Twenty five years later, I’ll turn it around for the sake of historical symmetry.
American business IS the problem.
Right wing think tanks, corporate leaders, media moguls and rich Republicans in the government have long been working together to grease the wheels of industry, but before they can fully realize that goal, they first need to finish the job of demonizing, hobbling, de-funding, disparaging and finally using the very power of the government to eliminate government functions, oversight and prosecutions.
They have nearly accomplished what they set out to do. From the Justice Department to the courts, and FEMA, FDA, and all other agencies, the US Government is dying.
Government records indicate that perhaps as many as 80,000 bridges in America are rated structurally marginal or poor. The electrical, phone, water, sewage, highway, port, railway, airport, education and even industrial infrastructures of this country are aging, and in many cases could be considered marginal, or poor. That includes not just decrepit bridges you may drive on every day, but also deteriorating nuclear power plants, octogenarian skyscrapers in earthquake zones, suspect water treatment systems, the pothole-ridden roads you drive on, the sub-standard levees in places like New Orleans, and the laughing stock power grid that fails everywhere on a regular basis.
The bridge collapse in Minneapolis is already being used by corporate America to push for privatization of the highway system. Just imagine toll roads everywhere, roads that will become even more decrepit over time in order to ensure maximal profits. Corporate reps ask defiantly, “why shouldn’t somebody make money on it?”
The government is always sluggish to do what is right, and what is necessary, but eventually, critical things often eventually get done, even though they may be a more than “a dollar long and a day late”. But ever since half of the American electorate, with the help of the Supreme Court, put government-hating businessmen in charge of everything for the last six years, the national infrastructure, public health, education and even our troops have been far more neglected than usual.
This neglect is not negligent, it is planned. Corporatists have endeavored for years to make everyone hate all politicians, hate the government and hate everything associated with them. As you can tell, the plan is working.
The complete and permanent marriage of government and corporations in America is not an inevitable fate. Government in America can be what the people make of it… if they work hard enough. It took blood during the Revolutionary war, and the reign of the Pinkertons in the Gilded Age, but it will only take organization and perseverance now if the people can unite against the Corporateocracy.
The uniting part is hard. Very hard.
Currently, business IS the problem. Until we return to the ancient and now quaint Aristotelian idea that the purpose of business craft is to excel at what they do, to serve their customers, make a fair profit, and to be a productive part of the community, we will be the victims of a perverted system that puts quarterly profits and shareholders above everything else, including the quality of life, and indeed, above life itself.
What can be done?
I suggest that progressive organizations coordinate rolling “buy boycotts” for various goods and services targeted at the large corporations that are part of the problem. This would focus initially on corporate media, and their advertisers. It would have to include letter writing and phone call campaigns to make our intentions unmistakable. It could move to energy companies and other sectors that have a stranglehold on our government, media and society.
This would only work if progressives were willing to do the hard work necessary. If most progressives are too busy, and would rather not be bothered, then there is no chance that this could work. It would be both difficult, and time-consuming. But if you want to do something, I suggest that you pick your favorite progressive organization, join it, and work to coordinate with other organizations, local and nationwide, to plan and execute consecutive and effective boycotts. If this became a national news story due to the persuasive effects on businesses, it could help shift the debate and the political center of gravity to the left, and away from impending corporatocracy.
As I’ve said before, money doesn’t talk, it screams bloody murder. We’ve got to use our collective buying power as consumers to scream bloody murder. If you’re mad as hell, and don’t want to take it anymore, there is no better way to express it than what you do with your money. And besides, money is the only thing that the corporatocracy cares about.
Dr. John Moffett is an active research neuroscientist in the Washington, DC area, who has published articles on the nervous and immune systems. Dr. Moffett is also the author and webmaster of the political opinion website www.Factinista.org, and is a Managing Editor at OpEdNews.com.
