Friday, March 07, 2008

There are no Obama posts below because they are all on my Obama blog -- including toons as usual. I have also now got around to putting up a more attractive template for my Obama blog -- a template which is -- surprise, surprise! -- much like my other templates


More from Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg -- on big business colluding with socialism.

They did it in Fascist Italy and in Hitler's Germany and they do it now in the USA. And Adam Smith warned us about it long ago: "Men of the same profession never gather together except to conspire against the general public". Excerpt below from chapter 8, "Liberal Fascist Economics"

So long as some firms are willing to prostitute themselves to Uncle Sam, every business feels the pressure to become a whore.... This is the hidden story of big business from the railroads of the nineteenth century, to the meatpacking industry under Teddy Roosevelt, to the outrageous cartel of "Big Tobacco" today: supposedly right-wing corporations work hand in glove with progressive politicians and bureaucrats in both parties to exclude small businesses, limit competition, ensure market share and prices, and generally work as government by proxy. Big business rallied behind LBJ, not the objectively free-enterprise Barry Goldwater. Free marketeers often decry Richard Nixon's wage and price controls, but what is usually forgotten is that big business cheered them

...There's no sector of the American economy more suffused with corporatism than agriculture. Indeed, both Democrats and Republicans are decidedly fascistic when it comes to the "family farmer," pretending that their policies are preserving some traditional voelkisch lifestyle while in reality they're subsidizing enormous corporations.

But corporatism is only part of the story. Just as corporations were enmeshed in the larger Nazi Gleichschaltung, supposedly right-wing big business is central to the progressive coordination of contemporary society. If big business is so right-wing, why do huge banks fund liberal and left-wing charities, activists, and advocacy groups, then brag about it in commercials and publicity campaigns? How to explain that there's virtually no major issue in the culture wars - from abortion to gay marriage to affirmative action - where big business has played a major role on the American right while there are dozens of examples of corporations supporting the liberal side?

Indeed, the myth of the right-wing corporation allows the media to tighten liberalism's grip on both corporations and the culture. John McCain perfectly symbolizes this catch-22 of modern liberalism. McCain despises the corrupting effect of "big money" in politics, but he is also a major advocate of increased government regulation of business. Apparently he cannot see that the more government regulates business, the more business is going to take an interest in "regulating" government. Instead, he has concluded that he should try to regulate political speech, which is like decrying the size of the garbage dump and deciding the best thing to do is regulate the flies.

These speech regulations in turn give an unfair advantage to some very big businesses - media conglomerates, movie studios, and such - to express their views in ways exempt from government censorship. It's no surprise that some of these outlets tend to celebrate McCain's genius and courage and use their megaphones to expand on the need for him to go even further and for other politicians to follow his lead. Of course, this dynamic is much larger than mere regulation. The New York Times is pro-choice and supports pro-choice candidates - openly on its editorial pages, more subtly in its news pages. Pro-life groups need to pay to get their views across, but such paid advertising is heavily regulated, thanks to McCain, at exactly the moment it might influence people - that is, near Election Day. One can replace abortion with gun control, gay marriage, environmentalism, affirmative action, immigration, and other issues, and the dynamic remains the same.

That is how the liberal Gleichschaltung works; contrary voices are regulated, barred, banned when possible, mocked and marginalized when not, Progressive voices are encouraged, lionized, amplified - in the name of "diversity," or "liberation," or "unity," and, most of all, "progress."

....In the brave new corporatism, we are all "partners" after all. Environmentalism in particular offers a number of eerie parallels to fascist practices, including as an overarching rationale for corporatist policies. According to generic fascism, an atmosphere of crisis must be maintained in order to circumvent conventional rules. Today, while Hollywood and the press relentlessly hype the threat of global warming, big business works assiduously to form alliances and partnerships with government as if the fight against global warming were the moral equivalent of war. Indeed, Al Gore - who makes much of such public-private partnerships - claims that global warming is equivalent to the Holocaust and anybody who denies it is the moral equivalent of a Holocaust denier.

Source

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ELSEWHERE



Above: Leftist attention-seeker with funny hat. Story here

There's a brilliant British video HERE about Islam. There is still SOME straight talk left in Britain.

British grit still exists: "War hero Captain Bernie Bambury's leg was torn off in an 80mph toboggan crash - and he did not even realise it was missing. Bernie, 32, COMPLETED the famous Cresta Run, then asked: "Is my ankle broken?" He was told: "It's not broken, it's gone." The dashing Army officer survived six months in Iraq unscathed, only to suffer the horrific accident in St Moritz, Switzerland. Swiss microsurgeons sewed the limb back on. But after nine operations they told Bernie it would be two years before he could walk - and he might never regain full mobility. So the tough soldier from the 4th Battalion The Rifles ordered astonished medics: "Cut it off." Yesterday he was fitted with a false leg and hopes to be back leading his men within a year. He told The Sun: "Amputation gave the best prospects for the rest of my life and the swiftest return to duty." Bernie, based at Bulford, Wilts, tackled the fearsome Cresta Run - nearly a mile of solid ice - at an Army tobogganing event in January. His right foot hit a marker post and the leg, severed below the knee, was recovered hundreds of yards up the course after he crossed the finish."



Another black psychopath: "A London fitness instructor has been jailed for life after he went on a first date armed with a carving knife and murdered a businesswoman by stabbing her more than 30 times. Karl Taylor, 27, was told by Old Bailey judge Giles Forrester that he would not be eligible for parole for at least 30 years for Kate Beagley's brutal murder. The 32-year-old, of Walton-on-Thames, was stabbed in the face and neck during her date with Taylor, the court was told. Prosecutors said Taylor, who also worked as a football coach, met his victim in the CC Club at the Trocadero in Piccadilly, central London, on May 20 2007. After dancing they arranged another meeting, with their first date 10 days later in Chiswick, West London. After their first drink, Beagley - described as "well-travelled, with a great sense of adventure" by friends and family - drove Taylor to Richmond Hill where they had another drink. They then walked to a bench overlooking the River Thames, where she was killed. After her father, Alan, had reported her missing, Taylor was traced and interviewed, where he could not offer an explanation for the killing."

Ohio needs more foreign trade: "Sen. Clinton denounced the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) as 'flawed' and blamed it for closing factories in Ohio and upstate New York. Sen. Obama claimed that 'if you travel through Youngstown and you travel through communities in my home state of Illinois, you will see entire cities that have been devastated as a consequence of trade agreements.' Both pledged to withdraw the U.S. from Nafta if Canada and Mexico refuse to add 'enforceable' labor and environmental standards. But tinkering with a 14-year-old trade agreement will not bring an industrial renaissance to Youngstown and other Rust Belt cites. The relative decline of those regions dates back to the 1960s and 1970s, when the American economy began a transition from heavy industry toward an information-based service economy."

For more postings from me, see OBAMOLOGY, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here or here or here

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"Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?... We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time... In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.... Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal expression that the preaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian ministry have become articles of trade... Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist". Who said that? Hitler? No. It was Karl Marx. See also here and here and here.

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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