TOON

Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Lou Dobbs Enflame Scary Right-Wing Rage

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The conservative playbook has been laid bare, and it's ugly. How long until their overheated rhetoric spills over into violence?

John V. Santore
August 11, 2009 - Media Matters for America

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It was an ugly week, and a telling one.

"Global warming is no different than health care, is no different than cap and trade," Rush Limbaugh explained on Monday. "It is simply another branch of liberalism, statism, that is designed to expand government control over individuals and their liberty and their freedom and their income."

"And if this plays out right ... you can do some great damage, culturally, to liberalism," he concluded.

The next five days showed how seriously the right wing is taking those words and how far it is willing to go to confuse and manipulate the public, and to capitalize on the ensuing fear and rage. The goals: the complete delegitimization of Obama and the wholesale destruction of the progressive movement he leads.

Glenn Beck Is Anti-Violence, Pro-Poison

On Monday, Glenn Beck made clear that he does not support violence in the name of political causes. Sure, he's advocating civil disobedience if need be. Maybe 70 million people voted for Barack Obama less than a year ago, but who cares? "It is time to go to Washington!" he preached on Wednesday. "It is time to stand or sit in the middle of the street if you have to!" But remember: no violence.

Then on Thursday, he poisoned the speaker of the House. Not literally, of course -- just in effigy. On live television. What's the problem? Can't you liberals take a joke?

It was a perfect example of the game conservatives in the media are playing: pouring gasoline on the fire, and then, once they are criticized, saying that they were only kidding. But what does Beck expect his viewers to take away from his broadcasts? After a week of increasingly violent protests at town halls around the country, including one such event at which protesters reportedly mentioned Beck by name when explaining what inspired them, he cannot seriously contend that his rhetoric isn't having an impact, isn't stirring up the rage and confusion that is defining opposition to Democratic reforms. How many times can Beck portray Obama as a traitor who is destroying our national sovereignty, or compare the president's health care proposals to those of the Nazis, before the anger spills over? He calls for calm, and then describes the Obama-led "brownshirts" who are silencing dissent and the "enemies list" the White House is compiling of those who dare
to voice their opinions. Meanwhile, it is the Democrats, we are told, who are the irresponsible ones. It is Democrats who are using the language of "pure hate," as Frank Luntz told Beck, to describe the brave patriots who are shouting down members of Congress in defense of liberty. Why are they doing it? Beck's answer? They want to create "more problems" so "they can use the iron fist and crush people." In the meantime, Beck urged his supporters to continue pressuring their members of Congress, even if they have to "hold a meeting ... in front of their house."

There was a hint of accountability this week after several of Beck's advertisers canceled their contracts with his show in the wake of his accusation that Obama hates white people. But the provocation continued. "When will someone stand up and say, "Traitor'?" Beck ranted on August 5. "When will someone stand up and say, 'Thieves'? ... The American way of life is being systematically dismantled and destroyed! The republic is in danger!"

Beck is right. If he gets his way, it is in danger. Reason will have been replaced by rage.

With Obama in office, Lou Dobbs Claims To Be an Independent No More

Lou Dobbs took aim at everyone this week -- and CNN still has his back.

In spite of fresh criticism from sources as diverse as the NAACP and Don Imus, CNN alone among the major cable channels decided that it would refuse to run the ad Media Matters put out calling for the network to address Dobbs' promotion of the "birther" conspiracy theory. Predictably, Dobbs tried to make the entire issue about Media Matters itself, saying the ad "really reveals a lot about" who we are. He continued the theme throughout the week, portraying Media Matters as one of the White House's "attack dogs" and asking Obama to call us off, something Ann Coulter agreed with when she was a guest on his radio show.

It was actually a banner week for Lou. In fact, he officially abandoned his stance as "Mr. Independent," using his radio show to inform Obama (a regular listener, to be sure) that he was "moving from being an independent, sir, to being absolutely opposed to ... any policy you can conceive of!" Dobbs celebrated his newfound opposition by spreading misinformation on health care reform (it's socialism, by the way, because Obama's a socialist), hosting a Michelle Malkin lovefest, defending Limbaugh, raising the specter of incipient fascism, and repeatedly attacking Keith Olbermann, whom he described as a "cretin" and a "psycho" who was "psychologically scarred" from beatings by "girls" that he supposedly suffered as a child. No wonder, then, that Olbermann works at MSNBC, the network Dobbs called a "coven of thugs."

And not to be left behind by his fellow right-wing media celebrities, Dobbs offered support to a caller who threatened to "brawl" with health care reform advocates at a town hall, encouraging others like him to make their "voice heard."

But whatever you do, don't say "birther" on his show.

Rush Limbaugh Hates Nazis, Which Is Why He Hates Nancy Pelosi

It's hard to imagine, but in certain ways, Rush was actually the most reasonable of the conservative heavy hitters this week ... except for his repeated comparisons of the Democratic leadership to the Nazi high command. Whoops -- never mind.

With the precision the right-wing echo chamber provides on a daily basis, Rush reiterated his heartfelt belief that if Democrats have their way, senior citizens -- the very same group that benefits exclusively from that evil government-run program known as Medicare -- will spend their last days on a "Statist Farm," where they will be unable to see a doctor and suffer at the hands of heartless bureaucrats whose job it will be to "make sure certain people die." On the other hand, if you were a loyal Obama supporter, you know, like an HIV patient, you might get special treatment. Limbaugh also mocked the voice of Kathleen Sebelius (he sure hates it when women talk) and described her work promoting reform as a "campaign of pure fraud and deceit." And he had a warning for some of the crooks in D.C.: "You Blue Dogs are about to see your last days if you vote for this bill." At least he's giving them one more chance to get it right.

Predictably, Limbaugh decried the idea that anti-reform town hall protests were anything other than the work of self-informed citizens. "It's not ginned up, it's genuine. It's real," he explained. Sure, there isn't a single shard of evidence that any well-funded conservative organization has spent a single second spreading lies and advocating aggressive tactics in the hope of furthering the disruptions.

"There is no manufactured anger," Limbaugh said the next day. "The anger is legitimate and real and it is boiling over."

There's that idea again: The anger is boiling over.

In order to truly manipulate people, you need to convince them that they are fighting pure evil. And on Thursday, Rush finally got down to business.

"[T]he Obama health care logo is damn close to a Nazi swastika logo," he said on air. He went on to explain "the similarities between the Democrat Party of today and the Nazi Party in Germany." Key among them: "Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate." On Friday, he did it again, but blamed Nancy Pelosi for "starting it" because she had pointed out that one conservative protester had made a sign featuring a swastika. There was plenty of photographic evidence to back her up, but Limbaugh still called her "deranged."

