McAmerica: Form is Content

There have been a number of very interesting discussions about corporations on the Democratic Underground recently. It appears that the majority of people understand the problems that corporations pose to our Constitutional Democracy. I think that it is important to take it a step further, and to recognize that the federal government has become a corporation – in fact, exactly the phenomenon that President Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address.

Let's take a minute to examine eleven inherent rules of corporate behavior, as described by Jerry Mander in his 1991 book, “In the Absence of the Sacred” (Sierra Club Books). As we look at each one, consider if it is an apt description of our federal government today.

(1)The Profit Imperative: all decisions involve discussions of “cost,” with profit being valued above human/community values.
(2)The Growth Imperative: by their nature, corporations seek to become larger.
(3)Competition & Aggression: Think of oil and other resources.
(4)Amorality: Those individuals who advocate moral stances are marginalized.
(5)Hierarchy: Think of Congress
(6)Quantification, Linearity, and Segmentation: It's all in the numbers on spread-sheets.
(7)Dehumanization: This goes far beyond the dehumanization of the individuals and families in Iraq and Afghanistan. When a corporate nation dehumanizes others, it dehumanizes its own.
(8)Exploitation: Self-evident.
(9)Ephemerality: The “New World Order” of profits beyond borders.
(10)Opposition to Nature: Drill, Baby, Drill
(11)Homogenization:Everyone everywhere wants to be just like us, no matter if they realize it or not.

James Carroll's 2006 book, “House of War” (Houghton Mifflin Company) – which by no coincidence opens with Ike's famous January 17, 1961 warning that the rise of power in the military-industrial complex endangers our liberties and democratic process – provides numerous examples of how individuals who were intent upon providing moral leadership in our country were marginalized. And that marginalization includes being destroyed, on many levels.

The “mainstream” media today is little more than the corporate newsletter. Yet those who can read between the lines recognize that with very few exceptions, the editors and talking heads are providing an info-mercial for the corporation. And those few who even attempt to report anything else are marginalized; for example, Bill Moyers, who used to work at a high level within the corporation, is now a voice in the wilderness.

I think that when we look at individual politicians within this context, it makes more sense. Did candidate Barack Obama have sincere intentions of creating change within the system? I believe he did. Yet, even if a new manager of McDonald's has sincere intentions, the joint will still be serving the public unhealthy food. The new McAmerica commercials might seem chipper and entertaining, but “form is content,” as Mander notes.

I try to offer essays that are on target and of interest.

You betcha. And the Freepers lap it up like soma-saturatedSheeple, and then vote against their own interests. "More Tax Cuts for the Wealthy!"

a number of people who identify with the Tea Bag Party. Only one was aware of Cheney's installation of the "shadow government" on 9/11. That's unfortunate. As you know, the "shadow government" is an unelected group, led primarily by the heads of the energy corporations. There is zero Congressional oversight.

about socialism, Obama's birth certificate, fascism, communism, death panels yadda yadda yadda, and start addressing real problems, they might actually make some allies and get something done. How the hell do they expect to make any changes when they are protesting phantoms?

and is the most severe problem that businesses face.

to talk to people in human service agencies, as many of these people are experiencing the marginalization process in terms of "human/community values." It's obscene.

The Corporate Party, with its Democratic faction and its Republican faction. It really doesn't matter any longer whether the person elected as a (D) or (R) shown after their name. The two factions differ mainly on social issues which will never be resolved because they are based on belief systems. In practical matters they are simply 2 wings of one Corporate Party. This is by intent. The ruling class has gradually installed the Corporate Party as the only party that means anything any more, to lock the capitalist economic apparatus in place, which sustains the class system in the United States. Sure, they allow the token populist such as Dennis Kucinich to have a tiny piece of the power structure, to give the illusion that it's still a democracy. But ruling class has secured control by buying out the 2 former parties and effectively making them one (and buying out the public airwaves media). They did it with money, and they maintain it with money, and their ultimate goal is to make money, and to enslave the middle and working classes through skillful manipulation of wages and prices and money supplies. Slavery is still very much alive, just done with dollars rather than laws on the books, and the Corporate Party is the force that keeps it in place, and the suit and tie is the official outfit of that army.

at the top, it is definitely a one party system. No single corporation could be run by opposing boards-of-directors. And, at the grass roots level, I think there are more than two parties, although many people are still convinced by the McMedia that the ruling interests represent diversity.

Economic Power is Political Power. In agricultural communities political power is associated with land ownership, in a Commercial and/or Industrial community political power is associated with wealth from ownership of Capital Goods. The period from FDR to Carter was an historical anomaly and things are "decaying" back to the "base-line" state of Oligarchy out of public apathy and misinformation.

A similar period occurred in Roman history, the period from the 2nd Punic War to the murder of Gaius and Tiberias Gracchus. Romons started taking their political rights seriously and when that threatened the power of the elites when Tiberias Gracchus proposed land reform the elites quickly tried to crush the movement. The result was the so-called "Social War" between Marius and Sulla, in which the Elites won by absorbing non-Roman Italian elites into their ranks. The Republic never recovered, and after 2 more waves of civil war (Caesar-Pompey, Octavian-Antony), it finally died.

We are about to suffer the same fate.

I really appreciate your posting this.

kick & r

When I watch the coverage on this mine "accident," I think it reflects a larger reality. Most people on this forum understand that. And I think that more and more Americans do, too.

I'm going to look through some old files of letters from The Hurricane, to find something he wrote to me about "conscious evolution" years ago. He was in solitary confinement at the time, and it was at a period where he wrote beautiful, insightful, long letters to me. I keep thinking of that when I see you here. I will get to it!

"...no matter what promises you make on the campaign trail - blah, blah, blah - when you win, you go into this smokey room with the twelve industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down... and it's a shot of the Kennedy assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll.... And then the screen comes up, the lights come on, and they say to the new president, 'Any questions?'"

k/r

the Office of the President as being similar to that of the president of a high school student council. The only power for "good" comes from the citizens/student body.

nice to see someone bring up the late and great Bill Hicks!

:toast: :smoke:

you'll see it a lot...

an interesting presentation on NPR recently in which a gentleman was tossing out the idea that the U.S. government has been a corporation from day one. He spoke of the idea that you had the individual states that were nothing more than corporations in their structure sending their goods to Britain. The state corporations then all merged with their products, tobacco, cotton and so on and became the United States. Corporate America is nothing new it was set up as so from day one.

He also spoke about how corporations have manipulated our view of something as simple as violence. For example if a company were to go over seas and kill off a population for lets say oil we would be outraged but if it goes into an area and pollutes the water and the air and provides jobs it is looked at as a good thing, but isn't it a form of violence to pollute the environment to such a level that it kills the plant life, the animals in the habitat and leaves cancer in its wake, of course it is. The director of "Gasland" brought up a good point recently as well, if you or I were to dump an old battery in the watershed (here in NY state) we would be charged with a felony, the natural gas companies come in and pump thousands of gallons of carcinogens in the same ground and it is in the name of progress.

Personally that is my biggest frustration with the government that it walks hand in hand with corporate interest, but why wouldn't it, it is the same creature. People are outraged over the idea of religion and state mixing, and they should be, but the issue that should really concern them most at the moment is the mixture of politics and the corporate world. The government is nothing more than a yes man for the suits and it results in every negative and irrational decision this country makes domestically and in a foreign context because it revolves around the all mighty dollar.

The great independent cities of Medieval Europe were essentially like corporations and their stated purpose was that of commerce and industry.

"Look at all the baseball players."

The Giant Invisible Hand will save us all.

:patriot: