Before I got started I wanted to define just one word: Fascism. I spent hours wandering in the vastness of the Google and by the time I called it quits I had thousands of words mined from scholars, historians, and politicians. I then boiled them all down to these 109 words:
Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.”
Leon Trotsky, “The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.”
The next step was to ask the question, “Who controls the government of the United States?” My immediate answer was: We (as in We The People) Don’t.
It is inarguably true that the majority of our elected representatives don’t represent us. They represent the corporate interests that put them in office. And these corporate interests have actually drafted legislation that their bought and paid for stooges rubber-stamped into law without changing a single word.
It’s at this point someone interrupts me and says something like, “They’re not all corrupt.” So let’s take a little time out and list the members of the House and Senate who are not corporate sleaze-bags.