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Dear Antiwar Progressives: We Are With You

Posted By Jeremy Sapienza On August 22, 2011 @ 2:49 pm In News | 35 Comments

Look. It’s no secret most of us at Antiwar.com are libertarians and/or anarchists (a Venn diagram of the two labels would only have a few of us outside the overlapping part…). But it’s never enough for some progressives that we are against every war, everywhere. They are affected by a Naomi Klein-like hysteria about libertarians — Milton Friedman’s followers run the world! The Koch brothers own and fund everything! — that still make them see us as an enemy. This is partly a misunderstanding of real libertarianism, a lack of knowledge of correct economics, or possibly just suspicion of our motivations.
For example, Raw Story ran a news piece ^[1] about Antiwar.com’s FBI file ^[2]. Most of the commenters are outraged, but one isn’t so bothered.
“This should surprise no one. But those crazy Libertarians will still vote Republican no matter what because they hate taxes and corporate regulations more than they hate war.”
Now, I don’t know if he means Libertarian Party member-types, or those of us here at Antiwar.com. If he means the former — and I highly doubt it, otherwise it wouldn’t have come up — he’s more or less right. If he means the latter, he’s a liar. Not merely wrong, a liar. Because aside from an obvious affinity for a certain Ron Paul, we not only don’t vote for Republicans, most of us don’t vote. Further, we specifically cite war as the VERY REASON for America’s onerous rate of taxation and regulation — you can’t finance a war without privileging certain entities and taxing the crap out of everyone else: the classic give-take of state-corporate mercantilism. So really, it is an utter lie that we “vote Republican no matter what” because we hate taxes and regulations more than war. And it’s one I have personally seen repeated over the years by our various leftist detractors who don’t realize we are on the same side.
To further illustrate, I should bring attention to a piece by the fabulous progressive David Bromwich from last week ^[3]. Everyone in Antiwar.com’s universe ran this piece, and normally we also would have. But as the on-duty editor on Friday, I decided not to. Why?
The article is entitled “George W. Obama?” and details the officials with whom Obama chose to surround himself. I have no issue at all with most of the list, including such odious punks as the career climber Bob Gates, vicious goon Rahm Emanuel, paternalist Cass Sunstein, and spineless Eric Holder; Bromwich also notes those whom Obama jettisoned apparently to burnish his centrist image. But the main one, and the first one Bromwich cites, is Larry Summers.
Summers is no libertarian, and frankly, not much of an economist. I am not offended that he is included in the list. Rather, I am offended that Bromwich is repeating the boring and hackneyed “Glass-Steagall” myth. That is, that the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented the commercial banks that hold the savings of ordinary Americans from engaging in speculative investment, was the reason for the 2008 crash. This is only true in the narrowest of senses — you have to ignore the entire body of US regulation and the actions of the various financial authorities to come to this conclusion with a straight face.
This is why I declined to run this piece. It does not go far enough by miles to explain the reason for the current economic disaster that continues to unfold. We live under a massive, overarching system built to favor gigantic connected corporations over ordinary people. This is NOT a free market, it is a heavily commanded one. It is one that purposely undermines the plans of ordinary citizens in favor of the plans of the few lucky enough to have the ear of the politburo. It’s called “fiscal policy,” and it is that for which “liberal” “economist” Paul Krugman gets paid to propagandize ^[4]. Sadly, progressives unwittingly agitate for MORE of this evil system, thinking they will ever hold the reins. They will not.
To say, as many progressives did after the crash, that “everything was deregulated” is to fall into the trap of the power elite. The world’s biggest corporations love regulation — after all, they write it, someone else enforces it, and their alleged enemies on the left cheer this system on as they are taxed to pay for it. It’s insane. And it ignores all the other crashes of the last 200 years, all due to some intervention by the ruling rich into the voluntary economic affairs of everyone else.
So, no, anti-Antiwar.com progressives, we are not Republicans. We do not favor lower taxes over ending war — ending war lowers taxes! And what good is a healthy economy anyway when your government rampages over the world creating enemies who plot to destroy your wealth?
If you oppose war and its concomitant monopolistic control over the economy by connected elites, we are with you. But if you just want a D in front of the murderer-in-chief, it’s best if you left the real opposition to violence and institutional control to those of us who actually care about human freedom.
UPDATE: I wish this had been written and sent to me before I posted this — “Quantum Tuba” writes Don’t Tax the Rich, Smash Their Privilege: A Response to Warren Buffett ^[5], on all the ways a minuscule tax hike on the elites will do NOTHING if we don’t throw off the very system that would make theatrical motions of taxing them to keep us contently within this system. So to preempt a lot of commenters who still don’t understand what I mean: read this ^[5]. Your precious state is the very entity shoring up the evil actors you hate.

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Article printed from Antiwar.com Blog: http://www.antiwar.com/blog
URL to article: http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2011/08/22/dear-antiwar-progressives-we-are-with-you/
URLs in this post:

[1] Raw Story ran a news piece: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/08/22/foia-shows-bush-admin-targeted-antiwar-com/

[2] Antiwar.com’s FBI file: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/08/21/antiwar-com-vs-the-fbi/

[3] I should bring attention to a piece by the fabulous progressive David Bromwich from last week: http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175432/

[4] gets paid to propagandize: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/08/14/can-space-aliens-save-us/

[5] Don’t Tax the Rich, Smash Their Privilege: A Response to Warren Buffett: http://dissentingleftist.blogspot.com/2011/08/dont-tax-rich-smash-their-privilege.html

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August 23, 2011

The Legacy of Slavery and Violence

Nat's Turner's Revolt, 180 Years Later

By CLARENCE LUSANE

This Sunday, Aug. 21, is the 180th anniversary of the slave rebellion led by the Rev. Nat Turner in Virginia.

Born into slavery on Oct. 2, 1800, Turner developed two characteristics that would propel him eventually to lead an insurrection: literacy skills and a religion-based fervor against slavery.

In most Southern states, it was against the law to teach slaves to read. But Turner's master's son taught him anyway, and this allowed Turner to study the Bible and bring his own interpretation of its teachings regarding bondage and liberation.

He claimed that God gave him several signs to lead an effort to overthrow slavery. Believing that he was carrying out God's word, Turner enlisted as

many slaves as possible to kill as many whites as possible, including women, children and the aged.

For several days, Turner and his band of 60 to 70 slaves went from farm to farm murdering as many whites as they could, although reportedly there were some very poor whites who were spared. Eventually, a white posse was able to suppress the rebellion.

Turner and his strategy of mass slave uprisings and the killing of whites posed such a threat to the system that he was not just hanged, but his body was skinned and hacked into pieces. To this day, it is unknown where his body parts lie.

Turner wasn't the only victim of coldblooded vengeance. Whites retaliated also by going on a slaughtering spree, killing hundreds of free blacks and slaves.

Many historians cite Turner's revolt as a turning point in the national discourse over slavery. For many anti-slavery activists in the North, the rebellion underscored the permanent instability of the slave system and its untenable nature. Southern slave owners doubled down and imposed even harsher conditions on those enslaved, more restrictions on blacks who were "free" and absolute intolerance for whites who questioned the institution.

Turner's rebellion foreshadowed the Civil War, which cost 600,000 lives, as the South fruitlessly and desperately sought to maintain the slave system.

While the situations are different today, in many parts of the world, millions of people are rising up against oppressive rule. Millions more languish under a globalized economic order. Social systems that failed to address the grievances felt by millions will inevitably confront the same forces that drove Turner to his act of desperation, frustration, and violence.

Extreme situations generate extreme outcomes. And violence never occurs outside of a historical and social context. Americans shouldn't forget our own history of revolts and uprisings in the name of justice — many of which included violence. The struggle against slavery was challenged not only by peaceful petitioners and radical writers, but also by actions that sought to respond to slavery's bloodshed by creating some of their own.

Slavery was a system that could exist only through the most brutal and ruthless violence imaginable. Nat Turner knew that well.

