RE: Self-Inflicted Wounds

Commentary By Ron Beasley

My friend and blogging buddy from North of the border can't understand self-inflicted wounds as a result of the circular firing squad of the Democratic party.  What BJ doesn't understand is that his southern neighbor does not have a Democracy as I pointed out here.  There really is very little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans simply because our elected selected  lawmakers don't actually make the decisions or the laws.  It's the corporate elite that make the decisions.  You can call the US system of government a corporatocracy or a oligarchy but it is coming increasingly close to the system defined by Benito Mussolini as fascism.   This from Thom Hartmann is worth repeating:

With apologies to Pastor Niemöller:

First they came for the banksters, and showered them with money and put them in the Administration in a way that was not change we could believe in.

Then they came for the military industrial complex, and sent more and more of our children to die in faraway lands that had never attacked us in a way that was not change we could believe in.

And now they’ve sold out our hope for a national health care system not run by millionaire gangsters in suits. And who is left to speak for us?

~Thom Hartmann

Make no mistake, Obama made agreements with the oligarchs before he ran for President - if he hadn't they would have destroyed him.  Make no mistake, Obama got the health care bill he wanted and he will fight for it even though he wouldn't fight for any real reform.  Make no mistake, Obama will continue to send US treasure and blood to the middle eastern wars because it enriches the military industrial complex.

BJ gives us some progressive accomplishments of the Obama administration provided by Nathan Newman.  Insignificant when compared to the things that didn't happen - the oligarchs are still in charge.

Perhaps we were foolish to hope for a Roosevelt, either Teddy or FDR.  They both did something Obama has been unwilling or unable to do - take on the oligarchs. 

Definitions:

Corporatocracy:

Corporatocracy or Corpocracy is a form of government where a corporation, a group of corporations, or government entities with private components, control the direction and governance of a country.

This belief is reinforced by two factors. First, corporations give to competing political parties and major political party candidates. This is seen as a corporation hedging their bets on the outcome of an election, and trying to get on the good side of whichever candidate is elected into office. Some say this is one of the hallmarks of a corporatocracy.

Second, in many cases former corporate executives serve as powerful decision makers within government institutions often charged with the regulation of their former employers. Meanwhile, former government employees often accept high ranking positions within corporations thereby providing their new employers with access to governmental decision makers. This serves to create the appearance of a revolving door between corporations and the institutions established to regulate their behavior.

Fascism:

As the 1983 American Heritage Dictionary noted, fascism is: "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."

Comments

[joe]

The only votes we now have are the dollars in our wallets. We are expected to vote for a brand of sugar water that has been colored brown (coke/pepsi) or a car designed to prematurely be replaced (ford/gm).

We will not see change until we start witholding those dollars from the corpocracy - this terrifies them, which is why the shrillness escalates.

[Carl]

BJ's post is outrageous. The Bank of England says that our economy is currently in a "doom loop," and yet Bjornson smears Obama's critics as crazy Reds.

Obama's economic policy is unsustainable even over the short term. That's simply a fact, and I don't see how it can be defended on any terms -- including political expediency.

[Redhand]

I agree that our "form of government" has degenerated into a very corrupt Corporatocracy.

I'm bitter about Obama because his campaign was based on a lie: that he really would be a force for "change you can believe in." Instead, he's revealed himself as just another corporatist, rather than another FDR.

The tragedy is that things were so bad when he took office that the American people were ready for "radical" FDR type leadership, IMO. Obama has utterly squandered a unique opportunity to change our society for the good. It's disgusting.

[BJ Bjornson]

Well, there is a reason you call yourself a radical Ron.  I even agree with the general thrust of your points on the corporatocracy and the effectiveness of your electoral system.  (In fact, the ineffectiveness of your electoral system is likely worth many essays on its own.)  However, your contention that Democrats and Republicans are somehow interchangeable at this point is one I do strongly disagree with, and have to wonder if you’re suffering from some form of amnesia to have blocked out the Bush years so quickly.
 
You don’t think Obama has done enough, and in that again, I can’t but agree in all too many areas, particularly, as mentioned below by Jay, on torture accountability.  But while what he has done is less than we’d like, the main criticisms I’ve seen relate to him not reversing things that the last Republican administration pushed through.  That, in large part, is the real difference that I wonder if some on the left are missing; that while Obama isn’t making things much better, he isn’t actively trying to make them worse and push the US further down the slide into true fascism.
 
And, while I don’t want to become some kind of apologist for Obama and the Dems, part of the reason they aren’t doing more in many areas is thanks to the fact that there is still a sizable lump of obstructionist Republicans around that wind up giving an inordinate amount of power to assholes like Lieberman.  And I don’t see how increasing the power and influence of people like him is going to help in any way, shape or form in moving things in the right direction.

Maybe you could answer that question for me. How does ensuring that the HCR bill fails lead to a better and more progressive nation? To me at least, setting things up to move further to the right because the guys in power haven’t moved things far enough to the left yet seems a bit counter-productive.

I can see the signs for something like the collapse coming in the not-distant-enough future through the mechanisms John quoted in his Corporatocracy Explained post. The thing about that is, such collapses usually wind up making things far, far worse. Remember, the collapse of the Soviet Union increased the power of the oligarchs, and left the ordinary citizen poorer and at the mercy of criminal ganglords. That’s a situation I’d like to avoid rather than hasten.