The politics of distraction

[mhgaffney]

From the titles of other threads -- I see Ralph Nader hit the bulls eye with his latest op ed.

We are witnessing the politics of distraction. The issues are too enormous. The media is in denial -- and would have us focus on trivia.

Can economic/financial collapse be far away? MHG

Disintegration is Everywhere

The Politics of Distraction in an Age of Gotcha Capitalism

By RALPH NADER

In this year's presidential campaign, the major media want you to focus on the candidates' gaffes, their tactics toward one another's gaffes, the flows of political gossip and four second sound bytes.

Over and over again this is the humdrum pattern. Is Obama an elitist because of what he said about small towns in Pennsylvania? Why do Hillary and Bill exaggerate? Will Bill's mouth drag Hillary down? Will Barack's pastor drag him down? What about the gender factor? The race factor? Will they figure?

Who has more experience on Day One? What is McCain's wizardry over the reporters on the campaign trail? Can McCain project any human warmth? Which state must Hillary win and by what margin to continue in the race?

On the Sunday talk shows, it is the same couple dozen members of the opinion oligopoly. There is Bill Kristol bringing home the neocon bacon with dreary frequency. There is the James Carville/Mary Matalin spouse show featuring their squabbling over ideology.

Meanwhile the daily struggle of the American people, absorbing the results of the power abuses by the rich, powerful and corporate, continues outside this inbred force field of insipid coverage and commentary.

The people hear nothing regarding what McCain, Obama and Clinton will do about runaway drug, gasoline, and heating oil prices, not to mention what these Senators have already not done in these areas of public outcry.

Disintegration is everywhere. Public works are crumbling-schools, clinics, public transit, libraries, drinking water and sewage-treatment plants. Tax dollars are being used to destroy more of Iraq and to subsidize or bail out companies recklessly run by obscenely overpaid CEOs. Public deficits are soaring.

Corporate criminals laugh all the way to the bank and back. Eighty percent of the workers have been falling behind while the growth of the economy, until last October, made the rich richer and the hyper-rich go off the charts.

One of three workers lives on Wal-Mart wage levels. Nearly fifty million Americans are without health insurance. Eighteen thousand of these Americans die each year because they cannot afford health care, according to the Institute of Medicine. The recession deepens.

The corporate giants are abandoning millions of American workers as they move whole industries to dictatorial regimes abroad where political elites dictate wages, ban independent trade unions, and given sufficient grease, reduce other costs for these companies. Only American CEOs are not outsourced in this mad dash for greed and profits.

All our democratic institutions-courts, agencies, legislatures-are bypassed by "pull-down" autocratic trade treaties like the secretive World Trade Organization and NAFTA.

Wall Street operators seethe with reckless risks and then expect Washington to bail them out. Sure, why not? Washington is run by Wall Street executives on temporary job assignment in high government positions. The big corporations are big government.

Consumers are facing rapidly rising food prices, more home foreclosures, and rising rents. They have lost control over their money, as shown by the daily gouging by credit card companies, cell phone operators and the thousands of imposed fees, penalties, and charges, so well described in the new book Gotcha Capitalism by MSNBC reporter Bob Sullivan. Poverty increases.

Each year, about 58,000 Americans die from air pollution (EPA figures), and 100,000 patients lose their lives from medical negligence in hospitals and many more from hospital-induced infections. Have you heard any of the major campaigns pay any attention to these grim casualty levels?

Anxious workers feel shut out--they are disrespected, denied claims, arbitrarily laid off and just plain helpless on the shifting sands and seas of corporate globalization.

Fully 81 percent believe the country is going in the wrong directions. Almost as many believe corporations have too much control over their lives. And 61 percent polled say the major parties are failing.

Now turn on the television and radio coverage of the presidential campaign. How much of the above is reflected in the incessant distractions about tactics, gaffes and the fervid money-raising race?

Can the press and pundits ever be serious if the people do not grab hold of politics and make them become serious about their pleas, their plight and their revulsions? If voters want a concise mission statement, read the preamble to the Constitution, which starts "We the People" not "We the Corporations."

There is a responsibility attached to those words.

Ralph Nader is the author of The Seventeen Traditions

[Rohirrim]

I agree with everything he says. Too bad I can't stand the man.

[Florida_Bronco]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Too bad I can't stand the man.

Drop a mini-nuke on him.

[W*GS]

Make Nader drive a Corvair down the road at 80 mph...

[Willynowei]

They don't offer solutions because if solutions were so easy we wouldn't have those problems to begin with.

[mhgaffney]

huh

[ScottXray]

Great article...If he were the candidate of either major party he would be great. He's not so I won't vote for him.

We get the flim flam job by the media because they are the Corporate media. The deregulation of media control passed under the Clinton administration has led to the Mass market of News as entertainment and the
truly depressing status the country is in just isnt Entertaining....much better to go on with coverage of minutia that make for good sound bites..... and lowers the Standard with each passing year.

Besides...the people who actually WANT to hear the truth can get it on the internet...and the ratings and advertising revenue they bring are much more important....wouldn't want anyone to switch channels because of BAD news.

Lets just keep feeding them the BS that makes good sound bites.

[Rohirrim]

If we do not move as a people to force our Congress to remove the "personhood" of corporations our voice will become irrelevant. It already is, actually. Walmart is bigger than Sweden, for example. The crucial issue of our times is not abortion, gay rights or flag burning. It is the power of corporations vs. the power of government.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

The crucial issue of our times is not abortion, gay rights or flag burning. It is the power of corporations vs. the power of government.

