Parallels between the Falangists and the American Right wing
There are major similarities between the American Hard right and 30s Falangist Parties in Spain. In my next series of posts I'll be referring to the 26 point Program of the Falange Party, it's meaning, and comparing it to the current platforms of the hard right here and in other countries. It is hard not to see the similarities and contrasts. The Falange 26 point program, Hitlers Nazi Program, all have points of similarity. This is obvious to almost anyone who looks at them, except for those trying to gaslight the subject.
What is going on has been so dark, I thought I'd take a break from #Trumpenführer's effort to inject fascism into the USA. So what do I do? I start reading a bio of Federico Garcia Lorca, by Ian Gibson. If I wanted to ease my mind about Fascism, he was exactly the wrong person to read. Or maybe it was my destiny and the emergence of imminence that was speaking to me that "now is the time to finish reading him." Unfortunately, the book reveals parallels to current times.
Further he also practices the 5 principles of Autocratization that propaganda that others have used before him. Amazingly, Steve Schmidt, who I remember shilling for GW Bush years ago when GW was doing some of these things, recognized and had enough with #Trumpenfuhrer's methodology that even he is raising the alarm. His formulation of the 5 Principles of totalitarian propaganda, restated in my own words, is as follows:
He uses Big Lie techniques to incite ferver in his base of fervent followers.
branding scapegoats and rivals as enemies; affixing blame for complex problems to them and them alone.
Further, he gaslights his followers by alleging conspiracies, hidden, nefarious and linked to those scapegoated populations
He spreads a sense of victimization among them.
He asserts the need to exert heretofore unprecedented power to protect his victim fans from those conspiracies and scapegoated populations.
As I've said elsewhere owning and using weaponry for self defense is an "auxiliary and subordinate" right. Samuel Adams quoted Blackstone and Parliament when he wrote, referring to the Glorious Revolution when English Parliament overthrew the Stuarts:
“At the Revolution, the British Constitution was restored to its original principles, declared in the bill of rights; which was afterwards passed into a law”
Note the wording "restored" and "afterwards passed into a law", is expressing the principle that these human rights existed all the while in their denial, which is the reason that any right to own and use arms other than in the military is actually linked to the 9th and 10th Amendments and the product of hundreds of years of resistance by Citizens against Government Oppression. The right to bear arms is the right to participate in the defense, and by logical extension, the governance of the country.
This was a principle that dated back to "Old England." Samuel Adams in an essay published in the Boston Gazette during the early stages of the rebellion in New England that became our Revolution referred to the right to “have and use” arms as part of a list of "auxiliary and subordinate" rights that only apply;
“When actually attacked”
Which are rights that people have auxiliary, to resisting oppression:
“first to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law”
“the right of petitioning the King and parliament”
“having and using arms for self-preservation and defense ”
These are only rights in a context of protecting the primary rights of:
“personal security”
“personal liberty”
“private property”
In Britain, only those with real estate property, "the gentry" were permitted to bear arms in the Militia. The Gentry were afraid of "the rabble" being permitted to bear arms, and as a result, Sam Adams said that:
“having arms for their defense” ... “a public allowance under due restrictions of the natural rights of resistance and self preservation, when the sanction of society and society are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.”
This right to bear arms is an auxiliary right necessary to resist "the violence of oppression", not a right of mere disaffection, or to engage in oppression or ethnic cleansing. If there is no oppression and no occupying military, there is no need to possess and sue arms. Hence the word "auxilliary." To the nascent Rebellion, it also was a response to the presence of “Military Troops” due to the fear that;
“Violence is always to be apprehended from Military Troops”
If you talk to any gun nut, they know full well this history, and that the great fear of "Standing Armies" was what drove the founders of this country to create a second Amendment. But they interpret that fear the way Southerners did in the antebellum period before 1865. They saw it as a right for the Free Men (they expanded the franchise from the Gentry) and Gentry to defend their property, which included other people. They didn't see slaves, peasants, indentured servants and the property-less worker, as full equals in society. But their arguments saying "All Mankind" meant that this was a deluded attitude.
One con argument against welfare in general and government supplied health care in particular is the notion that healthcare costs can't be controlled because they are labor intensive. This notion reflects the general disrespect for human beings and labor that is behind elitism and the push to replace people with machines in more and more businesses. It sounds plausible from a micro-economics view, but from a macro-economics view it reflects misplaced causality and misidentification of the culprit for cost increases. Especially in healthcare. Actual Labor costs are not the issue with healthcare. Profiteering, speculation, bureaucracy and administrative inflation are.
Piracy is as old as the use of the oceans in commerce. A pirate is a thief who operates on the ocean. However, due to the way this world works, a pirate can be a "legitimate businessman" or a "common thief" depending on who they attack and rob, and how they do it. There are some real differences between a pirate and a privateer:
Privateers do their thefts "legally"
Privateers don't share their loot
Privateers often get to hang the pirates and crew-members who cross them.
A Country that cannot protect, or control, its pirates is labeled a "Rogue State"
Sovereignty requires controlling outlaws and pirates, especially the ones who operate on the margins of the law.
The Supreme court has gone out of its way to weaken:
voting rights for immigrants, native americans, former convicts and black people,
criminal sanctions on bribery
...and to grant a nonsensical cover of "free speech" to bribes, extortion & corruption.
But no matter their rulings, the issue with corruption is and remains an ethical issue of:
Undue Influence
Improper Access
So why is that the case? When I started this post I hadn't heard yet Justice Kennedy's announcement that he was retiring in favor of a former Law Clerk, Kavanaugh, and through the influence of his son and Donald Trump. I was going to change this post to talk about it in detail. But in the interest of KISS, I'll finish this one first and put the details somewhere else. I'll come back here and put the references in the post later. The scandal of the Kavanaugh appointment happened, illustrates:
How improper access and undue influence work.
Why it is often hard to legislate or prevent.
Why they are improper, corrupt, corrupting and outrageous
Why those who are corrupt usually deny it.
Keeping officials on the "up and up" requires fairly clear ethics rules, with statement both of principle and particular prohibitions. This is because unless prohibited many of these actions seem perfectly legal to the corrupt. After all, negotiating a retirement is something every business does!
