Orcinus
Spyhopping the Right.



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David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. He is the author of The Eliminationists: How Hate Talk Radicalized the American Right (PoliPoint Press, May 2009), as well as Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community (Palgrave/St. Martin's Press, June 2005), Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America, (Palgrave/St. Martin's, 2004), and In God's Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest (1999, WSU Press). His reportage for MSNBC.com on domestic terrorism won the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000. Neiwert is also the managing editor of Crooks and Liars. He can be contacted at dneiwert@hotmail.com.




Liberal Fascism: Two responses:
A: Review and Debate
B: "If conservatives really, really hate being called fascists ..." Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6


Sara Robinson has worked as an editor or columnist for several national magazines, on beats as varied as sports, travel, and the Olympics; and has contributed to over 80 computer games for EA, Lucasfilm, Disney, and many other companies. A native of California's High Sierra, she spent 20 years in Silicon Valley before moving to Vancouver, BC in 2004. She currently is pursuing an MS in Futures Studies at the University of Houston. You can reach her at srobinson@enginesofmischief.com.

Sara's recent series:

Kauffman's Rules: Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4

Cracks in the Wall: Parts I, II, and III.

Tunnels and Bridges: Parts I, II, III, and IV, plus a Short Detour.

Dave's recent series:

"Eliminationism in America": Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X, and Appendix.
The March of the Minutemen
Intro: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Unhinged: Unhonest
Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.
___
Other books by Dave:



[limited availability]:





"The Rise of Pseudo Fascism": An essay
Available in Adobe PDF format here



Original posts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, and Part 7.

______


Choice essays:
____

"The Political and the Personal"

____

"Bush, the Nazis and America":
Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

_______

Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis
[PDF file]
[In HTML: Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X,, XI, XII, XIII, XIV and XV. See explanatory note.]

[Also available in HTML, and with art, at Cursor.]




_______

Orcinus Principium No. 1
Orcinus Principium No. 2

Why Orcinus?


 
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Orcinus
 
What Palin's '90s dalliances tell us now
Monday, October 13, 2008  
-- by Dave

I wanted to offer a little deeper detail on the report in Salon that Max Blumenthal and I put together on Sarah Palin's radical-right friends in Wasilla and the extent to which they worked together -- partly because some of the details reveal a good deal about Palin's approach to governance.

As the story explains, when Palin was elected mayor in 1996, one of her first acts was to attempt to fill her former city council seat by appointing one of the leaders of the town's Bircherite faction, Steve Stoll. She was blocked in that effort by a single vote from former councilman Nick Carney.

Here's a PDF of the minutes from that meeting. What's particularly noteworthy is that Palin was on the verge of ramming the appointment through over Carney's head.

The situation was this: Wasilla's city council comprises six seats. Two of those had been vacated by the just-finished election -- Palin into the mayorship, and another councilman who'd been elected to the Mat-Su Borough Council. The city charter requires all votes to be a majority (that is, 4-2, 4-1, 5-1, 5-0, or 6-0) in order for a measure to pass, including council-seat appointments. Since there was no quorum of the council available, any of these seats had to be approved 4-0 by those council members remaining.

So when Carney refused to put Stoll on the council, it made the vote 3-1. The council minutes tell us that the situation lingered for a week, for a follow-up meeting on Oct. 21, and when they came back, Palin announced that she had some legal opinions saying she could proceed despite Carney's opposition:

Mayor Palin following consultation with several attorneys suggested that since there appeared to be an impasse, that Steve Stoll and Mrs. Dianne Keller be appointed to the vacant council seats based on a 3 to 1 vote previously made by the council.


Evidently, much wrangling then ensued, during which Palin ultimately backed down and nominated a compromise candidate, Darlene Langill, who was appointed to the seat.

It's also worth noting that, according to Carney, Palin also was hoping to appoint one of Stoll's right-wing cohorts, a man named Mike Chryst, to the second council seat. But the city clerk ruled him ineligible because he lived outside the city limits.

The other Wasilla City Council meeting of special note that we describe in the story involved Carney's attempt to pass a common-sense local gun-control ordinance (which you can read as a PDF here. It was this meeting to which Palin recruited a number of witnesses, led by Mark Chryson, to protest the proposal even before it had been completed, and certainly before any hearings were planned.

The minutes read:

Councilwoman Langill requested clarification whether or not the public hearing on Ordinance Serial No. 97-43 was being conducted at this time, as Council Policy was not being followed since people were being allowed to speak on a scheduled agenda item under persons to be heard. Mayor Palin stated that she invites the public to speak on any issue, at any time. Councilman Carney stated that he thought it was unfortunate that Mayor Palin was allowing discussion on Ordinance Serial No. 97-43 at this time. He stated that his intention in presenting this ordinance was to make Wasilla the safest community possible. He feels there are areas of Wasilla where offensive weapons should not be allowed. He never expected to get a second on the introduction of this ordinance, and since there is no support from the Council on the proposed ordinance, allowing discussion is a waste of time. He stated Mayor Palin is violating the meeting rules set for this Council.

Later on, when Carney did try to get a second to advance the ordinance for the next council meeting, he couldn't get one. And so it died then (though Carney did later introduce a resolution banning weapons from city offices, but that too went nowhere).

The picture of Palin's style of governance is eerily similar to what we've seen from the Bush White House the past eight years: When laws, rules, and policies stand in the way of getting what you want, simply ignore them away.

Moreover, what we also see is Palin's early willingness to use demagoguery and overt appeals to the paranoid, angry fringe of the right to get what she wants.

Pretty much what we're seeing on the campaign trail these days, don't you think?

6:00 PM Spotlight




 
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