October 9, 2011: Judgment of Mere Mortals, Will to Ignorance, In Service of Villians

“It is in the nature of things that the relative fitness for any claim to deity is left to the considered judgment of mere mortals.”
                   -- –From the “Quotations of Chairman Joe”

And so it has been throughout history, this relationship between governors and the governed; for the power of the elected has always been determined by the acquiescence of the electors.  This was the truth revealed by Thomas Hobbes who was forced into exile because he chose to defend the crown for all the wrong reasons.  Reasoning that the “state of nature” was, in his words, “mean, brutish and short”, he concluded that order was restored not by divine decree but by what could be called “gang rule.”  The King, therefore, received his legitimacy from the “gang”.  The “Leviathan”, as Hobbes called the emerging modern state, simply was another form of gang rule.  Notice, however, the emergence of the concept of “popular sovereignty” in it’s however convoluted form.  For rule by consent of the “gang” instead of “divine right” not only earned him an exile to the Netherlands but a place among the philosophes along with John Locke, Rousseau and Voltaire as leading advocates  of the emerging divinity of the popular will. 

The “people” have always had the power over the anointed, it is simply a question of whether they choose to exercise it and, if so, how.  As it is with any of the gods, so it is with kings, that when they no longer serve useful they are summarily called before the assembled and dismissed.  And so Zeus and Zoroaster, Aphrodite and Thor have gone the way of Louis XVI and Louis Napoleon; except in Britain, of course.

Electors have, as it were, vast power and in the modern democratic state these powers are duly extended into every facet of life: consumer choices, career opportunities, political preferences, and educational investments, choices over everything from presidents to toilet paper.  These choices offer a vast array of possibilities not the least of which is to give freedom to the headlong urge to ignorance.  A “will to ignorance” to paraphrase Nietzsche.

I first discovered this phenomenon shortly after graduating from college.  I was talking with my sister about some subject and brought up Mark Twain.  “Who,” she asked? 
“Mark Twain”, I replied.  “Who’s that” she responded.  “Didn’t you read him in American Literature Class” I asked?  After all we graduated from the same High School only a few years apart.  “We didn’t have to take American Literature” she said.  Upon close examination many of the old requirements had gone by the boards in favor of “feel good” classes like “Home and Family living”. 

What the preceding posts indicate is a growing structural ignorance based upon the fragmentation of the marketplace (especially the media), and the specializations of knowledge as a function of modern science.  This has been exasperated by the growing exercise of power by the electors to not only voice their will through increasing use of recall and referendum balloting but to intentionally and purposefully exercise their ‘god-given’ right to be ignorant.

It begins in school which now gives the emerging citizen the ‘right’ to opt-out of an education.  It continues into adulthood by exercising one’s “right” to opinion based on skewed empirical evidence, or no evidence at all.  One can now choose to opt-out of the requirements of informed citizenship as one can now choose “news” based on one’s existing prejudices, or ideological leanings.  The result of all this fragmentation is a pervasive alienation expressing itself in raging impotence as the great unwashed struggle unsuccessfully to get their collective arms around what it is that is being done to them. Self-interest has, in due course been separated from “enlightened” self-interest, for “enlightened” we are no more.  The result has been the folly of the brown-shirt “ teabag” movement spouting “populist” rhetoric in the service of villians.

January 25, 2011: Dictatorship of Corporate America, Truth and Power, No One Left

The Dictatorship of Capital. It sounds strange to our ears in this land of liberty, but it shouldn’t. We have a long history of censorship in this country going back to the very earliest days of the Republic. During the administration of our second president, John Adams, the congress passed the Alien and Sedition acts which, among other things, made it illegal to speak badly of the president or the government. During the civil war a United States Congressman, Clement Vallandingham of Ohio if memory serves, was seized and transported into confederate territory for his opposition to the war. The Palmer Raids in the wake of World War I and the McCarthy era at the beginning of the Cold War, in which such performers as the “Weavers” were banned from Television and actors like Lloyd Bridges were blackballed. Then came Vietnam which saw the cancellation of the “Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” because of their pointed political commentaries in opposition to the war. When performers and, at times, regular citizens have spoken truth to power the consequences have all too often been unpleasant.

It comes as little surprise, then, to see the strongest voice of progressive criticism on the airways silenced. While his audience was growing, and he paved the way for others—Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz, Lawrence O’Donnell to follow, Keith Olbermann was fast becoming a bur under the saddle to Corporate interests. Lets be clear about this, here was not a demonstrated case of government but corporate censorship. As with the cases of Bridges, the Smothers Brothers, Ed Asner and others, this was not the first such action by Corporate America to reign in free speech; nor will it be the last.

I have not been understood: It is not government dictatorship that we need fear. It is corporate dictatorship. Lest it appear that this be a bit of hyperbole, a bit over the top, let’s review a few facts.

First we spend more money in this country on private security than on the public police. This has been true for some time now. I’ve run across the truth of this statement not only by reading the works of Robert Reich but also having worked in the security industry where they speak with pride about society placing greater value upon the Pinkerton’s than the police. The Pinkerton’s, incidentally, don’t have to read you your rights upon arrest, nor give you access to an attorney.

Secondly, the intrusiveness of corporate America monitoring your every financial transaction, your every physical move is astounding. Imagine the demonstrations in the streets if the government were to so monitor you. Yes the government does more monitoring of its citizens than it has any right or need, but it pales in comparison to the “big brother” that is Corporate America. As a case in point: I once new a person who sat on a jury in an arson trial. The defendant was confronted with all kinds of financial records. Was he late on some utility bills? Of course. Was he late on some credit card payments. Of Course. You draw the verdict. If confronted with a phalanx of corporate attorney’s you can depend on the records of whatever you do—and records are kept on everything—being dragged out to demonstrate this or that motive. Further, Corporate America has installed video cameras in every parking lot, every apartment complex, every hallway, every sidewalk, every supermarket and department store. Capital monitors your every move. In the wake of the citizens united case Capital now buys your every election. As noted above Capital censors what you see and hear.

Thirdly, with the exception of a few rare appearances by labor leaders and environmentalists on the old MSNBC—that is on Maddow and Schultz during the Olbermann era—when was the last time they appeared on national television or radio? In my youth when Lawrence Spivak hosted NB C’s “Meet the Press” one would see labor leaders like Walter Reuther and George Meany, at least once a month. So it was on all the other network interview programs. One also saw environmentalists, peace activists, civil rights leaders. In short, under the “fairness doctrine” voice was given to alternate points of view. A reflection of the “counterveiling power” to use professor Galbraith’s terminology that existed to balance the power of Corporate America. Beginning with the Reagan years, Corporate America began to confuse itself with the genuine article to the point now where it dominates—indeed nearly monopolizes—everything. One’s own personal space: look at that logo you have emblazoned on your shirt. Look at all that advertising that comes into your home. The workplace: where are your unions? Who protects you now from capricious and arbitrary behavior? The public forums: When was the last time you saw the President of the AFL-CIO on the air. Do you even know who he is much less what he represents?

Olbermann, although strident, was hardly a radical. Here was no socialist. Here was no firebrand. He functioned primarily as a voice of reason and sanity calling out the idiot wrong for all its misrepresentations and outright lies. News, on “Countdown” was covered by way of picking up on how the Wrong-Wing was covering it—Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, and famously O”Reilly, and setting the record straight. It was universally seen as an exhausting work for there are over 450 such howlers out there and it takes herculean effort to shovel so much shit. But for all the nonsense that has been said about the so-called “Liberal” press since the Nixon era, wherein lies truth to the charge? Has there been a call to reinstate progressive taxation? Has there been a call to reinstate the tax code of Jerry Ford much less Dwight Eisenhower? Has there been a call to vigorously enforce anti-trust law? No. Corporate America would never tolerate it. It could not tolerate even Olbermann who proposed no such thing. Olbermann’s crime was to simply demand some honesty in the debate, but Corporate America would have none of it. The media now, such as it is, is fast becoming a house of mirrors fashioned by capital to worship its own reflection.

With the shouting down of political discourse at “town hall meetings” by the brown-shirt tactics of corporate shills representing themselves as modern minutemen, with corporate America increasingly assuming the police powers of the state, with the print and electronic media in the hands of a very few corporate giants we are left to ponder “who speaks for us now”. Increasingly, we stand alone now before our corporate paymasters, just like on the shop floor. Separate but equal? It’s beginning to look a lot like Jim Crow to me, with no one left to call them out.