Jail the Bankers
Let’s review a quick and dirty definition of the difference between Fascism and Communism; In Communism the State owns the means of production – in Fascism the means of production owns the State. That’s where the U.S. government has been trending as of late.
Exhibit #1 today is an editorial by the New York Times lamenting that London-based mega-bank HSBC has been caught red-handed laundering money for drug cartels and terrorists. The U.S. Justice Department is taking no action:
“It is a dark day for the rule of law. Federal and state authorities have chosen not to indict HSBC, the London-based bank, on charges of vast and prolonged money laundering, for fear that criminal prosecution would topple the bank and, in the process, endanger the financial system. They also have not charged any top HSBC banker in the case, though it boggles the mind that a bank could launder money as HSBC did without anyone in a position of authority making culpable decisions.
Clearly, the government has bought into the notion that too big to fail is too big to jail. When prosecutors choose not to prosecute to the full extent of the law in a case as egregious as this, the law itself is diminished. The deterrence that comes from the threat of criminal prosecution is weakened, if not lost.”
(snip)
“There is no doubt that the wrongdoing at HSBC was serious and pervasive. Several foreign banks have been fined in recent years for flouting United States sanctions against transferring money through American subsidiaries on behalf of clients in countries like Iran, Sudan and Cuba. HSBC’s actions were even more egregious. According to several law enforcement officials with knowledge of the inquiry, prosecutors found that, for years, HSBC had also moved tainted money from Mexican drug cartels and Saudi banks with ties to terrorist groups.
Those findings echo those of a Congressional report, issued in July, which said that between 2001 and 2010, HSBC exposed the American “financial system to money laundering and terrorist financing risks.” Prosecutors and Congressional investigators were also alarmed by indications that senior HSBC officials might have been complicit in the illegal activity and that the bank did not tighten its lax controls against money laundering even after repeated urgings from federal officials.”
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This is the current state of affairs in post-industrial America. The banks, energy corporations and defense contractors own the U.S. government. Combine that with authoritarian nationalism and a religious theocracy and we have our very own brand of American Fascism.
We have never come closer to this creeping evil than during the Bush/Cheney administration, and as we shall see in future articles American Fascism has been with us since the industrial revolution and has been integrated into a masked but powerful international cartel.
To borrow an old quote; “Man will not be free until the last banker is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”.
