How the nation's press were magically transformed from watchdogs into lapdogs :
The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto)
The Powell Memo was first published August 23, 1971
Introduction
In 1971, Lewis Powell, then a corporate lawyer and member of the boards of 11 corporations, wrote a memo to his friend Eugene Sydnor, Jr., the Director of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The memorandum was dated August 23, 1971, two months prior to Powell’s nomination by President Nixon to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Powell Memo did not become available to the public until long after his confirmation to the Court. It was leaked to Jack Anderson, a liberal syndicated columnist, who stirred interest in the document when he cited it as reason to doubt Powell’s legal objectivity. [font color="red"]
Anderson cautioned that Powell “might use his position on the Supreme Court to put his ideas into practice…in behalf of business interests.”[/font color]
Though Powell’s memo was not the sole influence, the Chamber and corporate activists took his advice to heart and began building a powerful array of institutions designed to shift public attitudes and beliefs over the course of years and decades. The memo influenced or inspired the creation of the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, the Cato Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, Accuracy in Academe, and other powerful organizations. Their long-term focus began paying off handsomely in the 1980s, in coordination with the Reagan Administration’s “hands-off business” philosophy.
Most notable about these institutions was their focus on education, shifting values, and movement-building — a focus we share, though often with sharply contrasting goals.* (See our endnote for more on this.)
So did Powell’s political views influence his judicial decisions? The evidence is mixed. [font color="red"]
Powell did embrace expansion of corporate privilege and wrote the majority opinion in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, a 1978 decision that effectively invented a First Amendment “right” for corporations to influence ballot questions.[/font color] On social issues, he was a moderate, whose votes often surprised his backers.
CONTINUED...
http://reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
This story continues through today, where we have Chief Justice John Roberts shepherding corporate friendly law through the court, let alone appointing nothing but BFEE-friendly pukes to the FISA Court, and the press working mightily to move on to the next shiny object. Of course, Congress and the Administration do their bit to advance the interests of Corporate America, Wall Street, and War Inc, unchecked by public awareness.
From Andrew Lohrey's introduction to the 1995 edition of "Taking the Risk Out of Democracy: Corporate Propaganda Versus Freedom and Liberty" by Alex Carey:
Not only does there seem to be widespread social fragmentation and disillusionment with democracy in the United States, but the possibility of reversing this sense of alienation appears to many of us to be already lost. Any Democrat president who wants to institute the desperately needed reforms in health, welfare and the environment faces one of two options. he can stick by his reform program and suffer a loss of public confidence through orchestrated campaigns to publicly portray him as 'too liberal' and ineffectual (the Carter image) or too indecisive or sexually indiscreet (the Clinton image). Alternatively, a reforming Democrat president can move further to the Right, forget his promises and become part of the propaganda campaign. [font color="blue"]Given the history of democratic propaganda in the United States, some of us doubt that another Roosevelt or New Deal is possible. The political system is now so attuned to business interests that this kind of reformer could no longer institute the substantial health, welfare, education, environmental and employment reforms the country needs.[/font color]
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