Day: June 2, 2009

Socialism, communism, or fascism and corporatism?

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

In her important post earlier today, Nashville, TN: a frontline on immigration, community organizing and Islamic activity, Ann says:

Nashville is a microcosm of what is happening in cities across the country with political activists in the Obama/Alinsky mold working with pro-open borders groups and big business (yes, big business! like this Loews Vanderbilt Hotel) and using refugees and immigrants as political ammo as voters (not to mention as cheap labor for the business people) to push a socialist (communist?) agenda for America.

Good question — what should we call this agenda? As it happens, the paperback edition of Jonah Goldberg’s book, Liberal Fascism, is being released today.  National Review Online has an interview with Goldberg, which begins:

Following its release in January of 2008, Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism rose to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Today the book hits shelves in its paperback version (with a new afterword on Barack Obama), which provides an excellent excuse to talk to the esteemed NRO editor-at-large, and to shine a spotlight on an important book, one more time.

I read the hardback edition when it came out and thought it very illuminating. It shows that fascism’s roots are in the left, not the right, and that modern society has many elements of fascism. A review on Amazon.com says:

This is an important work, tracing the intellectual development of the idea that the all-powerful people’s State should always trump the individual and be in firm control of all aspects of the population’s culture, education, defense or military expansion, information, health and economy, from its modern beginnings under Wilson to the currently epoused nanny state.

And a review in Publishers Weekly says:

Goldberg’s study of the conceptual overlap between fascism and ideas emanating from the environmental movement, Hollywood, the Democratic Party and what he calls other left-wing organs is shocking and hilarious.

The book was written and published just before the rise of Obama. What great timing! I look forward to reading the afterword on Obama. From the interview:

Here I wrote a book, working on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee (hardly a harebrained assumption at the time), about how contemporary progressivism is a political religion with its roots in German state theory, sharing a close family resemblance to fascism. Among the anatomical and genetic similarities: cult of unity, sacralization of politics, philosophical pragmatism, corporatism, relativism, Romanticism, hero-worship, collectivism, and so on. And out of nowhere comes a guy who campaigns as a secular messiah, spouting deeply spiritualized political rhetoric, claims the Progressives as his inspiration, and proudly sees himself as carrying out FDR’s mission. I haven’t counted them, but I’d guess I’ve received a couple hundred e-mails from readers telling me how they thought the whole book was written with Obama in mind, even though I finished it before he was even ahead in the Democratic primaries.

Now here’s the part that relates to what Ann wrote. The part of fascism that relates to economics is called corporatism:

If you look at how most liberals think about economics, they want big corporations and big government working in tandem with labor, universities (think industrial policy), and progressive organizations to come up with “inclusive” policies set at the national or international level. That’s not necessarily socialism — it’s corporatism. When you listen to how Obama is making economic policy with “everyone at the table,” he’s describing corporatism, the economic philosophy of fascism. Government is the senior partner, but all of the other institutions are on board — so long as they agree with the government’s agenda. The people left out of this coordinated effort … are the small businessmen, the entrepreneurs, the ideological, social, or economic mavericks who don’t want to play along. When you listen to Obama demonize Chrysler’s bondholders simply because they want their contracts enforced and the rule of law sustained, you get a sense of what I’m talking about.

Yes, Obama’s America shares the other characteristics of fascism Goldberg lists: cult of unity, sacralization of politics, philosophical pragmatism, corporatism, relativism, Romanticism, hero-worship, collectivism. (“Sacralization of politics” means making politics a religion. Think of “The One” and the references to Obama as the Messiah. ) But let’s confine our label to corporatism. I don’t think most American big businesses are interested in hero-worship and the other stuff. But some of them sure do want the government to be their partner in making profits easier for them — bringing in immigrants to work cheaply, stifling competition through regulation, giving them subsidies or bailouts, and so on.

This corporatist tendency has been growing for decades — that’s one reason almost all large businesses  and business associations have big lobbying staffs in Washington. They’re either defending their businesses from government’s heavy hand or looking for a handout from government. But Obama is bringing it to new and ominous heights. We’re better off using the word “corporatism” because it doesn’t set off the crazed reaction that “fascism” does. But as far as I can see, except for the extreme nationalism that was typical of European fascism, the latter term describes much of Obama’s agenda.

Uighurs compare America to Hitler

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This isn’t going to help Americans become a welcoming community for the Uighurs. Fox News reports:

America is twice as bad as the Nazis — that was the harsh accusation by the Chinese Muslims, also known as the Uyghurs, held at Guantanamo Bay. 

The 17 men were picked up in the training camps in Afghanistan where they were preparing for Jihad against China. They were cleared for release, in part, because their supporters claim the United States is not their direct enemy.

Some journalists were given a tour of the Guantanamo Bay prison. The Uighurs are held in a separate section. As the Fox News cameraman approached, they held up a pad of paper with slogans on it, and Fox filmed them as the Uighurs turned the pages. Here are some of them:

“America is Double Hetler (Hitler) in unjustice,”

“we need to freedom. Do not oppress us”

“what is the difference between Democracy and Communist”

“America with Chinese Government are oppressing us”

Then, unsolicited, the two Uyghurs began speaking English. One asked, “Obama is a communist or a democrat? We have same operation in China.”

There appears little doubt the Uyghurs statements will complicate the administration’s efforts to find them a home.

You can say that again. That, along with the story of the Uighur who threw a TV to the ground because it pictured a woman with bare arms.  See our previous posts on the Uighurs here.

