by Chris Hedges
\nTruthDig.com,<\/p>\n
The artifice of corporate totalitarianism has been exposed. <\/strong>The citizens, disgusted by the lies and manipulation, have turned on the political establishment. But the game is not over. Corporate power has within its arsenal potent forms of control. It will use them. As the pretense of democracy is unmasked, the naked fist of state repression takes its place. America is about\u2014unless we act quickly\u2014to get ugly.<\/p>\n \u201cOur political system is decaying,\u201d<\/strong><\/em> said Ralph Nader<\/a> when I reached him by phone in Washington, D.C. \u201cIt\u2019s on the way to gangrene. It\u2019s reaching a critical mass of citizen revolt.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This moment in American history is what Antonio Gramsci<\/a> called the \u201cinterregnum\u201d\u2014the period when a discredited regime is collapsing but a new one has yet to take its place. There is no guarantee that what comes next will be better. But this space, which will close soon, offers citizens the final chance to embrace a new vision and a new direction.<\/strong><\/p>\n This vision will only be obtained through mass acts of civic mobilization and civil disobedience across the country. Nader, who sees this period in American history as crucial, perhaps the last opportunity to save us from tyranny, is planning to rally the left for three days, from May 23 to May 26 at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., in what he is calling \u201cBreaking Through Power\u201d<\/a> or \u201cCitizen\u2019s Revolutionary Week.\u201d He is bringing to the capital scores of activists and community leaders to speak, organize and attempt to mobilize to halt our slide into despotism.<\/p>\n \u201cThe two parties can implode politically,\u201d Nader said. \u201cThey can be divided by different candidates and super PACs. But this doesn\u2019t implode their paymasters.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cElections have become off-limits to democracy,\u201d he went on. \u201cThey have become off-limits to democracy\u2019s fundamental civil community or civil society. When that happens, the very roots shrivel and dry up. Politics is now a sideshow. Politics does not bother corporate power. Whoever wins, they win.<\/strong> Both parties represent Wall Street over Main Street. Wall Street is embedded in the federal government.\u201d<\/p>\n Donald Trump, like Hillary Clinton, has no plans to disrupt the corporate machinery, although Wall Street has rallied around Clinton because of her predictability and long service to the financial and military elites. What Trump has done, Nader points out, is channel \u201cthe racist, right-wing militants\u201d within the electorate, embodied in large part by the white working poor, into the election process, perhaps for one last time.<\/p>\n Much of the left, Nader argues, especially with the Democratic Party\u2019s blatant rigging of the primaries to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination, <\/strong>grasps that change will come only by building mass movements. This gives the left, at least until these protofascist forces also give up on the political process, a window of opportunity. If we do not seize it, he warns, we may be doomed.<\/p>\n He despairs over the collapse of the commercial media, now governed by the primacy of corporate profit.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s campaign has enormous appeal to the commercial mass media,\u201d Nader said. \u201cHe brought huge ratings during the debates. He taunted the networks. He said, \u2018I\u2019m boycotting this debate. It\u2019s going to cost you profit.\u2019 Has this ever happened before in American history? It shows you the decay, the commercialization of public elections.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The impoverished national discourse, fostered by a commercial mass media that does not see serious political debate as profitable and focuses on the trivial, the salacious and the inane, has empowered showmen and con artists such as Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump speaks in a very plain language, at the third-grade level, according to some linguists,\u201d Nader said. \u201cHe speaks like a father figure. He says, \u2018I\u2019ll get you jobs. I\u2019ll bring back industry. I\u2019ll bring back manufacturing. I\u2019ll protect you from immigrants.\u2019 The media never challenges him. He is not asked, \u2018How are we going do all of this? What is step one? Step two? Is the White House going to ignore the Congress and the courts?\u2019 He astonishes his audience. He amazes them with his bullying, his lying, his insults, like \u2018Little Marco,\u2019 the wall Mexico is going to pay for, no more entry in the country by Muslims\u2014a quarter of the human race\u2014until we figure it out. The media never catches up with him. He is always on the offensive. He is always news. The commercial media wants the circus. It gives them high ratings and high profit.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The focus on info-entertainment has left not only left the public uninformed and easily manipulated but has locked out the voices that advocate genuine reform and change.<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThe commercial media does not have time for citizen groups and citizen leaders who are really trying to make America great,<\/strong> whether by advancing health safety or economic well-being,\u201d Nader bemoaned. \u201cThese groups are overwhelmed. They\u2019re marginalized. They\u2019re kept from nourishing the contents of national, state and local elections. Look at the Sunday news shows. No one can get on to demonstrate that the majority of the people want full Medicare for all with the free choice of doctors and hospitals, not only more efficient but more life-saving. There was a major press conference a few days ago at the National Press Club. The leading advocates of full Medicare for all, or single-payer, were there, Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. Sidney Wolfe, the heads of Physicians for a National Health Program<\/a>. This is a group with about 15,000 physicians on board. Nobody came. There was a stringer for an indie media outlet and the corporate crime reporter. There are all kinds of major demonstrations, 1,300 arrests outside the Congress protesting the corruption of money in politics. Again no coverage, except a little on NPR and on \u2018Democracy Now!