Reply #17: But why the march towards Fascism when we have

[hansberrym]

dems in control of the House, Senate, and Presidency? What is he saying about the present governemnt of the USA?

Parenti makes the usual obligatory slap at Reagan for starting the move towards fascism and favoring of the monied class. However Bush Sr.(a supposed moderate though anything but in my opinion) slashed capital gains taxes further (from 28 to 20%) and Clinton cut them yet again(from 20 to 15%). Bush Sr. tried to get NAFTA passed, but couldn't, though Clinton finished the job. If these guys were on opposite ends of the politcal spectrum, why would they push the same policies? Plus we ought not forget Nixon's and Johnson's contributions to the present problems.
IMO Reagon only got it half wrong, he should not have broken down the regulatory barriers, though others took deregulation even further, such as in later years of the CLinton presidency when he and the republican congress deregulated banking and set the stage for the crisis we are in now.

Yes we are in an era of capitalist failure, but we are also in an era of "big government" failure. That the present government of the US(nominally of the left)is embracing fascistic measures should make us very nervous -which is the point of the article.

I believe we are witnessing the rise of neo-fascism ("neo" since no longer on racial or religious lines as very few countries have a single dominant race or religious creed). The corporate intersts are combining with the big government intersts at this time to cover each other's losses and each other's asses.


What I favor: much greater government focus on its role as regulator of big business and less on role of provider. We need to break up the coziness between government and big business before it gets further out of hand. The best way to do that is to make their interests opposed to each other. When government becomes a provider, many assume that government is then in competition with business and thus has opposite interests. But that is not the case. Just as big businesses will collude to preserve their mutual profit margins, so will big business and big government. A prime example is the PPACA with its health insurance mandate.