Sounding the same call as Beck and Dobbs, Limbaugh explained that Obama's "brownshirts" were coming, sure to make use of the "snitch website" he had set up. He warned of "union thugs" who had "roughed up" a protester -- "Mussolini-type stuff." He accused a St. Louis SEIU local of violence, and then gave out the office's address.

He even latched onto a recent fad in conservative circles: comparing Obama to the Joker, the sociopathic anarchist from the most recent Batman movie. "His goal was to undermine the whole system," Limbaugh said of the character, while actually explaining himself.

He wasn't kidding. The conservative playbook has been laid bare, and it is ugly. In the face of this summer of hate, progressives must persevere. And in so doing, they must be driven not by anger at the thought of who they are fighting against, but by devotion to who they are fighting for: everyone the conservative movement is so content to leave behind.

13 Secret Toxins Lurking in Your Food, and How to Avoid Them

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Here are some tips to help you steer clear of hidden toxins that masquerade as safe products.

Tina McCarthy 
August 11, 2009 - EcoSalon

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Various shelves throughout every aisle of your grocery store are stocked with wolves in sheep's clothing. Colorful packaging, appetizing pictures, and nutrition claims hide the truth: unhealthy chemicals are lurking in many these seemingly harmless foods. Here are some tips to help you steer clear of hidden toxins that masquerade as safe products.

1. Stay away from processed meats like bacon, hot dogs, and sausage. Sodium nitrate accounts for their appetizing red hue, but this additive can also cause the formation of nitrosamines in your system, which can lead to cancer.

2. Stick to low-mercury fish like American-farmed tilapia instead of swordfish or tuna. Overexposure can cause memory problems, fatigue, and other health issues, and besides, most wild fish stocks are threatened these days. (Looking for an alternative? There's branzini, the fish you've never heard of.)

3. Reduce the amount of canned food you consume. Cans are commonly lined with bisphenol-A, an organic compound that, according to the Lang study, may be associated with diabetes and heart disease.

4. Cut back on meat and dairy products. These animal products may contain trace amounts of harmful contaminants like polybrominated diphenyl ethers, polychlorinated biphenyl and dioxins. Although many of these toxins have been banned, they are still present in the soil. Reducing your intake of animal products is also more friendly to the environment.

5. Skip the diet soda and artificial sweeteners. Prolonged exposure to aspartame, a neurotoxic chemical additive in these products, can lead to nerve cell damage, dizziness, and headaches. Besides, anything that gives rats brain tumors is worth avoiding in my book.

6. Choose the farmed fish carefully. Studies show that farm-raised fish contain more polychlorinated biphenyl and over ten times the amount of dioxin.

7. Opt for organic chicken. The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy discovered traces of arsenic in non-organic chickens. Exposure to this dangerous chemical can lead to cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Another study also found numerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria in conventional poultry.

8. Only drink milk that says "no rBGH" on the carton because recombinant bovine growth hormone has been linked with breast cancer. Better yet, opt for responsibly-produced, unsweetened soy, nut or rice milk.

9. Avoid manufactured snacks. Hydrogenated oils are used to lengthen the shelf life of products like crackers and cookies, but they are also associated with diabetes and heart disease. Another reason to stay away from the middle aisles: snack foods are generally loaded with salt, corn syrup and other unhealthy ingredients.

10. Stay away from artificially-colored foods like candy, maraschino cherries, and gelatin. Mice and rats exposed to blue 1 and 2, red 3 and yellow 6 suffered from brain, adrenal gland, thyroid, and kidney tumors.

11. Always buy organic produce. This one's a no-brainer, but the list wouldn't be complete without it. Lingering pesticides can lead to nervous and reproductive system damage, not to mention cancer.

12. Use stainless steel or cast iron cookware to prepare your meals. The Teflon used to create nonstick surfaces can release noxious gases when exposed to high temperatures, which puts you at risk for heart disease.

13. Never microwave food in plastic bowls, containers, or dishes. Exposure to heat causes the bisphenol-A found in plastics to break down and potentially contaminate your food. Also, make sure to hand wash them.

Single-payer Zen

1. If Canada's single-payer system is so god-awful, why have repeated Conservative governments at the provincial and national level in Canada never touched it? Canada is a democracy. If Canadians don't like their health care system, why haven't they gotten rid of it in 35 years? Since the system there is run by the separate provinces, many of which are very politically conservative, why has not one province ever tried to get rid of single-payer?

2. Why is rationing by income, as we do it here, better than rationing by need, as they do it in Canada and elsewhere?

3. Wouldn't single-payer mean that companies could no longer threaten working people with the loss of their health insurance? Why is this a bad idea?

4. The bigger the insurance pool, the better. So doesn't having a national pool, as with single-payer, make the most sense?

5. Why should we be allowing politicians who are taking money from the medical industry to write the new health care legislation?

6. How can the Congress be developing a health system reform scheme and not even invite experts from Canada and Europe down to explain their successful system?

7. If Medicare--a single-payer system here in America--is so popular with the elderly, how come it's no good for the rest of us?

8. Isn't it true that Medicare currently finances the most costly patient group--the elderly and infirm--so that extending it to the rest of the population--most of whom are young and healthy--would be much cheaper, per person?

9. The AMA, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Insurance Industry all bitterly opposed Medicare in 1964-5 when it was being debated in Congress and passed into law, with the right, led by Ronald Reagan, calling it creeping socialism. It became a life-saver for the elderly and didn't turn the US into a soviet republic. Why should we give a tinker's damn what those same three industry groups and the Republican right think of expanding single-payer now?

10. The executives of Canadian subsidiaries of US companies all support Canada's single-payer system, and even lobby collectively to have it expanded and better funded. Why does Congress listen to the executives of the parent companies here at home, and not invite those Canadian execs down to explain why they like single-payer?

- Dave Lindorff, Buzzflash

Wealthy Group Pushes to be Taxed More

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Tom Petruno
August 10, 2009 - The San Francisco Chronicle

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Upper-income earners who actually want to pay higher taxes have launched a public campaign calling for an immediate rollback of the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush.

The group, which calls itself Wealth for the Common Good, believes that people who have taxable income of more than $235,000 a year should support restoring their top federal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent - and now, not in 2011, when the higher rate is scheduled to return anyway.

From their Web site:

"Our country is facing the worst economic challenge since the Great Depression and an urgent need to make a long overdue investment in bringing jobs and stability back to our communities. This investment should be paid for, in part, by repealing the Bush-era tax cuts our country cannot afford.

