"Fascism By Any Other Name"

Butler Shaffer on LewRockwell.com:

If Jon Stewart and the gang at MSNBC are now determined to become the defenders of Obama in much the same way that Fox News and Rush Limbaugh were the electronic Swiss guards for George W. Bush, they ought to at least play according to the accepted definitions of words. The Obama protectors are incensed that tax-protesters would characterize modern government as "fascist." Stewart and the MSNBC crowd tried to create the impression that this term was used exclusively against Obama, carefully editing the words of tax-protester Cody Willard to serve that end. But as Willard, himself, has illustrated - with film of the entire interview - the fascist label was being applied to both Republicans and Democrats, as symptomatic of the corporate-state system that is the essence of fascism. Had any of these network babblers bothered to check a dictionary, they would have discovered that "fascism" is a system in which "title to property remains in private hands, but control is exercised by the state."

Some of the MSNBC gang also took offense at the suggestion that Obama's efforts to get his numerous departments to cut $100 million from their budgets was but a token gesture designed to deflect attention away from the $4 trillion (or more) dollars being shoveled out the back door to the corporate recipients of this bipartisan fascist plunder scheme. Are intelligent men and women - whose minds, apparently, are engaged in more productive pursuits than viewing MSNBC - to take comfort in knowing that Mr. Obama is telling his top officials: "for every $40,000 that your department spends, make certain you reduce spending by $1."

Maybe this is what the Obama campaign slogan was all about: "change" simply meant "chump change."