Current Affairs

American Fascism- we've certainly taken that last turn into the parking lot and are now looking for a space.

Comments This is a moderated forum. It may take a little while for comments to go live. Be civil and on-topic, don't threaten or advocate violence, please keep it under 300 words. Thanks for participating. If you look at the media Sun, 08/09/2009 - 16:53 — Anonymous (not verified) If you look at the media controllers ability to turn average people into lunatics spewing whatever the topic, then you might have some sourcing for how fascism is created. Desperate need is the main ingredient. Just add manipulation. * Email this comment Alarn clocks have been going Sun, 08/09/2009 - 16:59 — Anonymous (not verified) Alarn clocks have been going off for quite a long time and it seems the deep slumber continues on . Will Americans NEVER WAKE UP before we get locked into this fast developing state of Fascism. Is this what the New World Order is ALL ABOUT? * Email this comment Good article, why not name Sun, 08/09/2009 - 16:59 — Mike Garuckis (not verified) Good article, why not name some specific corporations? Marcon, Krupps steel, Italy and Germany respectively during what most would call "facist" periods. Not really sure what to think of articles like these, people should be pissed and angry. Haven't we been stolen from? Are we being told that angry and stupid isn't anything like angry for the right reasons and starting a riot anyway? * Email this comment Rural people are not Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:00 — architect2 (not verified) Rural people are not unifiers or Wholists. They are Atomists. They thrive on independence and cooperation in crisis. Fascism is born out of the "Core of the Elite", if I might paraphrase James Madison, and is "sold" to the audience as The Word of God. And rural folks tend to be very religious, a fact the DC based manipulators understand well. Amongst rural folks you will find some of the smartest people on the planet. And some of the most miss-informed. There, city or country mice, lies the danger. (spell checked) * Email this comment I believe Paxon's definition Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:04 — Motamanx (not verified) I believe Paxon's definition of Fascism is flawed. More specifically, it is: Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology which embraces nationalism as the transcendent value of society. The rise of Fascism relies upon the manipulation of populist sentiment in times of national crisis. Based on fundamentalist revolutionary ideas, Fascism defines itself through intense xenophobia, militarism, and supremacist ideals. Although secular in nature, Fascism employs emphasis on mythic beliefs such as divine mandates, racial imperatives, and violent struggle places highly concentrated power in the hands of a self-selected elite from whom all authority flows to lesser elites, such as law enforcement, intellectuals, and the media. Which means that we are probably closer to being fascist than even he thinks we are. * Email this comment Leftist gobbledygook, Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:21 — Mike in NYC (not verified) Leftist gobbledygook, predictably assigning a rightist origin to all threats to freedom while evidencing a pathological inability to look in the mirror. The left’s pattern of ignoring its own history of coercion and bloodletting has become boring. In the US and much of the Western world, hate speech/crime statutes are by far the worst threats to liberty. When the "pull back from fascism" ushers in totalitarianism, Robinson and her ilk will applaud furiously: "We've been saved!" * Email this comment This is pretty shameless Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:24 — Anonymous (not verified) This is pretty shameless piece of work by Sara. She's arguing that the fascist threat in this country comes from the smallest, most demographically insignificant, shrinking group of people in the nation? Meanwhile, their fascist-leaning tendency is coming in the form of their protest of the majority party in both houses of Congress and the White House, which also just added a new member to the Supreme Court? Her Hitler comparisons are a joke, as bad as Rush Limbaugh the other day comparing Obama to Hitler because of a logo. And where did she get the anti-black notion in her head? Hip-hop culture has entrenched itself in this country from rural outposts to corporate boardrooms and everywhere in between. I'm surprised and disappointed Truthout ran this scare piece. Grow up. * Email this comment "Lacking legitimate routes Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:32 — Bill Fason (not verified) "Lacking legitimate routes back to power, their last hope is to invest the hardcore remainder of their base with an undeserved legitimacy, recruit them as shock troops, and overthrow American democracy by force. If they can't win elections or policy fights, they're more than willing to take it to the streets, and seize power by bullying Americans into silence and complicity." Earth to Sara: come back your fantasy world. The worst threat to free speech in the US doesn't come from the political right; it's from the PC left with its demands for speech codes and the prosecution of dissenters for "hate speech." You're just like any other leftist in that "fascist" means whatever you don't like. A bit overblown, like when conservatives denounce Obama as a socialist. So fascism is supposedly "a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity..." Sounds like mainstream Democratic