I agree with the first sentence.

The second is questionable.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by W*GS

I agree with the first sentence.

The second is questionable.

Since you're not going to post an argument, the point is moot.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

Since you're not going to post an argument, the point is moot.

Governments always have the upper hand against corporations. A government has monopoly power over law, thus, that trumps corporate revenue, every time.

Nationalization is always a possibility.

[baja]

Originally Posted by W*GS

Governments always have the upper hand against corporations. A government has monopoly power over law, thus, that trumps corporate revenue, every time.

Nationalization is always a possibility.

Are we talking the US of A here

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by W*GS

Governments always have the upper hand against corporations. A government has monopoly power over law, thus, that trumps corporate revenue, every time.

Nationalization is always a possibility.

I don't know how you can argue that. Under Cheney, energy corporations wrote our national energy policy. The chemical industry wrote the "Clean Water Act." Lumber companies wrote the "Healthy Forests Initiative." In instance after instance, lobbyists for corporations, or groups of corporations, actually write our legislation. Their bought-and-paid-for representatives in Congress merely turn in the legislation as it is written.

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

I don't know how you can argue that. Under Cheney, energy corporations wrote our national energy policy. The chemical industry wrote the "Clean Water Act." Lumber companies wrote the "Healthy Forests Initiative." In instance after instance, lobbyists for corporations, or groups of corporations, actually write our legislation. Their bought-and-paid-for representatives in Congress merely turn in the legislation as it is written.

If the State didn't meddle in the economy so much, corporations wouldn't have the overhead of lobbying.

You're also forgetting the unions, attorneys and other Democrat Party-owning lobbyists. Why? Only corporations are evil?

Snort.

[mhgaffney]

The problems began many years ago when the corporate lawyers won a legal precedent giving corporations the same rights as a citizen -- but without the responsibilities.

The result has been disastrous. Incorporation became the means of raping the planet and getting away with it.

More recently, we have seen corporations go off shore to maximize profits and to escape federal taxation. Yet they still control the political process with their campaign contributions -- not to mention outright graft and corruption.

In the New World Order international corporations are supreme. The sovereignty of nations has been weakened and may even disappear. Witness the dumbing down of environmental protection. National laws to protect workers and the environment can be legally challenged by corporations and reversed as infringements on free trade.

The result is a race to the bottom -- which will continue unless we can somehow regain control of our nation and our planet.

[baja]

Gotta crash and burn - Rising from the Phoenix and all. It's the only way now the time to fix it has passed. Hang on to your hat it's going to be quite a ride. Many will die and many more will wish they had.

[L.A. BRONCOS FAN]

Originally Posted by mhgaffney

The problems began many years ago when the corporate lawyers won a legal precedent giving corporations the same rights as a citizen -- but without the responsibilities.

The result has been disastrous. Incorporation became the means of raping the planet and getting away with it.

More recently, we have seen corporations go off shore to maximize profits and to escape federal taxation. Yet they still control the political process with their campaign contributions -- not to mention outright graft and corruption.

In the New World Order international corporations are supreme. The sovereignty of nations has been weakened and may even disappear. Witness the dumbing down of environmental protection. National laws to protect workers and the environment can be legally challenged by corporations and reversed as infringements on free trade.

The result is a race to the bottom -- which will continue unless we can somehow regain control of our nation and our planet.

Amazing how many neocon Kool-Aid guzzlers there are out there who actually try to defend (or even extol) this state of affairs.

When the cornerstone of their ideology is "all government regulation of business and markets is bad" I guess they have no other choice.

[W*GS]

I see the three stooges of the Looney Left have had their say.

Only question remaining is which is which, i.e., what's the mapping between {LABF, baja, gaffney} and {Larry, Curly, Moe}?

[baja]

You think I'm a liberal? You really don't pay attention do you Mr. Completely Self-absorbed.

[kappys]

Originally Posted by W*GS

Governments always have the upper hand against corporations. A government has monopoly power over law, thus, that trumps corporate revenue, every time.

Nationalization is always a possibility.

Sadly Wags is right on this one. the political power actually does lie with the government and its the only entity that can pass laws to protect/regulate corporations in favor of the average citizen. However, as Gaffney pointed out, corporations have been granted individual person status in this country which i personally find abhorrent, and therefore they can not be harshly regulated in the same way and inidividuals(yours or mine) personal liberties could not be abrogated. Although this is becoming a big joke it does remain that a populist movement to elect officials to congress on the sole basis that they repeal these corporate benefits would be effective. Corpratocracy does not have to be the government of the people, we are free to choose another more suitable form and i think it will eventually happen. this current state of affairs have been so mismanaged that the bankers who run this nation may find themselves in hot water soon.

Step 1: end the free flow of capitol between currencies of different nations - the result of which is that the powerful banking establishments can almost instantly destroy a countries currency value.

[baja]

very excellent post Knappy

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by kappys

Step 1: end the free flow of capitol between currencies of different nations - the result of which is that the powerful banking establishments can almost instantly destroy a countries currency value.

You just wrecked the world's entire economic system.

[baja]

Getting rid of the Fed as it is now would help

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by baja

You think I'm a liberal? You really don't pay attention do you Mr. Completely Self-absorbed.

You're not a liberal, certainly.

How would you describe yourself? Charter Member of the Tin-Foil Hat Brigade?

[baja]

Like you I'm a libertarian.