NeoCon or NeoFascist?

The fascist label is frequently applied to any conservative political opposition and often loosely applied to different ideological perspectives – see Islamo-fascism. It has event been applied to the progressive left by the NeoCon fiction writer Jonah Goldberg.[1] The radical NeoCon Republican Party under Bush II, DeLay, Rove, now and hopefully short-lived McCain and Palin, and their wrong-wing allies is fundamentally different from classical conservative or even the anti-conservatism of early neo-conservatism. The dominant voice and brand of the Bush II government and the radical Republican Party and their wrong-wing allies can prudently can be labeled neo-fascist and incipiently fascist. America’s home-grown fascist hate groups as the various Klans, skinheads, militias, and Christian identity organizations have increased by over 50% to exceed 900 organizations during the Bush II years.[2] This number is in addition to the “main-stream” religious wrong fundamentalist hate groups and extremist organizations such as the National Rifle Association that have reared their ugly heads during this election season. Bush II, McCain-Palin, and the Current Republican Party have provided a congenial environment.

The Bush-Chaney radical Republican Party is fascist because it satisfies fascism’s historical criteria and standards. The Italian scholar Emilio Gentile defined fascism as:[3]

A mass movement, that combines different classes but is prevalently of the middle classes, which sees itself as having a mission of national regeneration, is in a state of war with its adversaries and seeks a monopoly of power by using terror, parliamentary tactics and compromise to create a new regime, destroying democracy (p. A19).

The current radical Republican Party is heavily white and middle-class party on a mission of national moral and social regeneration (the cultural wars). It sees America as in a state of perpetual war at home and abroad (the cultural wars, ”if your not with us, you’re against us,” and the perpetual war on terrorism). It demonizing the domestic liberal opposition as well as foreign enemies (“the axis of evil”), labeling critics of policies as “unpatriotic”[4] and likening dissert to treason. The radical Republicans hungers for a monopoly of power (Patriots Acts I and II, extremely radical judicial nominations). The radical Republican government stifles debate and promotes a one party state and government. The Republicans rammed legislation through the House when it had the majority without hearing. Its principal strategist, if not ideologue, Rove views the two-party system as antiquated and the Republicans should end it. The radical Republicans tried to make Bush II a charismatic leader (the ‘mission accomplished” staging on the aircraft carrier and other strong leader or ‘decider’ shenanigans). It failure was not due to a lack of effort, but because of laughable raw material. The radical Republicans hope to more successful with a geriatric John McCain and a trashy Sarah Palin.
The generally agreed upon characteristics and criteria for a fascist political ideology are:[5]
1. the rejection of both liberalism and socialism – The Bush II Republican Party has not only rejected socialism and liberalism, it has made liberalism an obscenity.

2. the primacy of the nation over the rights of the individual – Bush II nationalism with the its prevailing conception of Patriotism and embodied in the Patriots’ Act and related legislation and the Constitutional mis-named War on Terrorism has made individual rights, privacy, and habeas corpus archaic, warrantless spying, Telecoms immunity in spying on citizens, torture and extraordinary renditions, anointing of state sanctioned religious sects with Charitable Choice and Faith-based funding to selected religions.

3. demonizing the nation’s enemies (Axis of Evil, the Evil, and if not with us, then against US, the French Chocolate Makers, Islamo-Fascism, etc).

4. the elimination of domestic dissent and creation of a one-party system (Rove’s Permanent Republican Majority, The Supreme Court and the 2000 Florida election).

5. the dominant rule of a charismatic leader (If don’t stand with Bush, then you unpatriotic and giving aid and confront to the enemies, and the president as commander-in-chief, the Imperial Presidency and efforts to make Bush II a charismatic leader, holding that criticism of God’s chosen Bush II in time of war is treason). Unfortunately they picked an a-charismatic gelding ride.).

6. appeals to emotion and myth rather than reason (Re-doing of responsibility for 9-11, American history with America a Christian Nation, God’s chosen nation). Racism constitutes a part of their jingoistic patriotism.

7. glorification of violence on behalf of a national cause (Bush II doctrine of Preemption and First Strike as justification of Iraqi war, death penalty, anti-immigration efforts).

8. the mobilization and militarization of civil society (Department of Homeland Security, the terrorist risk alert levels, America in perpetual war).[6]
9. expansionist foreign policy intended to promote national greatness (The American Century doctrine).

The Radical Republicans’ brand of fascism maybe their choice as Colin Powell asserts. However, when they want to impose it on America through a McCain - Palin administration, it is our choice. Make the truly conservative, patriotic choice, America

[1] Although passed by Goldberg as nonfiction, a cursory review of (2008) Liberal Fascist: Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning. (NY: Doubleday) indicated it’s doubtlessly a fantasy.
[2] See Southern Poverty Law Center data.
[3] Stille, A. (2003, September 13). The latest obscenity has seven letters. The New York Times, pp. A17, A19.
[4] For example see Minnesota Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann on MSNBC’s Hardball, and the need to determine who in the House and Senate are “pro-American or anti-American” as defined by Bachmann.
[5] For a discussion of fascism and nationalism see: Griffins, R. (1993). The nature of fascism. London, UK: Routledge., Mann, M. (2004). Fascist. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press., Smith, A. D. (1995). Nations and nationalism in a global era. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
[6] Naturally the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attached, and then denounce the pacifists for [a] lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. Quote attributed to Herman Goering, Air Reich-Marshall, last Chancellor, and political heir to Hitler at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials at end of WW II.

McCain for President?

My fellow Conservative and all American Patriots, the time is rapidly approaching when collectively we decide who will take over and hopefully cleans up the mess made by Bush II and his radical administration. Bush II’s heir-designate is John McCain. John, I can call him John since he claims to be ‘my friend,’ peddles that he is a maverick, an iconoclast, and a change agent with independent judgment. A cursory examination of biography doesn’t reveal a change agent or maverick but a fairly privileged person and prosaic politician.
Major Life Accomplishments

John’s major life accomplishments, briefly sketched, as they are few, are:
- Son and grandson of US Navy admirals,
- Educated solely at government expense,
- Always had government health care except for his Hanoi years,
- US Navy pilot shot down after approximately 20 hours of combat,
- POW for five and a half years,
- Navy lobbyist and a John Tower and Phil Gramm disciple and drinking buddy,
- Retired as Captain in 1981,
- Divorced his first wife, 1980
- Married very rich second within four months of divorce,
- With the help of new rich wife’s money and connections elected to the House of Representatives in 1982 and the Senate in 1986 from Arizona having never lived there prior to campaign,
- Obtained Republican nomination for President of United States 2008 after loosing it in 2000 by supplicating to the radical wrong wing of the GOP.

This is hardly a maverick’s biography or presidential one.

Real World Experience

Let’s look little closer at John’s military experience as it is the cornerstone of his foreign policy approach and political career. He is a creature of the military and the government. He is not their finest work. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy near the bottom of his class. He went on to serve as a naval aviator, but was shot down after only 20 hours of combat flying. His time as a POW was honorably served according to John, although he has asked the Viet Namese government not to release the records. His lineage may have had some influence on his medal array. John spent the last years of his service lobbying for the navy and partying with Gramm and Towers. He attained the rank of Captain (ret) after his 22 years of naval service but not admiral despite being the son and grandson of admirals. He never had executive experience or strategic commands in the Navy. John’s commands were always operational or ‘just following orders given by someone else’ commands.

John remained in government and at the public trough after the military. He served in the House of Representatives for two terms and as a Senator since 1986. The government has been his employer since his academy days. His ties to Arizona prior to his election to the House were tenuous. They consisted of his rich wife Cindy Lou and her family’s political connections. They have been enough to buy a legislative career in government. His over a quarter century as a career politician has been notable for a lack of accomplishment other than staying in office. The four things that come to mind most readily are his 90% plus voting record with the radical Bush II regime, Keating 5, McCain-Feingold, and a short-lived effort to obtain more rational immigration policies. He’s now trying to disown all four accomplishments. John has flipped to the wrong and completely dark side. So much for John’s straight talking maverick image.

John self-claimed and self-promoting foreign policy experience primarily consists of his time in Viet Nam at the Hanoi Hilton. He has not had responsibility to develop or manage any significant foreign policy legislation nor engage in any diplomacy. He has little international knowledge as exemplifies by not knowing the difference between a Sunni and Shite (and probably Iran and Iraq unless Joe Lieberman whispers it in his ear). His approach to global disagreements is simplistic and militaristic (bomb, bomb Iran). John can’t keep allies and enemies straight in his mind. John, is Spain with troops in Afghanistan and a member of NATO an ally? Why won’t you talk with them? His judgment on the ‘surge’ (a troop increase in the Green Zone) largely comes from a peaceful market walk surrounded by American solders with a helicopter shield overhead. These protections are not generally available to an Iraqi civilian dodging fire from Blackwater mercenaries or militants.

Recapitulating John’s Qualifications

After a lifetime spent at the governmental trough, John now champions private enterprise, tight federal budgets, corporate deregulation, and rugged individualism. He flaunts his experience without any noteworthy managerial or executive experience. Age does not equal experience other than the experience of surviving to old age. His significant legislative accomplishment, other than being one of the Keating 5, is limited to McCain-Feingold[1]. This is also his primary ‘maverick’ qualification. Like being a ‘legend in his own mind,’ he a maverick with his mouth rather than his votes. Remind me other than McCain-Feingold when he successfully took on the Republican leadership.

John’s economic experience is Keating 5 and marrying a rich wife. A success rate of .500 wouldn’t be bad in baseball but hardly qualifies him as a change agent or to be President. His direct foreign policy experience consists of Viet Nam, surviving as a POW, and tourism at taxpayers’ expense. Again, not presidential.

We won’t talk about his cynical selection of Sarah Palin as his VP. Sarah deserves more space than we have here. Suffice to say, it is an insult to all True Conservative American Patriots. We will save his embrace of the radical wrong, especially the Christian wrong’s agenda, after his 2000 failed presidential nomination bid for a later blog. He now talks the Christian wrong’s talk but hasn’t personally walked their walk.[2]
John is not the brightest bulb in the Senate. He is a rather dim and perhaps a nearly burnt out bulb. He had the bad fortune to be a POW and the ability to parlay it into a successful political career with the help of rich and well-connected wife. These are his significant accomplishments and he works it, being a POW not the rich wife, into every public address, lest we forget it. It does not qualify John for the Presidency. Give him a medal for it– the greatful nation gave him many medals. Give him PTS therapy and a pension. Again, this was done. But don’t reward him with the presidency. He can’t handle it. He appears to need more therapy now. His presidency will be four more years of radical Bush II policies. Unlike John at the Hanoi Hilton, we can’t survive four more years of radical Bush II NeoFascist policies.[3]
[1] Don’t bring up the lobbying hearings on Jack Abamoff as a public good. Abramoff was eliminated as a competitor to McCain’s lobbyist cronies. See his campaign staff makeup. .
[2] For a preview of his approach to the walk and probable approach to the Christian wrong’s “values,” see Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale.
[3] A forthcoming blog will establish that the contemporary radical Republican Party is NeoFascist in its ideology and policies.

Embarrassed Conservative American Patriot

As a truly Conservative American Patriot, I was chagrined and embarrassed by a recent solicitation from the radical Republican Party to contribute to the McCain-Palin campaign. Chagrined that my name appears on a radical Republican solicitation list and embarrassed that anyone would think that I would support or donate to a wrong-wing radical Republican candidate after America’s experience over the past eight years, and John McCain’s performance as a candidate. The radical Republicans over that the last eight years have worked day and night – perhaps an exaggeration as Bush II generally doesn’t work at all – to destroy America at home and weaken it abroad. After letting 9-11 occur due to gross ineptitude, the Bush II Administration has yet to capture Osama ben Laden or put an end to Al Queda. What mission was accomplished and who can’t hide? We are now disrespected abroad with Bush II’s buddy Putin making a fool of us in Georgia. Iraq’s a failure. We can’t seem to leave the place or even define victory, let alone achieve it. Afghanistan is a quagmire. Bush II is spreading the war to Pakistan. At home, we are in a recession bordering on depression with increasing poverty and unemployment and decreasing income, catastrophic banking and financial systems, worsening schools, and a joke of a homeland security agency that bungled relief to Katrina’s and Ike’s victims. Was the label "Homeland" ever used for America before 9.11? Do you feel safer now than 8 years ago?

McCain can’t keep his geography or enemies straight. He can't retain a basic knowledge of economics or the number of homes he owns. Perhaps McCain can educate us on the fundamentals of the economy that are strong. He selects a vice presidential candidate to appeal to the trailer park trash vote. She wants to be only one heartbeat away from the presidency, if that far, but couldn’t she teach her daughter to just say NO. Or was she too busy to pay attention? (Remember these are the wrong-wing fundamentalists’ logic.) McCain is not a maverick, he’s just plain dumb. And the radical Republicans have the gall to ask with a straight face for four more years of this? With McCain-Palin, who is the pig and who is the lipstick?

As a true Conservative American Patriot believing in America’s values and the Constitution with its limits on federal and executive power, I cannot vote for radical Republicans hiding under a conservative label.

Gonzales, Bush II, Cheney, and the Constitution

Gonzales' September 2007 resignation as Attorney General (AG) means Bush II has lost another sycophant, ineffectual spokesperson, and incompetent cabinet office. Unfortunately, the resignation only removed a symptom of the malignancy and not the cause of our diseased government. The cause rests in the fascist ideology of an imperial presidency promote by Gonzales, Cheney, Yoo, and embraced by Bush II. This doctrine holds that the powers of the unitary presidency in war time gives a president an inherent authority under the Constitution as commander in chief to ignore the Geneva Convention and engage in secret domestic ease-dropping and similar activities as part of a broad but implied powers to do whatever is necessary solely in the president's judgment to protect the country. The imperial, unitary doctrine makes the president the ultimate and absolute national authority, dissolves the constitutional balance of powers, and eliminates oversight and input from Congress and the courts. Gonzales and the other proponents of this usurpation doctrine argue that a president is “the sole organ of the federal government in foreign affairs [and can] deploy armed forces ... [and] a formal declaration of war or other authorizations from Congress is not required to enable the president to undertake the full range of actions that may be necessary to protect our national security.”[1]

A cursory reading of the Constitution rejects the doctrine that a president is the sole authority in war making or foreign affairs either in peacetime or during any type of war. Power sharing with Congress is explicit and not implied or a matter of interpretation. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution enumerates Congress’ foreign affairs and war powers:

• To regulate commerce with foreign nations,...
• To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
• To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
• To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
• To provide and maintain a navy;
• To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
• To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
• To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States,...
• To exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings.
  
  The president’s powers are more circumscribed. Article II, Section 1 states that “[t]he executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” There is no implication of unbridled power. Section 2 gives the president’s war powers as, “commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” How does these clauses imply unspecified and unlimited powers determined exclusively by Bush II's whims?
  
  The president’s additional foreign affairs powers are likewise limited. “He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur.”
  
  Decisions regarding treason are congressional, not executive. Article III, Section 3 states that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attained.” This hardly gives authority to Bush II to declare an American an enemy combatant or relieve them of the protection of the Bill of Rights.
  
  Congress needs to cease abrogating its powers and responsibilities to an unconstitutional imperial presidency. Congress must develop some integrity and fulfill its Constitutional obligations as a check on an over-reaching and, in this case, a dumb president. The federal courts need to meet their obligations as protectors of the Constitution. Paraphrasing a favorite Republican political mantra, it needs to adhere to the Constitution rather than to neo-con/fascist ideology. The acquiesces to an imperial presidency by a ideologically disciplined Supreme Court is hardly a traditional conservative or a ‘strict constructionist’ position. Bush II's AG designate Michael Mukasey, a supporter of the Patriot Act, advocates that the government - read as executive - should receive the benefit of the doubt from its citizens based on the "structure of the Constitution." This argument and the argument of ‘implied’ or ‘inherent’ executive powers are equally spurious and specious. The Constitution's Bill of Rights and our judicial tradition of 'innocent until proven guilty' explicitly do no give government the benefit of the doubt. The Constitution’s Amendment X adopted in 1791 states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Any implied powers appear to rest in the states or the people, not with the executive.
  
