Wednesday, January 27, 2010

"Fashionista?" Nay, the Real Question is, "Fascista?"

Is it fashionable to continue the unequal balance of power in the United States? It seems as though the Supreme Court justices may be fashionista. The continued collusion between corporations and the United States government has birthed a Supreme Court decision that now gives even more power to corporations, financial institutions, and the people who run them. Until recently, corporations and financial institutions enjoyed exponentially escalating profits over the past decade, unencumbered by regulations and enhanced by tax breaks. Those who ran them received extraordinarily high salaries, bonuses, benefits, and golden parachutes that exponentially increased the disparity of wages between CEO's and the average worker. Due to the recent Supreme Court decision that allows corporations and unions to spend unlimited dollars on campaign contributions, they now have unlimited power to influence the course of elections in favor of candidates who will continue to benefit them. Free speech belongs to individual people: one person, one voice, one vote. The Supreme Court justices have elevated corporations and unions to the same status as a person by also granting them the right to free speech. Next, maybe they'll let the CEO's and Union Leaders place votes for these new "people." I guess the old saying is true, money can buy anything. Too bad the new voices who have been newly granted the freedom of speech will drown out the voices of the majority of Americans who are unable to compete with such tremendously affluent budgets and increased power to steer the course of "democratic" elections. Perhaps a more appropriate word for the Supreme Court justices' decision may be fascista.

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson spoke about elective despotism: "Mankind soon learn to make interested uses of every right and power which they possess, or may assume. The public money and public liberty, intended to have been deposited with three branches of magistracy, but found inadvertently to be in the hands of one only, will soon be discovered to be sources of wealth and dominion to those who hold them... They [the assembly] should look forward to a time, and that not a distant one, when a corruption in this, as in the country from which we derive our origin, will have seized the heads of government, and be spread by them through the body of the people; when they will purchase the voices of the people, and make them pay the price. Human nature is the same on every side of the Atlantic, and will be alike influenced by the same causes. The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered."

What is Fascism? This link defines the Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism: http://www.rense.com/general37/char.htm

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