[W]e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. - Abraham Lincoln
Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power. - Benito Mussolini
What is good for General Motors is good for America. - Charlie Wilson, GM Chairman
Government of the people, by the people and for the people has given way to government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations as they buy wars, laws, regulations, contracts and influence in a Washington unfettered by accountability to real Americans.
When a government spies on tens of millions of its citizens then it is no longer a government of the people. When the government points assault rifles at civil protesters along the route of a presidential motorcade it is no longer us. It is us and them.
If we honour our dead who died in service to this nation, of this and all former generations, we will rededicate ourselves as a people to the resolution Lincoln exhorted of restoring government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is at serious risk of perishing - not from the earth, just in the United States of America.
A comment by JR got me thinking about how the American government had strayed so far from the Constitution's intention. It is capitalism and corporatism, draped in an American flag, which has trumped the rights of the people to self-determination. The only self-determination in our representative democracy as practiced in Washington today is the corporate self-determination of which laws to buy, which regulations to buy, which contracts to buy.
What is good for Exxon is good for the Department of Energy!
What is good for Halliburton is good for the Pentagon!
What is good for Humana is good for Medicare!
What is good for Boeing is good for the State Department!
What is good for Verizon is good for the NSA!
What is good for Diebold is good for the GOP!
What is good for Fox is good for Bush!
But what is good for We the People? Does anyone in Washington care anymore? Do they view America as anything more than a market, a labour force and a tax base subsidizing a fleeting corporate prosperity?
I say "fleeting" advisedly. By protecting the managements of corporations today, our government undermines American competitiveness and American jobs going forward. Protecting General Motors from break-up under antitrust laws in 1955 fostered the complacency, "planned obsolescence" and 3 year styling cycles that cost America dominance in automobile innovation and manufacture over the succeeding decades. Protecting corporate elites in the 1950s cost real working Americans their jobs in the 1970s, and it continues to cost jobs today. America is less competitive than ever in the last 100 years as it circles the wagons around its corporate elites with a Washington power structure deaf to the cries of We the People.
Politicians are so dependent on corporate money that the influence and interests of real Americans are threatened. No better example exists than the cooperation of telecoms companies with the illegal, extrajudicial program of domestic surveillance instituted as policy by the Bush administration. The political structure in Washington no longer represents us, as the denizens of Washington now clearly regard the American people as them.
The power of DailyKos and the blogosphere is the democratising of political discourse beyond the political elites, controlled media and self-reinforcing pundits. We have a critical role to play in informing the electorate and influencing our representatives, but it is not going to be enough if corporate money remains the driving force behind policies in Washington and state capitals.
To resecure government of the people, by the people and for the people will require diminishing the influence of corporations in favour of the influence of American voters. When the next crash comes - as it must with fiscal, trade and debt imbalances on such a mammoth scale - we must use the reform opportunity presented by the collapse of the existing power structure to recraft government of the people.
One element must be campaign finance reform, and perhaps even a Constitutional amendment. We must ban or severely limit corporate finance of politics in favour of donations from individuals. Only by giving the people dominion over their representatives through "share of wallet" and voting booth enforcement of our will can we secure a government of the people, by the people and for the people for future generations of Americans.