RSS
I’ve been vaguely aware of Carlos Slim Helú for most of the century and have been following his career closely since he began to challenge Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for the title of World’s Richest Man about 8 years ago. But it’s only with the publication in Spanish of a biography of Slim this fall that I became aware of Slim’s literally Fascist roots in Lebanon.
The media has been more interested in imputing fascism to Slim’s business / political frenemy Donald Trump than in covering the background of the New York Times’ savior and largest individual shareholder. From the Financial Times last summer:
NBC and Carlos Slim part ways with Donald Trump
Shannon Bond and Matthew Garrahan in New York
Donald Trump’s lucrative media business has come under further fire as NBC and a television company controlled by Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, separately said they would no longer work with the outspoken real estate tycoon and Republican presidential contender. … “We think it’s incredible that someone can think like this in the 21st century and have this racist position,” said Arturo Elias Ayub, Mr Slim’s son-in-law and the chairman of Ora.
Last month I blogged about Slim’s deceased wife being the cousin of the legendary Lebanese Phalangist warlord Bashir Gemayel:
Carlos Slim’s Late Wife Was a Member of the Most Bloodthirsty Lebanese Warlord Clan
But I had naively assumed that his wife’s membership in the Gemayel clan was the extent of Slim’s ties to the Phalange Party in Lebanon.
Now from The Guardian:
Carlos Slim: biography of Mexico’s richest man penetrates ‘cloak of silence’
Diego Enrique Osorno faced hundreds of interview refusals as he spent eight years writing the most comprehensive Slim biography yet: ‘I learned you have to proceed calmly in the land of power.’
Carlos Slim regularly competes with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett for the title of world’s richest man. Piercing the veil of secrecy surrounding one of world’s richest and most private businessmen was never going to be straightforward. In the end it took eight years, more than 100 interviews, 400 rejections and oodles of patience to write the most comprehensive biography of Carlos Slim to date – a process the author likens to his investigation of another influential enigmatic Mexican: fugitive drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
“The powerful usually create a cloak of silence around them which, in countries such as Mexico, is particularly difficult to pierce,” author Diego Enrique Osorno said.
Slim: A Political Biography of the Richest Mexican in the World is the culmination of interviews with influential politicians, business leaders and others close to the world’s second-richest man – and Slim himself. Osorno eventually gained access to him for seven hours over three separate meetings. Osorno may have convinced Slim to speak; however, Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates and investment guru Warren Buffett, two of the men who regularly vie with him for the title of world’s richest man, were among 400 people who turned down interview requests. “Many people refused to speak with me because they were scared of upsetting the biographee,” Osorno said. …
“There are Mexicans who look at Slim with pride and see him as an aspirational figure … and there are those who consider him to be the symbol of our inequality. The book has provoked a very pertinent debate about extreme wealth and government regulation of monopolies,” said Osorno.
Slim’s astute mathematical brain and business vision are indisputable, but it is his ability to understand and navigate politics over many decades that has been the cornerstone to his success, concludes Osorno. “It has been his loyalty to the [political] system that has helped to consolidate a personal empire unimaginable in a country with more than 52 million people in poverty.” As political commentator Denis Dresser recently wrote: “Slim emerged as a Mexican prototype of the Russian oligarchs, as someone who multiplied their fortunes under the shadow of power.”
Osorno also chronicles previously unknown parts of the mogul’s family history. … Slim’s late wife was a cousin of Lebanese presidents Bashir and Amin Gemayel, and his immigrant father was linked to the rightwing Lebanese Kataeb party, accused of massacres in refugee camps in Lebanon.
Carlos’s father Julian Slim Haddad would host delegations from the Kataeb / Phalange party at the family’s Mexico City mansion.
Using freedom of information requests, Osorno also documents how Slim’s brother Julian, who died in 2011, apparently interrogated suspected leftist insurgents while a member of Mexico’s feared, now defunct, intelligence agency the federal security directorate (DFS).
