Kennedy: Facist America

Kennedy: Fascist America
by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7804.htm

01/23/05 -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. wants to run for Attorney General of New York State.

He might announce his candidacy within the next two weeks.

He's the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the former Attorney General under his brother, John F. Kennedy.

In 2001, President Bush named the Justice Department building after RFK.

The young Kennedy attended the ceremony.

We asked him what he thought of President Bush naming the building after his dad.

He said he wouldn't comment on the record.

But he did call President Bush "the most corrupt and immoral President that we have had in American history."

Not that he was enamored with Senator John Kerry.

Early in the campaign, Kennedy endorsed Senator John Kerry for President, but last month he expressed disappointment in Kerry's campaign and in the Democratic Party.

"The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt," Kennedy. "They are accepting money from the same corporations. And of course, that is going to corrupt you."

He has spent the last 18 years as a sort of private attorney general -- suing polluters to clean up the Hudson River.

Kennedy says that in the late 1960s, the Hudson River was "a national joke."

"It was dead water for 20-mile stretches north of New York City and south of Albany. It caught fire. It changed colors," he said. "Today, it is the richest water body in the North Atlantic. It produces more pounds of fish per acre and more biomass per gallon than any other waterway in the Atlantic north of the equator. It is the last major river system left in the North Atlantic, on both sides, that still has strong spawning stocks of all of its historical species of migratory fish."

He is seeking to close down the Indian Point nuclear power plant 22 miles north of New York City.

"After Chernobyl, 1,000 miles around the plant were uninhabitable. One hundred miles around the plant are permanently uninhabitable," he said. "One hundred miles around Indian Point would be all of New York City. So, imagine a world without New York City. Well, the terrorists already have. According to the 9/11 Commission, Mohammed Atta cased Indian Point before deciding to bomb the World Trade Center. But he believed, erroneously as it turned out, that the plant must be so heavily guarded, that it would be impossible to crash an airliner into it."

Kennedy charges that his appearance on MSNBC's Charles Grodin show in November 1996 got Grodin fired.

Kennedy was invited on the show to talk about his book and group by the same name -- Riverkeepers.

On the show, Kennedy ripped into GE, an owner of the network, for polluting the Hudson with PCBs.

On the show, Kennedy claimed that "every woman between Oswego and Albany has elevated levels of PCBs in her milk because of GE."

Grodin was soon thereafter fired.

Kennedy wrote a book last year that he hoped would change the direction of the country.

It didn't.

But it's a great book, nonetheless.

It's called Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and his Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy (HarperCollins, 2004).

For the past couple of years, he's been giving 40 or so speeches a year, mostly in the red zone, mostly to conservative groups.

He speaks about the corporate attack on the country.

"There is no difference between the reaction I get from Republicans and Democrats, because Americans share the same values," Kennedy told us. "If you talk about these issues in terms of our national values, everybody understands it."

In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.

"While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as 'a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.' Sound familiar?"

He quote...ler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring: "It is always simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly grasped the lesson."

Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that "fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White House to talk about the threat of big government. But since the beginning of our national history, our most visionary political leaders have warned the American public against the domination of government by corporate power. That warning is missing in the national debate right now. Because so much corporate money is going into politics, the Democratic Party itself has dropped the ball. They just quash discussion about the corrosive impact of excessive corporate power on American democracy."

Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime Reporter, http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational Monitor, http://www.multinationalmonitor.org. They are co-authors of the forthcoming On the Rampage: Corporate Predators and the Destruction of Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press; http://www.corporatepredators.org).

© 2004 Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
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Zbigniew Brzezinski: Bush Inauguration Speech: A "Vacuous Sermon," A "Global Crusade" Against "Defenseless States"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7797.htm

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Howard Zinn: Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home: We must withdraw our military from Iraq, the sooner the better. The reason is simple: Our presence there is a disaster for the American people and an even bigger disaster for the Iraqi people.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7795.htm

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Seven, die in blasts, shooting:

Three teachers from an oil technical college and a mother and daughter were killed in a pair of roadside bombings around the refinery town of Baiji north of Baghdad, police said Sunday, while an Iraq soldier was also killed in an ambush east of Tikrit.
http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/179199

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US soldier killed in Mosul:

Twenty US soldiers have died in Mosul since 21 December when a bomber blew himself up in an army mess hall, killing 22 people, including 14 US troops.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/59706E87-1D69-4E3F-931C-AFFFFF576CD5.htm

http://snipurl.com/c8cq

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In Pictures: American Justice?:

Disturbing pictures appear to show an Iraqi man arrested and then executed by U.S. troops
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7802.htm

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Go home Yanks, says PM in waiting:

THE Shi’ite Muslim cleric tipped to become prime minister after next Sunday’s election in Iraq has said it will be the duty of the new government to demand the withdrawal of American forces “as soon as possible”.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7800.htm

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3 Years For Murder: U.S. Soldier Sentenced in Iraqi's Killing:

A U.S. military court found a 1st Cavalry Division soldier guilty of involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of an Iraqi translator and sentenced him to three years in prison, reduction in rank and a bad conduct discharge.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/breaking_news/10710138.htm

http://snipurl.com/c8cv

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In One Night, Iraqi Turns From Friend to Foe :

By all accounts, Imaad, 32, was a typical, mild-mannered college graduate who spoke English well and had quietly supported the U.S. presence in Iraq -- until Jan. 5, the night the soldiers came.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7801.htm

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Baghdad residents face water crisis:

Most of the Iraqi capital - particularly the western districts - has been without water for the past seven days.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/CF37A1C0-C838-4B87-BD73-E2604EAD90AF.htm

http://snipurl.com/c8cw

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Riverbend: Iraqi Girl Blog: Bleak Eid...

I’m sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words ‘collective punishment’. “No, Riverbend,” they are saying, “That’s impossible.” But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off.
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#110640049776566608

http://snipurl.com/c8dg

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The Invasion of Falluja: A Study in the Subversion of Truth :

Falluja should go down in history as a case study on how truth is subverted, co-opted, buried, and ignored. The first US-led siege of Falluja, a city of 300,000 people, resulted in a defeat for Coalition forces.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7883.htm

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Report: U.S. can't win Iraq war:

An analysis of a U.S. newspaper group concludes the United States is headed toward defeat in the Iraqi war.
http://washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050122-094419-5388r.htm

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Did George Bush Write Zarqawi Speech?:

Al-Zarqawi Said to Declare 'Fierce War': The speaker said democracy was based on un-Islamic beliefs and behaviors such as freedom of religion, rule of the people, freedom of expression, separation of religion and state, forming political parties and majority rule.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=435225

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Iraqi interior minister refuses to say whether terror chief is in custody :

''I wouldn't like to comment for the time being,'' Interior Minister Falah al-Naqib said when asked about rumors that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had been arrested. ''Let's see. Maybe in the next few days we will make a comment about it.''
http://www.boston.com/dailynews/022/world/Iraqi_interior_minister_refuse:.shtml

http://snipurl.com/c8cz

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UK: Army faces new claims over Iraq brutality :

Lawyers weigh charges over nine fresh allegations as government faces demands for full public inquiry
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1396626,00.html

http://snipurl.com/c8d1

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Voices from Abu Ghraib:

The following is excerpted testimony from a videotaped deposition of Hussein Mutar, entered into evidence by the prosecution in the court martial of Spc. Charles Graner.
http://www.counterpunch.com/torture01202005.html

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Abuse at Guantanamo hasn't stopped, say Kuwaiti prisoners :

Eleven Kuwaiti prisoners held by American forces at the prison at the Guantanamo Bay naval base show signs of poor diet and physical and psychological abuse, and are held in conditions "worse than those for the worst convicted murderers or rapists in the United States,".
http://www.kuwaittimes.net/today/localNews_s3.php

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Bush appoints a fox to guard henhouse again:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice helpfully explained it all for us. The problem is that we are living in an alternative reality. What we think we know is not true. - The president has condemned torture, so what else is there to say? - Secretary Rice also condemns it, so why raise questions about the fact that she wrote a letter to get an anti-torture clause in the intelligence appropriation bill taken out?
http://www.qctimes.com/internal.php?story_id=1044113&t=Opinion&c=22,1044113

http://snipurl.com/c8d3

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End of Iraq's nightmare ... or the start :

Violence threatens to plunge the country into civil war as the beleaguered Sunni minority prepares to boycott this month's polls
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1396502,00.html

http://snipurl.com/c8d4

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Secret unit expands Rumsfeld's domain:

The Pentagon, expanding into the CIA's historic bailiwick, has created a new espionage arm and is reinterpreting U.S. law to give Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld broad authority over clandestine operations abroad, according to interviews with participants and documents obtained by The Washington Post.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6856550/

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King George: The USA on the road to new depths of ugliness and brutality:

Uri Avnery reflects on the symbiotic relationship between the USA and Israel - mutual colonies of one another - and on the coronation of George Bush, "a very simple, very violent person with very extreme views, as well as being very much an ignoramus". He warns that, in Bush's second term, the USA "may reach new depths of ugliness and brutality".
http://www.redress.btinternet.co.uk/uavnery113.htm

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British dossier argues against a military strike on Iran :

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has drawn up a report stating Britain's case against a military strike on Iran. According to media reports, in his 200 page dossier Straw argues against an attack on Iran amidst rising fears that President Bush may seek support for this new conflict.
http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=6835

http://snipurl.com/c8d5

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Israeli joker in the Iranian poker game :

Cheney refrained from talking about Israeli nuclear capability. Had he done otherwise, he would have implicitly raised the question of why Iran is forbidden to do what Israel is allowed to do
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/530512.html

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In case you missed it:

Next year in Tehran:

For the past three years the central war game of the U.S. armed forces has been centered on Iran. But what exactly will await them there, even they do not purport to know.
http://www.w3ar.com/a.php?k=1302

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In case you missed it;

Redefining combat:

Current operations shape Army wargame: Among the hard lessons the U.S. Army is learning in Iraq is that the line between “major combat” and “stability operations” is blurred, at best, and that the enemy gets to decide when the war is finally over.
http://www.tradoc.army.mil/pao/Web_specials/UQ04/NatlDef1.htm

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Gov't decision strips Palestinians of Jerusalem lands :

The law means that thousands of Palestinians who live in the West Bank will lose ownership of their property in East Jerusalem.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArtVty.jhtml?sw=jerusalem&itemNo=530407

http://snipurl.com/c8d7

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Bush forces UN refugee chief to go :

The Bush administration has blocked the reappointment of the United Nations's Palestinian refugee agency chief, Peter Hansen, after a campaign by conservative and Jewish groups in the United States, and the government in Jerusalem which accused him of being an "Israel hater".
http://snipurl.com/c8dh

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Kennedy: Fascist America :

"The Republicans are 95 percent corrupt and the Democrats are 75 percent corrupt," Kennedy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7804.htm

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Ultra-secret troops poised at inaugural :

These elite forces were deployed under a 1997 authorization that was updated and enhanced after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, but it nonetheless departs from how the military has historically been used on American soil.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/5200163.html

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Supreme Court is key to new Bush term:

The clearest pointer to the course of the