Are Americans Too Broken by Corporate Power to Resist?

[marmar]

via AlterNet:



OpEdNews.com / By Joan Brunwasser and Bruce E. Levine

Are Americans Too Broken by Corporate Power to Resist?
We need to take a look at what forces in American society are preventing people from being able to resist tyranny and dehumanization.

March 23, 2010 |


Editor's Note: The following is the transcript of a recent interview with Bruce E. Levine by OpEd News' Joan Brunwasser. Levine is a clinical psychologist and author of Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007).


Joan Brunwasser: Back in December, you wrote 'Are Americans a Broken People? Why We've Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression.' Could you tell our readers about your theory?

Bruce E. Levine: There are times when human beings can become so broken that truths of how they are being victimized do not set them free. This is certainly the case for many victims of parental and spousal abuse. They are not helped by people explaining to them that they are being battered, exploited, uncared about and disrespected. They know it already and somebody pointing it out is not helpful.

So, it seems to me that it is also possible that human beings can become so broken by the abuse of the corporate elite that they also are no longer set free by truth.

While certainly the corporate-controlled mainstream media does not report many important truths, the majority of the American people do know enough to oppose the war in Afghanistan, but they do almost nothing in response to recent troop surges.

Polls show that the majority of Americans actually support single-payer, Medicare-for all plan and even a larger majority support a public option, yet there are relatively few people on the streets protesting the Democratic party betrayal of them.

And look at the 2000 U.S. "banana-republic" presidential election, in which Gore beat Bush by 500,000 votes and the Supreme Court stopped the Florida recount, and 51 million Gore voters were disenfranchised. Yes, there were small protest demonstrations against this election farce, but the numbers of protesters were so small that they empowered rather than concerned the future Bush administration, which went on to almost vaunt its regime of anti-democracy and piss on basic human rights. How humiliating for an entire nation. The shame many Americans feel, at some level, for allowing torture and other abuses is similar to the shame that spousal abuse victims feel -- and this routinely makes people feel even weaker. So, while not all Americans are broken, demoralized and feeling powerless, many are.

I wish the answer to restoring democracy was simply one of people getting more journalistic truths through a non-corporate media --and certainly I am all for that -- but I think that much more is required. We need to take a look at what forces in American society are breaking the American people from the ability to resist tyranny and dehumanization, and we must start considering what are the antidotes to this. At least that's what any psychologist or social scientist who gives a damn about genuine democracy should be doing. ..........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/media/146128/are_americans_too_broken_by_corporate_power_to_resist

[Captain Hilts]

1. This is an interesting piece. Thanks. nt

[Fumesucker]

2. Resist? Here on DU they're fucking *cheering* corporate power.. n/t

[The_Commonist]

3. Broken?

Bullshit.
Americans are too mesmerized by shiny beads and baubles, and too zoned out by the TV machine.
Turn off the TV for a couple of weeks, stop buying all that cheap crap from China that nobody needs anyway, and eat a salad once in a while, and this shit would END!

[Demeter]

4. Things Will Have to Get Worse Before They Get Better

(The circuses will have to shut down. No public distractions from cold reality)

Ironically, or fortunately, the Corporations have made deterioration inevitable.

Then watch the Resistance take hold! This Health Insurance bill is just more fuel for the fire.

[xchrom]

5. Recommend -- and yes I think that's a reasonable observation. Nt

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. We are fragmented in a way that few people in history ever have been

Back in 2001, one of my online friends wrote an essay on how suburbanization has prevented the formation of real communities.

Here's his essay:

http://www.newcolonist.com/rr11.html

Just the other night, I watched a couple of episodes from Terry Jones' Medieval Lives. (Yes, the Terry Jones of Monty Python fame). This series profiles the different types of people who lived in the Middle Ages and debunks myths about them.

In "The Peasant," Jones tells of the Peasants' Revolt of 1321. Peasants from all over England converged on London to demand an end to oppression by the lords. They were unsuccessful, but they had the powers that be running scared for a while.

How were they able to mount a nationwide rebellion with no national media?

