Shimmering Skull

I've been playing around with GIFs a bit lately, here's a shimmering, chromatic skull -

It's A Big Club...

It's a big club and you ain't in it.

It has been interesting to see people losing their collective shit over Trump's latest, successful attempts to get attention.  “He's gone full fascist!” they cry. I've got news for you. America has been creeping toward fascism for a very long time, and fascism goes beyond just the Nazis, fascism's most extreme form. Yes, Trump speaks like a fascist. His rhetoric is racist, xenophobic, and certainly doesn't help the view that America hates Muslims. He is human garbage. On the other hand, all he CAN do right now is talk. He will NEVER be President. He is despised by the GOP establishment. They hate him as much as many of you do. Maybe more. Regardless of primary votes, rest assured, the Republican Party will lie, cheat and steal to make sure he is not their nominee.  They will install Cruz or Rubio, who by now are starting to look like reasonable centrists.  Hell, Trump may be doing them a favor.

So while Trump talks a good fascist game (and exposes a horrible undercurrent of supporters), Obama governs as a fascist. His administration continues the George Bush policies of an unstable Middle East almost as if Jr were given another couple of terms.  Obama and Hillary, as his Secretary of State helped, destabilize Syria and Libya, and created the conditions for the Islamic State to climb up from the foothold given to them by Bush. The refugee crisis out of the Middle East is directly tied to these policies as well.

Obama's recent comments about Assad in Syria seem to suggest he thinks the Bush Doctrine is pretty neat. Unilateral regime change (while creating the illusion of some sort of coalition) is still the core of American Middle East policy.  This approach guarantees chaos, violence and death for years to come. Mostly Muslim deaths.  I'm sure Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and all the other defense contractors are perfectly fine with this, as they make the hardware that gets used in these stupid, endless wars. Obama's drone policies have also been proven to contribute to radicalization, and Islamic State recruitment. This is a policy he could end today, literally with the stroke of a pen, but he does not.  Arming 'moderate rebels' is a colossally stupid move, as those rebels are anything but. It is a recipe for blowback, creating the conditions for would-be Bin Ladens, and inspiring further acts like Paris and San Bernadino.  These 'rebels' merely want to rule from the top of a mountain of skulls in Syria instead of Assad or Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and they will use Western support to get there.

Obama in deed and action has killed thousands of Muslims, and will kill thousands more. Hillary, almost certainly your next President, has said we need boots on the ground in Syria, to oust Islamic State AND Assad, and with no clue as to what happens next. (Hint: Look at Iraq and Afghanistan, and millions more dead) Maybe none of that matters as long as the prices of Defense Stocks stays high, and those companies keep pumping out Predator Drones and Hellfire Missiles, lining the pockets of their shareholders.

Fascism has important economic distinctions as well.  Big Banks, Auto Companies, and Airlines all managed to socialize their losses and privatize their profits when they were deemed 'too big to fail'. This is essentially fascist economics. Bush started it, Obama continued it with nary a hiccup.  Bill Clinton used to talk about 'Third Way' economics, the mix of socialism and capitalism.  Also referred to as ‘mixed economies’. GW Bush and Obama both love the phrase  public-private partnership which is the same mentality.  They both loved to subsidize their pet, politically connected companies, and when the money disappears from Enron, Halliburton, Solyndra, ad nauseum the taxpayer gets robbed, and the executives get golden parachutes.  Obamacare isn't socialist as much as lefties and righties would both love it to be. It is fascist.  It forces the consumer to buy, not state or government insurance, but coverage from private companies. Crony capitalism to its very core. Fascist.

Fascism also requires some sort of nationalist fervor.  Try watching or attending a sporting event some time and see the worship of the police and military on constant display. The U.S. is approaching 20 Trillion dollars in debt, and we have the military paying the NFL $5 million dollars to 'honor' them. Propaganda, and you paid for it. 'Thank you for your service,' is the robotic mantra spoken to anyone wearing a uniform and police and soldiers are held up as above criticism by many.  Meanwhile drone operators refer to children as 'Fun-Sized Terrorists' right before incinerating them and cops execute unarmed people in the street and get paid vacation for their trouble. If there is a camera rolling they may have to take the time off unpaid. They do this with surplus military gear, handed down by the Feds.  Police look more like soldiers now, than 'peace officers', and see themselves warriors...War on Drugs, War on Crime and everyone is suspect.  The militarization of police really took off in earnest in the early 90s under Bush the First and Bill Clinton. More creeping fascism.  Plus, near total surveillance by the NSA and CIA of domestic communication. No warrant, this is War dammit!

Fascism never looks the same from implementation to implementation. Hitler's fascism was it's most virulent form, Mussolini's a little less so. Spanish and South American fascism each had their own distinct attributes. The fascinating thing about the American Brand is how the left and right prop up the different components. The Militarism comes from the conservative/center right while the central planning is largely driven by the center left. The American flavor is what I, and others, have called Soft Fascism. It is centrist, but still Authoritarian. It has learned the lessons of the more virulent strains. It maintains elections among a small, select group while trumpeting our choices. Two parties who behave as one in almost all regards (economic central planning, foreign policy, corruption) and create the appearance of a vast gulf of differences (guns, abortion and other wedge issues at the edges of policy). They nudge the needle almost imperceptibly one way or the other on the wedge issues, and stoke the passions of those most passionate believers in those areas while governing everywhere else with almost seamless continuity (War, Empire, Cronyism, making themselves rich at your expense). Meanwhile the keep anyone with any real ideas of change on the fringes or shut them out of the process entirely. See ballot access laws designed to discourage third parties.

 “The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can ‘throw the rascals out’ at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy” 

- Caroll Quigley from his book Tragedy and Hope. 

Bill Clinton was a student of Quigley's at Georgetown, spoke highly of Quigley, considered him a mentor and Bill was almost the platonic ideal of the quote. Remember he bombed the shit out of Iraq too. Not too mention his adventures in the Balkans.

Trump won't win, in fact he won't even get the nomination. Neither will Bernie Sanders for that matter. The Democrats want Hillary, and that's who they'll give you, primaries be damned.  You'll get Hillary vs. Cruz or Rubio, with Hillary the winner barring a complete implosion or new scandal. She'll continue the Empire, just as GH Bush, her husband, Bush 41, and Obama have done. She is the Goldman Sachs candidate after all.

George Carlin laid it out a long time ago: