Ch. 41 We the People

"For we, the people, are ultimately in control of America's story."

- Valerie Jarrett

So far in this book, we have explored the ways that We the People can take strategic action together to address...

• economic inequality
• an expensive, inefficient and destructive energy infrastructure
• approaching ecological disaster

These actions are absolutely necessary. 

There is no scenario for building this better world that does not require your participation.

Everything we have talked about so far is necessary... but not sufficient. The kind of full scale mobilization required to make a real difference must include our government. 

The big problem, is that our government has become almost completely unresponsive to We the People.

In order to be able to fix this issue, we have to first understand how we got to this point. From there, we can work on figuring out what we can do to establish a partnership with our own government so that we can work together to build the better world that we desire.

The US Constitution and the Promise of America

The "promise of America" doesn't have a set or agreed upon definition.

Depending on who you ask, their definition may vary. However, even from a young age, we’re taught that at its core lies the notion of “life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness."

America was designed to operate as a representative democracy. Functioning as a republic gives citizens the power to elect officials to represent our interests when it comes time to vote. That being said, according to a study that was conducted by Martin Gilens and Ben Page at Princeton University, the average citizen has a surprising lack of impact on public policy when compared to the elites in the economic and corporate worlds, as well as special interest groups (BBC, 2014).

Although we are led to believe that our voices are impactful and truly matter, the reality is that those aforementioned wealthy elites and special interest groups have much greater influence than the average citizen. 

“When the preferences of economic elites and the stand of organized interest groups are controlled for the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero statistically non-significant impact on public Policy” – Princeton University Study, 2014.

This tells us that not only do we have less influence than the wealthy, but it also confirms our suspicion that we have almost no influence at all. 

At this point, our country is functioning as a de facto plutocracy (or oligarchy). This is a hard point for anyone to refute. For decades, a river of dark money has been pouring into our government. But most Americans believe that this is just "the way it is." 

Keep in mind that a plutocracy is ruled by the wealthiest approximately 1% of the population. And that minuscule minority has the power to control a great deal of what happens in this country. 

Two questions still remain: How did we get here? What do we do about it?

Now that we have established that the wealthy have a greater influence on politics, we need to get to the bottom of how we got here so we can figure out how to move forward.

I believe 

this current right-wing push towards subverting democracy and exerting greater control and domination started in the 1970s with the Powell Memo.

In 1971, before Lewis Powell was a Supreme Court Justice, he wrote a memo to a chairman of the United States Chamber of Commerce. In this specific memo, Powell detailed what he believed to be an all out attack on the American economic system by a nebulous group of leftists, communists, the media, etc.

“In most of these groups the movement against the system is participated in only by minorities. Yet, these often are the most articulate, the most vocal, the most prolific in their writing and speaking.” (Powell, 1971)

Powell then proceeded to lament the lack of pushback from the business community against this "attack."

His prescribed remedy was a wide-ranging, large-scale, long-term campaign that would push American culture to the right and make it decisively pro-business, pro-capitalist. (And decidedly anti-democratic.)

Powell insisted that the first priority “is for businessmen to confront this problem as a primary responsibility of corporate management.” Then he goes on to say “If our system is to survive, top management must be equally concerned with protecting and preserving the system itself.” 

The "system" referred to here is the old system of neoliberal capitalism, and Economic Extractionism. To achieve this, he suggested dramatically increasing focus on both public relations and governmental affairs.

However, this methodical plan was massive in scope and included everything from campuses and the media to Washington, the court system, and the introduction of think tanks. 

Here's how it worked...

• Think tanks would serve to write and feed capitalist propaganda talking points to campuses, the media, and legislators. 
• Young people were groomed from day one in college by means of conservative college clubs and conservative professors. Before long, they were fully indoctrinated into the religion of capitalism and the gospel of trickle-down economics
• They were then tactically positioned in corporate management, board rooms, media outlets and courts. 
• Over the course of several decades, these institutions have all been ideologically captured.

Although this may sound like a conspiracy theory, this strategy is outlined clearly in the memo, and validated by history. 

We’ve already talked about the history and philosophy of Economic Extractionism, which started a year earlier with Milton Friedman’s famous piece for the New York Times, “A Friedman Doctrine: The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase Its Profits.” This piece would act as the model for this decades long push towards neoliberal capitalism.

- Corporations are dominated by neoliberalism and the ideals of "greed is good" corporate-raiders like Jack Welch. 

- Radio talk shows are almost entirely controlled by right-wing hosts (91%).

- Fox News has the largest viewership of any network in the US. 

- The Courts have been systematically overrun by the right, including the Supreme Court. 

- "Prosperity Gospel" has even infected the values of our major religions, to the point where many Christians are now saying that Jesus was "too woke."

Powell outlined the long-term strategy for pushing this model of Economic Extractionism onto the American public, until it became the accepted cultural and societal norm. It has now become evident that American culture has been intentionally and systematically captured by a right-wing, neoliberal, propaganda machine. 

This allowed events to unfold, such as the passing of Citizens United, which in turn allowed an unlimited amount of corporate money to flow into the coffers of elected officials. It has also allowed the voices of the people to be muffled through gerrymandering and voter suppression. 

The names on the buildings in New York and Los Angeles are the same names that were there one hundred years ago. 

The United States is a plutocracy, and the 1% will never give up their power without a fight. 

However, as the saying goes, "it takes two to tango," and we have no hope of setting things right until we are willing to both face the music and take responsibility for our own complicity in this elitist coup. 

Our Complicity in Our Own Marginalization

As we discussed in Ch. 9, we have allowed ourselves to become unaccountable. First through our trust of institutions and representatives, and then through our reliance and submission to the neo-liberal economic system. 

Our "all I can do is vote," and "TGIF" attitude has left us in the cheap seats.

We have abdicated our responsibility. We have become accustomed to watching things happen instead of making them happen. We no longer have adventures, we watch other people having adventures on TV. We no longer take the risk to build something better, we clock in, clock out and relax into the relative comfort of being told what to do. 

We have taken our eye off the ball. 

For example, Kay Granger (https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5054249-kay-granger-poof-disappeared/) has been in congress for 30 years. She's 81 years old, and for over 6 months she was in a care facility, absent from her job, and no one noticed. Her staff covered for her, yes, and most of the reporting is focused on the fact that her staff covered for her. That, and whether there should be term limits on legislators.

But almost no one is talking about the fact that she didn't come to work for 6 months and We the People didn't even notice. 

We are so disconnected from what happens in Washington that we don't even notice if one of our representatives just doesn't show up to work for half a year!

If We the People are not willing to get off the couch and pay attention, how can we expect anything better? 

We must reclaim, not just our rights, but our responsibility. 

Democracy will always be the solution to an authoritarian capture of the government. 

One of the stated purposes of our Constitution is to “form a more perfect union,” and that is precisely what we must do.