Category Archives: Fascism

Updated: Toyoda Vs. Torquemada

Business, Fascism, Political Economy, Politics, Regulation, Republicans, Technology

The excerpt is from “Toyoda Vs. Torquemada,” my latest WND.COM column:

“Mr. Akio Toyoda, the president of Toyota, could have achieved the brevity much-admired in his culture (and mine) had he responded thus to the invitation to appear before the congressional committee investigating the recall of eight million of his vehicles:

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s invitation to Mr. Toyoda: ‘Dear Mr. Toyoda, we will be sitting between 11:00 AM and 5:00PM on February the 24th.’

Toyoda’s putative Reply: ‘Akio Toyoda likewise.’

To complete the one-two punch, Mr. Toyoda’s second in command, Yoshimi Inaba, president of Toyota Motors North America, ought to have sent each of his would-be Democrat and Republican inquisitors a short note, in large typeface, preferably with pop-up pictures.

In it, he ought to have reminded them that his company employs over 170,000 of their countrymen; has invested billions in capitalizing its factories, and is philanthropic at a time when Americans are desperate for charity.

… Mention the unseemly specter of a government—the owner de jure of General Motors and Chrysler—strong-arming the competition, his own Free-Market Motors.

A well-worded barb about the embarrassing, timely FBI raid on a Toyota auto parts operation in Detroit would have been apropos as well. Tell them, Mr. Toyoda, that you are doing business in a country where the competition is backed by the power of the police.

In closing, Toyoda might have reminded the overweening House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform that his bosses are Toyota’s customers, and that it is to them alone that he’d be answering.

Back on terra firma, … ”

Read the complete column, “Toyoda Vs. Torquemada.”

And do read my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society.

The Second Edition features bonus material. Get your copy (or copies) now!

Update (Feb. 27): By the by, this household has never contemplated buying an American car. Gutless gas guzzlers, mostly. If the US made cars comparable in performance and economy to those of Toyota or VW—then sure. American cars are really ugly too, except for the Corvette and mustang. The first is a good car, except that it has some old-engine style oddity that requires yearly tweaking, or so I am told. The Mustang is completely gutless compared to this pocket rocket.

Obama Rejects Socialism Sobriquet

Barack Obama, Communism, Democrats, Fascism, Political Economy, Republicans, Socialism

The truth is that Republicans, who keep pelting BO with the socialism sobriquet, have advanced the same interventionist principles, but because Republicans, pols and pundits, do not know how to define socialism, they get away with claiming their party’s Third-Way interventionism is qualitatively different to that of the Dem’s.

However, the species of socialism advanced by both parties exists on a continuum; it differs quantitatively only.

MSNBC:

President Barack Obama launched a vigorous defense of his economic agenda Wednesday, rejecting critics who call his policies “socialism” and insisting he aims to boost U.S. competitiveness abroad.

His aim He proclaim has “less to do with big government or small government than it does smart government.”

From “GOP Sticks With Karl (Marx)”:

“Strictly speaking, socialism implies state ownership of the means of economic production. But … ‘state-directed sharing of the wealth’ is also part of the socialist scheme. A scheme both Republicans and Democrats have overseen energetically and with matching commitment.

The American economic system is a mixture of free-market capitalism and socialism, with dollops of fascism added for good measure. ‘Fascism,’ wrote the Tannehills in The Market for Liberty, is a system in which the government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation.’ …

A great deal of this boils down to deceptive semantics—and a society that has accepted the attendant, underlying, socialistic precepts.”

Fascism Rising

Criminal Injustice, Fascism, Iran, Law, Republicans

We live in a country where snowballing a “timid” city snowplow driver and a police officer’s unmarked vehicle is a felony punishable by five years in prison, and a maximum fine of $2,500, mens rea be damned.

If you absent-mindedly and fleetingly cross a passenger screening checkpoint to plant a kiss on your girlfriend at an airport occupied by the American federales, you will be arraigned after a nation-wide manhunt. Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a Democrat, promised to put the next such love-sick pup in jail for ten years. The lout is legislating to that end.

Just how pervasive is fascistic America? Search BAB under the categories “Criminal Injustice, Fascism, Law.” Ditto the articles archive, where you can reread “Don’t Tase Me, Big Bro, They’re Coming For Your Kids! Tasers ‘R’ Us, Remember Reno! ‘Mad Dog’ Sneddon Vs. Michael Jackson,” and others.

As the state and its stooges strain sights on Iran, let us, of the reality based community, “Fret About Our Own Tyrants.”

Support The Salahis

Barack Obama, Crime, Criminal Injustice, Fascism, Law, Pop-Culture, The Zeitgeist

Tareq and Michaele Salahi, two reality TV “stars,’ crashed—or livened up—President Obama’s first White House state dinner. The two harmless interlopers, who dared to gaze upon their celestial leader,” are being subjected to an inquisition by the People’s posturing, sneering, fascistic “representatives.”

CNS: “Tareq and Michaele invoked their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination Wednesday, refusing to answer a House committee’s questions about their uninvited appearance at a state dinner.”

Good for them. Apparently, the White House is open only to visits from inner-city kids.

“Crashing a Trashy House”: On the night of the offense, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue “was packed with nasty, noisome parasites. An extra pair would have made no difference. Quite the contrary: There’s something apropos about a couple of reality-show exhibitionists, who themselves ‘have left an extensive paper trail in federal bankruptcy and state court filings,’ brazenly elbowing their way into a party of ponces.”