, ,

Senate Bill 5 … First They Came For The Trade Unionists

Bob Fitrakis
March 6, 2011

Senator Sherrod Brown apologized after giving a speech on the Senate floor March 4 where he stated the obvious, that Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Egyptian President Mubarak all crushed independent labor unions. No need to apologize, Senator Brown. The Republicans never do, as they endorse the policies of union busters. The only thing, Senator, you should be mildly chagrined about, is failing to point out Ohio Governor John Kasich and Wisconsin Governor Walker’s similarities to Mussolini’s fascism.

As Kasich takes money from the new corporate robber barons – the Koch brothers and Rupert Murdoch – let’s quote Mussolini directly: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.” Kasich has just won his battle to privatize economic development in Ohio. Again the more accurate word would be “corporatize.”

The tyrants of the Left and Right like Stalin and Hitler had to destroy trade unionism in order to create totalitarian governments. Independent labor unions are an essential countervailing power in a democratic society. Unions allow people – be they police officers, firefighters, teachers, janitors, or auto workers – to organize and bargain collectively around their own economic interests.

Senator, you are absolutely correct that Hitler destroyed the trade unions in order to destroy democracy. When the general elections for the Reichstag of March 5, 1933 gave Hitler’s Nazi Party only 33% of the vote and his rightwing coalition government a slim majority, Hitler went after his political opponents. His brownshirt Nazi thugs destroyed the trade union association ADGB (Allgemeiner Deutscher Gewerkschaftsbund) on May 2, 1933. They simply stormed union facilities, arrested and imprisoned union leaders. Other key trade unions were forced to merge into the Hitler-controlled German Labor Front.

So, first they come for the trade unionists because the labor notion of solidarity includes all people, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, and age. Before Hitler could lock up the Jews, gypsies, gays and others, he had to shatter the one organization that sings and believes in the song “Solidarity Forever.” The unions must be destroyed because they know that “an injury to one is an injury to all” and they demand the same rights of contract protected in the U.S. Constitution and essential to corporate business. They know that united, they bargain for wages, salaries and working conditions, and that disunited they beg.

Kasich, Walker and the Koch brothers idolize a world wherein unnatural persons (corporations) control the state. This is the dream of Mussolini. It should not escape us that Kasich, Walker and the Koch brothers hate liberalism and the ideas of tolerance and reason that it has historically promoted. Let us again quote Mussolini directly: “Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposite to the doctrines of liberalism.”

If we look realistically upon what is happening in our nation – the attacks on liberalism, intolerance, imperialist occupation of Iraq, the endless war over oil in Afghanistan, a military greater in firepower than Hitler’s in 1939 according to the New York Times – why not call it what it is. Fascism.

Sure we can quibble, Senator Brown, and use Bertram Gross’s term “friendly fascism.” Writing in 1980, Gross, who had worked for the U.S. government, noted that “in the United States, it points towards more concentrated, unscrupulous, repressive, and militaristic control by a big business-big government partnership….” It exists, and “…squelches the rights and liberties of other people both at home and abroad. That is friendly fascism.”

The parallels between Kasich, who received less than a majority of the vote, and Mussolini and Hitler are all too clear. Take your meager mandate and smash the only countervailing power that middle class people have – their trade union organizations. Kasich has spent a lifetime serving wealthy and secretive interests. Earlier in his career Richard Nixon and Rev. Moon, two shadowy, paranoid figures – one willing to do anything to be president and one claiming to be the Messiah. Later in his career, Kasich served Rupert Murdoch at News Corp and the firm of Lehman Brothers which sold junk assets and made billions and helped destroy the U.S. economy before going out of business.

I think I have a reasonable compromise for Sen. Brown: agree to apologize for your references to Hitler and Stalin when Kasich agrees to quit acting like them or stop thinking he’s the reincarnation of Mussolini. Kasich’s actions are those of a fascist movement.

