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http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-09-04/martin-armstrong-asks-has-western-society-become-fascist Martin Armstrong Asks "Has Western Society Become Fascist?" 09/04/2014 16:33 -0400 Central Banks Corruption Italy Martin Armstrong MSNBC Nationalism Ukraine inShare Submitted by Martin Armstrong via Armstrong Economics, The entire problem we face going ahead stems from the very idea of Karl Marx that government is capable of managing the economy either through communism or autocratic-socialism where the state dictates to the economy under the pretense of caring for the people, that has truly become a derivative of fascism where the state comes first. This is even reflected in the conviction rate that has risen from 72% in the 1970s to virtually 99% today eliminating fair trials. We also see it taking shape in the militarization of the police that actually do not protect society, but the state from the people. Police have been converted to IRS agents on wheels to raise money by abusing the people for every possible type of traffic violation. In Princeton, New Jersey, they even have signs in a parking lot “park head in”. If you back into a parking spot you get a ticket. The actor Alec Baldwin was arrested for rising his bicycle against traffic. Who knew you could even be arrested for such a thing. This is autocratic-socialism where the state pretends its abuse of the people is for their benefit when in fact there is always a profit that falls to them like FATCA and the NSA really looking for money – not terrorists. Savers are being exploited by government under the pretense of managing the economy. You see many retired people back in the work force doing service jobs because they can no longer earn income on their savings for life. Savers receive no return presently on their life savings because Central banks punish savers and subsidize the debtors assuming that borrowing is required for economic growth. This core assumption that government even possesses the mental capabilities to manage the economy is extremely dangerous for it then creates a fascist state where society is supposed to worship the state as all-knowing and caring where its survival takes precedent over the individual. This is reflected in calling Snowden a traitor. How is it possible that someone who exposes illegal activity in government faces life in prison? Such legal positions are only possible in a fascist state where it is not We the People, it is the State Comes First. This is actually part of the political-economic cycle where the arrogance of the state officials leads them to assume it is their well-being and power that is important and must be defended against the people. The people become the great unwashed and the state rises confusing itself as the embodiment of the nation and country. Thomas Paine pointed this out in his Common Sense. Then too, like Snowden, he was an enemy of the state was to be hanged. Thomas Jefferson was also regarded as a traitor and the king sent an entire army to his house to capture Jefferson and hang him. He was warned and escaped watching the army surround his home from the woods on the hill. Even if we go back to the Roman Republic we find Cicero also addresses the “arrogance of officialdom”. This is simply a problem that has plagued human society since the dawn of time. It is the arrogance of government that forgets the PEOPLE are the nation, not politicians and bureaucrats. Consequently, in their blind arrogance, the political powers in Washington would kill Snowden for exposing their corruption. They would love to behead him, but restraint themselves only to pretend they are noble Obama has seen his polls collapse to 39% favorable. Within that, are simply the ignorant who would vote for a democrat simply because they hate republicans. Of course, there are republicans who also do not understand and just hate democrats just because they exist. TV stations like FOX and MSNBC should be banned and we need the old law returned where the press MUST present a fair and balance view instead of this war of propaganda. For those who do not know the history of the FCC, it was once called the Fairness Doctrine which was a policy of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, that required the holders of broadcast licenses to present controversial issues of public importance with both sides and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable and balanced. The FCC eliminated the Doctrine in 1987, and in August 2011 the FCC formally removed the language that implemented the Doctrine. We have been subjected and bombarded with nothing but propaganda ever since. MSNBC and programs like the Ed Show would NEVER have a Republican on or EVER say a kind word about any Republican. This is not press – it is no different from the notorious Pravda (Truth) of the old Soviet Union. Obama actually had the arrogance to tell the American people as reported on January 17, 2014, that they must give up their civil liberties to secure the existence of the state – that is precisely fascism. Obama said the American NSA and military power worldwide was more important than individual civil rights. Whenever people must surrender rights to support the state that falls in the category of fascism. One common definition of fascism focuses on three basic concepts: anti-liberalism, anti-communism and anti-conservatism. Its basic tenet is a nationalist authoritarian state with goals of creating a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture. This is precisely what we have devolved into. We now have a form of political behavior that is marked by obsessive preoccupation with the state’s political power arguing the community is at risk because of terrorism so everyone must now prove who they are to travel right down to taking your shoes off and be exposed to accumulative dangerous radiation all because we are victims of unreasonable fanatic hatred groups and cults. But these hate-groups hate the political image of America created by the arrogance of officialdom. Our dominance by this new authoritarian-fascist state is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism that some believe only came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. This concept of European fascism was influenced by national syndicalism that they only attribute to originating in Italy in the immediate aftermath of World War I. This combined more typically right-wing positions with elements of left-wing politics, in opposition to liberalism, Marxism, and traditional conservatism. Although fascism is usually placed on the far right on the traditional left–right spectrum, it is hard to really place it left or right because if your move to the extreme left or right you reach political agreement with minor differences. The goals of the fascists were not much different from those infecting our society today. The primary goal was to manage the economy and to direct it according to the benefit of the state. This is why savers are being punished today for the benefit of debtors, which includes the state. Keep interest rates suppressed and the state reduces its costs. That is the primary goal intermixed with pumping up the economy so that tax revenues rise. The fascists of Italy sought to unify their nation through an authoritarian state that promoted the mass mobilization of the national community and were characterized by having leadership that initiated a revolutionary political movement aiming to reorganize the nation along principles according to fascist ideology. Fascist movements shared certain common features, including the veneration of the state, a devotion to a strong leader, and an emphasis on ultranationalism and militarism. We are seeing the dominance of the NSA and the militarization of the police that was supposed to be civil. These are all traits that are highly dangerous historically and reflect the arrogance of officialdom. Fascism typically involves expansion of the state power on every level, which includes war and imperialism that serves as a means to achieve national rejuvenation and veneration. Right now in Ukraine, the people are told the state is at war and that comes first and they will have to wait for political reform. Fascism truly asserts that stronger nations have the right to expand their territory by displacing weaker nations. We are seeing this as a trait in both the USA and the EU not to forget Russia. Consequently, fascist ideology consistently invokes the primacy of the state. We see this both with Obama’s defense of the NSA and economically with the central banks attempting to “manage” the economy according to the theories of Marx and Keynes that the state possesses the right and capacity to manipulate the economy. They have been unable to prove that ability even once for they are far too corrupt to even manage anything in an unbiased manner. Unfortunately, governments routinely punish savers to support debtors all for the benefit of the state – not society and certainly not the savers. There are economists who disparage the spread between the rich and the poor without explanation. The “rich” are not getting “richer” from salaries – they make that money through investment. If you do not invest – you obviously cannot make more than a salary.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-10/guest-post-9-plagues-are-collapsing-capitalism 9 Plagues That Are Collapsing Capitalism Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/10/2013 18:28 -0400 Let me be blunt: Our capitalist system is approaching failure. Or, perhaps better said: Our marginally capitalist, partly-free market systems are approaching a massive collapse. Not because of what capitalism is, mind you, but because the powers that be have bastardized it. Capitalism can bear many distortions and abuses, but it is not indestructible. And, make no mistake, the ‘capitalist’ system we have today has been massively corrupted, so much so that it’s sagging under the load... and will continue to do so until the proverbial straw breaks its back. The 9 Plagues 1. The average producer is being stripped bare. In the US, for example, the total take of taxes has not risen dramatically, but fewer and fewer people actually pay them. There was a big uproar during the last election cycle over the fact that 47% of working-aged Americans paid no income tax. That means that the half who do work (read suckers) are paying the whole. And more than that, they are also paying for the many millions who are on food stamps and disability. Producers are being punished and abused, made into chumps. 2. Thrift is essentially impossible. I’ve explained this in detail previously, but a hundred years ago, it was possible for an average person to accumulate money. Mechanics, carpenters, and shop owners slowly filled their bank accounts with gold and silver. It was common for them to make business loans and to retire comfortably. But now, all of our surplus is drained away to capital cities, where it is poured down the drains of welfare, warfare, and political lunacy. Money has been removed from the hands that made it, and moved into the hands of non-producers, liars, and destroyers. 3. In 2008, US federal government regulations cost an estimated $1.75 trillion, an amount equal to 14 percent of US national income. Let me restate: Simply complying with regulations costs American businesses more than $1,750,000,000,000 (that’s $1.75 Trillion) every year. This, again, is money taken out of production and wasted on political lunacy. 4. Small businesses are being squeezed out. Take a look at the two graphs below, and understand that as small businesses are squeezed out, only the large corporations remain. These days, only the largest and best-connected entities are able to get their concerns dealt with (by the politicians they fund). Small operations are cut off from the redress of their grievances and are crushed by taxes and regulation. And don’t forget the comments of Mussolini: Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power. While there may be no dictator, state/corporate partnerships are taking over commerce in the West. 5. The military industrial complex is out of control. Their lobbying, fear-mongering, and spending can only be characterized as obscene. Dwight Eisenhower was right when he warned us about this in 1960. It is sad beyond measure that so few Americans took him seriously. Trillions of dollars and millions of productive lives are being spent on the war machines of the West. Never forget that wars destroy massively and produce nothing. 6. All the Western nations now feature large enforcer classes, composed of bureaucrats, law enforcement units, inspectors, and so on. In the US alone this amounts to several million people – none of whom produce anything, and all of whom restrain producers from producing. Millions of people are paid to restrain commerce. 7. We now have a very large financial class in which blindly aggressive people make millions of dollars. The problem is that finance is not productive. It may allocate money in beneficial ways (though it often allocates mainly to itself), but it doesn’t actually produce anything. At present, the allocators get the big bucks, and the producers get scraps. 8. The modern business ethic has become about acquisition only. In more enlightened times, it was also about creating benefit in the world, or at least creating newer and better things. Mere grasping is an insufficient philosophy for capitalism; it leads to dark places. 9. Every nation on the planet is using play money and forcing their inhabitants to use their play money. Moreover, they have super-empowered a small class of Central Banking Elites, who make fortunes on their currency monopolies, and who are entirely unknown to the producers who unwillingly (and unknowingly) purchase jets and yachts for them. Our money systems have brought back aristocracies; a class that is both hidden and immensely powerful. So What’s Next? That’s up to the producers. Everything hinges upon them. The game, as it is, depends entirely on them being willing to accept abuse. All that is necessary to fix this is for the producers to stop being willing victims. Simple, I know, but there is a problem with such a sensible idea: The producers are convinced that their role in life is only to struggle and obey. Modern producers believe that the ruling classes have a legitimate right to tell them how much of their money they are entitled to keep, which charity causes they’ll be forced to contribute to, which features their car is required to have, and much, much more. Why? Simply because those other people are in “high positions,” and they (the producers) are in “low positions.” An evil assumption has been planted in their minds: It is right for important people to order me around. The productive class holds all the real power, but they are nearly devoid of moral confidence. So, they are abused without end. Right now, a parasitic ethic rules the West and will continue to rule so long as producers play the part of the suckers. If this continues, what remains of capitalism will grind to a halt and will be overrun by a Neo-Fascist arrangement – not the dictator and swastika variety – but one where the state and powerful business interests merge into one unstoppable and insatiable force. On the other hand, if ever the producers wake up from their moral coma and reject the role of doormat, they will build a society embodying the ethics of production. It almost sounds impossible, I know. But it is has happened before and could happen again. It’s up to us.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-23/america%E2%80%99s-economy-being-sovietized Is America’s Economy Being Sovietized? 05/23/2013 19:29 -0400 Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog, The foundation of the Soviet model of trade and investment was centralization under the guise of "universal public ownership". The entire goal of communism in general was not to give more social and political power to the people, but to extinguish alternative options and focus power into the hands of a select few. The process used to reach this end result can vary, but the goal always remains the same. In most cases, such centralization begins with economic hegemony, and it is in our fiscal structure that we have the means to see the future. Sovietization in our financial life will inevitably lead to sovietization in our political life. Does the U.S. economy’s path resemble the Soviet template exactly? No. And I’m sure the very suggestion will make the average unaware free market evangelical froth at the mouth. However, as I plan to show, the parallels in our fundamentals are disturbing; the reality is that true free markets in America died a long time ago. The Tyranny Of Planned Economy The characteristics of a free market society defy the use of centralized planning. Adam Smith’s original concept of free market trade stood as an antithesis to what was then referred to as “mercantilism,” a select few “joint stock companies” (corporations) monopolizing production while using government ties to destroy any new competition. Unfortunately, there are to this day economists and politicians who believe that corporate centralization is a “natural” function of a free market. In reality, corporate monopolies are an unnatural creation of collusion between governments and big-money interests designed to suffocate any entrepreneurship outside of their sphere of influence. Over time, as we now see in the United States today, government power and corporate power begin to hybridize, until one can barely be distinguished from the other. The bottom line is that you cannot have planned structures, monopolized production or controlled capital flow within an economy and still claim it to be a “free market. There are no exceptions to this rule. The Soviet system was the ultimate in centralization. Every aspect of financial life was dictated by the communist government, from industrial input and output to investment to food production and rationing to wages and retail prices. Some people might argue that this structure is a far cry from what we now have in the United States, but let’s look at the fundamentals. Controlled Money Creation One of the primary tenets of The Communist Manifesto was the creation of a central bank meant to keep tight controls over currency issuance. The existence of a central bank immediately disrupts any chance of a true free market. Central banking without competition allows an oligarchy, whether corporate or political or a meshing of the two, to manipulate interest rates as well as adjust prices through inflation. Lending standards (which the central bank determines arbitrarily) built on fractional reserve banking opens the door to murky debt instruments and toxic financial products that are further used to either fabricate a “high” standard of living (as we saw in the U.S. in the 90s and early 2000s) or execute a bubble implosion causing a lower standard of living (as the U.S. is experiencing today). Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve through subversive collusion between banking interests and corrupt politicians in 1913, America has not had a free market system. From that point forward, every boom and bust, every interest rate disaster, every inflationary increase in prices has been scientifically engineered. Dominance Of Industry Soviet controls on industrial output are legendary. Every part of the resource allocation process became subject to bureaucracy, and this led to stunted manufacturing growth as well as a culture of misrepresented economic data. In the United States, the establishment has taken a slightly different approach but with the same end result. Heavy taxation on business ventures within the U.S. against entrepreneurs not lucky enough to run in elitists circles has erased incentives for manufacturing experiments within our borders. In the meantime, members of the corporate glee club receive government subsidization while they simultaneously outsource industrial projects to Third World nations. Controlled industry within communist Russia was meant to force the population to depend upon the government for every means of survival. In the United States, dependency on government has been replaced by interdependency on the globalized model in general. Necessities are now compartmentalized, and only select international businesses with cooperation from government have the ability to bring all the pieces together to keep our domestic economy running smoothly. Our society has been so distanced from self-sufficiency that many people now consider the globalist dynamic indispensable. The next step in this degradation of free market industry is the introduction of "public works projects" by the federal government, which gives the illusion that job creation through centralization is possible. This is the same strategy used in the Soviet Union and to this day, socialists still argue that the communist design for industrial expansion was "effective". In truth, the soviet public works plan with all its trains and transits and bridges and buildings was an absolute failure, as the collapse of the country made clear. Tax funded infrastructure is no replacement for free market invention, and at bottom, no public works enterprise can be undertaken without the government first stealing capital from one area in order to fund another. Governments can never and will never create wealth or jobs. They can only present the semblance of economic progress while siphoning wealth away from private citizens. Bureaucracy And Food Production U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulations, based on dubious junk science and often instituted on high without congressional oversight, further erode business possibilities, especially for young companies as well as private agriculture, while giving free reign to elitist entities like Monsanto, an organization the government actually PROTECTS through specialized legislation making it nearly immune to civil litigation. While farms in the United States are not exactly “controlled” by the Federal government in the Soviet sense, many of them are subsidized through welfare on the condition that they grow only particular kinds of crops, raise particular animals or grow nothing at all. This subsidization is an indirect form of price control, creating engineered scarcity or abundance. At the same time, agricultural empires like Monsanto make private farm ownership increasingly difficult by using their government protection to harass and squeeze out independent food producers. This destabilization of private resource management by common citizens has culminated in the passage of President Barack Obama’s executive order National Defense Resource Preparedness, which allows under a “national emergency” (which the President can declare for any reason) the confiscation of any and all private resources, including farms and businesses, to be redistributed by the government to ensure security conditions. This is the Stalinist model, pure and simple. Centralized Control Of Investment We now know that since at least 2008, the U.S. stock market, often presented by the mainstream as a paragon of free market prowess, has actually been propped up and inflated by Federal Reserve fiat. Both former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and current branch head Richard Fisher have openly admitted in separate news interviews that the central bank spends considerable energy in “artificially sustaining” equity markets. This has been done, I suspect, with full knowledge of the U.S. Treasury and the Obama Administration. The Soviet model for investment was to remove all uncertainties from their domestic markets, often in the name of preventing manipulation by “speculators.” The speculator rationale was generally a distraction away from the attempt to dictate the natural forces of supply and demand. The idea was that if the government could dismiss legitimate demand or lack of demand or hide excess supply or lack of supply, the perception of a balanced economy could be conjured for the population. This led to strict redirection of capital to areas where manipulation was needed to artificially pump