Blockade Corporate Hegemony

The common people do not govern American institutions. They are controlled by corporate
money. They “abet and perpetuate mounting inequality,” and, “ignore suffering or sacrifice
human lives for profit.” “They use entertainment, celebrity gossip and emotionally laden public-
relations lies to seduce us into believing in a Disneyworld fantasy of democracy.” So says Chris
Hedges in his latest column for TruthDigg.com, “Do Not Pity the Democrat.”

Hedges states, and I agree, that the real threat to an authentic representative democracy is
corporate power of the fourth estate and mass media and the executive and legislative branches
of government, who we have believed were there to protect democracy. The money of American
corporate power corrupts government and molds American thought and consequently the
decisions they make. As a consequence, Americans have embraced ignorance and crudity as
exemplified by the popularity of right-wing talk radio, and in particular, Limbaugh, Hannity, and
Beck, who present issues hyperbolically and entertainingly rather than an intention to
authentically throw light on an issue.

His column states “Resistance means a radical break with the formal structures of American
society.” It’s here where our perspectives differ. The real power lies with the collective acts of
the American people. The only way to viably confront and overcome corporate power is in
denying them that which gives them power, which is targeting specific sales of the products and
services they peddle, which will, in the end, severely restrict their stranglehold on government
and individuals. Exercising political extremism is not the way. I agree with Ralph Nader, who
Hedges refers to in his column that “The corporate state, whose interests are being championed
by tea party leaders [(“Most of the participants in the tea party rallies are not poor”)] such as
Palin and Dick Armey, is working hard to make sure the anger of the movement is directed
toward government rather than corporations and Wall Street. And if these corporate apologists
succeed, a more overt form of corporate fascism will emerge without a socialist counterweight.
The more we expand community credit unions, community health clinics and food cooperatives
and build alternative energy systems, the more empowered we will become.”

The emphasis of Hedges’ column is not to pity “Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. They
will get what they deserve. They sold the citizens out for cash and power. They lied. They
manipulated and deceived the public, from the bailouts to the abandonment of universal health
care, to serve corporate interests.”

I suppose this is to an extent true, but more to the pressures of bipartisanship. However, the other
side of the aisle always seems to sell-out for cash and power. It seems to me that Democrats
more often than not will attempt to “foster the common good and the tangible needs of housing,
health care, jobs, education and food.” He states, “If we again prove compliant we will discredit
the socialism we should be offering as an alternative to a perverted Christian and corporate
fascism.” You see, as Nader, according to Hedges, said, “’Poor people do not organize. They
never have. It has always been people who have fairly good jobs.’”

Hedges, quoting Ralph Nader, said, “The corporate state is the ultimate maturation of American-
type fascism. They leave wide areas of personal freedom so that people can confuse personal
freedom with civic freedom—the freedom to go where you want, eat where you want, associate
with who you want, buy what you want, work where you want, sleep when you want, play when
you want [and only if you have the personal and financial wherewithal to do any of this]. If
people have given up on any civic or political role for themselves there is a sufficient amount of
elbow room to get through the day. They do not have the freedom to participate in the decisions
about war, foreign policy, domestic health and safety issues, taxes or transportation. That is its
genius. But one of its Achilles’ heels is that the price of the corporate state is a deteriorating
political economy. They can’t stop their greed from getting the next morsel. The question is, at
what point are enough people going to have a breaking point in terms of their own economic
plight? At what point will they say enough is enough?”

At what point will America put up a blockade against corporate power.