We have to get to work taking the WHOLE thing back.
It may take awhile, too. It took the bad guys 40 years or so. But they built it - with the establishment of think tanks and institutes, the grooming of talking-heads and other disciples, the buying up of media properties to spread their "goons' gospel of greed" if you will, the recruitment and nurturing of "talent" to populate those media properties, the attack on our public education system, the gerrymandering and Citizens United efforts that helped them rig the election game, and now they're enjoying many fruits of all those labors.
They had a blue print to work from: the "Powell Memo" written by Lewis Powell, commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce, in 1971, basically as a reaction to all them damn hippies and free love, them uppity students and their draft card-burning campus unrest, them uppity women and their bra-burning man-hating "liberation", them uppity black people and their insistence on equal standing with whites, all that dancing around in the nude at Woodstock, etc. The business community didn't like what was happening during the 60s and found it threatening, and in need of being beaten back.
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
But what now concerns us is quite new in the history of America. We are not dealing with sporadic or isolated attacks from a relatively few extremists or even from the minority socialist cadre. Rather, the assault on the enterprise system is broadly based and consistently pursued. It is gaining momentum and converts.
Sources of the Attack
The sources are varied and diffused. They include, not unexpectedly, the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic. These extremists of the left are far more numerous, better financed, and increasingly are more welcomed and encouraged by other elements of society, than ever before in our history. But they remain a small minority, and are not yet the principal cause for concern.
The most disquieting voices joining the chorus of criticism come from perfectly respectable elements of society: from the college campus, the pulpit, the media, the intellectual and literary journals, the arts and sciences, and from politicians. In most of these groups the movement against the system is participated in only by minorities. Yet, these often are the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and speaking.
Moreover, much of the media-for varying motives and in varying degrees-either voluntarily accords unique publicity to these “attackers,” or at least allows them to exploit the media for their purposes. This is especially true of television, which now plays such a predominant role in shaping the thinking, attitudes and emotions of our people.
It goes on. And on. And on.
I'm JUST NOW starting to dig down into something intriguing:
https://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/FDTD.pdf
This is an extended think piece called "From Dictatorship to Democracy," from theAlbert Einstein Institution, which looks mighty interesting - almost a counter-manifesto detailing how to fight and beat dictatorship, at least from first glance. Don't know yet if it's a workable response to the Powell memo because it's long and I'm still just getting into it.
I will report back. It's WE who must gain momentum and converts again. The bad guys have MORE THAN a 40-year head start. WE have to get cracking, and get cracking RIGHT NOW. We have a lot of ground to make up.
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