ideology. * Email this comment I find it curious that Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:34 — Anonymous (not verified) I find it curious that Robinson makes no mention of the present financial crisis in her analysis. Certainly that will have a profound effect on our political future. (Recall that European fascism arose out of the social chaos surrounding the international financial and economic collapse of the early 1930's.) * Email this comment The unwitting dupes of Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:36 — Roy S (not verified) The unwitting dupes of extortionists need serious educating. Thank you, look forward to your next post. * Email this comment We live in time with many Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:47 — David (not verified) We live in time with many layers of society in flux. Not all, but enough to matter, rich white men and those who aspire to be feel their disappearing majority position slipping away. It's natural for any group having had power to scramble among the many dynamics available to maintain power or slow down the threatened loss. They will seize on racial or economic arguments. They won't accept the inevitability of racial and economic class blending. They will wage war on many levels within the society to gain any advantage. They will cater to each other. This group alone gives the impression of Fascism. They try to sell their nationalism to a Caucasians who might be persuaded to believe in the attainment of the same economic myth, power and wealth. The peculiar thing is to distinguish inside the tactics between being anti anyone else or just being avaricious, trying like hell to hang on to their economic position within the collective. Because of this, Republicans are shopping for a leader to evoke these myths, which also ultimately leads to failure. How hard is it for everyone to imagine that the fascist leaning ultimately can't win but can't surrender either. * Email this comment On the brink? The power of Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:48 — Jade Queen (not verified) On the brink? The power of corporations who depend on government to kill their competition means to me we have arrived. They no longer need regular customers much. This is what is scary to me. Name-calling groups you don't like doesn't speak to this issue. * Email this comment Second entry. Fascism is Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:52 — Professor Emeritus P. Bagnolo (not verified) Second entry. Fascism is named after the Italian/Roman ancient battle ax because of it's unyielding power as a weapon. Ancient Rome was among the first actual fascist states, as were most of the ancient empires. Moreover, Italy under Mussolini and Germany Under Hitler were the next. The definitions given in the artilce are weak in comparison to those given in most dictionaries and Encyclopedia. * Email this comment It's just amazing how Sun, 08/09/2009 - 17:53 — Steve Haag (not verified) It's just amazing how complexly the human mind can cut reality into opposing factions. The word fascism comes from the word fascia - connective tissue. Similarly, the word religion comes from ligament - that which links things together in the body. Both of these words are about uniting things, holding things together. And this is the great and perhaps eternal question as to what exactly is to be held together against all that it would like to be apart from. The cosmic play is about the uneasy relationship between unity and all that would divide against it, among the fact that we are all one, all in this together, all born out of the same creative urge to rip from oneness into separateness, and explore relationships among otherness, however delightful or intolerable the mix. Peace will come when everyone is simultaneously biased in their own favor. Until then, all the best. * Email this comment '3. Is a rapid political Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:01 — Mike (UK) (not verified) '3. Is a rapid political mobilization threatening to escape the control of traditional elites, to the point where they would be tempted to look for tough helpers in order to stay in charge?' The writing is upon the wall my friends. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=106304 Mike. * Email this comment Hopefully, yes - as the US Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:11 — Peter Edler (not verified) Hopefully, yes - as the US tries to climb out of the 8-year deep hole of fascism under Cheney-Bush it must naturally cross the brink. With President Obama continuing the Cheney-Bush foreign policy of aggression, invasion and war, the US may well be pulled back across that brink into the fascist hole. It's nice to consider historical precedent but this is American fascism, not Italian fascism or German nazism. US fascism is infinitely trickier. So successful has its propaganda been that even a savvy writer like Sara Robinson is still wondering just where the US stands right now. Meanwhile the old fascists and nazis are turning in their graves with delight - leave it to America to have developed a free fascistic press and free fascistic media. Peter Edler, member Swedish Writers Union, Stockholm * Email this comment Vice presidential hit teams? Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:14 — Gordon (not verified) Vice presidential hit teams? Come on. Don't forget Blackwater, Xe, the private army that uses religious mandates to commit the most gruesome crimes. We have not only have parked in the very place fascism starts, our name is on the parking space and we have just arrived for another day of work. * Email this comment For Mike, what precisely is Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:18 — Jim (not verified) For Mike, what precisely is the American left's "history of coercion and bloodletting?" The only "threat to freedom" here is that coming from the rightist thugs who employ Gestapo tactics at these town hall meetings. Obama has proposed an open and democratic debate on the issue of health care reform. That is what we do in democracies, discuss and reach consensus through civil debate. As president, he has a right to frame that debate, but not control it, nor has he. If you might remember, we did have an election in this country recently, or are elections "a threat to freedom" in your world? * Email this comment What seems to be missing in Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:22 — HerbR (not verified) What seems to be missing in Paxton's analysis and that of others as well, is any reference to the economic dogmas associated with and probably crucial to fascism: the end of free enterprise economics and the capture of economic institutions and processes and the creation of state-owned and controlled monopolies. The very name of fascism derives from a Roman myth in which a dying father urges his quarreling sons to unite. He demonstrates the need to do that by tying a bundles of sticks - fasces - together to show how much more powerful the bundle is than any of the separated sticks. Though the intolerant behavior we are witnessing are very threatening to free public discourse, I have not sensed call for unity characteristic of a fascist movement, nor does there seem - as yet, at least - single set of leaders claiming to provide the conditions fascism calls for. At the level of symbols we might do well to analyze various pictorial representations of the bundle of fasces among our own symbols of nationalism. One such bundle appears, for example on the obverse side of our pre- FDR 1o-cent coin. So, we need to be alert to that and the possible emerging claims for leadership among the present radical - and well armed -groups. * Email this comment An astonishingly misguided Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:35 — Anonymous (not verified) An astonishingly misguided article. Fascism in Germany and Italy came from the left, not the right. There are racists and sexists in both parties (remember the Democratic primaries?), but neither party has embraced racism or sexism as official policy. The left engages in civil disobedience all the time, but never considers this the road to fascism. Labor union goons break into violence on a regular basis (including at recent town hall meetings) but this is not dangerous according to the left. The "birthers" are only asking to see Obama's long-form birth certificate and other documentation to show he meets Constitutional requirements, a reasonable request which Obama has denied. For the most part, conservatives are against illegal immigration, not legal immigrants. Now I can't wait to see what Robinson's "solution" will be. * Email this comment A relevant question but Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:38 — Terrie (not verified) A relevant question but seems quite apolitical. Fascism arose out of a capitalist system in crisis, and the fascist parties seized power out of the political crisis that followed. While there is certainly brown shirts and certainly a capitalist economic crisis, the Obama administration is not in the same kind of crisis as the pre-Hitler government. Could it get there? It all depends on the people who elected Obama. The overwhelming majority of voters who elected and delivered a mandate for change. I think this group is now -- to ironically borrow a phrase from Nixon -- the silent majority. Why are they silent? This is a troubling question. Confused? Alienated? Struggling to survive? That was all overcome to elect obama and it could be overcome today, but it has to be done quickly. * Email this comment It sure feels like we Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:45 — radline9 (not verified) It sure feels like we already have fascism. I see a right wing conspiracy to disenfranchise the poor and the middle class. It's obvious. Is the main stream media telling us the truth? Fascism! Can you be arrested for anything without Habeus Corpus? Fascism! Can the government spy on you legally? Fascism! Does the US have secret prisons all over the world and in the US? Fascism! Are you afraid to go to a public gathering because you may be tasered? Fascism! * Email this comment I've been maintaining that Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:45 — foxglove (not verified) I've been maintaining that the rightwing's hate speech and invective against anything Obama does is what is destroying this country. Their divisiveness is what is endangering us, not any "socialism, communism", etc labels put on a democratic administration. This article is not simple to quote or its information easy to use in conversation, but it does point out my fears with a clarity I lack. * Email this comment A reporter from Reuters once Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:46 — Anonymous (not verified) A reporter from Reuters once asked Huey (Kingfisher) Long, the demagogic boss of Louisiana, if the US would ever have fascism. "Sure," he said, "only we'll call it anti-fascism." * Email this comment -- An expert on where the Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:48 — HerrButzie (not verified) -- An expert on where the current American government