America today is characterized by outrageously high income inequality, a crumbling social safety net, financially struggling public schools, expensive or unavailable health care, the loss of employer retirement plans, and the privatizing of government services. What many don’t know is that this sad state of affairs is the result of a deliberate plan created 50 years ago.
It started with a memo
On August 23, 1971, corporate lawyer Lewis F. Powell, who represented Big Tobacco, wrote a memorandum to the US Chamber of Commerce entitled, “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” In the memo, Powell called on the business community to organize for a long-term, well-funded, political fight. This memo initiated a flurry of political activity. In January 1972 Nixon put Powell on the Supreme Court.
Later in 1972, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) moved their headquarters from New York to Washington, DC saying, “the thing that affects business most today is government.” Of course today that saying should be reversed. During the 1970’s the number of corporate lobbyists, political action committees, and think tanks exploded.
Reagan assisted the takeover
In January 1981 Ronald Reagan took office. His administration was like Santa Claus to the corporate business community. He attacked unions, cut regulations, and (in 1987) eliminated the “Fairness Doctrine” which had governed public broadcasting (thus paving the way for the 1996 launch of Fox News).
Since Reagan, the grip of corporations over American lives has only tightened further. In 2010, the Supreme Court’s “Citizen’s United” decision said that corporate political spending was protected as if it were free speech. This decision opened the floodgate of corporate money that currently corrupts our elections.
Republicans defend the takeover
Meanwhile, the Federal Minimum Wage has been frozen at $7.25 an hour since 2009, the percentage of workers in unions is dangerously low (11.0%), and the Republicans continue to attack Social Security, Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act.
The narrow outcome of the 2020 election suits Wall Street just fine. Since they already have their tax loopholes, weakened labor laws, and weakened environmental protection regulations, they prefer that the government be divided and ineffectual. Mitch McConnell, the “Grim Reaper,” is their hero. The corporations are most afraid of a strong, effective, popular government that could actually counter their power.
The election of Joe Biden may give us a reprieve, but the underlying trend is still frightening. The Federal Courts (including the Supreme Court) have been stacked in favor of the corporations. The Electoral College system and the structure of the Senate allows a minority of voters to control the government.
The Republicans will continue to make things worse
Even without Donald Trump in the White House, the Republicans, along with the Federal judges Trump has appointed, will continue their efforts to destroy the Affordable Care Act, damage or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, weaken and de-fund public schools, weaken or eliminate environmental protection laws, and take away voting rights.
The corporate takeover of America has already succeeded. The fact that people don’t realize this and still vote Republican is a sign that the corporate propaganda apparatus is extremely effective. The continuing efforts by the Republicans to increase the misery and insecurity of Americans is a deliberate and ongoing effort to keep people stressed and divided so we won’t rise up and challenge the current power structure.
Sources: Umair Haque, “We Don’t Know How to Warn You Any Harder. America is Dying.,”Eudaimonia, August 29, 2020.
Crawford Killian, “Evil Geniuses: How the Rich Took Control of America (and Canada),” The Tyee, August 28, 2020.
Kurt Anderson, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America, Random House, 2020.
Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson, “Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer — And Turned Its Back on the Middle Class,” Simon & Schuster, 2011 (excerpted online in “The Powell Memo: A Call to-Arms for Corporations,” Moyers on Democracy, September 14, 2012).
Lisa Mascaro, “Senate GOP leader relishes role as ‘Grim Reaper’,” AP News, June 28, 2019.
The true danger to the freedoms we enjoy is the growing gap of income between the haves and have nots.
From my personal observation Donald Trump won the White House despite his bombastic behavior and still appeals to a large minority fringe group made up from a frightened shrinking White middle class.
Those shrinking numbers are fast approaching those of people of color and like dictators of the past Trump has been able to capitalize on their fear and prejudices.
This is evident by the escalation of race related crimes feed by Trump’s hate filled speech’s of
” it’s those people’s fault ”
By doing this Trump deflects who the real evil people are, those who control economic policies while at the same time having his ego feed by adoring followers who he views as nothing more than useful idiots much as Hitler did with the brown shirt supporters in Nazi Germany.
I was driving through Salt Lake City and Utah County last weekend and couldn’t help but notice the hundreds of apartments being constructed near the freeway and TRAX. I thought to myself how much this reminded me of the slave quarters on the plantations of the south years ago. Why? They are nice apartments, they aren’t low income per se but I thought, who lives in them and where to do they work and all I could think of was people working for large corporations that had enough income to survive but not enough income to thrive. I know there’s a difference between that and what the slaves had to face but I also wondered if it was a matter of semantics. Either way, someone is working for “the Man” with little hope of ever becoming “the Man.” Even the boss they work for doesn’t really have a chance at becoming “the Man.” With wages the way they are the worker at $15 an hour makes 30K a year, his/her boss makes 40-50K, the regional boss makes maybe 100K but get to the main office, wherever it is, and someone is making really big money. Do we ever think we can catch up when the big money people are all on the boards of the other big money people’s corporations.
We have been taught to fear anything which can be labeled socialist. There are many versions of socialism of course, but the public doesn’t get this. The Mormon public doesn’t get this. Various socialist movements can counter this, but they are badly out gunned because all of the wealth is in the hands of the capitalists, the anti-socialists. Who can rescue us from this mess? Can the Church? Doesn’t look like it.
From Alternet: Today’s Republican Party did not slip and accidentally fall into neofascism and racial authoritarianism. Rather, it willingly leapt into that cesspool. CPAC has devolved into a “safe space” where such vile ideas are cultivated and normalized.
In her landmark 1951 book “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” Hannah Arendt previewed the way today’s Trump-controlled Republican Party has devolved into a fascist authoritarian movement, a cultural and political force that transcends voting, campaigns, elections and other forms of “normal” political behavior.
And it is an authoritarian movement unrecognized by the LDS majority.
I’ve learned a lot by reading each of your source links. Very good.