NOT obey any order to conduct warrantless searches of the American people, their homes, vehicles, papers, or effects — such as warrantless house-to house searches for weapons or persons.”
I take this to mean they will start refusing to do warrantless searches for drugs? For 28 years the federal government has waged…
Today’s Lesson in Operant Fascist Movements
From Black Sun Gazette
I don’t want to go into a huge thing right now. My feelings on American fascism have been addressed here frequently. But I did want to bring to everyone’s attention The Oath Keepers. Comprised largely of former military and police officers (rut-roh, Shaggy!) they use the most American symbolism possible and couch their opposition to legitimately elected civilian government in (what else) “Constitutionalism.”
UK police use anti-terrorist legislation to stop climate change activist travelling
Want to go to Copenhagen to protest at the UN summit? The Orwellian state marches ahead in the UK.
From the Guardian website.
UK border police used anti-terrorist legislation to prevent a British climate change activist from crossing over into mainland Europe where he planned to take part in events surrounding the forthcoming United Nations summit in Denmark.
Chris Kitchen, a 31-year-old office worker, said he feared his treatment by police could mark the start of a clampdown on protesters, hundreds of whom are planning to travel to Copenhagen for the climate change talks in December.
