Wat's going on?

it is usually argued that Fascism became a political force when the working
class was powerful enough to create a crisis of legitimacy, but not powerful
enough to come to power. the situation in the United States today is a
little different. the working class  is weak. it seems that U.S. hegemony is
an unquestioned fact. nevertheless, the rightwing is on the move led by GWB.
some folks in the 1960s thought fascism was just around the corner. they
thought we were already living in a police state. at the time, we lacked a
real external enemy who had the ability to attack the U.S. I know that LBJ
once claimed that the Vietnamese were about to invade San Francisco. if Bin
Lauden did not exist Bush would have had to invent him.

tomorrow there will be major protests in New York City against the World
Economic Forum meetings. local papers have succeeded in representing the
anti-globalization movement as terrorists. it will be interesting to see how
the police behave. as Mayor Daily once put it: " The role of the police is
not to create disorder; their role is to maintain disorder." perhaps the
great fear that keeps the ruling class up all night is the
anti-globalization movement.

The following paragraph is from an article which appears in the Feb. 1 issue
of the email
Mid-Hudson (N.Y.) Mid-Hudson Activist Newsletter, which is published in
New Paltz, N.Y.

STATE OF THE UNION: WAR AND MORE WAR

By Jack A. Smith

Politically speaking, Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network are the
best thing that ever happened to the presidency of George W. Bush.  The
expatriate Saudi millionaire made President Bush what he is today -- an
unprecedentedly popular chief executive who is opportunistically
transforming the Sept. 11 terror attacks into a political mandate for
pursuing strategic right-wing goals.