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Democracy in Chains; The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America, Nancy,MacLean, 2017

Started immediately after the end of WWII with the founding of the “think tank” the Mont Pelerin Society in Switzerland in 1947 and the influence of the Austrian school of economics via Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek on the economics department at the University of Chicago, a radical right movement that is best known as “neoliberalism” rose in America. Neoliberalism seeks to privatize all government run programs to reduce the state’s influence on capitalism by eliminating price controls, deregulating capital markets, and lowering trade barriers.

The most influential economists of this movement are the well known Milton Friedman and the little known James Buchanan both Chicago school of Economics trained and both of whom won Nobel prizes for their work. To best appreciate the dangers to democracy of their fact free, empirical free ideologies one need only look at the experience of Chile after the CIA assisted overthrow of the democratically elected government in 1973, the death of President Allende and the long disastrous Pinochet dictatorship. Friedman advised the coup government on the privatization of public government programs including the national retirement program. Friedman’s reputation was badly tarnished by these efforts. Buchanan’s influence was most felt in the creation of a new democracy free constitution for Chile which has yet to be replaced. Buchanan’s reputation was largely unaffected by his work in Chile.

“…for Buchanan, the end justified the means. Chile emerged with a set of rules closer to his ideal than any in existence, Built to repel future popular pressure for change. It was “a virtually unamendable charter,” in that co constitutional amendment could be added without endorsement by super majorities in two successive sessions of the National Congress, a body radically skewed by the over representation of the wealthy, the military, and the less popular political parties associated with them. Buchanan had long called for binding rules to protect economic liberty and constrain majority power, and Chile’s 1980 Constitution of Liberty guaranteed these as never before.

From its founding, some in the the US have been obsessed with protecting the rights of minorities – slave owners til the Civil War and the 19th Century robber barons thereafter. Central to all these efforts is the advocacy of states rights. The confederation of states failed because the central government was too weak. In negotiating the new Constitution, Madison fought hard with slave owning southerners. The result is the current division of powers between the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. The senate was created with 2 senators per state serving 6 year terms. This equality of all states regardless of population was an attempt to protect the smaller southern states from the political influence of the larger. Slave owners also negotiated that the millions of slaves should have 3/5 vote each (to be exercised by the owners). Then whenever civil rights issues came before the senate, the filibuster was invented and built into the system to assure that a minority of senators could stop any legislation. Not satisfied, the minority continues effort to disenfranchise voters to protect their power.

<> <> Harry Flood Byrd Sr. <>John C Calhoun

Maclean spends some time recounting the history and influence of slavery defender John C. Calhoun, 1782-1850, who can justifiable be considered the father of the radical right in America. Calhoun forged the filibuster as a senate tool in 1841. The supreme court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that all schools must be racially integrated. Senator Harry Flood Byrd of Virginia who politically ran Virginia was determined that Virginia’s schools would never be integrated. To get around the Federal ruling. Byrd offered a plan that all public schools in Virginia would be sold to private owners who would continue to operate then as segregated schools and that the state would offer vouchers to parents to pay for the new private schools. When parents, business owners, and other Virginia residents realized the potential impact of this plan on Virginia’s future they rose up to defeat the plan. Byrd reign as power broker for Virginia ended with this debacle. Buchanan arrived to head the economics department of the U of V in 1956, while this battle was ongoing. Buchanan favored the failed private school plan.

Enter billionaire Charles Koch:

The sense of intellectual and even ethical superiority to others may help explain why Charles Koch bypassed Milton Friedman to make common cause with the more uncompromising James Buchanan. Koch referred to Friedman and the rest of the post-Hayek Chicago school of economics he led, as well as to Alan Greenspan, as “sellouts to the system”. Why? Because they sought to “make government work more efficiently when the true libertarian should be tearing it out at the root.” They actually tried to help government deliver better results, which could only prolong the disease. Koch believed that only in its “radical, pure form,” without compromise, would the ideas “appeal to the brightest, most enthusiastic, most capable people.”

The Koch focus introduced heavily deceptive practices such as the crab walk to confuse, dividing constituencies to target groups that might be more open to deceptive tactics like pretending changes are needed to preserve a program when the goal is actually to eliminate the program altogether – social security, medicare, etc. Lying is now acceptable behavior if it advances your goals.

We just need to look at Citizen’s United – corporate spending on elections is free speech, Voting Rights Act of 1965 – Section 4 is unconstitutional – Section 5 requires re authorization, repeal of Roe V Wade – States rules apply to see that the focus on appointing ideological judges to federal courts is paying big dividends to the radical right. One former judge says recent pro corporate decisions amounts to a “privatization of the Justice System“.

Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes, Tariq Ali 2022

This well researched history is too dense and comprehensive to summarize. Tariq Ali read so many books and sources in preparation that he only presents a Select Bibliography at the end. Winston Churchill was born an aristocrat in 1874 and died in 1965 at age 90. The book is as much a history of British aristocratic rule and imperialism as it is a biography of the man. The ambitious Winston made certain he was present at most of the critical events affecting imperialism and labor relations during the course of his long life. He never took personal responsibility for his many failures during his long life. The life of Winston Churchill makes an interesting contrast to American marine general Smedley Butler who was born middle class in 1881 and died in 1940 at age 58. Like Winston, Smedley seems to have been present at almost every significant event in extending and securing American imperialism. Unlike Winston, his military exploits were largely successful, even if they primarily benefited American exploitative capitalists. The British military officer that most matches the exploits of American Smedley Butler, is Sir Charles Wickham, whose exploits include Ireland, the Boer War, Russia supporting the White army fighting the Bolsheviks in the civil war, Greece, and Palestine.

Know thy enemy:
he does not care what colour you are
provided you work for him
and yet you do!
he does not care how much you earn
provided you earn more for him
and yet you do!
he does not care who lives in the room at the top
provided he owns the building
and yet you strive!
he will let you write against him
and yet you write!
he sings the praises of humanity
but knows machines cost more than men.
Bargain with him, he laughs and beats you at it;
challenge him, and he kills.
sooner than lose the things he owns
he will destroy the world.
SMASH CAPITAL NOW!

Christopher Logue, poster poem, Black Dwarf (June 1968)

Iris Chang

Iris Chang published The Rape of Nanking in 1997, focusing worldwide attention on Japan’s “orgy of cruelty” where as many as 350,000 civilians are estimated to have died. 1000 women were raped every day. The assault on Nanjing was led by Hirohito’s fifty-year old uncle, Prince Asaka, the senior most officer present. To this day influential Japanese leaders, journalists, and academics deny that the Nanjing events happened. Historian Herbert Bix quotes from standing Japanese orders to military units that specified the killing of all prisoners, civilian and military, and the burning of houses. After Nanjing fell the soldiers went on an unplanned rampage of arson, pillage, murder, and rape. Herbert Bix published Hirohito and the Making of Modern Japan in 2000 establishing the direct responsibility of Hirohito for all major military actions including Manchuria, Nanjing, Pearl Harbor, Singapore, and so on. Hirohito was left in place after Japan’s defeat and was never tried for war crimes, unlike Tojo who was tried for war crimes and executed.

From 1942 to 1944 the British rulers, under Churchill, diverted all available rice and other grains from Bengal to feed American and British soldiers. Fearing a Japanese invasion of Bengal they also confiscated and destroyed privately owned boats needed to transport food and other products throughout Bengal. The result was that an estimated 5 million Bengalis died of starvation. This genocidal war crime was only discovered after the war ended. Satyajit Ray made the film Distant Thunder in 1973 based on a novel describing this genocide. The film was panned by American reviewers. This war crime, near the level of the Jewish holocaust, is not even mentioned in the Oxford History of the Twentieth Century 1998. More proof that history is written by the victors.

A 1948 U.S. State Department Assessment:

We have about 50% of the world’s wealth, but only 6.5% of its population…Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security…We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization…We should concentrate our policy on seeing to it that key areas remain in hands which we can control or rely on.