'Cleansing' Wall St. of
Occupy: When privacy is history, protesting
is criminalized, and well-connected
multinational firms effectively
own your elected
representatives, what do you call it? ... Fascism.
The 'Nazi Stench' and U.S. 'Fascism' (La Jornada, Mexico)
"The stench that emanated in the wake of 9/11, and the series of martial regulations and war powers granted to the Executive under laws based on anticipatory self defense, are reminiscent of the 1933 fire at the German Parliament set by the Nazis for the purpose of seizing power. ... It is in this context
that one grasps the significance of President Eisenhower's warning about the
threat to freedom and constitutional rights posed by the military-industrial
complex. ... In the words of Chris
Hedges, the U.S. has entered a post-constitutional era."
The other 9-11: On September 11, 1973, the democratically-elected president of Chile, Salvadore Allende, was toppled in a CIA-backed coup led by right-wing General Augusto Pinochet. His is just one example of why much of the world views Washington's rhetoric about freedom and democracy with such skepticism.
Any
pretense of benevolence promoted via propaganda about the exercise of U.S. power
has collapsed since the war of aggression launched over Iraqi oil in 2003 and a
regime was installed there under U.S. leadership. This realization was driven home by
the indelible images of torture in Abu Ghraib prison and
the bombing of people in Baghdad. The stench that emanated in the wake of 9/11,
and the series of martial regulations and war powers granted to the Executive under
laws based on anticipatory self defense, are reminiscent of the 1933 fire at the
German Parliament set by the Nazis for the purpose of seizing power, as written about by Golo
Mann. After the Second World War and in parallel
with military setbacks in Korea and Vietnam, as has been highlighted by Gabriel and Joyce Kolko, U.S. influence has become greatly constrained. In
particular since the 1970s, this has been due to persistent multi-polarization in the
industrial and high tech fields, and the significant loss of corporate control
over global hydrocarbon reserves, which became public property [were
nationalized].
The
first to smell the stench were the Iranian people in 1953, when they confronted
a coup d’état articulated by the CIA and MI6 against President Mohammad Mosaddegh
for nationalizing Iran's oil. The corrupt regime of the Shah that followed
sowed terror, while the crude oil that flowed enriched the West. In Guatemala, JacoboÁrbenz was overthrown for interfering with the United
Fruit Company’s interests in that country. Thanks to the vast natural resources
that make Latin America a strategic reserve, that coup was followed by a string
of military interventions, bloodshed, and episodes of state terror, from the
overthrow of JoãoGoulart in Brazil
(1964), to Manuel Zelaya in Honduras (2009) and Fernando Lugo in Paraguay
(2012), through to Salvador
Allende in Chile (1973).
Not
long ago, just over 350 official
documents on U.S. operations in Chile from 1969 to 1973 were added to a
vast archive on covert political-electoral actions regarding economic and financial
sabotage practiced by the IMF, the World Bank, and the Inter-American Development
Bank. These included assassinations and destabilization typically deployed on
behalf of U.S. companies against undesirable governments, like that of Salvador Allende in
Chile, for nationalizing copper in his country, or what we're seeing today
in Venezuela toward the Chávez/Maduro government for
nationalizing oil revenue.
The
documents include subsequent reports about Allende’s
electoral victory, which consist of Nixon asking Kissinger to "make the
Chilean economy scream," in order to prevent Allende
from gaining power, and to "kick Chile in the ass" for having
nationalized copper, and which detail plans for a coup d’état on September 11,
1973, which was followed by a Hitler-like bloodbath led by Augusto Pinochet.
The
greatest contribution of these documents, according to the director of the Chile Project at
the National Security Archive, where the collection of documents is
available to the public, is that it enables anyone to follow the development of
these events in Washington. In one notable document, Kissinger asks then-CIA
director Richard Helms for a plan, as detailed as possible, to include orders to
be issued on September 5th, i.e.: “to whom” and “in what manner.” Such is the
detail these documents make available about the modus operandi of the coup and its
aftermath.
With
the promotion of ties between the Pentagon and local militaries in the form of
training programs, visits, scholarships and weapons sales, the balance between civilian
and military gets thrown out of kilter. Not only outside the U.S., but inside
as well, especially after 9/11, when the U.S. instituted a state of emergency
and launched at home and abroad irregular types of warfare, including several
campaigns against terrorism, drug trafficking, and organized crime. It is in
this context that one grasps the significance of President Eisenhower's warning
about the threat to freedom and constitutional rights posed by the military-industrial
complex, which have been collected, analyzed, and theorized by C. Wright Mills
in his masterful The Power Elite, in
which he lays out the ascension of the military into the upper echelons of
politics and the corporate sphere.
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
This
is a serious matter now that the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a decision
on a lawsuit
led by Chris Hedges (truth-out.org), who was joined by Noam Chomsky and
Daniel Ellsberg, among others, against a subsection of the National Defense
Authorization Act for Fiscal year 2012, which allows the military to capture
and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens without due process of law. With this refusal,
Hedges says the law remains in force.
"It
means the nation has entered a post-constitutional era. It means that
extraordinary rendition of U.S. citizens on U.S. soil by our government is
legal. It means that the courts, like the legislative and executive branches of
government, exclusively serve corporate power—one of the core definitions of
fascism."
The
Nazi stench comes from a variety of sources, but not the Kremlin.
*John Saxe- Fernández is a Mexican citizen born in Costa Rica. He is a
doctor in Latin American Studies at the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters at
the Universidad NacionalAutónoma
de México (UNAM). The first prize winner of
journalism in 2008; national investigator level III; coordinator of the 'El Mundo en el Siglo XXI' program of
the Centro de InvestigacionesInterdisciplinarias
en Ciencias y Humanidades (CEIICH) of the UNAM.
