And every time I see we have 2 drug stores, 3 banks, four airlines and 3 Internet providers, I wonder what happened to monopoly laws.

Obviously, under the Democratic banner...

yes....we wish we could have a firebrand who could move people like he could!

Teddy Roosevelt fought the trusts. He was a Republican! Not the most liberal of his time. And yet he makes today's Democrats look conservative in some respects.

We have regressed in terms of our economic power. It's terrible. And now they are attacking our schools and all of our publicly owned sectors. Terrible.

but outside the partisan bubble people get it.

Personally, I think we were OK through Eisenhower, Kennedy/Johnson.

I think that big corporations were starting to flex their political muscles with Nixon but the onslaught probably started with the huge campaign chests. That may have been with the buying of the electorate in the 80s and 90s - Reagan, Clinton, Bush, Obama.

Of course this just talks about the presidents. The congress stopped being collegial and became money-groveling in the 90s. I hate to point fingers but the Gingriches/DeLays are poster children for sleaze and squeeze.

Now that the SCOTUS is for sale/sold, I doubt we'll get back to a democracy without some life-wrenching changes.

to which his thought experiment was taken. He was a very moderate SCOTUS Justice.

But that's where it started, alright, though to be fair there was no entrenched billionaire class in those days and oligopoly in most significant businesses was a distant pipe dream.

The shit hit the fan with Reagan and it has been downhill ever since, albeit a wee bit more slowly with Democrats, to the extent there has been any appreciable difference.

Is that what you meant?

1971 was when the Powell Memo was released that started a call to arms to corporations that felt threatened by regulations and an "attack on the free enterprise system" by academia, the arts and sciences, the media, and politicians. From wikipedia:

"The memo called for corporate America to become more aggressive in molding politics and law in the US and may have sparked the formation of several influential right-wing think tanks and lobbying organizations, such as The Heritage Foundation and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), as well as inspiring the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to become far more politically active."

1973 was when the Heritage Foundation and ALEC were formed.


1974 came the end of the postwar boom (and the first opportunity to challenge the economic structure that favored workers and regulations), Nixon resigned and Ford came in and later started deregulating industries (this was significant because Nixon was seen as a liberal by Paul Weyrich and wanted to push back against Nixon's "acceptance of the liberal consensus.&quot 1974 was when the Heritage Foundation was formed and when CATO (first named the Charles Koch Foundation) was formed.


The movie "The Network" which kind of predicted the vision of the corporate state was released in 1976. So thus significant progress was attained by 1976.

The foundation of Heritage, CATO, ALEC, US C of C, and more recently the Progressive Policy Institute (orwellian name for that one, founded in '89) is a huge part of the picture, for some reason most ignore this and focus on who was POTUS or who controlled the House/Senate.

And, they have been so wrong about everything that they can't keep their credibility going much longer given their terrible track record. Hopefully, anyway.

They drive policy, not just talking points, and they're only wrong about everything when you assume they're trying to do things in our interest. They were set up by corporations, for corporations, and they're very good at what they do.

edit to add They aren't (can't be, the peeople wouldn't like it if they knew) up front about their objectives, so they couch their policies as attempts to do things for us, which not surprisingly don't work well (for us). It's misstated objectives, not incompetence. Sorry for the clumsy wording but you probably get what I'm trying to say.

All the Talking Points to the Mainstream Media and their input into the Govt. that they seem to run.

Puppets/marionettes all - all to entertain the masses and to shake down the plebes for their few coins.

It's almost certain the government, particularly the CIA and Secret Service, had plants at the scene. Oswald was a CIA asset. It was essentially a coup, which makes you wonder about LBJ's part in it.

It was lower-level CIA types, almost certainly with the assistance of the Mob, who had been partnering with mid-level CIA personnel since the original plan to assassinate Castro. Which was supervised by one Richard M. Nixon at the highest level.

Three people who challenged him for the presidency, either directly or indirectly, ended up getting shot. That's got to be some sort of record.

in the wake of the McGovern defeat in '72. The Party was bent on disassociating itself from both the counterculture, and lefty politics, and wanted to signal that it was not a threat to corporate America, and that it was embracing a non ideological (read non-committed) approach to societal problems. Its former basis for change formulated in the FDR - LBJ years would be junked in favor of GOP Lite politics. Currently, the Party is resolutely hostile to Any notion of a Left-Progressive resurgence; in fact, the only time it sounds tough is when it kicks down at any candidate to the left of Eisenhower. If the present mumbling "leadership" of the Party isn't changed, it will become only an occasional default choice for Americans when the several shades of RW ideologues who control the dialog in this country become too punky (for a time) to take. Therefore, the corporate state and increasingly authoritarian politics will deepen.

I believe a 3rd Party will fair poorly due to the implacable opposition the Democratic Party will exercise. So, kill 2 birds with one stone and wrench the Party away from those "running" it now. Note that Any movement that smacks of Anything leftish is opposed by the remains of MSM as well. It will be very difficult.

There is a cultural component here as well. During this time in the 70s w saw the rise of consensus politics, and a degradation of leadership politics (seen as a well spring of patriarchal and white means of control. While consensus is necessary in governance, it is no substitute for leadership. But consensus was/is a "perfect" fit for a non ideological philosophy of governance. Trouble is, the rise of the Far Right is ample evidence that consensus politics is far too submissive and weak; the Right daily plays on the soft & weak nature of what they consider liberal (we are past that) politics. The Democratic Party won't lead because it really can't with its overwrought belief in consensus. We are approaching two generations where leadership is being bred out of progressive politics.

The Far Right don't do compromise, they have contempt for that, even among themselves.

Sustained organization with effective protests
and boycotts would make a difference.

For example, why aren't we seeing the protests
and boycotts at the laws and court decisions
regarding the abrogation of women's rights
that we recently saw regarding gay rights?

4 million people doing an indefinite sit in in the Washington Mall, saying "enough is enough", and demanding politicians pass dramatic sweeping laws to undo the corporate and corrupt state would save America.

I was around in the 60's - when we closed the Universities, when they called out the National Guard, when they shot us at Kent State, when they rioted at the Convention in Chicago. I was around when they murdered Jack and Bobby and Martin. I was part of the generation that was going to make a difference.

We made a difference alright. Black men are still gunned down in the street for talking on the phone. They are killed by cops for wearing their pants too low. Workers are making less and less while doing more and more. Banks are fraudulently foreclosing on homes and we have no recourse. We elect representatives to government who promise to make things better and see that they are empty promised made by empty suits who just want to get on the Government gravy train. We see the corporatocracy writing laws for themselves and 'our' elected officials signing those laws with one hand while stuffing the campaign dollars into their pockets with the other.

We protest and organize and not a damn thing happens. We saw a black man shot in Ferguson and we marched and we organized and not a damn thing changed. We organize and demonstrate and protest and nobody hears about it because the corporations that own the news don't want it reported.

We finally managed to take down Rush with a boycott. But hate radio and bloviating blowhards continue to fill the air. For every Rush that goes down, five more jump up to take his place.

No wonder no one bother to vote any more. Or protest. Or try and organize. Oryx and Crake, 1894 isn't fiction any more. It has arrived.

You have to stand up for yourself in this world! We live in a world full of predators, the only way to survive in this world is to stand up for yourself and fight and show the predators you are not to be messed with, especially when you band together with lots of other people! That's the whole point of organizing:



You don't have enough people organized together. You need hundreds of thousands to millions of people to organize. I would also suggest getting the best and brightest of America to be on your side, since few movements are successful without highly intelligent people involved in the organization and strategy.

n/t

Concerted boycotts against companies that support the anti-democratic, anti-fair wage, anti-bankers_go_to_jail will have effect.

We would just have to be diligent as they shuffle their assets and corporatehood between various "legal" entities. Subsidiaries, corporate parents, shell companies, offshore holdings, etc. They'll try everything and it's amazing that the national agencies don't g.a.s.

I'd also throw in a boycott against any company/et.al. that had strong ties to politicians that have consistently shat upon the people. Of course that might catch a lot of I-did-it-because-everyone-else-was-doing-it. Fine.

is guilty of the exact same behavior. From being treated like cogs to ever-expanding duties without compensation to funneling wealth to the wealthy, contemporary universities are terrible to their staff. To add to that, I don't hear or read about the abuse of staff at universities. Most articles are about faculty and admins.

K&R

Money already had too large an influence on the legislative process then the SCOTUS made the Citizens United ruling making everything worse. The nation has morphed into a near Idiocracy as a result. I hope the Roberts court is proud.

and short cirquiting democracy and creating made-to-order pro-corporate constituencies for any occasion and it works because liberals ignore it.

why do pols and media have to listen to protestors and honest feedback when a few blowhards can create pro GOP/corporate feedback whenever and wherever they are told to?

Can't stand it. Makes me feel like I'm being brainwashed.

in most parts of the country there are no free alts for politics while driving or working.

over the last 20 years between 15 and 25% say they listen to it. in close elections it means everything

Around my "formerly Booming" Sun State .....I see exactly what Reich is talking about. I hate to think what it is for the Rural Americans dealing with all of this......

The few who get it and have meaningful public voices.

Clinton briefly revived it a couple of times against Microsoft, but since then it has been deader than Dillinger. Bad for Big Bu$ine$$, don't you know, bad for campaign contributions, and therefore DOUBLE BAD UNGOOD for both parties.