I've grown tired of having to provide a parenthetical or footnoted explanation every time I describe the current direction of our country as Fascism. I wouldn't have to, except that, as a result of the dumbing-down of 4 generations of public school graduates, people have no clue what the word really means. To most, the word is synonymous with repression. While repression was a major component of nearly all Fascist regimes, that isn't the sum of what Fascism was and is.
This post is my attempt to enlighten the dumbed-down as to what Fascism really is so that they don't resort to the kind of knee-jerk emotional response most commonly associated with calling someone a Fascist.
Fascism, or Corporatism, as it is sometimes called, can be described thusly.
[A] system of economic, political, and social organization where corporate groups or interest groups, such as business, ethnic, farmer, labour, military, or patronage groups, are joined together under a common governing jurisdiction to try to achieve societal harmony and promote coordinated development.I would condense that wordy definition even further: Fascism is the marriage of government and corporations whereby the means of production are owned jointly in a private/public partnership. Think of it as oligarchy-friendly Socialism.
Socialism? But Vulture, isn't Fascism an ideology of the Right? That would be 100% wrong. 60+ years of disinformation have resulted in most people associating Fascism with the Right, when, in fact, it is most commonly identified by its adherents as the "third way" alternative to Communism or Capitalism. The third way....hmmm, wasn't that Clinton's pet identifier for his policies? But I digress...
Fascism is, by point of fact, a Leftist ideology, falling somewhere on the political spectrum between Democratic Socialism and Communism.
Fascism has been attempted - always with predictably bad results - in Italy (1920's-1940's), Germany (1930's-1940's), Spain (1930's-1970's), and Argentina (1950's). Spain? Argentina? Nobody told us about THAT in public school. No shit! That's because, for whatever reason, our "betters" want us to associate Fascism with brutal totalitarianism and attempted world domination as demonstrated by the Third Reich and the Italian Fascists. While it is true that both the Argentine and Spanish Fascists were authoritarian and repressive, neither attempted world domination and both were extremely popular with the so-called "workers".
So the next time I speak of Fascism, I won't be using parenthetical explanations nor footnotes. I'll simply link back to this post. I want it understood when I say that King George the Dim and Il Duce led this nation into Fascism I'm referring to things like the government take-over of the banks and auto industry and (coming soon to a Fascist nation near you) health care.
That and nothing more.