Clarence Lusane is program director/associate professor at the Comparative and Regional Studies Program in the School of International Service at American University. He wrote this for Progressive Media Project, a source of liberal commentary on domestic and international issues; it is affiliated with The Progressive magazine. Lusane is author of many books, including THE BLACK HISTORY OF THE WHITE HOUSE, published in the Open Media Series by City Lights Books,

www.citylights.com

Libya invasion is a Nato/Gulf Regimes operation, using dissident Libyans as "ghurkas".

http://www.countercurrents.org/martin220811.htm

Italian colonists slaughtered 1/2 of Libyan population; USNATO, aiming to beat that old record, brags of having killed or wounded 1/2 of all Libyan troops. USNATO Special Ops lead operations to recolonize Libya. Troops from "democratic" nations of Qatar, Jordan, United Arab Emirates are aiding today's Imperialist slaughter of Libyans. Teams of American Military, weapons experts, and other International forces assist "rebels" who receive training and assistance from Western former forces contractors who are planning missions and accompanying insurgents. Read All About It: NATO-Backed Forces Move Into Tripoli By Patrick Martin 22 August, 2011 “the Pentagon is now the second-largest player in the air war, racking up 16 percent of strike sorties,” with only the French conducting more attacks.” The Libyan regime of Muammar Gaddafi appeared on the brink of collapse Sunday night, as ground forces of the NATO-backed Transitional National Council entered Tripoli, the capital city, from the west, south and east. There were television reports Sunday night from neighborhoods of Tripoli where police and soldiers of the Gaddafi regime had fled and the anti-Gaddafi forces were in control. Other neighborhoods, particularly in the eastern half of the city, were said to be engulfed in heavy fighting between supporters and opponents of the regime, with hundreds dead. Many units of the Libyan military were said to have fled their positions without a fight, including, significantly, the 32nd Brigade, a supposedly elite unit under the command of the longtime Libyan ruler’s son, Khamis. An Associated Press report said the military unit charged with the defense of downtown Tripoli and Muammar Gaddafi’s personal security had surrendered. The same report said that rebel forces had reached Girgash, a neighborhood only a mile and a half from Green Square, the center of Tripoli and the symbolic heart of the regime, where Gaddafi’s supporters held rallies over the past five months in defiance of the NATO bombing campaign. TNC officials claimed to have captured two of Gaddafi’s sons, including Seif al-Islam, the most politically influential son and the main public spokesman for the regime throughout the six months of civil war. The Gaddafi regime, in power for 42 years, seemingly crumbled in the 48 hours following the fall of Zawiya, an oil-refining city 30 miles west of Tripoli. Zawiya was a battleground for nearly a week, with rebel forces moving into it from the west and south, backed by intense air bombardment by NATO warplanes. The decisive two-day battle for the central square of the city culminated in air strikes that incinerated the last stronghold of the pro-regime forces, in the upper floors of the city’s only large hotel. The fall of Zawiya cut off Tripoli’s supply lines to the west and marked the loss of the last remaining source of fuel for the government, a vital necessity for its tanks and other military vehicles. The TNC forces consolidated their hold over Zawiya on Saturday, and on the same day made breakthroughs in Zlitan, 85 miles east of Tripoli, where troops advancing from Misrata, Libya’s third-largest city, overcame heavy resistance, and in Brega, 420 miles southeast of Tripoli, where pro-Gaddafi troops were driven out of another refinery town. In each of these battles, NATO forces, in the air and on the ground, played the decisive role, and there was little or no mass involvement by the Libyan people themselves. The internal disintegration of the Gaddafi regime foreshadowed the final breakdown. Three top aides or former officials fled the country in the past week. Interior Minister Nassr al-Mabrouk Abdullah fled to Cairo with his family, former deputy prime minister Abdel Salam Jalloud fled to rebel-held territory in the western mountains, and the regime’s top oil official, Omran Abukraa, defected to Tunisia. The sudden collapse of Gaddafi’s forces seems in large measure the product of the NATO bombing campaign, which has included nearly 20,000 sorties, with more than 7,500 strikes against ground targets. Press reports suggested that the air strikes had intensified greatly in the last two weeks, and were closely coordinated with the offensive by opposition ground troops. According to a report by the Los Angeles Times, despite the claims that the United States has taken a back seat in the war in Libya, “the Pentagon is now the second-largest player in the air war, racking up 16 percent of strike sorties,” with only the French conducting more attacks. Without any public announcement, the Obama administration has authorized US forces to fill in the gaps as smaller European NATO powers like Norway have exhausted their inventories of bombs and pulled back from the war. Numerous media reports, particularly in the British press, which is anxious to highlight the contribution of British warplanes and special forces, confirm that the collapse of the Gaddafi regime is the byproduct of imperialist intervention, not popular revolt.. “The overwhelming game-changer in the war has been international support for the rebels,” the Independent wrote Saturday. The newspaper described the scene in Zintan, southwest of Tripoli, a key center of the “rebels,” where their reporter encountered “a group of Western men in unmarked combat clothing, watchful, carrying guns. They were shy to speak to me and would not say who they were. According to rebel fighters, the current success in the field has been due to the planning carried out by these ‘advisers.’” A second report in the Independent, published Sunday, declared: “The regime forces, after being pulverised for months by NATO, do not appear to have the capabilities to break through the rebels and re-establish a lifeline to the outside world.. The rebels are still pretty inept, but they are receiving training and considerable assistance from Western former forces contractors, who are now planning and accompanying their missions.” The Guardian recounted one incident from the battle in Zlitan, in which dozens of rebel troops were killed in heavy fighting, until a NATO warplane attacked and destroyed a T-72 tank that was wreaking havoc. The newspaper cited a rebel soldier who “thought the air strike had been called in by a British forward air controller who has become a familiar sight on the front lines west of Misrata in recent weeks.” Reports in the US, British and Arab press uniformly describe the final push into Tripoli as an offensive “coordinated” between the Transitional National Council and NATO, with the imperialist alliance dropping the pretense that its military operations are aimed at defending civilians from the Gaddafi regime, and effectively admitting that its goal all along has been regime change. The Associated Press wrote: “Libyan rebels said Saturday that they had launched their first attack on Tripoli in coordination with NATO and gun battles and mortar rounds rocked the city. NATO aircraft also made heavy bombing runs after nightfall, with loud explosions booming across the city.” The New York Times reported Sunday, “NATO troops continued close air support of the rebels all day, with multiple strikes by alliance aircraft helping clear the road to Tripoli from Zawiyah. Rebel leaders in the west credited NATO with thwarting an attempt on Sunday by Qaddafi loyalists to reclaim Zawiyah with a flank assault on the city.” The security analyst service Stratfor, which has close ties to the US intelligence apparatus, observed, “It is unlikely that the rebel forces advancing from Zawiya are fighting on their own. It will be important to watch for any signs of special operations forces from participating NATO countries quietly leading the offensive and preparing operations to locate and seize Gadhafi.” Stratfor described the assistance of special ops soldiers as “crucial for the rebels, especially when it comes to coordinating close-air support.” Perhaps the clearest indication of the close integration of the so-called rebels and their NATO commanders was the landing of several hundred troops from Misrata on the coast just east of Tripoli, an operation that had to be monitored by NATO naval and air forces, which control all sea access to the Libyan capital. What will replace the right-wing bourgeois Gaddafi regime is not “democracy,” but a reactionary stooge government completely dependent on the imperialist powers that waged war against Libya in order to turn the country once again into a semi-colony. The United States and the European powers cut their deals with Gaddafi over the past decade, as the longtime ruler abandoned his radical and populist pretenses and made his peace with imperialism. But there was always an underlying concern that the interests of the giant oil companies were not really secure so long as Gaddafi remained in power. After the initial revolt in Benghazi in February—where the Western intelligence agencies, particularly the French, likely played a role—the United States, France and Britain moved quickly to create an alternative regime and mobilize military forces against the existing government. While the supposed pretext for intervention was to save the Libyan people from a bloodbath at the hands of Gaddafi, far more Libyans have been killed by NATO bombing—many of them conscripts in the military, as well as hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians. According to NATO, at least one third, and as many as half, of the personnel in Libya’s armed forces have been “degraded”—military-speak for killed or severely wounded. This may represent a death toll in the tens of thousands, although both NATO and the Gaddafi regime have, for their separate reasons, refused to give any figures on Libyan military casualties. Already there are reports that post-Gaddafi Tripoli will be policed by outside forces from the imperialist powers and their closest stooges among the Arab states. Reuters reported that a “bridging force” of about 1,000 regular troops from Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan would be sent to the Libyan capital to keep order. The New York Times cited the comments of one US officer, who “said that small teams of American military and other government weapons experts could be sent into Libya after the fall of Qaddafi’s regime to help Libyan rebel and other international forces secure the weapons.” This was confirmed by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who told the military newspaper Stars & Stripes that any US personnel would consist of specialized detachments, not regular troops. “Panetta said that effort would fall to the larger diplomatic governance effort, which he sees as a function for the State Department and other NATO governments,” the newspaper said. There are ominous indications that a bloody settling of scores is in preparation in Tripoli. The Washington Post wrote Sunday that a “Tripoli brigade” of Libyan “rebels” has “trained for months with special forces from the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar.” The commander of this brigade told the newspaper of plans to arrest “over a hundred” people in Tripoli, who were described as “high-profile Gaddafi loyalists designated as criminals and potential troublemakers.” Reuters interviewed one “rebel” leader, Husam Najjair, whom it described as “more concerned about the possibility of rebels turning on each other when they try to take control of the capital Tripoli than the threat posed by forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi..” Reuters described the fighters entering Tripoli as “weighed down by factionalism and ethnic and tribal divisions. An increasing number of fighters in the Western Mountains, for instance, are growing long, thick beards, the trademark of Islamists who are likely to reject close ties with the West in a new Libya…” Libya has only 60 years of existence as a nation-state since it was created after World War II out of three provinces, ruled for centuries by the Ottoman Empire, then brutally oppressed for three decades by Italian colonialism, which slaughtered half the Libyan population. The US-backed monarchy was overthrown in 1969 by radical Arab nationalist officers, headed by Gaddafi. For the next four decades, he maintained his control over Libya by balancing atop an array of ethnic, tribal and religious groups, using the country’s oil wealth to buy off rivals and appease social grievances. The imperialist-sponsored destruction of the Gaddafi regime sets the stage for an explosion of these underlying antagonisms, with horrific consequences for the people of Libya. It also threatens the transformation of Libyan territory into a base and launching pad for imperialist attacks on the popular movements in Tunisia, Egypt and throughout North Africa and the Middle East. http://www.countercurrents.org/martin220811.htm

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WASHINGTON POST NOW DOUBTS CLAIMS OF REBEL CONTROL OF TRIPOLI

From: Don DeBar [mailto:dondebar@optonline.net]
Sent: Tuesday, 23 August 2011 12:47
To: WBAIX@yahoo.com
Subject: WASHINGTON POST NOW DOUBTS CLAIMS OF REBEL CONTROL OF TRIPOLI

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/world-leaders-call-on-gaddafi-to-surrender-libyan-rebels-secure-most-of-tripoli/2011/08/22/gIQAN4wyVJ_story.html?hpid=z1

Forces loyal to the fugitive Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi struck back Monday against the rebel fighters who had swept euphorically into the capital the night before, forcing them to retreat from several strategic locations and tempering hopes that the battle for Tripoli was all but over. The dramatic appearance Monday night of Gaddafi’s son Saif al-Islam at the Rixos hotel, where the Tripoli-based press corps remains trapped, contradicted the rebels’ assertion the day before that they had captured him and cast into doubt their claim of controlling 80 percent of the capital.

More at http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle-east/world-leaders-call-on-gaddafi-to-surrender-libyan-rebels-secure-most-of-tripoli/2011/08/22/gIQAN4wyVJ_story.html?hpid=z1

Don DeBar
87 Ferris Pl
Ossining, NY 10562
914 374-2475
wlmailhtml:/mc/compose?to=dondebar@optonline..net
www.WBAIX.org

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26132

Mixed bag of fascinating videos. I couldn’t make out what Meyssan was saying, his accent, the sound quality and maybe my fading capacity to make sense out of anything but the clearest audio speech. Some of the videos are pretty good, others are the standard MSM line.

