THE DEVIL'S MARRIAGE BREAK UP THE CORPOCRACY OR LEAVE DEMOCRACY IN THE LURCH America is becoming a "ruiNation." The reason, well-known psychologist Dr. Gary Brumback, tells us is the corpocracy, the "Devil's Marriage" between powerful corporations and patronizing politicians. He proposes "Democracy Power," a revolutionary but civil, peaceful force to break up the corpocracy. "Gary Brumback's passion for social and economic justice shines through every page of his new book. He tells it as he sees it, mincing no words. He shows how essential it is for us to change the rules of the game so that we may break the ties that bind corporations and government -- and move to a more equitable and sustainable future." ---Riane Eisler, author of The Chalice and The Blade and The Real Wealth of Nations. "A refreshing, exuberant read, full of sock-it-to-them creative insights about how corpocracy in the US has subverted democracy and what to do about it. This book is a political version of "On the Road"-- a passionate out flowing of analysis, critique and transformative strategies, including a vision of a national coalition of NGOs and movements uniting to challenge the corpocracy, spearheaded by a US Chamber of Democracy. Not for the faint of heart but red meat for progressives and activists everywhere." ---Charles Derber, author of Corporation Nation, Regime Change Begins at Home, and, most recently, Greed to Green. "This is an extraordinary and timely book that deserves to be widely read. Gary Brumback tells it like it is: America is no longer a democracy, governed by and for the people; we are a 'corpocracy' governed by and for large corporations with the massive help of an obliging government. Their grip on our nation is tight, but not unbreakable. Brumback shows how we can loosen it and reclaim our democratic heritage." ---Peter Barnes, author of Capitalism 3.0: A Guide to Reclaiming the Commons, and co-founder of Working Assets.
The Devil's Marriage
Break Up the Corpocracy or Leave Democracy in the LurchBy Gary BrumbackAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Gary Brumback
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4567-1260-0Contents
PREFACE...........................................................................ixPART ONE. INTRODUCTION............................................................1Chapter 1. The Current Corpocracy: An Overview....................................3Chapter 2. Earlier Corpocracies: A Review.........................................25PART TWO. THE CORPOCRACY'S OPPOSITION.............................................31Chapter 3. Where's Today's Opposition?............................................33Chapter 4. Organizing Tomorrow's Opposition: Democracy Power......................43PART THREE. UNLEASHING DEMOCRACY POWER: THE POSSIBILITIES.........................67Chapter 5. Telling the People.....................................................69Chapter 6. Closing the Corpocracy's Political/Judicial Circus.....................77Chapter 7. Digging Up The Corpocracy's Legal Roots................................101Chapter 8. Ending Hands-Off Corporate Criminals...................................113Chapter 9. Ending Hand-Outs to the Corporate Welfare Queen........................131Chapter 10. Ending Undemocratic Capitalism........................................149Chapter Eleven. Unleashing Your Democracy Power...................................181AFTERWORD.........................................................................185Appendix A........................................................................193Appendix B........................................................................201Appendix C........................................................................203Notes.............................................................................215Index.............................................................................253About the Author..................................................................263
Chapter One
The Current Corpocracy: An Overview
autocracy bureaucracy corpocracy democracy kleptocracy mobocracy (yes, it's a word) monocracy plutocracy technocracy theocracy timocracy
The word "corpocracy" hasn't made it yet into the dictionary, unlike the other "cracies," or into public conversations as far as I know. "Cracy" is derived from the Greek "kartia" for power. The corpocracy exemplifies regime power, the getting of more and more of it and the continuous abuse of it in serving its own interests at a terrible cost to public interests and the common good. Power, but a very different kind of power, is also a defining characteristic of "democracy."
There is such an inherent conflict between these two "cracies" that they can't co-exist in the same nation and they don't coexist in America. In America the corpocracy rules with tyrannical-like power. The self-ruling democracy power of the people has been taken from the people.
The Devil's Marriage
Where did the power of the people go? To a marriage made in Hell did it flow. Leaving democracy in the lurch, Jilting Americans and much worse.
A corpocracy, Professor Charles Derber writes, is a "marriage between big business and big government [that] turns a formally democratic government into a vehicle for corporate ends" and leaves the American people with a "pseudo-democracy" (he also refers to the corpocracy as a "corporate regime" to reflect corporations' marriage to government; in this book, except when I need to single out either corporations or the government, I will use the terms "regime" and "corpocracy" interchangeably so as to be less monotonous). This professor, by the way, isn't "bookish." He once walked off the campus and out into the street to protest the war in Iraq, and once was booked and jailed briefly for civil disobedience in supporting the "janitors for justice" protest in Boston in 2002. He has thus experienced first hand how the corpocracy can strangle civil liberties. If only most Americans, especially politicians, walked the principles Professor Derber walks.
