My wife, also a writer, is working on an article about commercialism in the schools. In the process of researching this piece, she came upon an article entitled "Every Nook and Cranny," written by Gary Ruskin and Juliet Schor. In this article, there appears the following paragraph, which I share here because it articulates well what I have believed to be an important part of the story of the turn in America first toward reactionary politics and now, under the Bushites, toward fascism.
The rise of commercialism is an artifact of the growth of corporate power. It began as partof a political and ideological response by corporations to wage pressures, rising social expenditures, and the successes of the environmental and consumer movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Corporations fostered the anti-tax movement and support for corporate welfare, which helped create funding crises in state and local governments and schools, and made them more willing to carry commercial advertising. They promoted "free market" ideology, privatization and consumerism, while denigrating the public sphere. Inthe late 1970s, Mobil Oil began its decades-long advertising on the New York Times op-ed page, one example of a larger corporate effort to reverse a precipitous decline in public approval of corporations. They also became adept at manipulating the campaign finance system, and weaknesses in the federal bribery statute, to procure influence in governments at all levels.
As I envision this process, it was but another step from the amoral corporate assault described here on government and the public sphere as a rival for power to the ruthless takeover of that government sphere to make it, as much as possible, a mere extension and tool of corporate interests. This, of course, is one of the defining characteristics of fascism.
I have written here --e.g. in "The Concept of Evil" (www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=91)-- that this regime is an expression of evil forces that have coalesced together in the past generation in America. The others have been an imperialist, world-dominating impulse and a kind of religiosity that specializes in black-and-white, conflict-oriented ways of thinking, and that tends to be pervaded by hypocrisy. Of these, I believe the corporatist current to be the strongest, and the religious to be the weakest, used by the others for the votes, but mostly just given lip service as part of a con job.
At times, I have added the corruption of the media as an element of this picture, with organizations like Rupert Murdock's Fox News being among the worst of the lot. But analytically, I believe the story of the mainstream media is really just a crucial element in the corporatist strain, fitting prominently into the picture quickly sketched in the above passage by Ruskin and Schor.
Andrew Bard Schmookler's website www.nonesoblind.org is devoted to understanding the roots of America's present moral crisis and the means by which the urgent challenge of this dangerous moment can be met. Dr. Schmookler is also the author of such books as The Parable of the Tribes: The Problem of Power in Social Evolution (SUNY Press) and Debating the Good Society: A Quest to Bridge America's Moral Divide (M.I.T. Press). He also conducts regular talk-radio conversations in both red and blue states.
I have been gathering famous quotes on Facism for awhile. I have listed some of them below. If you compare them to todays situation it becomes fairly obvious that if we aren't facist yet we are well on our way.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini
"Fascism is capitalism plus murder." - Upton Sinclair
"Fascism: The conservative notion that killing people makes them work harder." - Unknown
"Fascism is capitalism in decay." - Vladimir Lenin
"And the danger of becoming a thoughtless machine is that you may become mindless and turn to fascism or whatever." - Gerald Scarfe
"Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born." - Aneurin Bevan
"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself." - Henry A. Wallace
"I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security." - Jim Garrison
"That which the Fascists hate above all else, is intelligence." - Miguel De Unamuno
"Fascism was a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place."
"To silence criticism is to silence freedom." - Sidney Hook
"Do not expect justice where might is right." - Plato
"Fascism is a religion. The twentieth century will be known in history as the century of Fascism." - Benito Mussolini
"Those who count the votes decide everything". — Joseph Stalin
"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." — Henry Ford
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
- Sinclair Lewis,
"Christian creeds and doctrines, the clergy's own fatal inventions, through all the ages has made of Christendom a slaughterhouse, and divided it into sects of inextinguishable hatred for one another."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause. I had hoped that liberal and enlightened thought would have reconciled the Christians so that their religious fights would not endanger the peace of Society."
- George Washington
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
- Mark Twain
"The Bible is literature, not dogma."