Seems I spend much of my time being mad as hell. When will people burn their corporate bibles of holy capitalism and understand that the liturgy of privatization is the blueprint for destruction of the middle class and the reason they can't pay the bills anymore, the reason that bankruptcy is nearly a pandemic and millions are losing their homes, that their children have to work twice as long to make as much as they made in their youth, that our young are being slaughtered in unending war, that other people in other nations hate us? I could go on and on in frustration and anger. Have to get ready for work now. Get back to you later.
by
Sheila Jackson (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 137 comments)
on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 9:28:33 AM
Obviously you are an educated and intelligent person. If you observe the history of our Nation since the Federal Reserve Bank was formed artificial fluctuations in the economy have occurred that the private Fed bankers use every so many years to rob the citizens of whatever little wealth they may have gained.
That time has come again. Only this time the power of the elite bankers is as never before. The laws have never applied to them anyway, but now by extension their enablers, as far as they're useful, also have greater power and NONE of their motivations are benevolent.
I don't pretend to have answers, but there are steps to take that are both short term and long to reclaim the Dream.
If (and this is a big "if") the people finally realize that they need to get mad enough to stop what they're doing - and I mean literally - and form General Strikes to bring this country to a standstill to be heard, otherwise the powers that be will continue to ignore us.
Immediately there has to be Election Reform, for verifiable, uniform elections. Start with polls open on Monday and close on Saturday and scrape the Electoral College.
Dismantle the Federal Reserve Bank and put the money making powers back into the hands of the government. Also bye-bye IRS.
Long term, almost every problem we have can be solved through making our education system the best in the world again and make it free, along with free universal health care.
Do these things we're on our way.
The problem is most people in this country are too lazy, too dumb, too busy, too misinformed, too scared to do anything until the it will be too late.
It may already be.
by
Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 1024 comments)
on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 1:08:38 PM
How. We need to do those things and a lot more. But as far as I can tell, we first need to get money out of politics, and we need to break all bonds between corporations and the state. There should be complete separation of church/money and state. With the emphasis on money.
We need to reform the media somehow. Maybe set criteria that must be met if you call yourself “news”. Otherwise you need to say “opinion”. Honesty in labeling.
Once those things are done, we can start the long process of fixing all the other things they are trying to destroy, from education to the voting system.
by
John R Moffett (78 articles, 14 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 588 comments)
on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 2:54:08 PM
There will be no reform of the MSM unless we wind-up owning it.
The Internet is the only medium we have and unfortunately it's fractured into so many choices that it's hard to organize or get a cohesive message out, plus the fact that relatively few people can afford a computer and then when they do get on even fewer visit political sites.
Personally, I don't have much hope. I truly believe this Nation will continue it's free-fall into fascism and over-all humans as a species will cease to exist due to their own stupidity.
by
Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 1024 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 9:05:57 AM
If 3 million people participated in a General Strike what would the authorities do? Arrest us?
Screw Taft-Hartley. Bad laws are meant to be broken.
It has been a mystery to me why the so-called progressive blogs, with their massive membership wouldn't co-ordinate General Strikes? General Strikes are extremely effective in getting the powers the be to listen to the people. General Strikes are relatively easy to participate in.
What indeed would happen if 5 million people simply didn't shoe-up for work, or if we boycotted GE products, or Exxon-Mobile? Think there would be a policy change?
by
Mr M (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 1024 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 9:13:47 AM
The Wiz. One of the first scenes is with the Scarecrow (Michael Jacksom) and the Crows. The Crows sing: you can't win, you can't break even, and you can't get out of the game (as Scarecrow hangs from the post).
OK, you can't win and you cant break even -- but you CAN get out of the game! (But not if you just hang on your post.) That's the key -- we have to raid the game. Stop playing by their rules, on their field.
by
Blue Pilgrim (0 articles, 3 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 998 comments)
on Saturday, August 4, 2007 at 1:42:15 PM
There under the heading "Windfalls of War" - you will find a page with a list of the corporations who are profiting from dragging out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
These are the people who are pulling the strings behind the scenes on Bush and Cheney. These are the people who WANT these wars, and others, to drag on as long as possible despite all appeals to reason, common sense, morality and human decency.
SInger songwriter Jackson Brown called them "the men in the shadows" when he wrote:
"I want to know who the men in the shadows are I want to hear somebody asking THEM why They can be counted on to tell us who our enemies are But they're never the ones to fight or to die..."