—
Bob Fitrakis is the Editor of the Free Press and ran against Kasich for Congress in 1992. Originally published by https://freepress.org.

/by
, , ,

Ohio SB 5, Governor Kasich To Call Ohio National Guard, FightBack Radio

http://www.wcrsfm.org/audio/user/157

Dr. Bob Fitrakis and Connie Gadell-Newton discuss unions, Kasich, union history, the conservative Ohio heartbeat bill, firefighters supporting womans rights at protest in Columbus, and the threat to organizing.

/by
,

FightBack Talk Radio July 23, AG Shutsdown Fed Attny Firing Investigation

FightBack Talk Radio July 23, AG Shutsdown Fed Attny Firing Investigation

/by

Fight Back/Solartopia With Dr. Bob Fitrakis And Harvey Wasserman and Shoshana June 3rd Via www.WCRSFM.org

June 3rd WCRS FM Fitrakis Wasserman

/by

Bob Bytes Back Archive: 11/13/96 The Redder The Better

by Bob Fitrakis

First, the good news. Both Dennis Kucinich and Ted Strickland won their Congressional races. Make no mistake about it, these are victories by progressive Democrats against reactionary Newtonian Republicans.

Kucinich and Strickland were vilified by their right-wing opponents as “liberals,” “Communist-sympathizers,” or “godless.” In Northeast Ohio’s 10th Congressional district, Governor George Voinovich stopped in personally to denounce “the 1930s-style populism” of Kucinich. His opponent, Republican Representative Martin Hoke, portrayed Kucinich’s concern for working people and support for unionism as coming out of the “Communist Manifesto.”

Also, Hoke repeatedly red-baited Kucinich by alluding to some mysterious plot and unpaid “consulting” by Communist Party official Rick Nagin. Hoke’s retro-’50s hokeyness and McCarthyist smear tactics didn’t work. Kucinich proudly boasted of his “100 percent labor voting record” as an Ohio state senator, and reiterated his commitment to the environment and keeping a multi-state radioactive waste dump out of Ohio.

Strickland, an ordained Methodist minister, was attacked by his opponent as a godless secular humanist liberal. Among Strickland’s alleged un-Christian activity is his admitted “first priority” to provide health care insurance for 10 million U.S. children who now lack coverage. Strickland also rightly pointed out that his opponent, Republican Frank Cremeans, voted both to raise taxes on the working poor by eliminating the Earned Income Tax Credit and favored allowing millionaires to move offshore to avoid taxes.

The Strickland and Cremeans races were perhaps the two most vicious Congressional races in the U.S. The choice was clear-cut: Gingrich or progressivism. The progressives won both, despite being outspent by at least 3-1.

Now the bad news. In three other key races, all involving freshman Republican representatives, the Democrats lost. In two of the races-Representative Steve Chabot of Cincinnati vs. Mark Longabaugh and Representative Steve LaTourette of Madison vs. Thomas Coyne, Jr.-much more moderate Democratic challengers were relatively easily dispatched. Both Longabaugh and Coyne refused to engage in the knockdown, drag-out reactionary-versus-progressive campaigning that brought victory to Kucinich and Strickland.

Styling themselves more as Clintonesque “New Democrats,” the candidates were soundly rejected by the voters, thus proving the old axiom: given a choice between a real Republican and near-Republican they’ll choose the real thing every time.

In the third race, State Senator Robert Burch narrowly lost to Representative Bob Ney. Burch declined to cloak himself as a New Democrat and made direct overtures to the Perot supporters. If Burch had been given money from the Democratic Party Congressional Campaign Committee or the AFL-CIO he would have won. Burch’s district was initially rated one of the 10 most winnable by a Democrat in the nation.

Instead, a couple hundred thousand dollars was wasted on Cynthia Ruccia’s pathetic and futile New Democrat, gone-a-gay-baitin’ campaign against Representative John Kasich. Her bizarre Congresswoman wannabe slamming-the-prison-cell door commercial was not only truly twisted beyond belief, but played to Kasich’s strength.

Anyway, perhaps the even more pathetic Franklin County Democratic Party can get off their “Republican-lite” binge and field some progressive candidates for a change.

Of course, there’s always the problem a la Mary Jo Kilroy that the party might field a progressive who then feels immediately obligated to run as a centrist.

Acts 2:45
Speaking of red-baiting, I had the pleasure of spending election night on WCBE doing political commentary with Ms. Republican Right-to-Life Janet Folger. Janet, with her lightning-quick mind, honed through countless hours of Rush Limbaugh agi-prop told the listeners that I was a “communist” because I believed in the “redistribution of wealth.” There’s nothing worse than a self-righteous Right-to-Life Christian who’s not familiar with the Good Book. Having spent my youth as a fire-breathing, proselytizing evangelical Christian, let me simply refer Ms. Folger to Acts, 2:45:

“Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to everyone as he had need.” And to the Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s comments to Nicodemus, virtually every prophet in the Old Testament, etc., etc.

Inquiring minds
Speaking of religious matters, the Franklin County Democrats need to convene a political inquisition. Franklin County Chairperson Denny White and his top advisers should be figuratively put on the rack and grilled on the following races: Why was Republican Probate Judge Lawrence Belskis allowed-with that ethnic name-to run unopposed? Why did you put up your best political name, Tony Celebrezze III, against Richard Metcalf, who has been elected to public office in Franklin County since the Eisenhower administration? Why didn’t Celebrezze run against the eminently odorous and highly beatable Jesse Oddi, who had never won election in Franklin County? Why didn’t Beverly Farlow get more funds? And, are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Republican Party?

/by

Give Me A Ticket For An Aeroplane – Ken Blackwell Just Wrote Me A Letter

August 11, 2009
By Bob Fitrakis

Give me a ticket for an aeroplane, ain’t got time to take a fast train
– since the Republicans destroyed mass transit in the U.S. and there
aren’t any fast trains – Ken Blackwell just wrote me a letter. That’s
same Blackwell we all now known as the Katherine Harris of Ohio for his
role in helping steal the 2004 election. Blackwell, billing himself as
“Former Ohio Secretary of State” and “Conservative Republican,” wrote a
letter regarding: “The One Way to Stop the Obama Machine.”

My first thought to stop the Obama “Machine” was – take cell phones
away from 18-24-year-olds. After all, the Obama political machine was
actually a decentralized cyber-force of youngsters. All of this
brilliantly captured in Danny Schechter’s recent documentary: Barack
Obama: People’s President.

Blackwell addressed me as “Dear Fellow Conservative.” This is perfectly
appropriate since I believe in the Bill of Rights, particularly the 8th
Amendment that forbids “cruel and unusual punishment.” Thus, in order
to preserve these traditional conservative values, I’d like to have a
grand jury investigate Bush and Cheney for torture and assorted crimes
against the Constitution and then prosecute them.

Blackwell began the letter by asserting that he was a “clear and
present danger” to the “Democrats.” Why? Because he “threatens
self-appointed black leaders, the Democrat Party machine, and even
Barack Obama’s grip on power.” Blackwell particularly takes offense to
the fact that Al Sharpton “…flew into the state to racially slander me
by calling me Ken Whitewell” during his ill-fated run for the
governorship of Ohio.

I understand Blackwell’s outrage and how out of touch Sharpton is with
the people of Ohio. Blacks here were referring to him as “Ken
Blackhell” and election activists as “Ken Hackwell.” How dare Sharpton
make a reference to Blackwell’s race simply because the black
conservative spent his time kissing Bush buttocks? Also, Sharpton
failed to point out that Blackwell’s favorite past-time paid real well
and was steady work.

Blackwell claims these evil Democrats “…have gone out of their way to
destroy me and other black Republicans like me.” I wondered why the
Dems would waste their time to “destroy” one person, because who else
is like him? And who cares? But Blackwell had gotten my attention.

Blackwell sees himself targeted because he stands “on principle.” Fair
enough. His principles happen to be opportunism, corruption, and
cronyism. But he has displayed a principled commitment to these values.

Blackwell’s always been a man of principle. First, when he was a
left-wing black nationalist in the 70s. And then, when he was a charter
reform progressive Democrat out of Cincinnati. And then when he was an
Independent, and again when he became a Jack Kemp help-the-poor
kind-hearted conservative. And finally when he was a Steve Forbes
help-the-poor-by-giving-money-to-the-rich Republican. Also, he was
perhaps most principle when he appeared before white supremacist groups
in Ohio and elsewhere and campaigned with far-right born-again
Christians like Rod Parsley. I guess it’s not hypocritical or
opportunistic to hang out with people that want to lynch blacks and
believe all Muslims will burn in hell (See “Why is the man who stole
Ohio campaigning with a white supremacist?” by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman, October 9, 2006 at
https://freepress.org/departments/display/19/2006/217).

Still, the highlight of Blackwell’s letter was his ranting against
Obama’s “Big Brother government.” It’s fair to concede that Blackwell
knows a lot about Big Brother. He served as the UN Human Rights
Ambassador for former CIA Director, and then President, George Herbert
Walker Bush. So, we gotta give him his props. He associates with people
(for example George Walker Bush and Cheney) who know about torture,
unconstitutional and illegal domestic electronic surveillance, and
overthrowing democratically-elected governments. No wonder they wanted
him to be Ohio’s Secretary of State.

To be fair to Blackwell, he did have major accomplishments as Ohio
Secretary of State. He allowed 24.93% of all voters in Cleveland,
Ohio’s major Democratic stronghold, to be purged prior to the 2004
election. Many voters thrown off the voting rolls had been registered
in majority black precincts.

And he does know a little about money. Blackwell and three friends took
a $500,000 investment, hooked up with Carl Lindner, the Cincinnati
billionaire, and parlayed it into a nearly $200 million investment in
radio. Of course, Blackwell’s role as State Treasurer and the deposit
of large sums of Ohio tax dollars into Lindner’s banks played no role
in Blackwell’s success, according to Blackwell. Essentially, Blackwell,
with no radio experience, got rich off the Clear Channel franchise and
mergers.

Blackwell is thrifty – outsourcing Ohio’s 2004 election count to
private companies like New Media, Triad, and Smartech – so the actual
statewide vote count could take place on Republican servers tied to the
White House in Chattanooga, Tennessee. (See “Behind the firewall: Bush
loyalist Mike Connell controls Congressional secrets as his email sites
serve Karl Rove” by Bob Fitrakis, July 29, 2008 at
https://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2008/1665).

I was so inspired by Blackwell’s letter and his plea for money, since
his Black Republican PAC is “Our best chance to stop the socialism of
the Obama presidency.” Blackwell clearly prefers the
welfare-for-the-rich socialism of the Bush administration where nearly
a trillion dollars was given to failed corporate investment bankers as
opposed to the Obama, where nearly a trillion dollars was given to
failed corporate investment banks. (See “Democratic Socialists?
Democrats not half that good” by Bob Fitrakis, May 24, 2009 at
https://freepress.org/columns/display/3/2009/1746).

I took up his challenge to respond within “96 hours.” Whew, I barely
got this in with an hour or so to go. Blackwell’s right – I should send
whatever I can spare, $35, $50, $75…– to a cause I can believe in.
Maybe I’ll send a check to the Single Payer Action Network (SPAN)
because I want health care reform or to All Aboard Ohio working to
bring a fast train, for that matter any train service, to Columbus,
Ohio.

Bob Fitrakis is the editor of freepress.org and also ran for governor
of Ohio in 2006 on the Green Party ticket.

/by
, , ,

Senator Dewine’s Run For Ohio Attorney General: Return To The Scene Of The Crime

August 7, 2009

As the axiom states: “As Ohio goes, so goes the nation.” Strange and interesting things are happening in the legendary swing state.

First, it was Fox commentator, former Congressman, and originally freshly-scrubbed Nixon youth John Kasich emerging as the likely Republican nominee for governor of the Buckeye State.

Then, former U.S. Senator Mike Dewine announced his candidacy for Ohio Attorney General on July 22. In 2006, the then-incumbent Dewine lost to Democrat U.S. Representative Sherrod Brown by 12 percentage points, although final polls throughout the state showed him losing by twice that amount.

Why would a former member of the U.S. House of Representatives – granted he was most well-known for falling asleep during the Iran-Contra hearings – and U.S. Senator, be seeking the seemingly lesser office of Ohio’s chief law enforcement officer?

The answer is: he would be chief law enforcement officer in one of America’s most politically corrupt states – sort of New Jersey without the reputation. Historically, the Attorney General of Ohio has been the key position for covering up the state’s systemic corruption and two-party pay-to-play system.

Back in 80s, Ohio’s Attorney General was none other than Billy Joe Brown (original name: Barone) whose major political backer was Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. DeBartolo is most well-known as the former owner of the San Francisco 49ers who was forced to sell the franchise after pleading guilty in a alleged scheme to bribe the former governor of Louisiana to secure a gambling license. Columbus police records indicate that DeBartolo has ties to organized crime and was a “person of interest” in a high–profile murder case in Columbus back in the 80s.

What Brown understood is that the Attorney General’s office is a good place to harass political enemies, dispense patronage, and cover up questionable activities by your cronies. The current Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray – most famous in Ohio for being a 5-time Jeopardy winner – has a well-deserved reputation for being squeaky clean and ethical.

Prior to Cordray, Mark Dann of Youngstown held the office briefly before being forced to resign amidst a sex scandal. Dann’s Attorney General’s office became a great place from which he and his appointees could shake women down for booty. Dann won, in part, because of the support of the election integrity movement which was hostile to Republican Attorney General James Petro, who went out of his way to thwart lawful Ohio Supreme Court supervised examination of the conduct of George W. Bush, Karl Rove, and Ken Blackwell in connection with Ohio’s infamous 2004 Presidential election.

What kind of Attorney General would Dewine make? Perhaps the best testament to Dewine’s character is in a piece written by Joe Gilyard, a former state cabinet member as Director of Criminal Justice Services during the Voinovich administration. Gilyard, a well-known Republican political operative recounts how he served as “Dewine’s hired gun” when he ran as Lieutenant Governor on the Voinovich ticket: “I was to protect him [Dewine] from sharks like Chief of Staff Paul Mifsud and even Governor Voinovich himself.” The late Mifsud was a former military intelligence officer and close friend of George Herbert Walker Bush, who ran his Ohio presidential campaigns in 1980 and 1988.

Mifsud would later serve time in jail related to falsification of government records in a contract-steering and bribery scandal. Early on, when Gilyard tried to blow the whistle on the corruption of Paul Mifsud, Dewine pledged his support. “…he thought Mifsud was a crook and we should go after him,” Gilyard wrote.

In order to go after Mifsud and Voinovich, Gilyard and Dewine would have to first clash with another legendary friend of George H. W. Bush, Franklin County Sheriff Earl Smith. Both Smith and the late John Walton Wolfe of Columbus’ politically-formidable Wolfe media conglomerate, used the Columbus Dispatch to go after Gilyard.

Dewine was openly and easily intimidated from the fight. As Gilyard colorfully recalled the story: “He [Smith] hurled invective upon invective on a now squeamish Mike Dewine, going so far as to call him Mike DeWeeny in the press.” The name stuck.

Gilyard wrote an eight-page memo about Smith’s activities that were under investigation by federal authorities. The memo was given to Mike Dewine, according to Gilyard. “He [Dewine] stood up, face whiter than usual, and said, ‘This meeting is over. Please put all your memos on the table.” Gilyard alleged that Dewine demanded all copies of the memo showing corruption by Smith and the Voinovich administration in order to cover up any investigation.

Gilyard admitted that “I went back to my office and destroyed everything except a hard copy and the disk. I took them home and secured them in case I needed them to prove my innocence in what had become a Machiavellian plan to steal $30 million in state bond money, give the Voinovich Company an ‘inside track’ to all county jail-building contracts and allow Earl Smith to escape from justice again.”

All of this is documented in a CICJ Books book I authored called “The Brothers Voinovich and the Ohiogate Scandal.”

Dewine, rather than stand up to the obvious corruption of the Voinovich administration, instead ran for the Senate because the heat was too hot in Columbus.

Now, Mike Dewine wants to return to Ohio’s capital city and be the state’s chief law enforcement officer. He originally denied that Gilyard ever wrote a memo outlining the corruption of the Voinovich administration. Gilyard lost his job after his photo appeared on the front page of the Wolfe-owned Dispatch newspaper portraying him as a criminal based on charges brought by Earl Smith, although Gilyard was later acquitted of all charges. Stress and high blood pressure had wrecked his kidneys.

Under pressure from the state’s inspector general, Dewine later found a copy of the memo in a vacation home desk vindicating Gilyard. But it was too late for Gilyard.

It’s hard to believe how corrupt the Voinovich-Dewine administration was in the early 90s. During those years, the terrorist/Al Qaeda-connected, now discredited Bank of Credit and Commerce International helped finance a toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio as the regulatory wheels were greased by the Voinovich family.

Governor Voinovich’s brother Paul was paid $6000 a month retainer to lobby on behalf of the incinerator. Another money source for the incinerator was the notorious Swiss corporation Von Roll, a company that was busted for trying to sell a “supergun” to Iraq to lob nuclear warheads at Israel.

This massive corruption is what the spineless Mike Dewine escaped from by running for U.S. Senate. Now the man known for looking the other way when corruption runs rampant wants to be Ohio’s chief law enforcement officer, just in time to look the other way for the 2012 Presidential election.

Bob Fitrakis edits freepress.org and was one of the lawyers attempting to conduct the investigation of Bush, Rove and Blackwell in Ohio’s 2004 election.

/by
, , ,

Facing the Bushes’ Iranian Whirlwind

by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
June 15, 2009

The parallels between the stolen Iranian election of 2009 and the American of 2000 and 2004 are tempting. The histories—and futures—of the two nations are inseparable. Bound up in their tortured half-century of crime and manipulation are the few glimmers of hope for lasting peace in the Middle East.

In both countries, a right-wing fundamentalist authoritarian with open contempt for human rights and the Geneva Convention has come up a winner, with catastrophic consequences. In both countries, the blowback of two George Bushes loom large.

In the US, two “defeated” candidates—Al Gore and John Kerry—said and did nothing in the face of two stolen elections. But an unprecedented election protection movement arose from the ashes of those defeats to assure the 2008 victory of America’s first African-American president.

In Iran, the “defeated” candidate—Mir Hussein Moussavi—is fighting back, along with massive grassroots resistance. How far they get will define the Iranian future—as well as that of the Middle East.

In a fluid and unpredictable situation, here are some indisputables:

1) A half-century ago, the people of Iran attempted a democratic revolution led by a moderate progressive, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, whose social-democratic inclinations have been revived by Moussavi.

2) Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown by the Eisenhower Administration and its Central Intelligence Agency, which wanted to wall in the Soviet Union and protect western oil interests.

3) Norman Schwarzkopf Sr. (father of the Gulf War general of the same name) used a suitcase full of US taxpayer dollars to bribe Iran’s anti-democratic sympathizers and help overthrow Mossadegh.

