American Fascism

The American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as "a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." Fascism is synonymous with corporatism.

Corporatism is government run by and for corporations in the belief that it is the most "efficient" model of national management. It is the model that has been used by ultra-conservative totalitarian regimes in the past century. It is also the model by which corporations run themselves. The government enables the supremacy of a few over the majority of it's citizens.

A version of corporatism or economic fascism was adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called "fascist" but "planned capitalism." The word fascism may no longer be politically acceptable, but its synonym "industrial policy" is as popular as ever. Economic fascism intensifies "national spirit" and is the antithesis of democracy. Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State.

Corporatism views human rights of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population is brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. The tactic is to use secrecy, denial and disinformation.

Corporatism was present in the Unites States since it's inception in a less obvious appearance through lobbyists and corporate political contributions. Certain administrations tried to enact it with different degree of aggressivity. The most remarkable were the Reagan and Bush administrations.

The philosophy is simple: shift national wealth to the right leaving few resources available for social programs. They both started their administrations by giving tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations and squandering the US Treasury. Then fat political contributions by the wealthy towards the ruling party financed their re-election campaigns. They both appointed lobbyists or former corporate CEOs in key cabinet positions or advisory bodies. The Bush administration came into power with full control of the congress enabling it to be more aggressive in implementing "the plan":
- Discouraged competition by deregulating all industries to enable corporate takeovers and monopolize all wealth and power in the country. Relaxed environmental regulations to increase profits for the corporations. Disguised every measure with patriotic and political slogans like "patriot act", "clean air or clean water act", "save our forest act".

- Ridiculed labor organizations, by marginalizing their impact on society, or outright vilifying them or their actions. It is destroying the working class by subsidizing the outsourcing of jobs, to help big business fill their pockets with profits.

- Started a war to distract attention from domestic shortcomings. Demonizes and vilifies a country, a social group, religion or political party to excite the misinformed masses and intensify national spirit. Crushes opposition or criticism of governing policy by acquiring all media corporations that will report only the good news from the war. Employs hordes of war cheerleaders to intimidate and silence dissent.

- Privatized the war by hiring mercenaries ("private contractors"). Working feverishly to privatize social security, medicare, the public school system, and the prison system. Uses terrorism as reason for all misdeeds; reason to invade a foreign country, high gasoline prices, shortage of jobs etc. Disguises the invasion as "liberation". Uses the war to excite nationalism. Uses nationalism to build consensus. The effect is to render the citizenry more dependent on government, and to empty the cash-box in case a reformist administration comes to power.

- Allies itself with the religious right to legitimize it's actions. The religious right recruits and profits more from citizens pushed into poverty than a prosperous middle class.

- Transforms the country into a corporate welfare system by allowing them to rape and pillage all the wealth or national resources. Those in business circles and close to the power elite use their position to enrich themselves. The power elite receives financial gifts and property from the economic elite, obtains vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by stealing national resources.
This is the antithesis of capitalism and democracy.

"The Quiet American"

There are a lot of conspiracy theories polluting the Internet. I, myself, am not a "conspiracy theorist", nor do I give a lot of credence to various implications of high crimes and misdemeanors. Yet there are many inconsistencies surrounding events of the New Millennium, terrorism, war and political actions taken all around the world.

The USA was founded on most liberal and progressive philosophy of it's time. It's inception had inspired the whole human race to pursue freedom, liberty and happiness of each individual of the human community. The words "equality" and "opportunity" were born.

The American democracy exemplified a social model of coming out of an outmoded, cruel, bloodsucking, feudalistic system. It even inspired The French Revolution.

Determined by it's Constitution the USA had never attempted to colonize foreign land or people. Rather it had adopted a policy of "commonwealth" with the acceptance of the subjects of the foreign land.

That certainly hadn't stopped the USA from attempting a World Dominance. Unfortunately, government is made up of individuals and self serving people. It is human nature that compromises the perfect social system, no matter how hard our forefathers worked to write a Constitution with checks and balances, and amendments to assure liberty for individuals within society and withstand time, the social system will be compromised.

Even if you don't believe in conspiracy theories, the abundance of them points to the lack of trust in our government. That is an alarming sign, and the reasons are scattered throughout history.

Recently I watched a shocking movie: "The Quiet American". I don't know how much fact and how much fiction is portrayed in this movie. It is about Vietnam and the chaos premerging our ill fated war. Vietnam was a French Colony. With the help of the USSR and The People's Republic of China, North Vietnam was founded in 1950, and after losing the battle of Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954 the French had recognized North Vietnam. After that it was all downhill for the French. North Vietnamese forces constantly attacking the South, anti-french forces emerging in the South lead by reactionary generals hungry for power. It was obvious that the weak French could not hold on to power for much longer. In the midst of this turmoil, the Quiet American emerged. A civilian Import-Export businessman (CIA Agent) provided the bad generals with plastic explosives (under a fertilizer name) to blow up innocent bystanders on the streets of Saigon and blame it on the communists from North Vietnam.

After applying this street terror against their own people and the weakening of the french rule, the US helped emerge Ngo Dinh Diem as president of South Vietnam. The French drew out of Vietnam tempting the North to go for the whole pie. There was a power vacuum. The North Vietnamese backed by PRC and USSR would have swept the South in a heartbeat. The Quiet American (i.e. CIA) with it's government hungry for world domination had helped weaken the French's power (no sympathy for the french) provided arms and money facilitating the ill fated Vietnam War.

Now we all know the outcome of that war.

Suddenly I remembered the history lesson from high school. Every war had pretext and reason. They are very different from one another. (i.e. WMD, Al-Qaida Connection against Oil and Mid-East domination)

Governments have a curious way to conduct business. You should check out this document, released by the DOD to president Kennedy in the 60's. Operation Northwoods Obviously, Kennedy never considered it. We know this by now.

The introductory text entry point for this document is at Pentagon Proposed Pretexts for Cuba Invasion in 1962 () and is reproduced here:
"In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled "Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba" was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods. Written in response to a request from the Chief of the Cuba Project, Col. Edward Lansdale, the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals -- part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose -- included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake "Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington," including "sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated)," faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a "Remember the Maine" incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage. Bamford himself writes that Operation Northwoods "may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government."

I am not a conspiracy theorist, yet, when Karl Rove is in hot water for a week, getting worse by day, Bush is standing alone at the G8 Summit, without his favorite topic "terrorism" at forefront, having to agree to the majority to help the African people, and do something about global warming, his popularity at historic low, the terrorist attack on London makes me wonder...
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