21st Century Fascism

Allen17
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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by Allen17 » Mon Nov 20, 2017 6:55 pm

Damn straight.

My amateur reading of American history is that the New Dealer/Popular Front libs started turning on their one-time Commie allies on account of post-war McCarthyism emanating from the US government, business, the more established, increasingly conservative and Red-purging labor unions (and this was a few years before ole' Joe the Demagogue was a household name), etc. out of fear, unresolved personal/political rivalries, or good ole-fashioned opportunism. Or some combination thereof.

There's a reason that the Red/Ruskie-hunting fire-breathers were led by jokers like Whittaker Chambers and Irving Kristol (fuckin' Trots). And Ronald Reagan, for that matter - by all accounts the dumb B-list actor was a mainstream New Dealer who felt like he had been a "Communist dupe" - a good enough reason to become a top FBI informant and snitch for HUAC, eagerly naming many of his (former) friends and colleagues as Soviet agents. And Ronnie was still a pro-Truman, liberal Democrat at this point. Remember that.

"Twenty years of treason", they said (the FDR-Truman years). Yes, it was treason for FDR and others to fight -however reluctantly, in the case of FDR and the New Deal libs - even SOME of the ravages of capitalism and fascism (not that they're natural enemies - quite the contrary, as we know here) both on the home front and in WWII. Fuck the Nazis, the "Stalinists" are the REAL threat - hell, we could USE the Nazis, they said.

Remember friends: anti-Semitism didn't start with Hitler, nor did anti-Communism or "radicalism". His genius (if you can call it that) was making synonyms out of the two. The former reactionary prejudice was already quite mainstream within Germany and other countries, the USA among them; it was the rise of the Red Menace that really made the owners and agents of Capital collectively shit their pants, and throw their lot in with the Nazis. How else could some obscure, nutty Austrian corporal who gave deranged, incoherent rants on The Jews and The Communists rise to such immense power? (Yeah, I know that I'm leaving out a lot more of the post-WW1 economic and political situation in Germany. But that's not unrelated to the above, of course....)

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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by blindpig » Sat Nov 25, 2017 1:09 pm

Solidarity with the Communist Party of Poland (KPP) - Condemn the anticommunist persecutions

Call for the condemnation of the anti-communist persecution in Poland.
Anti-communist persecution against the Communist Party of Poland continues. On 27th of November the court proceedings will restart. The judicial prosecution based on charges of propagating communist ideology in the „Brzask” newspaper and on the party's website continues for two years.
This trial is a part of a campaign made by the government to illegalize the Communist Party of Poland.

This persecution is taking place simultaneously with the anti-communist policy of rewriting history and removing monuments and names of the streets associated with communism and workers' movement from the public space.
We call for organising solidarity protests against the political persecution in front of Polish embassies all over the world on 27th of November.
Anti-communist represions in Poland were condemned by 67 parties that participated in the 19th International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties. The common statement is the following:
"We denounce the persecutions against our Polish comrades. These persecutions, as well as the persecutions in other EU member-states, go hand in hand with the intensification of the anti-popular offensive, aim at equating Communism with the fascist monster; they aim at erasing the achievements of Socialism from the collective memory of the peoples.
100 years after the October Revolution, the peoples can and must draw conclusions from the anti-communist political positions of the EU and of the bourgeois governments that are becoming more intense. They must trust the Communists and demand the satisfaction of their modern needs, organizing their struggle against the capitalist system, the monopolies and their power. All charges against the CP of Poland and its cadres have to be dropped immediately. Hands off the Communists of Poland, the Communist ideology and their unrestricted action. Solidarity with the CP of Poland! Anti-communism shall notasdfsadfasdfass!"
CP of Poland emphasized that the following trial would be a part of a campaign by the government to illegalize the Communist Party. It said, "This persecution is taking place simultaneously with the anti-communist policy of rewriting history and removing monuments and names of the streets associated with communism and workers' movement from the public space."
The CP of Poland called for organising solidarity protests against the political persecution in front of Polish embassies all over the world on the trial day, November 27th.
The motion against the persecutions was signed by the following parties:
Communist Party of Australia
Party of Labour of Austria
Communist Party of Azerbaidjan
Progressive Tribune Bahrain
Communist Party of Bangladesh
Communist Party of Belarus
Communist Party of Brazil
Brazilian Communist Party
New Communist Party of Britain
Communist Party of Bulgaria
Party of the Bulgarian Communists
Socialist Workers Party of Croatia
Communist Party of Cuba
AKEL, Cyprus
Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
Egyptian Communist Party
Communist Party of Equador
Communist Party of Estonia
Unified Communist Party of Georgia
German Communist Party
Communist Party of Greece
Hungarian Workers' Party
Communist Party of India
Communist Party of India (Marksist)
Iraqi Communist Party
Communist Party of Kurdistan
Tudeh Prty of Iran
Communist Party of Ireland
Workers Party of Ireland
Communist Party of Israel
Communist Party (Italy)
Jordanian Communist Party
Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
Party of the Communists of Kyrgyzstan
Workers Party of Korea
Socialist Party of Latvia
Socialist Peoples' Front (Lithuania)
Party of the Congress for the Independence of Madagascar
Communist Party of Mexico
Party of the Communists of Republic of Moldova
Communist Party of Nepal
Communist Party of Norway
Palestinian Communist Party
Paraguayan Communist Party
Communist Party of Peru (Patria Roja)
Peruan Communist Party
Philippine Communist Party (PKP-1930)
Portuguese Communist Party
Romanian Socialist Party
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
Russian Communist Workers Party
New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
Communists of Serbia
Communist Party of the People of Spain
Communits of Catalonia
Communist Party of Sri-Lanka
South African Communist Party
Sudanese Communist Party
Communist Party of Sweden
Syrian Communist Party
Syrian Communist Party (Unified)
Communist Party of Tadjikistan
Communist Party of Turkey
Communist Party of Ukraine
Union of Communists of Ukraine
Communist Party of Uruguay
Communist Party of Venezuela

