Corporate Collectivism and The New Kulaks

[arendt]

Sorry to post this so late in the day. I will kick it again tomorrow morning.

--------


Corporate Collectivism and The New Kulaks
by arendt

...."Stalin also imposed the Soviet system of land management known as collectivization.
....This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmlands and livestock, in a country
....where 80 percent of the people were traditional village farmers. Among those farmers,
....were a class of people called Kulaks by the Communists. They were formerly wealthy
....farmers that had owned 24 or more acres, or had employed farm workers. Stalin believed
....any future insurrection would be led by the Kulaks, thus he proclaimed a policy aimed
....at "liquidating the Kulaks as a class."

....Much of the hugely abundant wheat crop harvested by the Ukranians that year (1932) was
....dumped on the foreign market to generate cash to aid Stalin's Five Year Plan for the
....modernization of the Soviet Union and also to help finance his massive military buildup.
....If the wheat had remained in the Ukraine, it was estimated to have been enough to feed
....all of the people there for up to two years."

........Genocide in the 20th Century - Stalin's Forced Famine
........http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm

...."The kulak money went to the government. It was no surprise that the peasants were exploited.
....They were considered unimportant to the revolution and stupid. Maxim Gorky said about them
...."LIke the Jews that Moses led out of Egyptian slavery, the half-savage, stupid, ponderous people
....of the Russian villages...will die out, and a new tribe will take their place- literate, sensible, hearty
....people."

........Stalin & Stalinism
........http://nore168.tripod.com/stalinism.htm

The Coup

In the thirty years of grinding trench warfare between democracy and
a resurgent unregulated corporatism, the insertion of George Bush into
the American presidency is a coup akin to the German insertion of
Nikolai Lenin into Russia in 1918.

Just as on the Eastern Front of World War I, the war has been a long string
of victories for the regimented corporations. They have picked off one small
democracy after another until only the continent-sized power remains. In
today's situation, that power is the United States. The U.S. has been bled
white by thirty years of corporate outsourcing and the almost total avoidance of
taxation by corporations. It has been cut off from outside help or information by
the outright purchase of the media, the higher educational system, and the
government by corporations intent on suppressing free speech, free inquiry
and legitimate regulation.

The global corporations' strategic position is now so strong, and the small-d
democratic opposition in America is so weak, that it has been possible to knock
out American democracy with a coup d'etat by inserting the neocon agitators
and their figurehead leader, George Bush, into power.

Just as the Germans expected a Russia under Lenin to retire from the Triple
Alliance and sell massive amounts of grain to their starving people, the
corporations expect the U.S. to stop blocking the corporate agenda, both
internally and on the world stage, and to hand over massive amounts of dollars
via crooked privatizations of Medicare and Social Security. Beyond that,
the corporations do not give a damn what kind of civil war breaks out
in the U.S. In fact, civil war here guarantees that the U.S. will have no
energy left to oppose corporate takeovers around the world.

But wait, you might say. This whole analogy is false. The U.S. is not an
under-developed nation with a massive, illiterate peasant class that has
been oppressed by an autocratic government for five centuries. In
response, I would ask you to listen to any rightwing media outlet.

As Marx would say, a "false consciousness" has been created for
rural and/or religious Americans. In the now well-known Bush Bubble,
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength. Liberals
are the godless enemy, and so are the infidel Moslems. Government
is evil incarnate (unless it is the Bush coterie of crooks, cronies,
ideologues, and carpet-bagging crackpots); and nuclear warheads
are door-knockers on the Pearly Gates.

This false consciousness didn't just happen. It was orchestrated by far
right think tanks springing up in the aftermath of Viet Nam and
Watergate. America in the 70s was still the richest, best educated country
on earth. It took 25 years of capital flight, corporate conglomeration,
disruption and undermining of government by CIA-style destabilization
campaigns, and organized mass propaganda (estimated at $200 Million
per year) to manufacture a new American peasantry living in a fantasy
world of corporate agitprop, masquerading as news.

Like Lenin's Communists, the Religious Right has agitators and
stealth operatives throughout the poorest regions of the country to
indoctrinate the victims of corporate outsourcing that their real
enemies are the liberals who tried to stop that outsourcing. Grover
Norquist, the shadowy eminence grise of the anti-tax movement,
proudly displays the picture of Lenin on his wall as he declares
that he will "drown government in a bathtub". (The hubris of these
people is exceeded only by the gullibility of their peasant victims.)
Instead of "Bread, Peace, Land", the party line is "God, Guns, and
Gays". At least Lenin (as opposed to Stalin) offered tangible rewards
in this world.


The Coming Purge

....Stalin believed any future insurrection would be led by the Kulaks,
....thus he proclaimed a policy aimed at "liquidating the Kulaks as a class."


Since the day he was shipped into Washington in a sealed train that ran
along the tracks of a castrated media, and was passed through the last border
checkpoint by five traitors on the Supreme Court, George Bush lost no time in
implementing his counter-revolutionary agenda.

Early on, before 911, Bush and his Neocon handlers had some remnants
of intra-party opposition to the institution of one-party rule in America - the
floundering mainstream GOP: hapless country-club moderates like Christie
Whitman; jaded, super-annuated, Washington insiders like Bob Dole; and big
city, secular, law-and-order thugs like Rudy Guiliani.

To win this fight, Bush adopted the same tactics as Lenin and Stalin.
Lenin's small minority of the Kerensky governement, counter-factually
named itself the "Bolsheviks" or big group, and its more numerous
opponents the "Mensheviks" or little group. The media whores reported
these lies as truth; and the rest, as they say, is Orwellian history.

With one-party rule established after the totally corrupt 2004 elections,
(which included the media assasinations of Howard Dean, Dan Rather,
and John Kerry) the corporations, like Stalin, are about to liquidate
their last organized opposition: the tattered remnants of America's
once-proud middle class.

The corporations have spent decades wiping out a genuine free market.
Helping themselves to (by the Cato Institute's estimate) over $100 Billion
a year in corporate welfare, they have steamrolled or bought out
small businesses. Fast food franchises have decimated local eateries.
Convenience stores replaced corner mom-and-pops. Home Depots
wiped out neighborhood hardware stores, and HMOs made doctors
and dentists' practices contingent on joining their restrictive networks.
Politics-free private malls have replaced public downtowns to the
detriment of legitimate political protest against corporate transgressions.

From the minute Bush arrived in office, corporations have eviscerated government
regulation of industrial practices and environmental management.
Actually, as the latest Labor Department cave-in on WalMart whisteblowers
shows, the government is now a subsidiary of the corporations.

It is clear that the corporations have the green light to complete their creeping
collectivization of America and the world. And like Stalin, they have decided
to wipe out their enemies as a class. Unfortunately, in America's cases, that
is the middle class.

The massively out-of-control U.S. budget loots the middle class even as it
sends their livelihoods overseas and pays for a huge military buildup - just as in the
quote at the beginning of this essay. Where are the once vocifierous anti-
Communist neocon ideologues to point out the similarity to the Russian purges?
That would be an intelligent question, and must not be asked.

The propaganda campaign to label high-earning, but non-super-rich people
as the new kulaks began over twenty years ago. We have been called
Yuppies and Dinks, and Liberal has become a dirty word. Anti-intellectualism
has been pumped up into a mainstream cultural trend.

But, just as the only distinction between a peasant and a kulak was that a
kulak was in the top 5% of the peasants, the only distinction between
a liberal and an American peasant is that he makes a decent income at
his job and has a decent education.

Just as Maxim Gorky found the backbone of Russian Society to be useless,
the Radical Right finds the backbone of American society (independent
small businessmen, professionals, technically trained people) to be useless
in the new fundamentalist/corporatist version of America.

As I have stated previously, a basic alliance between corporatists and
fundamentalists has been struck. The corporations get to loot America,
and the fundamentalist mullahs get to govern the wreckage they leave behind.
The personal lives of the new American peasant will be ruled by the
fundamentalists with an iron fist, while authoritarian, reactionary
corporations like WalMart and Amway indoctrinate their employees in
fundamentalism and hatred of the Enlightenment. Production will be
"rationalized", as in the Soviet Union, to destroy the self-sufficiency of
regions (and even whole countries) and make everyone dependent on
corporate central planning.

The middle class stands in the way of this vision because it will not be
docile and stupid, because it wants its children to have decent educations,
decent jobs, good healthcare, and a clean environment. All those things
are in opposition to the basic corporate demand to maximum short-term
profits for its CEO aristocracy regardless of the consequences. If Stalin were
a CEO today, he would say that the middle class is "objectively anti-
corporate".

And that is why the middle class must be destroyed. It must be forced into
MacJobs in the corporate collectives that sprout like poisonous mushrooms
all over our country. Of course, this definition of the middle class includes
a lot of moderate, country club Republicans. They have been on the
receiving end of fundamentist Religious Correctness for a decade, and
they are getting restive. Thomas Frank recounts this intra-party split in
"What's the Matter with Kansas?".

In the end, cults of personality eliminate the talented in favor of the loyal.
Soviet collectivization destroyed or scattered the most capable peasants
and replaced them with party hacks from the cities who knew nothing
about farming. The propaganda excuse for this was the mechanization
of agriculture. It was claimed that the superior scientific method of
mechanized farming was being resisted by backward peasants. In the
end, Soviet agriculture was totally moribund and had to import massive
amounts of grain from the West.

Along the way, Soviet agriculture fell victim to the scientific charlatan,
T.D. Lysenko,. This crackpot sold Stalin a fairy tale about Lamarckian evolution,
which was acceptable to Stalin because it was politically correct. It set
back not only agriculture, but genetics. Similar ideological meddling hobbled
the Soviet computer industry.

We see similar fairy tales being endorsed in America today: "Abstinence Only"
sex education, "Faith-based" welfare programs, and the privatization of
Social Security. Previous honest studies have shown these ideas are counter-
productive; yet they are on the fast track in the Bush regime because they
are religiously or politically correct.

----

It was often remarked that a "dying class" became one the minute
Comrade Stalin declared it so. The same thing has happened to the
American middle class under George Bush. What that class does
about it will shape the history of this country.

----

[Jim Sagle]

1. Thanks. You've nailed it.

:yourock: :cry:

[nashville_brook]

2. thank you for this economic and historical critique

i had not considered it like this before -- liberals as the educated middle class. the Kulaks. wow.

when we think of purges we think of taking people out and shooting them. we also imagine that could only happen to the "peasant" class - people with guns and a love of frontier justice.

but the way the chips are falling is economic warfare on the pesky educated folk. all those wonderful high tech jobs clinton and gore created are now developing the middle clss in India while software developers here in the states have given up hope of employment.

back to the election fraud forum -- so much work to do!

[arendt]

4. Yes. Kindler, gentler fascism is much easier to deny

The whole neocon shtick, which is what Michael Lind calls
"inverted Marxism", is so self-contradictory that it takes real
thinking to figure out what is going on.

You have to follow the John Mitchell rule: "Watch what we do;
not what we say." I have watched them ship American jobs
overseas for decades, all the while declaring it would benefit
us. I have watched them cut taxes and run up deficits not
once, but twice in the last thirty years.

The conclusion from the facts is obvious: these people are
out to destroy the middle class because it offers the only
effective opposition to corporate domination.

Beginning from this fact, the rest is just decoding the rhetoric.

Glad I could help you put it together.

arendt

[bloom]

20. who is going to buy their stuff?

if/when it all falls apart?


On edit: I see someone else asked the same thing.

There was some mention in the Pentagon report on climate change of turning the US into a fortress - assuming people from other areas of the world will want to flock here. Not that anyone intends to try to prevent climate change or anything...

[arendt]

23. Just like today, only the US joins the rest of the third world

With total control, the corps are free to adjust their
prices and their profit margins until the system stabilizes.
Even today, they rob us a little at a time, see how well
we compensate, and back off if they've stolen too much
at once.

They are free to tinker to get the right mix of low
pay, high profits on luxuries, more profit than they
deserve on commodities, and negative profit on addictive
technology (video, music players, game machines, all
kinds of pain-deadening/distancing technology) that
allows peasants to function under massive exploitation.

Give the corps a generation, and they will have bred sheep
that they can feed on until the environment collapses
(which ought to be about two generations).

Sorry about the cynicism, but the populace staring at the
abyss like dumb cattle is starting to get on my nerves.

arendt

[nashville_brook]

26. inverted marxism = national socialism

by definition.

these people are out to destroy the middle class
because it offers the only effective opposition
to corporate domination.

they're going at it from both directions too: education and income. wow.

[me b zola]

33. Compassionate fascism

Now playing in your local neighborhood.

[arendt]

3. Morning kick...and my bad...

Its VLADIMIR Lenin - got it cross-wired with Czar Nikolas.

arendt

[Karenina]

5. Excellent!!!

Thank you!!!! :toast:

[arendt]

6. front page kick n/t

[arendt]

7. Will work for comments n/t

[tom_paine]

8. Wonderful writing. Nominated for front page!

We face, essentially, Free-Market Stalinists.

America has never been in so much danger since it's founding, I believe. At least since 1865.

[arendt]

9. Free market Stalinists - great phrase! n/t

[annabanana]

10. This rings like a bell...

It is seamless. We've known for years that corporations have no country, and no allegiance to anything but profits.

[Batgirl]

11. much food for thought there

"The corporations get to loot America, and the fundamentalist mullahs get to govern the wreckage they leave behind."

The big corporations carry the banner of "free markets" but would shit themselves if they actually had to compete in one or bear the consequences of their own bad management.

In the long run, they work against their own best interests by destroying the middle class, but they think only in terms of irrational, short term greed.

What is the end game of these looters? What will they do when most of the population is living at a subsistance level and our consumer economy collapses? What happens when there's nothing left to loot?

[arendt]

12. No problem for them; it will just be Haiti on steroids...

armed compounds, helicopter transport for the elites.

Poverty and South African-style police raids for the
peasantry. Informants, secret police, thought police,
etc.

The components are already in place; they just haven't
been turned on yet.

The middle class is like a herd of cattle. They watch
the fenceposts being put in the ground. They see the
trucks of barbed wire. And they can't possibly believe
that this is meant for them.

Its "Four legs good; two legs better." time.

arendt

[IrateCitizen]

13. Hi, arendt!

It's always a pleasure to read your thoughts, because you certainly have a way of connecting things together. This essay is no different.

I'd like to focus on just one item in your essay which I believe to be a central part of this -- The personal lives of the new American peasant will be ruled by the fundamentalists with an iron fist, while authoritarian, reactionary corporations like WalMart and Amway indoctrinate their employees in fundamentalism and hatred of the Enlightenment.

It is this "hatred of the Enlightenment" which is perhaps the most central aspect of current trends. I have become convinced that America has largely rejected Enlightenment principles over time, and that we are now seeing its final death throes in action. First, there was the abandonment of metaphysical principles in order to embrace applied science during industrialization. The extreme specialization of American workers brought about during the industrial revolution, combined with the emergence of "home technologies" for consumption by these workers, helped create an economic model in search of neverending expansion -- one for which the word "enough" was struck from the lexicon.

Also, people began to embrace religious fundamentalism as a counterbalance to the scientific principles that governed the industrial revolution. It was as if they could not embrace all of the Enlightenment en masse, because to do so would have truly upset the long-standing social order of the few rulers and the many ruled. Furthermore, this trend represented a much more insidious trait -- the fact that most people in American society simply didn't like to THINK. Thinking, after all, is hard. It's much, much easier to simply have someone tell you what to believe than to think for yourself. Emmanuel Kant even recognized this back in the late 18th century.

This ongoing anti-thinking trend has led us to where we are today. Intellectualism is demonized -- even among the "professional" classes. Willful ignorance is lionized as a desirable trait. I often find myself amazed at people I know who are college graduates and employed in well-paying jobs who actually BRAG about how they haven't read a book in years. It's utterly mind-boggling to me, until I think about how much easier it is to simply receive your thoughts and entertainment passively from television as opposed to actually exercising your brain in the process.

Finally, we are now seeing the beginnings of the rejection of the physical principles of the Enlightenment -- scientific rationalism. Enlightenment thought perpetuated the idea that people should not live their lives by "faith", but that it was their senses that taught them about the world through observation. The scientific method of hypothesis and experimentation was borne out of this thinking. Now, we see large segments of the population rejecting this process in favor of adopting Christian mythology as the only acceptable "reality". Anything that challenges their narrow worldview is not held up for questioning and analysis -- as a thinking person would do -- but rather rejected violently and refused for consideration. There is no "reason" in this kind of thought, only the narrowminded beliefs that once kept human consciousness and potential locked in chains.

Sadly, I don't see a likely positive outcome from these trends. Sure, there will always be spaces formed by those who stubbornly hold to Enlightenment principles through thick and thin, spaces where we can feel free to live, learn and grow. But the majority of America will be consumed by this twisted merging of TV nation, religious fundamentalism and corporate authoritarianism. The only way the majority will wake up is if they find themselves no longer able to purchase that new SUV or third big-screen television, for people care more about these things than they do civic freedoms. The freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, press, and so on have been replaced by the freedom to shop. Citizenship has been replaced by consumerism. And most have blinded themselves to the harsh realities that these trends will portend for all of us.

[arendt]

15. Hi, IC-

> There is no "reason" in this kind of thought, only the narrowminded
> beliefs that once kept human consciousness and potential locked in
> chains.

You can't argue with them, because they only acknowledge facts
that support their point of view. Its like Matthew Miller said
back in the 90s:

"Facts are of value only insofar as they support someone's agenda."

