AMERICA'S RAW STORY
14th Blog
America’s Corpocracy and its Finite Power
By Gary Brumback
Before examining America's corpocracy, or the collusion
between corporate America and subservient government America, I will briefly
examine the concept of power because the corpocracy cannot exist without its
power.1 While I have written about the concept before, what follows
is a considerably expanded conceptualization in the form of 16 tenets. They are
intended to make sense of the meaning and use of human and artifactual (human
made as in, for example, institutions and weapons) power, one of the most
dominating and consequential phenomena in the course of human affairs. I hope
readers find this introductory segment interesting and useful.
The Nature of Power
Power is the capacity to control resources of whatever kind
and for whatever purpose. The greater
that capacity up to and including super power the greater is the potential to
control more resources for broader purposes. Maximum capacity, or super power, could
lead to the control of all finite resources and thus eventually to their
complete depletion. There are two corollaries to this first tenet. More power allows
more choices. And more power allows more prosperity.
This capacity must be acquired. It is not innate. It can be
shared. It can be handed down as in dynasties and elections of the twin party’s
politicians.
All human and artifactual power is finite even if some of it
is replaceable (e.g., US presidents). Nothing but death and taxes lasts
forever. What will outlast malevolent, destructive and deadly super power and
how and when is the pivotal question facing humanity.
What turns the capacity for power into its actual exercise
is the behavior, in the form of decisions and subsequent actions and inactions,
of the power holders. The origin of human power, therefore, is human, not
supernatural, but this power can be amplified by artifacts such as laws and
weapons and by institutions such as government agencies, all created as I said by
humans.
To understand human power, therefore, requires understanding
what causes human behavior. In my non-mathematical equation for human behavior,
there are always two causes of behavior interacting with each other, the person
and the situations and circumstances the person faces and may help create.2
The classic axiom of Lord Acton (1834-1902), “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts
absolutely,” is mostly bunkum. Power per se does not corrupt. Power is only the
situational part of the behavioral equation. The person is the other. A morally
upright person, moreover, no matter how much power he or she holds whether absolute
or something less, is not necessarily corruptible and thus corrupting.
The axioms that “knowledge is truth” and “truth will set you
free” are of limited usefulness to the general public in America’s corpocracy. It
tells the general public what the “truth” is.
The notion of freedom, or our liberty quotient (i.e. the
ratio of personal freedom to the lack of it), is tied inexorably to power and
control over our lives, absolutely every sphere of it, whether the
personal/social/cultural sphere, the economic sphere, the political sphere, or
the environmental sphere.
The exercise of power is always consequential, ranging from
small to large and from beneficial to harmful.
The exercise of power should always be judged by its
behavior and its consequences. The judgment should always consider whether the
two were morally right, the higher standard, and by the lower standard, the law
of the land.
Whenever the exercise of power falls below either of those
two standards wrongdoing in some kind and degree has occurred, and all
wrongdoing is harmful in some kind and degree.
Power holders who exercise their power in ways that fall
below either one of those two standards but especially the lower one should be
held accountable for their wrongdoing.
Failure to do so virtually guarantees repetitive wrongdoing with
escalating consequences.
Power is never held equally throughout a heterogeneous
population. Even within a small group, the power elite, some members hold more,
some less power.
How much power an individual, group, government agency or
corporation has can be approximately determined by the locus of the power
(e.g., the CIA director versus a congressional committee member) and by the
effort and effects of the power exercised. Minimal effort and maximum effects,
or consequences, suggests maximum possible power at that time. Power can probably
never be absolute but will come close to being so if the consequences apply to the
entirety of the intended object, such as, for example, power over employees in
a corporation or over prisoners.
A nation state that is an empire probably represents the
maximum power that can be politically, economically, militarily and
geographically held. The defining characteristics of an empire are "the
permanent rule and exploitation of a defeated people by a conquering
power."3
How long power is held before it loses some or all of its
potency is difficult to predict, but easier to recognize. Who could have
predicted in ancient times, for example, that the Egyptian empire would last
over 3000 years or, for that matter that it would ever end?
The way power is exercised can vary in at least two
categorical ways, soft power and hard power.4 Soft power is the use
of non coercive means such as the use of diplomacy to control resources, while
hard power is the use of coercive means up to and including, for example, mass
murder from drone attacks.
Know the Enemy
America’s Corpocracy and its Accomplices
That famous piece of advice from Sun Tzu, the 6th century
BCE Chinese general and military strategist, is simple enough that even school
children understand it from experience. There is no chance of avoiding or
overcoming the enemy without knowing exactly who it is and how it operates
whether on the battlefield or playground.
I am on record as stating that America's corpocracy is the
"world's public enemy number one." 5 I am not boasting
about it, but instead am absolutely distressed and depressed because America is
my native home land; yet facts are facts, truth is truth, and denial or
ignorance of them reinforces the corpocracy and its power.
