Do citizens have any chance against the corporations?

[Kimber Scott]

I'm watching "Now." It's about the convention parties thrown by corporations for people in Washington on both sides of the aisle. The events are private and the money spent on them is so exhorbitant. As a citizen, I'm wondering, if I really have any say in what goes on in this country, or am I a slave to the "machine?" With outsourcing forcing Americans to compete against a global workforce for wages so low it could destroy our country faster than any terrorist could, I'm wondering, is there any way out?

This is not a Nader rant. I'm not into the third party game. I want to win. I just want to know, the way things are, do the citizens of the globe have any hope against the companies that will enslave them?

[NMDemDist2]

1. read about the labor movement around the turn of the century

thru the Woodie Guthro days of the 30's

we can win, again

but it will be a long hard fight again....

[MichiganVote]

2. I watched it too. Disgusted and discouraged.

Two Americas.

Democracy. We've become such a joke.

[Kimber Scott]

6. That's exactly how I feel - it's all a joke.

I'm sad. It's like finding out there's no Santa Claus. I'm thinking it will take something catastrophic - war, natural disaster, global depression - to unseat the power structure of these corporations. The Matrix keeps getting truer and truer.

[Union Thug]

3. yes. but people need to organize...

Labor can take it all back if the people that make up the working class would wake the hell up and begin organizing again. We have the power to shut down most of the economy in this country if we could only organize.

I'm not sure how it will be done, but it is certainly possible. It needs to come from a the people, though. The political system, Democrat or Republican, is too caught up in the free market free love and progressive labor has no place in either camp...at least in these dark days.

[lapfog_1]

29. Labor unions need to change

the world economy has changed, unions need to change. We moved from
a manufacturing to information and service economy. White collar
workers in this world are not used to unions and generally have a
negative view of unions. But collective bargaining (not so much
for wages now, but for job security) is the key. I think high tech
workers are ready... service industry needs to become more skilled,
less replaceable... traditional unions will still work well.

[mhr]

4. Read Thom Hartmann - Unequal Protection

http://www.thomhartmann.com/unequalprotection.shtml

Until the laws change we are all slaves to the system!

[7th_Sephiroth]

5. not without killing these delegates they send to bribe our leaders

the beast has manny arms, cut off enough and it will stop reaching for the cookie jar

[Keirsey]

9. Working America

WillW, there is a way to fight Bush and corporations.

Nonunion workers and retirees are invited to join the people power of America's union movement and help make America work for all of us.

http://workingamerica.org/

Get involved!!

[Union Thug]

12. Thanks for passing this along.. I'm going there now!

[The Straight Story]

7. Yes we do

They have dollars, we have votes. Sure they can manipulate by threats to cut off funding, but we have more might than they when we are organized and out in force. Perhaps they want us to feel discouraged so that we don't try as hard. But I am not buying what they are selling. They have an upper hand now, but when the 'ants' come together we have way more power than they do.

They can sell complacency all day long, I am selling activism and empowerment to the people who pull the levers.

[Kimber Scott]

15. The problem is the Dems are playing the same game. I trust

them with my interests more than the Republicans, but what happened to our democracy? It's been sold to the highest bidder. It's always been talked about, but it's shocking to see it in front of your face.

[The Straight Story]

25. We are the highest bidder

But what many in power often fail to see is the number of people versus the easy number of dollars they can get in one night. We can play the same game the big companies do. I don't blame them for using their power to try and preserve their interests, that is afterall what we wish to do.

Some politicians are convinced that money is what wins elections (and they can be right many times) - it is up to us to show them that we as a mass are watching their actions and that they cannot buy our votes with slick ads and handouts. All that information (which usually does not say much of substance) they hand out can easily be trumped by an informed people who watch their actions and not their TV spots (et al).

We don't need reform in the way of laws, we need reform at the local grassroots level by people willing to get out a real message with real information who care less about party affiliation and more about job performance. Sometimes we can be as bad as those we chide - we cover for dems so that they won't look bad (something which we fear repubs will use against us to their advantage). So much is based on fear (like terrorism is) that we leave our values at the door and choose those which share some of our ideals, even if only one or two more that those on the opposite side.

To get true reform, we need people who are not vested in one party or the other completely. We need people who want to judge each person on their merit and job performance (and how it affects others) and not on the D/R after their name. We need to look at things from a broad perspective and analyze it fully, not spin it to fit our own needs.

