The Dissolution

By David Glenn Cox

“Fascism is a political ideology that seeks to combine radical and authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system, and which is usually considered to be on the far right of the traditional left – right political spectrum.

"Fascists advocate the creation of a single party state, with the belief that the majority is unsuited to govern itself through democracy and by reaffirming the benefits of inequality. Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement. Fascism fashioned itself as the ’complete opposite of Marxian socialism’ by rejecting the economic and material conception of history, the fundamental belief of fascism being that human beings are motivated by glory and heroism rather than economic motives, in contrast to the worldview of capitalism and socialism.

"In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a ’Third Way’ in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state socialism. This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labor (Italian fascist leader Mussolini called his nation’s system ’the corporate state’)."

I use the word dissolution because it has several meanings and in this case both apply. It can mean the end of a legal entity or it can mean the dissolving of a solid into a solution.

"Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?"

We live in inverted times, but all of recent history can be condensed into two days, November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001. But these days are only landmarks and not the subject of this narrative. On those two days life and logic were cast down in fear of the unknown. If Vladimir Putin, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Hugo Chavez were gunned down in an open car with a high powered rifle, few would question a coup d’etat.

The truth strikes fear, but the inverted demands facts beyond proof while they offer up proof that flies in the face of facts. Police and law enforcement arrest suspects on suspicion all the time, so theories in and of themselves are not wrong. Those who offer up that it is wrong or fantasy or even righteous, pretentious, patriotic fervor pretend to forget who burned the Reichstag.

Since November 22, 1963, the United States has been involved in military conflict somewhere on the planet almost every day. Is that the sign of a peace-loving democracy? This culminated in the illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan which has now spread out like a puddle of oil into Pakistan and Yemen and any other damn place they say, yet they are still powerless to stop the pirates off the Somali coast.

Like Odysseus we are lost on an epic journey trying to find our way home, where our servants are pillaging the household and suitors are tempting our spouse.

Our politics has undergone a tectonic shift; John Kennedy today would be viewed as too liberal politically, even in San Francisco. Richard Nixon would be thrown from the halls of the Republican Party as a flaming liberal. In their day Kennedy was a conservative Democrat and Richard Nixon a moderate Republican. We have swung so far to the right that Nixon, one of the most vilified Republicans in history, is far to the left of our current Democratic President.

This shift has caused dissolution of political party affiliation and meaning. People identify themselves as Republican or Democrat with little understanding of what these parties once stood for. The Republican party has always been the party of moneyed interests, but since Reagan’s fascist revolution, has appealed to the public through religious or social interests. Race, religion, class, all those issues which should have little to do with political affiliations, now define them. The Republicans have since found themselves leap frogging each other to the right to a place where they are clear off the political spectrum.

So successful was the Reagan administration at convincing the public that liberals and Democrats were responsible for all the evils in the world, that Americans now work longer hours for declining pay. They have less protection for organized labor, fewer benefits and no national health insurance. Yet they pay comparable tax rates to the French who have all these things and a minimum wage that is almost three dollars an hour higher than ours.

The Democratic Party, in an effort to remain viable, evolved a new wing of the Party, the New Democrat. A pro business Democrat, a pro life Democrat, a pro God Democrat, a conservative Democrat, and, er, a Nixon? Nixon was pro choice and Kennedy was a conservative Democrat. To paraphrase Lloyd Benson, “These guys are no John Kennedy.” Since Ronald Reagan every President has introduced plans to cut taxes for various reasons, and the net result is that tax rates on America’s wealthiest are half of what they were when John Kennedy was President. For the working class and the working poor the tax rates have doubled, and the public safety net is mainly imaginary.

The New Democrats repealed the Glass-Steagall Act, which prevented to co-mingling of saving and investing and have paid out billions to depositors bilked by criminal bankers. These bankers are fined and slapped on the wrist and few ever serve a day in jail. These same Democrats passed NAFTA as Ross Perot warned of a giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country. What happened? A giant sucking sound of jobs leaving the country, undermining unions and wages, damaging the economy until the number one growth field left is in financial products.

We now have the working class and the investing class; the demise of structured retirement to privatized retirement leaves few with much and many with little and many more with none. Those with much have wasted no time to lobby and modify the laws and policies of this country to benefit the investing class. If that happens to have a negative or even treasonous result, so be it, until it becomes a bizzaro world.

The Republican Party, for over a hundred years, was in favor of high tariffs and restricting immigration. Suddenly they became free traders and friend of the illegal alien. Democrats, once staunch supporters of organized labor, now side with corporations calling for wage cuts on labor to help fund corporate bailouts. Then, before these Democratic politicians have pulled the knife from the backs of organized labor, they call for a tax on labor union pensions to fund health care reform where the prime beneficiaries are private corporations.

The sole purpose for health care reform is to solve a dilemma. If you become sick or are injured, hospitals are required to treat you despite an inability to pay. They had changed the laws making it easier for doctors and hospitals to come after those with assets. Then they changed the laws to make it harder for individuals to file bankruptcy. But still millions are slipping through and what can be done about it? Mandate by law that they purchase health insurance. You thought that they were trying to help you?

Fade to black, in fifty years we evolved from a nation that once prosecuted the torturers of prisoners to the torturer of prisoners. Had Richard Nixon proposed what George W. Bush proposed, he would have been impeached long before the Watergate Hotel ever became famous. Nixon’s crimes are almost laughable in comparison. Japanese military officials were sentenced to death for the same crimes Bush administration officials now brag about. The same crimes the Obama administration refuses to investigate and prosecute, which makes them criminal accomplices after the fact.

While George W. Bush can plead ignorance of the law or having received poor or defective legal advice, the current President and law professor codified the Bush doctrine thus making himself and his administration not just accomplices but principals. While in office the Speaker of the House, where such investigation should begin, publicly declined not just to begin articles of impeachment but even to hold hearings on articles of impeachment. As if obeying the law was a partisan choice to make, like a policeman who can pick and choose when to enforce the law, it is not a right, it is a responsibility. It is a professional responsibility to the public, which is why it is treated so lightly.

“The people who cast the votes don’t decide an election, the people who count the votes do.” (Joseph Stalin) When the United States Supreme Court decided to stop counting the votes in Florida, they assassinated democracy no differently than November 22, 1963. The Constitution of the United States leaves the administration of elections in the hands of the states. From that point forward it doesn’t matter who received the most votes; the election was stolen.

The Enabling Act of 1933 gave the German government the executive authority to enact laws on a whim. It stripped the German public of their civil rights, but even more it made a dictatorship legal. The Patriot Act did the same to the American public. Corporations received legal immunity for illegal acts, while Americans can be denied the right to fly on aircraft or even to buy an automobile by government whim. No trial, no hearing, no charges, just because we say so.

A Democratic majority in the Senate and in the House and the White House and there is zero talk of repealing the Patriot Act. The executive branch of the government allowed the IRS to allow Citicorp to take an extra $38 billion tax exemption and all they had to do was to violate the IRS’s own rules. Welfare for corporations and the bill goes to the taxpayer.

The military of the United States is suffering from a lack of junior officers because of repeated deployments. Meaning that officers are being promoted not on the basis of quality but because of need. The long wars have hollowed out the military to the point where future procurement programs for national defense are being cut to pay for today’s war. The military are cutting their recruitment standards for education, criminal past and gang membership, all to keep the line full. On the front lines private contractors outnumber regular military six to five.

We have a rightist center party with an extreme right and center left fringe parties. We have an electorate that either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care what that means. We have a one party system that works for corporate interests. They enact laws for the benefit of the oligarchy and to the detriment of the public in general.

Fascism has no requirement for jackboots and waving flags. The propaganda pours out of the corporate media twenty-four hours a day. Information, misinformation and disinformation until the public cheers for corporate solutions and the religious vote for those who favor the patenting of human DNA. So ask yourself, if you were one of the oligarchs and you felt that the Bush administration had gone too far and had damaged the myth of democracy, what would the answer be to restore the public’s faith.

What would the oligarchs do to restore faith in the system? Would they support a candidate who promised more of the same? Or would they support a candidate that promised hope and change and then ruled with more of the same?

Dissolution (legal), in law, means to end a legal entity or agreement such as a marriage, adoption, or corporation; dissolution (chemistry), or solvation, in chemistry, the process of dissolving a solid substance into a solvent to yield a solution. Our democracy and our nation is at a state of dissolution, the reason why the left is unhappy, the right is unhappy and why Sarah Palin sells five million books. The reason why the Senate health care vote sent health care stocks to fifty-two-week highs.