How Corporatism/Fascism Will Eventually End In America. Hint: Think Generationally.

[Yavin4]

We need to understand how corporatism came to dominate American policy in order to know how it will end. Corporatism is not a Dem/Repub thing. It's far more like a generational thing.

People who came of age during the Great Depression were far more suspicious of corporate America than anyone. That's why throughout the 20th century that generation produced social security, formed unions, fought for wages and pensions, and voted for candidates that worked for interests of the common man. My father was from that generation, and he never owned stock. Why? As a boy, he literally saw parents abandon their children because of the depression brought on by the crash.

Flash forward to the Baby Boom generation. Now, I know that I am about to make a mass generalization here about the boomers, and I know that there are boomers who getting killed by corporate America. With that said, for a significant portion of the boomer population, corporate America has been very good to them. When they started to enter the workforce in the 70s, jobs were easy to get if you had a college degree and even easier if you had a graduate degree. In the 80s, the stock market boomed and Reagan cut your taxes which allowed their wealth to grow even faster. Boomers also saw their home values skyrocket over their lifetimes. If you bought property say in 1982, then it's worth has grown significantly.

Boomer age politicians reflect this positive feeling towards corporations. The Clintons, Obama, Rahm, the DLC, etc. all have very positive or favorable personal experiences working for and being compensated well by corporate America, and some in the media that cover these folks are also well-paid. Hannity, Rush, all of Faux News, etc. get paid well for promoting corporate America every day.

So, what will end this love affair with corporate America? A new American generation. Think about the people who started entering the workforce at the start of 2001 and continue to this day. They've seen two recessions and a Wall Street collapse. Their UE rate is higher than any other group. Unlike their parents who could afford to buy a home, this generation may never be able to buy a home and raise their own families given their employment prospects and their debts.

In essence, this current generation of new American workers won't have the strong positive connections to corporate America that their boomer parents/grandparents have, and eventually, they will turn on corporate America as their boomer elders die off.

[Ozymanithrax]

1. If Corporations flood elections so that only "approved" candidates get in...

no matter what party.

If they reward candidates after a career of faithful service with paid positions on corporate boards, speaker engagements at $100,000.00 a speech, or high consulting fees, what exactly does this new generation stop?

Now, particularly you have Corporations responsible for feeding us all the newest toys, gadgets, and goods that let us live like millionaires. They control the credit cards that keep us in debt. For the few who, through luck or talent, break out and move up to the affluent class, they buy stock and become entrenched within the system.

The last national strike was in 1952. The last effective peace movement was in the mid to late 60's.

Where does the rebellion begin?

[Yavin4]

5. The Rebellion Begins When People Have Nothing Left

Understand what the current generation of workers just entering the workforce asre going through. They're not getting jobs. They don't have any money. They have tons of debt. They have no stake in the system.

In many ways, the rebellion has already started. This generation has no qualms about downloading copyright material. They're seeing their parents, who are under water on their mortgages, walk away.

People with nothing eventually rebel.

[Ozymanithrax]

19. But they aren't leaving us with nothing...

Consumerism, the real economic system we follow, is designed to keep a constant flow of goods to Americans, to keep them from keeping any money for themselves, and to keep them entrenched in the single minded goal of getting the next cool thing, or drinking the type of beer the successful people drink.

The real poor are too busy trying to feed themselves and their children to rebel. When not working their asses off they watch TV shows that sell exclusively the idea that poor are stupid lazy ugly people who don't deserve the stuff they don't have because they are unwilling to work for it.

The middle class are too busy acquiring new unnecessary gadgets to do something as uncomfortable as rebelling. Those same TV shows sell consumerism, showing an endless supply of new gadgets, new cloths, new medicines, new medical procedures that will make them just like the rich folk.

The wealthy are beholden to corporations and other people to keep what they have.

In the past, successful rebellions have been led by intelligent, educated, and charismatic people. Today, we can't even get up a national strike. People won't leave their TV sets or the malls long enough to vote let alone riot or take up arms against their oppressors.

I don't think we have found a trigger to make people forget the bread and circuses that consumerism and modern media have created. Maybe a complete economic collapse would do it, but I think we have rounded that corner and will see consumerism moving full speed ahead.

[anonymous171]

20. "Intelligent,educated people." You mean like Lenin?

I'm sorry, but vanguard bullshit has not place in a PROPER rebellion. It needs start from the bottom and percolate up.

[Ozymanithrax]

25. You must have leadership to have a rebelion...

Our founding fathers were, to a man, well educated. Most of them were rich by the standards of the time.

