Here's what I posted in a response to a thread here, and I will expand on it:

There are no free markets. Never have been. The difference now is that the utter fuckups and jerkoffs on Wall Street have ripped away the thin veneer that has shielded what they were really about, their real relationship with government, from the one-fodder-units.

What we have, and what we have had since Reagan, and from when the repukes accelerated the process in the 90's, is classic, pure, unadulterated Mussolini-Style Facism.

The government and the tax dollars we pay in exist to serve corporations. Not the people, not the common good, not civil society, but to make the wealthy few wealthier and indemnify their wealth. They exist to enable their every profligate scheme, many ripped from the annals of organized crime history.

And we, the one-fodder-units, get The War on Drugs and The War on Terror, DHS, ICE, The FBI, The IRS, Government Intrusion into our every financial transaction, taxes and fees and Government Spying for our trouble, to keep us in place and feeding this monster.

Oh yeah: and cable TV. Lots of channels of cable TV. With lots of 24-hour fundamentalist programming and shopping channels.

specimenfred1984 added: "I'll add that it's not just TV, it's a highly refined network of propaganda that covers the entire "full spectrum dominance" of all media. The propaganda has been taken to new heights only dreamed of by former fascist regimes."

Terry In Austin added: "Free" is the mother of all marketing catch-words

It sounds good, it's hard to knock, and it's utterly meaningless until you specify "free from what?"

"The Free Market" (tm) is just as much a pile of branding BS as "The Free World" (tm). The latter includes nations that are cheerfully dictatorial, while the former includes near-monopolies like Microsoft."


The fact is, a lot of people here on DU, many of whom fancy themselves as the types of thinkers who possess one of those Tibetan Crystal Knives that "cut through illusion" may well be kidding themselves. In the interest of avoiding a complete cognitive breakdown, they cling to comforting illusions about America and what it is and what it means, the frames of thought that have been fed to them in other times, when things were, at least to a small extent, different.

Well, things have changed. This is not the United States of America you were promised in school, by your parents and in Boy and Girl Scouts. That America is gone. Finished. Tits up. A Norwegian Blue Parrot of a country. Face the facts and you will start on the path of being an aware and effective citizen, and perhaps, become a real agent of change.

We can no longer afford the luxury of our illusions that we live in safe and comfortable times of economic opportunity, personal liberty, protection of constitutional rights, or a government that is by and for The People. If that ever truly existed, those times are gone. The events of the last week have proven that in the starkest terms. The United States of America now exists to serve only the most privileged and wealthy. The rest of us are well and truly screwed, blued and tattoo'ed, fucked, flustered and far from home.

Now, Facism is a strong word, and one with much baggage, all honestly earned. That said, we must be exacting in our use of words in times like these, and sadly, when one looks at Mussolini-Style Facism and then at the country we live in today, it is the only reasonable word we can use to describe the system we now live under, when that system is viewed honestly and in its totality, without the filter of those comforting illusions. The starkest example is that our tax dollars, pried out of our hands every year, sometimes in the cruelest manners that can be contrived, are evidently collected to indemnify the wealth of the few who can afford to buy into the American Facist System and Connected Person Funfest. Reasonable health care? Nope. Crumbling infrastructure? Fuhgetabouddit. Meaningful and gainful employment? Are you nuts? There are more. Too many more to list.

There is an elephant in the American room that all avert their gaze from and work very hard to not discuss. If one has the temerity to say "Look! An elephant! By the drink cart!", he or she is derided, shunned, cast out from polite society and given a crown of tin-foil.

The elephant, on the other hand, orders another Sidecar from the roving waiter at the cocktail party and snickers. The elephant is no less there for all the denial.

When you ignore that elephant in the room, you are doing the bidding of those who are profiting most from this perversion of America. You are surrendering to pirates. You are trading Jesus Phones, SSRI's, flat screen TV's and a new car for the very things that make America America. You have bought into their bargain, on their terms, then you come here and squeal about it.

For shame.

Take it from a drunk in recovery: This denial behavior is EXACTLY how guys like me got our asses in The Drinkin' Sling. Ain't a dime's worth of difference.

We have to stop taking to the fainting bench whenever someone uses the "F" word, and I don't mean "fuck". America has a problem that is destroying its way of life. It's citizenry will remain powerless to deal with it until said citizenry rips the scales from its eyes and looks clearly and honestly at what is destroying The United States:

We are a Facist Nation now, as defined. Facism has destroyed our economy and now Facism is raping our treasury, for all the world to see. Shamelessly. Openly. Our government serves no one but the few, the connected, the wealthy. We, the citizens, have been cast adrift by the government, to fend for ourselves, but not too much or we will end up in prison. Meanwhile, the economy rapers get a golden parachute.

There is no other honest way to describe what has occurred.

There's what should be giving you impetus this election season. Not Sarah Palin and her religious practices. Not porcine makeup tips and pointers. Not Hillary Clinton's loss in the primaries. Not how Barack the boy was raised or what his pastor said from the pulpit. Not Joe Lieberman's sad silliness. Not whether Obama may have, at one time in his career, supported some laws that gun owners don't like. These and more are all distractions, the cheap tricks of the parlor mesmerist.

The only real issue in this election is that The American System is now a Facist, Elitist, Neo-Royalist system. Everything else recedes into insignificance. Would that we could have a candidate speak to this sad and sorry fact.

But I suppose that is asking too much.