When you click on the name of each war profiteer on the "Windfalls of War" list you will find additional information about each corporation including the locations, the cities where they have their home offices AND list of the PRINCIPALS of each firm -
Why should we not begin to target EACH of these individuals PERSONALLY - including finding out WHERE THEY LIVE and directing our actions against them as individuals who profit from murder, pillage and destruction?!
Every snake lives under a some rock somewhere - why should we not locate those hiding places and rout them out - make their lives as uncomfortable as possible?
by
mrk * (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 294 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 12:00:46 AM
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
In conflict tactics there are certain rules that the organizer should always regard as universalities. One is that the opposition must be singled out as the target and "frozen." By this I mean that in a complex, interrelated, urban society, it becomes increasingly difficult to single out who is to blame for any particular evil. There is a constant, and somewhat legitimate, passing of the buck. The target is always trying to shift responsibility to get out of being the target.
One of the criteria in picking your target is the target's vulnerability - where do you have the power to start? Furthermore, the target can always say, "Why do you center on me when there are others to blame as well?" When you "freeze the target," you disregard these arguments and, for the moment, all others to blame.
Then, as you zero in and freeze your target and carry out your attack, all of the "others" come out of the woodwork very soon. They become visible by their support of the target.
The other important point in the choosing of a target is that it must be a personification, not something general and abstract such as a community's segregated practices or a major corporation or City Hall. It is not possible to develop the necessary hostility against, say, City Hall, which after all is a concrete, physical, inanimate structure, or against a corporation, which has no soul or identity, or a public school administration, which again is an inanimate system.
RULE 12: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. (This is cruel, but very effective. Direct, personalized criticism and ridicule works.)
Freeze, isolate, personify. Are we doing this with Gonzales and is it effective? Seems to me keeping up the pressure on this front is a good tactic. But, in rubber stamping Bush's version of FISA updates is congress knowingly or unknowingly weakening the case? Doesn't the update legalize the heretofore illegal spying Gonzales has been lying about?
by
Sheila Jackson (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 137 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 12:57:36 PM
The problem with the perpetual blame game is that nobody ever takes the time to understand how they themselves perpetuate the problem, too.
It is very easy to accuse anybody who is richer than yourself of being greedy, but since you want their money, and you keep it people from people poorer than yourself, then aren't you greedy, too?
The same is true of political power. People want power for themselves, based on who they blame, not a world where nobody has political power over anybody.
Nobody is to "blame" for a system that doesn't work. We have all been indoctrinated into believing many different lies. Just because somebody is at a different point in a journey of lies, that does not mean they are to blame for everything. Our own mistakes are enough, without the burdens of others.
If you expect the world to change, then you must change yourself, too. That requires both courage and accepting responsibility.
If the world could be improved by blaming others for our own sins, then the world would have been made perfect long ago.
peace,
steve
www.behappyandfree.com
by
Steve Consilvio (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 11:59:18 AM
No, it is the greed of the businessmen that is the problem. How greedy? You can't visualise it until you have heard someone say, as I have, "He's having three billion out of it, I want three billion." - from a single transaction. And then that 3b. would not be enough. And this is enabled by the existence of finance, money.
Abolish finance. Simple.
by
amazin (30 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 359 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 1:32:10 PM
The businessperson may want his 3 billion, but he didn't make the rules. He just wants to win the game he is playing, the same as everyone else. (The incessant climb to the top.)
I agree money is the problem, but if people spend all their efforts blaming the players, then there will never be any effort spent on changing the rules.
The progressives are just as hypocritical as the regressives, since their interest is more money for "themselves" (however defined,) too.
Groupthink battles groupthink. This essay is another example of doublethink; and the suggestion to strike will make thinks worse, but is believed to be a plan to make things better. (Kinda like invading Iraq, not coincidentally.)
Ring the bell. Restart the wheel. Orwell wins again.
by
Steve Consilvio (9 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 73 comments)
on Sunday, August 5, 2007 at 6:12:09 PM