Companies and money a big influence/problem? How much more so those that pimp out their values to win a marginal victory by not looking at things even remotely bi-partisan, not searching at all for the truth, and only using the most negative views they can find to influence others. When Clinton was in the right refused to see any good, and the left does the same with bush. No one wants to even give an inch because it might play well with the voters. Good news in iraq somewhere? Don't mention it or you are a freeper - you are not part of the cause, you will be shunned and excommunicated. The left salivates at times over bad news, it makes their day because they can use it to hammer bush. Who cares if something positive happens, brush it under the carpet because it may make bush and crew look positive a tad bit.

If Gore had been in on 9/11 and it all happened as it did that day, what would the tone of the left be? Would we be praising him or investigating and questioning every small detail we could find? We cannot stoop down and be like the right, we must be consistent (and not saying we not always are, I am generalizing here broadly) in our pursuit of justice, truth, and accountability. When we stop making it about right/left and start making it about what is best (and projecting that to the masses) people will be more open minded and trusting of the message, and not so quick to dismiss it as partisan. Big business and the right want us to be partisan, because that gives them a crutch to lean on. They want to define how we act by making us afraid, like they scare people with terrorist threats. We get afraid (like thinking Kerry won't win unless we play the game they made the rules for) and react to that fear, which allows them to frame and control things.

Screw em. I have the same goals as many here, I just feel we can vary on opinion on how to reach those goals. Don't even mention the swift boat vet people running their ads, spend our money on the issues and people will see where the real mud comes from. If asked about it, Kerry/we can say - how is that relevant to X legislation (which is what the government handles) and how it has/will affect you and why are you trying to deflect the debate? Most people already think all politicians lie anyways (or at least stretch the truth) so ignore it and hammer home the truth about things which really affect people.

If bush asks Kerry about the vietnam thing in a debate, reply with 'How does my tour in vietnam impact people compared to the patriot acts, specifically x/y/z sections?' (or insert other such legislation as needed to get point across). When people see real things which they can look up and did not know (like how X laws affect them) they will want to know more because those things really have an impact on their daily lives. We can define things, it will take time.

I don't have all the answers, just opinions and ideas. Not always right, but always willing to offer other ideas. Sorry for the lengthy rant, but I can't help but feel that we have let others take influence from us - now we must pull together and take it back. DU is a big step in that direction, and I thank you all for your hard work in that area. Step by step we can overcome the problems - if we work together.

[K-W]

8. The labor movement was very promising at one point.

And the end result was a major improvement in things. But the corporations have fought back and destroyed it and now we are on the brink of facism. We desperately need to organize the people. The people have power in this country, its just a matter of whether ideas and organization can counter corporate money and control.

[stavka]

10. No - Even "City Hall" can't fight the Corporate Machine

[Kanary]

11. I think you got it.

It's a great game....... a masquerade ball.

There's a price to pay for seeing through the veil, and knowing the truth. It hurts.

Thanks for reminding me........ I had forgotten to watch it.

I think. :)

Kanary

[dumpster_baby]

13. Broadband Internet Deus Ex Machina to spread bottom-up memes

As one poster pointed out above, there was a movement in America from about 1910-1935 or so that had America headed to the Left. But that movement was killed. But why?

Well, one of the big ideas/realizations coming up recently among progressives is that the reason that America has moved to the right even while Canada, Australia, and all of Western Europe moved to the left in the last few decades, is that America has been the subject of a huge amount of propaganda disseminated via the mass media. THat, combined with the fact that so many people commute a long distance, which isolated them from much of a real community. Back in Guthrie's time, people were not as isolated from each other and from each other's ideas. But now our community has been supplanted by mass media to a great extent. And the ideas, the memes, that are propagated by mass media are memes that are top-down, filtered so as to please the rich, the powerful, the business community, big corporations that own and run large media outlets, and run advertisements in them. So therefore the ideas that populate American brains are from the top. And that is what is moving America to the right.

So, if we could get back to a community where the memes originate at the bottom? Well, I do see a way: the internet could be our substitute community. We already see online communities like DU. But what we need is for video entertainment distribution channels that have low barriers to entry. Once wireless broadband comes along in a couple of years, it should force down prices so that most Americans have broadband. Then at that point most tv stations will stop broadcasting over the air, and instead do it on the Net.

But also peer to peer networks should be more usable and accessible by then, so that would make a very cheap way to distribute video entertainment. So then you would have a low barrier to entry for making movies, teevee shows, etc. Then it would not be the exclusive domain of the corporations to make movies, etc. And so the ideas that will be getting into people's heads will not be just ideas from the top, but from the bottom as well....

THat will move America back to the left. Then we can start getting real change. You have to set up a worldview conducive to leftward political change first....

[Kimber Scott]

19. You're right. We have been manipulated, but we also have it pretty

good. Until people really start hurting and hungering for something more than the hamster wheel things will stay the same. The problem on the flip side, in order to get things to change the social order usually has to be destroyed. I don't want revolution. Things always go too far. I watched a movie the other day, "The Red Violin," in which one part of the story dealt with the communist revolution in China. All of a sudden people were forbidden to listen to Western music as it was deemed useless to "the people."

Can there be social change without revolution? Obviously, the politicians aren't going to change the laws that allow them to wallow in money while we suffer. I don't know. I guess being poor really does suck. I just never realized how poor I was, until I saw how rich they are.

[Kanary]

22. That's the question, isn't it? The moment in time......?

I've noticed this question coming up today on DU in different words, but it's the same question. I think reality is starting to dawn on us.

"Can there be change without revolution?"

Interesting question...... history says..... probably not.

As for being poor........ I would ask you to remember that the first casualties of *any* revolution are the poorest folk. Their deaths will be quiet and unheralded. Unnoticed. Maybe that's the hardest of all for me to come to terms with.

Kanary

[Kimber Scott]

24. There have been nearly 1000 already in Iraq. Sacrificed for money.

nt

[Kanary]

28. Huh? Are you replying to my post?

[Kanary]

14. "We're dancing together... and who knows who's leading....."

Pretty much says it all.

Now I'm officially depressed.

Kanary

[Union Thug]

16. Don't be depressed... be angry...

and channel that anger into collective action.

To add to the broadband post, we need to understand that any move to retake and move labor back as a force is going to be met with resistance. We saw what COINTELPRO did to the American Indian Movement and other progressive organizations. We need to expect that and more. But we still have the power our forbears did and if we study the losses we've suffered and look at the internet as the communication media of choice, I definatley think we have a chance.

This may be too far left for some of you, but the authors have done some good work in regard to the internet and the dissemination of news as part of the information wars:
http://www.leninism.org/index.htm

[Kanary]

17. I am what I am.

Y'know, I find it *really* funny that you were one who was ADAMANT that ain't nobody gonna tell you want to wear...... yet, here you are, telling me what to feel.

I'm sure you see the humor.

Kanary

[Union Thug]

20. Remind me...

When did I say anything about "what to wear"? I mean, I'm not denying anything, I just don't remember what you are talking about...

[Kimber Scott]

21. Me too.

It's hard to fight the good fight when you know the truth. Politicians play. We pay.

[Kanary]

23. Yes, that knowing the truth is a heavy burden. Best shared.

We did that pretty well during the Vietnam era.

Lousy at it now.

No wonder there's so much "compassion burnout".

We have so much to learn.

Kanary

[TrustingDog]

18. we are the other superpower. yes we do have a chance.

but things will get oooogly in the process.

[KT2000]

26. They really do have the power now but

their day of reckoning will come.

Corporations, in their arrogance are outsourcing not just jobs but products to China. As they will abandon the US for the larger consumer base in China, they will destroy the middle class in the US and build a new one in China. And who is to say that when arrangements are made for GM to produce components in China that a factory will not open across the street building the same units under a Chinese label?

Corporations are confident of their ability to exploit and think they have hit the gold mine in China, but China has never been subservient to anyone. Foreign corporations have existed in Chinese history as a convenience when needed and expelled when they became too powerful. And this will happen again. Only this time, the US will have become dependent on China for consumer goods.

Corporations are ushering us into a shift in the balance of power on this planet, without a single shot being fired.

Right now, too many Americans are following the bread crumbs of greed to stop this train wreck - 50% support for Bush says it all.

[GreenPartyVoter]

27. The way things are now? Probably not. Would have a better chance, in

my opinion if we got election reform like clean elections and ranked voting. If we can elect better no-strings-attached officials we'll get better policies.