A New Contract for America

This is a very important article.

"War, Martial Law, and the Economic Crisis

Excerpt from "The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century""

by Peter Dale Scott, Feb. 23, 2011

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23354

Nick Egnatz's full article is certainly interesting, but I can't imagine it being supported, more than little in the society that the US is. I'd support what he proposes, but doubt that more than relatively few Americans would do the same. Some who wouldn't support it might do this because while they agreed with him, they could only perceive his proposal as an impossible dream and then walk away.

The counter-attack by the rich would be extremely strong, that's for sure. They definitely wouldn't be willing to be taxed at 90% of their earned and mostly unearned income over $1mn. It'd require an extreme amount of good will from them and it's extremely difficult to obtain one ounce of good will from them as it is. They would fight this high taxation with great viciousness, and they could very promptly resort to getting their bought politicians to establish martial law.

The Intrepid Report home page had the following article linked.

"Fighting the 5 fascisms in Wisconsin and Ohio"
by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Feb. 23, 2011

www.intrepidreport.com/archives/633

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.

Based on what I've read about what Mussolini said, the above should be corporatism, rather than fascism. He explained the simple distinction between the two terms. But corporatism certainly is applied in ways that seem to be fascism. We could probably say that they're "cousins", say; just that the difference between the two types of regime is also worth taking note of. Based on the difference, the US definitely is corporatist, but I guess it sometimes is also fascist without corporate "interests" being involved or part of the motive.

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.

2) The material essence of fascism is the extreme separation of rich and poor, a massive transfer of wealth from those on the bottom to those on the top.

(snip)

3) The crisis crippling states everywhere is directly related to the massive destruction of social resources by war. Since the end of the New Deal and World War II, the American elite have engineered the biggest dump of material wealth by military means in human history.

(snip)

Democracy demands and protects true material security among the people as a whole. That’s what’s really at stake in the battle to cut the military budget. The fights in Ohio and Wisconsin are surface manifestations of that bigger battle.

4) Mussolini also made it clear that corporate control of the media is essential to fascist rule. ...

(snip)

5) It is no accident that the “job loving,” union-hating governors of Wisconsin and Ohio (along with Florida) have rejected billions in federal funds for re-building passenger rail service that would create thousands of jobs.

(snip)

For decades the term “fascist” has been dismissed from use in this country, and perhaps rightly so. Corporations have been dominant in the US since the 1880s, but we have managed to maintain a modicum of democracy.

It’s hard to see that happening if the remnants of the organized labor movement are crushed in Wisconsin and Ohio. Both states have long, important traditions of union activism.

(snip)

Ultimately, as Martin Luther King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

But from time to time, it does break. If these uprisings in Wisconsin and Ohio fail, there will — literally — be hell to pay.

(snip)