America's Republicans' Guard Guards Democrats for Lots of Money, Too

Tonight's Bill Moyers' Journal interviewed Jeremy Scahill, author of Blackwater: The Rise Of The World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, and it is a devastating critique of Democrats:

• who looked unprepared to interrogate Erik Prince in recent Blackwater congressional hearings
• who have a conflict of interest insofar as they rely on Blackwater for security themselves when they visit Iraq
• who have at least one presidential candidate who shares public relations contractors with Blackwater
• who have one former President who started the privatization of our military

Mr. Scahill also explained why we don't have a draft: because 180,000 private security contractors more than double the number of military forces we have on the ground in Iraq. Our tax dollars (Blackwater operatives get paid more than 4 times what many of our soldiers make) are going to pay an elite Republican Guard-type of force--not bound to any laws or military codes of justice--that saves President Bush from starting conscription on our shores and that drains tax dollars from foreign and domestic programs.

One of the definitions of fascism is corporate control of government. The conservatives with the help of a critical mass of otherwise ineffective Democrats have insured the perfect trifecta of discipline and control: privatization of public education, of imprisonment, and now of the military. Let's not get bogged down by analogies to Hitler, since fascism is bigger than the Führer. Let's just call it "FedEx Facism," since Blackwater considers itself the FedEx of the international security apparatus.