«  
  »

The financial crisis. It’s not about left vs. right. But is increasingly populist

Bob Morris, on Oct 8, 2009, 5:15 am

Newsweek Populism cover
Dylan Ratigan’s ‘The Cost of Corporate Communism‘ has appeared all over the net recently. He hosts MSNBC’s ‘Morning Meeting’ and uses ‘corporate communism’ to ‘describe the ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE that has taken over our country’ as an OPEdNews diary puts it.

The massive spike in unemployment, the utter destruction of retirement wealth, the collapse in the value of our homes, the worst recession since the Great Depression have all resulted directly from the abdication of proper government.

Even with all that — the only changes that have been made, have been made to prop up and hide the massive flaws on behalf of those who perpetuated them. Still utterly nothing has been done to disclose the flaws in this system, improve it or rebuild it

What we have now isn’t communism, as the State does not own the means of production.

Nor do they even control it. The control is firmly in private hands, and a tiny few control way too much, and effectively dictate to DC what to do. That’s certainly been true with the bailouts and banks.

I’d say it’s more like a theftocracy or a kleptocracy.

Zero Hedge, which is mostly libertarians, posted his article, and I commented

Interesting isn’t it, that James McMurtry, a populist socialist, and John Rich, who is sharply right wing, are doing songs about the same subject. Unemployment and pain for many caused by plundering done by a few.

“We Can’t Make It Here” – James McMurtry.

“They’re Shutting Detroit Down” – John Rich.

ghostfaceinvestah replied

I should also point out, isn’t it telling that Ron Paul, a libertarian, and Bernie Sanders, a socialist, are the two leading the bill to Audit the Fed?

We’re starting to see something new in US politics, the beginnings of the breakdown of the left-right divide and a realization that just maybe we have issues on which we agree. The financial crisis is one of them. It’s not about left vs. right but rather the elites vs. everyone else. This is something that many, regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, are starting to agree about.

It’s called populism. And it’s on the upsurge. More than anything else, this scares the elites.

Tags: , | Category: News | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)

  • http://homelessonthehighdesert.wordpress.com/ Ten Bears

    Recalling Time Magazine’s 1933 “Man of the Year” Benito Mussolini’s comment at the time, Fascism“‘describe[s] the ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE that has taken over our country’” (Fascism is better described as Corporatism, the wedding of The Corporation and The State).

    Just another right-wing hack attempting to distract a braindead Ambein, Prosaic, Viagra glued to boob-tube crotch shots kool-aid kocktail drinking public from corporate behavior.

    To be clear: the wedding of The Corporation and The State, where the means of production controls the means of distribution, is not “Communism”. Is not socialist. In “Communism”, socialism, by definition the means of distribution – The State – controls the means of production – The Corporation. Fascism, by definition of its leading protagonist, is the wedding of The Corporation and The State, with the means of production – The Corporation – in full control of the means of distribution – The State.

    • http://polizeros.com Bob Morris

      True, his rant didn’t understand what communism was, but his target is the corporate elites. That’s why I think it’s important. Populism comes to mainstream media.

      The theory of communism was quite different from the practice, and his point that in USSR a few elites controlled all the goodies while everyone else got screwed, seems accurate enough.

      As DJ often notes, the theory of capitalism is quite different from the practice too.

      • http://homelessonthehighdesert.wordpress.com/ Ten Bears

        Upon pondering it a bit while multi-tasking I agree with the Populist* angle, in part following up on my recent concession that perhaps Fascist fears have been a bit overplayed. Yet those fears were vocalized in response to The Corporate Media and members thereof Orwellianly bandying the word about in a campaign to rewrite history defining said as a Liberal phenomenon.

        But what matter the semantics? Naught. In reaching to the broader population understanding the stark polarity of the two is moot – in the public eye they’re both bad. Against American interests. And precisely the Soviet of Evil Empire. Evil Empire. Knowledge of specifically who controls specifically what is pretty meaningless in face of the realization that the majority – The People – aren’t in control of anything.

        Familiar arguement, that.

        But then again, this is The Corporate Media. There’s no tellin’ what they’re up to.

        * My first attempt at publication drew heavily on populist “pushes” in Concession of Error is not Admission of Defeat, America needs to reassess her “War on Drugs”, 1875 to 1990.. The attempt, alas, remains unpublished, a hardcopy in the bottom drawer, and on a floppy disk I’ll never be able to read.

        • http://polizeros.com Bob Morris

          Fascism / Stalinism / thuggism is what’s happening in Iran now. Protest against the government and they may put you in prison and rape and torture you repeatedly with the express purpose of destroying you mentally so as in the words of one grieving father there when he finally got his son back, all that was left was “a lump of flesh with no soul.”

          That’s not what we have here, thankfully.

          Increasingly I think at least some parts of corporate media, like Ratigan, are speaking out against the elites. This is a welcome trend! Let’s encourage it.

          I agree with what Byron just commented, get enough people united and the government is forced to respond because their protectors side with the insurgents.

          Your article sounds great, can you scan it it? Is the floppy damaged or do you not have a floppy reader?

          • http://homelessonthehighdesert.wordpress.com/ Ten Bears

            Five point five roll it into the typewriter and type a label on it inches. If there is even anything out there that’ll read a five point five that’ll interface with my laptop I’m not sure I could justify the expense for the five or ten documents thereon.

            It was actually a book, ten chapters. Everytime my daughter complains about being unable to use a computer I threaten to hire her to type it all – everything I’d written bc (before computers/college) – up. I’ve actually been publishing in my white name (tho in the seventies under an, ahhh… assumed name) articles and essays in news rags and mags around the state since I got back from the Army in ’74, many of which I retain as varied forms of hardcopy from typewritten on linen to clips of the publications themselves.

            I haven’t changed much.

  • Byron DeLear

    Zinn: “There is a chance that … a movement could succeed in doing what the system itself has never done-bring about great change with little violence. This is possible because the more of the 99 percent that begin to see themselves as sharing needs, the more the guards and the prisoners see their common interest, the more the Establishment becomes isolated, ineffectual. The elite’s weapons, money, control of information would be useless in the face of a determined population.”