I’ve deleted the email address of the person who sent me this, maybe I should attribute it, credit them, but I don’t want to be careless with anybody’s identity/information. ??

I’ll post this now on kwibono.blogspot.com in case anybody wants to comment.

VIDEO: CIA, MI6 "Journos" in Tripoli Rixos Hotel Media Centre by Thierry Meyssan http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26132 ********************************************************************** ***************************************************

 

Gaddafi son Seif alive, well, and free in Tripoli/Tarabulus

Just turned on CNN, the John King show, that large woman, Candy sthg? anchoring, had reporter by phone from Tripoli, who said he’d spoken to Seif al Islam a little earlier. Seif was riding in a white armored Land Rover, part of a convoy of military vehicles, stopped at the hotel where this reporter was outside. On being told that Gaddafi fils was in the Landrover, stopped nearby, the reporter approached the car, knocked on the window, ID’d himself and asked if Seif was inside if he’d roll down the window so reporter could verify.

So the window was rolled down, Seif in good mood, said Our plan is working, we’ve sucked them in and are now about to break the back of the rebellion, took time so CNN camera could tape a couple of shots, then rolled up window and took off with convoy.

Reporter said there was a large Tebel presence in Tripoli, but no sign of them where he was.

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new article by Jas Petras

European and US Working Class Politics: Right, Left and Neutered

James Petras

August 2011

The deepening economic crises in Europe and the United States are provoking contrasting socio-political responses from the working and middle classes. In Europe, especially among the Mediterranean countries (Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy) unemployed youth, workers and lower middle class public employees have organized a series of general strikes, occupations of public plazas and other forms of direct action. At the same time, the middle class, private-sector employees and small business people have turned to the “hard right” and elected, or are on the verge of electing, reactionary prime ministers in Portugal, Spain, Greece and perhaps even in Italy. In other words, the deepening crises has polarized Southern Europe: strengthening the institutional power of the hard right while increasing the strength of the extra-parliamentary left in mobilizing ‘street power’.

In contrast, in Northern and Central Europe the hard right and neo-fascist movements have made significant inroads among workers and the lower middle class at the expense of the traditional center-left and center-right parties^[1]. The relative stability, affluence and stable employment of the Nordic working class has been accompanied by increasing support for racist, anti-immigrant, Islamophobic parties.^[2]

In the case of the United States, with a few notable exceptions, the working class has remained a passive spectator in the face of the right turn of the Democratic Party and the hard right’s capture of the Republican Party. There are no left wing street politics in the US, unlike Southern Europe, and only a passive rejection and repudiation of the hard right policies of Congress and the White House.

Rather than solidarity, the economic crisis highlights working class fragmentation, disunity and internal polarization.

The Right/Left Polarizations

One of the key reasons for the growth of right wing appeals to Northern European workers is the demise of working class-based ideology, parties and leaders. The Labor and Social Democratic Parties have initiated and administered neoliberal programs while promoting multi-national corporation-led export strategies. They have embraced regressive tax ‘breaks’ for big business; they have participated in imperialist wars of aggression (Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya); they have embraced the so-called “war on terror” mostly against Moslem countries while tolerating the growth of the neo-fascist, far-right Islamophobes who practice “direct action” to expel immigrants in Europe. The European governing parties of the center-left (social democratic and labor) and the center-right(Sarkozy, Cameron and Merkle) have been outspoken in their assault on “multiculturalism” code-word for Moslim immigrant rights. Their tolerance and exploitation of Islamophobia serves as a cheap vote getter among their xenophobic electorate and as a justification for their involvement in US-Israeli wars of aggression in the Middle East and South Asia. As a result the “mainstream” regimes have weakened working class solidarity with immigrant workers and undermined any concerted effort by the state and civil society to actively counteract the neo-fascist racists who ply a more virulent version of Islamophobia embracing the Zionist ideologues’ vision of ethnic cleansing.