The corpocracy's power is always used to control resources
of almost any kind (including truth through secrecy and the dissemination of
falsehoods); is done through the behavior of human beings interacting with
their situations and augmented by astronomically expensive artifacts; is
morally repugnant wrongdoing that is never beneficial to anyone other than the
corpocracy and is always harmful to everyone else; and is invariably immune to
accountability.
Since its beginning over 240 years ago America's corpocracy has
been directly responsible for countless millions of deaths and massive
destruction in numerous foreign lands and for deplorable and intolerable
domestic conditions for countless Americans not benefitting from the
corpocracy. The corpocracy has institutionalized terror, or fear that strikes at
the hearts of humanity, at home as a police state and away as a regime changer,
destroyer and death dealer (according to world opinion the US is the greatest
threat to world peace).
Readers undoubtedly know there is abundant evidence to
substantiate such generalities since more specific evidence saturates the
alternative media and elsewhere (but, not, obviously mainstream media).6
The corpocracy and its accomplices (sources of support for
the corpocracy) are a polyglot of power holders and subordinate agents possessing
varying levels of power buttressed by their artifacts such as the world's
largest military and intelligence budget and implements. Within the corpocracy
are first and foremost the power elite, followed by the courtiers and ideologues
and the functionaries. Behind the corpocracy are the active accomplices. Next
to the corpocracy are the inactive accomplices. All told those groups of people
probably constitute roughly three fourths of the US population.
The Power Elite
When I was an undergraduate in the 1950s I read the
sociologist C. Wright Mills’ book, The Power Elite about the small group of
leaders in the military, political and economic arenas who dominate America.7
Although he didn’t use the term corpocracy, his power elite have
always controlled the corpocracy, the rest of America, and through militaristic
imperialism seek to control the world’s resources.
At America’s birth the founding plutocrats were the initial
power elite. It has since grown over time to include the key people of most
industries, especially war and related industries, and of major financial
institutions (behind every war are banksters); influential politicians (e.g.,
the President and chairs of relevant Congressional committees); key people in the
shadow government (e.g. the CIA); the US Supreme Court (never ruling a war
unconstitutional); and influential advisors and ideologues such as The Defense
Policy Board, the Brookings Institute, and the National Endowment for Democracy
that recently called for the US to oust Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.8
The population of the power elite is infinitesimally small,
numbering a few thousand compared to the total US population of approximately
325 million. So what we have in reverse biblical terms is a small but mighty
goliath subduing a very large but very powerless David. Even so, America has
not reached the status of being an empire by definition, notwithstanding the
myriad, published references to it as such.9 America’s corpocracy,
to be sure is nearly a super power but not an empire. At best I would call it
an aspiring empire by proxy wars.
The Functionaries
The functionaries, or careerists, are the millions of people
in government and industry who carry out the daily dirty business of the
corpocracy, including its continuous overt and covert war activities.
Active Accomplices
Active accomplices give intentional (but rarely acknowledged
publicly) assistance in some form or another to the corpocracy. They include influential
lobbyists, such as the US Chamber of Commerce; investors (particularly in the
war industry); the “behavior
shapers” such as war hawkish think tank ideologues who spin manifest destiny
and the “cult of growth” belief that “bigger is better” (e.g. merger of large
corporations into mega corporations); religious leaders (especially of the
religious right); biased educators; PR firms; journalists); certain professions,
especially the legal profession; and many physical and social sciences (e.g.,
the recent active support by the leadership of the American Psychological
Association in the torturing of Guantanamo prisoners).
Inactive Accomplices
The “silent bystanders” of America represent the inactive
accomplices who never in any meaningful way speak out against or actively
protest war, yet the corpocracy draws immeasurable support from massive silence
as opposed to massive resistance. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said "Our
lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."10
There are undeniable reasons for why there are millions of
silent bystanders. Years ago I listed about a dozen reasons.11I have
now added another, fear. The corpocracy has ramped up considerably its
draconian handling of outspoken dissidents seen as potential threats to its
power. Witness the dragnets by NASA and FBI and the brutality of militarized
police.
Confronting the Corpocracy
The Past and Present: A History of Failures and Lessons Learned
America has never been ruled by popular sovereignty. From
its very beginning, the corpocracy has never ceased to exist and has gradually
acquired more power until it has become the most powerful, lawless, and evil monstrosity
the world has ever seen and experienced. It seems invincible. Nothing has stopped it.
Every initiative throughout America’s history to dismantle the corpocracy has
failed. Any successes have been partial or localized and short lived, and the
corpocracy always knows exactly how to placate enough of the discontented
public to keep the initiatives from growing to bigger successes. For example,
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt instituted The New Deal to defuse public
unrest and to prevent the rise of socialism from threatening the power elite’s
capitalism.
The American
Revolution and the Civil War
Contrary to popular belief, the American Revolution was a
failure. It enabled the “founding plutocrats” to substitute a new home grown
corpocracy for that of King George instead of collaborating with the Native
Americans to craft a new and democratic nation.
Later, dishonest Abe, wanting to preserve the union so as to
ward off foreign invasions and to continue the corpocracy’s rapacious appetite
for more control including more land pitted Americans against Americans,
causing the unnecessary deaths of some 750,000 people. The Civil War was a
disaster and an abject failure. Injustice to people of color subsequently
turned even worse (e.g., the lynching of thousands of African Americans
following the Civil War and the current brutality of police actions against people
of color).
Coupled with the eventual growth of a fascist and
militarized police state, the lesson to be learned from those two wars not on
foreign soil is that the corpocracy will not hesitate to quash a rebellion or
revolution against it. When he said it Thomas Jefferson surely was jesting that
there should be a revolution every ten years.
Anti Corpocracy Movements
The Civil Rights movement against the corpocracy’s
injustices to people of color led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964, that in turn, however, led to an
outbreak of violence in the South, and certainly did not end the need for the movement.12
The act did lead to the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and to affirmative action
programs but the former has been weakened by passive state and local law
enforcement and the latter’s effectiveness in removing racial barriers to
school admissions and jobs is debatable at best.
Endless warring is a perpetual habit of America’s
corpocracy.13 Its goal is not to end wars because that would end the
need for the profitable war machine so there will always be war in some form or
another and anti war protests and movements ebbing and flowing.
The penultimate antiwar movement was that protesting the
Vietnam War. The movement was basically a failure in that it was not directly
responsible for ending that war. The Nixon administration finally realized the
war was a lost cause.14 Afterwards, Congress defused the potential
of all future antiwar movements by ending the draft. What replaced it as a
source for war recruits was the corpocracy’s shrinkage of job opportunities for
young Americans. “Go to war for us and you will have a job.”
In the late 1990s there was a huge international, anti
globalization movement of “tens of thousands of well-organized militant
protesters” of two of the prime drivers of globalization, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank.15 Nothing much ever came of it.
The climate change movement has gone nowhere overall. The
climate continues to degrade from all sorts of assaults on it by the
corpocracy.
The anti homophobic movement seems to have been successful,
but for a small proportion of the overall US population.
The “occupy” movement was mostly sound and little fury.
Leaderless, poorly organized, underfunded, and internally contentious the
movement fizzled as I predicted it would. It did get the attention of the
corpocracy, which responded by strengthening the police state.
An exceptional movement that deserves mention is the one
mobilized to stop and apparently has stopped Congressional ratification of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership or TPP.16 It sounds benign but it is a
wolf in sheep’s clothing as it would enhance corporate globalization and
control over nominally sovereign governments. The victory needs to be
qualified, however. Corporate America has fared very well without the TPP
because of lax government regulations, NAFTA and the like. Stopping TPP,
therefore, does not stop America’s corpocracy.
Anti corpocracy movements are likely to fail in general because
of the corpocracy’s super power to rebound an retaliate, and particularly if movements
are poorly organized, poorly mobilized and are issue specific, as was the albeit
successful TPP movement, and thus do not form a coalition of coordinated
movements targeting all parts of America’s corpocracy, the overarching,
umbrella issue. It needs to be the unifying target if there is to be any chance
for an anti corpocracy movement to succeed in changing America’s corpocracy
into a full-fledged democracy, the ultimate goal of any serious and
comprehensive challenge to America’s corpocracy.
The apparent certainty of the corpocracy’s supremacy is why
I proposed several years ago and tried to implement what I named "two-fisted
democracy power," with one fist being a coalition of numerous segments of
our society (e.g., existing grass-roots movements) to provide the political
pressure behind a coordinated plan of strategic reforms to be carried out by
the other fist, a US Chamber of Democracy, an on-line network of numerous NGOs
that claim to be seeking to change the status quo but are not united in their
efforts and clearly are not changing the status quo. I contacted 176 NGOs, most
of them twice or more with follow-up reminders. Only five endorsed the idea. I
belatedly realized that America’s NGOs had been co-opted by the corpocracy.17
Petitions, Internet
Activism, and Protests
Petitions, Internet activism, and protests are a dime a
dozen and basically worthless, including my own petitions and Internet activism.
In early 2013 the White House announced it would consider a
petition if it had garnered at least 100,000 signatures within 30 days. In that
same announcement statistics were cited indicating that up to then over 141
petitions had been received averaging 65 signatures on each!18 I
seriously doubt that 200 million signatures on a petition to stop the
corpocracy’s endless warring and spying would actually stop it. A 240 year old
habit won’t be stopped by an avalanche of petitions. And outgoing President
Obama agrees, having been quoted saying shortly before this last general
election that “future presidents may wage perpetual, secret drone war.19
Worth watching though are the “Standing Rock” protests of
Native Americans against the proposed oil pipeline straddling the North and
South Dakota borderline that would traverse their sacred burial grounds and
endanger their water supply. Protestors have been brutalized by the militarized
police, are gaining sympathy among the populace, and have attracted the
attention of UN observers who have begun an investigation into the protesters'
claims of human rights abuses, including "excessive force, unlawful
arrests, and mistreatment in jail,".20
Boycotting the
Corpocracy from Outside and Within
Boycotts have minimal to little effect. Corporations can
afford them. Ethical Consumer earlier this year listed corporations
alphabetically from Adidas to West County Dairy Products that were boycotted by
various groups for one reason or another.21 As far as I can tell the
corporations on the list are still thriving. As for the war industry, the
government, not the consumer public is the buyer and is not about to ban for
long any wayward contractors of any significance. At most the government
assesses picayune fines.22 War, after all, is the “hardest” power
the corpocracy has to wield, and to wield it broadly an ample supply of war and
intelligence contractors are needed.
Local Ordinances
A few local ordinances have been passed that curtail a tiny piece
of the corpocracy’s reach. For example, the city of Turlock, California passed
an ordinance barring Wal-Mart from building a store there; and, during the
Bush-Cheney reign of terror, there were reportedly around 40 town councils in
Vermont that had voted to have this pair impeached or arrested if not
impeached.23 Bush and Cheney may be unwelcome in parts of Vermont
but have yet been brought to trial.
Local ordinances are just that, local, of little to no value
beyond the jurisdiction passing the ordinance.
Legislative
Initiatives
Since the legislative branch of government is indebted to
corporate America, opponents of the
corpocracy can hardly expect any significant help from legislators to start
dismantling it, although there have been a few legislative initiatives with
limited implementation and impact.
Given public outcries over the US Supreme Court ruling in
the Citizen’s United case purportedly giving Constitutional rights to
corporations, a proposal was introduced a few years ago in Congress to overturn
that ruling. It was soundly defeated. But it was irrelevant anyway.
Corporations already had Constitutional rights before the ruling (e.g.,
corporations’ rights to due process and to be free from unreasonable searches),
and a Constitutional Amendment in any case is not needed “to restore the
traditional limits on court jurisdiction over the political question of private
money in elections.”24
As the obvious has already been noted, US presidents are
members of the corpocracy’s power elite. Congress, with some of its members
being members in good standing of the same power elite, has the authority to
impeach US presidents for unconstitutional acts. Two U.S. Presidents have been
impeached by the House of Representatives—Andrew Johnson in 1868 for conspiring
to assist Britain in capturing Spanish territory, and Bill Clinton in 1998 for
perjury and obstruction of justice over his sexual misconduct but both
presidents were later acquitted at trials held by the Senate. Jackson was the
only case where Congress decided his militaristic imperialism violated the
Constitution. US presidents have always been free to be surrogate murderers at
will (Einstein said all war is an act of murder, and one wag said killing one
is an act of murder and killing hundreds of thousands is foreign policy).
Taking the Corpocracy
to Court
In times of an American Corpocracy, the law falls silent.
--- Cicero 100BC-43BC paraphrased
Here are some of
those laws:
First, Fourth,
Fifth, Sixth, and Eight Amendments
Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act
Geneva
Convention’s Article 3
Rome Statute
(Article 7) of the International Criminal Court
UN Charter’s
Articles 2, 5, 33, and 51
U.S. Constitution
Articles 1 and 3
Whistleblower
protection laws
Consumer Protection Laws
Employee protection laws
Environmental protection laws
And any and
all laws against murder
Well, the corpocracy literally does not get sued, of course,
but its people and their artifacts (e.g., corporations) do get sued. Cicero
could have predicted what would happen to lawsuits throughout the 240 year
history of America’s corpocracy---not much for the plaintiffs.
By far the most grievous and the most abusive practice of
power by America’s corpocracy are its international war criminals yet they are
mostly insulated from being prosecuted. Tribunals held to try them are purely
symbolic with no legal authority or with unenforced legal authority. An example
was the “Russell Tribunal” whose verdict was that the US had acted criminally
in its war against Vietnam.25Another was the Kuala Lumpurrt War
Crimes Commission that found George W. Bush and seven key members of his
administration guilty of war crimes in absentia for the illegal invasion of
Iraq.26
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is reportedly going
to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan, but “hold the cheers” writes
Stephen Lendman, a prolific writer and knowledgeable pundit on international
affairs.27 The ICC has never held the US accountable and is unlikely
to do so now. The US government refuses to join the ICC as a signatory, but
that would not matter if the court were not scared of the US.
Our corpocracy’s international war criminals, in other
words, go scot free, escaping legal accountability up to and including their natural
death.
Lawsuits against corporations are relatively common but
affordable, simply the price of “anything goes” business. In the case of RJ
Reynolds, for example, a widow won a $26.3 billion lawsuit against it.28
The tobacco giant will stay in business with a dependable supply of addicted
customers. Walmart is a lightning rod for lawsuits against it yet I doubt they will
ever bankrupt the company.
Lawsuits against deep-pocketed Corporate America are
unlikely, therefore, to bring it to its knees. Furthermore, Government America
has built a number of shields against accountability such as limited liability,
corporate personhood, anemic tort law, non prosecution, deferred prosecution,
etc., etc. for its Corporate America masters.29 Additionally, corporations
have learned the unethical maneuver of requiring customers of big ticket items
to sign waivers prohibiting them from filing class action suits.30 As
for the war industry, it seems totally unaccountable for its role in overt and
covert war engaged in by its war addicted customer.
