The Dark Underbelly Of "America First"

Since Trump's campaign spewed it, we've heard the phrase "America first!" uttered countless times, including at rallies as well as speeches after Dotard's inauguration. But one common theme remains: few of Trump's followers - or for that matter, Americans in general - are aware of the dark history of the America First movement.

In an article appearing in the January 21, 2017 issue of The Atlantic we learn:

"The America First Committee (AFC), which was founded in 1940, opposed any U.S. involvement in World War II, and was harshly critical of the Roosevelt administration, which it accused of pressing the U.S. toward war. At its peak, it had 800,000 members across the country, included socialists, conservatives, and some of the most prominent Americans from some of the most prominent families. There was future President Ford; Sargent Shriver, who’d go on to lead the Peace Corps; and Potter Stewart, the future U.S. Supreme Court justice. It was funded by the families who owned Sears-Roebuck and the Chicago Tribune, but also counted among its ranks prominent anti-Semites of the day."

But this tells very little of the actual story. Or how the AFC's  tentacles subsequently spawned what would mutate into the military -industrial complex. An entity we were first warned about by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, e.g. in January, 1961:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

To learn more about the "America First" bunch and their spinoffs one needs to go to a serious monograph like  Russ Bellant's  'Old Nazis, The New Right and the Republican Party', South End Press, 1991)  Therein we learn:

The America First Committee was an organization founded in the early 1940s and whose charter and organization was dedicated to opposing all effort to aid Allies facing the aggression of Nazi Germany.

Bellant shows in detail how the propaganda and activist arm of the German Nazi party in the U.S. (the German -American Bund) was likewise active in building up sympathy  for Hitler and the Axis powers.  Indeed, prior to Pearl Harbor the zeitgeist had settled in among American Firsters that in the event of any war, the Axis  needed to prevail.  (Bellant, p. 34).     When war was declared after Pearl Harbor a common trope was that the AFC had been "disbanded" but this was patently untrue. It had merely metamorphosed into other groups and a spectrum of anti-American activities. This included spreading Nazi propaganda and militating against any war effort.

What we behold now, for those aware of history, is Trump and his White Nationalist supporters, hearkening back to the days when the Nazi party and Adolf Hitler were idolized by those screeching "America First".  Maybe this is why - after the Charlottesville VA conflict, Trump praised the marching neo-Nazis as "some very fine people".

What "America First" really meant in that earlier crass, anti-Semitic era is perfect isolationism to the extent of not entering a conflict that might bring U.S. power to bear against "Herr Hitler".    As I  pointed out, the AFC didn't disband after the U.S entered World War II, but it coalesced - along with two other groups (the American Coalition of Patriotic Societies and the American Vigilante Intelligence Federation) into what became known as The American Security Council.   

The Atlantic piece doesn't reference them, but the top players in launching the ASC were Gen. Robert Wood and William Regnery, a publisher and long time Nazi sympathizer whose publishing company (Regnery Press) was also responsible for such illustrious works as those below:  












As we see here, the primary obsession of Wood and Regnery was communism.. Hence, it made sense for them to back Hitler and the Nazis to take down the Soviet Union and the commies.  This also likely led to the U.S. importing former Nazi spies via Operation Bloodstone  following WWII - and under the aegis of Allen Dulles of the O.S.S.  the precursor of the  CIA.  Readers can learn more here:


http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bloodstone_B_CS.html

Concerning Regnery, a 2012 TIME article observed

"As the country moved to the right, the firm became a hit machine, first under Henry's son Alfred now under president and publisher Marji Ross".

More on the ASC background: the first intended targets of the ASC were trade unions which were believed to be infiltrated by commies.  It is no coincidence that in the Third Reich trade unions also came in for special scrutiny and indeed, destruction. As we learn from author Ian  Kershaw ('Hitler Nemesis', p. xxxiii):

“Leaders of big business, though often harboring private concerns about current difficulties and looming future problems for the economy, for their part were grateful to Hitler for the destruction of the left-wing parties and trade unions."

The ASC knew that it couldn't go that far in the U.S. but it could implement a massive surveillance system. Less known is that the ASC worked in tandem with an original Army surveillance program  that had been going on for some time. This was documented in: Army Surveillance in America: 1775-1980, Chapter 7: Watching the Workers, (Yale University Press, 1991).

The technique was described by former FBI agent William Turner as:

'"a dossier system modeled after the FBI's, which was intended to weed out employees and prospective employees deemed disloyal to the free enterprise system." 

Is it possible that Trump's repeated "America First" themes and rhetoric embody a signal or message that would bring back the worst excesses of the original America First movement, especially its ties to  Nazi sympathizers and later (via the American Security Council)  an exhaustive spy system to monitor workers?  We don't know, but what we do know is that Trump is a confirmed authoritarian who would love nothing better than to be a law unto himself. We also know, from the Charlottesville conflict,  that he fancies neo-Nazis and White nationalists.     

Anyone who knows history and the sordid past associated with America First, ought to be consumed by foreboding every time they hear the words uttered by Trump -  whether he knows about the original meaning or not. 

Footnote:  Seems a conservo blogger is a tad miffed that "leftists" have called out Trump for Nazi-sympathizing but not Louis Farrakhan. Of course, there's a slight little difference here: Trump occupies the presidency, arguably the most powerful position on the planet (with the nuke codes) while Farrakhan is a basic nobody and has been.  No one is saying Farrakhan is innocent of anti-Semitism. But to make a fuss about left "hypocrisy" for not calling him out when he lacks one millionth the power or influence of Trump is take myopia to a depth way beyond any rational reckoning and clearly within the realm of false analogy and red herrings.

National Security State Spied on Occupy Movement…….So What’s New?

In his most recent blog on smirkingchimp.com, David Lindorff references recently obtained documents from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security by the Partnership for Civil Justice and released this past week. (For the complete article go to: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494


Lindorff states that the document shows that the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies “began a campaign of monitoring, spying and disrupting the Occupy Movement at least two months before the first occupation actions began in late September 2011.”

He goes on to write:

“As early as August, while acknowledging that the incipient Occupy Movement was “peaceful” in nature, federal, state and local officials from the FBI, the DHS and the many Fusion Centers and Joint Terrorism Task Force centers around the country were meeting with local financial institutions and their private security organizations to plot out a strategy for countering the Occupy Movement’s campaign.”

  Hmmmmmm.....should anyone really familiar with deep politics be at all surprised at this? I think not! In fact, any deep politics maven would recognize we essentially found out what we expected all along!  Also the collective "joint task force centers", plus fusion centers in concert with other fed super snoopers is reminiscent of John Poindexter's 'Total Information Awareness' plan - which was rejected by congress in 2003, but appears to have re-materialized as the Domestic Security Alliance Council.

 Also, is there anyone around – not still living under a rock or a recently landed alien from Epsilon Eridani – who doesn’t know that the feds have been singularly after the U.S. Left since the 1940s-50s finding every ruse under the frickin’ Sun to break up its organizations , and scatter them to the four winds? The disrupted organizations include: Labor, the Civil Rights movement, the Anti-war movement of the 1960s, the Black Panthers and others.

Much of this commenced under the Hoover- instigated FBI program known as COINTELPRO which featured assets being planted in various organizations with the sole purpose to disrupt them. Hell, many of the alleged “anarchists” appearing in Seattle for the WTO protests in ’99 were these jockos – it certainly fits their modus operandi.

In his excellent series, ‘The Untold History Of the United States’ Oliver Stone documents a lot of these instances starting with his ‘Chapter 5’ (‘The 1950s, Eisenhower, the Bomb and the Third World’) when commie hysteria ran rampant. (Eisenhower was once quoted as saying: “I’d rather be atomized then commie-ized”. I believe he must have been under the influence of a senile brain fart at the time….or maybe hypnotized by J. Edgar or one of his then misfits)

Stone, in his series,  continues to highlight the sad and sorry saga of relentless Left harassment with his Chapters 6 and 7 (‘LBJ, Nixon, Vietnam and the Third World’) when the feds really went ape shit determined to break up anything that even smelled leftist. Meanwhile, the right wing nuts – like in the John Birch Society, and States’ Rights parties, were basically allowed to do whatever. (Even now, as in the recent issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's 'Intelligence Digest', pleas are being made for the security establishment to train more eyes and ears on the extremist Right whackos - including militias, "patriot" groups, Confederate sympathizers and others - which have exploded since Obama's re-election.)

The main unifying theme to keep on your radar is the growth and expansion of American capital and equity markets with their attendant insatiable need to devour precious resources for the sake of wanton consumption. In addition, the engrained perception of these cancerous capital markets is that anyone or anything that stands in their way – even potentially- is an enemy. Thus, as Stone shows us (Chapter 5), the removal of Mossadegh in Iran in 1953 because he obstructed expansion of petroleum markets, then the removal of Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz in 1954 because he wanted to implement land reforms that included some nationalization of United Fruit’s banana plantations.

Meanwhile, the domestic Left has been under fierce attack since the 1920s with the “Wobblies”. Special fed task units were assigned to infiltrate and break them up just as the FBI’s COINTELPRO did with the anti-War movement in the 60s. Many of those protestors were shot, or bludgeoned in manufactured riots. In a similar vein, one of Lindorff’s PCJ -obtained documents reveals a perp -instigator (name conveniently blanked out in the released document) who actually proposed to assassinate leaders of the Occupy Movement in Houston with “suppressed” sniper rifles. As the released PCJ document puts it:

“One identified ------  as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified ----- had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. ---- planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest group and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership by suppressed sniper rifles.”

Jesus H. Christ! What is it with these demented Reich Wing Texans and their boners for assassinations?  Wasn't JFK enough? Now they wanted to off innocent kids just trying to exercise their rights to free speech. Oh wait, yes, that did go out the window along with the 4th amendment when the Patriot Act was signed, sealed and delivered. I forgot!

The point is this shit isn’t new, nor should any American who’s had a REAL history course be amazed or surprised. But the question remains: Where did this virus begin? This virus driving the government over multiple election cycles (even when Dems - the alleged "people's party", are in power)  to selectively clamp down on one part of the political spectrum while allowing the other to run wild. The answer is the American Security Council (ASC).

FACT: The origins of the ASC began almost at the apex of Trade Union power in the United States, after Army and business surveillance of workers became linked in common cause. (See e.g. Jensen, J.M.: Army Surveillance in America: 1775-1980 , Chapter 7: 'Watching the Workers', Yale University Press, 1991. )

Author Russ Bellant ('Old Nazis, The New Right and The Republican Party' , South End Press, Boston, 1991) documents the origin and makeup of the ASC as follows:

"The ASC began in Chicago in 1955, staffed primarily by former FBI agents. In its first year it was called the Mid-American Research Library. Corporations joined to take advantage of what former FBI agent William Turner described as ...'a dossier system modeled after the FBI's, which was intended to weed out employees and prospective employees deemed disloyal to the free enterprise system."

And further (op. cit., p.33):

"Although the ASC began as an anti-labor operation with support from Sears, and other businesses, it soon became involved in foreign policy issues. It co-sponsored a series of annual meetings from 1955 to 1961 called National Military-Industrial Conferences in which elements of the Pentagon, National Security Council, and organizations linked to the CIA discussed cold war strategy with leaders of many large corporations, such as United Fruit, Standard Oil, Honeywell, U.S. Steel, and of course, Sears Roebuck. "

Bellant (p. 30) citing a Washington Post piece (1/8/79, p C1) that described the ASC as 'The Cold War Campus' and 'The Heart of the Military-Industrial Complex' went on to write:

"Both are names the American Security Council wears with pride. Its boards are filled with retired senior military officers, executives of major corporations, including some of the largest military contractors, and some New Right leaders. Wes McCune of the Washington DC - based Group Research, which monitors the political right wing, says the ASC 'is not just the representative of the military-industrial complex, it is the personification of the military-industrial complex'."

Here we see why the nation’s one-track  "security apparatus" doesn’t do overly much about the Right: they are themselves part of the political Right- or at least coopted by it - and have been since becoming attached to the ASC. Oh, but they do have time and energy to squander on someone like Marilyn Monroe - whose FBI files were released yesterday. Evidently she was suspected of having "commie" friends, and "possibly visiting communists in Mexico"  (like Lee Harvey Oswald,  as portrayed in the Warren Commission fable). And,  I guess like many OWS protestors are suspected of having "t'errist" friends today. Who the hell knows?


Sadly, if you’re classified as a Leftist in this country, you're not considered a patriot and you don’t have much going for you other than to maybe brag that some spooks, or wannabe James Bonds have ‘x’ monitors on you or are tracking you….especially if you become involved in a national protest movement. (I know the FBI et al probably started files on me in the early 1960s when as a HS student I used to write the Soviet Embassy in D.C. requesting issues of 'Soviet Life'. Hoover must have had a shit fit that his commie hysteria didn't work on me!)

Forewarned is forearmed. Oh one more thing: knowing how far and wide the tentacles of this apparatus are now so widespread it may be no wonder why the sole “people’s party” has descended into a bunch of Neolib establishment appeasers in the past fifty years! But, after what happened to JFK, I guess they can’t really be blamed for looking out for their hides first.