So, Slim’s older brother was a secret policeman. Mexico’s secret policemen aren’t that notorious on a global scale, but you don’t want to fall into the hands of them.
Pierre Gemayel
As for Lebanon’s Kataeb Party, here’s its Wikipedia article:
The Kataeb party was formed in 1936 as a Maronite paramilitary youth organization by Pierre Gemayel
Pierre Gemayel was the uncle of Carlos Slim’s wife Soumaya Domit Gemayel.
who modeled the party after Spanish Falange and Italian Fascist parties he had observed as an Olympic athlete during the 1936 Summer Olympics held in Berlin, then Nazi Germany. The movement’s uniforms originally included brown shirts and members used the Roman salute.
The Spanish Falange Party was founded in 1933 by the 30-year-old José Antonio Primo de Rivera (1903-1936), who was executed by the left in 1936 during the Spanish Civil War, making him world famous.
In an interview by Robert Fisk, Gemayel stated about the Berlin Olympics:
I was the captain of the Lebanese football team and the president of the Lebanese Football federation. We went to the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin. And I saw then this discipline and order. And I said to myself: “Why can’t we do the same thing in Lebanon?” So when we came back to Lebanon, we created this youth movement. When I was in Berlin then, Nazism did not have the reputation which it has now. Nazism? In every system in the world, you can find something good. But Nazism was not Nazism at all. The word came afterwards. In their system, I saw discipline. And we in the Middle East, we need discipline more than anything else.
He founded the party along with four other young Lebanese: Charles Helou (who later became a President of Lebanon), Chafic Nassif, Emile Yared and Georges Naccache. Pierre was chosen to lead the organization, in part because he was not a political figure at that time.
Here, however, is where I’m stumped: was Carlos Slim’s mom Linda Helu related to Phalange co-founder and president of Lebanon Charles Helou? Wikipedia says:
Helou, Hélou or Helu is a surname that means “sweet” or “pretty” in Arabic. Notable people with the surname include:
-
Carlos Slim Helu (born 1940), Mexican business magnate of Lebanese descent
-
Charles Helou (1913 2001), President of Lebanon
Carlos’s dad changed simplified the spelling of “Salim” to “Slim,” so it’s not implausible that Carlos’s maternal grandfather simplified “Helou” to “Helu.” But it’s also not proof.
It’s important not to assume that the Lebanese merchant princes of Mexico were descended from poor immigrants. Instead, they tended to emigrate to get away from conscription in the Ottoman Empire, taking capital with them. For example, Carlos Slim’s mother’s family started the first Arabic newspaper in Mexico, publishing it on a printing press they brought with them from the old country. And they kept up their ties with relatives in the East.
Osorno’s book has material on the close ties Carlos’s dad maintained with Lebanon’s Phalange Party, so Carlos Slim Helu marrying a Gemayel wasn’t just some random romance, it was a socially approved alliance among leading families of the Lebanese Maronite right, at home and abroad.
The Phalangists didn’t shoot first in the Lebanon Civil War of 1975-1990, but they tended to be the ones to escalate it to the next level. From Wikipedia:
On 6 December 1975, a day later known as Black Saturday, the killings of four Phalange members led Phalange to quickly and temporarily set up roadblocks throughout Beirut at which identification cards were inspected for religious affiliation. Many Palestinians or Lebanese Muslims passing through the roadblocks were killed immediately. Additionally, Phalange members took hostages and attacked Muslims in East Beirut. Muslim and Palestinian militias retaliated with force, increasing the total death count to between 200 and 600 civilians and militiamen. After this point, all-out fighting began between the militias.
Fascist-inspired parties have typically been in bad odor in the modern world, but the Phalangist / Kataeb Party had a special circumstance: it was on Israel’s payroll beginning in 1951. Slim’s cousin-in-law Bashir Gemayel famously sided with the Begin-Sharon government in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Here’s a 1983 New York Times article on the roots of the alliance:
’48 ISRAELI TIE TO PHALANGISTS REVEALED
By DAVID K. SHIPLER, Special to the New York Times
Published: July 3, 1983JERUSALEM, July 2— An Israeli journalist [Benny Morris] has uncovered official Foreign Ministry documents showing that Israel’s relationship with the Lebanese Christian Phalangists goes back to 1948, when the Phalangists asked for Israeli help to organize an insurrection to overthrow the Lebanese Government.
Apparently Israel did not oblige. But in 1951, in response to a Phalangist appeal, Israel secretly gave about $3,000 to the Phalangists’ election campaign, the documents show. In addition, the journalist said he found Zionist leaders had a relationship with Lebanon’s Maronite Christians as far back as 1920.
Carlos Slim’s cousin-in-law Bashir Gemayel, Lebanese Phalangist warlord, “lived by the sword”
Slim’s cousin-by-marriage Bashir Gemayel, son of his wife’s uncle Pierre Gemayel, was elected president of Lebanon during the Israeli occupation, but before he was sworn in, he was blown up on September 14, 1982. Bashir’s obituary in the NYT was entitled “Bashir Gemayel Lived By the Sword.” The events following Bashir dying by the sword were famous at the time back in the 1980s. From Wikipedia:
The Sabra and Shatila massacre was the killing of between 762 and 3,500 civilians, mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shiites, by a militia close to the Kataeb Party, also called Phalange, a predominantly Christian Lebanese right-wing party in the Sabra neighborhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Lebanon. From approximately 6:00 pm 16 September to 8:00 am 18 September 1982, a widespread massacre was carried out by the militia virtually under the eyes of their Israeli allies.[4][5][6][7] The Phalanges, allies to the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), were ordered by the IDF to clear out Sabra and Shatila from PLO fighters, as part of the IDF maneuvering into West Beirut. The IDF received reports of some of the Phalanges atrocities in Sabra and Shatila but failed to stop them.[8]
The massacre was presented as retaliation for the assassination of newly elected Lebanese president Bachir Gemayel, the leader of the Lebanese Kataeb Party.
So, Carlos Slim has a rather interesting background, but not one that ever seemed to come up before …
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
I’m the only true fascist.
I snorted whiskey out of my nose.
There was a fascist party in Mexico, at one time. I think they were called the Orange Shirts, if memory serves.
Their membership consisted of Spaniards, mestizos, and indios, and it was said of them that “the only thing fascist about them was a stiff right arm”, but nevertheless it was so.
I seem to recall Eric Thomson writing about them at some length. Google fails me at this instant though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2405108/Mel-Gibson-enjoys-night-businessman-Carlos-Slim-Domit--son-worlds-richest-man.html
You’re doin’ God’s work, Steve.
However don’t forget the follies of virtue; no good deed goes unpunished.
Mexico City actually was a center of international intrigue going back to Trotsky’s exile and assassination there by Stalin’s henchmen, and even further back to the German Empire’s intrigues there during the First World War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimmerman_telegram#Previous_German_efforts_to_promote_war
Mexico City was also known as the “Casablanca of the Cold War” in the 60s:
http://articles.latimes.com/1996-03-27/news/ls-51612_1_michael-scott
See also “Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA”:
Apparently there are recently released videos filmed three days before his death in which Stanley Kubrick confesses that the rumors about him faking the moon landings are true:
Not much talk about Armand Hammer either.
However don’t forget the follies of virtue; no good deed goes unpunished.
Right. Now we have to keep an eye on Osorno.
Why do I feel that one has to be brave to even blog about what is going on in the world now?
Thank you Steve.
As far as dictatorships go, Fascist ones were not that bad. Mussolini was not Hitler, and Franco kept out of WWII, wisely, as did Peron. Fascism was essentially an attempt to preserve authoritarian Catholic society in amber, prevent social and physical mobility, the role of the Church, and through state ownership and control of private enterprise, promote stability in a rapidly changing world.
