We've seen a lot of dirty pool from the Clinton campaign.  The thing that disturbs me the most is that I'm seeing a pattern.  To see this pattern more closely, we've got to break things down, by taking a look at the behavior of Hillary Clinton herself, and a look at the behavior of her supporters.

Certainly, Clinton's behavior has been less than chivalrous.  To start, there is the long history of lying, with Sniper-gate being the most famous example.  There's the vindictive actions - denouncements of Bill Richardson, for example.  There's the vicious attacks she's been making on Barack Obama for everything from the "bitter" remark to Rev. Wright.  She's made some poor calls on the issues, such as threatening to nuke Iran.  But Clinton herself is just part of the pattern.

Also alarming is the behavior of her supporters.  They've accepted all of Clinton's actions and behavior without question.  They've had their own misdeeds - throwing people from Keith Olbermann to Ted Kennedy under the bus for failing to support Hillary Clinton, and they've demanded that other Democrats support Hillary because "It's her turn" or because she's a woman.

But what's the pattern?  I'd say it's nothing less than Right Wing Authoritarianism.  More after the fold...

Let's take a break from wind and roar of the campaign to consider yet another step toward authoritariansim in this once free land.

The Great State of Maine is now considering a piece of legislation that would make it a felony to commit Visual Sexual Aggression against Children.

What constitutes 'Visual Sexual Aggression' is vague, but - like the Supreme Court - the legislators of Maine will know it when they see it.

There are several issues here that strike at the very heart of our constitutional framework, and I invite you to take a momet to ponder the signifigance of vaguley written laws and the politics of 'Child Abuse'.

I was going through the stacks at the local library and came across a book by Primo Levi that I hadn't read yet.  Primo Levi is a fine, precise writer and I've enjoyed and learned from every book of his I've read.  This book consists of newspaper essays, stories, and reviews that he wrote over the last few decades of his life.  He was an industrial chemist and used words as carefully as he analyzed the components of stains, paints, and coatings.

The Mirror Maker:  Stories and Essays by Primo Levi
NY:  Schocken Books, 1989
ISBN 0-8052-4076-4

(85)  But they were all identical [the German guards], those faces, those voices, those attitudes:  all of them distorted by the same hate and the same anger, and by the lust of omnipotence.

See what I mean?  "The lust of omnipotence" is a clear description of the unthinkable and an extremely useful description of the authoritarian mindset.

As a people, do we remain worthy of the sacrifices claimed herein by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address as a nationally asserted measure of our dedication to democratic sovereignty?

Lincoln's challenge "that these dead shall not have died in vain,"has become at once our national calling and our curse.  His time honored words, spoken as a descendant of the Age of Enlightenment and its dream of liberty, "that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," words of rededication to those noble principles, have now become as dust in the antiquated caissons of history.

[cf. Original with illustrations at: This Ain't My First Rodeo]

In follow-up to the senate cave-in on domestic spying and Scalia's okay'ing of torture and Jonah Goldbergs very silly book... and other sundry sordid events of the past seven years, I'd like to share what I think has become a classic: The 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism, by political science professor Laurence W. Britt and originally published in the Council for Secular Humanism's magazine Free Inquiry.

(Update: It appears Britt is not a political science academic. He never claimed to be, but others seem to have given him the title as this circulated. My link is to original source.)

America dodged a bullet this January. Lets thank our lucky stars that Rudy Giuliani is not the Republican nominee and therefore will have no chance to be President of the United States. He endorsed John McCain today. During his speech, America's Hizzoner said this:

"It's disappointing to lose a race for president because you believe you're the best candidate, but I had made it clear before I had to make this decision who I thought the other best candidate was," said Giuliani.  "I think I made it clear during a debate that if I had not been running, I would be supporting John McCain. So I'm not running, and I'm supporting John McCain and he is far away the best person to be the commander in chief of the United States."

Try to wrap your head around this:

NYPD Seeks an Air Monitor Crackdown for New Yorkers

Damn you, Osama bin Laden! Here's another rotten thing you've done to us: After 9/11, untold thousands of New Yorkers bought machines that detect traces of biological, chemical, and radiological weapons. But a lot of these machines didn't work right, and when they registered false alarms, the police had to spend millions of dollars chasing bad leads and throwing the public into a state of raw panic.