Not a Shotgun Wedding
The marriage was anything but a shotgun wedding. It was a wedding for the sake of mutual "badvantages" (advantages for all sorts of bad behavior, legal and illegal). Both partners compromised (some critics might say "corrupted") each other. Both got huge, unending dowries. Corporations (most but not all are U.S. corporations) get almost on a daily basis "power and profit gifts" in the form of favorable legislation, favorable regulations and deregulations, favorable judicial verdicts, welfare handouts, impunity from lawlessness, military help in global exploitation, and laissez-faire capitalism. And what do the politicians get? The Capital Hill bunch (aka "Corporate Hill") gets career employment in plush offices. The oval office puppets get brief prestige and mostly posturing power. And the robed bench sitters for life get to rule in favor of the corporate interests that helped to get them appointed. The first dowry far overshadows the second but neither partner can afford a divorce. They will stick together through thick and thin.
Self-Rule: Not in a Corpocracy
Self-rule is synonymous with democracy. It represents both a moral and a practical balance between the anarchy of no governance, or extreme individualism, on the one hand, and totalitarianism, or oppressive governance, on the other. In Abraham Lincoln's view the legitimate role of government in a democracy "is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do at all, or can not so well do, for themselves-in their separate and individual capacities." His view may have reflected his interpretation of the framers' intent in writing the U.S. Constitution that it would "provide for the common defense [and] promote the general welfare-." I underscore the qualifier "general" because the Constitution is also intended to "establish justice," and there can be no social and economic justice in America when the welfare of all her people is hugely and shamefully uneven.
Self-Rule and Our Life's Equations
In a true democracy people in all walks and stations of life have self-rule or as much control as possible over their life equations. You, me, everyone has the same general equation. It may just be the most important non-mathematical equation anyone will ever see in their lifetime:
Our Selves + Our Situations = Whether/How Much Health, Happiness, and Prosperity We Have or Don't Have
The first input is our particular personal characteristics such as our needs, experience, abilities, motivation, values, and the like. The second input is our situations. We all encounter several spheres of situations along our path through life; personal/social/cultural spheres, a political sphere, an economic sphere, and an environmental sphere.
In a true democracy the outputs on the right side amount to an optimum level of general welfare for all Americans, not just the wealthiest ones.
In a corpocracy, the equation is much different. The corpocracy has considerable power and control over most Americans' life's equations and thus their general welfare. Here is what the equation looks like today for all but the wealthiest Americans:
Our Selves + The Corpocracy = Much, Much Less Health, Happiness, and Prosperity For Most of Us
"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and the "promotion of the general welfare" are more than "just" declarations of the sanctity and importance of our life's equations. It's an affirmation of humanity and support for the general welfare in a civilized society. It's also why the American Revolution was fought. History books don't explain it this way, but the revolutionaries were liberating their life's equations from the Crown's oppressive rule, the first corpocracy on our soil of an America about to be born.
Now let's return to "a community of people" in Abraham Lincoln's words. There are many situations in the different spheres of our lives that affect our general welfare but that are beyond our "separate and individual capacities," that is, beyond our personal inputs in our life's equations, to control how well or how badly those situations affect us. Wouldn't most people prefer a democratically elected and publically responsive government over a corpocracy to determine their general welfare that is beyond their separate and individual capacity to control? The corporate partner of the corpocracy, of course, doesn't care about the general welfare, only about corporate welfare. And the political partner cares only about catering to its corporate partner.
The Telltale Signs of the Corpocracy's Tyrannical Power
Our life's equation obviously is an abstraction. But the corpocracy and its tyrannical power are real, very real. How do we know? How can we be sure it's not just some half-baked conspiracy theory? Most of this book is about the corpocracy's real existence, how it operates, what harm it does to America and Americans, and what must be done about it, but for now please look over the "telltale" signs listed in Table 1. These are signs of the regime's takeover of our democracy and subjugation of all but the wealthiest Americans in every sphere of their lives.
Calling the regime's powerful dominance "tyrannical" isn't an exaggeration and doesn't mean an "Orwellian" control that goes so far as to lock up minds to keep them from going where trapped bodies cannot. Nor does the corpocracy's tyranny require the guns of a ruthless dictatorship. Let's highlight a few of these signs to illustrate the corpocracy's tyranny over us.
Consider two in our personal, social, and cultural spheres. First, this one: "Ceaselessly promotes materialism and consumption." Corporate marketing departments and their relentless advertising have turned American wants into needs and have led American youth and adults like sheep to unsustainable spending and waste. Now, this second one: "Spews propaganda, half truths, and zero truths." Except for the totally shaped (read duped) minds of many Americans, does anyone else believe the corpocracy's line, constantly presented in the major news media, that Iraq was invaded to find WMDs?
Consider just the first, very broad sign in the economics sphere that basically says it all for the rest in this sphere, "Prevents the general welfare of the American people." The middle class, the backbone of any democracy, gets "screwed" by the "corporatocracy" in various ways says prolific author and radio host Thom Hartmann (e.g., looting of the Social Security Trust Fund, disproportionately higher taxes, shrinking wages, longer work hours, etc., etc.). Furthermore, adds the distinguished professor of social welfare, Mark Rank, "a clear majority of Americans will experience poverty at some point during their lifetime." He refutes the popular belief that poor people are primarily responsible for their own poverty. Poverty instead, he contends, "is largely the result of structural failings at the economic, political, and social levels," affects us all, and is thus "an issue of vital national concern." We should blame the corpocracy, not poor, jobless people.
Now consider this sign in the political sphere: "Hijacks our Constitution." A day that will live in infamy in the eyes of advocates of true democracy was January 21, 2010 when the corporatized majority of the U.S. Supreme Court handed elected public offices over to the highest bidders by ruling that corporations, unions, and other organizations could not be denied their "constitutional right" to "free speech." The ruling flies in the face of the fact that "corporations, unions, and other organizations' aren't even mentioned in the Constitution and its framers were suspicious of corporations. These "associations of citizens," as the Court disingenuously called them now have the right to spend millions of dollars to advertise for political candidates who favor their special interests and to advertise against candidates who don't. Since unions and other organizations are paupers compared to large corporations the land's highest court helped guarantee America's continued and "legal" submission to rule by the powerful corporations and the politicians they pick and "employ." All told, though, when it comes to physically endangering and harming Americans, corporate free speech is the least injurious of the ten or more Constitutional rights that have been falsely granted to corporations over time.
And finally, consider two in the environmental sphere: First, this one: "Treats natural resources as endless commodities and waste dumps." Do you know what's in your tap water or why we have avoidable ecological disasters like the BP runaway oil well? Now, this one: "Pursues unsustainable development." More is not better. Better is better. Pursuing more on a grand scale leaves an open and growing wound on Nature.
Why Independence Hasn't Been Declared Again
-when [there is] a long train of abuses and asurpations [designed to] reduce [the people] under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. -Declaration of Independence
If the American revolutionaries were to return today they would be revolted by today's regime and disgusted with us for not being modern-day revolutionaries first posting a Second Declaration of Independence from the corpocracy and then revolting against it. The corpocracy's current version has been acquiring and abusing power for nearly four decades. The accumulated damage done to America, Americans, and their environment by the corpocracy over that period is incomparably and incalculably greater than that suffered by the colonists under King George's regime.
Why then hasn't there been a popular uprising to "throw off" today's regime? Why hasn't there been a Second Declaration of Independence? There are both obvious and less obvious reasons why.
Strong Corpocracy, Weak Opposition
King George's troops, fighting far away on foreign soil to defend the Crown's Corpocracy, were no match for the colonists' opposition unified and fortified by General George Washington and his Revolutionary Army. In stark contrast, the weak and fragmented opposition to the corpocracy of today would be no match for whatever level and kind of counterforce the corpocracy would marshal to hold onto its power. More is said about the current status of the corpocracy's opposition in Chapter 3 and a proposal is offered in Chapter 4 for beefing up the opposition and giving it a strategic direction toward reclaiming democracy once and for all.
Only Half-Telling
In their entirety the signs should clearly tell us that we are being subjugated, that we have lost our self rule, that the corpocracy is exacting a heavy and daily toll on America and American's lives.
But the signs clearly aren't telling enough. They may be sending "half-signals" to people like the "Half-Mad Hatters" of the Tea Party people movement, mad about big government, excessive federal taxation, excessive federal expenditures, an expensive healthcare reform law, and a distrusted Congress, but who apparently don't seem to see who's doing most of the sign making, namely, the corporate partner of the regime.
Or Barely Telling or Not at All
The signs aren't eye catching and action getting like "DANGER, RADIOACTIVE LEAK AHEAD!" The Devil's Marriage is a metaphor, the corpocracy and the end of democracy are abstractions, and none is like news photos of a dead vagrant face up on a busy sidewalk; a very long bread line; body bags from the war front; etc.
The signs aren't seen by people for whom believing is seeing. War hawks, war profiteers, and jingoistic patriots ("my country right or wrong") see and interpret the signs differently from doves and true patriots ("my county, do right, no wrong").
The signs are "an inconvenient truth" denied by people who would otherwise feel threatened or helpless if they didn't deny seeing the signs or rationalize them away.
They aren't seen for what they are by people who compare America favorably to the world's most impoverished and totalitarian nations.
They aren't seen by people who have become accustomed to them, taking them for granted as just the normal workings of commerce and politics.
They aren't seen by people who haven't directly felt their effects; who haven't had loved ones injured or lost from unregulated and unpunished actions of industries or from warfare to protect and expand the regime's hegemony; who aren't jobless; who-. You get the point. Experience the signs, suffer and remember them (although without necessarily knowing their origins). Only read about them, see them on TV, shrug and forget them (and just "go shopping" advised the swaggering President Bush to Americans as he ordered the military to invade Iraq).
They aren't seen by people with a particular upbringing. In one of the most enlightening books I've ever read (and I've read hundreds in my lifetime), The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics, its author Riane Eisler, who is both a scholar of first order, with formal schooling in sociology, anthropology, and law, and an activist of first order, writes about her research on societies dating back thousands of years (I draw extensively on Eisler's book as we go along). One of her conclusions is that children reared in a very dominating setting come to know life as being a choice between dominating and being dominated. These are people deprived of a true sense and respect for freedom and the equal rights of others. The corpocracy to them is a normal way of life.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Devil's Marriageby Gary Brumback Copyright © 2011 by Gary Brumback. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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