has gone was a fellow with unimpeachable credentials for defining it: "Fascism should rightly be call corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini * Email this comment The creeping-fascism story Sun, 08/09/2009 - 18:54 — Steve Newcomb (not verified) The creeping-fascism story for me begins with the elimination of the military draft, and continues with the destruction of the teaching profession as a public-service calling. It was guaranteed its ultimate success by the de-facto domination of the universities by for-profit corporations involved in military contracts. I witnessed these changes personally; I'm sure others witnessed similarly bellwether corruptions from their own personal and professional perspectives. In all these cases, private gains were realized at the cost of eroding the pillars that hold up the roof of our republic. * Email this comment The author seems to believe Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:13 — Midwest Tom (not verified) The author seems to believe that all loss of freedoms are the fault of Republicans, he does not address why a Democratic Party in total control of the Federal Government has not reversed any of these offensive policies, and is in fact pushing for even more government control over everyones lives. Return to a precious metal standard for our currency, and thereby destroy the ability of the NYC elites to own our government. I still think that Congressmen should all wear patches so we know who funds them, like in racing. * Email this comment Geez, they all look Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:14 — Terry C, Death Panelist (not verified) Geez, they all look inbred. Where do the Repigs find these losers? * Email this comment "An astonishingly misguided Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:16 — Terry C, Death Panelists (not verified) "An astonishingly misguided article. Fascism in Germany and Italy came from the left, not the right." Wrong, wrong, wrong! * Email this comment The anonymous poster of the Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:20 — Tom Paine (not verified) The anonymous poster of the "astonishingly misguided" comment is himself astonishingly misguided. Both Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany were funded by and collaborated with propertied elite nationalists. Do the names Krupp and Volkswagen mean nothing to this commenter? Nazism was rightist through and through. As for the birther nonsense, beyond establishing the location of Obama's birth, which Hawaii authorities have done, there is no "other documentation" necessary to show that Obama meets the constitutional requirements of being president. Had Republicans had any empirical evidence to the contrary, they wouldn't have given up on this issue in the campaign. It's being shouted from the rooftops now only as a red herring, to try to cast irrational doubt on the legitimacy of his presidency. It's typical of the right that when they don't have a substantive argument, they resort to personal invective and fabrications. * Email this comment Feeling threatened is the Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:31 — clarke olsen (not verified) Feeling threatened is the coalescing factor for a fascist state. The Nazis always portrayed their militancy as a defense of of the German people. The Roman empire was always defending itself, even if they had to cross the Channel to do so. Americans are afraid to travel: we have wrongly convinced ourselves that the rest of the world hates us, and therefore our massive military is needed to protect our freedom. In the 1920's, the Nazi party called itself the "Freedom Party". * Email this comment Another Attempt to Promote Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:39 — Bill O'Rights (not verified) Another Attempt to Promote the False Left/Right Paradigm - that this author crowns herself the arbiter of the definition of Fascism and then sells us "it's when the Right takes over" while ignoring the obvious that "Right Wing" means that the power has concentrated to the Central Government and away from the People - whether it is in a Communist Soviet Facist State or a Capitalist American Facist State. Note that the current administration has undone NOT ONE of the powers that Bush arrogated to himself - whatever happened to Habeas Corpus, Posse Comitatus, equal protection under the law (now officially discarded under the so-called 'hate' speech and crime laws)? The Bill of Rights has been ripped up and defiled by not one, but several presidents - including this one - party affiliation is irrelevant. We have a one party system - the party of the International Bankers and the Military Industrial Complex - that is who has run this country for nearly a hundred years now. Fascism is mandatory vaccinations, starting a new war of aggression (after a false flag attack of some sort), government intrusions of the most intimate and controlling nature, disarming the citizenry, and arresting people without warrants. Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia on Fascism: "...This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state")" - sound familiar? Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao all ran on a platform of brotherly love and as labor movements - study the National Socialist German Workers' Party - aka the Nazi party.We can agree that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, Pol Pot were all Fascists of the first water - what was their "turning point"? It was the disarming of their citizens because of some perceived 'emergency'. The article above seeks to paint such an emergency and divide the citizens of this republic, so as to create 'internal xenophobia' - "fear the religious farmers and vets and gun owners because when they get mad, that means we're going fascist". What a load of garbage. Keep the eye on the ball - audit the Federal Reserve Bank - call your congressman this week and ask them to co-sponsor HR 1207 to audit the FRB. * Email this comment There you have it. Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:43 — mikestahlberg (not verified) There you have it. * Email this comment It's clearly libellous to Sun, 08/09/2009 - 19:57 — herb (not verified) It's clearly libellous to claim that fascism arose from "the left"in Europe. Mussolini was a Socialist editor as a young man , but both he and Hitler rose to power in part by plagiarizing the word 'socialism" into the names of their parties.It was a tacit tribute to the then-popularity of that word But the Nazis especially were always the party of the most conservative elements of German society and of the Generals who lost World War I. In the town I lived in, the first victims of the Nazis were Socialists and Communists who were taken to Concentration Camp. That small faction of the Nazi party who actually believed that theirs was a socialist party were summarily killed in 1934 under the pretense that they were engaging in homosexual behavior. Their leader was a man named Roehm, who, I believe, was a former Colonel in the German Army during WW I * Email this comment Fascism is here. It is to be Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:03 — Blom 11 (not verified) Fascism is here. It is to be found in the 40+ czars, picked by Obama, answerable to Obama, with more power than Cabinet heads but no accountability. It is found in the firing of Inspector Generals who have accused Obama's friends of graft and corruption and misuse of public funds. In the dismissal of charges against the New Black Panthers who intimidated white voters in Philadelphia. In the White House take-over of the census and using ACORN to take said census. In the Hate Crimes Speech and Thought Bill, in the bailouts and takeovers and all the overreaching of this current government. It is found in the refusal to consider other points of view; instead deriding and vilifying any opposition as right-wing radicals and angry mobs. Anyone who disagrees with the rhetoric of the current powers will be attacked and ridiculed. Apparently the Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer apply and an honest conversation is out of the question. The Tea Party Protesters are neither Republican nor Democrat; we support neither party. We are mostly the 42% Undeclared voters. * Email this comment Paxton/Robinson are rather Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:04 — Anonymous (not verified) Paxton/Robinson are rather amusing. Here I have been watching the Democrats during the campaign and our new President since, and I have been seeing, from the Party's Left and Obama's career every sign of a nearly post-Weimar crypto, if not proto-Fascism, the Red Fascism that commenced in 1922-24, and was imitated by the Nazis. Robinson has it in the wrong mirror. The origin of 20th Century Totalitarianism were marked by great accelerations in social change, forced; and the health reform fracas is a good sign of it, not to mention Pelosi's inability to see protest sign as marking STOP Fascism. It is astonishing, and Obama's playbook is, without the thugs from the streets...yet...a Town Hall meetings, quite Hitlerian. I see statements out of Seattle that are sheer Moscow 1924, even siding with Khameine/Ahmadinijehad as People's Reformers against the middle class of Tehran protestors. Robinson is simply preposterous, and that means in Latin, "Bass-Ackwards." Mark these words, and see if your readers, like Göring, do not reach for their pistols.... Watch the gun sales at fever pitch in the San Fernando Valley. Is this self-protective behavior against the government goons to come, or prot0-fascist street thuggery? * Email this comment Hitler was a darling of the Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:21 — Anonymous (not verified) Hitler was a darling of the left in this country when he came to power, because he was socialist and anti-business. It was AFTER he was in power and the handwriting was on the wall that corporations had the choice of collaborating with him or being threatened with punishment by the fascist state. As for Obama's birth: The state of Hawaii has not established the location of Obama's birth. The short form birth certificate which has been released is not accepted by the state of Hawaii, for certain procedures, as proof of a Hawaiian birth because they know it can be obtained without an actual Hawaiian birth. I don't know if the birthers are correct, but they certainly have a right to express their views and it is no fascism to say the President should prove his Constitutionally eligibility. * Email this comment The solution, or part of it, Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:21 — Anonymous (not verified) The solution, or part of it, is to remove Republicans from power. Forty GOP Senators is 40 too many. We need a two-party system, but the Republican Party shouldn't be one of them. The Republicans' vision of America is that of a perfect Third World country, with a wealthy ruling elite and a huge impoverished underclass. No health care, no college, no unions, no Medicare, no Social Security, no social safety net of any kind. Is that really what Americans want? I don't think