Political Initiatives
If most politicians were morally upstanding citizens there
would be no corporacy ipso facto presto.
A day before the general election I tweeted this cynical
tweet, “No surprise tomorrow. Two sides of same coin. Take your pick or flip
it.” The silent minority (losing the popular vote), angered over the
establishment, took their pick. More of the same Oval Office behavior to follow
I expect unless President-elect Trump means what he says. If he establishes a
cordial relationship with Russia and begins reining in the
military/industrial/political triumvirate I will tip my hat to the pickers.
In my Devil’s Marriage book I discussed the following
initiatives that conceivably could “close the corpocracy’s political/judicial circus:”
dump the party twins; revive progressivism; try deliberative democracy and also
its derivative, direct decrees; create or revitalize an independent party; end
politics as a career by instituting term limits for members of Congress; end
campaign financing; out the touts (i.e., lobbyists); plug the burrowers’ holes
(i.e., giving outgoing political appointees civil service positions; lock the
revolving doors and archways to prevent moving back and forth between political
appointments and industry and lobbyist positions; knock down voting hurdles;
shrink the big beast; restore justice to the corporatized courts; and pursue miscellaneous legislative reforms.31
A spot check of the literature shows that some of these
initiatives have been tried, but none has really succeeded as intended. Dumping
the party twins, for example, is a fanciful initiative. They never have been
dumped by the electorate.
One initiative I have wavered on is that of secession. As I
have already mentioned, President Lincoln squashed the first attempt at
secession for the sake of preserving unified imperialism. Allowing the
secession would have avoided a unified corpocracy and its ruination of
everything in its path.32 Since then several states have sought to
secede and failed to do so. Currently, an acquaintance of mine, Marcus Ruis
Evans is marshalling support in California to have it secede.33 I
told him that while I supported his initiative California is so saturated with
war industry contractors doing business with the US government that I could not
imagine the initiative would succeed. The corpocracy, after all, is what the
founding plutocrats wanted in order to grow their “empire.” As an alternative
to secession I advocate dissolving central, nationalized government and
replacing it with separate and independent regionalized governments.
I mentioned in my book the “ridiculous” Electoral College
only as an aside because eliminating it a constitutional scholar had told me
would require an amendment to the Constitution. Daily Kos people disagree. Distraught
over Ms Clinton having won the popular vote but not the College vote they are
circulating a petition to support an “end run” around the Constitution.34
Had their end run actually existed before the Trump/Clinton travesty without including
an alternative to plurality voting such as ranked choice voting simply the
other side of the twin party coin would be the president-elect.
Another initiative I did not discuss but support is ranked
choice voting. So do the majority of voters in Maine who, ironically, bound by
popular vote voted to implement ranked choice in choosing Maine’s next governor
and seats in the U.S. House and Senate, State House and State Senate.35
Maine is the first state to break away from popular voting. Whether any other
states follow suit in the future remains to be seen.
In Closing
The Status Quo in
Corpocracy America
·
Corrupt corporate control of corrupt politicians
·
Vulgar wealth of the power elite
·
Militaristic imperialism plus endless
covert/overt wars
·
Devastation and death for countless and mounting
millions of war victims
·
War industry’s draining of the peoples’ national
budget
·
Soaring poverty and unemployment and pittance
wages
·
Glaring social injustice
·
Militarized, discriminatory and abusive police
·
Fearful, misinformed and uninformed general
public
·
Polluted environment, drinking water and food
·
Inadequate health care for millions of needy
·
Etc, etc, -------etc.
So the Quest Must
Continue for a New and Better America
No Matter How
Hopeless
No Matter How Far
---Cervantes/Don
Quixote, Man of La Mancha paraphrased
If America and her global neighbors are to avoid the dismal
scenarios of the future such as the ones I have depicted elsewhere (e.g., armed
revolution; escalating blowbacks from groups in nations droned by the
corpocracy and ruled by implanted dictators; ecocide; genocide; manufactured
plague; and Armageddon ), the quest must continue for viable ways to dismantle
her corpocracy and replace it with a governance of bona fide self rule by the
citizenry.36
Some pundits see signs that the corpocracy’s “empire” is in
decline.37 If so, it is proceeding at a snail’s pace (most of
history’s putative empires lasted far longer than 240 years). What might be
done to quicken it before one or more of my scenarios become reality?
Revolution? No!
Some pundits in print call for a revolution.38The typical revolution is a ghastly,
bloody sight, neither civil nor peaceful. That leaves little room for
peaceful revolutions like the “Velvet Revolution” that overthrew the communist
regime of the former Czechoslovakia.
Peaceful demonstrations by small
groups of students, artists, and scientists were followed by massive
demonstrations, a general strike, the major media’s decision to join the
general strike, and negotiations with the Communist-controlled government that
subsequently acceded to a new government led by Mr. Vaclav Havel.39 I definitely
do not recommend a revolution of any kind. The communist-controlled government
was not a corporate controlled government that would unleash a deadly backlash
in reaction to any form of revolution. Furthermore, the only path to peace in
my opinion is peace itself, which eschews the very idea of any form of
violence.
