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The real true fascism prevelant in the US.

Audie

Veteran Member
This is true....if you borrow money, & won't repay it.
But this is a good thing. Without such power, no one
would ever lend money. It's not fascism because it's
a choice. If you can't or won't repay a loan, then tis
best to not borrow.
Government has much greater power over us. It can
take your home even if you don't owe them any money,
or have committed no crime, eg, eminent domain, civil
forfeiture.

Pollution is not fascism.

Only government can enslave, eg, military conscription.

Any fool who gambles makes a choice to do so.
This is the opposite of fascism.
And what on Earth is a "finance casino"?

Pollution isn't fascism.

What legislation makes this legal?
But government can shoot us with impunity.
Google "Daniel Shaver".

Government does this regularly for its own benefit.
But I've never run across any corporation doing this.

It's not productive to address all that point by point.
Tis just a rant that reminds me of a friend who sees
Marxists controlling everything....all just vague
conspiracies imagined behind everything.

People need boogeymen to demonize....capitalists,
corporations, The Patriarchy, The Oligarchy, Big Oil,
Big Pharma, The British Crown, The Illuminaniti, The
Jews, The Pope, etc, etc.

Somehow i dont feel like a bad person
when I sit here at work (home office )
switching between RF and ( gaso)
CORPORATION.
But villains never feel remorse.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
This is a good perspective.
I didn't watch it either.
If a point cannot be made by the poster,
then this portends lengthy videos being
ill considered.
Admittedly, I haven't watched the video yet so I may be straying a bit. But my protest is that corporations and gov'mnt are becoming one in the same via lobbyists. Now, I do not understand the details of how bad it is, but based on the limited information I know, I don't think it is trending in the right direction. I would prefer corporate bribes donations contributions to make their way out of politics.
Why do you think corporations have gained so much power
in recent years? In my lifetime in business, I've seen
regulation over us only increase.
If you peruse the complaints about corporate fascism in this
thread, you'll see that it's not about fascism at all, but rather
about pollution, repaying loans, & even non-existent claims
that corporations can legally enslave us.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Can we at least agree on this:

Influence-of-U.S.-citizens-and-elites-horizontal.jpg


that public interest has practically no effect on politics where economic interests do?
This still doesn't support the claim of "fascism".
The problem I see is that we have voters with disparate
concerns. When they vote, there is very often conflict
resulting in cancelling each other out.
Think of law-&-order types vs civil libertarians. Both have
strong preferences, yet neither gains the control they want.
The net effect is some unholy mishmash of a compromise.
This is a better explanation than corporate conspiracy
because it has predictive value in areas outside of
corporate interests, eg, war, civil liberty.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
The difference stands out in very stark contrast
in Hong Kong.

I wonder if anyone needs explanation.
I observe that we Ameristanians tend to think we're
terribly oppressed. But this is out of dis-satisfaction
with things trivial compared to what real fascism is
like in other countries. We're too unaware of the
larger picture.
If we buy a coffee at Timmy's, & it's already cold,
then this is a failure of capitalism, & proof that
corporations are fascist.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Corruption isn't the same as "fascism", which is the
titular claim. Can anyone making that claim explain
how it rises to the level of fascism, & why it's worse
that governmental fascism, eg, the right of cops to
take money from us just because we have it...or of
cops to shoot us with impunity?


Corporate capitalism is not automatically synonymous with fascism. But corporations often thrive under fascist regimes, as the long list of global companies queuing up to invest in Saudi Arabia might testify.

Fortunately for you in the US, you have a constitution, and a robust - in parts, like the curate’s egg - legislature and judiciary, to defend your democracy. But surely you can see how corporate interests might, indeed certainly have, used the lobby system to undermine that?

Your politicians still have to answer to the electorate, and they are not above the law; but electorates can be influenced, and judicial process can be influenced also, by any vested interests with the cash to do so.

Looking at the US from the outside, I’d say you’re a long way from fascism; but so was Germany in the 19th Century. So were Spain and Italy until their democracies were stolen. Trump tried to steal yours, and failed; you think corporate America would have stood in his way, even for a moment, if they could see a way to profit from the situation?
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Corporate capitalism is not automatically synonymous with fascism. But corporations often thrive under fascist regimes, as the long list of global companies queuing up to invest in Saudi Arabia might testify.
Does this possibility mean actuality?
Of course not.
Dwell upon what occurs....not upon what one can imagine.
Fortunately for you in the US, you have a constitution, and a robust - in parts, like the curate’s egg - legislature and judiciary, to defend your democracy. But surely you can see how corporate interests might, indeed certainly have, used the lobby system to undermine that?
Again...what is possible isn't necessarily what is actual.
Your politicians still have to answer to the electorate, and they are not above the law; but electorates can be influenced, and judicial process can be influenced also, by any vested interests with the cash to do so.

Looking at the US from the outside, I’d say you’re a long way from fascism; but so was Germany in the 19th Century. So were Spain and Italy until their democracies were stolen. Trump tried to steal yours, and failed; you think corporate America would have stood in his way, even for a moment, if they could see a way to profit from the situation?
How does any of that support the claim of fascism here
caused by corporations?
 

Quetzal

A little to the left and slightly out of focus.
Premium Member
Fascism by definition is a banding together of people by ignoring and/or subjugating their individual needs or desires. Corporations are the commercial equivalent of this. Keeping the many in lockstep allows them to overwhelm their opposition. But the result is the negation of the individual.
First point of order, we need to be specific with the terms we select in this discussion. What we are seeing is not fascism. With that said...

