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Back in late 2008, when Congress passed the TARP bank bailout, I posted about the proper term to describe the developing relationship between government and industry:

Pundits speaking for the huge popular majority opposed to the plan seem to have decided to call it socialism, or a nationalization of banking and real estate. There is a political philosophy which combines those terms. National Socialism. Or, in a word, fascism.

Now that Barry has been elected and enjoyed a kindred Congress, I am more convinced that his vision for society is not properly called socialism. An article at The Freeman takes up the question, “Is Obama a socialist?”

Rather than take over various industries, Obama seems to believe he can work with industry leaders and labor to negotiate and manage them collectively in the national interest. This is the essence of the “third way” of Italian Fascism. It is not socialism, as private ownership is nominally maintained, but it is not capitalism, since private owners are not fully allowed to make independent decisions based on perceived profitability.
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Viewed through this lens, it should be no surprise that Obama really does sit in the corporatist/fascist “center” of American politics. The Republicans have been playing this same game for years, just in different industries.
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Obama is no socialist, but he, like just about everyone else in Washington, shares the presumption that he knows better and can — in collaboration with those he sees as the “right people” in the private sector — better run our lives than we can.

No American should suffer, as little Barry Soetoro did, without a father. So let the paternal government provide a guiding hand to all.