4) They installed the pro-U.S. general Fazlollah Zahedi, who handed control of Iran to the brutal and vicious Shah. The Shah ruled through the infamous secret terror/torture police force Savak, which Schwartzkopf helped train.

4) A prototypical CIA asset, the Shah used his iron torturer’s hand to “westernize” the country and make it more user-friendly to US oil interests.

5) Among other things, the U.S., France and other western powers were moving to provide the Shah with up to 36 atomic power plants designed to provide electricity and, ultimately, radioactive materials with which to build his own atomic bombs.

6) Despite his ostensible commitment to human rights, President Jimmy Carter made a point of spending a high-profile New Year’s with the Shah, evoking the bitter hatred of millions of Iranians.

7) The Shah’s overthrow by fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini led to the 1979-80 hostage crisis that finally sank Carter’s presidency. Amidst indications of a secret deal involving past and future CIA Directors George H.W. Bush and William Casey, the release of the hostages was delayed long enough to guarantee Carter’s defeat, thus inaugurating the Age of Ronald Reagan, with 12 of its 28 years under the two Bushes.

8 ) Secret dealings between Reagan/Bush and the Iranians led to the Iran-Contra Affair, when covert operatives like Oliver North funneled arms to the Iranians and laundered cash and drugs through the reactionary Contra forces fighting revolution in Nicaragua.

9) The Contras in turn flooded the US with cocaine, feeding a horrific crack epidemic that has crippled the black and Hispanic communities here for two decades.

10) Those US-financed arms were used to fight the Iraqis and Saddam Hussein, whom the US also supported, and whom Donald Rumsfeld publicly embraced in the early 1980s. The American goal seems to have been to weaken both Iran and Iraq through a horrifying war that claimed at least a million casualties, ultimately infuriating both citizenries.

After a half-century of dictatorship under the Shah and the CIA, followed by the Ayatollah and the fundamentalists, the Iranian public appears desperate to return to the social-democratic vision of Mossadegh, denied so long ago.

In the US in 2000 and 2004, the corporate/religious right put George W. Bush in the White House—and then kept him there—with a sophisticated election theft machine built around elimination of voter registrations, manipulation of the vote count, and a wide array of supporting tactics. The US Supreme Court set it all in stone with its infamous Bush v. Gore decision, which prevented a true vote count in Florida 2000. History repeated itself in Ohio 2004.

In Iran 2009, the ruling fundamentalist elite has barely pretended to count the votes at all, merely rushing to announce a prê-determined outcome. The reigning Ayatollah has played the role of the US Supreme Court by certifying the outcome before a real ballot tally could possibly occur. Holes in the texts of Iranian newspapers and an electronic blackout created by official censors reflect the on-going vacuum in the US corporate media, which has yet to seriously face up to what happened to the American elections of 2000 and 2004.

What will happen next in Iran is anyone’s guess. George W. Bush fueled its fundamentalist right by calling it a “terror state” whose nuclear weapons ambitions are fueled with materials produced by the “Peaceful Atom” Eisenhower inaugurated in 1953, around the time he was disposing of Mossadegh.

Bush’s counterpart, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is now turning the state terror apparatus—reminiscent of the Shah’s—against those who would mention the illegitimacy of his rule.

Thus tragedy looms at the brink of opportunity. That democracy in Iran so clearly won at the polls is a sign of great courage and hope on the part of the Iranian people. They are fighting terrible odds, not of their making. Should they break free, the storm would re-shape the Middle East—and much more.

In the meantime, perhaps their American counterparts, instructed by the ghost of Mossadegh, might finally face up to the true price of sowing such cynical, lethal whirlwinds.

—
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman have co-authored four books on election protection. Bob’s FITRAKIS FILES are available via www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. HARVEY WASSERMAN’S HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES is at www.harveywasserman.com.

/by

June 14 Podcast, Bob and Harvey Show

/by