The answer lies in the fact that while they were serfs, they also did a lot of hands-on self-government. They held meetings to determine who would work which plots of land, what they would plant, and who would do which chores. They also handled interpersonal disputes, acted as courts of justice for their fellow peasants, and negotiated with their lord as a kind of primitive labor union. (The peasants were not all illiterate. Some of them had learned to read from their parish priest.)

So the answer is that they were already organized for purposes other than rebellion. When one group got the idea of rebelling, they were able to send letters to other estates to ask them to join the rebellion.

We are not organized like that. Not even close.

[glitch]

11. I've got to see that. His "The Barbarians" was excellent. nt

[tom_paine]

14. It's much more than that, Lydia. We are also managed behaviorally, statistically, and psychologic-

-ally by many MANY times more powerful methodology than has ever existed in human history before, added to that is the most powerful delivery system (Corporate Media Saturation) than has ever existed before.

Ed Bernays, may his soul rot in hell next to his "virtual protege" Josef Goebbels, started it all and every advertiser, PR person, corporate "human resources psychologist" and most academic researchers in these fields, whether they knew what they were doing or not, has contributed to the biggest concentration camp for the mind ever developed.

You are describing one aspect of what could be called the RW Authoritarian takeover of the Old American Republic using the vehicle of the all-powerful (and now they truly are all-powerful) Corporation.

I am describing another.

But what it all adds up to is that "the avalanche has begun and it's too late for the pebbles to vote," as someone said.

The Corporations hold all the power and all the cards. Their monstrous Teabagging followers, who's Nazi/KKK-like psychology is evermore on display with each passing day and the collective psychology of our Empire, grows ever closer to the ultimate cross between Corporate Neofeudalism and 1933 Germany.

Things will have to get MUCH worse before they get better, and I have my serious doubts that America can ever regain even the semblence of democracy and liberty.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. Oh yes, I have seen propaganda at work

One of my brothers has turned into a right-winger because (I am convinced) he works in outside sales and drives around all day listening to talk radio.

I've been interested in propaganda ever since I was a teenager and happened to find a college textbook about it. Sometimes it's painful to see people falling for obvious propaganda or to watch the marginalization of anyone who refuses to color inside the lines.

Geobbels' Big Lie is at work every day in America in just about every sphere of activity.

[DemReadingDU]

21. Paul Craig Roberts: Truth Has Fallen

jotsy posted this earlier
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x525887

[raccoon]

20. Great essay! Thanks for the heads up. nt

[Larkspur]

7. I thought elections was where Americans channel their "rebellion"

In 2006 and 2008, American voters replaced Repubs with Dems, and 2008 was hailed as a landmark election due to the fact that Americans elected the first African American President. Disappointment followed as Obama continued many of the Bush policies or refused to investigate Bush era policies for war crimes.

What hasn't happened is frustrated Americans haven't met a leader or organization that can help them focus their energy to motivate our political caste to sever ties with the economic elite. Also, some of us are trying to reform the Dem Party from the inside, so many of us are working to change a corrupt system. We just have different methods, none of which will happen during a 30 second sound bite.

Let's remember, the Civil Rights Movement didn't happen over night either, It started after the Civil War freed African Americans from official instituionalized slavery. The battle to fight implict institutionalized slavery began after the South surrendered.

[xchrom]

8. Kick

[The Genealogist]

9. They must first realize that they are "broken"

and that there is something to "resist."

[bnymellon sucks]

10. I am resisting

go to http://www.bnymellon-lies.com/ to see my stand up and fight website

[Doctor_J]

12. Definitely

He hits the nail on the head. In December 2000, Delay's Storm Troopers should have been repulsed with baseballs bats and bullets. If the SCOTUS had canceled the election anyway, then the 5 criminals should have been subjected to the ultimate punishment, right then and there. It is heartbreaking that Limpballs gets to call the president a traitor and a terrorist on Armed Forces Network. If someone were to Berg the obese pedophile, the dialog will change. Right now we are standing still for actual violence against our reps.

