When Fascism Masquerades As Populism
Most excellent piece from dissidentvoice
"With its reliance on corporate money and financial contributions by the wealthy, the U.S. electoral system provides movement in only one direction: to the right. Traditional liberals lack the financial wherewithal to compete against free market fundamentalists. Corporations do not fund candidates who would regulate them and hold them accountable to the people. The electoral system is useless as a tool for the expression of traditional liberalism or progressive reform.
Capitalism does not empower people; it gives primacy to capital. Like the corporation, money is a legal fiction that allows bankers and financial institutions to create phantom wealth from nothing. It gives rise to privatized banking cartels and to the Federal Reserve which controls the money supply and loans it at interest to the government and to people. In effect, this gives bankers control of the government and our cultural institutions.
Free market fundamentalism was elevated to the status of religion decades ago by Milton Friedman and his disciples at the Chicago School of Economics. Its adherents regard the market as a holy oracle that takes precedence over man and nature, the diviner of social and economic status, a force more primal than the laws that govern the motion of planetary bodies and the formation of distant nebulae.
But like the phantom wealth it engenders, the existence of free markets is utter fiction. Not only are the precepts of market fundamentalism contradicted by nature; they are restrained by her. With a hunger for god-like power, capitalism and free market fundamentalism are, in fact, puny forces that are dwarfed by those of nature to which they will ultimately succumb.
Due in part to its infatuation with a particularly virulent form of capitalism, the U.S. has been descending toward fascism for decades. The persistent stream of neoconservative statesmen, stateswomen, and corporatists are the product of a corporate-funded counter-revolution that gained ascendancy during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, if not before. The counter-revolution is undoing all of the social and economic gains won through popular struggle and resistance.
Every social program that does not promote the religion of market fundamentalism is under siege: social security, pensions, public education, unemployment benefits, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the public infrastructure, are in danger of eradication or privatization.
This is the agenda of the right-wing extremists of the two major political parties who have ascended to power by adhering to, and promulgating, the theocracy of free market fundamentalism. Traditional liberalism has always acted as a bulwark against this and other regressive ideologies. But now it is politically extinct. Traditional liberalism has given way to the ultra-conservative philosophy of neoliberalism.
As a result of the ascendancy of neoliberalism, enlightened people can no longer associate traditional liberalism with the Democratic Party. The majority of democrats are only moderately less extreme than their republican counterparts. For instance, Hillary Clinton, a neoliberal, is a passionate supporter of Zionism. She advocates imperial war and occupation. Clinton is a free market fundamentalist, as is virtually every member of Congress. Her political philosophy is practically indistinguishable from that of Barack Obama and Karl Rove.
Preoccupied with the procurement of corporate funds, politicians are oblivious to the plight of struggling workers, the chronically unemployed, and the under-employed. No legislator holding high office acknowledges the existence of an underclass that is condemned to exist in despair and poverty. The underclass has no voice, no representation, and no power. It is too preoccupied with survival to rebel.
In contrast to the specter of the underclass, the 2010 mid-term elections saw more than a billion dollars invested in it. That figure is only going to increase as political favors are auctioned to the highest bidder. With each election the nation moves further to the right and a step closer to fascism. The system does not offer a means of turning back."
more
"With its reliance on corporate money and financial contributions by the wealthy, the U.S. electoral system provides movement in only one direction: to the right. Traditional liberals lack the financial wherewithal to compete against free market fundamentalists. Corporations do not fund candidates who would regulate them and hold them accountable to the people. The electoral system is useless as a tool for the expression of traditional liberalism or progressive reform.
Capitalism does not empower people; it gives primacy to capital. Like the corporation, money is a legal fiction that allows bankers and financial institutions to create phantom wealth from nothing. It gives rise to privatized banking cartels and to the Federal Reserve which controls the money supply and loans it at interest to the government and to people. In effect, this gives bankers control of the government and our cultural institutions.
Free market fundamentalism was elevated to the status of religion decades ago by Milton Friedman and his disciples at the Chicago School of Economics. Its adherents regard the market as a holy oracle that takes precedence over man and nature, the diviner of social and economic status, a force more primal than the laws that govern the motion of planetary bodies and the formation of distant nebulae.
But like the phantom wealth it engenders, the existence of free markets is utter fiction. Not only are the precepts of market fundamentalism contradicted by nature; they are restrained by her. With a hunger for god-like power, capitalism and free market fundamentalism are, in fact, puny forces that are dwarfed by those of nature to which they will ultimately succumb.
Due in part to its infatuation with a particularly virulent form of capitalism, the U.S. has been descending toward fascism for decades. The persistent stream of neoconservative statesmen, stateswomen, and corporatists are the product of a corporate-funded counter-revolution that gained ascendancy during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, if not before. The counter-revolution is undoing all of the social and economic gains won through popular struggle and resistance.
Every social program that does not promote the religion of market fundamentalism is under siege: social security, pensions, public education, unemployment benefits, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as the public infrastructure, are in danger of eradication or privatization.
This is the agenda of the right-wing extremists of the two major political parties who have ascended to power by adhering to, and promulgating, the theocracy of free market fundamentalism. Traditional liberalism has always acted as a bulwark against this and other regressive ideologies. But now it is politically extinct. Traditional liberalism has given way to the ultra-conservative philosophy of neoliberalism.
As a result of the ascendancy of neoliberalism, enlightened people can no longer associate traditional liberalism with the Democratic Party. The majority of democrats are only moderately less extreme than their republican counterparts. For instance, Hillary Clinton, a neoliberal, is a passionate supporter of Zionism. She advocates imperial war and occupation. Clinton is a free market fundamentalist, as is virtually every member of Congress. Her political philosophy is practically indistinguishable from that of Barack Obama and Karl Rove.
Preoccupied with the procurement of corporate funds, politicians are oblivious to the plight of struggling workers, the chronically unemployed, and the under-employed. No legislator holding high office acknowledges the existence of an underclass that is condemned to exist in despair and poverty. The underclass has no voice, no representation, and no power. It is too preoccupied with survival to rebel.
In contrast to the specter of the underclass, the 2010 mid-term elections saw more than a billion dollars invested in it. That figure is only going to increase as political favors are auctioned to the highest bidder. With each election the nation moves further to the right and a step closer to fascism. The system does not offer a means of turning back."
more
posted by nolocontendere at 5:03 PM
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