American Fascism

For the first time, I encountered a Lyndon LaRouche follower today, protesting and attempting to attract listeners outside the local post office. I had never heard of these folks before. But they had posters condemning the financial bailout and the leadership of Bush and Pelosi, so I thought I'd have a conversation with them. I was fairly astonished by what I heard. The guy tried to persuade me that what we really needed was a more productive society (probably true), so we should have the government begin directing production along the lines of public works like the old TVA from the Depression era (positively insane). I told the fellow I was a Ron Paul guy and didn't know how I felt about somebody like Obama directing the economy. Somehow, he thought this was an endorsement of what he was trying to tell me, and asked for money and a signature, which I politely declined. Private ownership of business, public direction of the economy... can somebody name for me what political philosophy this represents? Anyone? That's right: fascism. Ironically, one of his big selling points was that without FDR's initiatives and direction, we would all be speaking German today. I suppose we were all supposed to avoid becoming German fascists by adopting fascism ourselves to defeat them. Quite logical. Why would you use this line of reasoning on a Ron Paul supporter? The only reason I bring this up is that I can quite imagine how his selling points must sound to less well informed folks today. They don't like the bailout, they don't like the leadership, or the government, or the direction our country looks to be headed. They want to see some justice. They want to see people work for a living instead of preying on older folks retirement accounts and aspirations of home-ownership. It probably sounds pretty appealing. Put America back to work again. Make her a productive industrial superpower, like in the good old days. After all, with the nationalization of Fannie and Freddie and the virtual nationalization of the banking industry, isn't that pretty much what we are doing? Maybe we really are headed towards fascism. Maybe I just had a conversation with our future president...