Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Ya-ta Boy]

This is a contradiction.

My question: Is the blurring of the traditional uses of political terms by the Right an effort to make 'fascism' a useless term so as to give them cover for what they really believe? Dare I say it, a vast right-wing conspiracy? Was Hillary right all along?

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Go to rense.com. for a start.

and also see the red brown alliance


THE MYSTERIOUS RAMSEY CLARK:
STALINIST DUPE OR RULING-CLASS SPOOK?
By Manny Goldstein



http://shadow.autono.net/sin001/clark.htm

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Also see international ANSWER

George Galloway.

John Pilger.

Rense.com

Counterpunch

these people are combinations of the far right and the far left.


Left wing views + no tolerance for dissent + hate mongering populism.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

Behind the Placards
By David Corn

FREE MUMIA. FREE THE CUBAN 5. FREE JAMIL AL-AMIN (that�s H. Rap Brown, the former Black Panther convicted in March of killing a sheriff�s deputy in 2000). And free Leonard Peltier. Also, defeat Zionism. And, while we�re at it, let�s bring the capitalist system to a halt.

When tens of thousands of people gathered near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial for an anti-war rally and march in Washington last Saturday, the demands hurled by the speakers extended far beyond the call for no war against Iraq. Opponents of the war can be heartened by the sight of people coming together in Washington and other cities for pre-emptive protests. But demonstrations such as these are not necessarily strategic advances, for the crowds are still relatively small and, more importantly, the message is designed by the far left for consumption by those already in their choir.

In a telling sign of the organizers� priorities, the cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the taxi driver/radical journalist sentenced to death two decades ago for killing a policeman, drew greater attention than the idea that revived and unfettered weapons inspections should occur in Iraq before George W. Bush launches a war. Few of the dozens of speakers, if any, bothered suggesting a policy option regarding Saddam Hussein other than a simplistic leave-Iraq-alone. Jesse Jackson may have been the only major figure to acknowledge Saddam�s brutality, noting that the Iraqi dictator �should be held accountable for his crimes.� What to do about Iraq? Most speakers had nothing to say about that. Instead, the Washington rally was a pander fest for the hard left.

If public-opinion polls are correct, 33 percent to 40 percent of the public opposes an Iraq war; even more are against a unilateral action. This means the burgeoning anti-war movement has a large recruiting pool, yet the demo was not intended to persuade doubters. Nor did it speak to Americans who oppose the war but who don�t consider the United States a force of unequaled imperialist evil and who don�t yearn to smash global capitalism.

This was no accident, for the demonstration was essentially organized by the Workers World Party, a small political sect that years ago split from the Socialist Workers Party to support the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. The party advocates socialist revolution and abolishing private property. It is a fan of Fidel Castro�s regime in Cuba, and it hails North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il for preserving his country�s �socialist system,� which, according to the party�s newspaper, has kept North Korea �from falling under the sway of the transnational banks and corporations that dictate to most of the world.� The WWP has campaigned against the war-crimes trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. A recent Workers World editorial declared, �Iraq has done absolutely nothing wrong.�

Officially, the organizer of the Washington demonstration was International ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism). But ANSWER is run by WWP activists, to such an extent that it seems fair to dub it a WWP front. Several key ANSWER officials � including spokesperson Brian Becker � are WWP members. Many local offices for ANSWER�s protest were housed in WWP offices. Earlier this year, when ANSWER conducted a press briefing, at least five of the 13 speakers were WWP activists. They were each identified, though, in other ways, including as members of the International Action Center.

The IAC, another WWP offshoot, was a key partner with ANSWER in promoting the protest. It was founded by Ramsey Clark, attorney general for President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. For years, Clark has been on a bizarre political odyssey, much of the time in sync with the Workers World Party. As an attorney, he has represented Lyndon LaRouche, the leader of a political cult. He has defended Serbian war criminal Radovan Karadzic and Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, who was accused of participating in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994. Clark is also a member of the International Committee To Defend Slobodan Milosevic. The international war-crimes tribunal, he explains, �is war by other means� � that is, a tool of the West to crush those who stand in the way of U.S. imperialism, like Milosevic. A critic of the ongoing sanctions against Iraq, Clark has appeared on talking-head shows and refused to concede any wrongdoing on Saddam�s part. There is no reason to send weapons inspectors to Iraq, he told CNN�s Wolf Blitzer: �After 12 years of brutalization with sanctions and bombing they�d like to be a country again. They�d like to have sovereignty again. They�d like to be left alone.�

It is not redbaiting to note the WWP�s not-too-hidden hand in the nascent anti-war movement. It explains the tone and message of Saturday�s rally. Take the question of inspections. According to Workers World, at a party conference in September, Sara Flounders, a WWP activist, reported war opponents were using the slogan �inspections, not war.� Flounders, the paper says, �pointed out that �inspections ARE war� in another form,� and that she had �prepared party activists to struggle within the movement on this question.� Translation: The WWP would do whatever it could to smother the �inspections, not war� cry. Inspections-before-invasion is an effective argument against the dash to war. But it conflicts with WWP support for opponents of U.S. imperialism. At the Washington event, the WWP succeeded in blocking out that line � while promoting anti-war messages more simpatico with its dogma.

WWP shaped the demonstration�s content by loading the speakers� list with its own people. None, though, were identified as belonging to the WWP. Larry Holmes, who emceed much of the rally from a stage dominated by ANSWER posters, was introduced as a representative of the ANSWER Steering Committee and the International Action Center. The audience was not told that he is also a member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party. When Leslie Feinberg spoke and accused Bush of concocting a war to cover up �the capitalist economic crisis,� she informed the crowd that she is �a Jewish revolutionary� dedicated to the �fight against Zionism.� When I asked her what groups she worked with, she replied that she was a �lesbian-gay-bi-transgender movement activist.� Yet a May issue of Workers World describes Feinberg as a �lesbian and transgendered communist and a managing editor of Workers World.� The WWP�s Sara Flounders, who urged the crowd to resist �colonial subjugation,� was presented as an IAC rep. Shortly after she spoke, Holmes introduced one of the event�s big-name speakers: Ramsey Clark. He declared that the Bush administration aims to �end the idea of individual freedom.�

Most of the protesters, I assume, were oblivious to the WWP�s role in the event. They merely wanted to gather with other foes of the war and express their collective opposition. They waved signs (�We need an Axis of Sanity,� �Draft Perle,� �Collateral Damage = Civilian Deaths,� �*beep* Bush�). They cheered on rappers who sang, �No blood for oil.� They laughed when Medea Benjamin, the head of Global Exchange, said, �We need to stop the testosterone-poisoning of our globe.� They filled red ANSWER donation buckets with coins and bills. But how might they have reacted if Holmes and his comrades had asked them to stand with Saddam, Milosevic and Kim? Or to oppose further inspections in Iraq?

One man in the crowd was wise to the behind-the-scenes politics. When Brian Becker, a WWP member introduced (of course) as an ANSWER activist, hit the stage, Paul Donahue, a middle-aged fellow who works with the Thomas Merton Peace and Social Justice Center in Pittsburgh, shouted, �Stalinist!� Donahue and his colleagues at the Merton Center, upset that WWP activists were in charge of this demonstration, had debated whether to attend. �Some of us tried to convince others to come,� Donahue recalled. �We figured we could dilute the [WWP] part of the message. But in the end most didn�t come. People were saying, �They�re Maoists.� But they�re the only game in town, and I�ve got to admit they�re good organizers. They remembered everything but the Porta-Johns.� Rock singer Patti Smith, though, was not troubled by the organizers. �My main concern now is the anti-war movement,� she said before playing for the crowd. �I�m for a nonpartisan, globalist movement. I don�t care who it is as long as they feel the same.�

The WWP does have the shock troops and talent needed to construct a quasi mass demonstration. But the bodies have to come from elsewhere. So WWPers create fronts and trim their message, and anti-war Americans, who presumably don�t share WWP sentiments, have an opportunity to assemble and register their stand against the war. At the same time, WWP activists, hiding their true colors, gain a forum where thousands of people listen to their exhortations. Is this a good deal � or a dangerous one? Who�s using whom?

�Organizing against the silence is important,� Bob Borosage, executive director of Campaign for America�s Future, a leading progressive policy shop in Washington, said backstage at the rally: �This [rally] is easy to dismiss as the radical fringe, but it holds the potential for a larger movement down the road.� Borosage did add that the WWP �puts a slant on the speakers and that limits the appeal to others. But history shows that protests are organized first by militant, radical fringe parties and then get taken over by more centrist voices as the movement grows. They provide a vessel for people who want to protest.�

That�s the vessel-half-filled view. The other argument is that WWP�s involvement will prevent the anti-war movement from growing. Sure, the commies can rent buses and obtain parade permits, but if they have a say in the message, as they have had, the anti-war movement is going to have a tough time signing up non-lefties. When the organizers tried and failed to play a recorded message from Al-Amin, Lorena Stackpole, a 20-year-old New York University student, said, �This is not what I came for.� And an organizer for a non-revolutionary peace group that participated in the event remarked, �The rhetoric here is not useful if we want to expand.� After all, how does urging the release of Cubans accused of committing espionage in the United States � a pet project of the WWP � help draw more people into the anti-war movement? (In a similar reds-take-control situation, the �Not in My Name� campaign � which pushes an anti-war statement signed by scores of prominent and celebrity lefties, including Jane Fonda, Martin Luther King III, Marisa Tomei, Kurt Vonnegut and Oliver Stone � has been directed, in part, by C. Clark Kissinger, a longtime Maoist activist and member of the Revolutionary Communist Party.)

Let�s be real: A Washington demonstration involving tens of thousands of people will not yield much political impact � especially when held while Congress is out of town and the relevant legislation has already been rubber-stamped. (The organizers claimed 200,000 showed, but that seemed a pumped-up guesstimate, perhaps three or four times the real number.) The anti-war movement won�t have a chance of applying pressure on the political system unless it becomes much larger and able to squeeze elected officials at home and in Washington.

To reach that stage, the new peace movement will need the involvement of labor unions and churches. That�s where the troops are � in the pews, in the union halls. How probable is it, though, that mainstream churches and unions will join a coalition led by the we-love-North-Korea set? Moreover, is it appropriate for groups and churches that care about human rights and worker rights abroad and at home to make common cause with those who champion socialist tyrants?

At the rally, speaker after speaker declared, �We are the real Americans.� But most �real Americans� do not see a direct connection between Mumia, the Cuban Five and the war against Iraq. Jackson, for one, exclaimed, �This time the silent majority is on our side.� If the goal is to bring the silent majority into the anti-war movement, it�s not going to be achieved by people carrying pictures of Kim Jong-Il � even if they keep them hidden in their wallets.

As yet another WWP-in-disguise speaker addressed the crowd, Steve Cobble, a progressive political consultant, gazed out at the swarm of protesters and observed, �People are looking for something to do.� Good for them. But they ought to also look at the leaders they are following and wonder if those individuals will guide them toward a broader, more effective movement or toward the fringe irrelevance the WWPers know so well.
Jonathan H. Miller contributed to this report.

[Leslie Cheswyck]

Fascism contains many elements of socialism within it. And socialists tend to be... leftists.

That's it in a nutshell.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[Leslie Cheswyck]

Actually, it does.

We ask that the government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunities for employment and earning a living.

The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within its confines and for the good of all. Therefore, we demand:...an end to the power of the financial interests.

We demand profit sharing in big business.

We demand a broad extension of care for the aged.

We demand...the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of the national, state and municipal governments.

In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our entire system of public education...We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents...

The government must undertake the improvement of public health -- by the greatest possible support for all clubs concerned with the physical education of youth.

[We] combat the...materialistic spirit withn and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of The Common Good Before the Individual Good .

(Nazi party platform adopted at Munich, February 24, 1920;Der Nationalsozialismus Dokumente 1933-1945, edited by Walther Hofer, Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bucherei, 1957, pp. 29-31).
http://www.lawrence.edu/sorg/objectivism/socfasc.html

[butlerian]

[Leslie Cheswyck]

It wasn't called National Socialism for nothing.

[twg]

[Leslie Cheswyck]

[Kuros]

Fascism is commonly understood as right-wing authoritarianism.

Looking at the Nazi Platform is not very instructive because what you're witnessing is merely the marketing strategy of the Nazis at work. When they later came to power they acted firmly right-wing, by justifying expansion by racial superiority and national destiny and by persecuting minorities whom were perceived as threats to racial purity. These can be themes in left-wing authoritarian states, such as Communist China or post-Stalinist Russia (if we look at Stalin as somewhat right-wing), but in these cases we see these Communist states are in themselves Empires as well. Their Empires, driven as they were by authoritarian forces, often justified the occupation of their wards utilizing the image of national destiny. Although, if one is careful, one notices that the expression of racial superiority in left-wing authoritarian regimes changes to one of redemption for other races whom have the potential to actualize themselves more fully as long as they embrace their ways; namely, the ways of the colonizing, left-wing regime.

Colonialism in this sense has long been a province of the Left. The greatest progressives, John Stuart Mill comes to mind, during the 19th Century were also the greatest proponents of the white man's burden. A concept that to many today seems racist, the idea that the white man has a duty to lift the rest of the world up, was actually repugnant to many conservatives who were unequivocally racist. The conservatives believed that because certain people were not white they did not have the same potential as the European races to begin with.

Fascism is actually a reaction to colonialism, lest we forget. The Germans were treated as conquered after the Treaty of Versailles, and Hitler profited as much from this insult to the German spirit as from any of his insincere appropriations of socialist ideology. The Japanese challenged the idea of the white man's burden by clearly asserting that they could simply emulate the white man entirely on their own and without having to go through the humiliation of colonial subjugation. Perhaps a European at that tme might have been tempted to say that the Japanese perspective of civilization and progress was twisted beyond recognition from a European standpoint. However, its quite clear from the horrors of both Stalin and Hitler that the Japanese were not so wildly astray from their European counterparts.

To bring us to the modern-day, let us skip over the Cold War and the 60s as well understood and proceed directly to the neo-conservatives. It has often been forgotten that the neo-conservatives, at the time where people first started to identify themselves with this term, were actually anti-interventionist and quite hostile to any sort of evangelical foreign policy. I am reluctant to take Reagan as a model neo-conservative, but I will say as compared to his Vice-President, Reagan was somewhat more of an idealist. Reagan certainly appealed to neo-conservative voters, at least. You will notice strong strains of realism in some of Reagan's foreign policy that only become more intense in H.W. Bush's administration. The thread that Alias started is instructive in comparing the difference between H.W. Bush realism and W. Bush idealist neo-conservatism in the transformation of Dick Cheney over the past 15 years.

There is some continuity between the administrations of Bush the elder and Bush the younger, however, and that is the belief in American world hegemony. Bush the elder's famous proclamation of this reality is revealing, as he announced a New World Order soon after the Soviet Union crumbled. As hostile as this idea was to some on the extreme Left, let us notice that the New World Order is explicit in its statement of international co-operation and does not put American hegemony at the forefront of its aims (although certainly it is understood and implied). Clinton was the heir to the New World Order, and while I cannot remember him ever using the term, he certainly emulated Bush senior's foreign limited police conflicts and international co-operation. During the Clinton administration, however, the first major fissures with the European Community began to appear. In particular, the entire Yugoslavia-Bosnia-Serbia mess began to disenchant some Americans with the idea of close co-operation with the rest of the world (which is all too often meant as close co-operation with the Europeans).

When Bush junior appeared on the scene, he at first rejected co-operation through international organizations with the rest of the world in favor of flexibility for US interests. During his campaign and the first year after his election as POTUS, one sees that he did this not simply to further American power abroad but as a way to divorce America from perceived over-commitments in the many limited police actions undertaken by his father and Clinton. I think even at that time it is clear that Bush believed in a sort of limited American hegemony, but thought America was involved in the world at the behest of others, particularly Europe. Bush at first, and the rest of the neo-conservatives, were reluctant to risk American forces for what might be just another European issue (Bosnia-Serbia).

It is clear what happened that changed all this. But the change was remarkable, and what was once a liberalist tenet from the 19th Century was revived and re-packaged into Democratic Evangelicalism. Surely, there were think-tanks who had been advocating this all along, but they were not given too much attention until after the attacks of 9-11. And the idea of spreading Democracy as a way to combat Islamic Extremism (conflated simply as 'terrorism') was newly emphasized. The irony of the extreme transformation of the neo-conservative principle of non-intervention was lost on people who were contemplating the potentials of the wide array of American military technology and hardware for advancing American interests on their own watch.

The neo-conservatives have not been the only actors during this time to 'flip' ideology, to use a neo-conservative term. Going back to H.W. Bush, we see that the far Left has also 'flipped' into its own recent role of reactionaries against the New World Order of Bush the elder and Clinton. The far Left did not want to engage the world, either, and they were hostile in particular to so-called neo-liberalist economic principles. (Let me just say as an aside that the anti-neo-liberalist contingent on this board is at least as strong as the pro-neo-conservatives). The Far Left viewed the engagement of the world as a plot to secure American global hegemony, and the Left viewed American participation in international forums as a means towards unduly advancing American interests to the prejudice of the rest of the world and the less fortunate within America as well. The Far Left never witnessed the neo-conservatives undergo any conversion, as they were convinced that the neo-conservatives were just openly asserting what had been only whispered in the halls of power before. All along, the Far Left had been accusing the powers-that-be of insincerity with regards to international co-operation, so when the Bush Jr. neo-conservatives began to abandon those principles, the Left were immediately sure that they had called it a long time ago.

The reactionist nature of the Far Left, however, should not be characterized as Fascist simply because at one point Fascism, too, was clearly reactionary. There is a marked difference between what I deliberately refer to as the Far Left and the greater mass of so-called Liberals or alternately Progressives in America. And the Far Left is hardly united, indeed, they are only portrayed as united by themselves (for obvious reasons) and by their most bitter opponents. The only thing that really unites the Far Left is an extreme suspicion of the accumulation of power by any sort of elite, and their various crackpot theories would immediately splinter them if they were to ever become a viable political force. Also included in the Far Left are the post-colonialist diehards, who are either borderline when it comes to naivete about Leftist movements abroad or are in some cases even advocates of regressive groups throughout the world because those groups are reactionary against the New World Order. If you doubt this characterization at all, look at the brief flirtation of the Left with Ron Paul, which began because Ron Paul embraces their suspicion of power and their hatred of forceful intervention. However, the fling ended early when the Far Left realized that Ron Paul's economic proclivities did call for economic engagement with the world and that his added proscription that the large International Organizations (IMF, World Bank, WTO) be dismantled was for reasons similar to those held by the neo-conservatives at first with regards to disengagement with the UN.

So, when the OP comes out and challenges the idea that there is anything really substansively Fascist about the Far Left, I have to agree with him. Its a mischaracterization of a particular group of Leftists then taken as representative of the entire Leftist movement. A look at some of the more hawkish statements of the mainstream Democrats, from Obama's admonition that we bomb Pakistan, to Clinton's own aggressive (but not as reckless) stances, shows that the great majority of liberal America supports the idea of American hegemony but merely objects to the particular execution of that goal by the current President.


And I did not mean for this to become an essay, but I think it is worthwhile to spell out my views here on the matter for various reasons. Also, the OP is pretty much correct here, and since I know he is anything but a member of the Far Left (Ya-Ta Boy is an old-school progressive, it seems to me), I would rather not see him attacked as a fascist because he is challenging the conflation of the Far Left with the larger Left by pointing out how the Far Left are not even fascists in the first place.

[ontheway]

Socialism is the broad category than encompases all sorts of systems of goverment control of the people, from the creeping socialism of Europe and the US, to the raging totalitarian socialism of the Nazis and Communist States. All are failed systems, although some appear, to the feeble minded masses, to be working as they slowly self destruct.

The opposite of socialism is libertarianism.

The first mistake of most people who fail utterly to understand liberty, economics, politics, and government is to follow the "left-right" political spectrum. Use of this single line as a tool to understanding is akin to using an "east-west" line instead of a map to study geography.

[Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee]

There is a world of difference between liberals and left wing fascists.
Or even left wingers and left wing fascists.


But when you combine left wing ideas with + no tolerance for dissent + hate mongering populism

[stevemcgarrett]

Ya-ta Boy wrote: