“Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse The corporations run the country and then they make the news Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes Who will tell the people that we're living in these times?” – David Rovics July 2001  

“We need a trial to judge all those who bear significant responsibility for the past century - the most murderous and ecologically destructive in human history. We could call it the war, air and fiscal crimes tribunal and we could put politicians and CEOs and major media owners in the dock with earphones like Eichmann and make them listen to the evidence of how they killed millions of people and almost murdered the planet and made most of us far more miserable than we needed to be.   “Of course, we wouldn’t have time to go after them one by one. We’d have to lump Wall Street investment bankers in one trial, the Council on Foreign Relations in another, and any remaining Harvard Business School or Yale Law graduates in a third. We don’t need this for retribution, only for edification. So there would be no capital punishment, but rather banishment to an overseas Nike factory with a vow of perpetual silence.” – Sam Smith (Editor, Progressive Review) ______________________________________________________________________________ In 1995 David Korten wrote a book titled “When Corporations Rule the World”. One reviewer began his summary of the book by writing: We have been seduced by ‘corporate libertarianism’, which demands that all political, economic, and civic barriers to the free reign of corporate interests be removed. (I would add that all moral barriers are to be removed as well.)  

Capitalist gurus on Wall Street (and your local investment advisors as well) tell us repeatedly that the “markets” (that are worshipped by the over-privileged “investor” classes among the elite 1%) prefer economic stability, which is best provided by fascist/police state dictatorships, monarchies or one party pseudo-democratic governments that are peopled with obedient, brain-washed citizens that can be manipulated to be good consumers of addictive substances, addictive entertainment, celebrity worship and other increasingly unaffordable corporate “consumer goods” that are heavily advertised on the ubiquitous corporate-owned media.  

Social democratic governments such as those espoused by Senator Bernie Sanders and Vice President Henry A. Wallace (1941-1945) ideally have as their leaders politicians who sincerely desire for their citizens fairness, security, well-being, fair wages, leisure, humane employment standards, good health, good nutrition and good education; and they also want those benefits to accrue to minorities, the oppressed and the disadvantaged as well.  

Sadly, social democracies are roundly hated by the over-privileged investor classes that prefer privatizing all goods and services because their fortunes would be threatened if they had to pay increased taxes that would, in their opinion, be “wasted” on things that would mainly benefit others, such as affordable healthcare, affordable housing, affordable (and healthy) food, and living wages. The other thing these capitalist elites fear is the possibility that the 99% that have chronically victimized by the 1% will actually start voting in elections. So, to counter that possibility, there have been pre-installed the mechanisms for rigging elections which can be easily triggered if the threat of true democracy rears its head to threaten our pro-corporate/pro-war one-party system.  

So, recently having come across a number of new (and some old) quotes that illustrate my thesis (that the danger of corporatism and its twin, fascism/perpetual war, are no longer just future possibilities), I list some of them below for readers to decide for themselves how serious the threat is. The first is a song that was written by singer-song-writer David Rovics a few months before the provable false flag operation that has bamboozled – and continues to bamboozle (thanks to the CIA and the media) - hundreds of millions of patriotic Americans for the past 16 years. (Everything the reader needs to know to really understand what really happened on 9/11/01 is at: https://www.transcend.org/tms/2016/09/duty-to-warn-the-15th-anniversary-of-the-crime-and-cover-up-of-the-century-91101/.)  

"Living In These Times"   Lyrics and Music by David Rovics – July 2001  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV1Uj5_Onk0&list=PL9wxzFAyTrORQdxY3KW_XiRKEI19T1rR4&index=4  

The CIA is pushing crack in the ghettoes of LA While the food crops in Colombia get sprayed by the DEA The FBI is reading your email with something called the “Carnivore” And the rich are getting richer while the poor are staying poor They're launching nuclear-powered ships up into space One little accident could wipe out half the human race And they're putting radioactive waste into your silverware Or maybe your toaster and perhaps your wheelchair. The Air Force is bombing people in Iraq every other day They don't like the government so the children have to pay The ozone hole is spreading and the sheep are going blind While the US spends more on arms than the rest of the world combined Journalists are getting fired from San Jose to Atlanta When they write about reality, not a fluff piece for Fanta A death threat every week and sometimes life is short When the truth is too dangerous for someone to report

