Chip Berlet:
>But what I am arguing is that fascism is more than just top down
authoritarian rule, >and that the new scholarship on fascism, despite many
variations, is that for it >to come to state power, there needs to be a
sizeable autonomous middle class >populist movement clamoring for the regime
to be replaced.
Fascist or not, what if their regime is already in place? Clinton was impeached on pretty weak grounds. Then the mainstream media said things like: Gore will lose the popular vote but might get elected because of the electoral college. What happened instead? Bush got elected thanks to the Supreme Court.
Here is what I see as very sinister and very much outside of any democratic oversight (though much of the US bourgeoisie might be very supportive of it): basically you have foreign policy and trade policy in the US being made by and for the blocs of interests based around equity holdings (the power and huge valuations of which surely has a lot to do with the stock run ups of the 1990s in Anglo-American stock markets).
One monster of the stock boom, Enron, really came a cropper. But just look at the select group getting behind Bush on his Asia and Japan policy:
Prudential, GE Capital, Salomon Brothers, Newbridge Capital Corp. JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Ripplewood Holdings, and Carlyle Group (any surprises with this last one?) .
Here is how they are going to wreck Japan and Korea and plunge Asia into a new crisis.
First, they (Pres. Bush is their key rep, along with Sec. O'Neill) will push for the most drastic evaluation of the 'bad loans' at Japanese and Korean banks.
Second, they will take over many Japanese and Korean bank, insurance and real estate groups. This will also allow them to take over many other companies as well.
Third, they will try to make their new holdings immediately profitable. How? You only have to look at what they have done already to the companies they have already taken over. What loans haven't been written off and put onto government books will be bought at huge discount and sold for huge profits. They will also attempt to collect more on the loans that are still on the books, forcing even more business out of business or into their ownership and control
Fourth, they will institute US-style 'risk assessment' (though post-Enron one has to wonder what this means).
The results are going to be disastrous for Japan and Korea. Thousands of small and medium size companies are going to disappear over night. Many banks, whether or not the foreign equity groups want to buy them up, are going to be forcibly stripped of any future potential profits (except as firesale assets).
I believe this could trigger a true economic downturn into depression depths. The US has already got two crises going: the breakdown of the military-security state that allowed 9-11 to happen and some huge corporate bankruptcies with Enron being the worst. The current presidency's answer to both would seem to be: the bigger and bolder the lie the better. We'll bomb Afghanistan and increase military spending. And we'll lead US business interests into complete globalization of 'finance'.
The two might well be related, since market turmoil exposes overleveraged companies with totally bogus business models (not to mention Bush family and Bin Laden family investments overlapping).
It may well be that the interests behind the huge holdings I've listed above are urgently seeking the takeover of Japan's economy because their whole dynamic trajectory is built around the need to show ever higher profits to justify ever higher stock valuations so they can keep doing what they do. For the most part, these aren't companies that innovate to make things. They don't build new factories either. They put together financial packages to acquire. They'll justify what they do because it will be the 'pain' Japan and Korea have to go through before the 'gain'. According to their ideology, they will make Japan and Korean 'efficient' and 'innovative'.
If you doubt what I say here, what do you think Pres. Bush means on the eve of a trip to Japan when he says he and the P.M. of Japan agree on the necessity of 'drastic' reform in the banking sector? The gold rush has begun and Pres. Carlyle is on the way with an action plan.
Charles Jannuzi