"Those of us with taxable incomes over $235,000 benefited from the upside of the economy during the last decade and profited for eight years from a 2001 tax cut. Now is the time to give back.

"We would see a minimal tax increase - from 35 (percent) to 39.6 (percent), a rate still far lower than the one under President (Ronald) Reagan - but the increased revenue would raise an estimated $43 billion per year."

The group's founders include Chuck Collins, who inherited some of the Oscar Mayer meat fortune and who has long been involved in agitating on income-inequality issues.

He may be best known for co-writing the 2003 book "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes" with Bill Gates Sr. The book made the case for retaining the federal estate tax.

This month, Wealth for the Common Good sent its request, including a petition with more than 1,000 signatures, to President Obama and to House and Senate leaders.

The 'Me-First, Screw You Crowd' Are No Longer Hiding Their Antics

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Finally, there's no pretense. The ugliest traits of this despicable movement are there for all to behold.

David Sirota
August 10, 2009 - Creators Syndicate

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I know I should be mortified by the lobbyist-organized mobs of angry Brooks Brothers mannequins who are now making headlines by shutting down congressional town hall meetings. I know I should be despondent during this, the Khaki Pants Offensive in the Great American Health Care and Tax War. And yet, I'm euphorically repeating one word over and over again with a big grin on my face.

Finally.

Finally, there's no pretense. Finally, the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd's ugliest traits are there for all to behold.

The group's core gripe is summarized in a letter I received that denounces a proposed surtax on the wealthy and corporations to pay for universal health care:

"Until recently, my family was in the top 3 percent of wage earners," the affluent businessperson fumed in response to my July column on taxes. "We are in the group that pays close to 60 percent of this nation's taxes ... Think for a second how you would feel if you built a business and contributed more than your share to this country only to be treated like a pariah."

This sob story about the persecuted rich fuels today's "Tea Parties" -- and I'm sure you've heard some version of it in your community.

I'm also fairly certain that when many of you run into the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd, you don't feel like confronting the faux outrage. But on the off chance you do muster the masochistic impulse to engage, here's a guide to navigating the conversation:

What They Will Scream: We can't raise business taxes, because American businesses already pay excessively high taxes!

What You Should Say: The Government Accountability Office reports that most U.S. corporations pay zero federal income tax. Additionally, as even the Bush Treasury Department admitted, America's effective corporate tax rate is the third lowest in the industrialized world.

What They Will Scream: But the rich still "pay close to 60 percent of this nation's taxes!"

What You Should Say: Such statistics refer only to the federal income tax. When considering all of "this nation's taxes" including payroll, state and local levies, the top 5 percent pay just 38.5 percent of the taxes.

What They Will Scream: But 38.5 percent is disproportionately high! See? You've proved that the rich "contribute more than their share" of taxes!

What You Should Say: Actually, they are paying almost exactly "their share." According to the data, the wealthiest 5 percent of America pays 38.5 percent of the total taxes precisely because they make just about that share -- a whopping 36.5 percent! -- of total national income. Asking these folks to pay slightly more in taxes -- and still less than they did during the go-go 1990s -- is hardly extreme.

Stripped of facts, your conversation partner will soon turn to unscientific terrain, claiming it is immoral to "steal" and "redistribute" income via taxes. Of course, he will be specifically railing on "stealing" for stuff like health care, which he insists gets "redistributed" only to the undeserving and the "lazy" (a classic codeword for "minorities"). But he will also say it's OK that government sent trillions of dollars to Wall Streeters.

And that's when you should stop wasting your breath.

What you've discovered is that the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd isn't interested in fairness, empiricism or morality.

With 22,000 of their fellow countrymen dying annually for lack of health insurance and with Warren Buffett paying a lower effective tax rate than his secretary, the Me-First, Screw-Everyone-Else Crowd is merely using the argot of fairness, empiricism and morality to hide its real motive: selfish greed.

No argument, however rational, is going to cure these narcissists of that grotesque disease.

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David Sirota is a best-selling author whose newest book, "The Uprising," was just released this month. He is a fellow at the Campaign for America's Future and a board member of the Progressive States Network -- both nonpartisan organizations.

Australian man laughs off Obama birth conspiracy

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August 6, 2009 - AFP

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An Australian man who unwittingly found himself embroiled in a conspiracy to oust US President Barack Obama has vowed to be more careful about what he posts on the Internet.

Adelaide public servant David Bomford was plucked from obscurity when US political campaigners released a copy of a birth certificate at the weekend that supposedly showed Obama was born in Kenya.

The campaigners, known as "birthers," point out that if Obama was born in Africa, rather than Hawaii as US records show, he would not be eligible to be president, since only natural-born US citizens can hold the top office.

However, the document they released turned out to be a fake based on a copy of Bomford's birth certificate that he had posted on a friend's genealogy website.

Bomford said it was hard to believe "a grey-haired old guy sitting in a corner in quiet old Adelaide" had been swept up in a push to unseat the most powerful man in the world.

"It is interesting someone from here being involved in a conspiracy -- that is so funny," he told public broadcaster ABC.

Bomford said he knew nothing about the "birthers'" claims.

He said the fake Kenyan birth certificate contained his personal details and was clearly based on his own South Australian document.

"It's definitely a copy of my certificate. It's so laughable it's ridiculous," he said.

Bomford said he only expected relatives researching their family tree would be interested in the document when it was posted on the Internet.

"I was very, very surprised that anyone would even find it on the net," he said. "I'll be certainly contacting my friend who runs that web and asking him to remove it."

Attacks on US homeless becoming trend

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August 9, 2009 - AFP

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As tough economic times push more people onto the streets, the number of violent, sometimes deadly attacks against the homeless are becoming a trend in the United States, a report has found.

The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) put the number of attacks in 2008 at 106, including 27 deaths, with Florida leading states in the nation at 30 attacks, three among them resulting in deaths. More incidents are thought to have occurred but gone unreported.

The total number of attacks was less than the 160 recorded last year but still far above the 60 listed in 1999.

Although the motive for the violence was often unclear, some attackers said they acted out of "boredom" or for a "thrill" or "fun," according to the report released Friday.

Most of the attacks -- 73 percent -- were committed by individuals who were 25 years old or younger, with the bulk of that group teenagers.

Faced with the onslaught of violence, some states are taking measures. In October, Maryland is set to expand its hate-crimes law to increase for the first time the penalties for attacks against the homeless.

Five states are considering similar measures, while the District of Columbia (Washington) approved such legislation earlier this month. A bill tackling the scourge of violence against the homeless is also under consideration in Congress.

"The bottom line is, people need to be housed," said David Pirtle, a victim of violence and NCH board member. "If the federal government adequately funds permanent affordable housing, fewer people will be on the streets, and fewer men and women will be attacked."

Those most vulnerable to the attacks, NCH said, were the 42 percent of homeless people who are unsheltered.

"Those experiencing homelessness are often ignored or misunderstood by society," said NCH executive director Michael Stoops.

"If these brutal attacks were committed against any other religious or minority group to the same degree, there would be a national outcry and call for governmental action."

Is the U.S. on the Brink of Fascism?

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There are dangerous currents running through America's politics and the way we confront them is crucial.

Sara Robinson
August 7, 2009 - Campaign for America's Future

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All through the dark years of the Bush Administration, progressives watched in horror as Constitutional protections vanished, nativist rhetoric ratcheted up, hate speech turned into intimidation and violence, and the president of the United States seized for himself powers only demanded by history's worst dictators. With each new outrage, the small handful of us who'd made ourselves experts on right-wing culture and politics would hear once again from worried readers: Is this it? Have we finally become a fascist state? Are we there yet?

And every time this question got asked, people like Chip Berlet and Dave Neiwert and Fred Clarkson and yours truly would look up from our maps like a parent on a long drive, and smile a wan smile of reassurance. "Wellll...we're on a bad road, and if we don't change course, we could end up there soon enough. But there's also still plenty of time and opportunity to turn back. Watch, but don't worry. As bad as this looks: no -- we are not there yet."

In tracking the mileage on this trip to perdition, many of us relied on the work of historian Robert Paxton, who is probably the world's pre-eminent scholar on the subject of how countries turn fascist. In a 1998 paper published in The Journal of Modern History, Paxton argued that the best way to recognize emerging fascist movements isn't by their rhetoric, their politics, or their aesthetics. Rather, he said, mature democracies turn fascist by a recognizable process, a set of five stages that may be the most important family resemblance that links all the whole motley collection of 20th Century fascisms together. According to our reading of Paxton's stages, we weren't there yet. There were certain signs -- one in particular -- we were keeping an eye out for, and we just weren't seeing it.

And now we are. In fact, if you know what you're looking for, it's suddenly everywhere. It's odd that I haven't been asked for quite a while; but if you asked me today, I'd tell you that if we're not there right now, we've certainly taken that last turn into the parking lot and are now looking for a space. Either way, our fascist American future now looms very large in the front windshield -- and those of us who value American democracy need to understand how we got here, what's changing now, and what's at stake in the very near future if these people are allowed to win -- or even hold their ground.

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What is fascism?

The word has been bandied about by so many people so wrongly for so long that, as Paxton points out, "Everybody is somebody else's fascist." Given that, I always like to start these conversations by revisiting Paxton's essential definition of the term:

"Fascism is a system of political authority and social order intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which liberal democracy stands accused of producing division and decline."

Elsewhere, he refines this further as

"a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion."

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Jonah Goldberg aside, that's a basic definition most legitimate scholars in the field can agree on, and the one I'll be referring to here.

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From proto-fascism to the tipping point

According to Paxton, fascism unfolds in five stages. The first two are pretty solidly behind us -- and the third should be of particular interest to progressives right now.

In the first stage, a rural movement emerges to effect some kind of nationalist renewal (what Roger Griffin calls "palingenesis" -- a phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes). They come together to restore a broken social order, always drawing on themes of unity, order, and purity. Reason is rejected in favor of passionate emotion. The way the organizing story is told varies from country to country; but it's always rooted in the promise of restoring lost national pride by resurrecting the culture's traditional myths and values, and purging society of the toxic influence of the outsiders and intellectuals who are blamed for their current misery.

Fascism only grows in the disturbed soil of a mature democracy in crisis. Paxton suggests that the Ku Klux Klan, which formed in reaction to post-Civil War Reconstruction, may in fact be the first authentically fascist movement in modern times. Almost every major country in Europe sprouted a proto-fascist movement in the wretched years following WWI (when the Klan enjoyed a major resurgence here as well) -- but most of them stalled either at this first stage, or the next one.

As Rick Perlstein documented in his two books on Barry Goldwater and Richard Nixon, modern American conservatism was built on these same themes. From "Morning in America" to the Rapture-ready religious right to the white nationalism promoted by the GOP through various gradients of racist groups, it's easy to trace how American proto-fascism offered redemption from the upheavals of the 1960s by promising to restore the innocence of a traditional, white, Christian, male-dominated America. This vision has been so thoroughly embraced that the entire Republican party now openly defines itself along these lines. At this late stage, it's blatantly racist, sexist, repressed, exclusionary, and permanently addicted to the politics of fear and rage. Worse: it doesn't have a moment's shame about any of it. No apologies, to anyone. These same narrative threads have woven their way through every fascist movement in history.

In the second stage, fascist movements take root, turn into real political parties, and seize their seat at the table of power. Interestingly, in every case Paxton cites, the political base came from the rural, less-educated parts of the country; and almost all of them came to power very specifically by offering themselves as informal goon squads organized to intimidate farmworkers on behalf of the large landowners. The KKK disenfranchised black sharecroppers and set itself up as the enforcement wing of Jim Crow. The Italian Squadristi and the German Brownshirts made their bones breaking up farmers' strikes. And these days, GOP-sanctioned anti-immigrant groups make life hell for Hispanic agricultural workers in the US. As violence against random Hispanics (citizens and otherwise) increases, the right-wing goon squads are getting basic training that, if the pattern holds, they may eventually use to intimidate the rest of us.

Paxton wrote that succeeding at the second stage "depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies condemn the nation to disorder, decline, or humiliation; and political deadlock because the Right, the heir to power but unable to continue to wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governing partner." He further noted that Hitler and Mussolini both took power under these same circumstances: "deadlock of constitutional government (produced in part by the polarization that the fascists abetted); conservative leaders who felt threatened by the loss of their capacity to keep the population under control at a moment of massive popular mobilization; an advancing Left; and conservative leaders who refused to work with that Left and who felt unable to continue to govern against the Left without further reinforcement."

And more ominously: "The most important variables...are the conservative elites' willingness to work with the fascists (along with a reciprocal flexibility on the part of the fascist leaders) and the depth of the crisis that induces them to cooperate."

That description sounds eerily like the dire straits our Congressional Republicans find themselves in right now. Though the GOP has been humiliated, rejected, and reduced to rump status by a series of epic national catastrophes mostly of its own making, its leadership can't even imagine governing cooperatively with the newly mobilized and ascendant Democrats. Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity.

When that unholy alliance is made, the third stage -- the transition to full-fledged government fascism -- begins.

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The third stage: being there

All through the Bush years, progressive right-wing watchers refused to call it "fascism" because, though we kept looking, we never saw clear signs of a deliberate, committed institutional partnership forming between America's conservative elites and its emerging homegrown brownshirt horde. We caught tantalizing signs of brief flirtations -- passing political alliances, money passing hands, far-right moonbat talking points flying out of the mouths of "mainstream" conservative leaders. But it was all circumstantial, and fairly transitory. The two sides kept a discreet distance from each other, at least in public. What went on behind closed doors, we could only guess. They certainly didn't act like a married couple.

Now, the guessing game is over. We know beyond doubt that the Teabag movement was created out of whole cloth by astroturf groups like Dick Armey's FreedomWorks and Tim Phillips' Americans for Prosperity, with massive media help from FOX News. We see the Birther fracas -- the kind of urban myth-making that should have never made it out of the pages of the National Enquirer -- being openly ratified by Congressional Republicans. We've seen Armey's own professionally-produced field manual that carefully instructs conservative goon squads in the fine art of disrupting the democratic governing process -- and the film of public officials being terrorized and threatened to the point where some of them required armed escorts to leave the building. We've seen Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner applauding and promoting a video of the disruptions and looking forward to "a long, hot August for Democrats in Congress."

This is the sign we were waiting for -- the one that tells us that yes, kids: we are there now. America's conservative elites have openly thrown in with the country's legions of discontented far right thugs. They have explicitly deputized them and empowered them to act as their enforcement arm on America's streets, sanctioning the physical harassment and intimidation of workers, liberals, and public officials who won't do their political or economic bidding.

This is the catalyzing moment at which honest-to-Hitler fascism begins. It's also our very last chance to stop it.

The fail-safe point
According to Paxton, the forging of this third-stage alliance is the make-or-break moment -- and the worst part of it is that by the time you've arrived at that point, it's probably too late to stop it. From here, it escalates, as minor thuggery turns into beatings, killings, and systematic tagging of certain groups for elimination, all directed by people at the very top of the power structure. After Labor Day, when Democratic senators and representatives go back to Washington, the mobs now being created to harass them will remain to run the same tactics -- escalated and perfected with each new use -- against anyone in town whose color, religion, or politics they don't like. In some places, they're already making notes and taking names.

Where's the danger line? Paxton offers three quick questions that point us straight at it:

1. Are [neo- or protofascisms] becoming rooted as parties that represent major interests and feelings and wield major influence on the political scene?

2. Is the economic or constitutional system in a state of blockage apparently insoluble by existing authorities?

3. Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge?

By my reckoning, we're three for three. That's too close. Way too close.

...

The Road Ahead

History tells us that once this alliance catalyzes and makes a successful bid for power, there's no way off this ride. As Dave Neiwert wrote in his recent book, The Eliminationists, "if we can only identify fascism in its mature form—the goose-stepping brownshirts, the full-fledged use of violence and intimidation tactics, the mass rallies—then it will be far too late to stop it." Paxton (who presciently warned that "An authentic popular fascism in the United States would be pious and anti-Black") agrees that if a corporate/brownshirt alliance gets a toehold -- as ours is now scrambling to do -- it can very quickly rise to power and destroy the last vestiges of democratic government. Once they start racking up wins, the country will be doomed to take the whole ugly trip through the last two stages, with no turnoffs or pit stops between now and the end.

What awaits us? In stage four, as the duo assumes full control of the country, power struggles emerge between the brownshirt-bred party faithful and the institutions of the conservative elites -- church, military, professions, and business. The character of the regime is determined by who gets the upper hand. If the party members (who gained power through street thuggery) win, an authoritarian police state may well follow. If the conservatives can get them back under control, a more traditional theocracy, corporatocracy, or military regime can re-emerge over time. But in neither case will the results resemble the democracy that this alliance overthrew.

Paxton characterizes stage five as "radicalization or entropy." Radicalization is likely if the new regime scores a big military victory, which consolidates its power and whets its appetite for expansion and large-scale social engineering. (See: Germany) In the absence of a radicalizing event, entropy may set in, as the state gets lost in its own purposes and degenerates into incoherence. (See: Italy)

It's so easy right now to look at the melee on the right and discount it as pure political theater of the most absurdly ridiculous kind. It's a freaking puppet show. These people can't be serious. Sure, they're angry -- but they're also a minority, out of power and reduced to throwing tantrums. Grown-ups need to worry about them about as much as you'd worry about a furious five-year-old threatening to hold her breath until she turned blue.

Unfortunately, all the noise and bluster actually obscures the danger. These people are as serious as a lynch mob, and have already taken the first steps toward becoming one. And they're going to walk taller and louder and prouder now that their bumbling efforts at civil disobedience are being committed with the full sanction and support of the country's most powerful people, who are cynically using them in a last-ditch effort to save their own places of profit and prestige.

We've arrived. We are now parked on the exact spot where our best experts tell us full-blown fascism is born. Every day that the conservatives in Congress, the right-wing talking heads, and their noisy minions are allowed to hold up our ability to govern the country is another day we're slowly creeping across the final line beyond which, history tells us, no country has ever been able to return.

How do we pull back? That's my next post.

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Sara Robinson is a Fellow at the Campaign for America's Future, and a consulting partner with the Cognitive Policy Works in Seattle. One of the few trained social futurists in North America, she has blogged on authoritarian and extremist movements at Orcinus since 2006, and is a founding member of Group News Blog.

Congressional Zen

Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets to meet a supposed growing travel demand by Congress - even though a Pentagon spokesman says they didn't ask for the planes and they don't need them. Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, objecting to one part of the package, said it "just makes no sense."

"Talk about the wrong message at the wrong time...No wonder so many people think we don't get it."

- Common Dreams

TOON

Three new bank failures bring to 72 number of collapsed US banks

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August 8, 2009 - AFP

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US authorities have closed three more US regional and local banks, bringing the total of failed US banking institutions to 72 this year, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation announced.

The banks include First State Bank of Sarasota, Florida, which had total assets of 463 million dollars and total deposits of approximately 387 million. Stearns Bank, N.A. agreed to purchase approximately 451 million dollars of these assets. The FDIC will retain the remaining assets for later disposition, the agency said Friday.

Also shut down was the Community National Bank of Sarasota County, Venice, Florida, which had total assets of 97 million dollars and total deposits of approximately 93 million.

In Oregon, authorities closed the Community First Bank of Prineville, which had total assets of 209 million dollars and total deposits of approximately 182 million.

Birthers

"Afghanistan will continue until the American public grows tired of it."

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Slobodan Lekic
August 7, 2009 - Associated Press

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BRUSSELS — Top U.S. officials have reached out to a leading Vietnam war scholar to discuss the similarities of that conflict 40 years ago with American involvement in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is seeking ways to isolate an elusive guerrilla force and win over a skeptical local population.

The overture to Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Stanley Karnow, who opposes the Afghan war, comes as the U.S. is evaluating its strategy there.

President Barack Obama has doubled the size of the U.S. force to curb a burgeoning Taliban insurgency and bolster the Afghan government. He has tasked Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander, to conduct a strategic review of the fight against Taliban guerrillas and draft a detailed proposal for victory.

McChrystal and Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to the country, telephoned Karnow on July 27 in an apparent effort to apply the lessons of Vietnam to the Afghan war, which started in 2001 when U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Among the concerns voiced by historians is the credibility of President Hamid Karzai's government, which is widely perceived as being plagued by graft and corruption. They draw a parallel between Afghanistan's presidential election on Aug. 20 and the failed effort in Vietnam to legitimize a military regime lacking broad popular support through an imposed presidential election in 1967.

"Holbrooke rang me from Kabul and passed the phone to the general," said Karnow, who authored the seminal 1983 book, "Vietnam: A History."

Holbrooke confirmed to The Associated Press that the three men discussed similarities between the two wars. "We discussed the two situations and what to do," he said during a visit last week to NATO headquarters in Brussels.

In an interview Thursday with the AP, Karnow said it was the first time he had ever been consulted by U.S. commanders to discuss the war. He did not elaborate on the specifics of the conversation.

When asked what could be drawn from the Vietnam experience, Karnow replied: "What did we learn from Vietnam? We learned that we shouldn't have been there in the first place. Obama and everybody else seem to want to be in Afghanistan, but not I."

"It now seems unthinkable that the U.S. could lose (in Afghanistan), but that's what experts ... thought in Vietnam in 1967," he said at his Maryland home. "It could be that there will be no real conclusion and that it will go on for a long time until the American public grows tired of it."

An administration official said academics and outside experts have been consulted frequently during the Obama presidency, especially around high-profile events or decisions. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely about the administration's behind-the-scenes thinking.

Holbrooke and Karnow have known each other since they were both in Vietnam in the early 1960s. At the time, Holbrooke was a junior U.S. diplomat and Karnow a Time-Life correspondent.

Holbrooke briefly commented on contrasts between the two conflicts, noting that the military regime in Saigon was corrupt and unpopular, while the international community seeks to build a democracy in Afghanistan.

The Vietnam war also was a much bigger conflict. Nearly 550,000 U.S. troops were deployed at the height of the war, whereas 102,000 international troops are currently in Afghanistan — of which 63,000 are American.

James McAllister, a professor of political science at Williams College in Massachusetts who has written extensively about Vietnam, said the administration could learn a lot from Vietnam.

"American policy makers clearly see parallels between the two wars," he said. "They know that the mistakes we made in Vietnam must be avoided in Afghanistan."

McAllister cited analogies between the two wars:

_ In both wars, security forces had an overwhelming advantage in firepower over lightly armed but highly mobile guerrillas.

_ Insurgents in both cases were able to use safe havens in neighboring countries to regroup and re-equip.

_He pointed to McChrystal's order to limit airstrikes and prevent civilian casualties, linking it to the overuse of air power in Vietnam which resulted in massive civilian deaths.

McAllister drew a parallel to another failed political strategy from Vietnam — the presidential election.

"That ('67 ballot) helped ensure that U.S. efforts would continue to be compromised by its support for a corrupt, unpopular regime in Saigon," McAllister said.

Rufus Phillips, Holbrooke's boss in Vietnam and author of the book "Why Vietnam Matters," echoed that warning.

"The rigged election in South Vietnam proved (to be) the most destructive and destabilizing factor of all," said Phillips, now in Kabul helping to monitor the upcoming election.

David Kilcullen, a counterinsurgency specialist who will soon assume a role as a senior adviser to McChrystal, compared Karzai to South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem.

"He has a reasonably clean personal reputation but he's seen as ineffective; his family are corrupt; he's alienated a very substantial portion of the population," Kilcullen said Thursday at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

"He seems paranoid and delusional and out of touch with reality," he said. "That's all the sort of things that were said about President Diem in 1963."

US Air Force Sets Up New Command for Nuclear Forces

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August 7, 2009 - Agence France Presse

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The US Air Force on Friday launches a new Global Strike Command responsible for nuclear forces after two major mishaps raised doubts about the supervision of the country's atomic weapons.

US Air Force strategic bombers sit on the tarmac at a base in Louisiana. The US Air Force on Friday launches a new Global Strike Command responsible for nuclear forces after two major mishaps raised doubts about the supervision of the country's atomic weapons.

The opening of the command marks a shake-up that followed the botched handling of nuclear weapons and the subsequent sacking of the air force's top civilian and military leaders last year.

The command, located at Barksdale Air Force base in the southern state of Louisiana, will combine nuclear-capable B-52 and B-2 bombers as well as the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force -- which had previously been under the Air Force Space Command in Colorado.

"We needed to refocus on the nuclear mission and not lose sight of that," Secretary of the Air Force Michael Donley told reporters ahead of Friday's ceremony.

He said there had been some "painful lessons" but the new command would "reinvigorate our nuclear enterprise."

An outside panel headed by former defense secretary James Schlesinger concluded that the US Air Force had for years given the nuclear forces a lower priority and failed to manage the mission with rigor.

The panel found "an unambiguous, dramatic and unacceptable decline in the air force's commitment to perform the nuclear mission and, until very recently, little has been done to reverse it."

Two widely-publicized incidents raised questions over the air force's handling of its nuclear mission.

First came the inadvertent transfer from one US base to another of nuclear-armed cruise missiles under the wing of a B-52 bomber in September 2007.

Then the Pentagon discovered that nuclear weapons components had been inadvertently shipped to Taiwan in 2006.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates soon fired the air force's top civilian and military leaders in June 2008.

The ICBMs in the 20th Air Force, part of Air Force Space Command, are due to shift to the new command in early December and bombers from the 8th Air Force are scheduled to move to the command in February, officials said.

Three-star General Frank Klotz will lead the new command, which comprises 23,000 airmen.

While the nuclear role would take the top priority, the command would also be ready to employ conventional weapons, including a giant "bunker buster" bomb due to be ready next year, said air force chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz.

The general said the new command included an elaborate inspections regime with regular outside oversight.

"We have made a special effort to make the inspections more demanding, more invasive, more challenging," Schwartz told reporters.

"My judgment was that perhaps the inspections had not been as rigorous as we needed in the past. So we adjusted that," the general said.

He also said setting up a command would ensure the nuclear forces received equal status with other missions in the air force and would help develop a cadre of airmen with relevant skills.

The nuclear forces previously were perceived as a secondary mission, especially after the end of the Cold War.

"The key thing here is we ended up focusing on other things and understandably perhaps, but we are now wiser," Schwartz said.

Arms control talks with Russia and a major nuclear strategy review underway at the Pentagon had highlighted the importance of the nuclear forces, Donley said.

Donley and Schwartz discussed the command at a briefing Wednesday at the Pentagon. But the air force barred the release of their remarks until Friday as officers wanted to avoid the announcement coinciding with Thursday's anniversary of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945.

The attack killed some 140,000 people, either instantly or in the days and weeks that followed.

TOON

The World's Rubbish Dump: A Garbage Tip that Stretches from Hawaii to Japan

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Kathy Marks
August 6, 2009 - The Independent/UK

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A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris - in effect the world's largest rubbish dump - is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.

The "soup" is actually two linked areas, either side of the islands of Hawaii, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches. About one-fifth of the junk - which includes everything from footballs and kayaks to Lego blocks and carrier bags - is thrown off ships or oil platforms. The rest comes from land.

Mr Moore, a former sailor, came across the sea of waste by chance in 1997, while taking a short cut home from a Los Angeles to Hawaii yacht race. He had steered his craft into the "North Pacific gyre" - a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of little wind and extreme high pressure systems. Usually sailors avoid it.

He was astonished to find himself surrounded by rubbish, day after day, thousands of miles from land. "Every time I came on deck, there was trash floating by," he said in an interview. "How could we have fouled such a huge area? How could this go on for a week?"

Mr Moore, the heir to a family fortune from the oil industry, subsequently sold his business interests and became an environmental activist. He warned yesterday that unless consumers cut back on their use of disposable plastics, the plastic stew would double in size over the next decade.

Professor David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, said more research was needed to establish the size and nature of the plastic soup but that there was "no reason to doubt" Algalita's findings.

"After all, the plastic trash is going somewhere and it is about time we get a full accounting of the distribution of plastic in the marine ecosystem and especially its fate and impact on marine ecosystems."

Professor Karl is co-ordinating an expedition with Algalita in search of the garbage patch later this year and believes the expanse of junk actually represents a new habitat. Historically, rubbish that ends up in oceanic gyres has biodegraded. But modern plastics are so durable that objects half-a-century old have been found in the north Pacific dump. "Every little piece of plastic manufactured in the past 50 years that made it into the ocean is still out there somewhere," said Tony Andrady, a chemist with the US-based Research Triangle Institute.

Mr Moore said that because the sea of rubbish is translucent and lies just below the water's surface, it is not detectable in satellite photographs. "You only see it from the bows of ships," he said.

According to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, as well as more than 100,000 marine mammals. Syringes, cigarette lighters and toothbrushes have been found inside the stomachs of dead seabirds, which mistake them for food.

Plastic is believed to constitute 90 per cent of all rubbish floating in the oceans. The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic,

Dr Eriksen said the slowly rotating mass of rubbish-laden water poses a risk to human health, too. Hundreds of millions of tiny plastic pellets, or nurdles - the raw materials for the plastic industry - are lost or spilled every year, working their way into the sea. These pollutants act as chemical sponges attracting man-made chemicals such as hydrocarbons and the pesticide DDT. They then enter the food chain. "What goes into the ocean goes into these animals and onto your dinner plate. It's that simple," said Dr Eriksen.

"Kids Are a Pain in the Ass"

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People who don't have kids have more sex, more career success and a far smaller environment footprint than people who do.

Vanessa Richmond
August 7, 2009 - The Tyee

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Could it be that being childfree will ever be as legit as being a parent? That breeding could be seen as a choice: zero, one, two or even eight kids. Or even, like being gay, be seen as a matter of brain wiring, and not a sign of deviance or bad judgment.

Why does it matter? I get asked at least once a week whether I'm having kids. (My male friends don't, but that's another story). Other childless friends, who also get asked, say that when they answer that they can't have kids, that they've tried, that they've spent their retirement savings and house down payments on fertility treatments (and subjected themselves to hormone treatments, torturous procedures and endless needle jabs) people respond with awkwardness and pity, and emphatically tell them what else they must try.

But that's nothing like the friends who say they don't want to have kids. They're openly judged, even derided, then subjected to intense lobbying efforts and proselytizing.

When the thing is, even though there are great reasons to have kids, there are arguably far more reasons not to. In fact, it might be a better idea to be cautious towards people who want to breed, and actually grateful to the people who abstain (even though the desire to breed is understandable, of course). If childlessness (or "childfreeness," as it's now often referred to) were seen as a positive choice, and not an expected act or an essential part of female identity, everyone (including parents) would benefit.

The Childfree Buzz

Interest in the topic is breeding (sorry), like in [the popular Canadian magazine] Maclean's this week, for example. "The Case Against Having Kids," outlines extensive scientific, psychological and anthropological research that concludes childfreeness is a better choice for individuals and the planet.

But the most provocative and furor-inducing contribution on the topic is the book, No Kids: 40 Good Reasons Not to Have Children, by Corinne Maier, released last year in France and coming out this week in North America.

Maier, the mother of a 14- and 11-year-old says if she could make the choice again to have kids, she's "not sure" she would (inciting the most pernicious slur that can be slung at a woman, of course: "bad mother.") But she says that given her status as a mother, she feels compelled to speak out. If she were childless, she argues in the book, her offering would be dismissed as nothing more than the ranting of a bitter, childless woman.

In the introduction to Maier's manifesto, she says she was prompted to write No Kids after a conversation with friends (over several glasses of wine -- hey, this is France) who told her they felt like social deviants because they didn't want children. "It's acceptable for women to delay having a baby," she writes, "but to refuse to? No way!"

More Kids, Less Sex

But Maier says everyone should "take warning from France's example" of going from the least to the most fertile country in Europe. In France, raising the birth rate became an urgent national identity crusade, but has lead to nothing but negative results.

She writes: "The truth is the more your fecundity increases, the fewer there are of you who can call yourselves happy... Becoming a parent means giving up everything else: your life as a couple, your leisure time, your sex life, your friends, and if you're a woman, your career success."

Maier goes on to list 40 reasons to abstain from breeding, including the fact that childlessness means more sex. She says parents have less fun, fewer friends, and unhappier relationships. They have less money, less successful careers (especially women) and less time or energy to be creative or fulfilled. She says that parents today are held hostage by experts, and by the expectation that they be Superman or Superwoman at all times. "The education of children has become a sacrament: society demands of parents [that they be] always on call, smiling, attentive, teacherly and responsible." She says having children forces you into a life of conformity, and that kids are invariably disappointing. That you go from being a person and an individual to a bored slave. "Children are a pain in the ass."

Maier also argues, as many others do, that children are the worst thing we can do to the environment. "Listen, your marvelous babies have no future because every child born in a developed country is an ecological disaster for the whole planet."

Her conclusion: "Take the necessary precautions... the only solution is contraception."

Breeding Possibilities

Whether her manifesto will lead to a lower birthrate is debatable. But if her work somehow fertilizes the idea that breeding is an option, and that childlessness should be celebrated, it could lead to the birth of a whole new range of identity options and possibilities for women, men and the planet.

Advertisers Drop Glenn Beck

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Tana Ganeva
August 6, 2009 - AlterNet

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Bad new for Beck, good news for sanity.

Looks like Glenn Beck might be forced to dial back his right-wing psycho clown routine. The Color of Change, which ran a petition last week urging corporate sponsors to drop Beck, has just announced that three companies have agreed to stop advertising on Beck's Fox show.

Three companies who run ads during Glenn Beck -- NexisLexis-owned Lawyers.com, Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance -- today distanced themselves from Beck. LexisNexis has pulled its advertising from Beck and says it has no plans to advertise on the program in the future. Both Proctor & Gamble and Progressive Insurance called the Beck advertising placements an error that they would correct.

Two of the companies seem pretty embarrassed about it. According to the Color of Change press release, Lexis Nexis and Proctor and Gamble claim their ads appeared on Beck's show by mistake:

"Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention," said John Michaels, Senior Communications Manager at LexisNexis in an email to ColorOfChange.org. "We have suspended further advertising during Mr. Beck's program."

"We have no plans to continue advertising on Mr. Beck's show," Michaels continued in another email.

When executives at Procter & Gamble were contacted by ColorOfChange.org, they said that any ads run during Glenn Beck were run by mistake, and that they would correct the problem going forward.

"No P&G ads should have appeared on this program in the first place," said Martha Depenbrock, Brand Building Stakeholder Relations for Procter & Gamble in an email. "To be clear, if any of our advertising appeared on the Glenn Beck show, it was in error and we appreciate you bringing this matter to our attention. We will do what we can to see that it doesn't happen again."

Progressive Insurance said any ads running during Glenn Beck were a mistake by Fox News Channel -- a mistake they have asked the network to fix immediately.

"Our (advertising) order specifies no Glenn Beck," said Linda J. Harris, Media Director at Progressive Insurance in an email to ColorofChange.org. "We have confirmed with the network that our spots should not be running there," Harris said in a later email.

Ruh-oh.

The Color of Change launched their campaign after Beck accused President Obama of being a racist with a "deep-seated hatred for white people." According the organization, over 45,000 Color of Change members called on Beck sponsors to drop his show.

Will this spook Fox Network into forcing Beck to remold his image?

Where Our Defense Money Goes

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Bob Edgar and Bill Goodfellow
August 5, 2009 - The Boston Globe

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By threatening to veto the defense appropriations bill if it included money for more F-22 stealth fighter planes, President Obama signaled that he was going to put an end to the way business has been done in Washington. We applaud the president's announcement, but so far it is more symbolic than real.

The same week the Senate voted to cut funding for additional F-22s, for a savings of $1.75 billion, the Senate Armed Services Committee added another $9 billion in earmarks to the 2010 defense authorization bill. Earmarks direct money to a specific program or company in a member's district for something that has not been requested by the Pentagon and has not been subject to any public review or hearing. It is a gift from a member to a constituent, a gesture that usually is repaid with a generous campaign contribution.

Even if the president succeeds in blocking additional funding for the F-22 and for other programs Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has identified as unnecessary, core defense spending for next year will actually increase by $21 billion. And to make matters worse, every dollar spent on the military is a dollar borrowed from the Chinese or Japanese governments, a dollar that must be repaid with interest. Including costs assigned to other departments, total United States spending on the military approaches $1 trillion a year.

The defense budget is no longer just about defense. Rather, it has become a system of corporate welfare driven by jobs and campaign contributions, the military-industrial complex that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned about in his 1961 farewell address.

Congress has moved to make the earmark process more transparent. But ever-resourceful members of Congress have found a way around tighter reporting rules. The biggest portion of money doled out by the Senate Armed Services Committee was $4.3 million for "no member request'' earmarks, a blatant move to circumvent rules requiring members of Congress to disclose the earmarks they have given out.

Last week the House had its turn at the trough. The Defense Appropriations subcommittee's bill included 1,116 earmarks added by House members worth $2.75 billion. When the bill came to the House floor on July 30, Republican Congressmen Jeff Flake of Arizona and John Campbell of California offered amendments to strip 553 earmarks worth $2.7 billion from the bill. Their amendments were overwhelmingly defeated.

Bipartisanship is the name of the game when it comes to earmarks. Because they control key chairmanships, Democrats have an edge in the current Congress, but should the Republicans regain majorities in either chamber, rest assured they will give their Democratic colleagues a run for the money.

The pay-to-play aspect of earmarks has embarrassed members of Congress, as well it should, but each year they continue to give out literally thousands of earmarks, and almost half are added to the Defense Department funding bills. In 2008, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, members of Congress added 11,234 named earmarks totaling $14.8 billion to congressional funding bills. Another $3.5 billion in earmarks were added with no sponsor identified.

In April, Democratic congressman Paul Hodes of New Hampshire introduced legislation that would break the link between earmarks and campaign contributions. His bill would prohibit a member of Congress from taking a contribution from any person or company that has gotten an earmark from that member. It is very straightforward and it would go a long way toward ensuring that our defense policy is not driven by the defense industry's spending on lobbying and campaign contributions.

So far, Hodes has gotten only six Democrats and three Republicans to cosponsor his bill, which is hardly encouraging. Both Obama and his Republican challenger, Senator John McCain, railed against earmarks during the 2008 campaign, but neither has endorsed the Hodes bill.

McCain strongly backed Obama's threat to veto the defense bill if it contained money for additional F-22s. The next logical step would be for both McCain and Obama to get behind Hodes's bill. Until they do, it is still business as usual in Washington.

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Bob Edgar, a former member of Congress, is president of Common Cause. Bill Goodfellow is executive director of the Center for International Policy.