I spent most of my life poor, and only graduated to the middle class a decade ago. While poor, I was too busy trying to feed and clothe my family to foment rebellion. I have, at times, worked at two jobs to do that. My mother and most of my family still live among the working poor. Their concern is enough food, decent clothing, and a shelter. In order for a rebellion to work, someone higher on Maslow's hierarchy has to be involved.

You can have riots, such as those that occurred after Rodney King was arrested, or the earlier L.A. riots. Those came out of rage and hopelessness. But the thing they found out after the King riots were that none of the issues found in the L.A. riots in the 60's were addressed.

Revolution, successful revolution, like Gandhi or the American Revolution, need leadership and direction. Without it, even the hopelessly poor will just eke out survival.

[Warpy]

2. You're talking about the second cohort of boomers and yes

they did very, very well on average.

The first cohort, on the other hand, took it full in the face, their pension contributions robbed every time they changed jobs, the Nixon double digit unemployment hitting them just as they entered their peak earning years, the Reagan double digit interest rates preventing them from buying that first house in the 80s, and declining wages and purchasing power being the norm for their entire working life.

They've also had the maximum amount of OASDI contributions robbed to cover the disaster that Reagan's tax giveaway to the rich caused. Remember, Reagan lowered taxes on the working class by pennies and on the rich by millions.

Many of the older boomers also didn't get that college degree because the draft board called them first. Shattered by that war, there was no way they could concentrate on trivialities with kids fresh out of high school. (Don't compare them to WWII vets, they were completely different wars and if the Pentagon had gone out of their way to wreck their heads, it couldn't have done a better job.)

Yes, there are a few older boomers who are corporate success stories and people in the second cohort who are not. However, the two cohorts had completely different sets of problems to face and couldn't be more unlike.

[ThomWV]

4. You have just told a story few people understand

As an early boomer I know exactly what you are talking about.

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. So do I. And I thank Warpy for this.

[Yavin4]

7. I Did Put In A Caveat About Making A Generalization

I know full well that there are many boomers who have been hit hard by corporate America.

[Mari333]

8. thank you. as an older boomer I did not benefit from corporations

and I was and still am fighting against their wars, their influence and their insanity.
I have always been anti corporation and always will be. I grew up in a Union family and watched my father lose half his pension due to corporate control.
I was taught from my father's knee never to trust 'management'.

[anonymous171]

3. Doubtful. My generation was virtually raised by corporate America. nt

[TheKentuckian]

9. Sometimes you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube

This has to be stopped very, very soon or it won't be reversable before the resources are stripped, the air fouled, and the water near undrinkable.

This can't be punted down the road. Do or die time here folks.

[kenny blankenship]

10. Wish I could believe that but what i see instead is that children of boomers are more docile

and accepting of the corporate bit between their teeth than their parents were. They don't even sense it's there for the most part, because I guess it's all they've ever known.

[anonymous171]

12. Yep. A generation that wears corporate logos on their everyday clothing.

is not going to rise up against the corporate overlords.

[Yavin4]

14. "I guess it's all they've ever known." And, The Reality of Life Will Change Them

They were raised by coporate funded media. But, their adult lives will take them in a much, much different direction.

They were told that if they went to college and got a degree, then there would be great careers waiting for them. They're finding the very opposite of that.

[renegade000]

11. I hope you're right, but I'm not as optimistic.

As a member of the demographic you've described, I sometimes worry about the beliefs of my peers. There definitely is a strong sense of disillusionment with the positions and philosophies of the right-wing, but the catechism of "government is bad, markets can do no wrong" is still so strongly ingrained in our public discourse that often we are hesitant to recognize or identify this as dogma and not a truism. Unless we can explicitly recognize and articulate the rejection of this dogmatic belief, we're just going to be further cowed ever rightward.

[Yavin4]

13. Are You Peers Employed In Good Paying Jobs?

Do they have a clear career path? Are they marrying and buying property?

You see, in order for the system to survive, people need to have a stake in it. Today, the system cutting out more and more people.

[laughingliberal]

15. Depends on where you fell in the boomer generation

Perhaps I was just unlucky but I'm smack dab in the middle of the boomers, born in 1955. I entered the work force early 80's. I think a lot of us at that stage did not make out well. I did luck out in finishing nursing school just ahead of Reagan's cuts for higher education. But I spent my entire 25 years as an RN running faster every year just to stay in the same place as the for profit industries took over the health care system. Pensions became a thing of the past and we had to try to scrape what we could from our stagnating and declining wages to put into 401k's. And, although, I was above the median wage of every state I lived in, I was never high enough up that food chain to be one who reaped a tax cut. I was of the class who saw my payroll taxes go up to fund the tax cuts for the wealthy. Now, at 54, I've been totally fried by the increased demand for higher productivity in the field and haven't been able to work for 2 years. My husband's business has failed due to the crash of the housing market. We are now facing old age with nothing. I do get a little irritated that many think the 'boomers' made out. Working class boomers who didn't make it into the job market til the 80's have been the ones watching everything disappear. My parents' generation was able to survive pretty well in the working class and those 10 years or so behind them made it through. After that, it got a lot harder. Those of us not at the beginning of the boom have not done so well. Those 10 years behind me are really screwed and those entering the job market now are just lost.

[omega minimo]

21. This is the story of the third Boom "cohort" -- the end, not the middle

The last Baby Boomers were born in 1960, which used to be the actual mark, but has been moved several times. Those born between '55-'60 experienced the dawn and dark side of the rise of Reaganism and cannot be lumped into the OPs rosy scenario.

Those born in and after 1960 largely have no connection, identification with the Boom era experience and morphed into the Yuppie/slacker Generation X.

[Sebastian Doyle]

16. Unfortunately, I see just the opposite

Younger generations, who believe that Clinton and Obama represent "Liberalism" honestly have no idea that we can do better. They don't know what a non-corporate media is (aside from the internet, and maybe those who have discovered the rapidly shrinking number of decent radio programs).

[anonymous171]

17. That's why it's important to talk about FDR and (my personal favorite) Huey Long

Along with all the other real leftists found in American history. We need to unwhite wash MLK and talk about the real history of Labor day. The younger generation needs to see that things have been moving backwards, not forwards, and that our society is on the brink of moral and political destruction at the hands of private tyranny.

[omega minimo]

23. "on the brink"? not there yet?

[tranche]

18. The younger generation knows what liberalism is. It's that boomers are eating everything.

And there's just too many of them to stop right now and they're in a desperate attempt to swallow the last of the scraps. This "younger generation" would love to vote for a real "liberal" but it's Boomer eat Boomer out there and everyone else be damned.

[omega minimo]

22. Bullshit. Steaming heaping self-pitying horsehockey

[tranche]

24. We'll let's see. They captured the end of real estate appreciation, bankrupted local governments for

pensions, squealed at the mention of any reform in healthcare (ie. their Medicare scooter subsidies), and are now mad at who they though was their next JFK (after 1 year). :eyes: It looks like they're saying screw it all and let's get ours through Romney this next election. History will not look kindly upon this fat wheezing generation, who's only claim is marching against a war only after the draft notices went out (read: saving their own asses again).

[omega minimo]

27. You and your peers do yourselves a disservice by falling for this bullshit cliched propaganda

Do you question where it comes from, or just adopt and repeat it?

Do you want to be viewed as self indulgent, self entitled, whiny ass babies?

Do you think blaming people that came before you -- seeing yourself as different/better/disconnected (see propaganda question above) -- is helpful is working on what you need to do in your life/lives?

At least the Slackers had some fun and a sense of humor. The attitude your post espoused is Lord of the Flies without the good sense to look for some damn clams or coconuts. Just sit on the sand and wait for one of the kids to drop someone's head in your lap.

:thumbsdown:

[fascisthunter]

28. we are in this together

blaming one generation isn't going to solve anything, but it can divide us.

[autorank]

31. You've got the wrong "they" - and they are ageless, timeless, omnipresent

It's The Money Party, they are inter generational and always present.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0709/S00549.htm

[Odin2005]

30. +1

[readmoreoften]

26. I agree 100%

It's not a generational thing. The 60s led us to believe in "generations" as some sort of revolutionary engine. It's a weird fetish, if you ask me. The workers of the future are likely to be more thoroughly propagandized than the workers of the past. That's about the size of it as far as I'm concerned.

Change is and must be cross-generational for it to be real.

[Odin2005]

29. If my reading of history is right my Millenial Generation will be like the Greatest Generation.

[RadiationTherapy]

32. The boomers ate the world.

They are the most prolific consumers of energy ever.

Of course, many will point to their youth and say 'Look'! but there is no legacy of a return to nature or non-materialistic lifestyle. There are no thriving communes or alternate ways of life.

Ever since I was in elementary school I have been told that the world is fucked, environment, energy needs, poverty, and that my generation will have to fix it.