Cogwheeling

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul warned the U.S. is "slipping into a fascist system" dominated by government and businesses as he held a fiery rally Saturday night upstaging established Republican Party banquets a short distance away.

------- Ah yes, Ron-R, the hamster wheeling candidate, who at 77 would be older than even Ronald Reagan who took office at age 72. Paul thinks we're slipping into fascism. Last time I checked, fascism was "an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization." Right-wing, you know, a Republican label.

Remember the "14 points of fascism" that was blogged around so much under Bush the Frat Boy president, let me break those down for Dr. Paul:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism.
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism.
5. Rampant sexism.
6. A controlled mass media.
7. Obsession with national security.
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together.
9. Power of corporations protected.
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated.
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption.
14. Fraudulent elections.

Think about those. Expressions of nationalism? Down by about 75% since I was a kid growing up in rural America. We still have the anthem, flag flying and flag waving, and the really big one the Pledge of Allegiance. I can still recite it. Today, only 5 states require the Pledge of students 1-6th grades, the majority of states let students "opt out." God knows what memorization and recitation might do to a young mind. Students can also opt out of retaining information beyond a few grades but that's another subject.

Disdain for human rights (#2). Oh really, it's better than 100 years ago or even 50.

Scapegoats as a unifying cause (#3). Most folks construct scapegoats, and like the members of government there is a payoff to making the opposition the enemy, until congress is in session and they're all goats. Making foreign governments the goat works until such time as they become new BFFs (Japan, Germany, Russia, China, etc.)

Avid militarism (#4). Admit it or not, the military still has a swollen eye from Vietnam, with half the country continuing to think the troops are dumb thugs, and half of that half are too fat to consider the military as a career anyway. America will never have to worry about "avid militarism." Unless the hordes at the gate frighten the left/progressives that their lifestyle needs protection, but Noam is safe and the hordes are not allowed on his property.

Rampant sexism (generally discrimination against women)? Oh pleeeese. The worst gender discrimination is when attractive women get away with murder, abuse, molestation, infanticide, and other crimes. Wage discrimination maybe? Looking around at today's women I gotta say they're definitely proving most are not as smart as their male counterpart, for what man (in his right mind) would teeter around in stilettos, shaving places they shouldn't, and wearing a lace wedgie?

Controlled mass media, #6. That's the second oldest profession, hardly a sign of anything other than more of the same.

Obsession with national security, #7. If that were true the border would not be a sieve and there would be no "immigration" issue. If that were true we would have more than Iran on the national security shitlist, and sanctions against more than gnat size countries like Cuba and N. Korea. National security is often code for a way to funnel pork to every pol and his crony.

This one makes me laugh, #8. Religion and ruling elite tied together. The notion that religion was created by the ruling elite to control the masses is an old one. Usually spouted by the young or never-grew-ups, typically while sitting at the feet of ideological celebrities who practice cabala or Buddhism or other ohhhmmmm time religions. While I don't think religion came about as a method for the ruling class to control the masses, it has been used that way, and still is in some countries. I think most humans need or want to believe there is something bigger than self. Need or want, both exploitable.

Power of corporations protected, #9. Yes, that's gotten much worse in the last few hundred years but has always been around, ask Hudson Bay and King Charles about the fur trade. Or go back further, there are hundreds of corporations founded in the 700-1200s which are still around because their power was either the state or state protected. Maybe if we nationalize the world we'll come full circle, but instead of referring to the King, Emperor, Pharaoh, President, etc. they'll be our Mr. CEO. Today's U.S. corporate power protection racket can be laid at the feet of supposed do-gooders, creating more and more government bureaucracies to protect we the people from corporate evil-doers, who then climb in bed with said evil-doers and need more funding to continue watch-dogging the evil-doers, but not really watching. It's a "sting" perpetrated on the public by professional grifters working with one another. The pig in the poke, a 3 card Monte, the Spanish prisoner, - you're promised good bureaucratic results down the road, so are your children, then grandchildren, and on and on it grows.

Labor power #10. What can I say. Like all things that are good in the beginning, it's now corrupt. Labor leaders/organizations - more grifters squeezing money from Joe Cog, que RICO. Note too that Joe's power is suppressed and/or eliminated, today not by cruel rich bossmen, but because there's too many Cogs in the work pool. And what has Joe done to assure he's a necessary cog in the machine? Rage against it? Occupy something? Feel good when socially responsible folks like Unilever's Ben & Jerry Inc. "stand with you" Occupy folks? Out of about $200-500 million yearly revenue B&J pay a hundred or so full-time grunts a yearly wage of $27,560, and you may even earn some "Ben Bucks" which can be redeemed in the company store, where you don't go deeper in debt or owe your soul, because you have Ben Bucks.

Disdain of intellectuals and the arts, #11. Ah, yes. If someone doesn't see the artistic genius in butt whips, fecal painting, blood, and believe the smutty and perverse is edgy and exciting - well they're not artistically sophisticated. And what makes a person a public intellectual these days? Lecturing and writing? Chomsky, Paul Krugman, Naomi Klein, Kissinger. Disdain has not hurt their careers. If anything the U.S. has too many intellectuals, hopping from talk show to talk show, or getting their own show, plugging their latest scholarly work or 2 cents opinion analyzing our social, political, economic, psychological, and sexual lives. The intelligentsia natterati. Oh look, I'm being disdainful.

Obsession with crime and punishment, #12. Hmm. Is this the part where I wail and gnash about the U.S. having the most prisoners in the world, or about the black incarceration rate? I don't see the government obsessed at all about crime/punishment. The PTB could not care less - heinous violent crime seldom effects them, and they legalize the crimes they perpetrate. The obsession comes from the left/progressive, convinced that every aberrant behavior is a disease that can be treated. Not a bad bone in anybody, although personally I believe some folks are just bad to the bone. Furthermore, bad bones and/or those involved with bad bones are a big voting block, if you can get enough vans and buses to give 'em a ride to vote.

Rampant cronyism and corruption, #13. Wholeheartedly agree with that one. Not only of the ruling class, which is always corrupt to a degree, but right on down to Joe and Jane Cogsters, who think defrauding the government or big business is not really stealing because Big Brother and Mr. Big can afford it. Crony corruption rolled all the way down hill to the 'burbs, the 'hood, the trailer park.

Last but not least, #14. Fraudulent elections. How do we know they were ever honest?

There it is Mr. Ron. That scary group of words "slipping into a fascist system." I thought you were too mature for that sort of unoriginal scare tactic.

By the way, has Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader died? Haven't heard anything from them this election cycle.