They Act With Impunity Now

The US president orders the assassination of a US citizen without a trial. The Canadian prime minister signs Canada up for another three plus years of war, after explicit promises not to, and says he does not have to ask parliament. The Swedish justice system, in full view of the eyes of the world, railroads a private foreign citizen through a kangaroo court with no due process. What on earth is going on, you may ask, if you haven’t been paying attention.

Why are the world’s leading democracies looking so indistinguishable from fascist states? Because we didn’t listen all those years ago when US president Eisenhower told us about the military industrial complex. In 1961 he said, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists … We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Apparently, we weren’t up to the task. Benito Mussolini said, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power”. Yes. When the state is forcing it’s citizenry like cattle through radiation and violations of their personal and human rights and dignity and fining them if they refuse, all to award billions to a military industry, we are there. When the armies we once loved and respected have turned into an international gang of marauding mercenaries and professional killers, we are there. When trade has nothing to do with what people need or want and all to do with what industry can force on a populace for a profit, we are there. Unpredictable and ever changing legal systems, police that fight the people and guard the criminals, media that advertise the lies instead of the truth, food, shelter, safety, communication, and even sex controlled by industry, military and government, we are there. Look around and say hello to the worldwide corporate fascist government.

The next time you look at a trial and think, oh, that isn’t right, I’ll sign a postcard, the next time you watch a country fight each other about which of two identical dictators will be terrorizing them for the next four years or so, as if the choice was a choice at all, the next time you wonder why everything in the entertainment industry is mindless porn and violence and where did all the intelligent, beautiful  art go, remember. The world is being run by the mafia. In the immortal words of George Carlin, they don’t care about you.

But they don’t have to. Get healthy, get strong, get educated and informed, and start contributing to your own governance. The point of fascism is the few are controlling the many. That only works until the many wake up. I wish George could have been here to see it.