The man voted Canada's man of the 20th Century, Tommy Douglas (see endnote), once famously stated that "the next time the fascist return, they won't be as easy to recognize. They will not be wearing brown shirts. They will be wearing business suits."

Fascism was (is) essentially a "corporatist state". That is, a state run for the leading corporate interests. The next group in line are the powerful and easily manipulated religious factions - usually entrenched religions but also fast growing "populist" religious movement seeking more power for their narrow, simplistic beliefs. Citizens, if referred to at all, are tertiary.

If they have the vote, efforts are made to limit citizen’s effect though denial of voting rights (literacy tests, imprisonment, gender, vote rigging, stuffing ballot boxes, controlling candidates eligibility, gerrymandering seats - now rigged voting machines). Grass roots organizations that work in the citizens interests like trade unions, social welfare organizations, and now environmental organizations, are banned or become covert operations of the state (like government friendly unions established in Quebec during the Duplessis era).

In the USA today, only 7% of private sector workers are in unions. Canada's rate has also plummeted and is falling further as the manufacturing sector is shut down and transferred offshore. Socially vital items that unions fought long and hard for like reliable pensions are collapsing left, right and centre. Pensions are what kept the last generation of senior out of poverty for the first time in history. Now they have returned to a little more than a dream for most of today’s workers.

Minimum wages have lagged for decades. In British Columbia, the ultra conservative BC Liberals have not raised the minimum wage in a decade. BC, once one of Canada’s richest provinces now has the highest poverty rate in Canada. Some 23% of BC children are raised in poverty. Dozens of schools have been closed, and now over a thousand teachers are being laid-off. But BC can afford to blow billions on the Olympics.

The US Supreme Court is not the first North American court to grant citizens’ rights to corporations. About 20 years ago, Canada's Supreme Court granted corporation the right of free speech under our relatively new (1981) Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The case was in reference to tobacco's companies right to advertise their products (sell cancer). Although Parliament has the power using the Notwithstanding Clause of the Canadian Constitution, It has yet to be overturned by Parliament and if Stephen Harper is re-elected next time, it will give him the opportunity to appoint more right wing ideologues to the Supreme Court and the likelihood that Corporate rights are extended to contributing to election campaigns (recently banned in Canada) and to conduct third party advertising campaigns could be restored.

Copying the USA, the Canadian Military is now engaged in active warfare in Afghanistan and covertly in Iraq (Canada never officially joined the illegal invasion of Iraq, but sent elite tactical units.) Harper and his Conservatives dismiss peacekeeping as for wimps. Once the largest contributor to UN peacekeeping missions, Canada's participation has dwindled to a mere handful of soldiers. When Israel target bombed a hilltop UN Observer outpost overlooking Lebanon killing its observers, one of whom was a Canadian, Prime Minister Harper condemned the UN soldiers asking what they were doing there in the first place – PM Harper, they were doing their job! But this too was a cynical move - donations to the Conservative Party from Canada’s Jewish community soared. (Previously they tended to be reliable donors to the Liberal Party, so Harper successfully gained a good segment of willing contributors while eliminating a tradition source of funding for the Liberals.)

Canada's military recruiting campaign used to emphasize "Service". No longer. Now it is join to "Fight". Yet the spin the on the nation’s role in Afghanistan is that Canadian troops are there to build schools and democracy – an abject failure to date. Greg Mortenson’s military-free efforts have been many times more successful.

When a Parliamentary Committee investigating Canada's role in assisting and abetting the torture of Afghani "detainees" began to gain traction in exposing the Canadian military and political complicity in the torture by Afghanistan’s police and military, PM Harper prorogued Parliament (shut it down for those not familiar with parliamentary terms) to cover up his governments complicity.

While the recent US Supreme Court abhorrent decision to grant full citizen's rights with respect to financing election campaigns to corporations must be countered by citizens expressing their outrage at the galloping pace of the Corporate State of America,

Canadians have nothing to be snug about. Canadians have lots of work to do as well.
When running for office, Stephen Harper stated that given the chance, he would change Canada into something most people would not recognize. He hates what Canada represented since World War II - A Peacekeeper, a compassionate country that care for its sick and injured, a country with an environmental ethic (albeit overblown), an influential international Middle Power, seeking influence through diplomacy not military force. And he is changing Canada into the 51st State at a pace much faster than the US Supreme Court is reshaping the USA.

(Tommy Douglas was the courageous social democrat who as Premier brought the province of Saskatchewan out of virtual bankruptcy (the now oil rich province next door, Alberta is the only Canadian province to have actually gone bankrupt) despite efforts by the Federal Liberal Government of MacKenzie King and international bankers to crush his "socialist" government by cancelling Federal transfer payments and calling loans immediately after Douglas's CCF was elected in 1943. Some 18 years later, he introduced Medicare into North America despite mass strikes by doctors fighting against "socialized medicine".)

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In 1975, there was a science-fiction movie that has turned out to be rather prescient; The world was controlled by corporations and the masses were distracted by an ultra-violent blood sport called "Rollerball."

Thanks to the SCOTUS, we're now even closer to that corporate-dominated world. In America, we've got plenty of blood sports on TV, and not just the wars we're fighting in foreign lands. There's the NFL, NBA and American Idol to keep us pacified.

Education has been dumbed down to "teaching to the test." The teachers unions have made it impossible to fire bad teachers; the Republicans gave us "No Child Left Behind," which translates as lowered standards to everyone can pass and they can point to the "success" of the program. Helicopter parents contribute to this by demanding that "every child is special" and deserves advancement whether it is earned or not.

The dumbing down of America means that our prison population is going to keep increasing. The foreign workers get our high-paying jobs because they are turning out graduates that actually know and understand English, higher mathematics and science. We're stuck debating Creationism vs. Darwinism.

When the fruit is rotten, it will fall. The U.S. is rotten ripe. Unless we, the citizens, take it back, this country will Balkanize itself within the next 10 years (if that long).

But we are caught in our own snare. We have grown dependent on the parasitic corporations for our ravenous consumption. If we did try to revolt against them, they'd probably call out the forces on us. It's become a vicious cycle that offers little chance of escape.

A friend commented that being a consumer was not a bad thing - "that's the purpose of making money, right?" But being a consumer may be different than being reduced to only a consumer, you know?

I think that the article is saying that citizens in this country are no longer regarded by 'the powers that be' as active agents of political will, as doers, as spokespersons for their own rights, as authors of their own and this country's destiny, as embodying the original and ultimate value that this country was organized for, in and of themselves, their bodies. (Theme song winding up behind me...).

What is the 'product' of this country? might be a good corollary question... is it TV sets, etc (for which the human can be sacrificed, in many ways, via worker or human right violations), or is it the human (for which any material thing - including profits - can be sacrificed). The upper classes have always ensured a prominent place for TV sets.

When the official monologue shifts to 'consumer', it is reflecting the dark side of that age-old conflict of values in law and social policy - namely, between personal values and property values. That has shown up throughout our national history as unequal control over laws by classes according to their wealth, the rich being able to control debates, buy politicians, outlaw "vagrants" and "vagrant lifestyle" (existence). Property values = one dollar, one vote. Personal values = one person, one vote. It's always been a sour mix of the two - til this ruling by the Supremes.

If we only show up to society based on our ability to purchase, what happens if we have no money? We disappear. Indeed, the homeless in this country have all but disappeared - they don't make the news! because they are invisible to the merchant, the social controller, the commissar in Chomsky's lingo. The poor have been hounded and chased away (since they are "useless" - non-consumers) in all ages, definitely including our own. A great read is The People's History of the United States (by Howard Zinn).