Midnight Ride of the Rabble
by Thom Hartmann
To every Middlesex village and farm, A cry of defiance, and not of fear, A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, And a word that shall echo for evermore! For, borne on the night-wind of the Past, Through all our history, to the last, In the hour of darkness and peril and need, The people will waken and listen to hear.-- From Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 1863
Emerson
Let's be blunt. The real agenda of the new conservatives is nothing less than the destruction of democracy in the
Their rallying cry is that government is the enemy, and thus must be "drowned in a bathtub." In that, they've mistaken our government for the former Soviet Union, or confused Ayn Rand's fictional and disintegrating
The government of the
Nonetheless, the new conservatives see our democratic government as the enemy. And if they plan to destroy democracy, they must have something in mind to replace it with. (Yes, I know that "democracy" and "democratic" sound too much like "Democrat," and so the Republicans want us to say that we don't live in a democracy, but, rather, a republic, which sounds more like "Republican." It was one of Newt's efforts, along with replacing phrases like "Democratic Senator" with "Democrat Senator." But Republican political correctness can take a leap: we're talking here about the survival of democracy in our constitutional republic.)
What conservatives are really arguing for is a return to the three historic forms of tyranny that the Founders and Framers identified, declared war against, and fought and died to keep out of our land. Those tyrants were kings, theocrats, and noble feudal lords.
Kings would never again be allowed to govern
Theocrats would never again be allowed to govern
And
The great and revolutionary ideal of
In their brave new world, corporations are more suited to governance than are the unpredictable rabble called citizens. Corporations should control politics, control the commons, control health care, control our airwaves, control the "free" market, and even control our schools. Although corporations can't vote, these new conservatives claim they should have human rights, like privacy from government inspections of their political activity and the free speech right to lie to politicians and citizens in PR and advertising. Although corporations don't need to breathe fresh air or drink pure water, these new conservatives would hand over to them the power to self-regulate poisonous emissions into our air and water.
While these new conservatives claim corporations should have the rights of persons, they don't mind if corporations use hostile financial force to take over other, smaller corporations in a bizarre form of corporate slavery called monopoly. Corporations can't die, so aren't subject to inheritance taxes or probate. They can't be put in prison, so even when they cause death they are only subject to fines.
Corporations and their CEOs are
Conservatives confuse efficiency and cost: They suggest that big corporations can perform public services at a lower total cost than government, while ignoring the corporate need to pad the bill with dividends to stockholders, rich CEO salaries, corporate jets and headquarters, advertising, millions in "campaign contributions," and cash set-asides for growth and expansion. They want to frame this as the solution of the "free market," and talk about entrepreneurs and small businesses filling up the holes left when government lets go of public property.
But these are straw man arguments: What they are really advocating is corporate rule, and ultimately a feudal state controlled exclusively by the largest of the corporations. Smaller corporations, like individual humans and the governments they once hoped would protect them from powerful feudal forces, can watch but they can't play.
The modern-day conservative movement began with Federalists Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, who argued that for a society to be stable it must have a governing elite, and this elite must be separate both in power and privilege from what
Destroyed by their embrace of this early form of despotism, the Federalists were replaced first in the early 1800s by the short-lived Whigs and then, starting with
It became obvious with the transformation of healthcare into a for-profit industry, leading to spiraling costs (and millions of dollars for Bill Frist and his ilk). Insurance became necessary for survival, and people were worried. Bill Clinton was prepared to answer the concern of the majority of Americans who supported national health care. But that would harm corporate profits.
"Do you want government bureaucrats deciding which doctor you can see?" asked the conservatives, over and over again. As a yes/no question, the answer was pretty simple for most Americans: no. But, as is so often the case when conservatives try to influence public opinion, the true issue wasn't honestly stated.
The real question was: "Do you want government bureaucrats - who are answerable to elected officials and thus subject to the will of 'We, The People' - making decisions about your healthcare, or would you rather have corporate bureaucrats - who are answerable only to their CEOs and work in a profit-driven environment - making decisions about your healthcare?"
For every $100 that passes through the hands of the government-administered Medicare programs, between $2 and $3 is spent on administration, leaving $97 to $98 to pay for medical services and drugs. But of every $100 that flows through corporate insurance programs and HMOs, $10 to $24 sticks to corporate fingers along the way. After all, Medicare doesn't have lavish corporate headquarters, corporate jets, or pay expensive lobbying firms in
When Jeb Bush cut a deal with Enron to privatize the Everglades, it diminished the power of the
For example, an NPR Morning Edition report by Rick Carr on 28 May 2003 said, "Current FCC Chair Michael Powell says he has faith the market will provide. What's more, he says, he'd rather have the market decide than government." In this, Powell was reciting the conservative mantra. Misconstruing Adam Smith, who warned about the dangers of the invisible hand of the marketplace trampling the rights and needs of the people, Powell suggests that business always knows best. The market will decide. Bigger isn't badder.
But experience shows that the very competition that conservatives claim to embrace is destroyed by the unrestrained growth of corporate interests. It's called monopoly: Big fish eat little fish, over and over, until there are no little fish left. Look at the thoroughfares of any American city and ask yourself how many of the businesses there are locally owned. Instead of cash circulating within a local and competitive economy, at midnight every night a button is pushed and the local money is vacuumed away to
This is feudalism in its most raw and naked form, just as the kings and nobles of old sucked dry the resources of the people they claimed to own. It is in these arguments for unrestrained corporatism that we see the naked face of
It is, in its most complete form, the face that would "drown government in a bathtub"; that sneers at the First Amendment by putting up "free speech zones" for protesters; that openly and harshly suggests that those who are poor, unemployed, or underemployed are suffering from character defects. That works hard to protect the corporate interest, but is happy to ignore the public interest. That says it doesn't matter what happens to the humans living in what a national conservative talk show host laughingly calls "turd world nations."
These new conservatives would have us trade in our democracy for a corporatocracy, a form of feudal government most recently reinvented by Benito Mussolini when he recommended a "merger of business and state interests" as a way of creating a government that would be invincibly strong. Mussolini called it fascism.
In a previous Common Dreams op-ed, I pointed out how media and other corporations will suck up to government when they think they can get regulations that will enhance their profits. We see this daily in the halls of Congress and in the lobbying efforts directed at our regulatory agencies. We see it in the millions of dollars in trips and gifts given to FCC commissioners, that in another era would have been called bribes.
These corporate-embracing conservatives are not working for what's best for democracy, for
But unrestrained, as George Soros warns us so eloquently, it will create monopoly and destroy democracy. The new conservatives are systematically dismantling our governmental systems of checks and balances; of considering the public good when regulating private corporate behavior; of protecting those individuals, small businesses, and local communities who are unable to protect themselves from giant corporate predators. They want to replace government of, by, and for We, the People, with a corporate feudal state, turning
Only a public revolt in disgust over this unconscionable behavior will stop these new conservatives from turning
4 Comments:
It is a very busy weekend for me, so I didn’t know if I can go into much of anything in great detail. So I will just stick with the simple argument that I can take up in this piece. We are not a democracy; the United states is a:
Constitution-based federal republic
Federal republic - a state in which the powers of the central government are restricted and in which the component parts (states, colonies, or provinces) retain a degree of self-government; ultimate sovereign power rests with the voters who chose their governmental representatives.
not a
Democracy - a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed.
To further back up the above, if you are using Wiki for your definitions of a neo-con… apply the same to the definition of the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States
Federal Republic
With all due repect, we are both. Our form of government is unique in the history of the world. We are not a true republic nor are we a true democracy. But the semantics of our nation's title is beside the point of the piece.
The crux is that Corporations are undemocratic and have far too much influence in our Represenative Constutional Republican Democracy (or whatever you want to call it).
I'll be back later. My suggestion would be call it "America." We were the first to have this type of Government so let's rename it "American."
PS-I can understand it is semantics, but when the point is that "republicans" are changing the name... you know I am going to comment. Actually the author is doing exactly what he is accusing others of.
I agree with you, American government is completely unique. I see your point on the name change thing, but his illustration is to make a point that our republic is becoming less and less democratic - which, regretrully I agree with.
Post a Comment
<< Home