Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Onward fascist soldiers, Theocracy awaits!

Bill Berkowitz investigates the views of three authors on theocracy, fascism and the dominance of the Right in today's America.

Lurching toward theocracy

Categories: Fascism, Religious_Right rrfas001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:52 PM | |

Frontline in the class war: Social Security

Extremist, right-wing ideology and the insatiable corporate grab for money are the two forces behind Bush's push not merely to neuter this enormously popular and effective retirement program ... but ultimately to kill it. As reported in last month's Lowdown, step one is to portray Social Security as fatally flawed. The promised benefits are a "hoax," the taxes paid into the trust fund are "wasted" rather than invested for maximum return, and "the so-called reserve fund ... is no reserve at all."

Interestingly, these are quotes not from today's alarmist Bushites but from the lips of Alf Landon and the pages of his party's platform when he was the Republican candidate for president way back in 1936! Note that the first Social Security check was not mailed until 1937, so the ideologues and big money interests were predicting doom and gloom and trying to undermine the program even before it started.

Indeed, dismantling Social Security has been a central tenet of the right wing for nearly 70 years, and it's been an increasingly serious goal of GOP presidential politics since the hardcore right made its grab for the reins of the party's national leadership with Barry Goldwater's 1964 run. Nothing that Bush is saying today is new. Just as George is now doing, Goldwater painted a picture of a collapsing system 40 years ago, declaring that "it is not actuarially sound" and contending that he merely wanted "to make Social Security solvent, to improve it." Likewise, Ronnie Reagan called for the same sort of privatization approach now touted by Bush. "Can't we introduce voluntary features that would permit a citizen to do better on his own?" the Gipper asked.

More: Neutering Social Security

Categories: class_war ecocw

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:14 PM | |

What rightists hate: labour unions

Every rightist ideologue worth his weight in cow patties loves to hate labour unions. The rightist campaign against workers' rights is vitriolic and relentless, and it has had many successes over the last few decades.

John Sanchez outlines just some of the reasons why rightists so vehemently hate labour unions and their most effective tool for gaining fair entitlements for their members, collective bargaining.

What unions gave us
There are naysayers in every community who can look at a good thing and find fault with it. Just the thought of labor unions causes them to shudder.
Collective bargaining usually brings fair and equitable salary enhancements to employees for work performance.
As a retired UAW member, I have always advocated that "bargaining" is the practice of labor and management sitting down together to openly discuss ways to promote productivity and establish trust and harmony between the two entities of the work force.
We should continue to look favorably at the labor union movement's most significant accomplishments over the last few decades. Allow me to name some examples:
- The Social Security Act
- The National Labor Relations Act
- The Civil Rights Act
- The Fair Labor Standards Act
- The Occupational Safety & Health Act
- The Family Medical Leave Act
- The Overtime Pay Act
Judging from the above, it is quite evident that appropriate strides were made by labor unions to protect the interest of all employees whether union members or not. Perhaps if management were more forthcoming with labor at Worldcom and Enron, employees' savings, pension funds and retirement nest eggs wouldn't have been squandered or stolen by a few unscrupulous executives.
Therefore, if we can again break the shell of conformity and embrace those things that make the American work force among the most productive in the world, we will continue to succeed.
This letter is dedicated not only to the nurses at Northern Michigan Hospital who are enduring the longest strike ever, but to all those union members who continue to show solidarity for a fair wage and benefit package enabling them to support a family as our forefathers strived for many years ago.

Source: What unions gave us

Categories: anti-labour ecoal002

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 10:13 PM | |

Fascism thrives in Russia

Elites in Russia are manufacturing and exploiting fears in order to preserve the fascist status quo.

Masha Lipman writes of the growing fascism in Russia, particularly the potential dangers that may arise when President Vladmir Putin's constitutional term expires in 2008.

As in any "soft" authoritarian regime, the prospect of yielding power to a political rival is unacceptable to the ruling elite. Putin presides over a political system in which state power is basically usurped by the administration. Other branches of government are reduced to mere decoration, and decision making is confined within the Kremlin walls.

Laws and courts are bent to fit the needs of the regime. In addition, the new Putin elite has increasingly gained control over huge chunks of Russia's resources, the most striking example being the destruction of the oil company Yukos, followed by the sale of its best asset in a farcical auction and its prompt resale to a state-run company controlled by Putin's top aide. Big power and big property have become so closely entangled in Putin's Russia that a change of supreme authority would be bound to result in a new round of property redistribution, stripping those in the Kremlin's inner circle and their clients of their gains.

More: Russian Politics, Playing With Fuhrer

Categories: Fascism, Russia fasru001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 9:56 PM | |

Berlusconi 'Massacred'

The sun begins to set on another incompetent fascist arsehole.

ROME (Reuters) - Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi suffered a crushing defeat at Italian regional elections, official results showed on Monday, a huge boost for center-left leader Romano Prodi's hopes of unseating him next year.

In what one of his defeated regional governors described as a "massacre," Berlusconi's center-right coalition appeared to have lost 11 of the 13 regions at stake, holding on to just two -- Lombardy and Veneto -- both in its stronghold in the north.

Prodi, who had said he would be satisfied by winning just one new seat, was delighted by his landslide victory.

"Today we have easily won in terms of the number of votes and the number of regions," he told a news conference.

"With this vote Italians are asking us to prepare to govern, to take the country forward."

The death of Pope John Paul on Saturday overshadowed the election but did not keep voters away. Turnout reached 71.4 percent, down just 1.7 percentage points from the last one.

Berlusconi had prepared his supporters for a poor result, saying he expected a mid-term backlash due to Italy's economic woes. But the outcome was far worse than expected.

Although the final count would not be finished until Tuesday, late preliminary results indicated the center-left had wrested six regions from government parties, giving it control of 15 of Italy's 20 regions.

Berlusconi made no comment, but Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, head of the right-wing National Alliance (AN) party, said the defeat was a bad omen for next year's general election.

"We need a lot of humility and great seriousness and them maybe the result in 2006 can still go the way of the center-right," he told talk show on RAI television.

"The government is weaker politically but that does not mean we will resign."

"MASSACRE"

Some opposition figures disagreed. "Berlusconi should draw the right conclusions and not prolong the agony for another year," said left-wing parliamentarian Antonio di Pietro.

A defeat in regional elections in 2000 prompted the then prime minister, the center-left's Massimo D'Alema, to step down -- ultimately making way for Berlusconi's rise.

Berlusconi ruled out resigning early even before the polls opened, saying he would see out his five-year mandate as the longest-serving premier in post-war Italian history.

The center-right appeared to have lost all three regions which parties and pundits saw as the most crucial: Puglia in the south, Lazio in the center and, probably, Piedmont in the north.

The defeat is the latest and most serious in a string of electoral setbacks for Berlusconi in local elections which have dented the premier's standing since taking power in 2001.

Francesco Storace, the pugnacious center-right president of the Rome region Lazio, said the results around the country had been "a massacre" for the center-right.

Prior to the vote, Storace said defeat in Lazio would herald a center-left general election victory. "If we lose in Lazio the successor to Berlusconi can only be Prodi."

Storace, from Fini's AN party, said he would not ask for a re-vote despite a controversy over a rival's alleged use of false signatures on electoral documents.

Alessandra Mussolini, the granddaughter of wartime dictator Benito Mussolini, was initially barred from the election but then readmitted by an appeals court.

"The verdict should rest with the voters, not the lawyers," Storace said. The margin of his defeat suggested he would have lost even if Mussolini had not divided the right-wing vote.

A fourteenth region, Basilicata, which is held by the center-left, will vote on April 17-18.

Source: Berlusconi 'Massacred' in Regional Elections

Categories: victories_for_freedom vicil001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 9:00 PM | |

Monday, April 04, 2005

On evil

And in a paper written in 2000, well before September 11 and the "axis of evil", Dr Wilson made a grim prediction. "So what is the prognosis of evil in the new millennium? Unfortunately, I would suggest that we would have more, rather than less evil, than we had in the last century.

"All the root causes of evil are alive and active in the new millennium," he said, pointing to the rise of materialism as the new religion, egoism replacing altruism and the rise of religious fundamentalism and extreme right-wing politics around the world.

More: Evil - it's no laughing matter

materialism: A desire for wealth and material possessions with little interest in ethical or spiritual matters

egoism: Attempting to get personal recognition for yourself (especially by unacceptable means) VS altruism: The quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others

fundamentalism: The interpretation of every word in the sacred texts as literal truth

extreme right-wing politics: (definition is self-contained)

The root causes of evil are all fundamental characteristics of rightism.