Nashville community organizers kick off Amnesty for Illegals campaign

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

I rarely use internet slang, but this story coming minutes after my previous post on Nashville causes me to ROFL!    For other old foggies, that is, it caused me to Roll on the Floor Laughing!

A press conference was held yesterday in the very same hotel, the Loews Vanderbilt, that expelled the New English Review symposium over the weekend.  The purpose of the press conference was to kick off Nashville’s involvement in the so-called Comprehensive Immigration Reform battle—-that is really the Amnesty battle that our side won two summers ago (remember the Kennedy/McCain bill!).

So a gang of so-called grassroots groups met at the Loews Vanderbilt, according to the Tennessean:

One week before the Obama administration is set to begin talks about immigration policy reform, a Nashville coalition gathered Monday to announce plans to ignite what they call a “productive community conversation” about immigration here. 

“Our premise is that a more informed public is a more reasonable public,” said Avi Poster, president of The Coalition for Education about Immigration and participant in Nashville’s Reform Immigration for America Campaign.

The campaign is part of a national effort to lobby Congress to alter the nation’s immigration policy, limit any surge in anti-immigrant sentiment and generate public support for so-called comprehensive immigration policy reform.

The Nashville group released few details of its plans. Poster said the group will host a series of public forums to discuss immigration and related issues and share information about the impact of current policies.

The White House meeting that they are referring to is this one.  The Open Borders crowd needs to get Obama’s backbone strengthened because they are worried that he and Rahm Emanuel are getting squishy on immigration legislation this year due to the unemployment crisis.  Go ahead guys, push it this year, the firestorm will be so much fun!

The other purpose of the press conference is to set the tone in Nashville, a city transformed by immigration thanks in part to the US State Department and the volag government contractors making Nashville a “welcoming” city for refugees, including thousands of Muslims— mostly Somalis and Kurds.  

Yesterday, the ‘religious Left’ was represented by the Rev. Dixon whose role was to make it clear that anyone opposing “reform” in Nashville will be labeled a “xenophobe.”    At this point in my narrative the transparancy here should be causing you all to join me in rolling on the floor laughing!

In Nashville, a city that in the last 15 years has seen its population and social landscape dramatically altered by immigration, there is a critical need for these types of conversations, said the Rev. Sonnye Dixon, pastor of Hobson United Methodist Church and a member of the local campaign.

“There is what I would call an epidemic of xenophobia affecting America,” Dixon said.

As is so often the case these days for the “state run media” aka mainstream media, more information is forthcoming from a commenter.     ISKRA said:

“The Nashville group released few details” probably because there are no details yet. Something this important and they would not or could not answer simple questions from the audience like what conditions would accompany a grant of amnesty to an “illegal” or what changes might there be in the 287g program.

The conference organizer, Avi Poster, stated that they have a “partnership with NPT” in this effort. Then he really blundered by saying he wanted to thank the media for coming out in response to a “plea for help”. At this point he realized his mistake and tried to back track and say, instead, thanks for attending our “plea from [for] reform”. I am sure he is right to assume that private media and public media (NPT) are on his side. One panelist said they would deal with this issue like they dealt with “english only”, revealing what we always knew – all these pop-pop, letterhead “citizen” groups are related.

ROFL!

Endnote:  We told you about the “english only” campaign in Nashville in January here.  Watch for more news at RRW on how it was defeated with the help of big business in future posts.

Nashville, TN: a frontline on immigration, community organizing and Islamic activity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Update a few hours later:  My blog partner, Judy, has a much better description of the ultimate goal of all this using Jonah Goldberg’s definitions in “Liberal Fascism” here.

Update, literally minutes later:   Nashville ‘community organizers’ kick off campaign to push amnesty for illegals.   The Left wing groups need voters and their business friends need cheap labor!   They hide their motives under the white hat of humanitarianism.

Whew,  I just returned from a weekend in Nashville, TN where I attended the now famous New English Review conference entitled “Understanding the Jihad in Israel, Europe and America” that Judy told you about here a few days ago.     Why do I say “famous?”   Just go check out the pages and pages on google of stories that sprung from the initial and timely Timmerman piece at Newsmax about how the hotel, in which the symposium was scheduled, kicked our group out just days before the meeting.  They suggested we would bring violence to the hotel—what does that say for Nashville and the unholy alliance of its Muslim and Leftist communities?   The obvious purpose of the hotel’s action was to intimidate New English Review organizers.  It didn’t work.

There is too much to say about what I learned in Nashville, so will be bringing it to you in pieces as time goes on.  I’m going to keep you hanging!  But, suffice it to say, Nashville is a microcosm of what is happening in cities across the country with political activists in the Obama/Alinsky mold working with pro-open borders groups and big business (yes, big business! like this Loews Vanderbilt Hotel) and using refugees and immigrants as political ammo as voters (not to mention as cheap labor for the business people) to push a socialist (communist?) agenda for America.

I’m posting this in our community destabilization category and recommend new readers go there to get some background on how community destabilization works.

Also, I am making a new category entitled ‘Nashville’ because what is happening there is happening where you live and as we chronicle that heartland city, it may help you understand and maybe halt what is most definitely happening in your town with the immigrant population and its Leftist community organizers.   Remember Alinsky says you have to have an on-going battle of “have-nots” fighting the “haves” to bring about CHAOS and CHANGE!    Change!  Where have I heard that word before?