Spyhopping the Right.



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David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. He is the author of Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community (Palgrave/St. Martin's Press, June 2005), as well as Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America, (Palgrave/St. Martin's, 2004), and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest (1999, WSU Press). His reportage for MSNBC.com on domestic terrorism won the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000. He can be contacted at dneiwert@hotmail.com.



Liberal Fascism: Two responses:
A: Review and Debate
B: "If conservatives really, really hate being called fascists ..." Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6

Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.

Sara's recent series:

Kauffman's Rules: Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4

Cracks in the Wall: Parts I, II, and III.

Tunnels and Bridges: Parts I, II, III, and IV, plus a Short Detour.

Dave's recent series:

"Eliminationism in America": Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X, and Appendix.
The March of the Minutemen
Intro: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Unhinged: Unhonest
Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
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Other books by Dave [limited availability]:





"The Rise of Pseudo Fascism": An essay
Available in Adobe PDF format here



Original posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

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Choice essays:
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"The Political and the Personal"

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"Bush, the Nazis and America":
Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

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Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis
[PDF file]
[In HTML: Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X,, XI, XII, XIII, XIV and XV. See explanatory note.]

[Also available in HTML, and with art, at Cursor.]



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Orcinus Principium No. 1
Orcinus Principium No. 2

Why Orcinus?

The hate also rises
Tuesday, October 07, 2008  
-- by Dave

It sure does appear that Sarah Palin's career as a right-wing populist is following the traditional career arc of such figures. Already, we're seeing the dog-whistle race-baiting -- attacking Obama as a treasonous friend of terrorists -- in her speeches produce their predictable effects:



Hard to say whether the "him" was Ayers or Obama, but the difference is only one of degree.

And then there's Dana Milbank's report today:



If John McCain and Co. really think that this is going to help them get elected, we have a very ugly October ahead. Helmets, everyone.
9:03 AM Spotlight



Palling with extremists, indeed
Monday, October 06, 2008  




-- by Dave

So Sarah Palin wants to call out Barack Obama for supposedly playing footsie with a former Weather Underground leader named William Ayers. OK, fair enough -- other than the fact that nothing Obama did either empowered or enabled Ayers in his extremism.

But what about Sarah's own dalliances with extremists?

Notably, she nominated one of her local militiamen/John Birch Society types in Wasilla to serve on the city's planning board. This is a big deal to "Patriot" folks, who consider local planning and zoning ordinances to be among the chief signs of creeping socialism, and fight them tooth and nail. Had the Wasilla Council not balked at her nomination, the man no doubt would have wreaked havoc with the city's planning laws and their enforcement.

She also fired the city's museum director at the behest of this character.

And then there were Palin's notable and extended dalliances with the radical secessionist Alaskan Independence Party. In 1992, its members largely supported former militiaman James "Bo" Gritz for president. It has over the years been associated with promoting paranoid "New World Order" conspiracy theories.

And just this year, Palin sent a video address to the AIP at its convention, telling them to "keep up the good work," even though she is ostensibly a Republican. Why do that?

Well, in the video, she tells the AIP that “Your party plays an important role in our state’s politics ... I’ve always thought competition is so good, and that applies to political parties as well.

Notably, however, she did not record a similar message for the state’s Democrats at their convention.

That glass house she's standing in is not the ideal site for throwing rocks at Barack Obama.
8:26 AM Spotlight



Lou Dobbs: It's just immigration he hates
Saturday, October 04, 2008  


-- by Dave

Kyledeb at Citizen Orange points out this excellent video from Truth in Immigration that explains in excruciating detail what a complete phony Lou Dobbs is when he claims that he's a big fan of legal immigration:


The piece goes on to explain that the program Dobbs attacked here was a broadly acclaimed effort aimed at previously approved legal immigration and untangling the mess created by the current system -- in other words, a means of achieving exactly the end Dobbs claims he wants.

But then, as I've observed previously:


As I say, Lou Dobbs is a world-class phony. And it's good to see him get called out for it.
7:34 PM Spotlight



Sarah's scary answer to that question
Friday, October 03, 2008  
-- by Dave

I was pleasantly surprised last night that Sarah Palin was asked the question I wanted her to be asked during her debate with Joe Biden:



But Palin's response was downright chilling:



In other words, she announced that she not only intends to keep all those expanded powers that Dick Cheney extraconstitutionally granted himself, she intends to find ways to expand them further.

I'm sure it will all be done in the interests of the American people, though.
6:00 PM Spotlight



Sarah Palin, Right-Wing Populist
 




-- by Dave

One important factor that emerged from last night's vice-presidential debate between Sarah Palin and Joe Biden was the way Palin clearly cast herself -- and by inference, the McCain/Palin ticket -- as essentially populist in their appeal. But it's specifically a right-wing kind of populism.

This wasn't terribly surprising to me. I spent the earlier part of this week in the Wasilla area, and I frequently heard from people on all sides of Alaska's various political aisles that Palin, above all, is in fact a populist. I heard this from a former Republican legislator I met at a roadside stop and from a progressive Alaskan activist -- as well as from various locals I met about town. Even among the less articulate bar patrons, the refrain was consistent: "She's for the people, that's what she's about."

