The following short story is based on real & recent events in a Bronx High School. The events highlight the infamous power of the capitalist state to suppress free speach through a variety of techniques. Of course the state, school officials, and police are not allowed to openly state in public that these students were persecuted for their beliefs in socialism and progress, at the same time , it was clear to all students who paid attention that the inventive techniques of suppressing the students are merely the state using different methods to accomplish the goals of a fascist state, through covert means.
High School X is just your average Bloomberg-era high school. After years of failing schools and cesspools of hopeless gang violence, and teenage pregnancy, the Board of Education and Bloomberg started splitting up large schools into smaller environments which "supposedly" would focus on students, and create a better situation for the youth. In reality, the small schools drained resources and good students from the big schools. This created horrid enviroments in the big schools resulting in their closure and replacement with charter schools, and schools that could be run with profit in mind.
So what does High School X have to do with it? High School X is is a small trailer filled with the best students from not only the bronx, but all NYC. Thus we are nationally ranked at 19 by US new & world report.
On our first days of global history and american history we learned about the suppression of free speech in the USSR and China. But never could we imagine that we would learn America is no different.
It all started freshman year. two students name Student X and Student Y, concerned by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, interested by economics of socialism, and fascinated with American politics, decided to create a political action club to get students involved in social justice and liberal politics. The club was first called the "revolution club." School officials did not originally respond in overt anger or violence against students, but started talking to the freshmen and explaining to them the bureacracy and impracticality of the club. After blackmailing teachers for their job, the club could not start as it could not find a faculty advisor.
Sophmore year, radical students again attempted to create a similiar political club. This time under the name of "Act Now to Stop War and End Racism." Again the administration denied the students requests, but took a more seriously concerned approach. This time they threatened the students claiming that running the club could involve in a impeachment and suspension in school, if they proceeded.
Oddly, a wealthy conservative student was granted permission to start a club with conservative political leanings and an agenda of teaching students moderate views on the issues. His club was called "Political Action Club", yet its lack of getting anybody involved in anything at all made it a sham.
Junior year, the all-city school enacted two new troubling policies. One which would accumulate points and convert them into detentions and suspensions for every minute late to school despite having students who travel 2 to 3 hour commutes on unreliable MTA trains. Meanwhile wealthier students who paid upto $5000 to ride the bronx science school buses to school were given excuses, and allowed to make up missed 1st period exams/quizzes. Second, the school started kicking out students who failed classes, rather than offer than a path to make up their credits on campus. This tore apart classes, and was used as an excuse to toss struggling students to the curb and encourage them to drop out.
As a result Student X decided to run for student representitive. Student X ran on a platform of reversing the aggressive school policies of the above paragraph. When he put up posters, the school tore them down, and threatened him multiple times with suspension and explusion on the grounds of "insubordination." Insubordination is essentially the legal grounds master and slave.
Student Y posted stickers on campus for a 3rd party candidate in the 2008 election named Gloria La Riva, and was forced to pay hundreds of dollars in summons for his expression of free speech, while major party candidates were given space in school, and their position on issues were taught in class.
Senior year. Student X arrived in school a minute late after a 2 hour commute from brooklyn, and was barred from an examination. Later he causually speaks to his peers in revolutionary whispers. A teacher approaches, and student X casually mentions that the schools unfair policy of subordinating students and barring students from taking tests, kicking students out who are struggling, and suppressing free speech is what creates drug dealers and schools shooters and drop outs. As a result of this statement, student X is placed in a suspension center.
The suspension center works as a re-education center. While some students are in there for fights with cops, others are in there due to political statements. The trailer is gaurded by armed officers, metal detectors, and there is no way out of the barred windowed orange trailer. On all the walls it says "learn how to speak with authority, learn how to speak with police" and "teachers" walked in educating us on the functions of the american government, our rights, and the great american democracy. When Student X asked why he was there the teacher responded, "Because your a radical and people like you need to be cleaned up."
After a week Student X went AWOL from re-education camp and found a civil liberties lawyer. After months of a long hard fight, the board of education cleaned the record of Student X realizing the danger of the decision they had just made: They had violated the very first amendment of the constitution, and locked someone up for it.
Meanwhile...
Student Z is witnessing all this from a neutral perspective. All his life he has seen struggle and strife accross the street from the poverty of the Mott Haven Projects. Suddenly he finds his calling in a sea of injustice. He writes a poem critiquing how bloomberg is "planting a million trees" in a place like Mott haven, when trees won't do anything for hood. He writes about the uncoincidential moments of life and how one must seize the day at every moment. He writes and writes creatively.
Student Z then shows the poem to the school as a gift for the yearbook, however, the schools recognizes the radicalized nature of the poem.
Days later worried Student X attempts to make contact with Student Z... Student Z sends him a video.."To all those classes in school... let this be my message... I bet .. I bet you have never seen me in hospital robes like these.. Well let me tell you how I got here. I wrote a poem as a gift to the school to show them my creativity and free thinking... and look where I ended up." Student Z had been placed in a Pysch Ward for his beliefs, but his close friends knew better, and Student X knew better for sure.
The Story you have just read is true. Students X, Y, and Z are real people who have been politically persecuted for their belief in socialism. The school has subversively used the mechanisms of the state to suppress free speech, and free thinking in school zones, and brainwash a future generation of robots for the white collar workplace. If you are at all angered by the story you have just read show it to concerned friends and family, media, and whoever. We need help because we the students feel targetted and unsafe to speak our minds.
