Fred Reed is an old curmudgeon. Like me. Only older. Naturally, I love the stuff he writes.
Fred was a reporter in some of the most dangerous places on Earth; Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, Ward 8 in the District of Columbia. Fred has seen it all. So when Fred has a take that's 180 degrees tilted on its head from my take, I notice. And I listen.
Yesterday I went on ad nauseum about Fascism 2.0 Amerika. Fred sees it ever so differently. To him, this isn't textbook Fascism, Socialism, or any other "ism". No, this is something new and unique.
OK, a brief excursion into cosmic truth. First, socialism. Hard-line conservatives with little grasp of economics refer to anything they don’t like—Hillary, national health care, regulation of anything if it might cost them money—as “socialist.” It’s a utility pejorative, devoid of meaning, as “racist” and “elitist” are for political south-paws. Socialism is of course a system in which the government owns the means of production. Check your dictionary.Okay, let me see if I get this. This isn't business in bed with government cooperating as a means of saving their skin. This is business DRIVING government. This is business as boss, not government.
Ah! But in America, the means of production own the government. Inverted socialism it is. Here is a far better thing. If you are a means of production, anyway.
Heavy stuff, man. Heavy.
Now, I'm not entirely sure I'm 100% with Fred, because I don't believe for a second that ANYONE tells Der Staat what to do. What I think is afoot is a situation where Big Business THINKS it has government by the tail and under its control. Only one day in the not-so-distant future, they'll awake to the reality that they've sold out their country and their very lives to the Almighty State for a few measly depreciating dollars, as Uncle rears his ugly head and lays waste to those who think to tell him what to do.
But then, my mother always told me I'm so full of crap my eyes are brown, so what do I know?