> The only way the majority will wake up is if they find themselves
> no longer able to purchase that new SUV or third big-screen
> television, for people care more about these things than they do
> civic freedoms.

The reactionaries want to fossilize an "ideal" 1950s America,
where women, minorities, and gays are invisible chattel, where
heavy, polluting industry runs the government, and where the
media puts out McCarthy-ite propaganda and blacklists people.

The good news is that there isn't enough oil to sustain that
fantasy world for long. And, the Chinese are almost in a
position to turn the screws on us. We have exported our
low-tech work to the mainland and our high-tech work to Taiwan.
We have literally sold the Communist hangman the rope to hang
us, just as Kruschev predicted.

The bad news is that we are screwed, blued, and tatooed. We
will freeze in the dark because the dinosaurs in charge refuse
to invest in alternative energy, mass transit, energy conservation,
or containing sprawl.

Thanks for your thoughts and for your willingness to continue
thinking. Problems can't be solved by pretending they are not
there. Anti-intellectualism is a huge problem in America today.
(Although, I hear from friends with kids in France that they
also have a youth culture that denigrates school.)

arendt

[IrateCitizen]

43. "Problems can't be solved by pretending they are not there."

Boy howdy, that sums everything up in a nutshell! The problem we face as thinking people is that the vast majority of people out there ARE pretending these problems don't exist. Forget about the costs of imperialism, the exploding budget deficit, the economy that is increasingly built on quicksand, the rejection of rational thought in favor of fundamentalism -- the average American seems to think that the real problems are gays getting married and legions of the Arab hoardes amassing at our shores, poised to strike.

Where on earth do we go from here? It's bad enough that we live in a country in which the vast majority of people remain willfully ignorant of the problems we face as a society -- it's made even worse by the fact that the progressive left is largely still disorganized and ineffective, in spite of some positive steps in organizing around the war in Iraq.

WRT China, the US is simply seeing itself decline to the point at which it is largely a REGIONAL power as opposed to a global one. But then again, that seems to be the future of the world in many ways, with regional blocs emerging and bringing a multipolar world as opposed to a bipolar or unipolar one. In the words of Emmanuel Todd in After the Empire, the rest of the world is discovering that it can get along without the United States at the exact moment that the America is discovering it cannot survive without the rest of the world. The response on the part of US elites has been to attempt to maintain a hegemony that, in many ways, no longer exists.

As for other cultures that denigrate school, kids have ALWAYS denigrated school in one way or another. The problem arises when the PARENTS begin to denigrate learning, as they have here in the states. Perhaps France is just now experiencing the negative effects of "popular culture", having held out against it a bit longer than most....

[arendt]

47. You can't wake someone who is pretending to be asleep

I don't think Americans are clueless. I think they
are terrified. Way too many people cling to the RW
MSM because they want to be told what to do. Way too
many less ignorant people still buy into the old line
MSM, because the alternative is a creeping fascism that
is too frightening to confront.

After the Gannon affair, I will never believe the old
line MSM again. They absolutely refuse to cover anything
negative about the GOP. I expect that from Fox, not from
the Boston Globe.

Where we go from here is straight to hell. When a
huge minority (I would put it at 30%) is ready to
buy any kind of bullshit that involves killing strangers,
we are going to have nothing but bad karma.

Given the negative reaction to the centerpiece dismantling
of SS, the American public is not ignorant when it comes
to their immediate situation. They know SS is good, HMOs
are bad, outsourcing is bad, pollution is bad.

I'm beginning to think that Morris Berman got it right in
"The Twilight of American Democracy" when he advised people
to establish monasteries for the preservation of knowledge
against the coming Dark Age.

Again, sorry to be negative. Thanks for your contribution.

arendt

[IrateCitizen]

48. I think you mean Berman's "The Twilight of American Culture"

Good book, nevertheless. I didn't agree with him 100%, but he had some good points.

It's a combination of fear and ignorance, IMHO. I just look at my in-laws as an example. We live less than 30 miles from them, and my MIL actually thought that I voted for BUSH this election, and that he stood for everything I believe in. How do you expect to reason with people that are that willfully ignorant about their world?

My sisters-in-law and their families are other prime examples. NONE of them read. They raise their kids with television, and then wonder why they develop behavioral and attention-span problems. In their lives, everything's hunky-dory because they have the 2200+ sq ft home in Connecticut away from all the "undesirables", and the SUV in the garage. I cannot even discuss these issues with them, because they're just so damned clueless about it all, and they don't give a flying fuck about ANYTHING that exists outside of their immediate sphere -- even as those things are rushing in their direction at breakneck speed.

In any event, there will ALWAYS be spaces for progressives and thinkers, even after greater society collapses. Sure, we'll be outcasts -- even persecuted at times. But we will create those spaces and hopefully sow the seeds for a better future that we likely will not live to see. Then again, global climate crisis could erupt in full bloom and throw the world into a mass starvation and energy crash, and all could be lost....

I try to remain hopeful about the future, but I find little reason to be optimistic.

Always enjoy these conversations with you, arendt. You are certainly one of my favorite DUers, and I find you to be very much a kindred spirit in the way you think about and see the world. :headbang:

[arendt]

50. Only at DU could someone make that correction off the cuff...

it is such a shock to encounter literate, politically
engaged people. A good shock, but still a shock.

My in-laws are also totally clueless. Retired in Florida
on union pensions and SS, they listen to Limbaugh all day
and bash the government. He goes to the VFW post, where they
bash hippies all day long. I will grant that the guy was
severely wounded in WW2, and is no religious nutcase.
The WW2 generation, though, is a very special case. They
payed their dues and they should be allowed to play out
their lives in peace, as should any 80+ year old.

The issue is in our generation, where the temporarily well-
off have cocooned themselves and lobotomized themselves.
My wife is shocked when she encounters 20-30 year old women
who have no clue what life was like before women's lib:
no non-traditional job opportunities, the mommy track, and
valium. The generation after ours has been stolen by TV,
video games, and the utterly irrelevant corporate-packaged
music scene. In their defense, its hard to have high ideals
when you're holding down three part time jobs to pay for a
piece of a crappy apartment and some extortionate student
loans.

I cannot believe how utterly cynical the corporate leadership
of America has become. I shouldn't have been surprised, since
you have to be a sociopath to be a good CEO these days. But,
the only choice on offer is to be an exploiter or to be exploited.
The middle ground, of being a productive worker who gets paid
fairly, is being taken away faster every day.

Given the digital panopticon they are busy constructing, I'm
not too sure that there will always be places for people who
think.

I enjoy talking with you too, IC. Sometime when I'm passing
through NY, we should arrange to say hi. (Perhaps at some UU
event? - I keep forgetting if you're UU. Sorry.)

arendt

[IrateCitizen]

14. KICK!

This is too good of a post to drop off the board!

:kick:

[arendt]

16. Add "intelligent design" to my list of scientific fairy tales

How could I forget the longest running assault on
science? Anti-Darwinism, creationism, intelligent
design. All this non-scientific bluster dressed up
as "experimental" evidence has been trying to get
Darwin since he stated his thesis.

arendt

[Karenina]

40. Arendt, do you think

that the house of cards requires a hurricane force wind? When a congressman proposes NUKING another nation to the racous cheers of church-going folks, has ALL REASON been lost?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3196235

[arendt]

42. In a word, "yes"

If the Democrats don't make this dangerous idiot a poster child,
and play his speech more times than the Dean Scream, then
they are braindead.

I intend to ask my Congressman to excoriate this asshole and
to comment on the naked bloodlust of so-called Christians.

arendt

[Karenina]

53. The media, however, is *controlled.

No story that forces people to THINK is promoted. We have the benefit of history. Our communication systems are incredible. Yet, LIES rule the day. Did you see this?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1626497

[arendt]

17. kick n/t

[sweetheart]

18. Its a dogs world

I just gave the pack a bone. If a lesser
pack dog takes the bone away from the 2 legged dog (myself),
then property rights are unsure and the alpha will return
with the bone... For a beta (read: middle class) to keep
a bone, it needs to stand next to the big 2 legged enforcer.

So we've transformed entirely from a society of merit in to
one of "who you know".

Must we reach so far for metaphor? They wage war on the middle
classes to ensure their dynasty and to line their pockets.
How utterly pathetic, that such a great experiment should
fail for the same ol' reason all the others did.

(nominated)... good to hear from your good self, Hannah.

[arendt]

19. Kisses, sweetheart-

Yep, our great experiment in "a government of laws, not men"
has been stood on its head. We are now a government of men,
not laws.

Secret police operating on secret laws (Gilmore case).

Selective enforcement of the law is non-enforcement.
(Take your pick. Too numerous to even count. Although
one stands out:
....Habeus corpus denied, even though the Supreme Court
....had to rule in its favor. They aren't killing themselves
....enforcing their ruling.)

