"Hidden Power - What You Need to Know to Save Our Democracy,"

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/hartmann/011

THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" BOOK OF THE MONTH REVIEW

Why would it be that when the vast majority (78 percent, according to a 24 September 2006 Gallup poll) of registered Democratic voters favor a gradual or immediate withdrawal from Iraq, only about a third (36 percent, as noted by John Walsh in a brilliant article at Counterpunch) of the Democratic candidates in the tightest House races this fall share that view?

Although Charles Derber doesn't address the current race in his new book "Hidden Power - What You Need to Know to Save Our Democracy," it's pretty clear from reading the book that he would probably suggest it's "the current corporate regime." The entire book, in fact, is about how "regimes" come to power, hold power, and lose power in American politics.

The current regime is one that draws most of its money and power from the military-industrial complex and multinational corporations, and has taken over virtually the entire Republican Party - Derber calls it the "corporate regime." Like Republicans, regime stalwarts of the Democratic Party continue to promote the regime's main meme these days, which is that we're in a "war of civilizations" that will "last for and beyond our lifetimes"...and, in the process, be enormously profitable to those in power and their friends.

The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is largely responsible, through the DCCC leader Rahm Emanuel, for the pro-war Democratic candidates and their funding. They don't impassion voters, don't reflect the Democratic Party base or even the concerns of most Americans, but they support the regime. As Derber writes:

"Democratic integration into the corporate regime was sealed by President Clinton, who by his own admission embraced core regime objectives usually associated with Republicans: globalization and free trade, zero deficits, small government, the end of welfare, and American Empire and continued militarization after the end of the Cold War. Despite the challenge from grassroots and progressive Democrats, these are still core aims of the Democratic Party today.
"Influential Democratic insiders created a movement within the party - centered in the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) - to sever the Democrats from their New Deal past. With financial backing from corporations, secured by DLC players who had been corporate lawyers and lobbyists, they created the vision of a "New Democrat" that has redefined the party, at least until the 2004 defeat to Bush that began to weaken the DLC grip. The New Democrats want the party to abandon their New Deal liberalism and embrace the new corporate regime. They seek modest reforms of the regime - including a minimal safety net, government support for research and development, and enterprise zones for the poor. But their zeal is around creating a new party that sheds the baggage of the New Deal and embraces the regime priorities of corporate expansion and profit, fiscal conservatism, globalization, and smaller government."

Derber suggests that since the Civil War there have been five regimes that have held power in the United States. They are:

First Corporate Regime, 1865-1901 - Gilded Age
John D. Rockefeller and J.P. Morgan built this house.
Progressive Regime, 1901-1921 - Progressive Era
Teddy Roosevelt busts the trusts in this house.

Second Corporate Regime, 1921-1933 - Roaring Twenties
Harding and Hoover turn the house back to big business.

New Deal Regime, 1933-1980 - New Deal
Franklin D. Roosevelt designs a people's house.

Third Corporate Regime, 1980-? - Reagan Revolution
Global corporations built this house for themselves.

[gateley]

1. K&R --

[cui bono]

2. Sounds like a good read.

Thanks for the post.

Well, minus that pic in your sig. :puke:

;)

[liberalla]

3. making a list, checking it twice

"In the current regime, we already see the embryonic shape of such a new hypernationalist order, foreshadowed in the Patriot Act, the Homeland Security restrictions on civil liberties, and the Pentagon's suspension of the Geneva Accords and Constitutional safeguards against arbitrary detention and abuse of terrorism suspects. This suggests a creeping authoritarianism that already functions within today's regime and could continue to sustain the current order. But in another scenario, repressive forces could expand and accelerate to create regime change. By fascism lite, I mean a new regime that would effectively suspend much of our current rights, while still preserving the patina of formal elections and constitutionalism. It would preserve a government-corporate partnership, but, in contrast to the current regime, it would clearly subordinate corporations to the state. It would eliminate unions, formally subjugate the press to government censorship, increase the tie between religion and the state, and subject dissenters and tens of millions of ordinary citizens to the unconstitutional treatment and daily abuse now received by terrorist detainees.

"Any form of fascism that might take root in America is radically distinct from the classical forms in Germany and Italy in the 1930s - and will remain a different breed. Fascism lite is not Nazism, Hitlerism, or Mussolini-style rule, and is dangerous precisely because it is likely to retain the framework of constitutional rule that Hitler and Mussolini openly abandoned."

[liberalla]

4. 2 out of 3 is bad... Let's hope it doesn't become 3 out of 3.

"Derber notes that a number of things could act to quickly flip the US into fascism lite, including a political crisis among a corrupted elite, an economic meltdown (which is what brought fascism to Europe in the 1930s), or - most dangerously - new terror attacks within the United States."



Events that could quickly flip the US into fascism lite include:

1. a political crisis among a corrupted elite

2. an economic meltdown

3. new terror attacks within the United States.

:evilfrown: