We've spent over a quarter of a century denying reality. Just keep repeating, "We are Number One!
We're the biggest, richest, toughest, most generous, intelligent and spiritually pure!" Our leaders can do no real wrong, and if things start going bad, they'll ride in by sunset to save the day. As long as we don't smell the smoke or acknowledge the fire, all will be well.

Oh come on People there is plenty we can do, just quit paying all yer bills and SQUAT in yer own house,,,,,same with the National debt, nope we ain't payin nobody...WHO ??? I don't know, who loaned all this money, WHO borrowed it, ??? I DIDN"T write the checks,,,,,,the Golden age of Greece came with Pericles cancelling all debt,,,we must do the same, whilst we still have F16s and 18s to fight off the pisse3d off chinesse,,,japonesse, britonese,,,,dutchese, swisscheese,,, and twomuchmoneyiwonese

metal, thanks for the well-considered response. The questions I asked, and your responses, go to the type of conversation that must underlie any genuine renewal of government and society. The challenge to the founders was to conform these deeply thought out principles and tenets into a pragmatic coherent structure. That challenge still lies before us. As you duly noted, lessons from history factored into the founders effort. I believe it is now time for us to follow through, incorporate the ideals you laid out so nicely and prescribe a new doctrine - one not drawn by the powers to be for the powers to be, but by the common citizenry for the common citizenry. (Constitutionally grounded by Amendment X, and before the Constitution is totally laid to waste.)

And that's the deal. The transnational powers are in process of creating their new world order - it is happening right now. So, either we do or they will.

Too many folks are thinking inside the box. Mass demonstrations have negligible affect. Congress has been too completely compromised.

Organizing without a clear, actionable and effective objective is fruitless, and having a clear actionable and effective objective requires broader knowledge and comprehension than commonly possessed. Critical mass is impossible to achieve without true common sense and passionately held common vision. Right now, as even the post with the progressive link above demonstrates, there are literally thousands of splintered factions. Only a firm and popular unicratic conviction can accomplish what you laid forth.

God be with us.

Organize you say?

Check this out.

http://unitedprogressives.us/joomla/

Progressives take note.

Metal- you write:
"The greatest threat is to forget the foundation of self-government given to us by the founding fathers–as too many have. Too many others have never learned about that foundation at all. That civic responsibility for mindful participation in democratic republican self-government has been turned over to the corporations, and this is one major reason why we are where we are now."

However, we do have a representative democracy rather than direct. Under this model as I understand it, we chose representatives at all levels to act on our behalf to secure our rights. When the people perceive that this sacred trust has been broken, as in the creation of laws in direct opposition to the fourth amendment to the constitution. Our job is not to correct such a corrupt form of government that no longer serves it's main purpose, but to "throw it off" Now I am not stating that this is indeed the dynamic we are in, but it seems like the dynamic your writing indicates we are in. Knowing what our problem is, is the only way to find a solution for it. If our problem is our lack of civic involvement and so that is why the government is corrupt, is very different from the government is corrupt to which no amount of civic involvement can fix.

I guess this lack of conviction in understanding what the problem is, and or a lack of evidence for or against the question of an administration that serves to secure or usurp our rights, is still the problem?

Personally my local experience with my state government is that a person can still expect to be represented by their government. This is currently being put to the test in regards to some developments that I was drawn into as a property owner. I had to work really hard to be heard and learned that I was not prepared for that kind of civic work at all.

""Then don't mourn: Organize." -metal"

source is actually joe hill, IWW leader and the original working class hero, to his comrades on the way to his execution by firing squad in bisbee arizona.

I read two of metals posts earlier, and found them excellent in general and enlightening in a few specific areas.

Here is some input for thought;

"Nothing so unites the hearts of individuals or of nations as a a common danger....the colonial leaders began to realize that only in union could there be strength"

-History Of The United States, Chicago Scott, Foresman and Company 1902

"Then don't mourn: Organize." -metal

If we are not yet organized, I'm curious how would that be done? This seems to be our problem, while their problem is well understood.

Metal, et al:

Here is the Wikipedia entry on GATT. It seems pretty accurate on its surface. GATT was signed in 1947 as part of the Breton Woods economic conference.

Breton Woods was part of a series of moves by the Truman Administration -- including the infamous National Security Directive No. 1 (NSD #1) that laid the framework for the national security state (the fascist-corporatist entity referred to above) that we now live under.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Agreement_on_Tariffs_and_Trade

And like others, I thank you for the history, Metal. History matters.

Dear Metal,

Please write a book... Or many books. Your entries are magnetic enough to align the filings of my indifference.

Another good piece of work from Danny Schechter, and four excellent comments from Metal that should be read completely, not scanned, by everyone here. Even many of the "seasoned verterans" here will find some enlightenment in these comments. And, for "newbies" here, this should be considered "must reading"!

metal August 4th, 2008 4:10 pm
metal August 5th, 2008 3:23 am
metal August 5th, 2008 10:19 am
metal August 5th, 2008 1:14 pm

Thanks for taking the time Metal.

To Cosmobilly who asks:

"How would we know to structure, focus and apply our newly re-gained power? ...How do we assure that people power stays fluid and dynamic, serving the right purpose, for a millennia or more? How do we prevent future insidious power grabs from occurring?"

Re question one:
We build on the positive aspects of long-lasting, measurably effective programs, regulatory systems and their enforcement mechanisms from the past; remain elastic enough to experiment with new programs and periodically review them and discard the ones that aren't effective. The most undeveloped and/or easily corrupted component is the periodic review and discard of ineffective programs. This is because people develop vested interests in certain aspects of programs and because the programs themselves tend to develop "mission creep" that can be either good or bad.

The upside is that our founding fathers gave us wonderful governmental tools with which to create and experiment in frameworks for reform. But even to get to that point in human history they had to build on the legacy of Roman law, English Common Law and the Enlightenment and experiment with States' declarations of rights, Articles of Confederation, and a post-Constitutional ratification Bill of Rights. FDR and his "Brain Trust" took ideas from all sorts of sources and experimented with them. The National Recovery Act programs were very experimental and diverse but sprang from one vision. The Civilian Conservation Corps was a fantastic idea we urgently need today. If the concern is genuine to promote the common good, and the related programs, laws and enforcement mechanisms are carefully enough thought out, then they will produce better government than capitalism can ever produce by itself.

Re question 2: We cannot ensure that people power stays continually fluid and dynamic, serving the right purpose for a millennium or more. All sorts of social conditions change even over the period of a human generation and require new ideas to successfully cope with new problems. We are human beings and can only do our best to remain vigilant and actively participate in our own government. The greatest threat is to forget the foundation of self-government given to us by the founding fathers--as too many have. Too many others have never learned about that foundation at all. That civic responsibility for mindful participation in democratic republican self-government has been turned over to the corporations, and this is one major reason why we are where we are now.

Despite the self-corrective capabilities of even the most properly structured democratic republic that relies on sometimes more, sometimes less regulated capitalism for its economic engine, it is human nature for the inhabitants of such a republic to experience cycles of corruption and reform.

It's just a hell of a lot less expensive and time consuming to teach present and future generations enough history about their own country to avoid repeating nearly identical cycles of corruption--and to prevent a floundering search for new reform mechanisms (when possible) while effective ones can be taken off the shelf of history and rapidly revitalized or shaped to effectively deal with the new situation. Right now we need a combination of revitalized old ideas and unprecedented new ones. We need a new "brain trust" and a Green New Deal, as has been suggested in Britain. The good news is that "necessity is the mother of invention" and never previously has the human condition presented itself with so many needs. Good ideas are popping up all over the place and at every level from local to global.

Re the third question: We cannot prevent future insidious power grabs from happening. It's part of human nature. It requires the same vigilance, refusal to succumb to collective historical forgetfulness, and mindful participation in self-government that I mention above. This is very much a matter of pride. Pride for the right reasons. Not the soulless, inevitably corrosive false pride of "might makes right," but of righteous moral rectitude coupled to a true desire to improve the human condition of all and so create a safer, more educated and compassionate society to leave to our children.

But it also requires something else almost entirely and nonsensically lacking in the current era: It requires the planning ability to consider the exploitability of new forms of high technology for the purposes of consolidating too much power in too few hands and locking in tyranny. This applies to everything from weapons technology to surveillance technology to communication technology to information systems to biotechnology to nanotechnology. George Orwell, were he alive today, would be grabbing politicians and corporate lobbyists here and abroad by the scruffs of their necks and kicking them back into the classroom for seminars on governmental and corporate coercion, why it corrodes liberty, and why too much privatization is as bad as too much government socialism--they both tend toward power concentration and power grabs.

I forget who it was that said, "We must always be asking the Socialist questions [because they are moral and honest questions about basic social and economic justice in a truly decent and egalitarian society], but we must always critically evaluate the Socialist answers."

I believe in the constant struggle toward a carefully and thoroughly regulated balance between socialism and capitalism. I believe this state of affairs can only be brought about by a truly open, widely taught/experienced/shared and honest debate between exponents of both ideologies.

Because of globally unprecedented conditions resulting from human over-populations and technologically catalyzed environmental change that debate must now be open to new ideas outside the existing Left-to-Right spectrum as well. A Third Way may, in fact, be our only hope to survive another 100-150 years as a species. We lack such a debate. We therefore lack balance in our society and experience increasing dysfunction. We have only to look to certain countries in Northern Europe to see where a balance has been more equitably achieved. But as a nation we increasingly seem to learn neither from our own important history nor from direct observation of much more functional working models represented by more harmonious nations in the contemporary world around us.

It is very possible that technological advances will solve our energy problems. They may or may not do this in time to avert global environmental catastrophe. But the last, greatest and most potentially dangerous problem will be how enlist all the nations of the world to create compassionate plans on a global basis to humanely reduce regional human over-populations (and all the environmental and resource problems they inevitably multiply). This should be accomplished without prolonging the current, thoroughly corporatist default of relying on environmentally and fiscally destructive resource wars to exterminate tens of thousand to millions of people in resource rich areas to better facilitate the plunder of their oil, minerals, water, fisheries, arable land, etc.

This calls for a new scale of governmental and economic planning incorporating new information systems and oceans of data on natural resources, human development and energy use patterns, remnant natural species and habitat-grounded data along with a new global framework of agreements that entirely overturns the capitalist-centric model of the WTO. The new model should look far more like a commonwealth of nations than empires and vassal States paying imperial tribute perforce.

the empire's denial will soon be over:
http://hamptonroads.com/print/475114
Navy wonders, just how do you trim a $3.8 billion fuel bill?

Bottom line no resources, no money, no empire

- another book the mainstreamers won't look at, for much the same reasons - Green Island .

It's not the lack of knowledge that is the problem, it's what you do with it. You can read everything under the stars and still screw things up. So called intellects cause more problems in our lives than do the illiterates. No, the blame is reserved for those who know the rules of the game, and ignore them. They are the ones to be fed to the worms, not the unwashed masses. I'll take wisdom over knowledge any day of the week.

I think all of you are alluding to an endemic problem in our society: the missing ability to critically think, or the lack of willpower to do so. When I was a teenager, I hated to read. I did it anyway and somehow managed to get good grades without cheating or relying on other people to do my homework for me. Now, I am catching up on lost time. The shallowness and ubiquitous lack of intellect, especially on the nutbox (television) is amazing. I do not profess to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but hell look at the squabbling over a frigin tire pressure gage among two politicians who are running for President. Is this what our society really has become? Do other people have to think for us? I think one poster the other day (I believe it was Walt) said it right: Americans are inside of a cocoon filled with spin and misinformation 24/7/365 (apologies Walt if I did not provide your precise wording). American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, and who wins Summerslam on the WWE are way more important than selecting the next person to lead our country. These television programs do not require any thought. They simply provide entertainment. I guess it is easier to pick up a slice of pizza or a can of beer than a book. EPHRAIM has it exactly right. As much as I am in favor of taking it to the streets, I think the first step to fight against this law-breaking Administration and complicit Congress is to GET PEOPLE TO READ AND THINK! Turn off the damn television. Walk away from the computer for a while. Do some research on political candidates. Pick up a history text or a great historic work, read it, and critically apply it to what is happening today in the second Gilded Age. Honestly, I kick myself for having wasted so much time when I could have spent that time reading and enjoying a whole different world that exists in print on paper. Combat intellectual laziness. That is our real enemy.

metal, thank you for the historical record!

Unfortunately, it is not corporatism, or any -ism that is the problem. Corporatism, and particularly the events you so appropriately describe are symptoms of an ancient societal dysfunction. We the people succumb and subscribe to the likes of these 'power' grabs because we don't understand the true nature, ramifications and subtle intricacies of such power. We the people repeatedly relinquish our power to false kings and false ideals, and are then invariably betrayed. We believe that some other mortal human can better serve the common good than we ourselves can. It is always the problem with putting humans in charge of humans. We fail to seek a full understanding of how to incorporate a a true egalitarian system into society (which goes to the author's point). Indeed, many (who see themselves as superior) even scoff at the idea of a true egalitarian society. The common public is easily sold on a nice sounding program without giving much attention at all to how the program might actually be put into practice, without the control to take it back, and without understanding all the implications - and as some would say, the devil is in the details. But don't worry, I'll (wink wink) will take care of everything.

Organizing as you suggest would definitely help us coalesce our collective bargaining power, but then what? How would we know to structure, focus and apply our newly re-gained power? How long before we let that power slip right back into the hands of insidious I-do-it-for-you glory-seeking man-kings? How do we assure that people power stays fluid and dynamic, serving the right purpose, for a millennia or more? How do we prevent future insidious power grabs from occurring?

Who doesn't know about "the notorious court reporter who scribbled a judge's courtroom comment on top of a copy of the ruling in the titanic (in its ongoing legal, economic and cultural ramifications) 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Company"? (metal) Hell, it's practically all I think about these days. But seriously, that's a good history lesson and we'd be wise to heed it and learn. But I fear most Americans are entirely too taken up with tracking their favorite celebrities, obsessing with sports, diets, how hot they are, and assorted distractions to worry themselves with American history. Those of us haunting places like this are the marginal misfits, the readers and worriers, the nerds in the eyes of the clueless majority. They won't pay attention to what's happening, or has happened before, until there's sufficient economic meltdown to affect their daily distracted lives. Of course, by then it's too late. Even that won't get them to crack open a history book and find out how we got into this insane mess. Instead, they'll listen to wackos like McCain who'll lead them into war after war under the ultimate false flag of patriotism, all the while further impoverishing them, killing them, enslaving them to the perpetual war machine. Anything but READ!

The scales will likely never fall from people's eyes, even after the dollar collapses.

I'm not an expert as to when the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that was the dismal precursor to NAFTA and the WTO was first gestated. I remember first hearing about it under the administration of Bush the Elder. I don't recall Reagan ever talking about it, but perhaps it was a back-burner thing during his administration. The present economic crisis is, however, a crisis of globally interrelated proportions. It is stamped with the hallmarks of both neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism, whereas Reagan, in and of himself was closer in many respects to a paleo-conservative except with respect to deficits.

When Undead Dick Cheney hadn't yet fully sprouted his bat fangs and was trundling around the Ford administration looking for some exposed necks he was approached by some of the original neo-conservatives (a movement that started in academe in Chicago in the 1950s) and seduced by their literature.

Cheney was the Team Bushite that proclaimed, "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter," and went on, against the advice of Bush II's then old guard conservative Secretary of the Treasury to state that the second, fiscally moronic, round of tax cuts for the super-rich was "our due for having won the '04 elections."

Of course deficits, debt and interest payments do matter, but when the goal is to "Starve the Welfare Beast" and simultaneously convert the remnants of post-Clinton "welfare reform" from Welfare State to permanent Warfare State, then one needs as many huge, open-ended military expenditures coupled to unprecedented war-time tax cuts for the super-rich as possible. This is where the potent venom of neo-conservatism truly shines in all its darkness like Christopher Lee's bloodshot predatory eyes in the original Horror of Dracula. It's all so sickly self-incentivizing.

Dave at 2:46pm

You will pay the price. As too many people keep "hoping" those of us who have been thinking have been too few.

This isn't just denial by a lot of people busy trying to make ends meet. You folks haven't paid enough attention to what's been happening the last 35 years if you think that's what's going on.

Besides the fact the government has been busy paving their golden brick road to paradise the golden carrot they dangle for the masses is simply too enticing. Most will continue to beieve they too can be part of the club unitl they are standing in the soup lines.

Americans are a foolish bunch.

"....He's got a great chance, but it's not as great as the one he and the Democrats already squandered. All he and they ever had to say was, "It started under Reagan, came to full blossom on Bush's watch, and it has been a systematic policy to disenfranchise all of us, while enriching the powers that be. We will fight to reverse that."
(One above commenter...right on!)

Reagan gave a big push to crush the middle class in the US to "level the world playing field" for major American global corporations.....witness the destruction of the Air Traffic Controller Union immediately after he took office...that was the beginning of the end.

The underlying song of those who benefit from the house of cards we call the economy and free market, is perhaps not so much denial but what is the short term benefit for me! Hawksters in respectable business suits sell credit, hope and a short term good life, and get paid a bonus for selling the focus on having a good time now. Naturally they see their own benefits on the same time scale but in larger sums. Another class of debt collecting individuals are paid to extract what is left of the wrecks.

When the schemes collapse it is the fault of the system, not the failure of moral obligation or of foresight. There is no individual responsibility, but widespread individual and social frontal lobe atrophy.

Those increasing numbers of people in relatively dire circumstances are willing to exchange short term material improvement now for heavy payments or defaults in the future. Tomorrow may bring death or disaster, and later on the human race become extinct. Enjoy it while you can becomes the theme song of pressured time. As moral obligation and money value decays further, respectibility will need many more desperate victims to punish rort, to maintain its lifestyle. Consumer society will continue to make war on its parts, to cannibalize itself.

What will aid recovery is local community self help and self organization, a lower energy contraction required to overcome the failure of globalization and its huge energy requirements.

Yeah, thanks metal, speaking of which, may I suggest people buy a little precious metal for safe keeping? Paper money may not be able to buy a place in the country in the future.
In my humble opinion, people are just behaving the way they have always behaved, trusting those in authority and power to do their reasoning for them, all the while, blindly following the path of least resistance (at a leasurely pace) talking on their cell phones.

the US controlled media tell you it isn't there so it can't be true. These people who can't face the truth are the same that say warming isn't happening as well.
Advice move the hell out of the USA as quick as you can.

I have given up on trying to discuss economics, people have been brainwashed on the subject. The more they study it and think they know something about it, the more misinformed they are. I would suggest anyone interested in our financial system read Ellen Browns: Web of Debt. She has posted some articles on her web site as well.

This one may be appropriate.

http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/debt-serfdom.php

Thanks for the history metal.

I'm reading these comments and it is appalling to see so many people treating the current economic crisis and the cycles of over-concentrated wealth and self-deregulation of capitalism--followed by busts and new efforts to re-regulate--as something that has never happened before: As though capitalism itself is a big mystery and that "people can't agree on the problem."

I wonder how many of them have ever even heard of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Taft-Hartley Act, the Wagner Act or, encompassing all encroachments of American capitalism into American government--the notorious court reporter who scribbled a judge's courtroom comment on top of a copy of the ruling in the titanic (in its ongoing legal, economic and cultural ramifications) 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Company.

To quote Ralph Nader whom many (who will never accomplish one ten thousandth as much for the common good) deride across the political spectrum when they would do better to actually study the man's articles and essays:

"There are ways to prevent such crashes. In the nineteen thirties, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt chose stronger regulation, creating the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and several bank regulatory agencies. He saved the badly listing capitalist ship.

"Today, there is no real momentum in a frozen Washington, D.C. to bring regulation up to date. To the contrary, in 1999, Congress led by Senator McCain's Advisor, former Senator Phil Gramm and the Clinton Administration led by Robert Rubin, Secretary of the Treasury, and soon to join Citibank, de-regulated and ended the wall between investment banks and commercial banking known as the Glass-Steagall Act."

