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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zoltan! who wrote (6275)	10/1/1999 9:35:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769669

The New Populism from MuseLetter Number 52 by Richard Heinberg Populism, beginning to emerge as a response to corporate America, is aimed at social structures so entrenched that they have become invisible. Does this movement hold the key to vast social change? hooked.net Excerpt: As political theorist Michael Parenti points out, historians often overlook fascism's economic agenda-the partnership between Big Capital and Big Government-in their analysis of its authoritarian social program. Indeed, according to Bertram Gross in his startlingly prescient Friendly Fascism (1980), it is possible to achieve fascist goals within an ostensibly democratic society. Corporations themselves, after all, are internally authoritarian; and as they increasingly dominate politics, media and economy, they can mold an entire society to serve the interests of a powerful elite without ever resorting to storm troopers and concentration camps. No deliberate conspiracy is necessary, either; each corporation merely acts to further its own economic interests. If the populace shows signs of restlessness, politicians can be hired to appeal to racial resentments and memories of national glory, dividing popular opposition and inspiring loyalty. In the current situation, "friendly fascism" works somewhat as follows. Corporations drive down wages and pay fewer taxes (through mechanisms outlined above), gradually impoverishing the middle class and creating unrest. As corporate taxes are cut, politicians (whose election was funded by corporate donors) argue that it is necessary to reduce government services in order to balance the budget. Meanwhile, the same politicians argue for an increase in the repressive functions of government (more prisons, harsher laws, more executions, more military spending). Politicians channel the middle class's rising resentment away from corporations and toward the government-which, after all, is now less helpful and more repressive than it used to be-and against social groups easy to scapegoat (criminals, minorities, teenagers, women, gays, immigrants). Meanwhile, debate in the media is kept superficial (elections are treated as sporting contests), and right-wing commentators are subsidized while left-of-center ones are marginalized. People who feel cheated by the system turn to the Right for solace and vote for politicians who further subsidize corporations, cut government services, expand the repressive power of the state, and offer irrelevant scapegoats for social problems with economic roots. The process feeds on itself. Within this scenario, Pat Buchanan (and similar ultra-right figures in other countries) are not anomalies, but rather predictable products of a strategy adopted by economic elites-harbingers of a less-than-friendly future that could ensue if "moderate" tactics for the consolidation of power were to fail. [...]