I read an article today about Obama requesting that the CEO of General Motors stepping down.
The article cites this as an example of fascism – a merger of government and corporate power, according to Mussolini. It explains in detail how the insipid tentacles of government are penetrating corporate America.
Of course, it completely fails to mention that General Motors is bankrupt and begging for a handout from the government. It fails to mention that management, most especially the Chief Executive Office of a company, must bear ultimate responsibility for the actions of the corporation he runs.
It fails to mention all of that stuff. But it does get to use an emotionally loaded, misunderstood and frequently misused word: fascism. That should distract enough people from the truth. Hell, this article has already invoked Godwin’s Law even before it became a discussion.
Telling an incompetent executive to step down before you’ll even consider mopping up the disaster his company created is not fascism, it’s prudence.
And prudence is a virtue, isn’t it?
I had thought Salon leaned left like all the other pinko rags in the U.S. that don’t have Rush quoted in the masthead. Shows how much I read Salon.
I’ve been hearing cries of “socialism” since late into the campaign season, most interestingly via Andy Rutledge’s satirical redesign. Now, we have “fascism.” How many of these “-ism” labels are going to be bootstrapped into pointed, vacuous rhetoric? Which one’s next? I’m hoping for “prism”; I’m not sure how familiar journalists are with models of photon propagation.
I suppose it’s not new, however disappointing it might be.