The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world.
-- Mel Gibson
By John F. Miglio
The old French expression, pas d'ennemi a gauche (no enemy on the left), has a lot of wisdom in it. Basically, it means you have nothing to fear from individuals or governments more liberal or progressive than you are. Your real enemies, those who want to conquer or subjugate you, always come from the right of the political spectrum, especially the far right.
Two classic examples of 20th century countries that started out as democracies (albeit weak democracies) and ended up as far right dictatorships are pre-World War II Germany and Italy. During this time period, Hitler and Mussolini seized control of their respective countries and turned them into fascist states, i.e., states with governments marked by, among other things: a heightened sense of nationalism, repression of civil liberties, widespread propaganda, intolerance of minorities, and economic alignment with large corporations.
For Hitler and Mussolini, it was absolutely critical for them to align themselves with large corporations in order to bankroll their fascist states and sustain their power as they systematically destroyed democracy. To underscore this point, Mussolini once remarked, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
The linkage of corporate power (big business) to government was also evident in almost all the half-pint dictatorships that emerged after World War II in Central America, Africa, the Middle East, etc. Like Germany and Italy, many of these countries with dictators started out as fledgling democracies only to be undermined by the big business interests of their own countries working in conjunction with American corporations and our CIA.
Currently, one fact that the mainstream media rarely mention in their reportage and analysis of terrorism is that our CIA helped both Saddam Hussein and the Shah of Iran to topple the democratically elected leaders of their respective countries. As a result, both Iraq and Iran became repressive regimes that tortured and killed their own people while working out sweetheart deals with American oil companies and enriching themselves and their families in the process. The same can be said for Saudi Arabia, whose royal family (as well as Saleem bin Laden) bankrolled the Bush family and his pals on more than one occasion.
Now, boys and girls, do you think this type of behavior had anything to do with laying a foundation for hatred of America and future acts of terrorism against it?
Historically, it never works out when a democracy is taken over by the far right wing-- even if the ruler of the country bends over for American interests and becomes "our son-of-b*tch," to use Big Al Haig's term-- because the people of the country will always suffer, and it eventually leads to revolution and/or terrorism. Nevertheless, this is the policy the United States has pursued since World War II.
But what about the far left wing? Again, using the aforementioned documents conceived by our Founding fathers as a base line for a liberal democracy, a far left-wing government is one in which the individual rights and liberties of its citizens are scrupulously upheld and protected by fairly elected public officials who carry out the wishes of the people.
I know this may come as a big shock to the brain-dead fans of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh, but our Founding Fathers were on the far left of the political spectrum. In fact, those revered icons from days of yore-- Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Thomas Paine, etc.-- were left-wing rebels who started a revolution in response to the anti-democratic policies of King George III of England, a right-wing tyrant who, ironically, was of German ancestry and went a little batty later in life
Wait! You say. It's inaccurate to claim that tyrants or fascists only come from the right wing of the political spectrum. What about the left-wing commie bastards, like old Joe Stalin or Chairman Mao? Weren't they left wing? And isn't communism even more left wing than democracy? Perhaps, depending on how you define it, but Stalin and Mao were not left wing.
They may have started out as left wing, but they certainly didn't end up that way. If they had, they would have never become ruthless dictators, since it is the goal of ideologically pure communists to share the wealth and power of the country with the workers, who are in charge of the means of production.
In reality, Stalin and Mao were just the opposite. They abandoned their left-wing communist ideologies, devolved into right-wing tyrants, and transformed their governments into brutal totalitarian states that shared many of the same characteristics as fascist regimes.
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