Mainstream press isn’t touching the comparison of government ownership of big business and the definition of Fascism. Even the Wall Street Journal is saying the former CEO Wagner needed to leave General Motors and we would agree.
The problem with having a CEO resign is the Board of Directors should seal that person’s fate not a President of the United States and a few “czars” in a room across from the Oval Office.
Inside a windowless, ornate room Thursday just across from the Oval Office,
President Barack Obama and a group of senior economic advisers began the job of remaking the American automobile industry.
The first order of business: Oust General Motors Corp. Chief Executive Rick Wagoner.
It “wasn’t the hardest decision,” said one government official.
Government officials making decisions that belong in the board room not the Roosevelt Room with nobody representing the company. Government officials placed a new CEO at AIG and now the Obama administration has handpicked the new CEO at General Motors even though he was the Chief Operating Officer and next in line for the job.
There was also an economic policy component of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and ’30s as “corporatism,” that was an essential ingredient of economic totalitarianism as practiced by Mussolini and Hitler. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a “model” by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe.
A version of economic fascism was in fact adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called “fascism” but “planned capitalism.” The word fascism may no longer be politically acceptable, but its synonym “industrial policy” is as popular as ever. The essence of fascism, therefore, is that government should be the master, not the servant, of the people.
On April 8, 1952, President Harry Truman ordered Commerce Secretary Charles Sawyer to seize and take over operation of most of the country’s steel mills. Truman cited no legislative authority for his actions. Instead, he cited the Korean War. Truman claimed there was a national emergency and his presidential war powers were all the authority he needed to nationalize the steel industry. The steel companies fought back, and in the landmark case Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer the Supreme Court found Truman’s actions to be unconstitutional.
The man who is now president, Barack Obama, is precisely the man whose spiritual mentor for 2 decades, Jeremiah Wright, denounced “white folks greed” running “a world in need.” Barack Obama is precisely the man whose political mentor, Saul Alinsky, advised the use of any and all means necessary to take power in America, and to clothe his deceit in “moral garments.” Barack Obama is precisely the man whose most influential and moneyed backer was George Soros, the Fabian socialist whose financial schemes have garnered great wealth for him while leaving whole economies in shambles, the way ours is now.
Anyone still harboring the illusion that President Barack Obama cares one whit about the millions of Americans whose retirement funds and futures dwindle with each passing day of this “regime change” needs a reality check.
Most job requirements have experience listed but when running the auto industry from the White House this isn’t needed. Obama named a Director of Recovery for Auto Workers and Communities. Edward Montgomery, labor economist and former Deputy Secretary of Labor, will serve in the role, helping autoworkers, communities, and regions adversely impacted by the failure of the automakers find new jobs, businesses, and industries.
There doesn’t seem to be anything in his resume or job title that would indicate Edward Montgomery, President Obama’s new director of recovery for auto communities and workers, will be dictating corporate policy for General Motors or other car companies. He’s a “people” economist, not an industrial technocrat, focusing on workers, community economic development etc. From the Web site at the University of Maryland, where he is dean of the College of Behavioral and Social Sciences:
Dr. Montgomery has published numerous papers and articles on local economic development, youth unemployment, cross national comparisons of labor market performance, savings and pension policy, Medicaid and Social Security, labor unions and workplace smoking regulations.
During the Bush years he was called a Fascist by the Left-Wing nut cases but Jonah Goldberg would argue that history is not on their side:
It’s fine to say that incestuous relationships between corporations and governments are fascistic. The problem comes when you claim that such arrangements are inherently right-wing. If the collusion of big business and government is right-wing, then FDR was a rightwinger. If corporatism and propagandistic militarism are fascist, then Woodrow Wilson was a fascist and so were the New Dealers. If you understand the right-wing or conservative position to be that of those who argue for free markets, competition, property rights, and the other political values inscribed in the original intent of the American founding fathers, then big business in Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany,
and New Deal America was not right-wing; it was left-wing, and it was fascistic. What’s more, it still is.
We’re now on fast-forward Fascism with Obama just getting started. Big Oil, big insurance, big health care, big education, big government. Indeed!
