The global struggle for real democracy has reached a
precious moment of truth: In Egypt, the Tahrir Uprising has morphed into
an
unpopular
Presidential election where neither candidate represents the youth who
sparked the revolution. In Wisconsin, a vibrant bottom-up insurgency has
resulted in a humiliating electoral defeat. Meanwhile in Greece, an
openly fascistic
party is gaining momentum. And then there is Occupy which has thus far been unable to
recapture the magic we created last year.
Who has the vision? Who has the memes? We’re at a fork in the road … a
tipping point moment in the global meme war and we on the Left have a
lot of soul searching to do.
Here is an inspiring article by Chris Hedges from
Adbusters #102 to set the tone for the days ahead:
What was left of electoral politics in the United States gasped and
sputtered to its extinction with the 2010 Supreme Court ruling known as
Citizens United. At that point the game was over. Legalized bribery now
defines the political process. The most retrograde elements of corporate
capitalism, such as the Koch brothers, are the undisputed king makers.
They decide who gets elected by anonymously pouring hundreds of millions
into campaigns. They hang with their SuperPACs like vultures over the
heads of every federal and state legislator. Any politician who dares to
challenge corporate demands and unregulated corporate capitalism knows
they will be thrust from political life as well as their highly paid
corporate jobs once they leave office. Politicians, including Barack
Obama, are corporate employees. And they know it.
Corporate money had corrupted the American political system even
before the 2010 Citizens United ruling. We had 35,000 corporate
lobbyists in Washington by 2010 writing legislation and funneling
corporate donations to compliant politicians. But the ruling snuffed out
even tepid and marginal resistance. It transformed us into an
oligarchic, corporate state. It marked, in essence, the culmination of
the corporate coup d’état that has slowly been established over the past
few decades. We can identify our individuality through brands or
choices in lifestyle, but political freedom does not exist.
Our highly choreographed campaigns are bizarre spectacles, sterile
and empty acts of political theater. The personal narrative of
candidates is the central point of debate, not issues, programs or
policies. The rhetoric and style is different – in short the brands are
different– between Republicans and Democrats, but the substance is the
same. It is impossible within the political system in the United States
to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs or ExxonMobil. Political
debate is dominated by opinion rather than fact. Lies are true.
The right-wing Heritage Foundation, for example, designed Obama’s
healthcare bill. It was first put into practice by then-Governor Mitt
Romney in 2006 in Massachusetts. Barack Obama adopted it, after
corporate lobbyists for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries
rewrote it to include $447 billion in subsidies. Romneycare is
Obamacare. It forces consumers to buy a default corporate product. The
insurance companies can raise co-payments and premiums, including for
the elderly and those on fixed income. They are exempted from providing
coverage to chronically ill children. Once you get sick you can be
priced out of the market. Of the one million Americans who go bankrupt
every year because they cannot pay their medical bills, 80 percent are
insured. This abuse will remain untouched. The healthy will pay. The
sick will be pushed aside.
The debate on the airwaves between Republicans and Democrats over the
healthcare bill, now before the Supreme Court, is part of the vast dumb
show. And this is true for every piece of legislation pushed through
Congress. The corporate media exists not to illuminate but to perpetuate
the mirage. Coke or Pepsi. Take your pick. As if there is a difference.
The capturing of the legislature, executive and judiciary by
corporate power, however, is only the first stage. We have now entered
the second. The corporate state, led by Congress and the Supreme Court,
is rapidly criminalizing dissent. The National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA), which was a bipartisan bill signed into law on New Year’s Eve
by Obama, permits the US government to employ the military as a domestic
police force that can detain citizens accused of supporting terrorist
groups or “associated forces” without due process until, in the language
of the law, the end of hostilities. Obama has employed the Espionage
Act against government officials who have leaked information about war
crimes to the press, virtually shutting down investigative reporting.
Only the official narrative now prevails. The Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Amendment Act (FISA) retroactively made legal what under
our Constitution was illegal, the warrantless wiretapping, monitoring
and eavesdropping on citizens. And the Supreme Court, utterly inverting
the concept of the rule of law, recently ruled that those who are
strip-searched by police or corrections officers, even if they are
innocent of a crime, couldn’t challenge the measures in a court of law.
In short, there is no legal recourse to the abuse of power.
The corporations will disembowel, or in the language of business
schools “harvest,” what is left of the country. The security and
surveillance apparatus will lock up those who resist. This is the
future. The iron circle will be shut tight.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and former international correspondent for The New York Times. His latest book is The World As It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment