"The far right made gains in the elections, with voters in Italy, the UK, Hungary and the Netherlands, among others, supporting candidates who espoused explicitly anti-immigrant, antiIslamic and hardline nationalist platforms.
Italy's Northern League, stridently anti-foreigner, more than doubled its share of the vote to 10.2 per cent and won eight seats. In Hungary, the Jobbik party, with its anti-gypsy platform, won three seats. In the Netherlands, the Freedom party of Geert Wilders, the maverick politician who has become the face of anti-Islamic sentiment across Europe, won four seats.
In the UK, the antiIslamic British National party won its first two European parliament seats because of widespread disaffection with the Labour party among white voters in the north.
Analysts said there was a pattern to the rise of the far right: it was able to exploit what seems to be a rising sense of insecurity and hostility to immigrants. Writing in Corriere della Sera, political commentator Massimo Franco said the rise in support for the Northern League "legitimises a politics that is shared by xenophobic forces that are on the rise nearly everywhere, especially in Holland and Austria".
High on most far right parties' to-do lists, however, is keeping Turkey out of the EU. Roberto Cota, a senior Northern League official, said the party would be working "above all to block illegal immigration and the entry of Turkey into the union".
""The UK was the only one of the six biggest EU countries where the governing party did not come either first or a close second. Labour was forced into a humiliating third position with just over 15 per cent of the vote. Gordon Brown’s defeated army straggled in behind the United Kingdom Independence party (Ukip), which wants to pull Britain out of the EU. To compound the agony, the collapse in Labour’s vote meant that the openly racist British National party (BNP) has gained two seats in the parliament – and all the money and publicity that goes with it."
"What would have happened if hanging chads and the Supreme Court hadn’t denied Al Gore the White House in 2000? Many things would clearly have been different over the next eight years.
But one thing would probably have been the same: There would have been a huge housing bubble and a financial crisis when the bubble burst. And if Democrats had been in power when the bad news arrived, they would have taken the blame, even though things would surely have been as bad or worse under Republican rule.
"Let me just boil this all down for you. ... The right is rising in Europe because they are embracing, on the one hand, racism, on the second - there's multiple hands here - on the second fear that the economic problems are being caused by in part immigrants and 'the other', and nationalism; the idea of, 'this is our nation, we're all in it together'. National sovereignty, really, is a better way of saying it. And populism. You know, our nation for our nation, not to screw the other nation, not even to hurt them and not even 'to hell with them', but, 'hey. let's get our act together here'.
And here's the problem. Progressives, liberals and in particular big D Democrats in the United States and I hear this also from people in the Green Party as well although I don't think it's an official position, it certainly is for the Democratic Party, for the last 30 years have not been embracing - I'm not suggesting they should embrace the racist part of all that - but have not been embracing the populist and national sovereignty portions of the political dialogue, the political debate, the political spectrum that the right is embracing in Europe and is embracing in the United States as well. You know, Pat Buchanan is probably one of the most outspoken advocates for national sovereignty in the United States. Now, the Republicans for a long time have taken this position, and I think, frankly, that the Democrats backing away from it has been a combination of two reasons why they have blown it so badly on this.
The Republicans have embraced national sovereignty by rejecting the United Nations, which is stupid. They've said, you know, when you sign UN treaties what you're doing is you give away your right to wage a war whenever you damn well please. Well, that's a fine thing if it leads to world peace. But the Republicans have been hysterical about 'you're giving away national sovereignty'. And then came Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George Bush, in particular Bill Clinton, and I would say that this was really when the Democrats went off the edge of the cliff. Bill Clinton's embracing NAFTA, GATT and the creation of the World Trade organization, and the phrase "free trade". Free trade is now considered to be a good thing by both radical conservatives and radicals. Free trade, there's nothing free about free trade, first of all, its an oxymoron. And secondly, what it is, to the extent that it's free, it's free for transnational corporations, to hell with the rest of us.
And if the Democratic Party, if Democrats generally don't start embracing this, a populist national sovereignty agenda, that says, 'no, we are in favor of America first'. You know, look at, for example, the buy America provision that was in the stimulus bill that Obama put forward. They took that out. Democrats took that out. I mean, it was pressure from Republicans that led it, but they could have said no. They could have pushed back. But the Republicans said, 'no, take that out'. Why? Because the transnational corporations are playing the tune to which ... all of the Republicans and many of the Democrats are dancing, and of course which ... the corporate media in the United States is dancing.
Here's the real simple reality. Wealth is created only, real wealth, I'm not talking about money and profits, I'm talking about wealth; a nation becoming wealthier. Our nation has become less wealthy over the last 30 years. For 200 years we were on a steady path of getting wealthier and wealthier and wealthier and we were creating most of that wealth. Some of it came at the expense of other countries but most of it came by our taking things out of the ground, minerals by and large, in many cases wood, and converting them into things of value. When you take iron ore out of the ground and you turn it into a washing machine you have created wealth. When you take a tree and you turn it into a piece of furniture, you have created wealth ... or built houses, you've increased the value of things. We created wealth in the United States by manufacturing.
The other way that you create wealth out of the ground is by growing food. We have now reached the point in the United States for the first tie in our entire history since the founding of this country, well actually, arguably, at the very beginning of the founding of this country, we could not provide for ourselves because the British had made it illegal for us, for example, to make clothing. George Washington, had to import a tailor from Europe ... so he could have an American-made suit for his inauguration because nobody wore American made clothes because they were illegal. And we fought the revolution over that and then we could make clothes. So from a few years after the American Revolution until more or less about 20 years ago, certainly Clinton, you know, WTO, GATT, NAFTA, until that time, we made enough food to feed ourselves, and enough manufactured goods to provide us all with our basic needs. We no longer do.
We're still producing enough food, although arguably much of the food we're producing isn't good for us. It's not the stuff that we really need. And the stuff that we really need in our diet, the fruits and vegetables, we're importing massive amounts of it, a lot of it from Chile. But we're in particular not manufacturing the things we use. Think how long America would last if we had no computers. We don't make computers here. We don't make televisions here. We don't make radios here. We don't make telephones here. We don't make clothing here. We're even importing bullets from Israel to use in Iraq. This is nuts.
"Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome. Good government. They want everybody to vote. I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." Paul Weyrich (video).
"The right just won all across Europe, thanks to nationalism, populism and recession. It could happen here too."
"Iconic American companies such as Coca Cola, Ford, RCA, General Motors, General Electric and Nokia have all opened up assembly plants in Mexico. In fact, GE employs 30,000 Mexicans in 35 factories in the country."
He does not mind spending on health care if Obama can find the money, costs are exploding so fast that Medicare and Medicaid will go bankrupt. Thom said a lot is due to Billy Townsend, Medicare part D. They added on Medicare drug plan liability even though the program was already in trouble. Thom said it would need campaign finance reform to fix. He said we're going to make tough choices. He's a conservative, or more libertarian, but these are things we should agree on, to retool the economy, deal with health care costs, trade policy.
"Eisenhower knows how to deal with the Russians. He has met Europe's leaders, has got them working with us. Elect the number one man for the number one job of our time. November 4th vote for peace. Vote for Eisenhower." 1952, 'The Man from Abilene'.
"Our military organization today bears little relation to that known of any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.
Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.
Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. ...
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
"Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961, farewell radio and television address to the American people, Washington, D.C. (transcript)
"As we peer into society's future, we - you and I, and our government - must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."
Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961, farewell radio and television address to the American people, Washington, D.C. (transcript)).
Lamar and Thom tried to clear him, he has tried himself. What is the status? He has been trying to work it out for 20 years, it traces back to the same people' likely Cain. They need the CIA files, which a 1992 law requires to be released but they have not been. There is a tell congress button on the "Legacy of Secrecy" site. The judge in Bolden's case was so biased, he told the jury he was guilty before hand, so there was a mistrial, but he was assigned to the retrial. Abraham has several things under way, he is not as concerned for himself now he is an old man, but the preservation of the constitution for his children and grandchildren. It is hard to go through this daily. Lamar said the files would help Bolden, relations from Cuba, tell Obama Abraham deserves a pardon.
