We have all seen the footage: Men prowling outside Obama speaking engagements carrying automatic weapons. Suburban brownshirts shouting down speakers at town hall meetings. Leaving aside for the moment the colossal irony of members of the working class taking up arms to defend the rights of corporations, one cannot watch these scenes without two questions leaping to mind:

1) What would have happened if someone had turned up at a Bush speaking engagement carrying an automatic weapon and a sign threatening its use?

2) What would have happened during the Bush era if liberal protesters had disrupted political meetings organized by Republicans?

We all know what would have happened: they would have been Tased, beaten, and dragged off to face hours or days or interrogations. I mean, who can forget Andrew Meyer, who got two Taser prongs in his ass merely for asking John Kerry a few challenging questions at the University of Florida? To tell the truth, anyone who turned up at a Bush speaking engagement and got off with a mere Tasing would have been very lucky indeed. More likely, he would have been shot by the first policeman or Secret Service agent who laid eyes on him.

The absurd deference shown these ersatz patriots and suburban brownshirts is clear evidence of the right-wing bias of local police forces and the Secret Service. It's also clear evidence of the right-wing bias of the mainstream media, which goes to great lengths to avoid condemning these activities. None of this should come as any surprise - we all know that members of the police force are more likely to listen to Rush Limbaugh than Rachel Maddow. Likewise, we all know that the mainstream media in the United States is merely the public relations wing of the insurance, oil and military industrial industries.

What is more interesting is how corporate elites have outsourced the traditional jobs of intimidation and repression to civilian organizations, giving their marching orders through a variety of "astroturf" organizations and talk radio outlets.

In Japan, where I live, the role of intimidating and silencing dissent was long ago outsourced to right-wing civilian groups known as "Uyoku." The Uyoku pays visits to people who speak out on controversial topics like the role of the Emperor in WWII or atrocities in China and Southeast Asia. The Uyoku are known to park their buses outside the houses of outspoken critics and blare "patriotic music" at all hours. They are also alleged to have beaten and killed outspoken individuals.

We should all understand what is happening here: a fascist beast is stirring in the United States. This beast is a foul chimera composed of rapacious corporations, right-wing media outlets, and members of an intellectual underclass who have spent the last few decades marinating in 48 channels of non-stop radio and TV propaganda. This beast can only be contained by the full weight of law and the will to enforce that law. Unfortunately, under George W. Bush, the rule of law was largely replaced by the rule of force.

Sadly, Barack Obama has shown no desire to undo the damage done to the Constitution and the rule of law by George W. Bush. Ironically, if Obama falls victim to the hateful forces now arrayed against him, he may well have contributed to his own undoing by not vigorously rolling back the fascist advances of the Bushies. Indeed, in fostering an environment where violence (in the form of torture) is accepted, and the rule of law is undermined (by authorizing "preventive detention" and "special rendition"), Obama is actually creating an atmosphere in which some suburban crackpot might decide to take matters into his own hands.

Of course, the entire drama surrounding health care "reform" is a spectacle of such titanic irony that it would be dismissed as over-the-top farce if it turned up in a novel or screenplay. The two biggest ironies are these:

1) The working class right hates Obama for trying to impose a socialist government on the United States, when in fact he is working for the most rapacious elements of unfettered capitalism. Far from trying to redistribute wealth to the masses, Obama has presided over the greatest robbery of the people in written history, a vast transfer of public funds from the people to the owners of the banks. And if he gets his way, he'll do the same thing with health insurance, by forcing the public to buy private health plans.

2) Naive mainstream Democrats support Obama for precisely the same reason that the right hates him. Namely, they believe that Obama actually has socialist leanings and actually wants to accomplish some sort of populist reform of the nation's health care system.

Thus, both mainstream Democrats and the working class right make the same mistake in attributing populist motives to Obama that simply aren't there. Obama is neither a socialist nor even a committed populist. In fact, Obama is nothing more than a willing corporate lackey, a smooth-talking representative of the same forces who were behind the Bushies. Obama no more intends to turn America socialist than he intended to effect a meaningful withdrawal from Iraq. Obama no more intends to create a just health care system than he intended to bring Constitutional government back to the United States.

What is truly tragic here is that those who would take up arms to "defend" their country are actually working for the very forces who have taken over the United States. And make no mistake: the country has indeed been taken over. It has been taken over by a small group of international capitalists who have no more allegiance to the United States than they have to any of their other countries where they park their private jets. Their only allegiance is to power, profit and their own families.

Thus, these suburban rubes with their guns and placards are far from being patriots they imagine themselves to be. They are actually traitors, unwittingly foot soldiers for the corporate swine who have raped the United States. They are the divided and the conquered. They are the half of the working class that would gladly murder the other half of the working class at the behest of their corporate masters.

This is truly sad, because now is the time when true patriots should indeed be considering revolutionary action. As the dismal lie of the Obama candidacy is revealed with each passing day, it should be clear to anyone with eyes to see that "we are finally on our own." Every American who believes in the promise of liberty and the sanctity of the Constitution should realize that now is the time to defend our country against those who rob us blind and corrupt out political system. All that is needed is clear vision to see who the real enemy is.

This is sooooo strange hearing these complaints coming fro the liberal left. These have always been their tactics to shade the truth or tell outright lies as to distort the facts. noww they claim the right is doing the same thing. All I can say if they are they have learned from the best.

The trouble with the right isn't their crazy approach to all things government--It's that they can't sell their crazy approach... The fact of the matter is that most people who vote disagree with the right-wing something-for-nothing dogma... The people who vote want the government involved in things like the public welfare, they want the roads and the bridges and the police and the fireman, and the health care... The right wing, on the other hand, doesn't want to pay taxes... Oh, they still want the roads and the bridges and the police and so on--they just don't think they should have to pay for them... I say: keep thinking that way... It's that kind of thinking that had delivered the white house and the congress to the democrats... It's that kind of thinking that will keep them in the majority... Sooo, as untasteful as they might be, we need this lunatic fringe to keep spewing its B.S. as long as they keep arguing for things that do not make sense, we'll govern from the center and everything will be just fine...

We're not the ones trying to completely dismantle the mechanisms that have run the country quite well over the past several centuries, kvjamie. You're position is much like that of Rose hanging off the bow of the Titanic calling Jack crazy.