- George Santayana
by
Hayesml47 (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 468 comments)
on Friday, May 11, 2007 at 7:43:14 PM
... The other systemic flaw in the US is the untrammeled power of the corporations, a power not given to corporations by the framers of the Constitution, but inferred by corporations and their sympathizers from the comments made about the Fourteenth Amendment by a judge in a case (Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company) that went to court in 1886. The precedents set by this case and subsequent ones have increasingly stacked the deck against the voters and in favor the corporations ever since. Our life is far more profoundly shaped by the power of corporations than the Founders would have thought possible. Not only do Americans eat corporate food, and grow obese and unhealthy thereby, depend upon the oil companies and the car manufacturers, and thereby destroy the Earth, demand cheap goods, and thereby wreck their own manufacturing infrastructure and accumulate loads of unnecessary possessions, they listen to canned and bottled hate-speech on corporate radio and TV and thereby surrender their judgment and their rights; they go to corporate churches and buy the ideas that accrue to the power of those churches. The fatal difference between corporations and people is that corporations are necessarily irresponsible. It's in the charter. They have to profit, while people have to weigh monetary profit against other forms of relationship and interaction. Individual shareholders and executives can evade responsibility for"externalities" like global warming in a way that they would not necessarily be able to evade responsibility for running over the neighbor's dog--our country is filled with people who do things at work that they would never do at home. Their sense of responsibility can be lessened by the fear of losing a job, or, more subtly, by the effect of company propaganda, or the break-down of accountability because of long chains of command. One thing incorporation does is separate the assets of the shareholders from the assets of the corporation, so that no one has to be ruined by his mistakes at work. Risk-taking comes to have no downside, especially if the risks only effect those who are out of sight and out of mind. As long as corporations can claim rights as persons while evading regulation for business practices, the deck will be stacked against the voters; the war machine, the oil machine, the food machine, and the financial markets machine, among others, will continue to call the shots. ...
by
cam (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments)
on Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 4:53:04 PM
I read this article carefully and the preamble to it as well, partly in order to understand my own aversion to the labeling of these neocons and uber-capitalists as evil.
That they commit evil acts is obvious to anyone paying attention, that they play to an evil within us all and thus convert or gain allies to their cause through duplicity and distortion, as much as through an appeal to hate, always a winner it sadly seems, is moot. That these corporate and governmental heads are actually evil is something I just cannot find useful, and that ,I believe , is the key here.
As an activist one must commit to finding ways to change that which one cannot tolerate. In a democracy the key to change lies with convincing a voting majority to elect those who share ones own vision for the nation. Finding such amidst the current crop of politicos is another matter entirely.
I see that Rove plays to the fears and prejudices, the alteration of the definitions of patriotism and love of country, of a certain number of my fellow countrymen. Others are persuaded by the hope for an economic prosperity that is one of the greatest lies of these (evil?) folks.
I do not see adopting such tactics to be any way to level the playing field, only to further polarize an already splintered nation. Perhaps I am nothing more than a cockeyed optimist, perhaps optimism is the key that drives me after forty odd years of working for change and finding damn little achievement.
To attempt to convince the voters to vote for good over evil just doesnt sit right somehow and I would look for much more concrete reasons to persuade an electorate to throttle this rampant and piratic capitalism that has enveloped our nation and, worst of all, our governmental processes. Besides, Andrew, if you accept the triumph of evil over good then musnt you perforce understand that many in your own party have succumbed to evil? Perhaps you might consider the Green Party an antidote to this evil...whatever works, sir.
by
ardee D. (6 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 2377 comments)
on Thursday, February 15, 2007 at 6:51:45 PM
You know better than I the government systems down through history. One of the ingenious things about our Constitution is the ability to adapt. It is the foundational document of our government; yet none of us look at it as the Jew would look on the Tanakh or Mikra, or as Christians look on the New Testament or as Muslims look at Koran which are considered inviolable and unchangeable.
Before the Constitution was adopted by the Thirteen Colonies, it was changed because three of the Colonies would not adopt it without a promise of the Bill of Rights, especially Separation of Church and State.