Categories: rightist_psychology psy001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:12 PM | |

Germany's extreme rightists face onslaught

6000 anti-Nazi protesters versus 250 members of the far right - the Nazi scum would have shit themselves. Good work, Germany!

MUNICH, Germany - Angry Germans pelted neo-Nazis with bottles, fruit and eggs on Saturday when some 6,000 people took to the streets of Munich to disrupt a march by about 250 supporters of far-right political groups.

Booing demonstrators threw tomatoes, eggs and bananas at the marchers, who were protected by hundreds of police in the Bavarian capital. Police said 53 arrests were made.

At a protest rally nearby, city mayor Christian Ude said Munich, Hitler's home in the Nazi party's early days in the 1920s, wanted nothing to do with his present-day followers.

Far-right parties made electoral gains in other German states last year and neo-Nazis staged one of their biggest demonstrations in February.

Though smaller than such movements in some other European countries, Germany's neo-Nazis are a source of particular concern to their compatriots because of their history.

Munich protesters handed out white roses, symbol of local students executed during World War Two for opposing Hitler.

Source: Protesters pelt neo-Nazi marchers in Munich

Categories: Germany, Nazism nazde001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:03 PM | |

'Activist judge': one who dispenses justice rather than right-wing prejudice

Ultraconservatives want you to believe the term "activist judge" applies to a group of determined liberals whose rulings have overturned historic precedent, undermined morality and defied common sense. But the controversy that erupted around Schiavo, who died on Thursday, ought to remind us once and for all what "activist judge" really means: a jurist whose rulings dissatisfy a right-wing political constituency.

More: Religious extremists seek their own 'activist' judges

Categories: Newspeak pronew004

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 9:03 PM | |

Sunday, April 03, 2005

Racism simmering in British schools

A very disturbing development, which is only aggravated by the recent racist and xenophobic policy announcements of the Tories and other rightist political parties.

Evidence of simmering racism in Britain's schools has emerged from a study of teenagers' attitudes towards Muslims and right wing groups, it was revealed today.

Researchers who questioned more than 1,500 non-Muslim adolescents aged 13 to 24 found more than 9% supported the ultra right wing views of the British National Party.

Their attitudes towards Muslims had also hardened considerably since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and the invasion of Iraq.

Some 23% of boys and 14% of girls said they had developed a "much worse" opinion of Muslims since September 11 2001.

The view of Muslims of 18% of boys and 12% of girls had worsened since the invasion of Iraq. Some 12% of boys and 6% of girls said it had become "much worse" since the war.

In addition, 23% of boys and 10% of girls said they would object if Muslim girls wore headscarves to school.

The study, carried out at 15 schools in and around the city of York, also included six Muslim pupils.

Of these, 8.4% had heard verbal victimisation of Muslims in school and 2.4% had witnessed physical assaults.

The findings were presented today at the British Psychological Society's annual conference at the University of Manchester.

Researcher Nathalie Noret, from St John's College in York, said the younger children aged 13 to 15 were the most likely to agree with the views of the BNP.

She thought negative depictions of Islam in the media, and the current climate of fear about Muslim terrorism, may be partly to blame for the trend.

"I think the association that's been drawn in the media between being a Muslim and being a terrorist must have some impact on attitudes," she said.

Islamophobia was a particularly pernicious "two-fold" prejudice against both a type of religion and an ethnic group, said Ms Noret.

"The key finding from our study was that we need to improve education and knowledge of different religions," she said.

"One thing we did find was a very poor understanding of Islam, little knowledge of it and the Middle East. In future we'd like to analyse our data to see if those who had more knowledge had better opinions of Muslims."

Source: Racism simmering in British schools, says survey

Categories: anti-Muslimism, Britain, racism, subversion_of_youth racuk001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:52 PM | |

Citizens take action against racist attacks, right-wing government in Netherlands

Dutch police have arrested a 17-year-old man suspected of trying to burn down an Islamic school earlier in the week against a backdrop of a mass rally in Amsterdam protesting rising racism in the country.

The youth was arrested following the attack after he was heard saying he wished the school had burned to the ground, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported Wednesday, March 30.

During questioning, it became clear that he could be connected to the incident, police said.

Arsonists attacked the Badr Islamic school Sunday, March 27, with Molotov cocktails.

In November last year, the same school had come under an arson attack by three Dutch teenagers. The attack left the building of the Islamic school totally destroyed.

The vandals also daubed swastikas on across the school's walls.

On Saturday, March 26, another attempted attack was made on a mosque in Oldenzaal in the east of the country.

No to Racism

The swift police action coincided with a mass rally in the capital Amsterdam against the spiraling racist attacks, particularly against Muslims.

The march was organized Monday, March 28, by the "All Different All Equal" forum and brought together MPs and rights activists.

The marchers carried banners reading "Islam is not an enemy," and "Hatred is not the solution."

Prominent Dutch-Moroccan politician Mohammad Al-Rabaa seized the rally to hit out at the "racist and double-standard policy" of the right-wing government.

"It is high time we took an action against the repugnant racist acts and hatred among the Dutch," Abdo Al-Munbhi, the director of the Euro Mediterranean Center for Immigration and Development and one of the rally's organizers, told IslamOnline.net Tuesday, March 29.

Munbhi, of Moroccan origin, urged the immigrants to stand up and be counted.

"Silence will be interpreted as an opportunity to the xenophobes to press ahead with their policies. Our silence means we are supportive of [Minister of Immigrants Rita] Verdonk's racist policies."

The Muslim activist also thanked the Dutch for their solidarity with their fellow Muslim citizens.

"We have drummed up so far the support of some 80 NGOs and political societies over this week," he said.

"We can't place all people in one basket and treat all as enemies. There are impartial and moderate Christians and Jews, who rally behind us and reject injustice done to Muslims."

The murder last November of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had recently made a derogatory film about Islam, triggered a wave of reprisals against the Muslim minority in the Netherlands.

Up to 20 Islamic schools and centers have come under arson and racist attacks since then.

The Netherlands has about 900,000 Muslims out of a population of 16 million.

Source: Dutch Protest Racism, Anti-Muslim Attacks

Categories: anti-Muslimism, Netherlands, racism racnl001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:27 PM | |

Neo-con National Review withdraws anti-Muslim hate

Rightist magazine sees the error of it ways - belatedly.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) today announced that National Review magazine has apparently removed advertisements for two virulently anti-Muslim books attacking the Prophet Muhammad from its online store.

The removal of the promotional materials for The Life and Religion of Mohammed and The Sword of the Prophet came after hundreds of concerned Muslims contacted the magazine and Boeing Co., one of the magazine's advertisers, to express their concerns about the Islamophobic views in both books. The previous links to each book, which were working as late as this afternoon, state "Record not found for product."

More: National Review removes books attacking Prophet Muhammad

Categories: anti-Muslimism am001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:13 PM | |

Neo-Nazi thug sentenced to life for anti-gay murder

(Tucson, Arizona) A self-styled White Supremist has been sentenced to life behind bars for the 2002 murder of a gay Tucson man.

David A. Higdon, 22, showed no emotion as the sentence was read.

Philip Walsted, 24, was beaten with a baseball bat and robbed on a downtown Tucson street on June 12, 2002. He died later that day at University Medical Center.

Higdon was arrested and charged with first degree murder. Prosecutors said the attack began as a robbery but that Higdon's neo-Nazi beliefs and hatred of gays led to the murder. Walsted was struck in the head with the bat up to 20 times.

More: Life Sentence In Arizona Gay Murder

Categories: anti-gay, Nazism, white_supremacists ag001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 11:00 PM | |

Quintessential rightist hypocrisy

A party with no principles will forever find itself in the realm of hypocrisy.

A Modest List of Most Major Examples of GOP Hypocrisy Highlighted by the Schiavo Case

Categories: rightist_hypocrisy hyp001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 10:25 PM | |

Right-wing extremists and Al Qaeda lockstep in hatred

A couple of hours up the road from where some September 11 hijackers learned to fly, the new head of Aryan Nation is praising them -- and trying to create an unholy alliance between his white supremacist group and al Qaeda.

"You say they're terrorists, I say they're freedom fighters. And I want to instill the same jihadic feeling in our peoples' heart, in the Aryan race, that they have for their father, who they call Allah."

With his long beard and potbelly, August Kreis looks more like a washed up member of ZZ Top than an aspiring revolutionary.

Don't let appearances fool you: his resume includes stops at some of America's nastiest extremist groups -- Posse Comitatus, the Ku Klux Klan and Aryan Nation.

More: An unholy alliance

Categories: anti-Semitism, Aryan_Nations, domestic_terrorism, Nazism, racism, white_supremacists wsan001

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posted by Noel Chrotsky at 9:34 PM | |