At the same time, it was indisputable that she has always practiced a specifically right-wing kind of populism: socially and fiscally conservative, business-friendly, and hostile to progressive causes.

Now, one of the many conceits of Jonah Goldberg's incoherent screed, Liberal Fascism, was that populism by nature was an inherently a left-wing phenomenon. As I explained at the time, populism in fact historically has seen both left- and right-wing permutations in America. Some of the more notable cases of right-wing populism range from Bacon's Rebellion to the Ku Klux Klan to the modern-day Posse Comitatus and militia/Patriot movements.

Not that Palin's populism is necessarily swimming in those same cesspools, but it is clearly the same kind of creature. It's still in the early phases of its popularity, so it's hard to tell what kind of shape it will mature into; but given the traditional, ah, flexibility with which right-wing populists apply the term "the people" (especially when it comes to economic classes), just about anything is possible.

Here, from last night's debate, are her various attempts to cast herself and McCain as essentially populist (the main giveaway being her references to "the people"):



Of course, Barack Obama's campaign indulges a certain amount of left-wing populism as well, but it's largely framed within a traditionalist context. However, the clear reshaping of the Republican Party under the McCain/Palin ticket as essentially a right-wing populist entity is well worth noting.

And if I had to guess -- especially judging by the way right-wingers are swooning over her winking at them -- Sarah Palin's career as a populist is just getting started, even if she and McCain lose in November. Considering that one of the chief reasons right-wing populism in America has not succeeded in recent decades is that it has lacked a charismatic figurehead, well, she certainly bears close watching.

[Thanks to Blue Texan for the image idea.]
3:50 PM Spotlight



My question for Sarah
Thursday, October 02, 2008  

-- by Dave

OK, I know everyone has a question they'd like to see Sarah Palin asked in tonight's debate. Some of them are very good questions indeed.

Here's mine:


Follow-up question:

Inquiring minds and all that.
1:22 PM Spotlight



Dispatch From Wasilla, Video Edition
 




-- by Dave

I tried getting some interviews while I was in Wasilla this week on my new Flip phone, but unfortunately my batteries kept dying on me in mid-interview (I've since figured out what I was doing wrong). These are videos I took at the Mug Shot Saloon on the main highway through town, where there's a big banner outside hailing Sarah Palin.

Nearly everyone inside was wearing Palin buttons and T-shirts. There was also a big cardboard cutout of Palin.

On Tuesday night, a crew from The Daily Show (though not Jon Stewart himself; I was mistaken about that) showed up and filmed interviews with Mug Shot patrons. As you can see, I talked to a couple they didn't interview.

The most striking interview was with the woman who made the Sarah Palin doll. Unfortunately, the camera's battery died just as she began to tell me why she made the doll.

What she said was this: That she had provided day care for Palin's children, in particular the second-youngest, Piper -- who had signed the doll along with Palin herself (she showed me the signatures on the doll's tummy).

She said that Piper always wanted to know: "Where's my mommy?" So she made a doll that looked like mommy to make her happy.

I swear to God I am not making this up.
10:01 AM Spotlight



Now the GOP looks like the PRI
Friday, September 26, 2008  
-- by Dave

My friend Dan Junas, who travels in Mexico quite a bit, sends me this:


8:35 AM Spotlight



For some reason ....
 




... This picture makes me think of John McCain.

-- Dave
7:38 AM Spotlight



Pastor Muthee: A witchhunter, all right
Thursday, September 25, 2008  
-- by Dave

Bill Donohue of the Catholic League seems to think that Pastor Thomas Muthee, the self-proclaimed witchhunter who prayed over Sarah Palin in that video -- and who Palin credits with her electoral success -- is simply an exotic African kind of Christian evangelist doing God's work in his own peculiarly cultural way:



That would be all well and good if the "witchcraft" that Pastor Muthee became famous for pursuing were truly some kind of Dark Art from the Dark Continent, bent on the persecution of Christians (though it would be good of him to present some actual examples of said "witches" too).

But Muthee's pursuit of "witchcraft" had a more familial resemblance to Salem. From the Times of London:



So when Pastor Muthee prays for Sarah Palin's protection from "the power of witchcraft," it is with a, shall we say, expansive view of what constitutes "witchcraft." And when he demands we "crush the python spirit" and "step on its neck," you have to wonder whose necks they're talking about. Democrats? Lyda Green? Anyone who opposes Sarah Palin and her "infiltration" of the "political realm"?

And when Bill Donohue defends a "witchhunt" of the kind Muthee purused in Kenya ... well, it's not very persuasive. After all, this is the same guy who insisted that Mel Gibson wasn't really anti-Semitic.
3:15 PM Spotlight



Praying over Sarah Palin: 'The spirit of witchcraft'
 


-- by Dave

Max Blumenthal has been busy in Alaska:

The video of Pastor Muthee has to be seen to be believed. Especially as he prays over Palin.

10:14 AM Spotlight