  Some closing queries for all you true American patriots: Where are the twins? What happened to the other Bush brothers? Where were Pat Buchanan, George Bush II, Dick Cheney, Newt Ginrich, Tom DeLay, Rush Limbaugh, Joe Lieberman, Trent Lott, et. al. during the Viet Nam war? Did Gonzales actually serve in the Air Force? Has General Petreaus 'westmorelanded' us? Does God really chat about politics with Bush II, Tom DeLay, and the Christian Right? Why are they called the 'Christian Right' when they are so wrong?
  
  
  [1] Shenon, P., and Johnston, D., “A defender of Bush’s Power, Gonzales resigns abruptly as Attorney General,” New York Times, (August 28, 2007, p. A16.)

Patriots and Patriotism

True American Patriot is a bodacious and possibly pretentious name for a blog. It, however, is a necessary name for a crucial activity. True American Patriots now must speak out for the defense and conservation of True American Patriotism. We are in danger of loosing True American Patriotism because we have left its definition to and allowed its desecration by Radical Republicans, Bush II neo-conservatives and neo-fascists, and theocratic religious fanatics of all persuasions. This blog presents a conservative discussion and defense of American Patriotism within the fundamental meaning of conservatism.

An antiquated dictionary definition of a patriot is “(o)ne who loves his (sic) country and zealously supports its authority and interests.”[1] This conception with its emphasis on authority and blind loyalty made the KGB true Russian patriots and the Gestapo true German patriots. The definition is not appropriate for American patriot and the patriotism of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington and their relationships with the United Kingdom and King George’s leadership, policies, and pronouncements.

A more suitable definition of an American patriot is a “person who is devoted to and ready to support or defend his or her country.”[2] A patriot loves, serves, and will defend one’s country. The core are the conceptions of “one’s country,” “loyalty” and willingness to give or sacrifice. The loyalty is to country rather than political office holders. It is reasonably argued that patriotism compels defense of one’s country from external threats to its territory, people, and sovereignty, and internal threats to its freedoms, values, traditions, and well-being. Patriotism does not oblige blind obedience and fidelity to a particular government or elected or appointed set of official, politicians, and their pronouncements and policies. American patriotism compels a skeptical stance toward authority and promotes a generally reluctant obedience. We are a nation founded in 1776 on disobedience toward governmental authority. A patriot will have to oppose a particular government, a set of politicians controlling the government, and policies when the policies are counter to the country’s welfare and interests. A 19th. Century conception of patriotism equated it with virtue.

The conservative scholar Walter Berns[3] discusses, patriotism is a collective identity with the whole. A patriot is one who demands the rights of citizenship and fulfills its obligations. Patriotism is a mutuality conception: the patriot gives one’s life to the country but has a right to expect mutuality: the country will give its protection and provide security, a mutual support function. Patriotism requires love, loyalty, and service to one country. It does not equate country with a particular government and its officials and their policies and rhetoric or even nation-state. It involves country. Patriotism is antithetical to globalization with its globalization’s reduction of national boundaries and nation-states importance as interferences with global economic markets.

True American patriotism is the subject matter of this blog. In this vein future blogs will explore the patriotic implications of a Bush II impeachments; Bush, fascism, and the imperial presidency; enemy combatants as Presidential treason; the imperative separation of church and state (or a nation primarily populated by Christians v. a Christian nation); a nation of immigrants with a history of ethnic cleansing; ethnic nationalism and racism; globalization and patriotism, and other topical guidance for a True American Patriot.

And speaking of patriots and patriotism, I leave you with some questions to ponder: Where are the twins? What happened to the other Bush brothers? Where were Pat Buchanan, George Bush II, Dick Cheney, Newt Ginrich, Tom DeLay, Rush Limbaugh, Trent Lott, et. al. during the Viet Nam war? Does God really shoot the breeze about politics with Bush II and Tom DeLay?
[1] Webster’s seventh new collegiate dictionary. (1961). Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Co. p. 818.

[2] Hawkins, J. M., & Allen, R. (Eds.). (1991). The Oxford encyclopedic English dictionary. NY: Oxford University Press. P. 1063.
[3] Berns, W. (2001). Making patriots. Chicago: University of Chicago Press