In our “social environment,” here in the U.S., it seems that being “social” or “interactive” with one another no longer requires reading & most definitely not writing. And when I check on the “readability level” of the essays I post on my blog, I usually get critiques of my writing as too difficult, too many big words, not being a trending subject, etc.

 

So, I’m destined to never be socially acceptable or popular in this society of the shallow & superficial. Therefore, I have resigned myself to writing for myself. And if a writer craves celebrity & wealth in such a milieu, he or she must abandon any pretense of seriousness or quality in their work.

 

You must also devote as much time, if not more, to jumping through all the hoops the “authorities” tell us we must do i.e., write to the level of a Bart Simpson or a Donald Trump. Quantity is worshipped & Quality is dismissed as “elitist.” And as much as I detest the Cro-Magnon world we live in; I still persist in my efforts to communicate.

 

Given all the invisible chains that are choking those of us who truly care about the state of the world, we have little choice, and we must forge ahead or simply roll over & play dead. And I posit that our steady lowering of standards in nearly all areas of cultural significance, has brought us to this cultural wasteland.

 

So, let me attempt to explain what I mean by fascism, a subject that has many interpretations. In a nutshell, fascism is about control & authority. And this is why millions of self-professed “Christians,” are de facto fascists & love Trump. They completely ignore their idol, Jesus Christ’s “Sermon on the Mount,” with its clear principles as to how Christians should live their lives because they desire above all else, power over all of us. Not unlike the Islamic fundamentalists like the Taliban, who silence their intellectual critics.

 

It absolutely blows my mind that the 40 million or so of America’s Trump cult don’t or can’t see or perhaps aren’t even aware that we fought WWII because we were opposed to the tenets or practices of the fascists. And as some scholars argue, we, the Western world, would’ve lost WWII if it weren’t for the Communists of Russia who bore the brunt on the Nazis aggression. I believe Russia lost something like 20 million citizens.

 

Another inconvenient truth is the fact that many, if not most of America’s corporate elite, were enamored of the fascists because they showed their citizens/employees how to behave in the workplace i.e., keep your mouth shut & do as your told. Do a Google search of Major General Smedley F. Butler of the USMC if you doubt my words?

 

Several of our largest corporate owners tried to persuade General Butler to lead a coup against our government because he commanded such respect from our armed forces.

 

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
― Smedley D. Butler, War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America’s Most Decorated Soldier

 

“Fascism should rightly be called corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”

― Benito Mussolini 

 

I have been writing about what I’ve dubbed, The Corporate Cockroaches for over 30 years & would be more than happy to point anyone interested in the subject to dozens of writers who have given us a wealth of insights into how these vile creatures have infested the social fabric of not only America but the entire world.

 

We, as Americans who love to boast of our freedoms, democracy, etc. should note how many of our domestic terrorists like The Proud Boys, etc. who participated in the attempted coup of our government on January 6^th, are cops & soldiers. And talk about the Theatre of the Absurd, the propaganda masters are labeling dissenters against the authoritarians’ assault on our democracy, as terrorists or as Trump calls them, “the enemy of the people.”

 

The parallels between George Orwell’s dystopian nightmare world of “1984,” and what Trump has done to sow the seeds of hatred & violence in America are numerous & truly frightening. And Trump knew that by waging his war against the press & intelligence, he was strengthening his “base of the willfully ignorant.”

 

And no, Trump wasn’t an aberration, he merely capitalized on the sad state of public education in the U.S. & his war on Science or intellect in general, empowered his Duck Dynasty lemmings & emboldened them to the scary point that millions of them refuse to wear a mask, social distance, or get vaccinated. I submit that public enemy number one in America is willful ignorance i.e., people who choose to remain ignorant & are actually proud of their stupidity.

 

Tragically, there are kernels of truth in some of Trump’s assault on Reason, but they are cherry picked for their ability to confuse & distract the public from the machinations of the 1% who are the de facto rulers of America. I may be veering off course a bit so let me return to the early warning signs of fascism by offering a few examples of how they are rapidly turning our fledgling democracy into a totalitarian state. You might note Trump’s fondness for authoritarians—what we used to call Dictators. Putin, Duterte, Bolsanaro, Erdowan, etc.

 

1. Nationalism—display the U.S. flag everywhere & at every public event i.e., pic of Trump hugging the flag. Obviously to distract people from his blatant disrespect for law & order.

   

2. Disdain for human rights—so what if all the authoritarians Trump admires have slaughtered & continue to slaughter their own citizens by the tens of thousands.
3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause—Muslims are all terrorists & want to destroy America. Mexicans are drug smugglers, rapists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the military—except when the generals won’t let you do whatever you want i.e., drive tanks down our major boulevards to intimidate & silence citizens who dare to protest
5. Rampant sexism—an area Trump excels in i.e., raping girls/women, bragging about “grabbing them by their pussies,” his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, his life-long habit of extremely crude comments about women, his belief that he can grope women whenever he feels like it, walk into the dressing rooms of girls in “his beauty pageants,” etc.

