It would be funny if it weren't so scary.

As our president would say, go getchoo some Murrikan products! Be sure to scroll to the bottom, because Confeddy Freddy is the money shot. Then look at the real products available elsewhere on the Web and decide whether satire has become impossible. Then, with all that in mind, go read Ben Tripp's hilarious and frightening tour de force up at Information Clearinghouse about the other F word.

These people are fascists, and they make Mussolini look like a mezzafinook. There is no component of American liberty of which they are unwilling to relieve us, and no aspect of American life upon which they are unwilling to relieve themselves. Where to begin? First, we must define 'fascism'. It is a term like 'love', about which it can be said that everybody knows exactly what it means, and nobody knows what they're talking about. Luckily I know everything and so can clear the matter up, particularly if I consult Mussolini's own diary, which I picked up on Ebay for a song (the song was 'That's Amore' as sung by Dean Martin). For those not fluent in Italian, I will paraphrase the definition before me in Il Duce's crabbed hand:

Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology which embraces nationalism as the transcendent value of society. The rise of Fascism relies upon the manipulation of populist sentiment in times of national crisis. Based on fundamentalist revolutionary ideas, Fascism defines itself through intense xenophobia, militarism, and supremacist ideals. Although secular in nature, Fascism's emphasis on mythic beliefs such as divine mandates, racial imperatives, and violent struggle places highly concentrated power in the hands of a self-selected elite from whom all authority flows to lesser elites, such as law enforcement, intellectuals, and the media. What a rush. Must buy Clara a new hat.

I couldn't have said it better myself. If we accept this general definition of fascism, we can be forgiven for rushing to the bedroom and throwing some clean underwear into a portmanteau ere catching the next train to Toronto. But we must stand our ground, however eroded it may be. Our freedoms have been undermined at home. Our nation has engaged in an outrageous military adventure overseas, the tissue-thin justification for which has disappeared completely, leaving America in the awkward position yclept 'hostile invader' by entities such as the United Nations (you remember them, those nice colored folks over on 39th Street?) Meanwhile our states have mostly gone bankrupt, the first tax cut during wartime since the 1840's ­ more wealth for the wealthy - is in the works while corporate feudalism runs rampant, our ability to respond to authentic terrorist threats has been hobbled, the voting system has been co-opted by digital pirates in the Republican party, the electoral system in general is hostage to big money, our healthcare system is in meltdown, our national budget is so far in the red we have to import ink from China just to keep up; the prison population is exploding while our schools implode, civil rights are verklempt and vivisepulturated, our businesses are folding by entire sectors while the military-industrial complex thrives, and our environment is sinking into crisis with the North Pole melted and environmental regulation evaporating like so much ozone. Meanwhile, Jesus Christ is sleeping in the Lincoln Bedroom.

But because the American media has ceased to make its own news, relying instead on a kind of government-hosted charabanc tour for journalists, nobody is questioning this lunatic national retrenchment in a public forum - instead, we demonize Arabs and teenagers and black people and homosexuals and poor folks and drug users and anyone, God bless them, who has ever performed fellatio. And that's only the tip of the scheisseberg. These are all harbingers and symptoms and outcomes of fascism. But still, fascism is such an extreme notion. Once could argue that these many fresh hells are the result of simple criminal mismanagement, and for some time I have been so inclined (to argue thus, not to criminally mismanage. For the latter I'd need an MBA.)

What specific enormity cemented the notion of Bush and his cabal as 'fascists' in my mind? If I could sit out all of the above, surely nothing could compel me to apply the scarlet 'F' to these vendible quantum-larrikins and their erstwhile leader, the Ivy-League demagogue bogtrotter George W. Bush. I can tell you the very moment, and if you missed it, it's worth finding a dog-eared copy of the video and viewing it entire, although I caution you to keep a bucket handy - these images are too graphic for many American stomachs.

You can probably guess what that moment was, but you should still go read the rest.