The fence post caucus makes itself heard

The word fascism is being hurled around. Well it should. We've lived under a regime of corporate fascism for the better part of a decade. What has happened to our country fits the definition of fascism perfectly. I don't mean the definition made up by the withered fruits on the tree of democracy that have still to negotiate a grade-school primer. Or those brighter lights who change the definition of fascism so that what they do doesn't fit what is globally recognized as what defines fascism.

The corporate fascism we've lived under finds tremendous profits in going to war. The fact that the war is one of the major driving forces behind our deficit does not matter. They get their money. The fact that 4,300 vital, young Americans have been killed in a totally fabricated and useless war in Iraq does not matter. The corporations who feed on that war get their money. Just look at Halliburton. If your blood pressure can stand it. Killing young people and making the machinery of war has huge profits. And huge profits are the stuff our country is built on. Put more of our soldiers in the line of fire, connive some bidless contracts, and watch your stocks soar. The corporations get their money. That's all that matters. Oh, and they call it patriotism.

When corporations lure our defense department into dangerous waters, hold it hostage, and dictate a price for trying to extract it, we call it enterprise. When teen-age Somalis do the same thing, we call it piracy.

And then there is this health-care business. Much money can be made from sickness and death. Not much money can be made from good health. We have a very significant number of people who cannot afford health care insurance. As Paul Krugman points out, "Every wealthy country other than the United States guarantees essential care to all its citizens. " But that's not the American way. It doesn't make corporations any money.

The proposal for a public option as a means to provide health-insurance coverage to everyone is called socialism and an intrusion by government into private business. It's okay if the government subsidizes insurance companies with $60 billion a year. "Leaving private insurance companies the job of controlling the costs of health care is like making a pyromaniac the fire chief," said Rep., Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

It's all okay as long as the corporations get their money. That has become the American way.

To preserve America, we need to leave people free to get sick and die and get killed in wars like Iraq and contribute to the economy. For the corporations. That's become the American way.

So, let us have no talk of a public option which would make it harder for corporations to compete for their money, subvert the corpoprate pursuit of happiness, and kill the profit potential of sickness, death, and dying.

Instead let us celebrate the great tradition of falsehood and ignorance that is so undeniably the American way. In god and corporations we trust.