Michelle Malkin, 4 December 2000 (my emphasis):

Most of those behind bars, unlike Downey, can’t afford to post bail or hire competent lawyers. Julie Stewart of Families Against Mandatory Minimums points out that drug offenders now make up 60 percent of the federal prison population, up from 38 percent 14 years ago; in 1998, 57 percent were first offenders and 88 percent had no weapons. "We are not catching drug kingpins," Stewart writes. "We are catching the little guys, the girlfriends, the mules, and we are sending them to prison for 5 years, 10 years, and often much longer."
[...]
Black and white, young and old, famous and nameless – Americans from all walks of life can identify with the broken soul of Robert Downey Jr. His addiction is his own prison. His public humiliation is its own life sentence. The war on drugs is an expensive quagmire that needlessly punishes people who’ve already punished themselves beyond repair.

If you want some idea of the mindset of people who talk about politics and budget battles as a "cataclysmic fight to the death" you have to watch this clip of the "ideal" Fred Thompson campaign commercial. There is no way you can believe the masturbatory fantasies conservatives revel in unless you see it.

WARNING: This is not for the weak kneed. This is a very graphic demonstration of why conservatives need some prolonged, professional help to overcome their lust for an authoritarian father figure.

Looking at the arguments coming from the left with respect to the spectrum of liberal (classical) and authoritarian thinking is instructive. It helps put the historical fact that left-leaning governments always lean in the direction of authoritarianism into context.

The Wall Street Journal publishes a somewhat coherent argument (by former Bush administration senior officials) as to why our legal system is seen as unable to fight Islamic terrorism and why a "War on Terror" is needed:

I'm coming out of semi lurk because I saw Robertson's endorsement this morning and I figured there would be some head scratching.

Ok, who here is shocked by this? If you're not shocked or surprised by ANYTHING the Republicans do, then you're coming around. Read no further. For the rest of you, I am dredging up an old diary that I did back in March addressing this very issue to explain why Robertson is doing this.  

Coincidentally, my fundy mother is supporting Ron Paul, probably because of his anti-abortion stance and she says she doesn't like Rudy.  But if push comes to shove and Giuliani is the nominee, there's no doubt in my mind that she'll vote for him.  Just call me Cassandra

I've had an on-going debate with a colleague at work about the reality of a number of massive 'conspiracies' that, he says, breach the sovereignty of individual countries, enslave the populace to the banking powers and promise to reduce us all to economic slavery.

Broad claims, I know, but he's a great fellow and a smart guy, despite often sounding like some LaRouche wannabe. The trouble (for me) is that  tomorrow, I just might have to eat crow and 'fess up that he may be closer to the truth than I've ever really thought.

Read On.

Considering that both Christianity and Islam are off-spring of the monotheistic Judaic religion, one would almost think we were back in the days of Cain and Abel, when jealousy led to the latter's slaying and the charged question, "am I my brother's keeper" was raised to reverberate down through the ages.  And still brothers don't automatically get along.  

In previous posts, I have sketched a rough outline of some authoritarian features of the Bush administration its political base, and its path to power.  One of the key tenets of Bush's governance is radical privatization.  The radical privatization of Grover Norquist and other free market zealots ran aground when Bush floated out the idea of privatizing Social Security; that effort was the first significant blow to the administration in its second term, and Bush never recovered, as the Democrats were able to effectively tap public support for Social Security and distrust over partially turning the Social Security system over to the private sector.  Going so public with such an unpopular privatization scheme was out of character for the administration not because privatizing public services and turning tax dollars over to private for-profit entities is not at the heart of their approach to governance, but rather because the Social Security scheme was so overt.  On the contrary, the conduct of the war and occupation of Iraq shows that the administration greatly prefers turning over many tasks previously performed by the public sector to for-profit entities.  

The archetypal example of privatization under Bush is, of course, the private army Blackwater.  As previously explained, part of Blackwater’s financial success (and probable appeal to the Bush administration) is that they provide almost no long-term security to the individuals they hire.  They make their gunmen pay for their own training, and they do not pay them as employees but instead as individual contractors, thus avoiding paying payroll taxes to the government or pensions, long-term medical insurance and other benefits to their individual gunmen.  

Blackwater’s CEO Erik Prince didn’t hit on this business model by accident.  Prince is the son of the late Edgar Prince, who before his death a few years ago was one of the biggest funders of the radical right.  Prince’s sister Betsy married Dick DeVos, son of Amway co-founder Richard DeVos; the various DeVos foundations are among the most important sources of money for Republicans and the radical right.  The Prince and DeVos families do not control the radical right, and there is not a tiny cabal of people pulling all the strings of the Bush administration.  But to a remarkable degree, many of the major supporters of the religious right are also supporters of radical privatization, are major supporters of the Bush administration and the Republican party, and are beneficiaries of Bush’s policies.  Today we’ll look at some of those connections for the DeVos and Prince families, and show some of the ways in which the religious right, privatization, economic libertarianism and a pro-corporate ideology are intertwined.

Hi there.  This is my first diary.  I had no idea that my first diary would be all about how I don't like the Clintons anymore, but that's just how it is.  I'm sick of the way Hilary was ushered by the press (from the beginning) into "inevitability" status, I'm sick of Hillary's Oprah shtick, I'm sick of her lack of leadership on all issues, especially foreign policy, the environment, and healthcare, I'm sick of the way they shill for big business, and I'm sick, most of all, of their sanctimonious tone.  They weren't always like this, but I suppose this is now the end-product of being slandered, smeared, and abused in many other morbid and depraved ways by the Grand Wizard Party for nearly two decades.  The Republicans' intention was to systematically destroy them, and to an extent I now think they've succeeded: The Clintons just aren't nice to Americans all the time anymore.

This diary offers an analytic framework to determine whether "Bush Authoritarianism" or "Bushism" is an instance of a fascist ideology. It is a starting-point and not an end-point. It is hoped that it aides further discussion and research into the question.

The administration of George W. Bush has pursued an agenda and engaged in a governance style that breaks radically from any previous administration.  Some of the characteristics of what I’m calling Bush Authoritarianism are variants of previous ideological beliefs or forms of governance.  Many others are the realization of decades of marketing and propaganda by the interlinked network of rightwing donors, foundations, think tanks, marketing and media operations, opinion leaders, political operatives, and allies within the Republican party.  

One of the main hallmarks of Bush Authoritarianism is a variant of privatization, in which public goods or services supplied directly by government employees are "outsourced" to a private company, which takes tax dollars, but over which the government has much less control than public employees performing the same task.  Privatization has been happening at all levels of government for a couple of decades.  In some cases it’s warranted and in the best interests of citizens and taxpayers.  But often, privatization results in inferior good or services, higher costs to taxpayers, and diminished accountability to the government and the public.  

An extreme version of privatization has accelerated during the Bush administration: the privatization of warfare.  Privatizing war is at the cutting edge of Bush Authoritarianism, and Blackwater, whose business practices and niche I discussed last week, is an archetypal "winner" in the new authoritarian system emerging under the Bush administration.  Blackwater is not the only example, however; it is simply one of the more public and extreme examples of Bush’s base of support and the recipients of his governance, which transfers public moneys previously spent on government employees to perform government services, to private entities over which the government can exercise much less authority and  accountability.  

Blackwater CEO Erik Prince is a product of the world of ultra-conservative donors who’ve funded the vast right wing conspiracy.  His father, auto parts mogul Edgar Prince, was one of the largest funders of the right wing movement.  Notably, he was an original funder of James Dobson’s Family Research Council, and the younger Prince counts such major rightwing Christian operatives as Chuck Colson and Gary Bauer as close friends.  

Another major emphasis in Bush Authoritarianism is political and financial support from, and governmental support to the owners and investors in private enterprises that produce little in the way of concrete goods and provide little or no support to their employees (such as health insurance, pensions, or even the payment of payroll taxes).  Some of the key industries for support to George W. Bush and the GOP have been the "extractive" industries (such as oil, coal and timber), industries significantly affected by government regulation (such as freight rail) and low-wage industries that are often hostile to unionization (such as fast food, retail, nursing homes and unskilled construction).  

In many ways, the Alticor corporation is the private sector counterpart to Blackwater as a producer and a beneficiary of the authoritarianism of the Bush administration.  Like Blackwater, Alticor—best known by one of it’s primary subsidiaries, Amway—provides little support and maintains few ties to the contractors who make it money.  Its founders and the heirs to the fortune it created are ultra-conservatives who’ve been among the most important funders to the right wing ideological and political network.  The company and the foundations created by the recipients of its profits are based in West Michigan.  It is highly controversial and has had numerous legal problems.  And beyond the various affinities of ideology, politics and business operations, Alticor and Blackwater are directly related by marriage: Alticor/Amway heir Dick DeVos is married to the former Betsy Prince, older sister to Blackwater CEO Erik Prince.