Elements of Fascism are found all over: France, Germany, and the US have substantially government owned corporations, including Renault, GM, and Volkswagen. Given the revolving door between government and corporations, fascist corporatism is a feature of the US as well. Efforts to preserve society and a rigid class system are pretty much a feature of modern Progressivism. Minus the Catholic Authoritarianism of course.
In modern terms Fascist merely means “booger” and has about as much meaning.
Pretty obvious but unsaid is having been affiliated with Israel made immigrating to Mexico a whole bunch easier for a Phalangist. Wonder if the "Helu" confusion is intentional. If he was so related , great. if it was whispered but not really true, also good for business.
Great scoop once again Steve
charles helou is sometimes spelled as helu, fwiw: see Google Books.
can’t find any info on whether linda (or jose) helu were related to charles.
The design of the phalangist symbols is interesting. It looks like its got a hint of Aztec in it. Also reminiscent of the United Farm Workers ealge:
Which draws NO inspiration from Nazi imagery.
Bloodthirsty? They killed Muslims! Since when is this considered bad?
The left loves fascists when it suits them, see the Ukraine for a good example of this. There are probably others.
Elements of Fascism are found all over: France, Germany, and the US have substantially government owned corporations, including Renault, GM, and Volkswagen. Given the revolving door between government and corporations, fascist corporatism is a feature of the US as well. Efforts to preserve society and a rigid class system are pretty much a feature of modern Progressivism. Minus the Catholic Authoritarianism of course.
In modern terms Fascist merely means "booger" and has about as much meaning.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Bugg, @Thrasymachus
Fascism is the world’s most popular political philosophy– as long as you call it anything else.
https://www.unz.com/isteve/carlos-slims-late-wife-was-a-member-of-the-leading-lebanese-warlord-clan/
I’ve privately referred to Washington’s K Street lobbies that mold debate and write legislation as the Council of 25,000, and the whole mess of client constituencies, puppetized legislators, boilerplate-writing journalists, crony capitalists, bureaucratic functionaries, et. al., as Fascism Lite.
wren-I think you’re mostly right. Even plain statements of direct, incontrovertible observation can be thought of as–how else do you put it?–crimethink. Point out, e. g., in a letter to the editor that at most companies, the $10 an hour janitor, the $30 an hour engineer, and the $150 an hour executive, will be enrolled in the same insurance group offering the same benefits equally to all three. Ask for an explanation. You need a bit of subject matter expertise, but you’ll learn how shaken and downright frightened some people are when confronted with “off-narrative” observations.
Reg Caesar-Writers James Burnham and Upton Sinclair said, I think, roughly the same of socialism, and Lawrence Dennis of fascism, all three referring to the U. S. If my memory’s okay, Burnham seems to have hit it right, that the letter of Constitutional liberty would remain, but the spirit would be vacuumed up by federal intrusion everywhere, bureaucratic Diktat, inside-the-Beltway think tanks, etc.
Not only do you have Helu/Helou but Carlos is Charles in Spanish – I’d bet that Carlos Helu was named in honor of (his uncle/cousin?) Charles Helou.
Maybe because he’s been dead for 25 years?
When he was alive.
Drugs were an absolutely huge thing in Lebanon during the civil war, and as everyone knows, drugs have been a huge thing in Mexico for decades. I have no information on the subject, and don’t know whether Osorno addresses it in his biography or not, but it might be interesting to explore a possible narco-angle on the Slim story.
Interesting work you’re doing, Steve. Despite the fact that he’s sometimes the richest man on earth, I had never known any of this about Slim. Occasionally it was mentioned that he was Lebanese by descent, but no one before pointed out to me that he had married into the Gemayel family–that’s news!
Like much else, I don’t expect to hear about this from the NYT. (Can’t imagine why!)
So true. The way Slim went from being merely rich to being filthy-stinking rich, was to convince his good friend (then president of Mexico, Carlos Salinas de Gortari) to privatize the country’s phone monopoly (Télmex) to Slim in a sweetheart deal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telmex#History
Just like what the Russian oligarchs would a year or two later!
The Lebanese Christians are not a particularly large group so any one of them would probably be a couple degrees of separation of relatedness to someone who was notorious in some way, fascist, communist, warlord, etc. They’re clannish so of course they hobnob with one another. They also slip a knife into each other’s back from time to time. Amin is said not to have agreed with nor liked his brother Bashir. Does Carlos Slim himself actually have any known ideology besides making money? His brother’s involvement in combatting leftist insurgents seems to be just a logical extension of personal self-interest, protecting property and wealth ownership.
There’s plenty of books and conflicting definitions of what fascism is. It’s not necessarily a racial scheme as popular portrayals make it out to be; this Levantine-Mexican nexus is hardly Aryan central.
oh, good point!
The hypocracy and naivete of the Left and the MSM are on full display here. In this battle of billionaires, I’ll take Trump, crazy-man that he is, over Slim every time.
Trump: Called a fascist by the Left/MSM. Built his empire as an outsider from Queens in one of the most insular and snobbish markets in the world, Manhattan. Has no family ties to anything other than three generations of European American entrepreneurs. Has probably had to rub elbows with dirty people only to get things done in New York…
Slim: Member of a line of fascists, Old World oligarchs, and Zionist-sponsored terrorists. Brother of a Mexican secret policeman (thug). Made his fortune by being handed a monopoly in a poor country full of corrupt institutions. Doesn’t like the way Trump is mussing things up. Owns the freaking New York Times!
The New York Times: The Hypocracy of the Left.
Steve,
The Maronite Phalanges may have been savage, but they were fighting for their survival. Although they finally failed, they deserve all the honour of the white peoples facing the same fate. Isn’t it ironic and prophetic that Lebanon used to be a former French colony ruled by Christians who turned to fascism?
There's plenty of books and conflicting definitions of what fascism is. It's not necessarily a racial scheme as popular portrayals make it out to be; this Levantine-Mexican nexus is hardly Aryan central.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @Steve Sailer
Sure, but has the largest individual stockholder in the New York Times ever denied that he shares the Gemayel clan’s Phalangist views? It seems like an interesting question to ask him, no?
There's plenty of books and conflicting definitions of what fascism is. It's not necessarily a racial scheme as popular portrayals make it out to be; this Levantine-Mexican nexus is hardly Aryan central.Replies: @Steve Sailer, @Steve Sailer
Pierre Gemayel picked the name Phalange in imitation of the fascist Falange founded by Spain’s Primo de Rivera, who was Franco’s rival to the right at the beginning of Spanish Civil War.
Here is the fantastic six-part series on the Spanish Civil War from 1980, produced by the UK's Granada.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDaZtFzSC8U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telmex#History
Just like what the Russian oligarchs would a year or two later!Replies: @Steve Sailer
The privatizations in Mexico and Russia were interrelated, with both countries competing with each other for American favor.
Franjieh is another infamous name in Lebanon. The clan was thought to have been wiped out by rival Christian militias but is now enjoying a come back with an affiliation to Assad?
de Rivera was an interesting guy. His father was the Dictator of Spain in the 1920s and he himself wanted to create a ‘national synthesis’ in Spain under his Falange by addressing the very real economic concerns of Spain’s poor since they were becoming more and more radicalized, enticed by either the Communists or Anarchists. This chasm in wealth was very real and it was a sore point for the Falange who saw that they were losing a large chunk of the naturally pro-national/kingdom population as Franco represented most of all the forces of the wealthy elite.
Here is the fantastic six-part series on the Spanish Civil War from 1980, produced by the UK’s Granada.
Elements of Fascism are found all over: France, Germany, and the US have substantially government owned corporations, including Renault, GM, and Volkswagen. Given the revolving door between government and corporations, fascist corporatism is a feature of the US as well. Efforts to preserve society and a rigid class system are pretty much a feature of modern Progressivism. Minus the Catholic Authoritarianism of course.
In modern terms Fascist merely means "booger" and has about as much meaning.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Bugg, @Thrasymachus
Ongoing History series “Hunting Hitler” investigates the idea that Hitler escaped Berlin via airplane to Franco’s Spain, then made his way to Argentina via Spain’s Canary Islands. Further that Hitler expressly did not want to Spain in the war exactly for a potential escape. So far, very interesting if not quite a slam dunk.
Pretty obvious but unsaid is having been affiliated with Israel made immigrating to Mexico a whole bunch easier for a Phalangist. Wonder if the “Helu” confusion is intentional. If he was so related , great. if it was whispered but not really true, also good for business.
Their membership consisted of Spaniards, mestizos, and indios, and it was said of them that "the only thing fascist about them was a stiff right arm", but nevertheless it was so.
I seem to recall Eric Thomson writing about them at some length. Google fails me at this instant though.Replies: @Pepe, @Pepe
I think you’re referring to these guys, who I hadn’t previously heard of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_shirts
The more influential group around that time were the Sinarquistas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Synarchist_Union
The Sinarquistas were conservative Catholics opposing the anti-clerical laws in post-revolutionary Mexico. They had sympathizers who went on to form the Cristero armed rebellion against the Mexican government. In 2000, Pope John Paul II elevated to sainthood 25 Catholic priests and others killed during the uprising.
The battles were centered in S.W. Mexico, with Jalisco, Guanajuato and Michoacán playing a big role. These are all immigrant sending states, for what that’s worth.
Carlos Slim’s son, Patricio Slim Domit, who prefers to be called “Patrick,” is involved in conservative Catholic groups today in Mexico. I’ve heard he was involved in funding a recent film about the Cristero rebellion. I’m not sure if the reports are referring to “For Greater Glory,” the 2012 film dealing with the Cristero War, starring Andy García.
And yet, when the clannish, violent Maronites came to America en masse, they begat… Tony Shalhoub and George Mitchell and the like.
I worked for a company that had a key engineer named Selim, who was Lebanese by family and fundamentalist rather than Maronite by religion. He had his employees build a Death Clock counting down all the souls that have died since the Fall for his church (on company time), but he was an electronic genius of the first order who built a box that combined an entire sophisticated electronics lab in a single 20 pound box a little bigger than a Tek 475 scope.
It’s almost as if Christians tend to fit in in America better than Muslims …
Their membership consisted of Spaniards, mestizos, and indios, and it was said of them that "the only thing fascist about them was a stiff right arm", but nevertheless it was so.
I seem to recall Eric Thomson writing about them at some length. Google fails me at this instant though.Replies: @Pepe, @Pepe
Mel Gibson hanging out in Mexico City with one of the Slim boys (2013):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2405108/Mel-Gibson-enjoys-night-businessman-Carlos-Slim-Domit--son-worlds-richest-man.html
Wichita is famously Lebanese. Jimmy Jabara, one of the leading jet aces of the Korean War, was from one of the biggest families in Wichita, and the Jabaras have many businesses all over town. One of the town’s airports is named after James Jabara.
I worked for a company that had a key engineer named Selim, who was Lebanese by family and fundamentalist rather than Maronite by religion. He had his employees build a Death Clock counting down all the souls that have died since the Fall for his church (on company time), but he was an electronic genius of the first order who built a box that combined an entire sophisticated electronics lab in a single 20 pound box a little bigger than a Tek 475 scope.
