From the Archives: Fascism's First Steps: Heywood Broun's Warning From the Past

by Nomad

In June 2012, Nomadic Politics took a moment to honor an old-school reporter in the post entitled "Fascism's First Steps: Heywood Broun's Warning From the Past."

If you've never heard of the name, you are in good company. Before there was Walter Cronkite, before there was Edward R. Murrow, there was Heywood Broun. While probably not exactly in the same league, he was certainly the kind reporter that later great journalists would admire.

Broun worked at some of the most respected newspapers of the day. It was not always a happy relationship. His ideas often rubbed newspapers owners the wrong way.  Early in his career, he was described as "an extraordinary mixture of sophistication and naïveté."  

Like many of the celebrity writers of his day,  Broun was for ten years, (1919 - 1929) a member of the much-celebrated Algonquin Round Table.
That, no doubt, shaped his later witty kind of cynicism. With a professional aplomb, Broun could skewer the pompous egos in the arts and in politics.  

Sadly, one has to hunt high and low even to find a few of his quotes. But here are a few notables.

Write the news as if your very life depended on it. It does!

On people who ignore warnings:

Appeasers believe that if you keep on throwing steaks to a tiger, the tiger will become a vegetarian.

Thanks to Hoodwinked Voters, Trump is About to Ratchet Up Institutionalized Government Corruption

by Nomad

Government Doesn't Care What you Think

A couple of years ago,  Anticorruptionact.org produced a video which sought to explain why our system of representation has broken down. The question was: how did corruption become so pervasive legal in Washington and in state governments around the nation?

A Princeton University study uncovered things we all, on whatever side of the political spectrum you might be on, have long suspected.

Their study took data from nearly 2000 public opinion surveys and compared it to the policies that ended up becoming law. To put it another way, researchers compared what the public wanted to what the government actually accomplished. What they found was extremely disturbing: 

The opinions of 90% of Americans have essentially no impact at all.

The Parable of the River of Freedom

by Nomad

I found this video and thought you might find it interesting. It's narrated by Orson Welles and, according to what I could learn dates back to 1971.
Like all classic parable, it seems as if it were written for our times.

The backstory is provided by Joseph Cavella, a writer for the film.

For several years, Bosustow Productions had asked Orson Welles, then living in Paris, to narrate one of their films. He never responded. When I finished the Freedom River script, we sent it to him together with a portable reel to reel tape recorder and a sizable check and crossed our fingers. He was either desperate for money or (I would rather believe) something in it touched him because two weeks later we got the reel back with the narration word for word and we were on our way.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

ACA Repeal and How Trump Voters in Kentucky Threw Themselves Under the GOP Bus

by Nomad

The general interest news site, Vox, went to Whitley County, Kentucky to ask the residents there what they thought of Obamacare.
They were not at all happy.
So it's no surprise that these people overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. Throughout the campaign, the billionaire candidate made no secret of his vow to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

What is a surprise is that these Trump voters there are exactly the demographic that benefits the most from Obama's signature healthcare plan. Logically, they ought to be shooting off fireworks for Obamacare. They have the most to lose if Trump keeps his campaign promise about the repeal.

Vox attempts to learn what gives. How and why could voters vote against their own best interests on something as serious as health insurance?
The answers might surprise you.The video's worth watching.

Death by a Thousand Cuts: Is Trump Demolishing the Federal Government to Please Corporate America?

by Nomad

President Trump may call it downsizing but a look at just some of the programs and agencies that face cuts (or outright dismantling) makes one wonder what will be spared.

The Heritage Foundation Budget

Trump transition staffers say they've earmarked ways to reduce federal spending by $10.5 trillion over 10 years and cutting jobs is a big part of the plan, The Hill reported. The cutback blueprint report was hand-delivered last year from the powerful conservative think tank and advocacy group the Heritage Foundation.Trump's budget cuts closely mirror a document (titled “Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017”)

The article in The Hill cited unnamed sources from inside President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team. According to that report, two Trump transition staffers are charged with presenting the possible cuts to the White House Budget Office. The Hill said.

 Russ Vought, a former aide to Vice President-elect Mike Pence and the former executive director of the RSC, and John Gray, who previously worked for Pence, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) when Ryan headed the House Budget Committee.

Both Vought and Gray worked for the Heritage Foundation, once the intellectual backbone and now the bane of the GOP. Right Wing Watch has quite an archive on the Heritage Foundation. Weeks after the election, the watchdog group reported on a new initiative designed to "roll back the power of the federal government’s regulatory agencies." 

Now with former Heritage rank and file in charged of the budget, the rolling back has presidential approval.