I agree that there are certain organizations that are bad about corruption: Wal-Mart, Amazon, etc.

Bigger is not better for the rest of us. It's only better for those at the top of the bigest pyramid. The few are over-served while the many are underserved. Yet, the whole purpose of humans engaging in commercial trade is to improve the lot of everyone involved. So it makes no sense for people to engage in a commercial system that seeks to grossly advantage the few at the expense of the many. And this is why commercial incorporatization is fundamentally bad for us.
I partially disagree. I have been a part of larger corporations and smaller organizations. There are some benefits to participating in larger organizations:
  • Larger organizations typically offer more resources to their employees in the form of salary, peripheral benefits, stock options, etc.
  • Larger organizations offer a more accelerated career path because there are more resources to learn from.
  • Larger organizations can have a greater impact to the community because they have more finances.
Now, with that said, accumulating resources at the top of our economic structure does have negative consequences that you touched on. We need to advocate for the individuals that find themselves at the bottom.

If you want a specific example, just consider how easy it is for the CEO of a large corporation to ignore the damage his decisions do to any individual customer or employee as compared to a small business owner who has to face and deal with his customers and employees directly on a regular basis.
That is not a specific example. A specific I was thinking would be "On [date] the executive of [corp] did [thing] and [this bad thing] happened." There are several of those to choose from, but picking one to talk about might help further the discussion.
 

Quetzal

A little to the left and slightly out of focus.
Premium Member
Why do you think corporations have gained so much power
in recent years? In my lifetime in business, I've seen
regulation over us only increase.
If you peruse the complaints about corporate fascism in this
thread, you'll see that it's not about fascism at all, but rather
about pollution, repaying loans, & even non-existent claims
that corporations can legally enslave us.
Ah, I was referring to corporate lobbyist being able to contribute heavily to political candidates to form legislation to benefit themselves. Having a hotline to legislation can be dangerous.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Ah, I was referring to corporate lobbyist being able to contribute heavily to political candidates to form legislation to benefit themselves. Having a hotline to legislation can be dangerous.
I see lobbying by corporations as necessary. This is so for
other lobbying interests, eg, unions, business, political parties,
civil libertarians. We all have the right to communicate our
wants to government.
So lobbying itself isn't bad. The issue is when it becomes
counter to the public good. The problem with this thread
is that it's short on any specific examples. If someone
cited that Corporation A bribed politician B to do thing C,
then we could consider how to address it.
Instead, the thread boils down to "corporations are evil".
There's no solution to be devised from that.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
I'm convinced corporate fascism is the root of this country's problems and issue's, and is an answer as to why both Republicans and Democrats, the nations entrenched duopoly, are acting the way they are and dead set on continuing this path and refusing to do a single thing about it.

Yup, yup, yup. It seems to me that you can name almost any societal problem and we can quickly connect the dots back to an oligarch who's either created the problem or is exacerbating it. We need to defang lobbyists, get the rich and corporations to pay taxes, reverse citizen's united, and so on.
 

Audie

Veteran Member
Yup, yup, yup. It seems to me that you can name almost any societal problem and we can quickly connect the dots back to an oligarch who's either created the problem or is exacerbating it. We need to defang lobbyists, get the rich and corporations to pay taxes, reverse citizen's united, and so on.

Tax the churches
 

Audie

Veteran Member
I see lobbying by corporations as necessary. This is so for
other lobbying interests, eg, unions, business, political parties,
civil libertarians. We all have the right to communicate our
wants to government.
So lobbying itself isn't bad. The issue is when it becomes
counter to the public good. The problem with this thread
is that it's short on any specific examples. If someone
cited that Corporation A bribed politician B to do thing C,
then we could consider how to address it.
Instead, the thread boils down to "corporations are evil".
There's no solution to be devised from that.

Communism? It would change everything
 

Quetzal

A little to the left and slightly out of focus.
Premium Member
I see lobbying by corporations as necessary. This is so for
other lobbying interests, eg, unions, business, political parties,
civil libertarians. We all have the right to communicate our
wants to government.
So lobbying itself isn't bad. The issue is when it becomes
counter to the public good. The problem with this thread
is that it's short on any specific examples. If someone
cited that Corporation A bribed politician B to do thing C,
then we could consider how to address it.
Instead, the thread boils down to "corporations are evil".
There's no solution to be devised from that.
Right and the issue is nebulous, it isn't clear what exactly is happening. There is seems to be a smokescreen around this. We know where money is coming from, right? Political contributions are public record. What I am nervous about is that there is a considerable mismatch between the lobbying ability of a corporation in comparison to a group of citizens. The citizens can advocate to not destroy a forest but a corporation can bribe contribute to a candidate in the form of $X and all of the sudden the forest can go away. This opens the possibility and theoretical inevitability of corruption. In Quetzelstan we have no money in politics, in a perfect world the US of A wouldn't either.

And yes, I agree, specific examples are helpful. I don't have any at the moment tho, so I will keep it light and theoretical for now.
 

RestlessSoul

Well-Known Member
Does this possibility mean actuality?
Of course not.
Dwell upon what occurs....not upon what one can imagine.

Again...what is possible isn't necessarily what is actual.

How does any of that support the claim of fascism here
caused by corporations?


If you see clouds gathering, it makes sense to recognise the possibility of rain.
 
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