so. Next year will tell the tale, when there's another election and another census. The voters have the power to put the elephant to sleep. I say DO IT! * Email this comment In regards to "Mike in Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:21 — David in NYC (not verified) In regards to "Mike in NYC". The problem with people who define themselves as "rightists" or "conservative", as I am assuming (and I know what happens when one assumes) that you do, by your attack on what you perceive as "the left", is a system of binary thinking that reduces us to an us vs them mentality. It's a dangerous and pernicious form of tribalism that pits ones team before their country. When you give in to arbitrary definitions defined by those with better grasp of semantics and the manipulation of language, you are a pawn in the game of money and power. "Political" outlooks and philosophies are neither simple nor are they easily defined. The right/left paradigm is a tool in the Orwellian manipulation of language, and the idea that totalitarianism that I assume (there is that word again) you refer to as being that of Soviet, Central american, blah blah blah, regimes is of a purely "leftist" outlook is laughable at best, dangerous at worst. While the tenets of much of these dictatorial regimes could be defined as "leftist in origin", their raison d'etre was rooted firmly in what could be defined as "conservative", or right wing: Nationalism, protectionism, religious and reactionary appeals to the nations character. These terms do nothing to explain the thoughts and motives of the people that are described by them, they are used only to divide and conquer by the interests behind their usage. You should know better * Email this comment Sara Robinson forgot to Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:23 — L.K. Samuels (not verified) Sara Robinson forgot to mention that fascism was Marxist-inspired. Mussolini was raised a Marxist and was a prominent leader and editor in the Italian Socialist Party. Hitler was not only an authoritarian busybody, but a National Socialist. Fascism is a complex hodgepodge of nationalism, socialism and militarism. Both the Left and Right often dipped their tainted toes into this foul gunk. See the “Mystery of Fascism” by David Ramsay Steele (http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm). * Email this comment Lighten up folks.... Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:29 — ECONOMISTA NON GRATA (not verified) Lighten up folks.... ;-) Town Hall Meeting Gives Townspeople Chance To Say Stupid Things In Public http://www.theonion.com/content/news/town_hall_meeting_gives?utm_source=infocus “…. “I fought in Korea, and by God I would do it again,” said 76-year-old Ronald Schroyer, who immediately retook his seat…..” Ciao, Econolicious * Email this comment Perhaps you will recall that Sun, 08/09/2009 - 20:59 — Cynthia Royce (not verified) Perhaps you will recall that the Weimar Republic did not represent "a mature democracy in crisis", but rather a first attempt at democracy in Germany. "Anonymous", however, makes the conventional right-wing charge that fascism came from the Left, which is a fundamental misunderstanding of the anti-intellectual element that is one of the cornerstones of the movement. I think that most historians would consider Mr. Haag's origin of the word more likely than Mr. Bagnolo's, and Mr. Paine has answered Anon. re the birth certificate storm in a teacup quite succinctly. But Mr. Haag, the problem is, of course, that one can never quite know what one's "own favor" is, especially in the long run, any more than people who thought they were "voting their pocketbook" in 1980 really were. Knowledge will always be incomplete, that's its nature. * Email this comment Maybe what we call it isn't Sun, 08/09/2009 - 21:15 — radline9 again (not verified) Maybe what we call it isn't important. The taking of power by the corporate elite should probably be called corporatism. Does the US have a mercenary army named Xe that doesnt have to follow any laws and commits crimes all the time even against our own citizens? I don't know what you call it, but it sure aint good. Call me paranoid, but whatever it is, we are in deep. * Email this comment Good grief, the only thing Sun, 08/09/2009 - 21:20 — vza (not verified) Good grief, the only thing missing from this baby is that famous line, "One dark and stormy night"! Give that gal the Edward Bulwer-Lytton Award for 2009! * Email this comment If only the author had Sun, 08/09/2009 - 21:23 — Anonymous (not verified) If only the author had mentioned names: Lockheed Martin runs everything from major defense programs to roadway traffic controls to health and human services to FDA animal testing, Raytheon runs the National Weather Service. You name an agency, most everything from HR to paperclips is paid for by you, but channeled more directly to massive corporations, who literally own the Federal Stooges. Every once in a while you'll see a newspaper article where a group of Government employees attack one of their own who had the gall to question a big contractors performance. The whistleblower's career is destroyed by doing so. There is this widespread naive misunderstanding of a so-called separation of Government and Industry. It's beyond the idea of a revolving door where Industry simply buys away Government talent. Government "talent" is just handing money, under considerable political pressure, to the right industry. The USA was just a "fascist" as Germany and Italy in World War II, we happened to be the "winners" * Email this comment