Wanna Know Why We the People Really Don't Know Squat?

[Octafish]

35. And a lot of Democrats who were in the know just opened their gobs and said, 'Ah hah' and got along.

Union jobs are what created the great American middle class. People were paid a fair wage in exchange for work of quality. As a result, people could buy the things they made and the things they made helped create a better world for all.

Labor balancing the Ownership class was mediated by government. It was a fair system from the time of Roosevelt to the time of Johnson. Carter tried to keep it, but by then a new non-New Deal tradition was being established. Reagan and the neocons have held sway for the 32 years since.

Propaganda and Class Structure

Michael Parenti, 1988
excerpted from the book

Stenographers to Power
media and propaganda

David Barsamian interviews
Common Courage Press, 1992, paper

p43
MP: I would define propaganda as the mobilization of information and arguments with the intent to bring people to a particular viewpoint. In that sense there could be false and deceptive propaganda, and there could be propaganda that has a real educational value. You can after all inform people and mobilize them toward truth. In the United States the word "propaganda" is unrelievedly negative. In certain other countries, propaganda has a more neutral implication.

p44
MP: The first premise of propaganda in the United States today is at doesn't exist, that there is no propaganda from the established media and from the government and that we have only "information." Propaganda is something that other people do. That's reflected in that definition of a doctrine. And nobody in the United States says they're selling or pushing a doctrine; they all say they're just reporting it like it is. That's the first premise: the denial that there is propaganda. The second quality of propaganda in the United States is that it operates all the time and its major dedication is to avoid any kind of confrontation regarding class struggle in the United States. It denies any recognition that there is exploitation of labor, that the rich exploit the poor, that we exploit the third world, etc. We've now reached the point where you can talk about racism and sexism, but you cannot really talk about class power in America, and if you do, you are said to be engaging in propaganda.

p46
It's no secret. The Council on Foreign Relations was formed in 1922 by John D. Rockefeller, Sr., Nelson Aldridge and by J.P. Morgan. It's a council whose personnel are drawn from the corporate elite, with some college presidents, academics, news media people, and political leaders thrown in. The Council on Foreign Relations, the Committee on Economic Development, the Trilateral Commission are all organizations that have been formed, financed and staffed by these corporate elites. They provide the personnel who then serve in various administrations. The Council on Foreign Relations has placed its members as Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State or Secretary of Defense in every administration, whether its Republican or Democratic.

Jimmy Carter had 12 members of the Trilateral Commission in his cabinet, including himself and Walter Mondale. The Trilateral Commission was started by David Rockefeller. These elites have a capacity to place their members in the top decision-making positions unequalled by any other interest group in America. There's no labor union, no farmers' group, no teachers' group, there's no pro-abortion or anti-abortion group that could hope to place their leaders the way these people do. Their role is not to pursue the interests of any one particular corporation. Their role in these councils is to look at what are the common interests of all the various multinational corporations, what is the common interest, what is the common interest of the financial class.

p47
MP: You can't talk about these kinds of things in the mainstream media because the media are owned by the very same people who staff these councils and staff our top decision-making positions. Capitalism is not only an economic system, it's an entire social order. Its function is not just to produce cars and refrigerators and make a profit for its owners. It also produces a whole communication universe, a symbolic field, a culture, a control over various social institutions like universities, museums and churches. Those of us who have a view which is anti-capitalist are frozen out, or we are consigned to small publications. You can say, well, you're consigned to small publications because you don't have that much to say or people don't care about what you're saying. It's not true. People would be interested in our message if they'd get a chance to hear it. And in any case, why not give them a chance to reject it? Why don't we get a chance to get on networks? Why don't we get the syndicated columns that appear in 300 newspapers? Why don't we get space in the mass-circulation magazines, in Time and Newsweek? Why don't we get commentaries on ABC, NBC, CBS? Why don't we get on Nightline?

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporate_Media/Propaganda_Parenti_STP.html

Nowadays, the financial sector attracts all that capital where it receives a higher rate of return. We all know how that goes and goes and goes until there are no more union jobs, middle class, and better world.

While I haven't seen any numbers, I'd bet a fistful of donuts that War Inc. and Wall Street outspent the unions in the last election cycle by about 100 to 1.

Something for a man on the street interview program...:

Ask any tea bagger you happen to see: Who has the most secret Swiss bank accounts - the guys at the local AFL-CIO or the players in and out of Washington touched by Goldman Sachs?