This is the third installment of a project that is likely to extend over a two-year-period from January, 2010. It is the serialization of a book entitled The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. Under the pseudonym Jonathan Westminster and fictitious biography, the book is purportedly published in the year 2048 on the 25th Anniversary of the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy in the Re-United States. It was actually published in 1996 by the Thomas Jefferson Press, located in Port Jefferson, NY. The copyright is held by the Press. Herein you will find Chapter 2.
Chapter Two
Fascism in America: An Overview
JONATHAN WESTMINSTER
Author’s Commentary: How Fascism Came to the United States [print_link]
Many lengthy books have been written on the tale of how fascism came to the old United States. In this chapter I present a brief overview of the process. Some further description and analysis of the nature of fascism and its advent in the old U.S. is provided by a Dino Louis essay reproduced in Appendix II. [Editor’s note: This is presently available only in the print version of the book.]
An ever deepening economic decline occurred in the country in the latter part of the 20th century. The decline was not one that could be measured by the traditional yardstick of economic progress, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It continued to rise at a modest, non-inflation-producing pace, the latter maintained for the benefit of the wealthy by the monetary policies of the central bank (the “Federal Reserve”). But an increasing number of economists and other observers came to realize that the GDP did not tell all there was to tell about either the economy or the state of the nation (Cobb, et al).
As noted by Michael Lind, Dino Louis, Lester Thurow, and many other observers at the time, underneath the GDP climb, the poor were getting poorer and more numerous, the rich were getting richer, and everyone else was experiencing falling personal incomes and rising levels of personal and economic anxiety (DeParle; Phillips). Lind called attention to the underlying reasons for this state of affairs, such as a regressive taxation policy and the export of capital (1995).
Lind also noted that not only were the rich getting richer, but they were going out of their way to publicly deny the facts of the rising gap between the rich and everyone else, to create the illusion that it was not happening, and to create the impression that the causes of the economic malaise affecting almost everybody but them was caused by anything but them and their policies. The “anything” could be anything from people of color to immigrants to the poor to the feminists to homosexuals to environmentalists to the United Nations Organization to the “New World Order” to “international bankers” (read “Jews”).
In fact, as noted by Dino Louis, in a process driven at its base by under-investment at home and a concomitant export of capital abroad, the economy was rotting upwards from its foundations, with declining personal incomes, increasing job insecurity, the disaccumulation of labor from capital, and de-industrialization. The rotting process was accelerated by the existence of a huge, ever-growing government debt, created in large part during the 1980s by the policies of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.
Reaganite policy, in fact, had within a five-year period from 1981 changed the financial posture of the country from that of the world’s leading creditor nation to that of the world’s leading debtor nation. This borrowing was undertaken to finance a vast expansion of the U.S. military, at a time when the nation was ostensibly at peace, and large tax cuts for the wealthy and the large corporations (McIntyre). It produced a floridly growing economy at the time, for which the Reaganites took credit, but that was the product of nothing but old-fashioned Keynesian government pump-priming, although through a very narrow spigot that dropped the largess almost entirely upon the military-industrial complex.
Thus for many years leading up to this time, American society had been characterized by economic and social conditions which might have led to civil and/or labor unrest. But many people were easily distracted from the realities of life and the true causes of their problems by the above-mentioned strategies of diversion. They also included a domestic “anti-communist crusade” (against a virtually non-existent Communist Party), and the foreign “Cold War” against the old Soviet Union (designed not to “contain” it, as advertised, but to destroy it, which happened). As noted, the diversionary strategies also included such elements as manufactured racism and xenophobia.
A Transition Era poet and philosopher described the latter strategy well (Morrison):
“Let us be reminded that before there is a final solution, there must be a first solution, a second one, even a third. The move toward a final solution is not a jump. It takes one step, then another, then another. Something, perhaps, like this:
“1. Construct an internal enemy, as both focus and diversion.
“2. Isolate and demonize the enemy by unleashing and protecting the utterance of covert and coded name-calling and verbal abuse. Employ ad hominem attacks as legitimate charges against that enemy.
“3. Enlist and create sources and distributors of information who are willing to reinforce the demonizing process because it is profitable, because it grants power and because it works.
“4. Palisade all art forms; monitor, discredit or expel those that challenge or destabilize processes of demonization and deification.
“5. Subvert and malign all representatives of sympathizers with this constructed enemy.
“6. Solicit, from among the enemy, collaborators who agree with and can sanitize the dispossession process.
“7. Pathologize the enemy in scholarly and popular mediums; recycle, for example, scientific racism and the myths of racial superiority in order to naturalize the pathology.
“8. Criminalize the enemy. Then prepare, budget for, and rationalize the building of holding areas for the enemy—especially its males and absolutely its children.
“9. Reward mindlessness and apathy with monumentalized entertainments and with little pleasures, tiny seductions: a few minutes on television, a few lines in the press; a little pseudo-success; the illusion of power and influence; a little fun, a little style, a little consequence.
“10. Maintain, at all costs, silence.
“In 1995 racism may wear a new dress, buy a new pair of boots, but neither it nor its succubus twin fascism is new or can make anything new. It can only reproduce the environment that supports its own health: fear, denial and an atmosphere in which its victims have lost the will to fight.”
In this analysis, Morrison retrospectively described the development of German Nazism in the 1930s based on the then-coming War Against the Jews (Davidowicz). She also chillingly and accurately prophesied the coming of fascism to America in the early 21st century through the War Against the Peoples of Color, as the process described in this book might be called, leading ultimately and inevitably to the establishment of the New American Republics.
By the time the turn of the 21st century was reached, the economic decline affecting all sectors of society other than the truly wealthy was quickening, and social unrest was doing the same. Then it was found by the wealthy and their political allies that the divisive/distractive strategies which had worked so well for so many years to keep a relative civil peace began to fail in meeting that objective. This process led to increasingly violent outbursts on the part of increasing numbers of people from all walks of life. And some of those outbursts began to focus on such matters as the widening gap between rich and poor, the loss of employment security, and the overall decline in the standard of living for most people.
The economic and political decision-makers of the society thus gradually came to view it as a necessity that significant levels of force and repression be used, or at least made ready, to prevent the occurrence of full-fledged rebellion. Hence the final development of the fascist state in the old U.S.. But it had to be realized, if at all possible, by democratic means.
Why so? Because the democratic tradition was strong in the United States of America. The tradition, and the basic American concept, “it’s a free country,” had been encouraged by the operations of the political system from the time of the nation’s founding as the world’s first democracy, however limited at the time, in 1789. “Free speech” and “freedom from government oppression” were slogans even of major elements of the Far Right, the foot soldiers of which would eventually and ironically become the agents of repression on the street and in the camps for the national decision-makers.
However, no country had ever previously become fascist by majority vote of the whole electorate. Even in the Nazi Germany of the 1930s and 40s (where the fascists had taken power by constitutional means), the highest proportion of a free vote that the National Socialist (Nazi) Party had ever received was 37% (of a high voter turnout).
Just as in pre-World War II Germany, in the old U.S. it is unlikely that fascism, if openly put to a vote, could ever have attracted a majority of the eligible voters. But given the realities of voting patterns, that was not necessary for the constitutional installation of fascism. In the old U.S., even in Presidential elections, any voter turnout over 50% was considered good. And so, in the late 20th century a strategy was developed by Right-Wing Reaction through which fascism could be brought to the old U.S. by Constitutional means, if not true majority vote. It was called “The 15% Solution.”
“The 15% Solution”
“The 15% Solution” was an electoral strategy developed by the leading political organ of the Religious Right, the so-called “Christian Coalition” (ADL). The “Christian Coalition” was an unabashed, unapologetic, and outspoken representative of that authoritarian thinking (see also Dino Louis’ discussion of the nature of fascism in Appendix II) which under their influence was so prominently represented in the politics of the Republican Party, beginning at their 1992 National Convention. The strategy was designed to win elections even when the Coalition’s supporters comprised a distinct minority of the eligible electorate. As an early Christian Coalition Executive Director, Ralph Reed, once said (Harkin): “I paint my face and travel at night. You don’t know it’s over until you’re in a body bag.”
Although in later public statements, the Christian Coalition made attempts to cover up or even disavow the strategy, according to its 1991 National Field Director, it was formulated in the following way (Rodgers):
“In a Presidential election, when more voters turn out than [in] any other election you normally see, only 15% of eligible voters determine the outcomes of that election . . . . Of all adults 18 and over, eligible to vote, only about 60 or 65% are actually registered to vote. It might even be less than that, and it is less than that in many states. . . .
“Of those registered to vote, in a good turnout only 50% actually vote. [Thus,] only 30% of those eligible actually vote. . . . 15% of adults eligible to vote determine the outcome in a high turnout election. That happens once every four years. . . . In low turnout elections, city council, state legislature, county commissions, the percentage who [sic] determines who wins can be as low as 6 or 7%. We don’t have to worry about convincing a majority of Americans to agree with us. Most of them are staying home and watching ‘Roseanne'” [emphasis added. Author’s Note: “Roseanne” was a popular television program of that time.]
As one of the most influential leaders of the Religious Right, Paul Weyrich, succinctly put it (Freedom Writer, Nov., 1994): “We don’t want everyone to vote. Quite frankly, our leverage goes up as the voting population goes down.”
Elected allies of the Christian Coalition worked to make this wish a reality. For example, a Governor of Virginia, George F. Allen, elected in 1992 with open Christian Coalition support, attempted by the use of the veto to prevent implementation of Federal legislation designed to make it easier for people to register to vote (NYT).
By the national election of 1994, Right Wing Reaction was well on its way to achieving its goal. Only about 38% of eligible voters voted. That turnout was part of the process that came to be referred to as the “Incredible Shrinking Electorate.” With slightly more than half of those voting choosing the old Republican Party’s Congressional candidates that year, the Party achieved a major turnaround in Congressional representation and took control of that body.
Many of the new representatives were supported by the Christian Coalition and its allies. In an odd representation of reality, most media and political figures represented that victory as one reflecting the views of the “American people” as a whole. In fact, the Republican victory was achieved by garnering the support of under 20% of the eligible voters. “The 15% Solution” was well within sight.
The political posture adopted by the opposition Democrats played a significant role in the creation of the Incredible Shrinking Electorate. They gave the majority of increasingly disaffected people nothing to come out to the polls for but either a warmed-over imitation of Republican Party policies, or a set of well-intentioned but ineffective alternatives.
The minority of eligible voters who actually supported Republican, and later, Republican-Christian Alliance, policies turned out and voted for them. Those who wanted something significantly different, consistent with the liberal tradition of the Democratic Party, not finding it on the ballot, just stayed home. Implementation of “The 15% Solution” proceeded apace. It was eventually used by the Right-Wing Reactionaries to impose their will on the majority of the people. And just like their German Nazi predecessors, once they gained power through Constitutional means, they maintained it largely through anything but.
The Apogee of American Fascism
The apogee of fascism in America is generally considered to have been reached around 2017. By that year, while the old Constitution (see Appendix I) was still technically in force, the old United States of America had for six years already been existing as that apartheid nation called the New American Republics. The NAR was designed along the lines of plans for racial separation which had been developed by such late 20th century Right-Wing Republican leaders as David Duke of Louisiana (Patriquin). It was the entirely predictable result of the American Right-Wing Reactionary movement that had at its core an ideology of black, (genetically-based), inferiority (Herrnstein and Murray), and explicit or implicit White Supremacy.
There were still two years to go before the Latin Wars in the Fourth Republic would begin to turn sour and the formal Restoration Declaration would be issued by the National Leadership Council of the Movement for the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy in the old United States.
The sole legal political party of the NAR was the American Christian Nation Party (ACNP). In 2008, President Jefferson Davis Hague had formed it out of the Republican-Christian Alliance, successor to the old Republican Party. In rhetoric at least , the NAR was a “Christian Nation,” achieving a goal of many leaders of Right-Wing Reaction in the old U.S. from a wide variety of backgrounds, such as the Rev. Pat Robertson, the head of the Christian Coalition, a one-time Governor of the state of Mississippi, Kirk Fordyce, and R.J. Rushdooney, a leader of Christian Reconstructionism and the Christian Coalition’s more secretive 20th century counterpart, the Coalition on Revival.
Rushdooney, a very influential if not very well-known leader of the Christian Right, for example “advocated total Christian theocracy and [once] wrote ‘Democracy is the great love of the failures and cowards of life'” (Freedom Writer, Jan., 1995, p. 1). Of the legal theory of Christian Reconstructionism, the basis for the Supremacy Amendment (see Chapter nine), one David Barton said (Schollenberger): “Whatever is Christian is legal. Whatever isn’t Christian is illegal.”
The NAR consisted of four “Republics.” The “White Republic” controlled most of the territory of the old United States, as well as that of the four western Provinces of the old Canada. The “Black Republic,” in some ways like the Black “Bantustans” of pre-liberation South Africa in the 20th century, was a series of disconnected, walled-off, “provinces” consisting of selected, old, predominantly black “inner cities,” carved out of the old U.S. All blacks in the country not already living in what became the collective territory of the republic had been forcibly moved and confined to one “province” or another.
Similarly, the “Red Republic” was based on a set of walled-off former Indian Reservations to the west of the Mississippi, to which all Native Americans had been moved and confined. Fourth was to have been the Hispanic Republic, consisting of all the nations of Latin America, to which, coincidentally, all persons of Hispanic (Latino) origin living in the old U.S. were to have been deported. Full deportation was never achieved by the NAR government, just as full control of Latin America was never achieved either. But a “Killer Fence” (see Chapter 15) had been constructed along the length of the old U.S.-Mexican border, and the Fourth Republic was on the books.
How did all of this come to pass legislatively, one might ask. In brief, through the use of “The 15% Solution,” Right-Wing Reaction had by the national election of 2004 taken full control of the Congress and the Executive Branch at the Federal level, and of more than 38 state governments. (The assent of 38 state legislatures was required for the ratification of any Constitutional Amendment.)
And where, one might also ask, was the Federal Supreme Court in all of this? Well, it had not reviewed actions of the other two branches of the Federal government for their constitutionality since it had handed down the Anderson Decision in 2003. In that decision (see Chapter five), based on the strict Borkian interpretation of the Doctrine of Original Intent, the Court removed from itself the power to review the actions of the other two branches of the Federal government for their Constitutionality. The Court was thus out of the picture. Anderson was the most far-reaching Supreme Court decision in U.S. history since “Dred Scott” of 1857. In one sense, Anderson set the stage for the Second Civil War just as Dred Scott had set the stage for the First.
The Social Profile of the NAR
The very existence of the New American Republics in 2017 was the at least partly predictable result of policies that the American Christian Nation Party and its predecessors had been advocating and at times implementing for many years leading up to the NAR’s creation in 2011. The social profile of the White Republic was fully predictable. It was just what Right-Wing Reaction had told the American people it would impose upon them if it ever got complete power. These changes were achieved largely through a series of Constitutional amendments which the Right-Wing Reactionary dominated national and state legislatures were able to adopt with ease in the first decade of the 21st century, even before the establishment of the NAR (see Chapters four, seven, eight, nine and twelve).
Freedom of speech was a thing of the past, except on paper. “Christian Thinking,” as defined by the ACNP and based on the “Innerant Bible,” as interpreted by the ACNP, was the only way of thinking acceptable throughout the White Republic. People not accepting “Christian Thinking” who did not keep their thoughts to themselves were subject to a wide variety of penalties, from loss of employment (a practice previewed in the old United States by the so-called “black-listing” practice of the “McCarthy Era” of the 1950s) to confinement in a “drug rehabilitation” camp.
Freedom of the press and the media in general was also a thing of the past. Although all media outlets, newspapers, radio, television, and political virtual reality were privately owned, they were all licensed and no one who was not known to be an absolute supporter of ACNP policy could get a license. Freedom of choice in the outcome of pregnancy had long since vanished. The public school system that had been developed in the old United States since the early 19th century had ceased to exist, replaced by a combination of public and private religious schools and home-based education. Sex education and the provision of contraceptives were banned. Homosexuality had been made a crime. The old “welfare” system had been terminated completely, and the principal remaining achievement of the “New Deal” of the President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-1945), the Social Security System, had been dismantled by a process Right-Wing Reaction called “Privatization.”
The 16th Amendment (providing for a Federal income tax) had been repealed. Subject to Congressional review, the President had been given the power to rule by proclamation in “times of national emergency” (very similar to the “Enabling Act” passed by the German Reichstag [parliament] in the early days of the Hitlerian Chancellorship which gave him, through the democratic process, the authority to rule by decree [Shirer]).
By Constitutional amendment as well, the “Laws of God” were established as superior to those of the Constitution. (Although at the time of the Supremacy Amendment’s ratification there had been some controversy about just what the phrase “Laws of God” meant, as noted, upon the creation of the NAR the ACNP proclaimed that thenceforth it would make all such determinations.) The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the old Constitution had been repealed, under the Borkist theory of “Original Intent.”
Economically, as a result of the previously noted under-investment in both the private and public sectors, manufacturing, the basis of American world-wide economic dominance for most of the second half of the 20th century, had declined to a very low level. However, all limitations on lumbering and coal mining had been eliminated, in order to establish what the ACNP called a “Resource Based Economy.” That had made the takeover of the four Western Canadian Provinces with their largely untapped coal and timber reserves essential, and had at the same time reduced the NAR to the status of what in the 20th century had been called a “Third World” raw materials exporting country, although one operating at a very high level.
But a one-party, theocratic state, based on a racist theory of human existence, with a continually declining standard of living, and a significant number of oppressed people under its thumb, even if it came to power by democratic means, cannot maintain that power without the use of brute force. The history of all other such countries demonstrated that fact. Thus there was a national police force called “The Helmsmen,” “those with their hands on the helm of the ship of God’s state.”
The Helmsmen enforced ACNP rule and rules, legally and extra-legally (although there were no legal means to combat their extra-legal use of force). Having both a public and a secret face, it had much in common with the Schutzstaffel (SS) of the old Nazi Germany. A series of camps, under the control of the Helmsmen (as the “Concentration Camps” of Nazi Germany had been under the control of the SS), were located on closed former military bases. They had been originally established by one of the first acts of “The Last Republican,” President Carnathon Pine (2001-2004), as part of the “Real Drug War” he had announced in his Inaugural Address of 2001 (see the next Chapter).
Well before 2017, the camps had been adapted to the broader purpose of confining, in not too pleasant surroundings, opponents of the regime. (The camps were, however, not nearly as unpleasant as the extermination camp for “homosexuals” which would be set up in 2020 as part of the “Second Final Solution” [see Chapter 18].) As noted, the Mexican border had long since been closed with a pro-active, at times seemingly life-like, “Killer Fence.” More advanced versions of the “Killer Fence” were used to completely isolate the “Provinces” of both the Black and Red Republics.
And that, in brief, is a picture of the NAR in 2017. This book will fill in that picture, will add color, depth, and focus to it, by tracing the history of the Fascist Period through a description and analysis of the documents which shaped it, and by hearing the voices of a few of those who lived it. In brief here is presented an overview of that documentary history.
The Documentary Trail of American Fascism
2001 The Inauguration of President Pine, the Last Republican, and the Declaration of the Real Drug War.
2002 The “Preserve America” (30th) Amendment to the Constitution. It provided that henceforth no person could become a citizen of the United States unless at least one parent were a citizen of the United States.
2003 The Supreme Court decision in Anderson v. the United States. It reversed the early landmark decisions by the Court of Chief Justice John Marshall, from Marbury v. Madison (1801) to McColluch v. Maryland (1823), which had originally established the Supreme Court’s power to review and void on Constitutional grounds Executive and Legislative branch actions, a power nowhere to be explicitly found in the Constitution.
2004 The First Inaugural Address of President Jefferson Davis Hague (delivered from the National Cathedral on Christmas Day). He had won the Presidency as the candidate of the new Republican-Christian Alliance.
2005 The Morality (31st) Amendment to the Constitution. It outlawed abortion under any circumstances; prohibited any teaching in any educational institution on any matters concerning sexual functioning; declared homosexuality to be a matter of choice and denied any civil rights protections to homosexual persons; prohibited all forms of Federal, state, or local government funded outdoor relief for the poor; and repealed the 16th Amendment (which had established the income tax).
2006 The Balancing (32nd) Amendment to the Constitution. It required a balanced Federal budget, with no provisions for exceptions; required a two-thirds vote of the membership of each House of Congress for the approval of any tax increase; established a line-item veto; repealed the Fourth Amendment (prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure); and gave the President the power to declare “special emergencies” during which he could rule by decree.
2007 The Supremacy (33rd) Amendment to the Constitution. It gave the President and/or the Congress the power to declare the Laws of God as superior to those of the Constitution. It bound all judges, Federal and state, to abide by the terms of the amendment. It allowed the establishment of religious tests for any elected or appointed government official. Finally, it guaranteed organized prayer in the public schools.
2008 Hague’s Second Inaugural. He announced the planned conversion of the Republican-Christian Alliance into the American Christian Nation Party.
2009 The Proclamation of Right of 2009. It made homosexuality a crime.
2010 The Original Intention (34th) Amendment to the Constitution. It repealed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution (that had, respectively, abolished slavery, among other things applied the due process guarantee of the 5th Amendment to the states, and guaranteed the right to vote to former slaves and other persons of color).
2011 The Declaration of Peace. On July 4 of that year, it established the New American Republics (NAR).
2013 The Natural Resources Access Act. Among other things, it terminated the National Parks and National Forests systems.
2015 The National Plan for Social Peace. It was intended, among other things, to deal with the many social and legal problems not solved and/or created by the Fascist Period Constitutional Amendments.
2017 The Legitimation Treaty of 2017. This tri-partite Treaty, between the NAR, the rump Canadian government based in the Maritime Provinces, and the Republic of Quebec (RQ), recognized the independence of the RQ, the annexation of the Western Canadian provinces to the White Republic of the NAR, and the partition of the former Canadian Province of Ontario between the NAR and the RQ.
2019 The Restoration Declaration. The first formal statement by the new National Leadership Council of the Movement for the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy, which for the first time joined together previously unconnected resistance movements in the Four Republics.
2020 The Second Final Solution (the Second Holocaust). It was a secret program, purportedly designed to exterminate the remaining homosexual population in the NAR. However, its real purpose was to exterminate, without involving the local messiness created by the Death Squads, any opponents of the regime it could find.
2021 – 2023 The intervention by the East Asian Confederation in 2021, the successful conclusion of the Second Civil War in 2022, and the Restoration of Constitutional Democracy in 2023. Restoration formally dissolved the NAR (in the process formally liberating the Latin American countries), recognized the establishment of the Federal Republic of Canada within the former Canadian boundaries, including Quebec, with the reestablishment of the former U.S.-Canadian border, and created the Re-United States of America. The new Constitution, based in many ways on the old but in many ways different too, featured strengthened protections for individual freedom and liberty, and strengthened governmental powers for intervention in the operations of the economy.
References:
ADL: Anti-Defamation League, The Religious Right: The Assault on Tolerance & Pluralism in America, New York: 1994, pp. 31-39.
Cobb, C., Halstead, T., and Rowe, J., “If the GDP Is Up, Why Is America Down?” The Atlantic Monthly, October, 1995, p. 59.
Davidowicz, L.S., The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1975.
DeParle, J., “Census Sees Falling Income and More Poor,” New York Times, October 7, 1994.
Freedom Writer, “Church Organization is key to Coalition’s success,” November, 1994, p. 2.
Freedom Writer, “Profile Chalcedon,” January, 1995, p. 1.
Freedom Writer, “Concerned About Concerned Women of America,” January, 1995, p. 3.
Harkin, T., Fund-raising letter, Washington, DC: July, 1995.
Herrnstein, R.J. and Murray, C., The Bell Curve, New York: The Free Press, 1994.
Lind, M., “To Have And Have Not,” Harper’s Magazine, June, 1995, p. 35.
McIntyre, R.S., “The Populist Tax Act of 1989,” The Nation, April 2, 1988, p. 445.
Morrison, T., “Racism and Fascism,” The Nation, May 29, 1995, p. 760.
NYT: New York Times, “U.S. Countersues Virginia Over Motor Voter Law,” July 9, 1995.
Patriquin, R., “Duke plan calls for dividing America,” Shreveport Journal, February 7, 1989.
Phillips, K., The Politics of Rich and Poor, New York: Random House, 1990.
Rodgers, G., “Turning Out the Christian Vote in 1992,” Christian Coalition Conference held at Regent University, Virginia Beach, VA, Nov. 15-16, 1991 (partial transcript, p. 16).
Schollenberger, J., “Concerned About Concerned Women for America,” The Freedom Writer, January, 1995, p. 3.
Shirer, W.L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960, pp. 198-200.
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The original trade paperback edition (1996, new) of The 15% Solution is available for purchase from BuzzFlash.com. Used copies of both the trade paperback and hardcover original editions can also be found on Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. The 2004 print-on-demand re-issue of the book from Xlibris, with a New Introduction dealing with the first four years of the real Republican Presidency that began in 2001, can be found at Xlibris.com, as well as at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com. There is a “Sub-Home Page” for this serialization at the lower right-hand corner of the Home Page of www.TPJmagazine.us. It contains such items as the Disclaimer, the cast of characters, the author’s bio., cover copy, and several (favorable) reviews. Also, it will have a full archive of all the chapters as they are published over time. The serialization is appearing as well on www.TPJmagazine.us, Dandelion Salad, The Greanville POST, and TheHarderStuff newsletter.
Crossposted with BuzzFlash on Tue, 03/16/2010
http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributors/3062
Today’s ruling for Comcast by the DC Circuit Court could be the biggest blow to our nation’s primary communications platform, or it could be the kick in the pants our leaders need to finally protect it. Either way, the future of the Internet, the fight for Net Neutrality, and the expansion of broadband is hanging in the balance. The court ruled that the Federal Communications Commission lacks the authority under existing legal framework to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic. The decision puts the FCC’s Net Neutrality proceeding and the National Broadband Plan in jeopardy.
THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, which is the quintessential document of democracy, discusses the origin and purpose of government. It says that we are all endowed “with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” It further says that “to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Well, if governments have the responsibility to secure for all of us our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that is a big order, calling, it may well be argued, for “big government.” This essay discusses the hypocrisy surrounding the cries of politicians-Democrats as well as Republicans-to do away with “big government.”