A Distinction Without a Difference

by shep

Reading Daily Kos this morning, a came across this peculiar claim by DHinMI in a long essay about Blackwater and the GOP:

“But the main reason why it’s wrong to refer to Bush authoritarianism as fascist is, simply, that it’s not fascist. Fascism exalted the state as the most powerful force, more powerful than any other institutions, including business.”

My reply is: you’re making a distinction where there is no difference, in both fascism and the Republican model of government.

The most perfect illustration of that is the current purchase of immunity for cooperating in illegal domestic spying for telecom companies by former political officials (in both parties) now employed by the telecoms and lobbying by current government officials, such as intelligence director Mike McConnell, who were formerly (directly) employed by the telecoms.



I’ll let Glenn Greenwald describe another dimension to the lack of distinction between “the state” and business:

”The top telecom officials are devoting substantial amounts of their energy to working on highly classified telecom projects with the Bush administration, including projects to develop whole new joint networks and ensure unfettered governmental access to those networks. Before joining the administration as its Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell spearheaded the efforts on behalf of telecoms to massively increase the cooperation between the Federal Government and the telecom industry.

The private/public distinction here has eroded almost completely. There is no governmental oversight or regulation of these companies. Quite the contrary, they work in secret and in tandem -- as one consortium -- with no oversight at all.”

Strangely, DHinMI’s thesis is based in large measure on Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine which contains no such denial of Republican fascism:

“A more accurate term for a system that erases the boundaries between Big Government and Big Business is not liberal, conservative or capitalist but corporatist. Its main characteristics are huge transfers of public wealth to private hands, often accompanied by exploding debt, an ever-widening chasm between the dazzling rich and the disposable poor and an aggressive nationalism that justifies bottomless spending on security. For those inside the bubble of extreme wealth created by such an arrangement, there can be no more profitable way to organize a society. But because of the obvious drawbacks for the vast majority of the population left outside the bubble, other features of the corporatist state tend to include aggressive surveillance (once again, with government and large corporations trading favors and contracts), mass incarceration, shrinking civil liberties and often, though not always, torture.”

From Wikipedia on “corporatism”:

“Political scientists may also use the term corporatism to describe a practice whereby an authoritarian state, through the process of licensing and regulating officially-incorporated social, religious, economic, or popular organizations, effectively co-opts their leadership or circumscribes their ability to challenge state authority by establishing the state as the source of their legitimacy, as well as sometimes running them, either directly or indirectly through shill corporations.”

From Wikipedia on fascism:

”Fascism also operated from a Social Darwinist view of human relations. Their aim was to promote "superior" individuals and weed out the weak. In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class. Lawrence Britt suggests that protection of corporate power is an essential part of fascism. Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."

And from the self-proclaimed “founder” of fascism himself:

”The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organised in their respective associations, circulate within the State.” (p. 41).
—Benito Mussolini, 1935, The Doctrine of Fascism, Firenze: Vallecchi Editore.

Any way you slice it, fascism is about the alignment of all institutions of state power, especially corporate power, against the interests of democratic representation, populist policy and individual liberty, i.e., liberalism. It seeks not to enhance the state relative to business but to remove the barrier between corporate interests and the interests of state entirely. Meanwhile, fascism seeks to suppress or coerce any remaining conflicts with those interests as determined by its elites in both business and government, because they are the same people and the same interests.

From the corruption of the democratic process in the Supreme Court sanctioned Republican coup of 2000 and political prosecutions and voter suppression by Republican government officials, to restructuring the tax system to favor wealth rather than work, to outsourcing the writing of US law to corporations, to privatizing entire government functions like protecting US government officials overseas, to the militarization of society through fear mongering, to colluding between government and corporations to violate the law to spy on the lawful activities American citizens, this Republican government cannot be distinguished from US corporate interests and their combined interest in monopolizing the country’s wealth and power and undermining the liberty and self rule of average citizens. That is fascism by every meaning of the word.


[Cross-posted at E Pluribus Unum]

Oh Politico

You silly, silly people. Haven't you had enough embarrassment?

First, you get openly mocked by the the Decider, and when the Smirking Chimp himself decides that yer kinda funny, you've pretty much jumped the shark. Not even Jeff Gannon rated "a little blurb" by POTUS.

Think Progress documents your atrocities:

• calling the 2nd most important issue to voters (health care) too boring to bother with;
  
  
• predicting Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty would resign (he didn't);
  
  
• spectacularly scooping everybody with the news that John Edwards would be suspending his campaign (wrong again);
  
  
• announcing that citizens will be able -- for the first time -- to submit questions to candidates during their upcoming debate using the internet (except that we could use the Toobz to ask candidates questions at that oh, so boring health-care debate Politico.com thought unworthy of anyone's time).

So now what are these amazing political analysts up to?

Sampson Testimony May Be Key To Gonzales Flap: "Friends say D. Kyle Sampson believes that bureaucratic bungling is at the root of controversy over U.S. attorney firings."

Ah, now that's some hot-shot reporting. The fired reassigned fall-guy former Chief of Staff is going to tell Congress that the Attorney Purge was all just one big mistake -- some kind of overblown personnel matter -- cuz after all, we know that the U.S. Justice Department is staffed by the Keystone Kops.

Nothing to see here. Just some goofy civil servants mucking up. Invoking Executive Privilege doesn't mean anybody has anything to hide, right Trent? Nobody should be afraid of any criminal jeopardy when they testify before Congress on the U.S. Attorney purges, so ... um, pay no attention to the, er ... nice lady pleading the fifth or anything. No deals needed or alibis offered.

Yes, indeed. The Politico.com has put our minds at ease once and for all. Nobody did anything wrong at the Justice Department, ever. Now go back to your previously scheduled Anna Nicole ghoul fest.

Besides, don't you know that the Democrats will only hurt themselves by doing exactly what the people want them to do -- by a 3 to 1 margin.

Where exactly is Oceania again? I could have sworn it was on the same map as Eastasia.

However, this Politico.com sourced info on a young, hawkish Hillary trying to get into the Marines, is weird enough to be spot on.

Bush Just Told Congress: "Bring It On"

"Show Trials?!?"

Screw this megalomaniac. And screw the Democrats if they don't take the President up on his dare.

I'm still keeping a bit of my powder dry. Let's do the DoJ testimony, and even the secret interviews of Rove and Meirs behind the water tower at dawn, or whatever undisclosed location they do it.

But if I don't see Gonzo's head rolling down Pennsylvania Ave., or a battery of subpoenas within the next ten days (and that is more than enough time). I'm going rogue and demanding the heads of the Democratic Party too. If Reid and Pelosi don't have enough balls to stand up to this feeble-minded bully living in the White House, they have no business pulling a pay check.

Schumer said it right, and he better not change his tune.

(And that's right, there are no links in this post. Use Google, that's what it's there for. Boy am I pissed.)

UPDATE: Okay, here's your stupid link. Bush is going the Nixon route and made a preemptive accusation of partisanship by the Dems if they have the temerity to issue subpoenas. Please, Mr. Conyers and Mr. Leahy, go for the jugular. Call this pugnatious little man on his bluff.

This has been the most partisan, politically motivated administration in living memory, and that little bully has the stones to tell the representatives of the American People to Bring It On??

Hey George, this ain't some dirtwater banana republic you're talking to or some madman in an Afghan cave. You just called out the United States Congress. It's on baby!

UPDATE 2: Richard Blair at All Spin Zone nails how I feel:

Still, my biggest concern is that there’s not enough time left in the Bush regime’s tenure to track this through the courts for years. And I think Bush is counting on that mindset within congress. So, perhaps a deal will be made between the regime and Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi.

And if so, Democratic activists everywhere will head for the exits. Count on it.

I'm furious at even the thought that Congress, the United By F'ing God States Congress would back down on this.

THIS IS WHY YOU WERE ELECTED, DEMOCRATS!!!!!

Gonzales: Cue The Fat Lady

The orchestra is certaily tuning up in anticipation of Alberto Gonzales' resignation with names being floated for his replacement according to McClatchy Newspapers. I wouldn't bet against Jeb being tapped, absurd as that might sound. It's really just a matter of days or hours now since MSNBC just said that Bush gave Gonzo a Heckuvajob phone call this morning.

McClatchy has been all over this, and the article that notes replacements being vetted (Hat Tip Ara) says both abu Gitmo AND Deputy A.G. Paul McNulty are all but out. Interestingly, the by-line is not the two reporters who were originally covering this, Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor. Now there's a two man team on it as well.

I do agree with Rose that Paul McNulty is history. He pissed off Gonzo so either way he's gone. Kyle Sampson (who already resigned but is itching to spill his guts) may have been the one who suborned perjury, but McNulty made Gonzo look bad by contradicting what he told Congress, AND for this kind of fun:

The American Spectator has learned that members of McNulty's staff are supporting the possible nomination to one of the vacant U.S. Attorney slots of a former government lawyer who had an affair with a colleague and now resides with not one, but two women in what some in the DAG's office have termed a "tri-sexual" relationship.

"That residential situation would be adjusted if the name was put forward," says someone familiar with the thinking in McNulty's office.

Don't forget (how could we ever forget) that it becomes a serious matter if blow jobs are involved. Bad prosecuting means not going after enough adult book stores at the expense of child obscenity cases...at least according to the Department's Porn Czar, the man who would shut down all theose girls going wild videos.

The DoJ has come to a complete halt because they have completely stopped communicating, fearing anything they say (or especially write) will be used against them as it gets turned over to Congress. This has crippled the entire department simply because (as usual) the Rovavellian politicalization of absolutely everything in this administration puts power, politics and ideology above serving the people.

Presenting: The Non-Denial, Denial

I suspect the following will, in the next year or so, be boiled down to four words: "Not Guilty, Your Honor."

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse: "We have stated numerous times that no U.S. attorney was removed to retaliate against or inappropriately interfere with any public corruption investigation or prosecution," he wrote. "This remains the case and there is no evidence that indicates otherwise."

It's subtle, so I can forgive Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor of McClatchy Newspapers for missing it. Their coverage of the U.S. Attorneys scandal is beyond compare -- much like what the Washington Post used to be.

Notice the interesting, truthful yet misleading verbs. Yes, they "stated numerous times..." and indeed it still "remains the case" that statements were made (just like mistakes were made I'll assume). The fact that there is no evidence (yet) doesn't mean the administration didn't do what they hope to God nobody breaks ranks and busts them for.

And just WTF is Roehrkasse not really denying but hopes you don't believe they did?

Why the accusation that the U.S. attorney's firing may be connected to CIA corruption probe, of course.

Fired San Diego U.S. attorney Carol Lam notified the Justice Department that she intended to execute search warrants on a high-ranking CIA official as part of a corruption probe the day before a Justice Department official sent an e-mail that said Lam needed to be fired, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Sunday.

Feinstein, D-Calif., said the timing of the e-mail suggested that Lam’s dismissal may have been connected to the corruption probe.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse denied in an e-mail that there was any link.

Now this could have serious criminal implications -- if provable, and provable beyond a reasonable doubt that justice was obstructed or that Gitmo Gonzales committed (I hope, I hope) perjury.

[Senator Patrick] Leahy also addressed the right-wing talking point that the U.S. Attorney firings are meaningless because there “was no crime." Leahy said that while President Bush has the authority to fire attorneys at will, "if it is done to stop an ongoing investigation, then you do get into the criminal area."

Intentional retaliation is going to be horribly hard to prove, as will be exposing admissible evidence that the U.S. (Bushie) Attorneys the administration didn't fire intentionally retaliated against political enemies.

But one thing is certain, there is an appearance of impropriety here, something a certain Attorney General should at least be disbarred for (notwithstanding the fact that he never showed up for his Constitutional Law classes).

Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory

In my previous post I noted that the focus of scrutiny -- for those of us convinced that somewhere there exists impeachment worthy evidence not even the most stubborn Bush apologist can ignore -- should be the actions of U.S. Attorneys found sufficiently loyal to the partisan whims of Karl Rove's mission to destroy liberal Democrats, that they would never have been considered a target for dismissal. (ie. watch what the "Bushie" US Attorneys did.)

Unlike AT&T, SBC and a few others I can't recall, Qwest Communications refused to comply with NSA requests that they turn over their customers data. I do recall some grumbling, a high profile ruling by a certain Judge Walker that was ignored by the Noise Machine (yes, one of those Walkers -- the George "W" Walkers), who ruled against the government but was not vilified by Fox and Friends as much as the federal judge in Michigan who found the NSA wiretapping equally unconstitutional, and a call to change phone carriers to Qwest in support by many bloggers.

What I learned yesterday and documented below was that Qwest and it's CEO soon found itself involved in an investigation by the SEC and accused of accounting fraud.

Already the plot thickens. Not only was the Qwest case taken from the acting U.S. Attorney who began the case and given to a couple of DoJ lawyers whose involvement we are yet to fully appreciate, BUT, HuffPost alerts us another interesting tidbit to the story from the Washington Post:

FBI Lawyers Raised Phone Record Privacy Concerns Two Years Before Agency Began Probe: "

FBI lawyers raised the concerns beginning in late October 2004 but did not closely scrutinize the practice until last year, FBI officials acknowledged. They also did not understand the scope of the problem until the Justice Department launched an investigation, FBI officials said.

Under pressure to provide a stronger legal footing, counterterrorism agents last year wrote new letters to phone companies demanding the information the bureau already possessed. At least one senior FBI headquarters official -- whom the bureau declined to name -- signed these 'national security letters' without including the required proof that the letters were linked to FBI counterterrorism or espionage investigations, an FBI official said.

---

What we've accomplished with this revelation is to make a positive link between A.G. Gonzales firing U.S. Attorneys for unethical partisan reasons, and Director Muller's FBI abusing those National Security Letters. At the time of this picture, they were both being called on the carpet for what seemed like separate irregularities. However, they were just two sides of the same coin.

When they wrote the Patriot Act, is was all too predictable that giving the FBI the authority to write their own warrants was an abuse waiting to happen -- a farce really. Why even bother with that silly bit of unnecessary paper pushing. But now, knowing that there is a connection (however tenuous at this point) with the elimination of any judicial oversight restraining the abuse of the judicial system by unscrupulous prosecutors and investigators and a concerted effort by the administration to put or keep in place U.S. Attorneys ready, willing and able to exploit this mockery of justice.

No administration should ever have been given this kind of authority, especially this on. Such power is almost dictatorial in nature. It was certain to run afoul of the maxim that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now we know that is does so quickly as well.

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UPDATE: Did I mention, the Insider Trading Trial of Qwest's Joseph Nacchio Begins Monday. Keep an eye on Jeralyn's Live Blogging at 5280.com.

While You're At It, Impeach Rove

It didn't take long for three of the most influential liberal blogs to call for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales after the New York Times advised President Bush to (finally) dismiss the worst Attorney General since Ed Meese. (And to be fair, Gonzo is way worse than Meese ever was.)

The Times article lays out the case against the Attorney General in no uncertain terms. Gonzales is a disgrace. The politically motivated US Attorney firings, the FBI illegally spying on Americans, giving the administration legal cover to engage in "kidnapping, secret detentions, abuse and torture," trashing the authority of the courts and the clearly worded meaning of laws, and undermining the electoral process itself. He is indeed,"consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency."