Resurrect the USCD?
My proposal to establish “two fisted democracy power” was a
comprehensive strategy to tackle all elements of America’s corpocracy. One
“fist” would be a US Chamber of Democracy, an Internet connected organization of
alliances (e.g., one for legal and regulatory reform; one for outreach; and one
for oversight and “strike force”) coupled with the other “fist,” or a unified
movement, 40 The proposal failed for lack of funding and my naïve
reliance on NGOs that were dependent on the status quo. I would resurrect the
proposal if I were not an octogenarian and could rely on the munificence of the
“super wealthy” who Ralph Nader claims, are “the only ones who can save us,” to
bankroll my proposed initiative.41
But I have my doubts about his claim based on the many wealthy foundations that
declined to fund the USCD. One in particular stands out, the Peace and Security
Funders Group, a large network of extremely wealthy public, private and family
foundations, and individual philanthropists, that is “committed to promoting
international peace and security.42 Balderdash!! What the “ultra
rich” generally seem to be doing instead one study of them concludes “---is
undermining global democracy.”43
So my answer to my question is “No, unless prominent,
wealthy citizens who reject the power elite can lead the USCD and it can be
adequately funded and sustained until its goal of overturning and replacing
America’s corpocracy is realized.
Resurrect
“Twittersod”
Twitter”sod,” or twitter “save our democracy,” was one of my
ambitious forays into Internet activism that left me empty handed.44
The idea, probably exemplifying my naivete/ was to have
millions of twitters in twitter land tweet POTUS and Congressional leaders on
the same day demanding an end to war. I still think Internet Activism has
untapped potential for mobilizing reformers but I am not the one to un-tap it. Google
“Internet activism” and you will disgorge roughly one and a half million sites.
Separating the chaff from the wheat, though, is not a task for me anymore.
Build an Umbrella
Anti Corpocracy Movement
I failed several years ago to do just that in trying to
implement a peoples’ “reign”bow coalition.45 Is it worth trying
again? I think it is but not by me. It must be done by influential people
championing it and possessing or garnering the means to build it and to make it
successful in replacing America’s corpocracy with a “new America,” one that
truly accomplishes the promise in the preamble to the Constitution to “promote
the general welfare,” a promise the authoring plutocrats never intended to keep
nor have any of their long line of heirs.
Mobilize and Unify Peace
and Anti-War Groups into a Peace Coalition
George Bernard Shaw once said poverty is the greatest crime.
I disagree. The greatest crime is the endless warring by America’s corpocracy
that bankrupts all national revenues but those reserved for the corpocracy,
leaving crumbs for society’s legitimate needs and that destroys and kills in
far-away lands. A nation always at war by any name and by any means cannot
possibly be a hospitable nation for all of her people. If there is one
single-issue movement desperately worth trying to mobilize again, therefore, it
is this issue. That is why a few years ago I proposed 24 initiatives to “wage
war on war” figuratively speaking.46 They basically remain stuck on
paper.
There are scores of allegedly peace and antiwar groups in
America. They failed me once in my overture to them to create a Peace Coalition.47
The same resources I mentioned that would be needed to launch an umbrella
movement are the same needed to launch a campaign to tackle the single but
overriding issue of war and peace.
Prosecute U.S. International
War Criminals
While America’s entire corpocracy, not just its
industrial/military/political triumvirate, is responsible for the conditions of
the status quo, the war business is the underlying cause of it all. The war
business is also the one that if not stopped will eventually lead to doomsday. A
pressing question, of course, is how can the corpocracy’s international war
criminals be prosecuted before they do more surrogate murdering or die of old
age and escape accountability altogether as it is said will likely be the case
with nonagenarian Henry Kissinger.48
There is no shortage of proposals to prosecute US
international war criminals but there appears to be a total shortage of
prosecutions. In 2008, for example, more than 120 public officials, lawyers,
academics, and authorities on the U.S. Constitution and international law
attended a two day Conference on War Crimes that resulted in 20 recommendations
“ranging from asking the next U.S. Attorney General to prosecute Bush, to
having any of some 2,700 county district attorney’s launch proceedings against
him for murder, to having Bush prosecuted for war crimes in other countries.49
I learned of the conference report six years later in 2014. I see nothing on the Internet to indicate that
there have been any substantive actions emanating from the conference report.
When years later there is still nothing more than paper to show for the
deliberations of 120 distinguished citizens what does that say about the
likelihood of U.S. war criminals ever being brought to trial, let alone
convicted and sentenced?
Rather than be defeatist about it, though, I want to float two
ideas. One is that truly genuine peace and anti war organizations (i.e. the
ones that do not exist simply for the sake of existence) ought to collaborate
to corral out of those 2700 county district attorneys the more courageous and
less cowed ones and cajole them into finding and representing some war
inflicted cases (e.g., PTS cases, suicide cases) that would give them standing
in court and then file a barrage of lawsuits to convince judges to place the charged
internal war criminals in court.
The second involves the National Lawyers Guild (NLG). Its members
represented Vietnam War draft resisters, antiwar activists, and the Chicago 7
after the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention.50 A cursory review of
recent NLG involvements shows none mounting legal challenges against the
corpocracy’s war machine. The NLG thus needs to be emboldened to file law suits
against the U.S. international war criminals. But who will do the emboldening?
Perhaps some of those county district attorneys?
Turn the Tables?
Scaring the masses is a tried and true tactic of despotic
regimes that America’s corpocracy adopted. It is past due time to scare the
masses from a different angle, that of convincing them that their station in
life and that of their descendents will continue to deteriorate until it is too
late to live. The devil is in the details naturally for who will do the
convincing and how? Who has enough resources and ingenuity to outwit the
corporate media and governments’ tactics?
There is no lack of facts available about how the corpocracy
is turning America into a ruination. But who will compile, digest and
disseminate them to the general public? Certainly not the National Museum of
American History in the nation’s capital. Its exhibit on "The Price of
Freedom: Americans at War" says David Swanson, activist, author, and Nobel
peace laureate nominee a few years ago and leader of the Beyond War
organization, “---is an extravaganza of lies and deceptions,” but then adds
that “---overwhelmingly the lying is done in this exhibit by omission. Bad past
excuses for wars are ignored, the death and destruction is ignored or falsely
reduced.”51 Certainly not the National Library of Congress or the
Presidential Libraries! America needs instead a mobile “Peoples’ Library” navigating
throughout the nation dispensing eye appealing and readable exhibits and facts.
The Corporate Crime Watch group would be one good source for that library.52
I cannot imagine that any large PR firms would volunteer to help. They are too
busy promoting and whitewashing the corpocracy.
Seize the Moments
America is a large diverse nation with countless happenings
around the clock. Among them are opportunities to be magnified in confronting
the corpocracy. To take just one example, investors are telling the auto
industry “to move to low carbon—or else.”53 What is needed is an
organization like the proposed USCD, whether an online or bricks and mortar
one, to track such opportunities and then magnify them to a “tipping point” and
beyond.
A Final Word, Finally
My analogy of Don Quixote was deliberate. And I have used it
before. Throughout my entire career I tilted at the windmills of various
government agencies. Near the end of my career I coauthored an article,
“Tilting at the Bureaucracy,” with a gentleman, since deceased, who was then
the Federal government’s highest ranking civil servant.54 Even he
was no match for the Fed’s windmill. But as big as it is it is miniscule
compared to that of the entire corpocracy.
If we are to have any chance of being good ancestors of the
future we must not give up, not be fatalistic, not be pessimistic. We must
continue the quest! We must continue tilting at the corpocracy’s windmill until
it stops turning.
Notes
1. Brumback, GB. The Devil’s Marriage: Break Up the
Corpocracy or Leave Democracy in the Lurch. Author House, 2011.
2. Brumback, GB. I conceived and first published this
nonmathematical equation in my book, Tall Performance From Short Organizations
Through We/MePower. Author House, 2004.
3. Parsons, T. The Rule of Empires. Oxford University Press,
2010
4. Nye, JS., Jr. Soft Power: The Means To Success In World
Politics. Public Affairs, 2009
5. Brumback, GB. American Herald Tribune, October 26;
Dissident Voice, October 26; Uncommon Thought Journal, November 1; Op Ed News,
November 6.
6. As a start see the list of “sadtistics” in Chapter 8 of
my book, America’s Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying. Create Space Independent Publishing
Platform, 2015.
7. Mills, CW. The Power Elite, Oxford University Press,
1959.
8. Parry, R. Key Neocon Calls On US To Oust Putin.
October 11, 2016, www.consortiumnews.com
9. The alternative news outlets are awash with articles about
America’s “empire.” Here is a small sampling: Bill Blum regularly publishes his
informative “Anti-Empire Report at https://williamblum.org. See also, e.g.,
Stryker, D. The US Empire Versus Russia's. OpEdNews, November 3, 2016; Thacker,
J. Has America Always Been a Greedy
Empire? Consortium News AlterNet, May 22, 2012; Baroud, R. A New American
Reality: An Empire beyond Salvation. Cyrano’s Journal, April 10, 2014; and
Marshall, AG. Engineering Empire: An Introduction to the Intellectuals and
Institutions of American Imperialism. Dissident Voice, June 1, 2013.
10. I am indebted to Rob Kall for reminding me of this quote
as it is printed at the end of his OEN e-mail messages.
11. Brumback. Op. cit. pp. 11-13.
12. Vox, L. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 Did Not End the
Movement For Equality. About Education, February 28, 2016.
13. Brumback, GB. America’s Oldest Professions: Warring and
Spying. Create Space
Independent Publishing Platform. 2015.