To commit the perfect crime you don't have to be a
genius, you just have to be in charge of the investigation.
(Enron, 911, Plame outing, WMD lies, etc.)

The First Republic of the U.S. is over. God help us to
found a second one soon; and this time, protect the press,
muzzle the intelligence agencies, and cage the corporations.

arendt

[bloom]

21. At the state level

in Indiana - since November...

Daniels took away state employees bargaining rights.

Wants to appoint all the judges for Marion County (Indianapolis).

Created an office of "Inspector General" who seems to be running an anti-Dem media campaign. Plus they are trying to get something passed so anyone who does/says anything they don't like (ie. is "accused" - not convicted - of anything) loses their (state) pension.



Lots of power grabs.

[arendt]

22. Sounds like Georgia

Same one-party rule.

You know these people get their marching orders from
the same folks. They are putting fascism in place one
red state at a time so that they can point to fait
accomplis when it comes time to occupy the blue states.

arendt

[sweetheart]

27. The occupation of the blue states

I just took a holiday in western US, and i could not help but notice
that the military installations really feel like occupying forces...
especially in nevada, california and new mexico.

You drive along in an otherwise pleasant place, and suddenly a town
pops up filled with bush/cheney pickup trucks, trailor trash settlements
and garbage... that my european spouse commented that most of the
country appears incredibly poor and third world.

I did have an interesting moment at the trinity site, as in truth, the
american system is rooted in bullying and WMD's.... i think they
should set up a plaque there, "This is the trinity site, the origin of
all american power... where we detonated the first nuclear device and
where we threaten the world with our vast stockpiles of WMD's"... just
so people are clear on what kind of nation it is.

[arendt]

24. rush hour kick n/t

[Batgirl]

25. kickety kick n/t

[sadiesworld]

28. .

[Batgirl]

29. another kick n/t

[me b zola]

30. Bravo!

The rich context in which you illustrate our current situation is outstanding. I really believe that you should have this published so that as many people as possible can benefit from your work.

Would you mind if I sent this to friends?

Do not underestimate the need for this to be read by all!!

[me b zola]

31. Kick!

I wish I could nominate twice!!

[arendt]

34. I always give permission to re-post, as long as you say "by arendt"

I do not underestimate the need for this kind of material; but
you should not overestimate the number of people willing to
wade through this many historical references and to feel the
irony with as much pain as I feel. If you know such people,
by all means forward it to them.

My attitude is that we can frame the corporations as "collectivizers".
People may support Bush, but they hate the corporations and
the outsourcing. Tie the corporations to Stalin's methods and
you have a good meme.

arendt

[me b zola]

39. Of course credit given to you

And you are correct about the number of people willing to wade through historical references, but there are those who are open to info to give them a better reference for what is happening now.

Thank you for your advice, I believe that I will heed. And once again, thank you for a wonderful post.


POWER TO THE PEOPLE

[scarletwoman]

32. Excellent! So glad to see an arendt post again!

Voted for "Greatest" -- if I had seen this in time I would have most certainly voted this for the home page.

It seems to me that even on DU, very few people really comprehend the big picture of what's happening in this country. Many thanks for your fine, cogent elucidation of a complex truth.

Very happy to see that you're still around, you are one of the most outstanding voices I have ever come across -- here, or anywhere.

Bravo, and many thanks,
sw

[arendt]

35. Thanks for your support...

I've been busy at work - very technically challenging stuff.
It frustrates me there to see how de-politicized even smart
engineers are. The cream of the crop is still as fat and happy
as a 1972 steelworker. They still think Bush is a joke and
everything is really OK. When they ship their jobs to India,
these hot-shot guys are going to be real surprised.

I have another essay that is just in my head; it will probably
take a week or two to find time to get it written.

arendt

[scarletwoman]

36. I'll be looking forward to it!

You are one-person think tank!

sw

[Karenina]

37. Required reading.

Back to one! :kick:

[hatrack]

38. You've captured it nicely

Particularly in the matter of Chimpy's new, irrational America. Ignorant, self-righteous and deeply in debt - that's exactly where corporate America wants their thralls.

Oh, and don't forget to keep dangling the necessary illusions in front of them - "Land of Opportunity", "Anyone can grow up to be President", or, in a modernized twist, "The Apprentice", "Morning Call/Power Lunch/Nightly Business Report", or any of the endless stream of poker shows and casino-based cable programs.

[arendt]

41. Bingo - the newly manufactured cult of poker

I had been annoyed by the poker shows, especially on Bravo;
but I hadn't thought about the subliminal message: you can only
win in America by gambling. Thanks very much for the insight.

Your grouping of poker with the "reality" genre makes it clear
that its all part of the deep sociological propaganda designed
to reprogram Americans into self-centered idiots.

Just as the reality shows teach treachery and character assasination,
the poker shows teach deception and bluffing. And, of course,
the only people in the world who matter are "celebrities". It
must be celebrity poker.

Why doesn't some Faux Christian whack job get as incensed
about gambling on TV as he does about SpongeBob?

God this country just gets sicker and sicker.

arendt

[ProfessorGAC]

44. This Is Part Of The Great Capitalist Paradox

Corporations are, by their very existence, collectivist organizations.

As capitalism expanded, the notion of merger became more prevalent. The acquisition of extrinsic assets and market opportunities as a growth strategy is even more collectivist than incorporation itself.

So, one of the long standing paradoxes of capitalism has been that it encouraged collectivist strategies, which are antithetical to capitalism.

This has been debated on and off for probably the last 75 years. Your inclusion of the Kulaks as a metaphor is clever stuff.
The Professor

[arendt]

45. Its not a "clever metaphor"; its reality...

I'm not writing this stuff to be Gore Vidal. I'm writing because there is a contract out on my way of life, and yours too.

Paradox is way too academic a word. Dangerous contradiction is
what it is.

Corporations are anti-democratic. There is no democracy
inside a corporation; its a pure authoritarian structure.
They can spy on you, punish you for your words or your
attitude.

As Tom Hartmann has explained, corporations have escaped
all legal constraints; and they did it by lying and bribing
and cheating.

You need to be a little less academic unless you want
to wind up in a gulag. We are literally fighting for our
lives here.

No offense, guy, but please wake up and smell the coffee.

arendt

[ProfessorGAC]

46. No Offense?

I was agreeing with you and you took me to task! How would i NOT take offense?

I can't even agree with you unless i simply accept each word as written and add no other insights? Learn to take a compliment, will you?

Sheesh.

[arendt]

49. Didn't mean to whack you so hard, but, please, consider acting

Yes, I admit I took you to task, and I probably could
have done it more lovingly, but I am pressed for time.
And, thanks for supporting the essay.

Here is what I said that referenced you specifically:

1. Paradox is way too academic a word. (that's not about
you, but about your choice of words.)

2. You need to be a little less academic unless you want
to wind up in a gulag. (Again, a call to monitor your
language and frame of reference.)

3. No offense, guy, but please wake up and smell the coffee.
(Once more, a call to examine your situation.)

I'm sorry if calling you "academic" twice hurt your feelings;
but we are literally having our rights, our pensions, and our
jobs taken away in front of our eyes. There is little time for
pondering IF corporations have some good points. Plus, your
name "professor" tends to contextualize your posts as academic.

I repeat: Unregulated corporations are a menace, not a paradox.

Once again, I truly mean "no offense". Feel free to correct
me, but I mean only to get someone who is clearly NOT pretending
to be asleep (that's a compliment, not an insult) to do more than
just contemplate a very harsh reality.

arendt

[ProfessorGAC]

51. Understood

I'll take my chances on being too academic, although i appreciate your concern.

This paradox has been mulled for many, many years. The fact that there are dangers are well understood in any corporate alliances with gov't.

You and i only disagree in that i don't think everyone's asleep. There is more vigilence in many quarters, including legislatures, than you think. The alliance is far less complete than you suggest.

The danger is real, yes. The consequences, however, are not imminent. Also, remember, that vigilence itself is a powerful weapon against tyranny and fascism. You, given your obvious vigilence, are part of the arsenal.

But, i do reiterate: Learn to take a compliment. Actions and vigilence are more vital in numbers. Alienating an ally is hardly a positive course of action. We're on the same side, here.
The Professor

[arendt]

52. I understand your point as well. Thanks.

Yes. It is hard for me to take a complement in this forum
when I don't have much history with the complementer. In the
horrible climate created by twenty years of RW belligerence, I
have become less willing to automatically assume good intentions.
It is part of the corrosive effect that bullying has on a
society. Still, mea culpa.

> There is more vigilence in many quarters, including legislatures,
> than you think. The alliance is far less complete than you suggest.

If you have time, it would boost my morale to get some links that
show such things happening. Since I live in MA, that state would
be especially interesting.

I will try to be more positive. Thanks for your response.

arendt

[IrateCitizen]

54. KICK!

A :kick: for all those who didn't take the opportunity to read this wonderful essay yet!