   

6. Controlled mass media—and here we can lay a lot of blame on the mass media itself for their shameless behavior in giving Trump billions in the form of free advertising as he ran for the presidency. Moreover, Trump admitted in a 60 Minutes interview that he attacks the media so their credibility is weakened whenever they have the temerity to publicly criticize him. Of course, when they say something flattering about him, they’re the champions of liberty, freedom, & democracy.</li>
7. Obsession with National Security—of course in fascists’ minds, anything that strengthens their power & control over the public is great but anything that questions their power or integrity is an enemy of the state & must be stamped-out. These two words (National Security) have been employed ad nauseam to hide the crimes of the 1%
8. Religion & Government intertwined—we should simply ignore our Founding Fathers concern because they were students of world history & knew only too well the genocide, torture, etc. that occurs so frequently when these two powerful institutions unite against the citizens. Recall George W. Bush’s “Faith-based initiative” in which he illegally installed an office in every major department of our government.
9. Corporate Power Protected—this is so obvious that it’s almost not even necessary to discuss but then again, we are living in a country that celebrates the stupid & dismisses the intelligent. Law school is a place you go to learn how to protect the 1% from going to prison.
10. Labor Power Suppressed—fascists have been waging a war against workers from the beginning of the rise of corporate power. Tens, if not hundreds of thousands of workers in America have been silenced one way or another i.e., fired, beaten-up, killed, etc. Reflect on the fact that two of the largest corporations in America, Walmart & Amazon are rampant anti-union. And dear old Ronnie Reagan opened season on unions from the moment he took office & fired the Air Traffic Controllers for life.
11. Obsession with Crime & Punishment—when it comes to blue-collar “criminals” but a slap on the wrist of the megalithic corporate conglomerates every now & then who are destroying our environment & killing us all.
12. Rampant Cronyism & Corruption—this is an area that Trump excels in & he’ll probably go down in U.S. history as the poster boy for all time most corrupt U.S. president. He stopped just short of placing a cash register on his desk in the oval office.
13. Fraudulent Elections—and Trump did everything he could in his stealing of the presidency just short of having soldiers at every polling station with machine guns to intimidate voters.

 

This is obviously a light review of the vast conspiracy of the fascists amongst us & I could go on for thousands of pages but if you’re still in denial, what’s the point of going on, you probably haven’t even read this far anyway?

 

Now, the other ideology, “Socialism,” has as many definitions or examples as fascism does & I’m not going to attempt to provide you with its long history. I am also far from an expert on Socialism, but I will attempt to give you a brief sketch of what I interpret it to mean or stand for. By-the-way, to be clear, I believe that Socialism & Democracy are very compatible or should be in my idealized view.

 

Moreover, true socialism, like true democracy, true communism, or true capitalism doesn’t really exist but is a noble ideal for those of us who believe greed is destroying us & pushing the world to the cliff’s edge overlooking the abyss of human extinction.

 

Perhaps the simplest or the easiest way for me to describe what socialism is would be to cite the Scandinavian countries as examples? Everyone is entitled to & receives a well-maintained apartment or house, healthy food, a top-notch education & universal health care, along with meaningful work suited for one’s skill set, talents, & interests.

 

Homelessness is non-existent, if you or a loved one gets a serious disease, you don’t pay a dime in medical expenses, you receive a comfortable pension from the state when you retire. Basically, everyone pays a high percentage of their income in taxes, but it doesn’t matter because all your needs are met & whatever money you have left each month is pocket money for you to spend on whatever luxury items you care to.

 

There is little, if any, class distinctions and people don’t go through life feeling ashamed or less than others. As a result, you have a far more compatible society & far less crime, especially violent crimes.

That should suffice for now & again, there’s no such thing as the perfect nation but Social Democracies come far closer than any so-called Capitalist democracy. Unfortunately, the status quo’s propagandists gave us the pack of lies they call “Neo liberalism,” which has managed to significantly undermine even those Scandinavian societies that represent hope for the world’s starving masses.

 

And hope is what billions of people around the planet cling to especially in this time of pandemic. Will humanity survive? It’s not looking likely but it’s our duty to not give up or give in to the greedy psychopaths who threaten our very existence.

 

Complacency & apathy will be the end of us if we don’t wake up in time & recognize our common humanity.

 

Persevere my brothers & sisters.

 

Viva la Revolucion!

 

P.S. I’ve spent my life ringing the alarm & I’ve been mocked & dismissed by family & “friends” alike, but my conscience is clear & I know to the marrow of my bones that I’ve at least tried to make this a fairer & more equitable society to the best of my ability.