"The tragic irony is, as we all know, there is no free lunch. The central state generates the illusion there is a free lunch to institutionalize the dominance of the wealthy and powerful and institutionalize serfdom for everyone else."

Wait a Minute--Who's Fascist?

By Charles Hugh Smith

The core belief of the Establishment is the central state should run everything.

If you’re an Establishment insider, the mainstream media will give you plenty of column inches and airtime to label Donald Trump a “dangerous” fascist: for example, Democratic insider Robert Reich’s fear-mongering frenzy Donald Trump is a 21st century American fascist, in which Reich conveniently overlooks constitutional limits on any president, “fascist” or not.

In effect, Reich is announcing the Constitution is dead and powerless to limit the President. Well, if that’s the problem, then why not attack the real problem, which is the Imperial Presidency? Why not? Reich served an Imperial President as a loyal lackey, that’s why–and he remains an energetic supporter of the central state and its bread-and-circuses institutionalized serfdom.

If you’re an Establishment insider, you’ll get ample opportunities in the corporate media to label Bernie Sanders a “dangerous” socialist. You don’t even have to be a member of the “vast right-wing conspiracy” (a staple of the Clintons’ attack strategy)–any insider can get airtime to label Sanders as “dangerous”–either because he’s socialist, or because he’s not radical enough. Any attack will do, and you’ll get plenty of opportunities to flesh out any attack, no matter how biased or nonsensical.

It is, of course, classic Orwellian Doublespeak to label any threat to one’s power “fascist,” and to laud one’s corrupt and venal allies as “freedom fighters,” but the Establishment’s panicked reliance on accusations of fascism is new and yes, dangerous. So let’s step back and ask–precisely who’s the fascist here?

It turns out that the definition of fascism widely attributed to Mussolini– “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power”–has no provenance: researchers cannot find this quote in any original source material.

Here is an excellent exploration of the topic: Benito Mussolini on Fascism and Corporatism

Via the research cited in Mussolini on the Corporate State, we have a verified Mussolini statement on the fascist conception of the state’s role in the economy and society:

The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organised in their respective associations, circulate within the State. (p. 41).

In other words, the all-powerful central state worshipped by Reich and all the other Establishment insiders, Democrat and Republican alike, is the true culmination of fascism. So if we strip away the Orwellian Doublespeak, we find that it’s actually Reich and his fellow believers in the goodness and rightness of the all-powerful central state and the central bank who are the real fascists.

The core belief of the Establishment is the central state should run everything: the state should run the mortgage industry (hey, it does--95% of all mortgages are government-backed or guaranteed); it should run the financial system via setting interest rates, buying bonds and other assets and bailing out/protecting private banks (hey, it does--thank you, Federal Reserve); it should control higher education (the central state not only funds the higher education cartel, it also owns most of the $1.4 trillion in student loan debt); it should control the economy via protecting and enforcing favored monopolies and cartels, and of course the state needs to track any domestic "threats" via surveillance and suppress any resistance to its power by force, media attacks, lawsuits, IRS investigations, social-media smear campaigns, etc.--which is precisely what the U.S. central state's toadies, lackeys, apparatchiks, thugs, bought-off media hacks, et al. do.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is fascism, and that's the Establishment's America. No wonder central-state lackeys like Reich have unleashed frantic attacks against Trump and Sanders--they fear their fascist paradise of central-state-cartel-capitalism might somehow be threatened.

And like all fascists and fascist states, they over-react to any threats to their power. This over-reaction eventually backfires, for it reveals the true nature of their loyalties and their project: that there is an endless need for more state regulations, controls, programs, guarantees and promises that all will be better as long as you cede control of everything that matters to the state. You are of course still "free" to choose your breakfast cereal and which outpost of the Ministry of Propaganda you wish to view/read/listen to.

The carrot dangled by the fascist state is always the same: there is a free lunch for everyone who cedes control over their lives to the state. For corporations, the free lunch is a quasi-monopoly; for debt-serfs, new programs that erase their debts (i.e. transfer them to others), and for everyone, more entitlements, up to the Nirvana of the fascist state, Guaranteed Minimum Income for all.

The tragic irony is, as we all know, there is no free lunch. The central state generates the illusion there is a free lunch to institutionalize the dominance of the wealthy and powerful and institutionalize serfdom for everyone else.

Link:
http://www.oftwominds.com/blogmar16/fascism3-16.html