Com­ment: For­mer New York Times writer Chris Hedges weighs in on the Tea Par­ty milieu. Although there is much more to the Balka­ns con­flict than indi­cat­ed in this inci­sive col­umn, the fact that a “Times” writer is catch­ing on is sig­nif­i­cant.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, he sees fit to quote Green Par­ty can­di­date Cyn­thia McK­in­ney, a Mus­lim Broth­er­hood apol­o­gist whose tedious,  pro­to-fascis­tic mantra that there is no dif­fer­ence between the two par­ties echoes the Naderoids of 2000. Frau McK­in­ney appears igno­rant of the Green Par­ty’s own fas­cist antecedents.

“Is Amer­i­ca ‘Yearn­ing for Fas­cism?’ ” by Chris Hedges; Truthdig.com; 3/29/2010.

The lan­guage of vio­lence always presages vio­lence. I watched it in war after war from Latin Amer­i­ca to the Balka­ns. The impov­er­ish­ment of a work­ing class and the snuff­ing out of hope and oppor­tu­ni­ty always pro­duce angry mobs ready to kill and be killed. A bank­rupt, lib­er­al elite, which proves inef­fec­tu­al against the rich and the crim­i­nal, always gets swept aside, in times of eco­nom­ic col­lapse, before thugs and dem­a­gogues emerge to play to the pas­sions of the crowd. I have seen this dra­ma. I know each act. I know how it ends. I have heard it in oth­er tongues in oth­er lands. I rec­og­nize the same stock char­ac­ters, the buf­foons, char­la­tans and fools, the same con­fused crowds and the same impo­tent and despised lib­er­al class that deserves the hatred it engen­ders. . . .