The reason that the tyranny continues is that there are no repercussions for any of the crime. Until we start to fight back, nothing of substance will change.

[Gwoppi]

13. Roger on that one, yes

Alternet asks in print what my mind asks at night in my bed.

[Uncle Joe]

15. The corporate media not only don't report important truths, they warp the American People's

political center of gravity and their primary motivation for doing so, is due to the corporate media's inherent conflict of interest, what's best for the corporate media is not best for the American People or the nation as a whole. A universal single payer system or strong public option would threaten corporate media cash flows received from selling commercials and advertising to for profit "health" insurance corporations.

If you watch their reporting of this HCR bill; just past, criticism was almost exclusively reported from the conservative angle, it's "socialism" "a big government take over of health care," virtually no criticism from the progressive liberal wing is reported, ie; it institutionalizes a dysfunctional, illogical. immoral, fiscally irresponsible for profit system. The corporate media's reason for doing so is because they know the corporate supremacist Republican Party will never actually work to repeal this, so their propaganda is used to direct disgruntled anger over the bill to the right. The corporate media's worst nightmare would be for the American People to wake up from their stupor and hate this bill from the left of the political spectrum demanding non-profit universal single payer coverage for every American from the cradle to the grave, so that concept is either demonized or ignored.

The corporate media want to brain wash the average American in to believing this bill/law is to the extreme left instead of a right wing gift to corporate supremacy and profits over the peoples' best interests. The fact this was passed by a Democratic Congress and signed by a Democratic President makes the corporate media's job of brain washing the American People all the easier.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[Ichingcarpenter]

19. Well Said Uncle Joe

Fascism is alive and well in today's America

[MisterP]

16. also, political theatrics:

most of the HIR cheerleading is "in your FACE Teabaggers" and "it's historic"--which always reminds me of Vince McMahon's "unbelievable, I can't believe I'm here at this historic moment," which he says every month or fortnight...

also, neoliberalism operates my reducing economic security--wages, social welfare--so you won't speak up because getting fired means homelessness and a quick death; ideally, it's perpetually self-reinforcing

[AdHocSolver]

18. Americans remain victims because they still view the corporations as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy

Americans still believe, even after Enron and all the banking and corporate scandals, that if they invest in the stock market and hang on to these stocks over the long haul, they will become wealthy enough to retire "comfortably" and live the "good life".

The reality is that the stock market is a rigged Ponzi scheme that is designed to separate you from your hard-earned money.

The terms "free trade", "free markets", and "global economy" are merely corporate invented jargon to justify sending your neighbor's job, and eventually your job, to some low-wage country.

The notion that the REAL economy, the economy dealing with jobs, is dependent on what the stock market does, this notion, is pure supply side, trickle down economics. This is why the bank bailout hasn't really slowed the loss of jobs by any significant amount. The bank bailout merely stemmed the losses of the bankers that brought about the banking problems.

As long as a large number of people still subscribe to the economic fairy tales, and cling to the nonsensical belief that the corporations will somehow save the economy, nothing will improve.

So, what can individuals do to help themselves and the real economy?

First, understand that the corporations will not do anything to help you. They are only after your money, and will only leave you alone when you are broke, and have nothing left for them to steal.

There is only ONE action that will save the American economy and that is to bring jobs back here for the everyday goods that we buy such as clothes, shoes, electronics, appliances, tools, dinnerware, toys, and similar items.

The government isn't going to help make that happen as it means getting rid of NAFTA, WTO, etc. to make it unprofitable to offshore manufacturing.

However, Americans can help bring jobs back here by NOT buying cheap imported crap, and demanding retailers stock American-made goods.

The other thing Americans can do to help the real economy is to NOT invest in the stock market. Besides enabling the paying of exorbitant salaries and bonuses to corporate executives, the money you pour into the stock market indirectly helps the corporations pay for the building of factories in foreign countries.

Pension funds and stock purchase plans by employees are other ways that people contribute to corporate control over this country. Just ask former Enron employees what happened to the money they invested in their employer.