The 1933 FDR/New Deal era Glass-Steagall Act served as a firewall between the investment banks--who have a tendency to over-speculate and create experimental and highly volatile investment instruments like the now well-known "derivatives market"--and the commercial banks so that the commercial banks would be more solidly capitalized and serve to balance out periods of boom-to-bust and over-speculation and better protect the average deposits of average working Americans. This same 75 year old law created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which is once again doing diligent service: Triggered by growing spread of failing, overly speculative banks that has only just begun.

Right-wing, corporatist Clinton "New Democrats" aka "neo-liberals" got into bed with the pre-neo-con Newtzis of Newt Gingrich's era and scuttled or weakened too many banking and financial regulations. Pure and simple. That, plus too much upper-class propaganda and too few Amurkans willing to crack a history book anymore is the problem.

Strengthening the Wagner Act and dumping the Taft-Hartley Act would allow more workers in our increasingly servile service wage economy to unionize enough to give them more political power to pressure Congress to re-negotiate "free trade" treaties to include more competitive environmental and labor protections. This would put our workers on a more level playing field with foreign workers in foreign lands by requiring companies hiring foreign workers in foreign countries to pay for environmental protections, health insurance and other labor protections and benefits like workers comp, unemployment insurance, etc., thus driving the cost of foreign labor up closer to the cost of hiring U.S. workers in the U.S.

Re-enacting and strengthening Glass-Steagall; strengthening the SEC and giving it well-funded, legitimate watchdog authority; restoring rational taxes on the richest one-tenth of one percent of Americans; strengthening the Treasury Department's ability to go after illegally hidden off-shore taxable income--all these things would help the present situation.

But the biggest problem of all is one so unknown to the average American and so profound in its corrosive result on our Constitutional form of government, and upon a more equitable distribution of wealth and social justice, that it merits careful study by all Americans who exist below the plutocratic class.

The ruling in the 1886 Supreme Court case of Santa Clara County vs. Southern Pacific Railroad Company was unique in the annals of all American pseudo-law, both in its bastardization and in the Trillions of dollars of raw political, economic and environmental power that still flow from the bastardization of that ruling.

The ruling was taken, or used, by persons of wealth of the corporate class to mean that, because of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause which originally referred only to human beings, that corporations (in fact legal entities on paper) are "persons" with the same rights and privileges as human beings who are flesh and blood citizens of the United States. However, I urge you all to obtain and actually read a copy of this ruling. Because you will find that the court NEVER RENDERED ANY SUCH RULING.

Santa Clara County in California was seeking to levy a property tax against the Southern Pacific Railroad. The railroad gave several reasons why it shouldn't have to pay, including its claim that the railroad was being held to a different standard than human taxpayers. This rested on the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause. The Supreme Court avoided the "personhood" issue and decided the case on other grounds.

Chief Justice Morrison Waite had allegedly opened the court proceedings by saying, "The Court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution which forbids a state to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

Some time after the deliberations were finished and a ruling was handed down, the court reporter, one J.C. Bancroft Davis, who, like many court reporters summarized key findings in published "headnotes," asked Chief Justice Waite in a letter whether he might include the Waite's courtroom comment--which would ordinarily never see print--in the headnotes. Waite gave an equivocal response that Davis took as a yes. Scribble-scribble: Eurekee!--instant legal landmark ruling--from which hundreds of other rulings concentrating more and more power in the hands of corporations for 122 years have since flowed.

Consider that corporations have several advantages over human beings: They can exist simultaneously in far-flung locations; they are theoretically immortal and can and have lasted centuries longer than the lifespan of any human being; they can be protected from economic and other legal liabilities in hundreds of ways that individual human beings cannot; they can survive to invest and concentrate wealth far beyond the means of comparatively short-lived individual human beings and accumulate vast sums with which to manipulate all three branches of the federal government because of this. Exxon Valdez, anyone?

But in the cozy world of the law and the Judiciary Branch and all its ancient traditions a precedent is a precedent, no matter how contrived, sloppy, Constitutionally corrosive or dangerous to the common good. To say that this particular issue needs to be clearly and soberly revisited by the courts and the Supreme Court (perhaps not THIS particular Supreme Court) is a severe understatement.

1886 was in the midst of a corporate robber baron age similar to our own known as the Gilded Age. The Oil Trust, the Railroad Trust, the Sugar Trust, etc., were using the power of massive corporate syndicates to corrupt and manipulate government. But it was not until World War II that most American jobs moved away from the agricultural sector and into industry. The dominance of the corporations had fully arrived. Their partnership with government birthed the military-industrial complex and the Cold War then entrenched it as a fixture in our culture.

It was Mussolini, Hitler's ally, who said, "Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power."

That is why I freely and accurately use the term 'corporatism' and 'corporatists' to describe the present incarnations of both the DLC Big Money Democrats (repeatedly running the entire Democratic Party into a ditch) as well as the darker fascist variant composing the contemporary torture-happy, gleefully murderous GOP.

Most Americans cannot now even imagine of an America that predates the permeating, overwhelmingly dominant influence of giant corporations. Try to imagine an earlier time. Read some history of America before the Civil War and between that war and 1886. Consider the pride of the people in participating in their young self-governing Republic versus the level of shame and fear at large in the country now--the level of alienation from government and the feeling of helplessness to take any power back from the corporate Oligarchs who are now our true rulers.

Then don't mourn: Organize.

The american citizens are in a deep sleep
..could it be the drugs they are prescribed, the chemicals in and on their food, is it the recycled clorinated drug filled water they shower with and drink…or maybe their factory education system…...TV subliminals ..or the HARP signals …or all of the above….whatever it is that makes us "not concerned" or in denial... is working…
it is evil and insidious and has made us truly a nation of sleepwalkers....being compassionate and kind is the only way to gently waken sleepwalkers....there are going to be a lot of pissed off people when they finally realize they've been had

Ephraim-- I wanted to make a response to the decidedly "sour" commentary from Mr. Samson berating DS--but you beat me to it, and did a wonderful job at that.

Keep writing and making documentaries Mr. Schecter because you are doing a wonderful job. Anyone who says anything remotely challenging to the American "mindset" is going to get flack.

The dominance of public discourse by the dictatorship of the corporate imperative is strangling democracy in this country.

This is the perfect story...thanks Danny. I too see this blind-eye business in my local "progressive" community which proudly waves Obama signs on the street corner (regardless that almost on a daily basis Obama changes his liberal stance to a Bush-lite program)...

The truth is ugly....we, Americans, have been living an unsustainable lifestyle and the planet and our economy is not able to keep up the charade.

The power brokers in corporations and politics have abandoned all sense in personal spending, debt, and investment. Many corporate big deals drooled over by the media like Donald Trump have borrowed so much that they have nothing to fear from their lenders. The lenders will go broke before if the Donald does. They prop him up and care for him with laws and favors from the Congress they own.

If the rich want more in the game for money, they change the rules to get it and tell the media to say it is the business cycle, global economy, or environmental protection that forces them to 'regrettably' punish the masses. Food, water, clothing, shelter and minimal health care are too expensive for the people. Private planes, several mansions etc. etc. for the idle elite though are quite doable.

Denial is a normal part of the change process. In normal times new ideas are often marginalized by society while tried and true traditional beliefs are accepted (If it ain't broke don't fix it). As the speed of change continues to spike complexity the tried and true linear methods of dealing with problems breakdown. As unsolved problems increase and become unmanagible, various collapses begin to appear. The old methods no longer work. Those who fail to adjust and institutions that remain to rigid increasingly fail. Over time the failures continue and people become increasingly fearful until a point is reached where people become, by necessity, more sensitive to new ideas. At this point people like Schechter begin to be taken more seriously. That process has begun but has not yet built to a critical mass. The issue is this: can we build that critical mass before a general comprehensive collapse enfolds us? If not the result will be conflict and violence. There will be an accelerated acceptance of new ideas and values, so there is still a chance. A greater awakening must take place.

Since the left in the US abandoned a critical analysis of capitalism, starting in the 1970s and culmunating in the 1990s under Bill Clinton and neoliberalism, there has been no mainstream political or media discussion of the inherent inequalities of this economic system or the entrenchment of power and influence that it necessarily creates for those at the top. This gets right to the heart of Naomi Klein's argument in "The Shock Doctrine"--that when a crisis hits, it is critical that the "right" ideas are laying around the the general consciousness. Hence, when a crisis hits, even those who are not "mainstream" are spouting off about how there needs to be less government intervention and regulation (namely, in this instance, the groundswell of support for Ron Paul).

Mainstream liberals (read: Democrats and those who tend to support them) continue to believe that there is never an actual crisis as long as there are "free" markets (I won't go into that myth here) because the problem will correct itself. At least the last time a crisis of this level hit our country, there had been 50-odd years of ANTI-capitalist organizing that prompted people to actually question whether a capitalist economic system was really the best option available. This reality forced the New Deal compromise, which made the average person's life slightly better for a few decades.

I think it's the ultimate irony and built-in brilliance of the capitalist economic system that when people are struggling the most (working two or three jobs to pay bills, not able to afford vacation, etc.), they are also in the worst position to affect the change they need in order to change that situation. Adding insult to injury, those who claim to be allied to the left fault hard-working people for the situation they find themselves in due to the circumstances of a system that views them as little more than "labor cost."

I don't know if David Schechter agrees with my analysis, but I thank him for all the work he's done exposing the rotting underbelly of our credit-based economy that exploits working people and will destroy the entire US (and hence, global) economy as long as there is a buck to be made.

tj 1:12 PM states, "As a society, we are simply unwilling/unable to define capitalism and how it works: it is nothing but systematic, legal thievery that ultimately leads to economic collapse and is always characterized by a murderously unfair distribution of wealth and power."

I think the murderously unfair distribution of wealth and power works the same under capitalism and communism because money is power and vis. It is greedy right wing and left wing conservatives going at each other's throats as usual and we're caught in the middle.

One way to stop the concentration of money-power is through direct democracy. Representative government with its bribes and threats rigs the system for an oligarchy or hegemony.

"...the biggest bank robberies today are not of banks but by banks"

well said Mr Schecter

Regarding your new book, have you tried self-publishing it on Amazon.com's Kindle? Check it out if you haven't already. Keep up the good fight and don't let the bastards grind you down.

Read "The Post-Corporate World: Life Beyond Capitalism" by David C. Korten. He dated TINA for a while but broke up with her long ago, and he's very articulate.

I think people are in denial about the root cause of the problem. This is true on CD. Some see the problem as we need a democrat in the white house. Some see the problem as we need to reform the "system"; to much corporate power. Some see the problem as we need to get out in the street and demand stuff. Some see the problem as illegals taking our jobs and resources. Some see the problem as we need to be more self -reliant. It is not that we are in denial but rather we can't agree on the problem.

tj 1:12 PM states, "As a society, we are simply unwilling/unable to define capitalism and how it works: it is nothing but systematic, legal thievery that ultimately leads to economic collapse and is always characterized by a murderously unfair distribution of wealth and power."

Is tj right? Is the problem capitalism? How do we develop a strategy to solve a problem if we can't agree on the root cause of the problem. Does Barack Obama see the problem as capitalism? Does the Congress see the problem as Capitalism?

We just can't see beyond Capitalism.

Well, too much to comment on....but, I will spare you....
I am retired and live on a small income. If I do not save at least 20% of my after withholding income, I consider it a BAD month. I can remember my father (1912-1993) saying of the Great Depression "people did not have any money". Finally, the largest problem in America is that the vast majority are terribly uninformed. Just plain uninformed. They do not know what the Federal Reserve is; they do not know what the US Constitution contains; they can not, in most cases, name their local US Representative; they do not know what the Balfour Declaration actually said; and, most can not repeat from memory even half of the 10 Commandments, or half of the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Ignorance is rampant. Yet, they can play with an IPhone like a concert pianist. Guess that shows what is important these days.

Lulu.com.

Not as glam as smoozing it up with some famous publishing house, but you can print one or a million bucks --at your own price.

(Yeah, it takes a little WORK)

To Walt:

You are dead-on about the propaganda cocoon we in the U.S inhabit. Even so-called liberals and many self-perceived progressives spout slogans and catch-phrases originated by think-tanks funded by plutocrats like Richard Mellon Scaife and don't give it a second thought. The message of the neo-con think-tanks is ubiquitous and streams throughout Big Media in both McNews and so-called entertainment programming.

Another huge part of the problem is that the overwhelming majority of Amurkans have never bothered to gain even the most cursory understanding the current "free-trade" regime or the domestic economic ramifications of selectively, corporately regulated economic globalism. The sub-prime mortgage crisis includes hundreds upon hundreds of billions (possibly Trillions) of dollars of bad paper held by foreign investors. Their banks are starting to implode as well. This will have echoing effects in our own banking system..

To quote a recent International Monetary Fund statement:

"GLOBAL financial markets are fragile and indicators of systemic risk remain elevated...Credit quality across many loan classes has begun to deteriorate with declining house prices and slowing economic growth. Bank balance sheets are under renewed stress and the decline in bank share prices has made it more difficult to raise new capital. [There is an] INCREASED LIKELIHOOD OF A NEGATIVE INTERACTION BETWEEN BANKING SYSTEM ADJUSTMENT AND THE REAL ECONOMY." [Emphasis: mine; Source: Financial Times]

We've seen eight banks fail in the U.S. so far this year and analysts are predicting anywhere from 80 to 150 will fail over the next year.

Merrill Lynch, the National Australia Bank (NAB) and others are having fire sales (90% write-offs in some cases) of billions of dollars of bad paper they're holding from the sub-prime credit crisis. NAB says it is losing an unprecedented 55% on U.S. housing loans. Australia is so deep in these collateralized debt obligations (CDOs') that the UK Telegraph is reporting that Australia may face a worse economic crisis than the U.S. How many other foreign banks and sovereign investment funds naively bought into this sucker's speculation bubble where it should have been obvious--except for all the uniform, unquestioning propaganda put out by the so-called "sober business press"--that people at almost every economic class in the U.S. were trying to game the system? This is the same sober, serious business press that brought us Enron and rampant energy grid speculation and implosion at the front end of Team Bush's sundry nightmares. I reminds me of one of the lines from the old film Animal House: "You fucked up: You trusted us!"

Amurkans are so media-cocooned, and paycheck-writer cowed into stupidity they can't even learn from hard lessons they just had from the beginning of one maladministration to its hopeful end. Rolling California blackouts, anyone?

The MAIN PROBLEM with the sub-prime-to-prime "crunch" is that the cost of bailing out failing housing exposures for MORTGAGE INSURERS may quickly become so great that it will make bailing anything else out unaffordable. The FDIC has some theoretical limits regarding domestic bank runs as well. If only Bernanke would whisper them to me I might not even tell...Shhh... Simply shutting the banks down if/when those limits are reached won't put butter on Joe and Josephine Six-pack's biscuit. As banks tumble here and abroad the risk of a full on Depression--despite Ben Stein's laconic assurance to the kids and Craig Ferguson on the exuberant Scot's late night TV show--grows larger and larger.

"NAB says that the dislocation in the residential market is separate from the corporate market, but the flow on is inevitable." [Source: The Business Spectator, "NAB will shock Wall Street"]

When you start seeing articles like that in the U.S. business press muttering about the residential credit implosion (insert corporatist verb-form euphemism here) the corporate market, it will be time to haul ass to the rural side and live off the grid. Grow your own food and drill your own well--if you can. Buyin' some livestock an' a few shootin' irons an' stockin' up on ammunition mightn't be sich a bad idear, either, Clem.

Write downs of CDOs and conduit trust accounts (CTAs)--off-balance sheet operations maintained by foreign and domestic speculatory banks which contain hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds which are now basically worthless--will probably well exceed a Trillion dollars. And the bottom of the credit market crisis hasn't even begun to be plumbed. It was an eight to eleven Trillion dollar housing bubble.

That bubble was also only mock middle-class job growth engine in the U.S. since the end of the techno-bubble in 2000. There's a reason why the WTO talks keep failing, people. Too much deregulated ergo WILD speculation by too many well-connected plutocrats and too many banks in housing, oil and food commodities. What we've spread around the world is coming home to lance our collective deregulatory, predatory capitalist butt boil.

For the the over-populated city folk of Amurka who can't afford to move to the rural side and self-sustain: You fucked up--you trusted the propaganda spoon-fed you for too long and asked too few questions of those in authority while you rolled in intellectual carrion like American Idol and psychopathology-of-the-average-urbanite hip-hop bling materialism.

Meanwhile, back at Whore House One, Republicans in Congress have blocked Democratic efforts to a pass legislation to scatter the oil speculators to take some of the pressure off trucking fleets, independent truckers, the poor and working poor in Amurka. Not the first time we've seen the New Right stoned stupefied on its own self-snorted propaganda.

This country is looking more and more like a cross between Gilligan's Island and Lord of the Flies every day.

civil behavior: "I've stood against traffic for years with signs to try and waken the slumbering masses. Forget it.
The desire to remain ignorant is endemic. Try it by yourself one day and see the reaction you get. It's pathetic."

The human learning curve is slow and its lesson is, "don't give up, be patient, take it one day at a time." I understand
your frustration and i urge you not to give up. The inertia of ignorance is giving way, like the levees of New Orleans
when the power of nature swept them away. Human consciousness evolution is not going to go away at this point.
It just requires the addition of more and more straws to the camel's back. We, as a species, are facing a test, the results
of which will determine whether our kind goes on, or the descendants of the cockroaches prevail. The odds for the
Cockroaches goes up every day. Human beings may not be the end of evolution on tiny planet earth.

I, too, have been accused of being too "negative" for my understated and rational conclusions about the state of the economy and where it's headed. My comments were intended to enlighten and caution people, but they were misunderstood as predictions of doom.

I sense that people are so overwhelmed running just to stay in place that they absolutely cannot entertain that it's all for nothing, that despite all their efforts a collapse is coming. So they tune out every negative piece of news and hope for the best.

The thing that worries me is that many people are going to be blindsided by coming events. And when that happens they are going to react very badly. They may well support all manner of draconian initiatives which they will feel are justified by the severity of the crises they suddenly find themselves immersed in. Sadly, they could have been taking steps for the last few years to insulate themselves from these coming crises, steps like getting out of debt, cutting their cost of living, finding alternative ways to make money or support themselves. I have spent the last few years taking just these steps, precisely because I could see this storm coming. Now I'm apprehensive that instead of being allowed to enjoy the fruits of my prescience and prudence, I'll be forced to pay the price along with everyone else for their negligence, inattentiveness and laziness.

Dave

In most nations, it is much easier to be "alarmist" about whatever enemy is chosen by those in charge.

In response, we can see large military build-ups, quick organizing efforts via personnel and resources, and no-nonsense invasions or defensive actions against other countries.

The media and elite do not question the motives or the official reasons for whatever invasion we are manipulated to support. It is unpatriotic and degrades the honor of our troops.

One can see huge reworkings of the government (i..e., Homeland Security).

The press, elite and tamed intellectuals all collaborate to make it happen.

At the same time, a radical restructuring of the rules of the game allow millions to temporarily own homes, and make millions speculating on mortgages.

However, when an individual, group and/or politician actually articulates the demands of citizens: universal healthcare, restored safety net, etc., the elite and their media megaphones scream about fiscal responsibility, moral hazard, welfare queens, wokr makes free. etc.

In this context, there is no unified effort, no determined effort to construct workable programs and there is no acceptance of expanding health, eduation and welfare programs.

In other words, for the elite, spending money like crazy and organizing huge bureaucracies to indulge in warfare is good, but to do the same for health, education and welfare is bad.

Americans of all political leanings don't seem to be in denial - it's more like they've surrendered to the "there's nothing I can do about it" theory. Or, as the kids call it: "whatever."

Greenspan writes the illegal Iraq invasion was about oil - whatever. 4596 dead US soldiers (Iraq and Afghanistan,) another 30,000 wounded - whatever. Thirty-five Articles of Impeachment are served up - whatever. "Our" government brags about torturing alleged "evil doers" - whatever. Seven years of illegal wiretapping of Americans - whatever. The Dept. of Justice completely corrupt - whatever. Biggest prison pop in the world in spite of dropping crime rates - whatever. US auto and airline companies collapsing - whatever. Bomb Iran - whatever. Catastrophic climate change - whatever.

The "good" news is this: NFL training camp has started!

Getting involved means getting off the phone.

Look around.

Any questions?

Samson apparently paid almost no attention to what Schechter is actually saying here. Maybe because Samson himself wants to be listened to, having all the answers.

First, Schechter isn't "complaining because his book isn't selling," as the most cursory reading of the piece reveals. He's saying there is a cult of denial out there, even among "progressives," that the economy isn't all that bad, or won't people like Schechter just keep quiet about it and write about "positive" things.

He hasn't been able to get his book published for the same reason: publishers and the bookselling monopoly (Barnes & Noble and Borders, mainly) won't bite on titles they feel the public won't buy, because publishing and bookselling today are about nothing but money. People don't tend to snap books off the shelf that inform them of their collapsing economy, what it portends for the future and how their comfortable world of seamless denial is falling apart.

I know about this end of the publishing world, having worked within it for years and having owned a small independent bookstore for several more years. The big box stores and Amazon pretty much dictate to publishers what they want to see published. If Barnes & Noble tells Random House or any other big publisher they like or don't like the sound of a certain book, that essentially decides its fate.

Entertainment rules the world of books today as much as it does other media, so Schechter's book doesn't pass the test. If he was writing about how to make a killing in the next Depression, publishers would be bidding for the book. So Danny's point is safe from the misinterpretations of Samson. Not every book on the state of this dismal economy has to provide "answers," especially when there may well be none, at least none that are going to be acted on. Telling people individually how to survive the coming meltdown is just what publishers want to see (simplemindedness). It's not that simple, unless we insist on paddling down the River Denial forever.

I expect to get trounced for saying this but I get the sense that there is a huge blind spot between people like Mr. Schecter and the large masses of Americans out there. Also I find the article a little condescending.

If you look at what's happening politically and economically out there, I find it hard to imagine Americans are in serious denial about the problems. Indeed I find the argument itself very "out of touch" – even though I applaud his work and do consider it valuable and relevant.

But instead of sitting in your office and castigating the public for not heeding your words, maybe you ought to look at it from their point of view. While I think the comment that asked you to "say something constructive" was a distraction tactic, it is a relevant point, and it doesn't apply to you alone. How about all of the media? How about all of the politicians out there?

Let's say for argument's sake that you are not a writer and film maker but instead a medium income wage earner on your second or third mortgage taken out to get your kids through college and now you are faced with crushing debt, an unresponsive government and a sick spouse with bankrupting medical coverage. Do warnings make much of a difference? Do they sound like they will help you? "What are the answers?" is probably what most people in that situation will ask. Being a bellwether isn't of much value once the waves have breached the dam.

More to the point and getting off your case, what are the politicians providing? McCain says 'more of the same" but all he has to do (or have happen) is for some indicators start to turn around. Like Iraq. (It's starting to happen) Can a small indication of progress emerge on the economy by November? How about a drop in gas prices?

Americans are not in denial as much as they are in a cocoon of propaganda and information (and hence thought) control far more powerful and pervasive than that envisioned by Orwell or practiced by the Nazis. This is done 24/7 365 on all consolidated media. "All lies, all the time." It is a constant drone in the background and in truth the background is all the average American can hear since they live in the foreground reality where they are preoccupied with debt, gas, homes, health and medical costs, grocery bills, tuition, … and fading employment prospects, loss of retirement investments, aging bodies and sub standard health care. Not to mention a war that will never end and will never stop costing billions. They don't know this? They're in denial?

Maybe a little compassion is in order and then possibly we may be better ready to reach and activate them. (It has happened before). Insulting them, dismissing them, or otherwise taking fatalistic views of their politics (by taking it all personally) doesn't move things along at all.

Oh the Dems? I think they could very well have been in a position to turn things around, to activate the population and drag them out of despair (it's not denial, dude, it's despair) … but they are still the Democrats, who consistently lose because their greatest liability is their fear of losing … instead of having the courage and will to win.

So Obama triangulates and modifies his positions and screws around and smiles and "inspires" hope … but I promise you, this population needs to see more substance in him. I frankly think they'd really like him to just come out and say what's wrong and what he'll do about it.

He's got a great chance, but it's not as great as the one he and the Democrats already squandered. All he and they ever had to say was, "It started under Reagan, came to full blossom on Bush's watch, and it has been a systematic policy to disenfranchise all of us, while enriching the powers that be. We will fight to reverse that."

But ah that sounds like "class warfare" (which DUH! It is) and so we get these modified steps, these baby steps, these arguments, that it will take time … even though we have no time.

This will all change with wide spread knowledge and courageous leadership. We're going into this historical election pretty weak on both.

Denial? There's a lot of it. It's more pervasive than you think. You might be guilty of a little of it your self.

There are whiners and thumbsuckers out there to be sure. But it's not coming from the people that are truly facing financial hardship. The whining and bitching is coming from these drama queen banks like Bank of America, UBS, et al. They want us to feel sorry for them because they have goteen together and targeted their write downs at the same time. Their behavior helped to create an utterly dysfunctional market. Bad News Bear Sterns, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac want the American people to shower their tax dollars on them as consolation for their blatant idiocy. These banks and investment firms that keep bitching and poor mouthing need to be firebombed, and their CEO's need to be necklaced.

Sorry, but isn't this just a long whine from some lefty who's complaining his book isn't selling? That of course is a very common thing amongst the left. Everyone seems to constantly bitch that Americans don't drop their lives to pick up this sacred cause or that righteous movement.

People are going to live their lives. Today, that means that they are working harder to make ends meet. They are probably working overtime or two jobs or generally looking for a way to make some extra cash. They are probably doing extra things at home that take more time but use up less cash. Of course, they've still got their kids to raise, and I've yet to meet a parent with any free time at all. And they still have their other obligations to their family and their community.

Do they know times are getting tougher? Sure. Hate to tell someone like Mr. Schecter, who I generally like a lot, that they don't need to read his book or attend a lecture by him to figure that out. They see that every month when they look at the family budget and see higher gas prices, higher prices on everything hauled by gas\diesel and how that crunches their budget.

The real question is, does Mr. Schecter offer anything that would help them out? Just saying there's a problem doesn't help. They know that already. Pointing out the causes doesn't help much either. They already know some of that, and just knowing the big forces that are screwing you doesn't help you out. So, by does he offer any solutions, I'm talking real things that would help out any homeowner that reads his book. Stuff they can do on their own.

Basically, all I see is him bitching that when someone who's working their butt off to keep their head above water actually gets a couple of hours of free time, that they actually just try to relax and enjoy something like sports for a couple of hours before climbing back on that never ending treadmill.

I'm sure Mr. Schecter's book is well researched and probably informative on how we got here. But, I sure can't blame someone who's working hard if they a) don't fork over $25 or more to buy it, and if b) when they get some free time they want to do something a little more enjoyable than reading it.

I really enjoy reading and article like this. It confirms everything I have watched happen for years.

I attribute part of this to the "mall" mentality. Having been a small boutique store for years when the malls became all the rage in the early 70's I saw the whole mindset of this country begin to change. All the "goodies" versus the mom & pop type stores. The branding made in ten times worse.

Credit became king while cash became obsolete.

We've managed to put ourselves here and nobody wants to admit what it's going to take to reverse this abomination.

I've stood against traffic for years with signs to try and waken the slumbering masses. Forget it. The desire to remain ignorant is endemic. Try it by yourself one day and see the reaction you get. It's pathetic.

Danny Schecter, as usual, gets it right.

And we shouldn't delude ourselves about what is the prime cause of our denial about the state of our political economy --

As a society, we are simply unwilling/unable to define capitalism and how it works: it is nothing but systematic, legal thievary that ultimately leads to economic collapse and is always characterized by a murderously unfair distribution of wealth and power.

In its later stages, which the U.S. economy is in, the interests of capitalists (in our case through corporations) and the state merge.

When that happens the society becomes a truly fascist, totalitarian state wholly owned and operated by capitalists.

Weclome to the USA. We're NUMBAH ONE! OO-WHEE-OO! DUH!?

DId anyone notice the leaving out of RFK in the assassinations. This is the one they REALLY DONT WANT US TO LOOK AT . Yes I have read all the Kennedy bashing ( read Counterpunch aka KENNEDY-BASHING-FOR-FOUNDATION-GRANTS-R'-US)

Look closer at RFK. Its the easiest . Thats why it is the least published even at sights like this one (especially at sites like this one.

Best book is still by Turner and Christian (Former FBI and Former ABC San Fran) Also see U mass professor Philip Malanson and Klaber book about the Trial.

I continue to wonder at the lack of writing on the RFK Assassination even among those who research Cold War History and the assassinations.

Recently while reading parts of Thurston Moores new book on RFK The Last Campaign, I was struck by RFKs response to ""left'" (I put quotes around it, because I think its highly debateable about which WAS really more left, and also because of the history of the controlled nature of "'left"' dissent in the form of psy-ops within US media during the Cold War) critics who blasted RFK for making some Law and Order sounds during the Indiana Primary. RFK's response was "If Gene McCarthy had ever done anything for Civil Rights he wouldn't need to show he cared about white people " NOT A DIRECT QUOTE. Now that by itself, sounds like pandering, but the author points out that RFK spoke to the same audiences about what was going on in the "inner cities" and said pretty much the same things that he said to black audiences.

Now which do you think would be more frightening to the Military Industrial Complex: a candidate with almost no major African American support, McCarthy, who also had no chance of winning the nomination, or a candidate that actually showed signs of TAKING THE OFFENSIVE AGAINST THE SOUTHERN STRATEGY EVEN IN THE VERY YEAR OF ITS BIRTH; Perhaps RFK's background at the center of power-- during tensest moments of the Cold War-- was seen as a much more dangerous threat.

He might take more of the center of the party in a new direction, without descendng into the identity politics that Democrats have been paid so well to never emerge from. Perhaps RFK was so dangerous because he would not roll over and conceed that Watts and rural Indiana WERE really opposites. He might have found a way to make class trump race as FDR to some extent did. Of course the New Deal Coalition was on much shakier ground in 1968, as
compared to the 1930's, but what comes accross in Moore's book is that RFK was not yet ready to let it crumble. Above all he was improvising; dangerously for those who wanted to continue the US movement rightward from a CFR multilatteral (1945-63) to American Security Council unilateral (1963-present) US foreign policy coalition.

Why does Amy Goodman and Companies insist on emphasizing the contrast of RFK '68 with RFK '61--while quoting disproportionatly from the latter-- and never bring up the contrast between RFK '1968 and the Corporate Democrats of today?

Was Bobby killed because he touched the REAL third Rail of American politics: the rule that says Race OR Class: NEVER BOTH!!!?

Just like Annie Oakley told Frank Butler in "Annie Get Your Gun" when he was embellishing her physical attributes , "Jest keep talkin'...".

It took thiry years of William Wilberforce's talkin' to convince British Parliament to abolish ,first, England's participation in international slave-trade and , second , slavery in general.

It took fifty years of Susan B. Anthony's talkin' to consecutive Congresses , administrations and Supreme Court justices to allow American women the right to vote.

It may take a compromise of forty years of your talkin'to convince Americans that they have their collective heads in the sand or anatomically elsewhere and the necessity of a remedy.

Of course re-enactment of Ira Gershwin's line from the song "A Foggy Day", ...the glories of Rome were of another day...in America would bring quicker and focused attention.

In the mean time , jest keep talkin'. Your words to the wise are sufficient

from the article:

"...if we don't admit it's happening, it will go away."

more to the point, as with the official stories of other pivotal events such as the assassinations of JFK and MLK, two consecutive stolen elections and the intervening 9/11 disaster: to embrace an alternative theory is to shoulder the burden of taking corrective action, a position only a scant minority is willing to contemplate.

personal comfort and convenience doth make cowards of us all. we're certainly not citizens of a democracy any longer.

Is your book available on-line in some excerpts? If so and I like the teasers I would happily buy your book!

I don't understand why your book wouldn't be published but Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" would be. Have you tried "The Nation"? They might publish such a thing.

Mr. Schecter,

I too enjoy reading your articles. Sadly, what you are alluding to is not only denial, but an inevitable truth: the country economically will have to collapse before the scales fall from peoples' eyes, or they finally fess up to and accept the truth. For some time I have believed that the only way to change this country is to have a complete economic collapse, i.e. a depression. I encourage you to press forward with your publisher search. In the end, publishers will be flocking to you in large numbers to publish your work (truth). The denial is astonishing, yet not surprising. People can only ignore the elephant in the room before it becomes so big, it pushes them outside onto the front lawn.

You keep slugging, Danny! Apparently the problem is that there'sstill room on your critics' credit cards. When that melts away, you'll be vindicated.

"churning" is designed into the system to fleece the little guys.

Danny, I hope to continue hearing from you. Your articles are informative and relevant. Don't worry about what many bloggers have to say. I just hope you'll keep bringing us your insights.
Thank you.