I will deal with your 2nd issue first. BOTH sides, of course support corporate fascism, and I only need mention 3 things from the so-called US left to prove this- (1) the horrid, for-profit insurance and medical industry-written health care 'reform' bill, (2) the UTTER lack of banker prosecutions when they have clearly committed theft and fraud and systemic damage in the trillions, and (3) absolute failure to reel in the war machine which is expanding even as I type - ie. war number 4 in Yemen.
Now, as far s my original statement.
I for one am so glad when any government stays out of censuring/defining speech. First it would be the telly, and radio, next the web, etc. The giant private corporations use their 'bought-and-paid-for' government to quash competition from up and coming small and mid-size businesses as well as dissenting voices.
Read New Left historian Gabriel Kolko in his book "The Triumph of Conservatism: A Reinterpretation of American History, 1900-1916.
In it, he lays out a case for the rise of modern corporatist system during the Progressive Era. This in turn, allows for the violation of a large principle – No socialization of losses and privatization of gains (ie. the confluence of big business and big government in a mutual reinforcement pincer action).
http://www.amazon.com/Triumph-Conservatism-Gabriel-Kolk... Kolko was soon joined by other New Left historians such as William Appleman Williams in challenging the reigning "corporate liberal" orthodoxy. Rather than "the people" being behind these "progressive reforms," it was the very elite business interests themselves responsible, in an attempt to cartelize, centralize and control what was impossible due to the dynamics of a competitive and decentralized economy.
.............in advancing the corporate liberalism idea whereby the old Progressive historiography of the "interests" versus the "people" was reinterpreted as a collaboration of interests aiming towards stabilizing competition . According to Grob and Billias,
"Kolko believed that large-scale units turned to government regulation precisely because of their inefficiency" and that the "Progressive movement - far from being antibusiness - was actually a movement that defined the general welfare in terms of the well-being of business". Kolko, in particular, broke new ground with his critical history of the Progressive Era. He discovered that free enterprise and competition were vibrant and expanding during the first two decades of the twentieth century; meanwhile, corporations reacted to the free market by turning to government to protect their inherent inefficiency from the discipline of market conditions. This behavior is known as corporatism, but Kolko dubbed it "political capitalism." Kolko's thesis "that businessmen favored government regulation because they feared competition and desired to forge a government-business coalition" is one that is echoed by many observers today . Former Harvard professor Paul H. Weaver uncovered the same inefficient and bureaucratic behavior from corporations during his stint at Ford Motor Corporation (see Weaver's The Suicidal Corporation <1988>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Kolko http://users.crocker.com/~acacia/kolko.html http://miltenoff.tripod.com/Kolko.html http://www.stateofnature.org/liberalElitesAnd.html