Inching or Barrelling Towards Fascism ??

Originally posted by zenlover28
..it is the Capitalist system itself that protects the customer....because there is always a competitor ready to make that customer happy.

That's the myth. The reality is that corporations use their money and power to subvert governments and gouge the customer. That's why it took a near revolution and the deaths of several citizens to get Bechtel out of Bolivia.

That's why Arnold Schwarzenegger is Governor of California, to take an example closer to home... various power companies got together to rig the market, cause brown-outs, gouge consumers, and Gray Davis and the Dems (please don't make the mistake of thinking I'm pro-dem because of this, but for once they did something right) brought a massive lawsuit against them.

The power companies get together secretly with Arnie. A few months later, they orchestrate a recall vote and a propaganda campaign, Arnie gets in... and the lawsuit goes away. Neat, huh? That's capitalism for you.

I used to work for the London Electricity Board, a state-owned company whose mission statement was "to supply Londoners with electricity as cheaply and efficiently as possible", which was taken relatively seriously.

Margaret Thatcher and her band of free-market ideologues come to power, they sell off companies like this to outside investors, and begin a "revolving door" situation in which ministers responsible for privatisations invariably get extremely well-paid sinecures in the areas they were responsible for privatising.

Meanwhile, the consumer gets punished, and the much-vaunted "discipline of the market" counts for very little. Water companies, for example, are supposed to do long-overdue replacement of leaking pipes which contribute to drought conditions in a relatively rainy country. This still hasn't happened two decades later.

Likewise our rail system is completely buggered, and the knowledge base built up over decades has been laid waste - no-one knows how to run the railways any more.

There's a great quote about fascism from Mussolini, who I think we may assume had an idea of what he was talking about: "fascism is more properly called corporatism, marking as it does the merger of state and corporate power".

Welcome to the modern world.

Rich...Enron is a prime example of the bad. Once power was deregulated they had a field day at California's expense. Trust me...i'm not blinded to them. I just realize that with anything you have the good and the bad.

The good and the bad... well, yes.

The problem is that the "legal personhood" of corporations referred to by a previous poster in this thread (and something that was vehemently resisted by certain of the founding fathers who even back then were alive to the possible dangers of this legal status) allows individuals to behave inhumanly "for the greater good" of the shareholders without fear of reprisal.

This structure enshrines and encourages psychopathic behaviour, which is illustrated - indeed, beaten to death - in the excellent documentary "The Corporation" and lampooned mercilessly by The Yes Men. If you have seen neither of these films, I urge you to seek them out.

And thanks for the props, Vagabond.

Like I stated, i'm not blinded to this. You're beating a dead horse with me on this issue. Energy policy especially is one of the greatest issues with me and we need utility restructuring. Do Corporations have power in the government? Yes. But, it's because WE give it to them. Face it, they don't just become powerful overnight. And, that's the point I was trying to make. You act as if i'm an unedcuated person on this issue and I can tell you that is far from the truth. LOL In fact i'm well aware of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward, Paul vs. Virginia & Buckley vs Valeo and the biggie Minneapolis & St. Louis Railroad co. (I think) vs. Beckwith, etc., etc....and I don't need any film to make me aware of what's going on with the corporate world. In fact, if you own stock in a corporation, you're basically subjecting YOURSELF to slavery and that's where personal responsibility has to come into play. We can fuss about problems all day long, however we have to hold ourselves responsible and accountable for the role we play in it if we expect them to do the same. There are also less ominous corporations out there that can maintain themselves and their morality because they are not publicly traded.

There are intense efforts underway for corporate reform and to take the rights back from the corporations. But, do you think the majority of people really want that? Naaahhhh. And, I can tell you why....because of their own personal GREED. Again, as I stated earlier...if a Corporation has power...it's because WE give it to them. They don't just wake up one day and say hey, I think i'm going to start a Corporation, start selling stock on the open market and become millionaires while taking over the world. That's just not how it works....and no documentary is going to brainwash me into thinking it works differently.

I like being fair. And that's what i'm trying to be. I may not receive 'props' for my statements....but, I call it like I see it any day of the week.

This forum is dead-in-the-water. It's going nowhere.

Looking at the responses to my comments in this thread and that thread, people are frozen and unable to respond, on the whole.

Moderation is too heavy here; nobody can put up anything that isn't completely scrutinized, formatted and refereed. Makes BBC look like a picnic in the park.

See ya around. I'm gone. You can delete my avatar.

What are we supposed to do...not think for ourselves and follow you like sheep. Bahhhh Bahhhh! Not me, buddy.

Originally posted by joshai2334
Looking at the responses to my comments in this thread and that thread, people are frozen and unable to respond, on the whole.

Respond to what? Vague allusions which you admit to knowing nothing about?

Moderation is too heavy here; nobody can put up anything that isn't completely scrutinized, formatted and refereed.

There hasn't been one moderator here, not one warning given. All you've encountered is members who have a tendency to question things and insist that people substantiate their claims.

I hate to be mean, but cry me a river if not everyone agrees with you.

Originally posted by joshai2334
I wouldn't label fighting Israel's wars, natural.

I wouldn't classify a jihad against Islam as natural--that's what medieval people did a thousand years ago. There's NO "Enlightenment" logic in these events. I thought we as a civilization had evolved away from this sort of barbarism.

Israel isn't even Jewish; it's Zionist, and they hate religion. I hear they're targeting and pounding the Christian settlements in Lebanon--only.

What is the point of destroying the world over ideas? Looney tunes?

That's because you only listen to CNN, or some similarly biased news outlet. The Macy's of news! Liberal to the core.

I went to the CNN internet site and on their front page they had a picture of a Lebanese child in a hospital, the note under it said that the child had been shaking from pain since she arrived, there was also mention of a day with Hezbollah by a reporter, and several other mentions of Lebanon and Hezbollah, but the one mention of Israel and her people was a grudging note several pages down of some suit and tie affair or other.

Not TOOOOO biased.

On Fox on the other hand a live report was showing the bombs from Israel landing in a Lebanese apartment complex of three buildings which mysteriously seemed to have been empty of occupants. Ambulances were arriving and there standing around them were the EMT's but no bodies, no wounded. Amazing, huh.

Going on in that report it was brought out that the apartment complex was headquarters for Hezbollah militants who stored portable weapons able to deliver rockets to Israel. Apparently someone tipped them off, cuz there were no other explosions after the rocket blast settled, though the people who had been in the neighborhood were attempting to protect themselves from what was said to have been "gases" escaping from the buildings.

Curiousity...you have to admit Fox has its biases too though. I mean come on...let's be fair.

It is beyond question that everyone has their biases. When in a position of great power and influence, it can't help but be difficult to avoid using that influence to advance one's own agenda, even if one has entered journalism with some idealistic notion of being a watchdog.

If anything discussed so far in this thread threatens us with fascism or tyrany in any other form, it is the reactionary tendency to rally around a counter-demagogue when confronted with a rival ideology.

Let us not forget that Fascism was embraced by many on the right out of fear of communists. If we are willing to eat out of the right wing media's hand just because we smelled something funny from the left wing media, or vice versa, I'm not saying we WILL fall to extremism, but we are certainly making ourselves vulnerable, and elements of it can be seen in our society today.

Vagabond, i'd give you applause for that if I was the FSME. So i'll just give you a thumbs up.