A friend forwarded a link to a William Astore article on Alternet.org that argues the point that fears of socialism and fascism are just distractions from what is really happening…which is the theft of trillions of dollars by corporations and financial institutions. You can read the article HERE.
I think William Astore came close to getting it right…at least he is on the right track, but I think he fell just a little shy of completely hitting the mark. Consider this perspective: What if Socialism and Fascism are not distractions from what is going on…but instead are the tools by which the powerful manipulate the system? The money changers would not be able to sell the American people on the government programs that make them wealthy if they told the truth about those programs…so they have to “sell” the public on these programs by misrepresenting them… by pretending that they are engaging on some altruistic mission (healthcare for everyone) or some noble quest (using military force to spread democracy to other parts of the world, or to protect the USA).
To do this they count on predictable characteristics of human nature: For example, to manipulate conservatives, the super rich play on the fear of enemies, and the patriotic pride that people have in their “team” or their country. They manipulate fear, pride, and other emotions to justify military programs that line the pockets of the contractors who make contributions to the politicians who support these programs. To manipulate lliberals, the super rich play on the greed and envy that is in all of us by encouraging people who do not make as much as others to vote for politicians who enact higher progressive taxes, more regulation of businesses, etc, etc,… all in the name of making the more wealthy “pay their fair share” and in the name of altruistic sounding social programs. But progressive taxes don’t really make the super rich pay more…they will just move their business off shore if they start paying too much in taxes. And social programs don’t really help as much as they are supposed to, they usually leave the poor more dependent and less well off than before. What these high, progressive taxes really do is permanently limit anyone from the lower class or middle class from amassing enough capital to challenge the super rich. It is getting to me almost impossible for an average citizen to save up enough money to start any sort of capital intensive business. By playing on the jealousy and resentment of the lower income class, the super rich pit the lower class against the middle class in the political fights, and again, they laugh all the way to the bank.
The real key here is to STOP government from extracting large amounts of money from the private sector and giving it to the companies or individuals of the governments choosing… whether these companies are defense contractors, law firms or health care companies. We have got to get back to local control of our government, reduced regulation for small businesses, fiscal responsibility and reduced or eliminated income taxes (maybe the FairTax instead?).