I feel, as others I know do, that the Federal Government already has too much power. The economy is definitely in a state of flux, as can be seen by simply watching the daily oil prices move. The roller coaster ride is not getting any better, with the bottom falling out on the recent buy of AIG considered to be the turning point of this country’s embrace of Fascism. It is without a doubt unConstitutional to think that the government is “of the government, by the government and for the government” but that is exactly what is happening. Free trade is going by the wayside with the inevitable fall of Wall Street as we know it. The big trading firms are systematically either turning into banks or being “secured” by the buying power of the Fed. The government is even demanding vested interests in these companies!
Let’s not forget about the US’s “War on Terror” as another interesting factor in all of this. We have the alibi to place troops anywhere in the world, to protect our sovereign “State”. The war in Iraq has been seen to be our way of protecting our source of oil. The “Patriot Act” has been known to allow the Federal Government to spy on anyone without the oversight of the judicial system (not that it isn’t corrupt either). The process of government taking control began with FDR’s “New Deal”, which was seen as communistic even in its day, but those in resistance to it were heralded as traitors and communists themselves. The thought of ending the Great Depression was attractive to almost everyone, but at what price have we paid? How much freedom did we sell then?
“In less than a year, the five largest U.S. brokerage firms — Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns — have collapsed, been acquired by a larger commercial bank or decided to become a bank.” – MarketWatch.com Now with the most recent problems of the Fed nationalizing “Fannie and Freddie”, by the President alone (without Congress’ vote), shows that the government can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, wherever it wants, to whomever it wants, without recourse. This all smacks of the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
The root of the problem is that right now, one man alone is in control. That one man is Henry Paulson, the Secretary of the Treasury. Sen. John McCain has already made it clear that he is “uncomfortable” with the current state of the bailout plan of our failing financial system. There is no oversight, once again, and he is quoted as saying in his recent town hall meeting in Scranton, Pennsylvania: “Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person”.
To be brief, in 1944 a noted journalist, John T. Flynn, saw the common factors of Hitler’s “state capitalism†and Mussloini’s “national socialism†to be:
1. the government had powers which were unrestrained;
2. a leader, who was the dictator, had absolute power;
3. the characteristics of capitalism were allowed to operate;
4. it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that the capitalist system functioned at top capacity;
5. government used public debt to stimulate the economy;
6. the economy operated through the principle of syndicalism;
7. militarism and imperialism were imbedded in the system as a necessary means to employ the masses and further the goals of the state.
These main items sound all-too-familiar. Does this make you, the reader, “uncomfortable” too? Then you have something in common with John McCain and myself.
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