14. Allison, RJ. Antiwar Movement: Was the Vietnam Era
Antiwar Movement Successful?" History in Dispute. Vol. 2: American Social
and Political Movements, 1945-2000: Pursuit of Liberty. 2000. 3-10. U.S. History in Context. Web. 7
Oct. 2016.
15. Danahar, K. Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Rule. Routledge, 2003, p. 306.
16. Zeese, K.& Flowers, M. The TPP is Dead: The People
Defeat Transnational Corporate Power. OpEdNews, November 11, 2016.
17. Brumback, GB.
Tyranny's Hush Money. OpEdNews, September 28, 2013.
18. Phillips, M. Why
We’re Raising the Signature Threshold for We the People. The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog, January 15, 2013.
19. Kelly, A.R. Obama Acknowledges Future Presidents May
Wage Perpetual, Secret Drone War. Truthdig, Oct 5, 2016.
20. Leupp, G. Standing Rock and Imperialism Itself.
Counterunch, November 8, 2016; see also, McCauley, L. UN Observers Monitoring
Abuses Against Standing Rock Water Protectors. Common Dreams, November 1, 2016.
21. Ethical Consumer. List
of Consumer Boycotts, May 2016
22. Brumback. Op. cit. 2015, Chapter 5.
23. Staff. Court Upholds Blocking of Wal-Mart Store. Los
Angeles Times, July 05, 2006; and Sullivan, A. Vermont Towns Vote to Arrest Bush
and Cheney. Reuters, March 5, 2008.
24. Leas, M. and Hager, R. The Problem With Citizens United
Is Not Corporate Personhood. Truthout, January 17, 2012.
25. Duffett, J. Against the Crime of Silence: Proceedings of
the Russell International War Crimes Tribunal.
O'hare Books, 1968.
26. Ridley, Y. Bush Convicted of War Crimes in Absentia.
Foreign Policy Journal, May 12, 2012.
27. Lendman, S. ICC
to Investigate US War Crimes in Afghanistan? Hold the Cheers. Greanville Post,
November 1, 2016.
28. Sifferlin, A. $23.6 Billion Lawsuit Winner to Big
Tobacco: “Are You Awake Now?” Time.com, July 22, 2014.
29. Brumback. Op. cit. 2011, Chapter 8.
30. See e.g., Haleck, T. X Box Users Must Waive
Right to Class Action Suits: Experts Weigh In.
International Business Times, August 8, 2013.
31. Brumback. Op. cit.
2011. Chapter 6.
32. Brumback. Op. cit. p.
38.
33. Hawes, W. Secede to Succeed An Interview with
YesCalifornia's Marcus Ruiz Evans. Dissident Voice, October 28th, 2016.
34. E-mail from Daily Kos on November 10, 2016.
35. Associated Press.
Maine Question 5 — Allow Ranked-Choice Voting — Results: Approved
New York Times, November 11, 2016.
36. See, e.g., Brumback. Op. cit. 2015, pp.
220-231.
37. See, e.g., Fitzgerald, P. &
Gould, E. America, an Empire in
Twilight. OpEdNews, November 1, 2016.
38. See, e.g., Hedges, C.
Revolution Is in the Air. Truthdig, April 16, 2016.
39. Brumback. Op. cit.
2011, p. 40.
40. Brumback. Op. cit.
2011, pp. 44-49.
41. Nader, R. Only the
Super-Rich Can Save Us! Seven Stories Press, 2011.
42. Peace and Security
Funders Group. http://peaceandsecurity.org/
43. Lazare, S. Ultra-Rich
‘Philanthrocapitalist’ Class Undermining Global Democracy, Study Says.
Common Dreams, January 17, 2016.
44. Brumback,
GB. Twittersod, America’s Corpocracy and Endless Warring. Dissident Voice,
August 12, 2015; OpEdNews, August 13, 2015.
45. Brumback.Op. cit. 2011, pp. 49-61.
46. Brumback. Ibid. pp. 135-143.
47. See, e.g., Brumback, GB. What are Antiwar Organizations
Accomplishing? The Greanville Post, August 22, 2012; also, Brumback, GB. Do
Antiwar Organizations Depend on War? Dissident Voice, October 22, 2012; and A
Deadly Monster. Part 3: How the War Making Triumvirate Might be "Pacified."
OpEdNews, January 18, 2013.
48. Lendman. Op. cit.
49. Ross, S. Conference on War Crimes Yields 20
Recommendations, Including Impeachment.
Daily Impeachment News, September 18, 2008.
50. See https://www.nlg.org/about/history/
51.
Swanson, D. Teach the Children War. OpEdNews, March 20, 2013.
52. www.corporatecrimewatch.org
53. Macalister, T. Investors Tell Auto Industry to Move to
Low Carbon—or Else. Truthdig, October 13, 2016.
54. Brumbacck, GB. & McFee, TS. 2006. Tilting at the Bureaucracy. The
Industrial-Organizational Psychologist, 45, (5), 2006, pp. 72-75.
2 comments:
On the root of evil that exists within human nature itself!
http://www.energon.org.uk
Goliah, I agree.
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