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March 31st, 2009 at 11:40 am
Henderson, Wagoner’s heir apparent at GM is Obama’s man…They have some interesting friends in common…Sidley Austin, LLP, ACORN and General Electric. GE is lobbying for the Green Bank which will be funded by $10 million dollars of taxpayer’s buck initially. See my post on The New CEO at GM…
It seems not only are we going to run GM but a new bamk too! Pretty scary thought!
April 1st, 2009 at 10:48 am
IS AMERICA ON THE ROAD TO FASCISM?
Mr. G. Richard Wagoner, the chairman and chief executive officer of General Motors, was recently forced to resign his position because of pressure from the Obama administration. He was told that if he didn’t leave, the Obama administration would not give General Motors any more federal bailout money. President Obama also told General Motors and the Chrysler Corporation that if they wanted more federal bailout money, they would have to shrink and refocus their businesses according to his (the federal government’s) wishes.
In our country’s history, there have been some limited instances of the federal government exercising some sort of control over private industry, but that was during wartime. The current assault on American capitalism by the Obama administration is unprecedented in both its scope and speed and should raise the red flag of alarm for all freedom-loving Americans.
World history has shown us that the implementation of strict government controls over private industries has been one of the first steps in the introduction of various forms of Fascism to formerly free countries. The practice of a government taking control of private industries was refined by Benito Mussolini in Italy in the 1920’s and it is called ‘corporatism.’
According to Wikipedia, political scientists use the term ‘corporatism’ to describe “a practice whereby a state, through the process of licensing and regulating officially-incorporated social, religious, economic, or popular organizations, effectively co-opts their leadership or circumscribes their ability to challenge state authority by establishing the state as the source of their legitimacy, as well as sometimes running them, either directly or indirectly.” Mussolini described it more simply when he said, “Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Some corporatist-style regimes of the 20th century included those of Benito Mussolini of Italy (1922-1945), Adolph Hitler of Germany (1933 to 1945); Francisco Franco of Spain (1936 to 1973); Juan Peron of Argentina (1943 to 1955) and even our own President Franklin Roosevelt (1933 to 1945) during the ‘New Deal.’ The Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and Peron regimes were brutal, totalitarian, Fascist dictatorships, but not all the regimes that had a corporatist foundation were fascist. The Roosevelt administration, despite its many faults, could not be described as fascist, but the ‘New Deal’ program was definitely corporatist.
Corporatism boils down to this: The government tells industry (and eventually labor unions) what to do and that they must do it for the supposed good of the country, or else their individual leaders will pay a price. Does this sound similar to what is happening to the auto industry today?
Where in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the President of the United States to fire the head of a major private corporation just because he disagrees with his management policies? Where in the U.S. Constitution does it authorize the President of the United States to decide what kind of cars a private company will build? or what kind of car I will drive? President Barack ‘Mussolini’ Obama is taking this country down a very dangerous road and a road that America has never taken before.
Confucius said “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Are the ‘corporatist’ policies of President Obama and his administration just the first steps of many in a move towards a government takeover of our major industries? Are these policies much different than those that Mussolini and Hitler initiated in the early stages of their rise to power?
With the Politburo in our expanding federal government now having the power to hire and fire the leaders of major private corporations and to tell the auto makers what cars they can produce, will they soon be telling Americans what kind of cars they can drive; how much money they can earn; where they can go to school, what sodas they can drink, what foods they can’t eat, where they can travel, what national ID card they must carry at all times and it will impose any number of other restrictions on them. Look at California, where the state legislature is currently considering banning black cars by 2012, for some bogus global warming reason.
Thomas Jefferson said: “A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have.” Americans must remember that we cannot fully enjoy our freedoms and liberties in America unless we keep our government limited. As our government grows and becomes more intrusive, as it is today, it is our freedoms and liberties that are becoming limited.
Welcome to the United Socialist States of America! If we continue on President Obama’s road to CHANGE (socialism), the American people will no longer be free. The question is: “Will we learn to accept our captivity at the hands of our new masters or will we be willing to do something about it?”
February 21st, 2010 at 2:04 pm
Obamas-GM Government Motors: An Introduction to Fascism
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Definition: Fascism: an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism) that historically focused on government-run industry and minimization of profit-driven competitive systems.