\u2019\u00a0\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cThe system is gamed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only way out of it is to mobilize the civil society.<\/strong><\/em><\/u><\/p>\n \u201cWe are organizing the greatest gathering of accomplished citizen advocacy groups on the greatest number of redirections and reforms ever brought together in American history under one roof,\u201d he said of his upcoming event. \u201cThe first day is called Breaking Through Power, How it Happens. We have 18 groups who have demonstrated it with tiny budgets for over three decades on issues such as road safety, removing hundreds of hazardous or ineffective pharmaceuticals from the market, changing food habits from junk food to nutrition and rescuing people from death row who were falsely convicted of homicides. What if we tripled the budgets and the staffs of these groups? Eighteen of these groups have a total budget that is less than what one of dozens of CEOs make in a year.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nader called on Sanders to join in the building of a nationwide civic mobilization. He said that while Clinton may borrow some of his rhetoric, she and the Democratic Party establishment would not incorporate Sander\u2019s populist appeals against Wall Street into the party platform. If Sanders does not join a civic mobilization, Nader warned, there would be \u201ca complete disintegration of his movement.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n Nader also said he was worried that Clinton\u2019s high negativity ratings, along with potential scandals, including the possible release of her highly paid speeches to corporations such as Goldman Sachs, could see Trump win the presidency.<\/strong><\/p>\n I have her lecture contract with the Harry Walker lecture agency,\u201d he said. \u201cShe had a clause in the contract with these business sponsors, which basically said the doors will be closed. There will be no press. You will pay $1,000 for a stenographer to give me, for my exclusive use, a stenographic record of what I said. You will pay me $5,000 a minute. She has it all. She can\u2019t say, \u2018We will look into it or we\u2019ll see if we can find it.\u2019 She has been dissembling. And her latest rant is, \u2018I\u2019ll release the transcripts if everyone else does.\u2019 \u2018Who is everybody else?\u2019 as Bernie Sanders rebutted. He doesn\u2019t give highly paid speeches behind closed doors to Wall Street firms, business executives or business trade groups. Trump doesn\u2019t give quarter-of-a-million-dollar speeches behind closed doors to business. So by saying \u2018I will release all of my transcripts if everyone else does,\u2019 she makes a null and void assertion. This is characteristic of the Clintons\u2019 dissembling and slipperiness. It\u2019s transcripts for Hillary. It\u2019s tax returns for Trump.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n While Nader supports the building of third parties, he cautions that these parties\u2014he singles out the Green Party and the Libertarian Party\u2014will go nowhere without mass mobilization to pressure the centers of power.<\/strong> He called on the left to reach out to the right in a joint campaign to dismantle the corporate state. Sanders could play a large role in this mobilization, Nader said, because \u201che is in the eye of the mass media. He is building this rumble from the people.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat does he have to lose?\u201d Nader asked of Sanders. \u201cHe\u2019s 74. He can lead this massive movement. I don\u2019t think he wants to let go. His campaign has exceeded his expectations. He is enormously energized. If he leads the civic mobilization before the election, whom is he going to help? He\u2019s going to help the Democratic Party, without having to go around being a one-line toady expressing his loyalty to Hillary.<\/strong> He is going to be undermining the Republican Party. He is going to be saying to the Democratic Party, \u2018You better face up to the majoritarian crowds and their agenda, or you\u2019re going to continue losing in these gerrymandered districts to the Republicans in Congress.\u2019 These gerrymandered districts can be overcome with a shift of 10 percent of the vote. Once the rumble from the people gets underway, nothing can stop it. No one person can, of course, lead this. There has to be a groundswell, although Sanders can provide a focal point\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Nader said that a Clinton presidency would further enflame the right wing and push larger segments of the country toward extremism.<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n \u201cWe will get more quagmires abroad, more blowback, more slaughter around the world and more training of fighters against us who will be more skilled to bring their fight here,\u201d he said of a Clinton presidency. \u201cBudgets will be more screwed against civilian necessities. There will be more Wall Street speculation. She will be a handmaiden of the corporatists and the military industrial complex. There comes a time, in any society, where the rubber band snaps, where society can\u2019t take it anymore.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n
\n