The Many Little Faces of Fascism

The power to corrupt is not in the sole possession of government

Major international credit card companies just imposed a new code for classifying the purchases of guns and ammunition. This new classification will allow for the data collection on all individuals that use credit cards to purchase those items. This seemingly benign move from credit card processors comes not from a heavy hand of authoritarian governments but from their own volition in the name of adhering to the sinister yet self-imposed ESG standards. Why would credit card companies want to do this? We all know, or at least knew, that capitulation to authority never ends well for individuals, or entities. How does it end for companies that self-impose restrictive authority upon themselves?

As it turns out, fascism need not emanate from strong authoritarian governments, it can and does grow from strong authoritative organizations. Thus, regardless of military might, these mighty institutions are proving the universal adage that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely!" Our behemoth industries adopting ESG standards are not the results of heavy-handed governments issuing orders. Quite the opposite, Western governments have proven far too weak to get many of the ESG BS through any legislative process.

No, our woke corporations now fully staffed with woke graduates and lead by woke boards of directors are doing what their weak government counterparts could not; namely ESG loving companies are creating, out of whole cloth, arbitrary environmental, social and governance standards to appease Larry Fink type mega-fund managers. The speed at which our modern ESG heroes are carrying the fascists' water up the hill and off "Lemmings Leap” is staggering.

How did this ESG phenomenon come to fruition at such a rapid pace? Simple, the answer is Covid-19. The Covid worldwide pandemic was literally the game changer. Health officials and governments issued dire warnings of apocalyptic deaths if the world did not shut down its economies and shelter in place. Mask and vaccine mandates ensued and working families had to make tough choices about taking the ineffective and unproven jab or looking for a new job. CEOs, with the fervor of Damocles accept the throne of divine medical knowledge and followed through by imposing Covid health edicts upon their employees. But, as the weight of the economic sword dangling above their head grew heavier with each passing lockdown week, our leaders got wobbly-kneed. Instead of making the tough decision to end the maddening and looming economic disaster, these CEOs gladly relinquished their gilded seat back to King “The Fauch” Dionysius and resumed their protected position as a mere courtesan to that all-knowing healthcare crown.

However, Covid capitulation trained a sea of CEOs that a euphoric state can truly be derived from ordering the less powerful into doing “what is good for them.” It wasn’t just CEOs, Kens and Karens across our “holier than thou” land took great glee in denigrating complete strangers for not masking in public. Many, from Pres. Joe Biden all the way down to the talking heads at NPR and MSNBC, jumped on the “pandemic of the unvaccinated “ band wagon. Ordering lesser souls into untenable situations felt good and turned our leaders into addicts, ever thirsting for that next “do good” fix. For these adrenaline chasing CEOs, ordering their charges to follow the Covid restrictions was the gateway drug. Now, they are prepped for the hard stuff, and ESG is the heroin they will be shooting into their veins for the foreseeable future.

Larry Fink is definitely the Dr. Evil in this scenario, but Covid helped launch thousands of Mini Me’s. As it turns out, getting a CEO to “follow the science” into the economic abyss was not that difficult and now an entire generation of business leaders have jettisoned Milton Freedman's axiom that corporations exist the maximize profits for the sake of the quick hit of ESG wokeness. Of course, our biggest corporations are drinking the ESG Kool-Aid, but this is trickling all the way down the business ladder. Small business owners are now wearing wokeness on their sleeves. Local coffee shops are placing “wellness” and “sustainability” charges on the receipts and many businesses are making sure their customers know every nuance of their virtue-singling politics. These leaders hurt their bottom lines by voluntarily shutting down their businesses for Anthony Fauci in the name of saving just one life, is it such a big leap to think they won’t do the same for Larry Fink so that they save just one hundredth of a degree?

Fascism is fascism, it does not need government to instigate its birth. Mussolini and Hitler used the power of centralized governments to bend the will of corporations to the desires of the state. Now powerful corporations, run by ruthless oligarchs, are using ESG to bend the will of weak governments to their woke ways. And, in this ESG fascistic environment ,telling people what to do feeds an addiction. And, to that end, BlackRock's Larry Fink is an irredeemable junkie!

We know through history that fascistic nations eventually fall as virtue, when all else fails, always triumphs over evil. So I am confident that fascistic companies ruled over by little Napoleons will follow in same suit. However, neither occur without great pain. A battle line is being drawn between woke-driven mega-corporations and those building an alternative parallel economy. Where the drawing of blood will come is when the BlackRocks of the world feel the pinch of diminished control and they raise their army of bought and paid for legislators to crush the non-ESG start up companies. We already witnessed a preview with the near takedown of alternative video site, Rumble following the 2020 elections. The carnage will be even greater should some brave individuals dare to challenge the credit card companies by creating alternative funding sources that do not use consumer spending as a gateway to creating individual social credit scores.

It has been said the WWIII would be fought with 1’s and 0’s. I believe our Franz Ferdinand moment was the financial crisis of 2008, where undisciplined and soulless bankers bilked governments for trillions of dollars to avoid an economic collapse of their undisciplined making. That moment put feckless Federal Reserve bureaucrats in the laps of financial titans and we have been in a battle for our Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness ever since.