Paul Buchheit reports via AlterNet
While Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning and John Kiriakou are vilified for revealing vital information about spying and bombing and torture, a man who conspired with Goldman Sachs to make billions of dollars on the planned failure of subprime mortgages was honored by New York University for his "Outstanding Contributions to Society".
This is one example of the distorted thinking leading to the demise of a once-vibrant American society. There are other signs of decay:
- A House Bill Would View Corporate Crimes as "Honest Mistakes"
- Almost 2/3 of American Families Couldn't Afford a Single Pill of a Life-Saving Drug
- Violent Crime Down; Prison Population Doubles
- One in Four Americans Suffer Mental Illness; Mental Health Facilities Cut by 90 Percent
- The Unpaid Taxes of 500 Companies Could Pay for a Job for Every Unemployed American ...for two years ...at the nation's median salary of $36,000 ...for all 8 million unemployed.
Citizens for Tax Justice reports that Fortune 500 companies are holding over $2 trillion in profits offshore to avoid taxes that would amount to over $600 billion. Our society desperately needs infrastructure repair, but 8 million potential jobs are being held hostage beyond our borders.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Non Sequor on Wednesday December 09 2015, @01:20AM
Actually no, fascism isn't an ideology, it is a societal model or form of governance based on absolute alignment of the populace behind the leadership and brutal suppression of any dissent. For practical reasons it has to be based on some form ideology (racist, socialist, whatever) but AFAIK it's inventors in the roman empire had no such thing.
This is the most accurate characterization of fascism that I've seen in an online discussion. If you look at Germany, Italy, and (don't forget) Spain in the 30s, plus movements other places that didn't get a foothold, the common theme of the fascist movements was that they believed that the world needed their particular strain of thought to seize control. To them, brutality was just a sign of strength and will, which they viewed as needed to advance [INSERT GOAL HERE].
Fascism is what you get when people abandon the idea that they need to, in some manner, manage the level of disagreement over public policy.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.