The trade unions have lost membership due especially to the growth of ‘contingent or temporary workers’ who are especially susceptible to far-right appeals. Equally important, trade unions no longer engage in political education aimed at strengthening class solidarity among all workers. While in Northern Europe wages may increase, the trade unions’ collaboration with the corporate elite has left workers vulnerable to anti-immigrant and Islamophobic propaganda. In this context a perverse “class struggle” pits the unorganized workers against those “below”, the immigrants. The neo-fascists gain by promoting and exploiting cultural and chauvinist beliefs which trade unions and social democratic parties no longer actively combat through worker education and class struggle. In other words, the neo-liberal practice and ideology of the “center-left” parties and unions undermine class political identities and open the door for right wing penetration and influence. This is especially evident when center-left and trade union leaders no longer bother to consult or debate policies with their members: They impose policies from above, providing the ‘far right’ with a formidable weapon to attack the ‘elitist nature’ of the center-left political system.

In contrast, in Southern Europe the profound economic crisis, due in large part to the harsh conditions imposed by Northern and Western European bankers and their local center-left and right-wing politicians, has strengthened and sharpened class consciousness and politics. Right-wing appeals to anti-immigrant and anti-Moslem politics has little resonance among Southern European workers in the face of skyrocketing unemployment and brutal wage and pension cuts.

Northern European workers have allied with the right, and their own politicians and bankers, in demanding the imposition of greater austerity measures against Southern European countries, buying into the racist ideology that Mediterranean workers are lazy, irresponsible and on permanent vacation. In fact, Greek, Portuguese and Spanish workers work a more days per year, enjoy less vacation time and much less secure pensions. The same racist sentiments pitting Northern workers against immigrants also promote chauvinist stereotypes against militant Southern European workers and fuel right-wing sympathies.

Creditor Northern European bankers and political leaders squeeze their own working and middle class taxpayers in order to bail-out their counterparts among the Southern European debtor elites, who, in turn, agree to squeeze their workers and public employees to meet the debt payment demands of the North. The Northern workers in the imperial countries have been convinced that their living standards are threatened by the irresponsible and indebted South, and not by the speculative activity and irresponsible lending of their own bankers. In the South, the workers have to shoulder the double exploitation of the Northern European creditors as well as their own local elites; hence they have greater class awareness of the injustice of the imperial and local capitalist system.

To the degree that Northern workers make common cause with their own creditor ruling class and shift their resentments toward workers abroad and immigrants below, they become vulnerable to right wing appeals. They openly express resentment against striking Greek, Spanish or Portuguese workers’, whose militant struggles might disrupt their planned vacations to the Mediterranean islands and seashore resorts. The ideological battle which should pit the workers of Northern Europe against their own state creditors and speculator financial elite is transformed into hostility toward Southern European workers and immigrants. Overseas bailouts, imperial wars and cuts in social programs lead to greater competition over shrinking social expenditures and conflict between employed and unemployed, ‘native’ and ‘immigrant’ workers’.

International workers’ solidarity has been severely weakened and replaced, in some cases, by the proliferation of international far-right networks propagating virulent anti- immigrant (and anti-socialist) propaganda and, as in the case of the massacre of almost 70 left-wing youth, mostly teenage, activists of the Norwegian Labor Party, poses a direct murderous threat to progressive supporters of immigrant rights. The extreme-right began its assault on immigrants and Moslems and has now moved against the local left and progressive movements which support them. This has taken on an even more complex dimension with the marriage of rabid pro-Israel, Zionist ideologues (mostly based in the US) and the neo-fascist Islamophobes attacking supporters of Palestinian rights, an issue repeatedly stressed by the Norwegian fascist mass murderer, Anders Behring Breivik. The problem is that the ‘respectable’ liberal, social democratic and conservative parties, in their electioneering, have pandered to the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim appeals of the far-right in order to attract workers rather than embarking on far-reaching class reforms which would lessen inequalities, financing them via increases in progressive taxes and greater public investments to unify all workers (local and immigrant) against capital.

Lacking working class solidarity, the sons and daughters of immigrants, especially the disproportionately unemployed young workers, engage in forms of direct action such as the pillage of local business, confrontations with the police and general mayhem, as was evident in the nationwide riots in England in the “hot August” of 2011. The demise of working class politics thus has produced violent right-wing extremism, racial-immigrant riots and pillage. The labor elite are spectators, confined to condemning extremism and violence, calling for investigations, but without any semblance of self-criticism or any programs for changing the socio-economic structures that produce the right turn and violence among workers and the unemployed.

The United States: The Rise of the Right

Unlike Europe, the extreme right is at home within the US established order. Brutal anti-immigration policies have led to the expulsion of nearly 1 million undocumented workers or family members in the first three years of the Obama regime (a three-fold increase over the George W. Bush years). The Tea Party has elected Congress members in the Republican Party who promote massive cuts in the social safety net with the collaboration of the White House. The mass media, Congress, the White House, mass- based Christian fundamentalist politicians and leading Zionist personalities and organizations actively promote Islamophobia and lead virulent campaigns against Moslems by fanning public insecurity. The US ‘establishment’ has pre-empted the racist agenda of the far-right in Europe. The far-right has turned its guns directly on the social programs of the poor, the working class and public employees (especially school teachers).

Moreover, their assault on debt financing and public expenditures has led to conflicts with sectors of the capitalist class, who are dependent on the State. In the course of the recent Congressional ‘debate’ over raising the debt ceiling, Wall Street joined in a selective struggle against the far-right: calling for “compromise” involving social cuts and tax reforms while supporting their anti-public union offensive.

Unlike in Europe, the mass of the US working class and poor are passive. They have been neutered: neither engaging in the street riots of England, nor taking the sharp right turn of their Northern European counterparts, nor participating in militant workers’ strikes of Southern Europe. The US trade unions, with the exception of the public employees union in Wisconsin, have been totally absent from any of the big confrontations. The American trade union bosses concentrate on lobbying the corporate Democratic Party and are incapable of mobilizing their shrinking membership.

The Tea Party, unlike its Northern European counterparts, does not attract many workers because of their virulent attacks on popular public programs, like Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment insurance and especially Social Security – all of programs most likely to benefit American workers and their families. On the other hand, the economic crisis in the US has not led to Mediterranean-style mass action because American trade unions either don’t exist (93% of the private sector is not unionized) or are compromised to the point of paralysis.

So far the US working class is a spectator to the rise of the extreme right, because its organized leaders have tied their fortunes to the Democratic Party, which, in turn, has adopted significant parts of the far right’s agenda.

Conclusion

The US, in contrast to Europe, is experiencing a peaceful transition from neo-liberalism to far-right politics, where the working and middle class are passive victims rather than active combatants for either the left or the right. In Europe, the current crisis reveals a deep polarization between the radical left turn of workers in the South and the growing shift to the far right among workers in Northern Europe. The ideal of international worker solidarity is being replaced, at best, by regional solidarity among the workers of Southern Europe and, at worst, by a network of rightist parties in the Northern European countries. With the decline of international solidarity, chauvinist and racist tendencies are rampant in the North, while in the South workers’ movements are joining with a broad range of social movements, including the unemployed, students, small business people and pensioners.

While the electoral right is capitalizing on the disenchantment with the center-left in Southern Europe, they still face formidable resistance from the extra-parliamentary workers and social movements. In contrast, in Northern Europe and the US, the far-right faces no such conscious opposition - in the streets or in the workplace. In these regions only the breakdown of the economic system or a prolonged severe economic recession combined with devastating cuts of basic social programs and protections may set in motion a revival of working class movements and hopefully, it will be from the class-conscious left and not from the far right.

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^[1] According to a study of workers support for far right wing parties in Western Europe, “workers have become their core clientele”. See Daniel Oesch “Explaining Workers’ Support for Right-wing Populist Parties in Western Europe: Evidence from Austria, Belgium, France, Norway, and Switzerland” International Political Science Review 2008: 29; pp. 350 -373.

^[2] While some of the motivations of the workers vary, the far-right wing parties are the beneficiaries.

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