In a recent piece which appears on Information Clearing House, Jim Lobe talks about how the "right wing press" in the US is going all out to label their foes in the Middle east as "fascists" (and their domestic critics as "appeasers") as central part of their campaign towards the November mid term elections in the US. Mr Bush has, of course, used the word many times in recent speeches.
Fascism, like Communism (and Capitalism) is a political system. Unlike Communists, Fascists "tolerate" what they are pleased to call "private property". But a Fascist State tells those who run these "private properties" what to produce, where to produce it, how much to produce, who to buy from, who to sell to, what prices to ask on their product, who to hire, who to fire, how much to pay their workers/managers, etc. etc. Under fascism, economic interventionism holds total sway in the so called "private sector". Fascism differs from Communism only in the fact that property is not confiscated by the State. A Fasist State does not confiscate property, it merely exercises total and complete control over those who "own" property.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Another more polite name for Fascism is economic interventionism, and economic interventionism is practiced, to a substantial degree differing only in the finer details, throughout the world today.
It is most certainly practiced good and hard in the US, and the strides it has made since Mr Bush was first inaugurated are MASSIVE. The growing dismay at the state of their nation shared by more and more Americans is a measure of the burgeoning almost manic drive for control exercised by their government. And as the US economy clearly splutters towards recession (at best - see the Early September issue of The Privateer - out on September 3), a force which is thought to be irresitstable is about to be faced with an immovable economic object.
Right now, a glance across US "markets" is enough to show that the "hold" is on. The Republicans and their friends in Wall Street and in the big financial houses are desperate to keep all US "markets" standing upright at least until November and the mid-term elections. The addition of a financial slump of any magnitude in any market (let alone a crash), added to the increasing discontent about US foreign "policy", would make the retention of both Houses of Congress in Republican hands all but impossible. Impossible, that is, without some very creative vote counting indeed.
It should be obvious, but it clearly isn't to most people, that only in an interventionist (or Fascist) economy could such a "holding action" be contemplated, let alone enforced. While Americans watch their living standards steadily decline and more and more of them sit on financial time bombs in the form of mortgages which are now higher than valuations, US stock and bond markets perform nobly while the oil price falls and the Gold price treads water $US 100 below the level it reached in Mid May.
Even the US Fed itself has put the "odds" of a recession hitting the US over the next year at 40%. More and more sane economists are warning of a coming economic malaise or collapse which will put anything experienced in the US over the last two or three generations in the shade. The trajectory of indebtedness and credit creation is clearly not only unsustainable, but has already reached its apogee and is beginning to fall back to earth. With the housing boom over, the LAST source of "collateral" for consumer borrowing has sputtered out.
Yet still the markets hang in there, as if nothing has happened. The Dow is now less than 3 percent below the all time high it hit nearly SEVEN YEARS AGO. The Treasury market remains inverted as it has been for most of this year with the entire yield curve now 15 to 67 basis points below the current 5.25% Fed Funds Rate. US government "accountants" predict a budget deficit of $US 260 Billion for fiscal 2006 while the Treasury's debt is already up nearly $US 600 Billion for the year. The entire situation is farcical, but still the "markets" hold on.
In the present situation, Gold is doing well to be quietly cycling around the $US 610-630 level. Gold's trading range for 2006 is just over $US 200 ($US 518.90 to $US 721.50 on a spot future closing basis) and right now it stands just above the middle of that range. Gold is, of course, public enemy number one for any interventionist government since it gives individuals a way to insulate their financial affairs from government control.
Historically, when a foe, real or imagined, is smeared with a particular description ("Islamofascist" for example), it is always a good idea to examine the one doing the smearing. If one does that, one frequently discovers that person to be the perpetrator of all the evils he is accusing his "enemies" of practicing. Don't listen to what Mr Bush says, look at what his Administration DOES! You will quickly find that "fascist" is a sharp term that cuts both ways.