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Posted: Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:26 pm
OK this was supposed to be published in The Revolutionary newsletter but I doubt the paper will be published, I may be able to put out a few issues but I really don't have enough time. Anyway, here's the article and feedback (especially negative) is loved. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -Benito Mussolini
George Orwell said that corporatism, or fascism as it is more commonly known is the natural result of free market capitalism. Many other critics of capitalism argue the same thing, that as competition makes certain people extremely rich and more and more people extremely poor, corporatism takes the former place of capitalism. John Ralston Saul argues that most Western societies are best described as corporatist states, run by a small elite of professional and interest groups, which exclude political participation from the citizenry.
Leon Trotsky wrote in his book/pamphlet “Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it” “In order to be capable of foreseeing anything with regard to fascism, it is necessary to have a definition of that idea.” I am not a Trotskyite comrades, but I do agree with him, we must know the enemy and fascism is our enemy, for he is the enemy of all the proletariat. As comrade Trotsky put it “The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery.” Fascism seeks to destroy all that stands for socialism and worker’s rights- unions, leftist political parties, civil rights organizations, laws to give us basic things like a living wage. Mussolini’s bandits in Italy attacked small business, murdered labor leaders, and ransacked the places that stood for the workers mentioned above. This is why the bourgeoisie sided with him, why the king, why the rulers supported him in the end- he stifled the workers, the government could do anything because the proletariat would do nothing out of fear. The social democrats held the workers from fighting back with weapons until it was too late to do anything; they had fear instilled in them as well.
I know you all see the similarities of that time and this time, currently, the Bush administration has engaged in an illegal war, participated in war crimes and unconstitutional means like torture, and stolen as much from the working man as possible. The people do not fight, sure we protest but he doesn’t care. Bush can’t run again anyway, he’s not worried about re-election, and if he was impeached we’d just be with Cheney- the good ol’ puppeteer. The people have not fought back because of fear, not of the government (although that is there too- I’ve seen people tasered at marches and there was recently a Middle Eastern student at UCLA tasered 5 times for forgetting his ID) we are scared of terrorism. No one wants to be blown up by the new evil religion- Islam, so people are silent. If you had a choice between Sadam Hussein and Bush I’m sure you’d choose Bush. The same tactic was used in Germany, before the holocaust there was a bombing on a building in the country (records show the government did it) and the people were scared. Except that time the Jews were the evil religion, not the Muslims.
So we know how acceptance of fascism has been instilled in the proletariat masses in the present and past, but what is it- what does it mean? It is capitalism taken to a new level of horror, where the government is run by corporations, the acts of the government are therefore based on the needs of big business, and every thing is controlled by companies. In capitalism private enterprise and government are separate, in fascism they are one. Socialism in reverse comrades, instead of production being controlled by government for the people production controls government for the bosses. Why would someone do this to the people? What drives someone to this level of terror? Greed of course, and illusion that they’re helping the people with they’re murder and corrupt, iron-fist form of ruling, let’s look closer.
In fascist Italy, Germany, and Spain during the 1930s, lives were taken for money. Imperialism was taken to a whole new level, in Italy imperialism was used for profit and power but as one and the same thing (the more Mussolini controlled, the more money he made) Mussolini could ignore millions of deaths as long as he had a paycheck. That is the level of decay, let’s compare shall we? So far in Iraq there have been around 500,000 deaths, less then 100,000 of those were military (this means US, Iraqi, British, and all other militaries and the Insurgency). That is at least 400,000 innocents dead with no clear goal or victory seeing as we took Sadam out of power (letting terrorists in to the country), started a civil war, built permanent bases there, and are still pumping oil out of it. Consider who have died, people just like you or me or someone’s kids or grandkids. All of those people were someone’s son or daughter, some were people’s parents, and some were grandparents. This is a huge number of innocent deaths, mounting quicker and quicker and this war looks more and more like Vietnam (around 5 and a half million deaths in the end, a number quite close to the holocaust actually)
In the 1930s it wasn’t just deaths as in any war either, but innocent deaths, the torture of children, elders, innocents of all size and shape and ideology- communists, trade unionists, gypsies, Catholics, and of course Jews. For Hitler it was an ideological conquest, to eliminate the scapegoat, the reason he believed that life was terrible in Germany, the reason his “master race” was suffering so much. In Japan it was simply an opportunistic move, they wanted to conquer China as they had been trying to do for so long and they believed the Nazis would win, in that case they would have China.
Time to compare- Bush is a Christian fighting an ideological war with Muslims. He says it is Islamic fascism, why can’t he say fascism? He makes sure to include the religion, to instill a subliminal fear of Muslims in America, similar to Hitler’s attacks on the Jews. Not as professed, small at first and then they grew larger with people’s fear. Bush is simply a Christian fascist and more of a terrorist then anyone in Iraq.
Fascism is the idea that the economy is the ultimate source of gain for a nation, if the economy is good then the situation of the country will be good then the people will be good. If big business is happy then state should be happy then the people should be happy. But how wrong this is, big business gets more money and the bosses get a bonus, not the workers. The economy is good; the bosses get the extra cash. This doesn’t help the proletariat, the common man, as we can see in “the land of the free, the home of the brave”.
Where do we see this? You may ask. The government is run by politicians, however corrupt, the laws are written by the legislature, not businesses. You have been blinded then, blinded by the illusion of a “people’s party” in America. Billions of dollars are spent by the US government every year on what one government official described as an attempt to “hit a bullet with another bullet at 15,000 miles per hour.” That is what $55,000,000,000 has been spent on in the last two decades, a system named “Star Wars” by Ronald Reagan. No proof has been produced that this system could work, and there is no country the US politicians name as a threat that has the technology to launch inter-continental missiles for this system to deflect.
So why spend all that money? Who gets that money? Here’s who- military contractors such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Please comrades, allow me to repeat a few lines from a UN report- “If one-half or even one-quarter of [the trillions of dollars spent on arms during the Cold War] had been intelligently devoted to social and economic progress then it may be reasonably assumed that we could now be living in a world in which mass hunger, malnutrition, preventable disease, illiteracy, rapid population growth and a deteriorating global environment would be problems of the past.” Now think about what I said about the fascist nations in the 1930s- willing to sacrifice millions of lives for profit. 6 Million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (over a nearly 10 year span of time). Every year 6 million children die of hunger related problems according to a UN report. That could have been prevented, not just by the US but by the corrupt Soviet Union during the Cold War. That money went to weapons, into the pockets of big business and of course the administrations got their treat for being good little puppets.
Need more proof? Here’s what former US president George Bush said as warships headed for the Persian Gulf for the start of the Gulf War “We need the oil, it’s nice to talk about standing up for freedom. But Kuwait and Saudi Arabia aren’t exactly democracies.” After the war another white house politician elegantly said “If Kuwait grew carrots, we wouldn’t give a damn.” So these men were sacrificing innocent lives for the sake of profit. That sounds a lot like fascism- the government run by corporations. In case you forgot or didn’t know, the Bush family (senior and GW) have ties to oil corporations.
Little Bush attacked Iraq pretty recently as you all know, and what was his first order of business? Business. He bombed the s**t out of everything except the oil fields and then quickly took them over and started building permanent military bases near them. Just in case his profit should get blown up. He’s been exporting oil from Iraq (free of personal cost of course) and selling it, using it. He’s contracted building to Halliburton and other construction companies that aren’t exactly well known for their safety measures and spent huge sums of money for military technology. The death toll in Iraq is around 600,000- a bit over 3,000 US military deaths and an estimated 40-50 thousand insurgency and Iraqi military deaths. The rest are civilians, killed by the US or the insurgency and Iraqi military, it doesn’t matter. They are being murdered because the US is there, without the US there would be no insurgency, no civilians would be caught in the crossfire of the gun battles, blown to shreds with missiles, had their water poisoned by the depleted uranium used in tank piercing shells and the tips of certain bullets and missiles.
Unlike the predictions of Hitler and Mussolini, this new imperialism has made the economy plummet. Sure the US has created thousands of new jobs, but as a newspaper put it “most of these jobs aren’t worth waking up for”.
In 1998 the income for the average American family was back at what it was in 1988 after falling for most of the ‘90s. Oh right, the average married couple in America worked 247 more hours per year. In 1998 the Jobs for Justice Union Coalition did a study- 74% of the jobs that grew fastest in recent years pay less then a minimum wage. 46% of them pay less then half a living wage.
Not so long ago a little document called the “Plan for a New American Century” was written up by a bunch of right wing nut jobs with Rumsfield helping. This writing basically says that the US is the greatest country in the world, and to remain as such we must take over the Middle East oil supply to stay economically on top of the globe.
Also not long ago, top executives from certain companies were caught writing laws for the legislature to pass. The companies write the laws in this company- the laws destroying any limits to pollution levels or environmental destruction, the laws making the minimum wage something you can’t survive on, the laws that keep the poor man on the bottom and the rich man on top.
What does this have to do with the original topic? This is all relevant, the US is controlled by those who will kill for money, let a holocaust of children happen every single year for profit of companies and therefore themselves because they are the companies. They want to use imperialism to take over the most oil filled region in the world. What is my conclusion? The leaders of “this nation tis of thee” are the companies, if not the bosses then the stock holders, the business partners, the outside interests, the pay rolls. The leaders of this nation are guilty of the same genocide Hitler was guilty of, the same fraud that Mussolini committed. They are the new fascists.
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Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 8:46 pm
Excellent read. I agree and if the leadership of Australia continues in following America like it did under the last government I am sure that the very same thing will happen here. Good news, it seems that our new Prime Minister is serious about exiting Iraq. This of course means less military contractors and therefore less money being poured into an exclusively military economy.
Also there is the very exciting news that with the Labor Party leading the great nation of Australia, the new working conditions have been rolled back for interests of the working class.
I am aware that most people have no idea about the political situation in Australia, so I thought i would inform anyone that would listen that the elected government as of the 25th of November, is made up of mostly former union officers and are accused of being communist. The scare campaign was run to turn people away from electing them but it just made me a hell of a lot more excited about Australia being run by the unions rather than Big Business like it was since 1996.
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Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2007 5:24 pm
Wow, I have to say I wasn't aware of the situation in Australia but that's increadable and I'm glad to hear it. I'll look more into that, and thanls for the compliment.
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Posted: Fri Oct 24, 2008 4:52 am
The current Economic crisis is being solved in the classic corporatist manner. The state taking ownership of private industry for private gain, this is the real difference between corporatism and socialism-when socialism takes over ownership of a company it is for the gain of the working class instead of the capitalists and the bourgeois government.
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