Allen Snyder: 'America heading toward feudal fascism

Allen Snyder

Signs of America's devolution into a feudal/fascist/military state are everywhere; including the rather inconspicuous occurrence of these themes together in at least three articles I've read at www.SmirkingChimp.com in the past few weeks. A clear pattern began emerging during the Reagan/Bush I years, continued almost unabated under Clinton (although it was disguised a little better), but has now, under BushCo, become brazen and accepted public policy; so in-your-face, you can't help but see it -- providing you're looking. Here are some of the more obvious indicators.

Corporate Influence in Politics:

Practically all definitions of 'fascism' (including Mussolini's -- who oughta know) talk in terms of the blending of corporate money and interests with political power and those who wield it. If this is all it takes, we've been heading towards fascism ever since the Supreme Court decided that corporations were persons and their monetary donations to political parties, candidates, or their surrogates constitutes free speech, protected under the 1st Amendment (can anyone point to a SCOTUS decision that has wreaked more havoc?).

Marry that to party leaders on both sides who have little compunction about giving loads of our money to loyal corporate donors in the form of tax breaks and outright welfare and what we have is a match made somewhere far south of heaven. Our elected Federal officials are mostly corporate whores, routinely trading donations for special legislative consideration, access to the White House, or the power to write and push industry-friendly tax or de-regulatory bills. We still don't know what shills, hacks, and flaks helped VP Dick Cheney determine America's pathetic conservation-ignoring, consumption-encouraging, drill-happy gift-to-the-oil-barons energy policy (you know, the one that has us paying $2.60 a gallon for gas while the industry itself posts its biggest profits ever).



BushCo and its sycophants predictably bleat out the standard line of Reagan-ized bullshit on this one -- that if more money is given to the corporations who supposedly create the jobs for the rest of us, the entire economy will ultimately benefit with higher employment while the ensuing consumer spending would keep everything humming along very nicely, thank you. What these greedy fucks actually do with BushCo's largesse (read: our money) instead is increase executive pay while closing plants, laying off workers, cutting benefits, and providing golden parachutes for the execs that can't be kept on. Then the executives give the money back in the form of political bribes and the cycle begins again (I was shocked?shocked to hear that, too). It's been called voodoo economics, but that's only if you're looking at the fuzzy end of that lollipop. If you're a corporate-loving free market sadist with cozy ties to the regressive regime in DC, you're sitting pretty.

Outsourcing:

Then those American jobs go overseas where corporations can pay lower wages, give no benefits, worker's comp, retirement pensions, or worry about environmental regulations. They rake in the dough while the American middle class loses more and more of its members. This, in turn, decreases union membership (they overwhelmingly vote Democratic), limits donations to Democratic candidates, and produces an overall reduction in Democratic support. BushCo's ultimate goal, of course, is to remake America into a modern one-party feudal society where there's no viable middle class at all, but rather a relatively small group of filthy rich regressive bastards whom the rest of us teach, wait on, build for, clean up after, and pay fealty to in the form of crushing taxes. This keeps their service-people nice, stupid, dependent, compliant, fearful, and poor. The money gets recycled into the corporate hopper to produce more profit-busting oppression of the same.

For this to happen, BushCo needs a little help from its friends in the government, but as we just saw, since BushCo the corporation is identical to BushCo the political entity, they already have all the friends they need -- and in just the right places, too.

Control of the Media:

So its really only us, American citizens, or more specifically American voters, that need to be controlled and the regressives practically have that down to an art form. The collective mainstream media pay infinitely more attention to missing white female teens, upturned boats, and the latest hurricane wannabe than they do anything that really matters. Throw in the tired old shibboleth that the media's liberal to the point of Communism, have your buddies at FNC (that's the Fascist News Channel) set the new standard far to the right of both facts and truth and you've got a recipe for Mass Sheep Herding -- Lemming Version. That most of BushCo's good little followers have already had their critical brains turned off or completely removed by religion only helps BushCo's cause.

The Military State:

There's only one feasible explanation for BushCo's recent hard-on to use the military for everything from disaster clean-up to avian flu quarantine. It's to get us saps used to seeing armed regular military troops in the streets so that when their next manufactured 'attack' happens, we won't think twice about letting BushCo do what it wants in the name of 'national security' and 'public safety'. How they're gonna do that when they're fightin' the war on terrah in the scapegoat country du jour is beyond me, but these guys definitely aren't known for their planning.

Feudal Fascism (or is that Fascist Feudalism?):

What happens when you gut the Federal Treasury to pay for all these foreign escapades, corporate welfare, and domestic tax cuts for the wealthiest fraction of a percent? Well, you have to make that money up somewhere. Can't repeal the tax cuts since its rich people who buy the politicians their positions, can't increase taxes 'cause nobody likes that, can't admit that they're fucking idiots and they need to change policies 'cause that's copping to wrongdoing or mistake-making and, Lawd knows, they're never wrong.

So what do you do? Why, you cut spending on social programs, of course. You know, the ones that help the poor, the elderly, and the sick - the ones that none of the tax cut recipients needs 'cause they're already so fucking rich. Then you call government incompetent, turn the whole shebang over to the private sector who proceeds to bleed us all dry, and prepare for the total elimination of the American Middle Class.

Well, there you have it. Soon America will be the ultimate service economy with most people struggling at dead-end jobs to earn just enough to send off to the super small, super rich gated and barbed-wire-protected enclaves in the hopes they'll have enough mercy on us poor wretches to throw a few crumbs our way. You know, let them eat shit, so to speak.

Boy, when you put it that way, maybe we're already there.

Allen Snyder can be reached at asnyder111@bellsouth.net. This article is copyright by Allen Snyder and permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as appropriate credit is given.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=23363&mode=nested&order=0

for some time now. Glad to know someone else is thinking in these terms.

I think!! It is getting dreary out there, isn't it?

He sums up where I believe we are at in this transformation.
It ain't good. However, and perhaps this is a character flaw considering the evidence, I believe that we will beat them back again.

I hope we can beat them back. There is no coincidence of the Bush's cabal's ties to the
Italian Fascist movement. Most don't realize that Italy's parties call a spade a spade.

The bush cabal has even one of their own major players in the Niger affair
who wrote a book called:
"Universal Fascism" by Michael Ledeen

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x2175221#2179208

.

...before playing "Call It Democracy" in a concert:

"That song came from the time of neo-conservatism, when governments supported business at the cost of lives and nobody gave a shit. We have since moved on to neo-liberalism, when governments support business at the cost of lives and nobody gives a shit; and I see we're moving on to neo-feudalism, that's the service economy coming at you. We will all serve. I'm not quite sure who we're serving. There's a sort of mystery there; are we serving Bill Gates? I think not, he's too visible. Somebody else? Maybe you're sitting right here (in the audience). Are you out there? Fuck off, if you are. (positive audience response) And if you're not, well we missed a grand opportunity to level with each other."

--

Prescient, as usual.

Todd in Beerbratistan