“There’s plenty of books and conflicting definitions of what fascism is. It’s not necessarily a racial scheme as popular portrayals make it out to be…”
What’s a good working definition of fascism and the other isms? Say, in communism everything is part of the government and everyone works for the government; in socialism the government owns all the companies and can thus direct them; in fascism the government doesn’t necessarily own the companies, but it can direct them; capitalism is basically everything else, in particular if society is organized around the concept of “companies”, though often the companies (or the wealthy aristos) control the government…
(Not the same as any other anonymous in this thread. Just another nameless anonomi!)
Peace on Earth and some Slim the movie director:
Militia boasts of role in Sabra massacre, The Guardian, 29 Oct 2005:
This Slim sounds like he’s at the “god will sort them out” stage.
Elements of Fascism are found all over: France, Germany, and the US have substantially government owned corporations, including Renault, GM, and Volkswagen. Given the revolving door between government and corporations, fascist corporatism is a feature of the US as well. Efforts to preserve society and a rigid class system are pretty much a feature of modern Progressivism. Minus the Catholic Authoritarianism of course.
In modern terms Fascist merely means "booger" and has about as much meaning.Replies: @Reg Cæsar, @Bugg, @Thrasymachus
The point is not to preserve a “rigid” class structure (although England has as rigid a class structure as you will find) but to recognize that you are going to have classes, so they may as well work together for the good of society.
What's a good working definition of fascism and the other isms? Say, in communism everything is part of the government and everyone works for the government; in socialism the government owns all the companies and can thus direct them; in fascism the government doesn't necessarily own the companies, but it can direct them; capitalism is basically everything else, in particular if society is organized around the concept of "companies", though often the companies (or the wealthy aristos) control the government...
(Not the same as any other anonymous in this thread. Just another nameless anonomi!)Replies: @anonymous
That can be a confusing subject. Roger Griffin’s “Fascism” (Oxford Readers), which is a collection of excerpts and essays, gives the varying definitions from the point of view of those calling themselves fascists, from the perspective of western democracies, the communist assessment, and analysis of it from a number of wide-ranging and disparate people, covers the ‘other’ fascisms of other counties, post-fascism fascism, and so on, over two hundred short selections in all. Another well regarded writer is Stanley Payne who has written extensively on the subject. Both are responsible writers on the subject.
When the Sabra and Shatila massacre occurred right under the eyes of Israeli military, who wanted PLO members there to be killed, I started to think of the country in a different way than the propaganda of Hollywood would want me to do. No, I never deny the Holocaust or Anne Frank’s talent with language. Those are verifiable truths. But so is the Israeli involvement in a terrible massacre which they took advantage of to eliminate some of their enemies and a lot of refugees.
Colonization results in refugees (cf. Trail of Tears), and when you massacre or allow others to massacre the dispossessed, then you bear responsibility. One need not resort to the explanation of “anti-semitism” as those internal reviews of Israel liked to do. Their own leftists were already protesting and one of them got killed outside the whitewash commission chamber. The men inside deliberated whether, because a Jew had been killed, they should just adjourn. But the political heat for doing so would be too uncomfortable politically – they seem to have continued.
It’s all an interesting history, and if you think Andrew Jackson was a bit of a thug, you might also look at some contemporary examples. We can call it fascism or we can call it opportunism with no holds barred. Whatever it is, it is barbarism. Mexico is a mess, and Carlos Slim doesn’t look like the kind of guy who would miss such amenities as accrue to those where equality is prized. If he did, he’d have relocated to Scandinavia. But how could he make so much money there?
Lebanese buddy of President Peña Nieto on new list put out by US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control:
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/US-Links-to-Drugs-Mexican-Businessman-Close-to-Pena-Nieto--20151217-0024.html
Came across this over at hacker news:
Reporters in Las Vegas Try to Crack Case of Who Owns Their Newspaper: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/business/media/reporters-in-las-vegas-try-to-crack-case-of-who-owns-their-newspaper.html
Immediately thought of this post (whose title could have been: Reporters at NYT Try Not to Crack Case of Who Owns Their Newspaper).