Fascist/Corporatism? Have we arrived? Or in the process?

[loftycity]

Poll question: Fascist/Corporatism? Have we arrived? Or in the process?

What do you all think?

[kaitykaity]

1. If Bush manages to stay in power

after January 2005, we will be there.

:scared:

[coltman]

I most respectfully beg...

to disagree.We are there now.As one who works for a large corp. and a member of a once strong union I can tell you what is happening in corporate Amerika now is a total disgrace to almost all American ideals.

[kaitykaity]

7. Here's my thought on this.

We can't be there, because we can still undo the damange
without catastrophic fallout. If Bush stays in power, he
will destroy our country, and it will take a popular
uprising to get out of it.

[coltman]

3. I most respectfully beg...

to disagree.We are there now.As one who works for a large corp. and a member of a once strong union I can tell you what is happening in corporate Amerika now is a total disgrace to almost all American ideals.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. To those who don't think the US has arrived,

what are you waiting to see?

You'll have a long wait for in-your-face, jack-booted totalitarianism. The illusion of freedom in a post-modern corporate state is a greater control mechanism than the brutal demonstration of authority.

Even if martial law comes, it will come with a "to serve you better" happy face.

[loftycity]

9. We are here

If we call it what it is. Fascism I think the Murikan's might start paying attention. If it's not called on..people with just move along...until it's way, way too late.
This goes for Republicans also. The smart ones are getting it.
Those of you who posted...start calling it what it is. I have and I've gotten some really "Yes" responses to that we are in Fascist/Corporate State. I need a good bumper sticker "The Fascist/Corporate State is Here," "What are you going to do about it?"

[AP]

16. There is so little real political power left in the hands of average...

citizens in the US.

I really do wonder what people think is left to happen.

Look around you.

There is not one thing that if the corporations really wanted, they could have, notwithstanding the fact that an informed public would NEVER concede to them what they want.

They have found ways to circumvent just about every mechanism of and subvert every impulse towards democracy.

Anyone notice the 2000 election? How 'bout Arnold getting elected just when Enron (which isn't even a real corporation anymore) was going to have to pay damages for the energy rip off? How about Levis and the Gap getting rid of Aristide just before he was going to start taxing the rich so that his government could actually have the resources to make a difference in people's lives.

I mean, what more do people expect to happen?

if the corporations aren't getting their way everywhere, it's only because some people are very smartly opposing them (like Chavez in VZ, and the Gandhi family in India (which is only now for the first time really saying that there is a line that neoliberals really can't cross, even though it was very far over to the right)). But where's the opposition to fascism in the US?

I don't really see it. We might get lucky this fall, but man, are we far from undoing the damage to democracy that has been done over the last 30 years.

[damnraddem]

4. Other:

when did it stop?

[salin]

5. Missing is the totalitarian aspect

Patriot Act opens the doors - and the RW media has been fanning the flames in a way I have never seen before ... so if we are anywhere, we are in process.

[denverbill]

10. I agree. We have the merger of corporate and state power.

The media has been consolidated into a few hands. The Bill of Rights is being whittled away.

Honestly, I don't know a lot about Italy under Mussolini. I know a LOT about Germany under Hitler. AFAIK, the 'totalitarianism' of Mussolini was nowhere near that of Hitler. Mussolini had a one party state and controlled press, but concentration camps, etc, under Mussolini. We aren't anywhere close to Hitler's Germany, but we are getting awfully closer to Italy under Mussolini.

[rucky]

6. Slavery for all!

okay so we're not there yet but the infrastructure & business plan is in place. So yes, it's happening but it will continue to escalate. so #1 & #3

[redqueen]

8. There is hope

I voted in the process, for various reasons. This gave me a little hope. :)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4873161/site/newsweek/

Rethinking Free Trade
Even New Democrats are acknowledging that it is only elites who benefit from the policy

(snip)

Carson’s district is the fifth-poorest in the country. Only 10 percent of his constituents have a college degree, and their alma maters are mostly schools the Northeastern elites have never heard of. There have been five Wrangler plant closures in the state, including two in his district and 121 mass layoffs (those of 50 people or more) statewide in the past year.

While he remains a free-trader, Carson is beginning to question some of the basic tenets of trade, that it is an economic good and that the social disruption it causes is temporary. He thinks the policymakers in Washington are insulated from the pain that lower-wage workers experience as they are dumped out of the economy.

(snip)

Carson quotes the African-American sociologist, William Julius Wilson, who studied the decline of blue-collar jobs in America and the devastating impact on the black family. “When jobs disappear, you see a whole social fabric fray,” says Carson. His district is rural and poor and 70 percent white. One in four people report their racial makeup as Native American. There are few African-Americans, but the phenomenon is identical to what Wilson observed, says Carson. He says such social ills as a high rate of teenage pregnancy and a growing drug problem with amphetamines can be traced in part to the absence of meaningful work.

Trade is a factor, he says, along with immigration, but the biggest trend causing the rapid exodus of work is technology. Workers in Oklahoma and in much of the country— aside from the urban centers—have no idea how to keep up with the accelerating pace of technology, and the policymakers in Washington aren’t much help. “High paying, meaningful work is the province of fewer and fewer people,” Carson concludes. Other than tax-cuts to help generate jobs, Bush doesn’t have much of a plan. And while John Kerry isn’t the free trader he was a year ago, he hasn’t yet fleshed out a message than can reach the rising number of Americans who are uneasy about their place in the work force.

more...

[loftycity]

11. I have hope

Because I work closely with Dems and Republican's and it's the one (the one)issue that we agree on. Kind of shocking. We all being downgraded in this mess.

[AG78]

12. I was just...

thinking about this today.

We can see how corporations are becoming governments. It's right there. All the privitization going on around the world, or that will go on. Water, oil, agriculture.

We've got defense contractors that need war.

I'd say we're right on the doorstep. I'm not sure how you stop it. I guess voting. But didn't Clinton sign off on NAFTA? He went to Kosovo, and KBR ended up with the contract to build and maintain bases there.

Actually we might not be on the doorstep, but rather in the door frame.

It won't be the same as the Nazi's. They won't try to kill people. They'll keep them alive, so that they can work for nothing, make cheap products for the rich to buy, and come back the next day.

I might be crazy. Hopefully I am. Somebody please prove to me that this "conspiracy theory" isn't going on. I beg you.

[redqueen]

13. You're not crazy, sorry.

But take heart, Clinton was a "New Democrat" and the public is once starting to care about jobs which were plentiful when we were promised that 'new jobs' would replace those leaving to countries with scant or no labor laws.

It's really all up to us. How hard are we willing to work to fight the power grab?

[Salviati]

14. I voted for in progress...

because I don't belive that the electoral process is completely subverted...yet. Thank goodness for all those people working tirelessly against BBV.

I also belive that the biggest thing interfering with the plan is the internet. I mean imagine if we all were relagated to getting our news from traditional sources... The internet is allowing us to end run around the traditional media to keep abrest of what is going on, as well as I think it seems to be pulling them back from becoming unapoligetic propigandists as they begin to see that their credibility is on the line.

[Armstead]

15. I voted "Yes" but....

It casn be turned around.

But some party -- the Democrats -- have to STOP ignoring this issue, and start speaking the truth, and acting on it.

[DieboldMustDie]

17. Still in the process, but extremely close.

Another 4 years of Bush and it's all over. :grr:

[Disturbed]

18. There is hope...

that the process can be blunted by J. Kerry but it will take a huge commitment by the Democrats. I don't feel that most Americans have a clue what "Fascist" means. "Corporate Domination" is a more understandable term. Free trade is not free. It is costing the American Middle Class and the Working Poor plenty. The Corps are getting rich but the bulk of workers are losing in wage and Health Insurance. One of the few politicians that has it correct is Kucinich.