(Chorus) Who will tell the people that free speech is a ruse The corporations run the country and then they make the news Is it media or mind control, heroic victories or crimes Who will tell the people that we're living in these times? The cancer rates are skyrocketing though people are smoking less If you live near a nuke your life is bound to be a mess Clean water's almost gone everywhere on earth And what's left they want to privatize and see how much it's worth Chevron is gunning down the students of Nigeria Turning the land to waste while the babies die of diphtheria And the weather's getting hotter, the world's forests are on fire Pretty soon Brazil will be one giant funeral pyre

(Chorus) One in three adult Americans cannot read or write And their children go to bed hungry every night And two million US citizens are rotting behind bars And while they're there they're working hard building parts for cars And the Army's running torture schools to keep the earth controlled And they're relocating Navajos so they can mine some extra coal Our taxes pay McDonald's to sell tumors in Shanghai While a hundred thousand poisoned vets are just about to die

(Chorus) And the people are resisting wherever you may go And this is the single biggest fact they don't want you to know From New Delhi to New Mexico there are battles going on And the darkest hour is just before the dawn And in Berkeley and New York they're raiding radio stations Trying to turn the voice of the people into the voice of the corporations Will we seize the airwaves, wipe the sweat off of our brow Stand and face the beast and shout, "Democracy Now!"    

"Fascism should rightly be called corporatism as it is a merger of state and corporate power." – Benito Mussolini (“Il Duce”), Founder of the National Fascist Party (1921 -1943) and Dictator of Fascist Italy until his assassination in 1945)  

"Fascism is a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." -- American Heritage Dictionary 1983  

“Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.” -- President John Quincy Adams (1825 – 1829)  

"I am sick and tired of war.  Its glory is all moonshine.  It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation.  War is hell." -- General William Tecumseh Sherman 1865  

"Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day." – President Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906    

“Yet in the most mean, cowardly, hypocritical way the British ruling class did all they could to hand Spain over to Franco and the Nazis. Why? Because they were pro-Fascist.”-- George Orwell 1936 (Among Orwell’s other famous quotes are these:

”In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.“ and "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.")     “

A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures, regions or nations as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.” – Henry A. Wallace, Vice President under Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1941-1945)    

“If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.” – Henry A. Wallace    

”The American fascists are most easily recognized by their deliberate perversion of truth and fact. Their newspapers and propaganda carefully cultivate every fissure of disunity... They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection…Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion…They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.” -- Henry A. Wallace    

“The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power…Among us today is growing a concentration of private power without equal in history.” -- President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 – 1945)    

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we do about peace - more about killing than we do about living." -- WWII General Omar Bradley 1946  

  “We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.  This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence - economic, political, even spiritual - is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications…In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower 1961    

“The most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.” – President John F. Kennedy, in his profound, anti-fascist American University commencement address, 10 June 1963. (Five months later he was assassinated.)  

”Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who COUNT the votes decide everything.” -- Joseph Stalin   "Through clever and constant application of propaganda people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise." – Der Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, 1923 (Hitler committed suicide in 1945)  

“It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them.” -- Adolf Hitler - Dictator of Nazi Germany (1933 – 1945)

“What good fortune for those in power that the people do not think.” -- Adolf Hitler “The fascist state must not forget that all means must serve the ends; it must not let itself be confused by the drivel about so-called “freedom of the press”…it must make sure that (the media) is placed in the service of the state.” -- Adolf Hitler  

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” -- Joseph Goebbels, German Nazi "Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment”  

“The rank and file is usually much more primitive than we imagine. Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious. The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly... it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.” -- Joseph Goebbels – committed suicide in 1945  

“It’s ridiculous to talk about freedom in a society dominated by huge corporations. What kind of freedom is there inside a corporation? They’re totalitarian institutions - you take orders from above and maybe give them to people below you. There’s about as much freedom as under Stalinism.”  -- Noam Chomsky  

“The primary function of mass or mainstream media is not to give the public objective information about events in the world but to ‘manufacture’ consent about events in the world…that the power elite (which runs the U.S. mainstream media) would like there to be among the public.” – Co-authors Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman in “Manufacturing Consent” (1988)   

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  -- Sinclair Lewis  

“It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy. Power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy … The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy -nor does the United States.” – Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1992 to December 1996