up (or deflate) a particular part of the economy. The government became the sole investor of the Soviet system and, thus, the sole determinant of the success or failure of any particular market. This is EXACTLY what is going on in America today, in what mainstream economists now call "the new normal". Federal Reserve fiat is being printed and dumped into every financial mechanism that supposedly maintains our country’s fiscal health, including stocks, Treasuries and municipals, while trade volume remains low and private investment disappears. The Federal government now owes its very existence to the continued support of central bank dollars, and the Dow Jones does as well. If this is not the Soviet ideal, then I don’t know what is. Labor Oppression, Dismal Living Standards And Government Dependency Poverty levels within the United States are at record highs. Nearly 50 million Americans are now dependent on government-subsidized food stamps for their survival. Nearly 100 million Americans receive welfare (or Social Security) in one form or another from the establishment. That is almost one-third of our entire population that relies on the system for at least a part of their sustainment. If Obamacare is fully realized, millions more Americans will also be conditioned to become dependent on government-designated healthcare providers. The point is not to pass judgment on those people who get money or services from the government, only to make clear our progression away from freedom and into centralized servitude. For a Soviet structure to thrive, poverty among common citizens has to be institutionalized. Dependency requires a constant state of desperation. In America, this has been accomplished through a combination of inflated prices and reduced wages in conjunction with the destruction of labor options. At the height of the communist machine in Russia, employment was ample; but the kind of employment one could apply for was dependent on bureaucratic red tape and availability based on a worker’s record. Only the academic “elite” within the government-run cesspools of Soviet universities and military schools had their choice of employment; even then, they were often pressured into particular specialized fields, depending on the kind of labor the state needed done at that particular time. In the United States anyone can certainly aspire to do whatever job he hopes to do. But again, options have been removed economically; and the same academic elitism pervasive in Soviet Union labor markets exists in America today. In a recent installment of his weekly radio show, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said it was better for “so-so” high school students to pursue a career in plumbing rather than go to college. Though I rarely agree with Bloomberg on anything, my initial reaction was surprise at his willingness to steer American youth away from university indoctrination centers. However, upon further examination, it became clear that Bloomberg was not trying to save the next generation time and money. Instead, he is promoting a shift in the labor dynamic of the U.S. economy toward a Soviet-style foundation. Bloomberg knows well that the U.S. labor market will never return to its former glory, partly because he is a supporter of the globalist policies that ruined our economy in the first place. Instead of suggesting ways to reverse the trend of progressive poverty and the lack of high-end jobs that engender ingenuity and invention, elitists like Bloomberg are saying “forget your dreams and get used to being a drone.” In a 70% service and retail economy, where job availability is increasingly degraded and independent business is discouraged, Americans will have two choices: Excel in the world of federally funded and propagandized education and sell your soul just for a chance at obtaining a professional career in a field of influence, or, settle for the leftovers. Modern socialists often sing the praises of the soviet educational model for raising the literacy rates of once agricultural and isolated people to 98%, but what they fail to mention is that this literacy was only encouraged in order to create a more efficient servant class that was easier to propagandize. The U.S. is moving into a similar paradigm. For some people, being a plumber is a fine thing; but it should not be the only thing. In a true free market, a smart man can make his own way, even if he does not conform to the ideologies of the educational racket. In a Sovietized market, a smart man is prohibited from accomplishing anything unless he conforms to the ideologies of the educational racket. Some people may respond that the centralization conspiracy within the American economy is an obvious thing today, and that there is little need to expose it any further. I would point out that centralization is not the only issue here; the guidebook by which that centralization is being implemented is also important. This has all been done before on the other side of the world only decades ago, and the end result was a horrifying cascade of social enslavement and mechanically inclined death. In the end, the Soviet economy was so utterly fraudulent that the final breakdown of the system came as a complete surprise to many in political and economic fields of the era. This is what happens when governments control all source data for financial statistics; transparency dies and collapse creeps in. Centralization is an absolute affront to the natural laws of supply and demand and an oppressive hindrance to the innovation that humanity thrives on. Such systems require constant theft from the populace in the form of reduced employment, reduced wages, reduced resources, increased taxes, increased price controls and a highly ignorant citizenry in order to function even for a short time. Sadly, the United States is well on its way in all of these areas, emulating a poisonous fiscal system and lending itself to a global economic tyranny in which all of us work much harder, for much less, and all for a government that seeks to use our very labor against us.