MyDD's Jonathan Singer actually beat the Times to the punch, hoping impeachment hearings will force Gonzales' resignation while noting that the Senate Judiciary Committee's Ranking Member, Arlen Spector (R-PA) has had enough of the nation's top law enforcement official acting like he got his law degree out of a box of Cracker Jack.

"One day, there will be a new attorney general, maybe sooner rather than later"

Well before the we lost an hour to Daylight Saving Time, The Big Tent Democrat at TalkLeft joined MyDD in the quest for the AG's impeachment. McJoan at that Orange Blog also called for Alberto's impeachment not 20 minutes later.

This of course proves that there is a vast left-wing conspiracy -- if you're a Fox News commentator that is. The Times, by merely calling for Gonzales' dismissal, just set the talking points for this morning's Sunday Bobbleheads. Brit Hume's eyes will bug out of his pointy head as he tells us how Shocked! ... Shocked he is that anyone would listen to such an obvious liberal hit-job.

The Times doesn't go far enough for us real liberals.

Another thing became clear this evening. Once again, Karl Rove is at the center of a White House scandal. It really should be no surprise that Rove's name should come up in the context of the fired U.S. Attorneys scandal -- affectionately known as the "Overblown Personnel Matter."

Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor, McClatchy Newspapers: Presidential advisor Karl Rove and at least one other member of the White House political team were urged by the New Mexico Republican party chairman to fire the state's U.S. attorney because of dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.

In an interview Saturday with McClatchy Newspapers, Allen Weh, the party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

"Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?" Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

"He's gone," Rove said, according to Weh.

[snip]

"Anyone with any experience within the Justice Department is completely shocked and appalled by what has been described," said Stanley Hunterton, a former federal prosecutor of 12 years who investigated organized crime in Detroit and Las Vegas. "One of the things the Department has stood for was being apolitical. Sure, politics does gets involved in the appointment process, but this is just nuts."

It's really this simple. The Attorney General committed perjury when he told Congress: "We have never asked a U.S. attorney to resign in an effort to retaliate against him or her or to inappropriately interfere with a public corruption case." This was a lie, because Karl Rove, known CIA cover blower, knew that someone in the White House "inappropriately interfered" in a public corruption case and fired what looks like more than a few U.S. Attorneys in retaliation.

The fact is, the real liberal conspiracy belongs to those of us who not only know better (that Bush will never fire Gonzo, let alone Turd Blossom) and are not afraid to stake out a controversial position even though we we know there are many who will disagree with us. The conspiracy can better be summed up with an old maxim that was played out in the 10:00 hour -- Great Minds Thinks Alike.

Moderate Left must be another term for Dispassionate Liberal.

I mean…my God, at what point do we start the impeachment proceedings?

The closest adviser to President Bush was actively involved in using the Justice Department to score political points against Democrats, and took steps to fire U.S. Attorneys who were insufficiently partisan.

That’s the opposite of everything that the Justice Department is supposed to stand for.

Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove should be fired immediately. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast, immediately. If that does not happen, Congress should immediately begin hearings into whether the President’s use of the Justice Department to harass political enemies is an impeachable offense. It certainly is contrary to the spirit of the Constitution.

My "moderate" friend is so excitable. A "dispassionate" examination of the situation would inform him that Gonzales himself is a Civil Officer of the United States, subject to impeachment pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution. Rove, as Deputy Chief of Staff likewise is impeachable -- after all, he's not getting paid out of the spare change found in the cushions of the Oval Office couches.

What's fun is that if the pattern we saw in the Libby case holds, Rove will sing like a canary when it looks like his own hide is being hung out to dry once he's sworn in. Who's going to lay odds that the approval process of the list of which U.S. Attorneys to fire went through the Office of Vice President?

Anybody? Any takers on my bet? Anybody?

Beuler?

No?

I guess the secret's out. Gonzales, Rove and Dick Cheney abuse more power before breakfast than Nixon could have dreamed up if he'd been given a third term.