'Vote the bastards out' has let new bastards in
Fighting the 5 Fascisms in Wisconsin and Ohio
by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
CommonDreams.org
The escalating confrontations in Wisconsin and Ohio are ultimately about preventing the United States from becoming a full-on fascist state.
The stakes could not be higher — or more clear.
As defined by its inventor, Benito Mussolini, fascism is "corporate control of the state." There are ways to beat around the Bush — Paul Krugman has recently written about "oligarchy" — but it's time to end all illusions and call what we now confront by its true name.
The fights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and in numerous other states are about saving the last shreds of American democracy. They burn down to five basic realities:
1) The bulwark of modern democracy is the trade union. This has been true since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. All social programs can trace their roots to union activism, as can the protection of our civil liberties.
The first Germans Hitler put in concentration camps were neither Jews nor gypsies — they were trade unionists.
The attacks on state workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere have nothing to do with balancing budgets. That could easily be done without destroying collective bargaining.
For the hard-right, this is about busting unions, the last organized force standing in the way of total corporate control of the United States by the rich and richer.
(Continued here.)
by Harvey Wasserman and Bob Fitrakis
CommonDreams.org
The escalating confrontations in Wisconsin and Ohio are ultimately about preventing the United States from becoming a full-on fascist state.
The stakes could not be higher — or more clear.
As defined by its inventor, Benito Mussolini, fascism is "corporate control of the state." There are ways to beat around the Bush — Paul Krugman has recently written about "oligarchy" — but it's time to end all illusions and call what we now confront by its true name.
The fights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and in numerous other states are about saving the last shreds of American democracy. They burn down to five basic realities:
1) The bulwark of modern democracy is the trade union. This has been true since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. All social programs can trace their roots to union activism, as can the protection of our civil liberties.
The first Germans Hitler put in concentration camps were neither Jews nor gypsies — they were trade unionists.
The attacks on state workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere have nothing to do with balancing budgets. That could easily be done without destroying collective bargaining.
For the hard-right, this is about busting unions, the last organized force standing in the way of total corporate control of the United States by the rich and richer.
(Continued here.)
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