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/1 ... ty-of.html
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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by blindpig » Sat Dec 16, 2017 6:17 pm

Kiev accuses 94yo war veteran of killing Nazi-linked Ukrainian nationalist in 1952

Published time: 4 May, 2017 03:32
Edited time: 5 May, 2017 07:44

Image
(L)World War II veterans lay flowers at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Kiev on May 9, 2015; (R) Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) veterans take part in a rally held by far-right radical groups on October 14, 2016 © Reuters

A Jewish-Ukrainian nonagenarian, known as a decorated Soviet WWII veteran and a KGB agent, has been accused of “willfully killing” a group of Ukrainian nationalists, including a prominent anti-Soviet artist known to have worked for the Nazis during the war.

The Prosecutor General’s Office in Ukraine has launched a criminal case against Boris Steklyar, which is seen as part of the so-called “decommunization” process targeting Soviet-era symbols and figures that Kiev officially launched in 2015.

The case of Kiev’s legal battle with the pensioner has been going on for months, but has now generated media attention on the eve of the upcoming international celebrations of victory against the Nazis in World War II.

The 94-year-old Steklyar, who fought in a number of major WWII battles, including the 1942-43 Battle of Stalingrad, and then made it to the east of Germany where he celebrated the victory against Nazism, became a counter-intelligence officer in May 1945. His service in the years after the war attracted attention of a Ukrainian organization called a "National Center for Human Rights Defense," Lenta.ru reports.

Steklyar took part in a KGB operation uncovering a group that was part of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), both now banned in Russia for extremism.

A publicly available account of Steklyar, published in a book as part of a collection of memoirs of former KGB officers under a pseudonym, describes details of the 1952 operation that resulted in the death of a group of armed nationalists who resisted arrest at their hideout.

Among the nationalists who died was Nil Khasevich, an artist and political activist revered by the UPA who was in charge of creating propaganda posters and other nationalist paraphernalia for the movement. Steklyar’s account claims that Khasevich killed his two accomplices, who possibly wanted to surrender, before shooting himself.

Evidence suggested that Khasevich was also appointed by the Nazis as a judge in a Ukrainian village during the Nazi German occupation, and he made sketches of people being executed and punished by Hitler’s troops. According to Steklyar, he was also an agent working for the intelligence gathering body of Nazi Germany, the SD, RIA Novosti reported, citing one of the veterans’ interviews.

However, the Ukrainian Institute for National Memory, which has taken up the case, have their own view on the story, claiming that Steklyar murdered a fighter for Ukraine’s independence – a crime that has no statute of limitation in modern-day Ukraine.

The OUN and the UPA, which have been rehabilitated and glorified in modern-day Ukraine as freedom-fighting organizations, remain a highly controversial topic in Russia, Ukraine and Poland due to their collaboration with the Nazis, the extent of which is disputed, and well-documented war crimes that included the mass killing of Poles. At the time, the nationalist organizations largely enjoyed support in Western Ukraine, where the historic animosity between ethnic Ukrainians and ethnic Poles on the border territories spilled out in years of violence during and after the war.

Up to 100,000 people, including women, children and the elderly, were killed in the historic regions of Volhynia and Eastern Galicia in 1943 after OUN-UPA launched a campaign to annihilate the Polish population there.

In 2016, the lower house of Polish parliament, the Sejm, passed a resolution labeling crimes committed by Ukrainian nationalists against the Poles during World War II as “genocide.”

https://www.rt.com/news/387057-kiev-acc ... tionalist/
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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by blindpig » Fri Dec 29, 2017 2:10 pm

Party of Labour of Austria: The new goverment of the capital! - Die neue Regierung des Kapitals!

Image
Statement by the Party of Labour of Austria (PdA) on the formation of the new coalition government of Austria.

The new government is fixed. The last weeks of coalition negotiations between ÖVP (Austrian People's Party) and FPÖ (Freedom Party of Austria) already rudimentarily showed what awaits the working class and the Austrian people. The implementation of the decided measures and reforms would lead to an immediate deterioration of the working and living conditions of the wide majority of the population. The primary goal is to strengthen capital's position in the country.
With the 12-hour-working day and the 60-hour-working week – already a reality for quite some time for a lot of workers in several branches – we return to conditions which once seemed to be long ago obsolete. Not only workers' rights, but also hard-won democratic rights are being threatened. The occupation of ministerial posts, which are supposed to administrate and lead the armed wing of the bourgeois state, by some of the most reactionary members of the bourgeois political personnel of the country, is definitely an alarming development. A main topic of this government, which shall serve as a smoke-grenade for the lamination of the social ferocities, is also the restriction in the refugee-policy. Benefits are to be cut; the human right to shelter is to be largely abolished. Of course, the problems of the labour market are not at all being solved in this way.
As far as international relations are concerned, it becomes obvious that the new government – exactly as all the previous ones – will not only not question Austria's position in the EU and other imperialist alliances, but will even strive to strengthen it. In the interest of the Austrian and foreign monopoly capital, neutrality has already long ago become an empty shell; now full integration in the military structures of the EU and NATO is impending. The consequences of such a development can only be devastating for the Austrian people and other peoples, as thereby Austria will be involved more and more in the armament plans and the imperialist deployment plans of the "West". This will also lead to an increase in military spending.
Resistance against the anti-workers and anti-peoples policies can be waged only from below, from the people themselves. To rely on the bourgeois opposition parties or even to leave them the initiative will lead to defeats and disappointments in the longer term. The recent past showed that. It is also certain that within the framework of contradictions between the bourgeois parties and the different capital-fractions there will be various forces that will attempt to exploit the frustration and anger of the population to serve their interests. The SPÖ (Social Democratic Party of Austria) already attempts to present itself as a "progressive" and "workers-friendly" opposition and alternative, in order to keep the working people trapped within the established system. With its dominance in the trade union and workers' movement it remains eventually the decisive column of capital it always was, by making in advance every protest and struggle toothless and maintaining parliamentary illusions among the workers. After all, the new government program is basically the continuation of the anti-peoples policy of the SPÖ-ÖVP-governments under aggravated conditions and as the so-called "Plan A" (of SPÖ) already have shown, social democracy set by itself the course to make "compromises" on central questions – such as the flexibilisation of working time –possible.
However, with rotten compromises, empty promises and false hopes the situation will change only to the worse. Against such practices, it must be sought that the measures and reforms won't be implemented. This can be achieved only through consistent resistance and actual mass actions. Only if this policy meets determined resistance, can it be prevented. This presupposes that the working people and all affected popular strata become conscious of their own interests and, in order to defend them, organise themselves independently and become themselves active, without becoming the vehicle of bourgeois parties on their way to governmental power. To wait for the election of a new government, which promises a change of policy, can only lead to passivity, impotence and new disappointments.
Especially the working class must play a leading role in this struggle. For this, it must deprive the employer-friendly forces of "social partnership" of its confidence in trade unions, the workers' chamber and all mass organisations and take up the struggle together with the forces of class struggle. It takes strong class-oriented trade unions and mass organisations. It takes an alliance with all popular strata in town and country affected by the policies of the governments of capital and monopoly capital, with the working, student and school youth, with a militant women's movement and a consistent movement against any participation of Austria in imperialist alliances.
Under these conditions, the Party of Labour of Austria wants with its principles and its political proposition to give an actual alternative and perspective to the people. It is a political party independent from the interests and influence of any fraction of the ruling class and monopoly capital. It feels devoted and obliged only to the working class, the people of Austria and the international solidarity among the workers. It sees as its historical task to help the working people to empower themselves and obtain through their own struggle what they deserve: a life that corresponds to the modern needs and is possible under today's tremendous development of productive forces; a life without overwork, deprivations, fear of unemployment and poverty; a life beyond lack of medical maintenance and care, education and cultural offers for the wider masses; a life without exploitation, wars and pauperisation.
It is on the side of the working people and not in their place that the PdA and its members commit themselves for these goals.
In order that this system and their representatives tremble with fear of the people and keep their hand off our hard-won rights, we must here and now organise and struggle!
Central Committee of the Party of Labour of Austria

https://communismgr.blogspot.com/2017/1 ... a-new.html
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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by blindpig » Thu Jan 25, 2018 2:00 pm

Thursday, January 25, 2018
Lech Walesa wakes up in a “fascist” Poland
http://www.idcommunism.com/2018/01/lech ... oland.html

Almost three decades after the prevalence of counterrevolution in Poland, Lech Walesa realizes some of the monstrous results of capitalism's restoration. The co-founder and first head of the renowed anticommunist “Solidarity” trade union, stated in his Twitter post on January 23 that fascist organizations really exist in Poland.

“We have fascism in Poland. Those are not just some incidents,as Jarosław Kaczyński (chairman of the ruling right-wing Law and Justice party), Mateusz Morawiecki (Polish PM), and PiS are trying to portray them. Instead of decisively tackling this problem, they just talk about it,” –wrote Walesa.
According to Rossa Primavera News Agency, a video broadcasted on TVN24 news channel shows TV-journalists infiltrating a neo-Nazis’ meeting and filming on a hidden camera their celebration of Hitler’s birthday. The video also shows the participants changing into Nazi uniforms, performing the Nazi salute, glorifying Hitler.

However, the rise of fascism in Poland isn't a new thing. The prevalence of counterrevolution and the restoration of the capitalist system were followed by years of anticommunist-antisoviet, nationalist propaganda supported by the bourgeois Polish governments and the EU. Along with the impoverishment of the working class, the capitalist restoration led to the steady fascistization of broad parts of Poland's society.

Image
Fascist groups marching in Warsaw.

It is characteristic that, during the last years, communist symbols are prohibited and the members of the Communist Party of Poland face persecutions and numerous legal obstacles due to their beliefs. At the same time, fascist and neo-Nazi groups – with the support of the authorities- organize rallies in Warsaw, spreading the poison of racism, hate and bigotry. An example of such a rally was the one organized by fascist and far-right groups last November.
Lech Walesa must not be surprised at all. He has played his own role in creating the fascist “frankenstein” that has emerged in Poland. Walesa's counterrevolutionary activity during the 1980s- with the generous support of U.S. imperialism and the Catholic Church- laid the foundations of fascism's rise within Polish society. If Walesa wants to see one of the culprits for today's situation, he has nothing else to do but look in the mirror.

IN DEFENSE OF COMMUNISM ©
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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by blindpig » Mon Jan 29, 2018 2:13 pm

Bifo: Democracy is not possible in Europe
Frontpage

e_fluxJul '17

Franco "Bifo" Berardi has written a mournful and damning open letter to resign from his position on the advisor board of DIEM25, a pan-European organization that aims to make the European Union truly democratic. Bifo has resigned, he writes, because he no longer believes that democracy is possible in Europe. He compares the deadly ongoing refugee crisis in Europe to the Holocaust, and denounces Europe as "nothing but nationalism colonialism capitalism and fascism." He ultimately renounces his European identity as well: "I declare that I’m not European anymore, and I declare that I have never been European." Read the full letter below:

Dear friends and comrades of the Democracy in Europe Movement 25,

After the shameful decisions of the Paris meeting of Minniti Collomb de Maziere it’s time to understand that there is something flawed in our project of re-establishing democracy in Europe: this possibility does not exist. Democratic Europe is an oxymoron, as Europe is the heart of financial dictatorship in the world. Peaceful Europe is an oxymoron, as Europe is the core of war, racism and aggressiveness. We have trusted that Europe could overcome its history of violence, but now it's time to acknowledge the truth: Europe is nothing but nationalism colonialism capitalism and fascism.

During the Second World War not many protested against deportation, segregation, tortures and extermination of Jews, Roma, communist militants and homosexuals. People had no information about the extermination. Now we are daily acquainted about what is happening all around the Mediterranean basin, we know how deadly is the effect of the European neglect and of the refusal to take responsibility for the migration wave that is a direct result of the wars provoked by two centuries of colonialism.

The Archipelago of infamy is spreading all around the Mediterranean Sea.

Europeans are building concentration camps on their own territory, and they pay their Gauleiter of Turkey Libya Egypt and Israeli to do the dirty job on the coast of the Mediterranean sea where salted water has replaced ZyklonB.

To stop the migratory Euro-Nazism is going to build enormous extermination camps. The non governmental organisation, guilty of rescuing people from the sea will be contained, downsized, criminalised, repressed.

The externalisation of the European borders means extermination. Extermination is the word that defines the historical mission of Europe. Nazism is the only political form that corresponds to the soul of the European people.

In the last twenty-five years (since when, in February 1991, a ship loaded with 26,000 Albanians entered the port of Brindisi) we have known that the great migration had began. Two paths were possible at that point.

Opening its borders, starting a global distribution of resources, investing its wealth in a long lasting process of reception and integration of young people coming massively from the sea. This was the first path.

The second was to reject, to dissuade, to make almost impossible the easy journey from Northern Africa to the coasts of Spain Italy and Greece.

Europeans have chosen the second way, and they are daily drowning uncountable children and women and men.

Auschwitz on the beach.

With the exception of a minority of doctors, voluntary workers, activists and fishers who now are accused of being the abetters of illegal migrants, the majority of the European population are refusing to deal with their own historical responsibility.

Therefore I declare that I’m not European anymore, and I declare that I have never been European.

We have naively expected that the alliance of the British murderers the French killers the Italian stranglers the German slaughterers and the Spanish slayers could give birth to a democratic peaceful friendly union. This pretence is over, and I’m sick of it.

Five centuries of colonialism, capitalism and nationalism have turned Europeans into the enemy of the human kind. May they be cursed forever.

May Europeans be swept away by the storm they have generated, by the weapons they are building, by the fire they have ignited, by the hatred they have cultivated.

Because of the aforementioned reasons I must renounce to the honour of being part of the advisory board of DIEM25.

https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/bifo ... urope/6767
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Re: 21st Century Fascism

Post by blindpig » Fri Sep 21, 2018 11:26 am

The CIA Democrats: A balance sheet of the primaries
By Patrick Martin
21 September 2018

With the end the primary season, the Democratic Party leadership and their allies in the national security apparatus have completed the first stage of what might be termed a “friendly takeover” of the Democrats by candidates recruited from among military, CIA and civilian national security cadres.

The World Socialist Web Site first identified the phenomenon of the CIA Democrats in a series published in March. At the time we noted the large number of candidates drawn from the military-intelligence apparatus seeking Democratic nominations in competitive congressional districts. If the Democrats won the November election, we warned, such military-intelligence operatives would hold the balance of power in the new House of Representatives.

Of the 44 districts we identified in March—since grown to 46—military-intelligence candidates have won 30 nominations, a success rate of about 66 percent or two-thirds. That testifies to their extensive support from the Democratic Party leadership, from longtime financial backers of the Democrats, and from the top levels of the national security establishment.

There are 115 districts rated as competitive by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) or by groups specializing in the district-by-district analysis of congressional races. The 30 military-intelligence candidates account for more than one quarter of the Democratic candidates in these districts, making them the largest single group, ahead of state and local politicians (26), lawyers (20), millionaires (15), other professionals (8), former Obama aides (3) and miscellaneous (13).

Most of the organizations that investigate and rate congressional races are projecting that the Democrats will win more than the 23 seats required to take control of the House, and possibly as many as 50 or 60. In the latter scenario, CIA Democrats could make up as much as half of the new class of first-time representatives.

What follows is a complete list of the 30 military-intelligence Democrats who are on the ballot November 6, together with the details of their careers in the national security apparatus as supplied by their own campaign websites.

There is one particularly ominous aspect of the politics of this group of candidates. Despite their personal involvement in the wars of the past two decades, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in the overall operation of the vast US national-security establishment, many of the CIA Democrats say nothing at all on their websites about foreign and military policy. This strongly suggests that they are backers of an aggressive expansion of US military intervention and political subversion around the world, but they choose to conceal that fact from the voters of their districts.

The candidates are listed by alphabetical order of their state. The facts and photographs are all taken from the candidates’ own websites. It is notable that they see long records with the national-security apparatus as their principal credentials for office, not as something to downplay. Equally notable, not one of these candidates draws any negative, let alone anti-war, conclusions from their own participation in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen and other countries.

California: Fourth District

Jessica Morse
Jessica Morse was Iraq country coordinator for the State Department in the course of “over a decade as a national security strategist,” according to her website. She worked for the Agency for International Development, a longtime CIA front, then as adviser to the US Pacific Command, where she “strengthened the US-India defense relationship … and worked to counter terrorist threats in South Asia.” She actually outraised five-term Republican Congressman Tom McClintock through June 30, the last reporting period, but is considered an underdog in the race. The district extends from the Sacramento suburbs south along the Sierra Nevada range and its foothills.

Colorado: Sixth District

Jason Crow
Jason Crow is one of the first candidates to be promoted by the DCCC under its “red-to-blue” program, favoring him over several primary rivals. He is a veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, leading a paratrooper platoon during the invasion of Iraq. According to his website, “Shortly after returning from Iraq he joined the U.S. Army’s elite 75th Ranger Regiment, serving two additional tours—this time in Afghanistan, as part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force, where Jason served along the Pakistan border and achieved the rank of Captain.” He has spent the past dozen years as a lawyer for business interests in Denver. Crow has matched five-term Republican Congressman Mike Coffman dollar for dollar in fundraising and is considered the favorite in the Denver suburban district.

Florida: Sixth District

Nancy Soderberg
Nancy Soderberg is a longtime US foreign policy figure going back to the Clinton administration. She was the foreign-policy chief of the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, then staff director at the National Security Council, then deputy assistant to the president for national security affairs, then an alternate US ambassador to the United Nations. She is identified with such policies as the US intervention in Bosnia and the bombing of Kosovo. She has spent much of her time since then heading private overseas operations aligned with US foreign policy, including the International Crisis Group. She is on the Board of Advisors to the President of the Naval Postgraduate School and Naval War College. Soderberg has far outraised the Republican nominee, Michael Waltz, in the race to succeed Ron DeSantis, who is the Republican candidate for governor, although the race is considered a toss-up.

Florida: Twelfth District

Christopher Hunter
Christopher Hunter joined the FBI after the 9/11 attacks, quitting his job as a state prosecutor. He worked as an agent “focusing on counterintelligence, counterterrorism, and international fugitive investigations.” His website is long on militaristic bluster, declaring, “Superior firepower, aggressive counterterrorism measures, and sophisticated intelligence operations must drive our security strategy” and demanding “an uncompromising victory over Russia and its tyrannical regime.” Hunter moved from the FBI to a position as a federal prosecutor, then quit the Department of Justice last December to launch his campaign. He is considered a longshot possibility against three-term Republican Congressman Gus Bilirakis, in a district based in the suburbs of Tampa-St. Petersburg.

Florida: Eighteenth District

Lauren Baer
Lauren Baer was a legal adviser to both Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her successor John Kerry, as well as to UN Ambassador Samantha Power. After leaving the State Department, she joined Albright Stonebridge Group, the global strategy firm founded by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Her website declares that she will take her years of foreign policy experience to Congress, where she will ensure funding for the Pentagon, “because we have the strongest, best equipped, and most well-trained military in the world.” Baer trails first-term Republican Congressman Brian Mast, himself an Army veteran who lost both his legs in Afghanistan, in fundraising and in the polls of voters in the district on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, centered on West Palm Beach.

Illinois: Twelfth District

Brendan Kelly
Brendan Kelly is one of a half dozen of the military-intelligence candidates who launched political careers prior to this year. The son of civilian Pentagon employees, he grew up on Scott Air Force Base, joined ROTC in college and was commissioned as a Navy officer. After a stint that included deployment in the Middle East, he returned to southern Illinois, obtained a law degree, and became a federal prosecutor, then State’s Attorney for St. Clair County, in the Illinois suburbs of St. Louis. He represented the National District Attorneys Association as an observer of the prosecution of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. He is in a toss-up race against two-term Republican Congressman Mike Bost and has matched the incumbent in fundraising.

Kentucky: Sixth District

Amy McGrath
Amy McGrath is perhaps the most heavily publicized of the military-intelligence candidates, and has raised more than $3 million, an enormous sum for a previously unknown political figure. McGrath was a career Marine Corps fighter pilot with 89 missions over Iraq and Afghanistan. Her military career is the axis of her candidacy. Her website home page identifies her as Lieutenant Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps (Ret.) Alongside the standard photo of the candidate with her husband and children is a picture of McGrath in uniform standing next to a jet and a photo of the fighter jet itself. McGrath is considered a slight favorite against three-term Republican Congressman Andy Barr.

Maine: Second District

Jared Golden
Jared Golden enlisted in the Marines after 9/11 and spent four years as an infantryman, deploying to Afghanistan in 2004 and to Iraq in 2005-2006. He is the only rank-and-file soldier among the 30 military-intelligence Democrats, and the only one to acknowledge the negative impact of the war on American troops, revealing his own diagnosis with post-traumatic stress disorder. He was clearly committed to the US wars, however, returning to Afghanistan as a volunteer schoolteacher, and then going to work as a staff member for the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, where he worked for Maine’s Republican Senator Susan Collins. Golden began his own political career in 2014, winning a seat, as a Democrat, in the Maine House of Representatives, rising to Democratic whip in 2016, and winning the nomination for Congress with the support of the party establishment this year. He is in a toss-up race with heavily funded two-term Republican Congressman Bruce Poliquin.

Maryland: First District

Jesse Colvin
Jesse Colvin spent six years in Army intelligence, including four combat deployments to Afghanistan and a year near the Demilitarized Zone between North Korea and South Korea. According to his campaign biography, “I am a proud graduate of the US Army’s Ranger Course, the premier leadership school in the military … I led intelligence teams whose work facilitated capture/kill missions of Taliban, al-Qaeda and other terrorist leaders. I managed a lethal drone program. I ran human intelligence sources. Everyday, my team and I made dozens of decisions whose outcomes carried life and death consequences for my fellow Rangers, our Afghan partners, and Afghan civilians.” Colvin is a distinct underdog against four-term Republican Congressman Andy Harris, in a largely rural district that includes the entire Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Michigan: First District

Matthew Morgan
Matthew Morgan had a 20-year career in the Marine Corps “where I would deploy routinely overseas, culminating in several senior staff roles where I’d provide counsel to numerous military leaders, including the secretary of defense.” He did two tours in Iraq and also worked in counterterrorism on the Horn of Africa. He was unopposed for the Democratic nomination in the First District, a largely rural area that includes the entire Upper Peninsula and the northern third of the Lower Peninsula. He is running against first-term Republican Congressman Jack Bergman, himself a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general who once commanded the Marine Reserves.

Michigan: Eighth District

Elissa Slotkin
Elissa Slotkin has one of the longest records as a leading participant in the crimes of American imperialism, despite her relative youth. The 42-year-old spent 15 years in national-security positions, including three tours as a CIA agent in Iraq, then worked on the National Security Council for George W. Bush and Barack Obama, rising to the position of Iraq director. The first Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, an arch war criminal, hired her as a top assistant. She later moved to the Pentagon, where, as a principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, her areas of responsibility included drone warfare, “homeland defense” and cyber warfare. She has far outraised her Republican opponent, two-term Republican Congressman Mike Bishop and is projected to take his seat (see: “Elissa Slotkin: A CIA Democrat runs for Congress in Michigan”).

Minnesota: First District

Dan Feehan
Dan Feehan was both a front-line soldier and a civilian Pentagon official. According to his campaign biography, from 2005 to 2009, Feehan “served as an active duty soldier and completed two combat tours of duty as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom,” the Orwellian title given by the Bush administration to the US invasion and occupation of that country. He then joined the Obama administration, first as a White House aide, then as an acting assistant secretary of defense. He is a slight favorite in the First District, which includes the southern tier of Minnesota, along the border with Iowa, which was previously held by Democrat Tim Walz, now the party’s candidate for governor. Feehan has substantially outraised Republican candidate Jim Hagedorn, who lost to Walz in 2016.

New Jersey: Third District

Andy Kim
Andy Kim was a war planner and civilian strategist, not a soldier. According to his campaign biography, “I worked at the White House on countering terrorism and protecting our country, advised the Secretary of Defense and the Pentagon on national security, and I served in Afghanistan as a strategic adviser to Generals David Petraeus and John Allen. When I served in Afghanistan, no one asked me if I was a Democrat or a Republican. We all worked together focused on the mission of keeping our nation safe.” He does not detail his final position: two years as director for Iraq on Obama’s National Security Council. He is in a toss-up race with Republican Congressman Tom MacArthur, who has held the south Jersey district for two terms.

New Jersey: Fourth District

Josh Welle
Josh Welle graduated from the Naval Academy and spent 12 years on active duty, including a tour in Afghanistan and four shipboard deployments to the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. According to his campaign biography, “His responsibilities spanned from strategically advising the Ambassador in Kabul to being Executive Officer of a Navy Mine Countermeasure ship in the Persian Gulf.” He then founded a software company developing mobile apps for the Pentagon. Welle is a heavy underdog to 19-term Republican Congressman Christopher Smith, long identified for his fanatical opposition to abortion rights, but Welle has raised nearly as much money. He has denounced Smith for refusing to condemn Trump’s August press conference appearance side-by-side with Vladimir Putin, declaring, “The people of the 4th District deserve a representative who protects our national security institutions and long-standing interests around the world.”

New Jersey: Seventh District

Tom Malinowski
Tom Malinowski is a long-time apologist for what might be called “human rights imperialism.” An aide to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he spent the 1990s in the State Department and Clinton White House, mainly as a speechwriter. From 2001 to 2014 he headed the Washington office of Human Rights Watch, during which time the NGO was firmly aligned with US foreign policy. This became manifest when in 2014 Malinowski joined the Obama administration under Secretary of State John Kerry as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor. He specialized in human rights charges directed against groups and states targeted by the US government: ISIS, Myanmar (until the military junta shifted from a pro-China to a pro-US orientation), Sri Lanka (until its government did the same), North Korea and Ukraine. Meanwhile, such US allies as Saudi Arabia, Thailand and Israel received no such pressure. He has significantly outraised five-term Republican Congressman Leonard Lance, and he is favored to win the seat in the upscale western suburbs of the New York metropolitan area.

New Jersey: Eleventh District

Mikie Sherrill
Mikie Sherrill graduated from the Naval Academy and became a helicopter pilot, with 10 years’ active service in Europe and the Middle East, before becoming a federal prosecutor. According to her campaign biography, while in the military, “Mikie worked on the Battle Watch Floor in the European Theater during the Iraq invasion, and served as a Flag Aide to the Deputy Commander in Chief of the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. She also served as a Russian policy officer and worked on the implementation of our nuclear treaty obligations and oversaw the relationship between the U.S. Navy and Russian Federation Navy.” Perhaps the last assignment accounts for the warmth of her embrace by the Democratic Party establishment, which pumped funds into her campaign, effectively clearing the primary contest for a seat left open by the retirement of 12-term Republican Congressman Rodney Freylingheusen. Sherrill is heavily favored over Republican candidate Jay Webber in the district, one of the wealthiest in the United States, located in the suburban region west of Paterson, New Jersey. She has outraised Webber by $4.2 million to less than $600,000, according to the latest FEC report.

New York: Eleventh District

Max Rose
Max Rose, according to his campaign biography, “is a proud veteran of the U.S. Army. He served as an active duty officer in Afghanistan from 2012-2013, and earned a Bronze Star, Purple Heart and Combat Infantryman Badge. He continues his service today in the National Guard, and is also Ranger-qualified.” After active duty, Rose went to work as a special assistant to the Brooklyn District Attorney, while remaining an officer in the National Guard. During August, he took a two-week break from campaigning to participate in small-unit training exercises. He has slightly outraised two-term Republican Congressman Dan Donovan in a district that includes all of Staten Island and part of Brooklyn.

North Carolina: Ninth District

Dan McCready
Dan McCready, a Marine Corps veteran turned “clean energy” multimillionaire, claims to have found Jesus in Iraq, where he was baptized in water from the Euphrates River. He joined the Marines after 9/11, commanded a unit of 65 men during the 2007 “surge” in Iraq, and ended his wartime deployment as a captain. He went on to get an MBA at Harvard and work as a consultant for McKinsey & Co. before launching his own company. After three-term Republican Congressman Robert Pittenger was defeated in the primary by fundamentalist pastor Mark Harris, who advocates the subordination of married women to their husbands, McCready became the favorite to win the seat. He has outraised Harris three-to-one and went into the fall campaign with an even larger lead in cash-on-hand.

Ohio: Seventh District

Ken Harbaugh
Ken Harbaugh is the son and grandson of Air Force combat pilots. He joined the Navy and became a pilot himself, flying reconnaissance missions in the Middle East and the Korean peninsula. His campaign website features photos of Harbaugh in military gear and posing with his Navy plane. After nine years in the military, he went to Yale for a law degree, joined the McKinsey consulting firm, and then became chief operations officer and later president of Team Rubicon Global, an organization that mobilizes military veterans to deploy to natural disasters in the US and around the world. He has been considerably outraised by Republican Congressman Robert Gibbs, who has held the Canton-based district for three terms.

Pennsylvania: Sixth District

Chrissy Houlahan
Chrissy Houlahan , a 10-year veteran of the Air Force, leaving it as a captain, has been virtually guaranteed a seat in Congress by the Democratic Party leadership, which cleared the primary of any rivals for the nomination in a district left open by the sudden retirement of two-term Republican Congressman Ryan Costello. The 42-year-old decided not to run for reelection after the court-ordered redrawing of Pennsylvania district lines left him with a heavily Democratic electorate. In addition to outraising her Republican opponent Greg McCauley by $2.8 million to $174,000 in campaign funds, Houlahan has been the recipient of a flood of favorable media coverage. The most fawning portrayal came from Frank Bruni of the New York Times: “Usually you only get to dream about a candidate like Chrissy Houlahan. People in the Philadelphia suburbs actually get to vote for her.”

Pennsylvania: Tenth District

George Scott
George Scott was a career Army intelligence officer, on active duty for 20 years, including the US invasion of Panama, the first Persian Gulf War and Operation Enduring Freedom, the official name of the ongoing “war on terror” launched in 2001. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after commanding a battalion of over 1,800 soldiers. Scott then entered the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Gettysburg and is now pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in East Berlin, Pennsylvania. After the death of Senator John McCain, Scott issued a statement saying, “He shall be remembered as a true patriot, a political titan, and a respected statesman worthy of every distinction. He will be sorely missed by our nation.” Scott is regarded as an underdog against three-term Republican Congressman Scott Perry, although the district’s boundaries were altered to include the whole city of Harrisburg.

Pennsylvania: Seventeenth District

Conor Lamb
Conor Lamb won a special election earlier this year in the 18th Congressional District, in the southwest corner of the state. However, after redistricting moved his home into the 17th District, he is now challenging three-term Republican Congressman Keith Rothfus. Lamb’s campaign biography begins by identifying him as “a Marine and former federal prosecutor,” and he emphasized his military background during the campaign for the special election. He was on active duty in the Far East until 2013, as a captain and Judge Advocate General (in effect, a Navy prosecutor). He is now a major in the Marine Corps Reserves. Lamb has raised more than $7 million this year and spent $5 million on the campaign in the special election. He is considered a heavy favorite over Rothfus because the new 17th district lines were drawn more favorably to the Democratic Party.

Texas: Twenty-First District

Joseph Kopser
Joseph Kopser is a West Point graduate and career Army officer. According to his campaign biography, “After volunteering for air assault and airborne training, Joseph headed for Ranger school, the Army’s toughest program outside of war. Designed to provide intense training on four hours of sleep and one meal per day, the training pushed Joseph to the limits of his own physical and emotional endurance.” He became a West Point instructor, but after the US invasion of Iraq volunteered for assignment there and spent 14 months over two tours, much of it in Mosul. After his return to the US, he was assigned to a high-level Pentagon job developing plans for the Future Combat Systems program, as well serving as a speechwriter and political adviser to top officials. After leaving the military in 2011, he developed a ride-sharing platform that was the basis for a company, RideScout, which he subsequently sold to Daimler-Benz, giving him the resources to enter politics. Kopser has raised more money than Republican Chip Roy in the race for a seat in the San Antonio-Austin region, left vacant by the retirement of 15-term Republican Congressman Lamar Smith, a notorious anti-immigrant demagogue.

Texas: Twenty-Third District

Gina Ortiz-Jones
Gina Ortiz Jones was an Air Force intelligence officer in Iraq. According to her campaign biography, “In the 12-years following her active duty service, Gina has continued to build her career in national security, intelligence, and defense—including advising on operations in Latin America and Africa, to include advising on military operations that supported South Sudan’s independence referendum and serving in the Libya Crisis Intelligence Cell.” She later became director for investment of the Office of the US Trade Representative, where she led the portfolio that reviewed foreign investments for possible risks to national security. The contest for the seat representing the 23rd District, which runs along the Texas-Mexico border from El Paso nearly to Laredo, and inland as far as the San Antonio suburbs, is literally spy vs. spy, since the incumbent, two-term Republican Congressman Will Hurd, is a former CIA agent.

Texas: Thirty-First District

Mary Jennings Hegar
Mary Jennings Hegar, a helicopter pilot for the Air Force, spent three tours of duty in Afghanistan in search and rescue operations. This included, as Hegar declares on her website, “being shot down by enemy fire, defending my crew and patients, and earning a Purple Heart.” Hegar came to prominence through a lawsuit against the Pentagon policy of barring women from combat and is the subject of a forthcoming biographical film based on her memoir, Shoot Like a Girl: One Woman’s Dramatic Fight in Afghanistan and on the Home Front. Hegar is an underdog to eight-term Republican Congressman John Carter in district that stretches north from Austin, although she substantially outraised him during the first half of 2018.

Virginia: Second District

Elaine Luria
Elaine Luria was one of the first Navy women to serve as an officer on a nuclear-powered ship. According to her campaign biography, she “deployed six times to the Middle East and Western Pacific as a nuclear-trained surface warfare officer.” She was second-in-command of a guided missile cruiser and commanded assault craft supporting a Marine Corps deployment. Initially an underdog against one-term Republican Congressman Scott Taylor, a former Navy SEAL, Luria has seen her standing in polls improve after Taylor’s staff was caught forging signatures to place another Democrat on the ballot as an independent in November to split the anti-Taylor vote. This Democrat, recently prosecuted on federal fraud charges, has since been removed from the ballot, while Taylor denies all knowledge of the affair.

Virginia: Seventh District

Abigail Spanberger
Abigail Spanberger once had the following statement at the top of her campaign website: “After nearly a decade serving in the CIA, I’m running for Congress in Virginia’s Seventh District … My previous service as a law enforcement officer, a CIA officer, and a community volunteer has taught me the value of listening.” Perhaps in recognition of the ominous implications of this declaration, it has been removed, although the site still states, “Abigail joined the CIA as an Operations Officer. She traveled and lived abroad collecting intelligence, managing assets, and overseeing high-profile programs in service to the United States.” Spanberger defeated another military-intelligence candidate in the Democratic primary and is in a toss-up race with two-term Republican Congressman David Brat, in a district that extends north from the Richmond suburbs.

West Virginia: Second District

Talley Sergent
Talley Sergent is one of a half dozen former State Department officials who ran in the Democratic primaries, and she won her contest against another national-security candidate, a combat veteran from the Iraq War, despite being outraised two-to-one. Sergent worked for Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller before joining the State Department under Hillary Clinton, where she specialized in issues relating to the status of women and girls, part of the “human rights imperialism” technique used to threaten countries targeted by Washington. She then became a corporate flack for Coca-Cola at its Atlanta headquarters, before running Clinton’s disastrous statewide campaign in West Virginia, where Clinton was routed in both the primary and the general election. Sergent is a heavy underdog against two-term Republican Congressman Alex Mooney, who has a nearly ten-to-one fundraising advantage.

West Virginia: Third District

Richard Ojeda
Richard Ojeda was elected as a West Virginia state senator in 2016, running as a Democrat, in the same election in which he cast his own vote for Donald Trump. He has based his political career on more than two decades in the US Army Airborne, including repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he reached the rank of major. His last post before winning state office was as executive director of Army recruiting in Beckley, seeking to convince youth in West Virginia and Virginia to become cannon fodder for the Pentagon. Ojeda has combined a militaristic approach with pro-union demagogy, winning him the support of the United Mine Workers and the teachers’ unions, which have systematically betrayed workers in southern West Virginia, one of the poorest regions in the country. Ojeda is in a toss-up race with Carol Miller, a wealthy state legislator, to succeed two-term Republican Congressman Evan Jenkins, who ran for US Senate and was defeated in the Republican primary.

Wisconsin: Seventh District

Margaret Engebretson
Margaret Engebretson is a 24-year veteran of the US Navy, now retired after three years of active duty and 21 years in the Naval Reserve and Minnesota Air National Guard. Among her “civilian” occupations during the period was as a deputy sheriff of corrections at the St. Louis County Jail in Duluth, Minnesota. She lives in northern Wisconsin, just across the Minnesota state line, and is running in a district that comprises the northwestern and north central third of the state and is predominately rural and small. Although the district was held for 42 years by Democrat David Obey, Engebretson has raised little money and is viewed as a heavy underdog against four-term Republican Congressman Sean Duffy, a former “reality television” contestant. As of July 25, Duffy had a campaign war chest of $2.5 million compared to under $6,000 for Engebretson.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/0 ... d-s21.html

mugs shots at link
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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