How the United States Devolved into this Current Crisis

Bill Moyers has an excellent article explaining when the United States began its downward spiral into a corporatocracy.  He even pinpoints the exact date.  By the time Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, our oligarchy — or corporate dystopia, whatever you want to call it — was already ten years in the making.

On August 23rd, 1971, Lewis Powell — corporate lawyer and future Supreme Court justice — sent a memo to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  Bill Moyers says:

“We look back on it now as a call to arms for class war waged from the top down.”

Lewis Powell’s memo ranted about “an attack on the American free enterprise system.”  Powell said the attack was coming not just from “a few extremists of the Left,” but also from “perfectly respectable elements of society,” including politicians, well respected intellectuals and the media.  Powell urged his fellow VIPs to “fight back and fight back hard” and to build a movement; take on the universities, the media and the courts.  Powell wrote that TV programs should be “monitored the same way textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance.”

He also wrote that political power must be “assiduously [sic] cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination and without embarrassment.”

Lewis Powell visualized the U.S. Chamber of Commerce as a council of war.  He sure got that wish.  No doubt he’s been having multiple orgasms from his grave.

Powell’s infamous memo said that business executives have “little stomach for hard-nosed contest with their critics” and “little skill in effective intellectual and philosophical debate.”  Therefore, Big Business should form think tanks, legal foundations and front groups.  These groups could all be aligned into a united front through “careful long-range planning and implementation…consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and united organizations.”

And so it came to pass.  (See above-mentioned in-grave orgasms.)
And in the late 1970s, William Simon — Nixon’s former secretary of the treasury — expanded on Lewis Powell’s rhetoric.  He urged “men of action in the capitalist world” to mount “a veritable crusade” against all of the progress of the previous forty-five years.

Bill Moyers says:

“Those ‘men of action in the capitalist world’ were not content with their wealth just to buy more homes, more cars, more planes, more vacations and more gizmos than anyone else. They were determined to buy more democracy than anyone else. And they succeeded beyond their expectations. After their forty-year ‘veritable crusade’ against our institutions, laws and regulations—against the ideas, norms and beliefs that helped to create America’s iconic middle class—the Gilded Age is back with a vengeance.”

And here we are.

“No More Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We Need a Fighter.”

While Obama is talking to millions of students tomorrow, this is the speech that needs to be broadcast into the White House. And beamed in again and again — an endless loop.

This speech by Bill Moyers is about five minutes long. The video and written text are both at this link. (H/T to Port Book and News of Port Angeles, WA for having excerpts from this speech posted on their daily chalkboard.)

America is “the greatest show on earth. Forget what you learned in civics about the Founding Fathers — we're the children of Barnum and Bailey, our founding con men. Their freak show was the forerunner of today's talk radio...”

“So here we are, wallowing in our dysfunction. Governed — if you listen to the rabble rousers — by a black nationalist from Kenya smuggled into the United States to kill Sarah Palin's baby. And yes, I could almost buy their belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, only I think he shipped them to Washington, where they've been recycled as lobbyists and trained in the alchemy of money laundering, which turns an old-fashioned bribe into a First Amendment right…”

“Poor Obama. He came to town preaching the religion of nice. But every time he bows politely, the harder the Republicans kick him. No one's ever conquered Washington politics by constantly saying ‘pretty please’ to the guys trying to cut your throat…”

“This health care thing could have been the crossing of the Delaware, the turning point in the next American Revolution — the moment we put the mercenaries to rout, as General Washington did the Hessians at Trenton. We could have stamped our victory ‘Made in the USA.’ We could have said to the world, ‘Look what we did!’…”

“Come on, Mr. President. Show us America is more than a circus or a market. Remind us of our greatness as a democracy. When you speak to Congress next week, just come out and say it. We thought we heard you say during the campaign last year that you want a government run insurance plan alongside private insurance — mostly premium-based, with subsidies for low-and-moderate income people. Open to all individuals and employees who want to join and with everyone free to choose the doctors we want. We thought you said Uncle Sam would sign on as our tough, cost-minded negotiator standing up to the cartel of drug and insurance companies and Wall Street investors…”

“Josh Marshall…is the founder of the website talkingpointsmemo.com…He's
offered the simplest and most accurate description yet of a public insurance plan — one that essentially asks people: would you like the option — the voluntary option — of buying into Medicare before you're 65? Check it out, Mr. President…”

“This health care thing is make or break for your leadership, but for us, it's life and death. No more Mr. Nice Guy, Mr. President. We need a fighter.”