There needs to be Constitutional Law enforced and maybe new amendments made to control the vast wealth in this country. We are like an inverted pyramid just waiting for the top to come crashing down on us with the accumulation of wealth in the hands of so few.
by
pratliff94 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 962 comments)
on Friday, February 16, 2007 at 11:05:15 AM
Corporations are NOT People. Yet they enjoy the same rights and powers as actual flesh and blood citizens. They are allowed 'freedom of expression' even when they lie and dissemble, and the right to lobby congress - and they do!
Corporations are legal fictions which exist ONLY 'on paper.' (Or these days as digits on some computer network.)
Since 1886 corporations have enjoyed the same privileges as actual citizens. The legal case that made this magic happen was Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad - check it out.
THESE days corporations control roughly half the world's wealth, and are more economically powerful than many nations.
MOST of the problems we face in this country (and on the planet) today can be traced directly (DIRECTLY!) to the fact that these gigantic fictional creatures - the corporations - enjoy the same rights as flesh and blood citizens. THIS IS WRONG and we are all paying dearly for it. An average citizen feels powerlessness when trying to exert any influence in government. Yet corporations employ entire armies of highly paid lobbyists who have DIRECT access to Congress and in some cases actually WRITE the language of our laws. THIS IS WRONG.
We can stop it but it is going to be a bloody and protracted struggle.
We have to take away the corporations power to behave as if they were actual legal citizens. That will not be easy because they have the money and the power AND the lawyers.
Part 1: There already exists an 'Abolish Corporate Personhood' movement - seek it out. Join it, contribute your money or time, spread the word, educate co-conspirators.
Part 2: There already exists a 'Clean Elections' movement- seek it out. Join it, contribute your money or time, spread the word, educate co-conspirators.
Once we can elect representatives who owe no allegiances to corporate contributors we can introduce legislation to deny corporate personhood and bring these dinosaurs under the control of humans.
Unless we do this - humans are doomed.
Educate yourself. This is THE Struggle of our lifetime. You can begin with some reading: (Yes you'll have to turn off the TV... That is where the corporations brainwash you anyway.)
Here are some book titles to get you started: WAIT - start by looking for these books at the public library: I am NOT encouraging anyone to 'consume more' - only to acquire information. What a great invention public libraries are... thanks to Benjamin Franklin! (I 'think' it was Ben Franklin...)
These are all excellent books - & will inevitably lead you to more:
"Culture Jam" by Kalle Lasn
"No Logo" by Naomi Klein
"Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins
"Fast Food Nation" by Eric Schlosser
"What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World" by Melissa Rossi
"Screwed - The Undeclared War on the Middle Class..." by Thom Hartmann
Oh & one older book, but still good, is Jerry Mander's "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television"
THEN - once your head is brimming with info and your are totally piffed off at what has become of our dreams, of our democratic republic, of our freedoms, of our environment because corporate dinosaurs are destroying all that and more, they are destroying the quality of life and life itself on this planet .... once you are piffed off like dat... join us! We are out to Abolish Corporate 'Personhood.'
And just so we can have a little song spinning around in your heads while we search the library stacks (or the used book store) for these titles, here's a great line penned by Paul Simon that encapsulates what must become an anthem of the anticorporate personhood movement:
"I don't believe what I read in the paper - they're just out to capture my dime!"
In fact, try to think of that as you walk down the street of any city or town anywhere on Planet Earth... EVERYONE is out to capture your dime: they will suck, siphon and hoover every last centivo from your last pocket if they can. The 'trick' - the challenge, your mission - is to make home with as many of your dimes still in your pocket as possible.
STRIKE THE ROOT!
Spread the word.
"I don't believe what I read in the paper: They're just out to capture my dime!"
by
mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 295 comments)
on Friday, February 16, 2007 at 11:17:24 AM
I am concerned that both political parties are spending so much time on the prose (yes prose) and cons of Iraq that the destruction of middle America's internal blue collar economy is near the point of no return. Wall Street is the catalyst that allows our corporations to simply "follow orders".
by
Alessandro Machi (13 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 174 comments)
on Friday, February 16, 2007 at 10:47:02 PM
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