Saturday, February 27
Back Again: New Life Lessons Bring this Blog New Meaning
Hello all, I have recently taken an all to long hiatus from my writings, but that time is up. Blog writing is a stress reliever, a means of communicating your ideas to the world, and a means of self-improvement in your own writing. What has been the cause of my hiatus? Well... my beliefs in socialism and liberation have caused many problems in my pursuit of my education. America's intolerance of ideas that threaten the very foundation of our society brought me many troubles so for a while, I took time off and focused on beating the failed public education system, and attempting to create a future for my self.
With my acceptance to Stony Brook, one of the best state universities in the world and one of the best writing/journalism programs, I feel it is time to return to one of my callings in life of writing. The new RRR! blog will continue to contain social polemics of the past, but will now also include urban poetry and short stories as well. These stories will be in the line of socialism, as the experiences recounted have led many New York City Dwellers onto the path of socialism.
With my acceptance to Stony Brook, one of the best state universities in the world and one of the best writing/journalism programs, I feel it is time to return to one of my callings in life of writing. The new RRR! blog will continue to contain social polemics of the past, but will now also include urban poetry and short stories as well. These stories will be in the line of socialism, as the experiences recounted have led many New York City Dwellers onto the path of socialism.
Monday, June 15
American History: Part 2-20th century
The Gilded age saw laissez-faire capitalism evolve to its fullest and most ruthless form in the name of industrialization. Workers worked in miserable factory conditions with no labor rights and no fair wages . When workers unionized the government and bosses attempted to suppress them with the army, national guard, police, and private detective agencies like Pinkerton Detective Agency. This continued into the 20th century thanks to the stubbornness of the government and industrial bosses in granting workers any rights at all from the start of militant union in the early 1860s until the early 1900s when progressivism forced the government to make some reforms to appease the militant strikes that rocked the country conducted by the Industrial Workers of the World Union, the Western Federation of Miners, and other militant unions.
During WWI, the government coerced unions into waiving their rights to strike in the name of the war and better working conditions. IWW recognized the supposed improved conditions as a fallacy and striked anyway while unions like the American Federation of Labor, an elitist “skilled” labor-only movement, sold out and gave into government controls which have kept this organization stagnant even til this day. The split in the labor movement gave the government room to attack.
Government response to the peak of union radicalism and strength in the form of IWW was to raid their headquarters in all over the country in the name of national security and arrest their leaders in what became known as the Palmer Raids. Nevertheless, union struggles pushed the government to pass trust busting laws under President Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. Because of the struggles of the labor movement, corporations do not have as great a power to hustle working people not only in terms of worker’s wages, but also in terms of collaborating to keep prices high as well as out-right lie in advertisement.
After subduing radicalism in the labor movement, the 1920s was a period of conservatism and gilded prosperity for investors. Capitalism thrived like never before for about nine years, bringing untold wealth to the already wealthy. Then one day in 1929 the pyramid scheme collapsed and millions ended up jobless all because of unregulated gambling on wall street. Suddenly the people had power to change things again and during the thirties America brought its self near socialism in order to avoid the end of the capitalist system. Not only did Communists align with liberals and liberals with unions and anarchists in a big united coalition against fascism worldwide, but the president of the United States was forced to expand the role of the government to something that finally served the people setting up pubic works projects, social security for the elderly, medical care for the poor, and other greatly needed reforms to once again calm the people from social revolution.
Textbooks declare that the end of the great depression was due to the industrial expansion of the economy during WWII. What this meant was that only by building on the industry of death, the armed forces, could the broken system return to some sort normal economic situation. Part of the reason for the depressions length was that FDR, despite being more progressive then his predecessors, was still in the historic role of presidency and didn’t feel comfortable with spending to much on the people. So in 1936, ignoring signs of recovery in areas where the government was setting up social programs, FDR cut New Deal programs and the economy again slumped and then slowly revived itself until the war when FDR introduced the Second New Deal.
WWII was a tragic war in which millions of young working people were drafted up, sent of to war and killed, same as 3 decades earlier. The common argument is that it was necessary to destroy fascism. The truth was that the bosses and the government did not care to much about fascism, rather they didn’t mind it as long as it didn’t clash with the United States and its allies. They let it spread untouched to Spain despite the heroic struggle the Spanish people put up. They let it spread to Czechslovakia, Austria, Ethiopia, etc. Businessmen like Ford for example even sold trucks to Franco’s fascist forces in Spain, because in the end profit is more important than supporting democratic forces. The U.S. regained its economic confidence by sustaining little damage on the homefront and coming out on top, but the lives it cost will never be forgotten, and the men and women who volunteered in the Lincoln Brigade to fight in Spain, the very first battle against fascism, those who would not put up with America’s blind eye to fascism, must never be forgotten even if they are often ignored.
After the War, presidents Truman and Eisenhower presided over a national purge led by Senator McCarthy. The purge, often called “McCarthyism” or “The Red Scare (pt. 2),” aimed at squashing dissent and promoting conformity in the new age of planned suburban life. The Smith Act along with countless state laws curbed peoples right to advocate anti-government ideas or hold anti-government political meetings. With every passing generation came new wisdom and a group known as “the beats” , with roots in the Lost generation of writers and artists of WWI and perhaps even the militant labor movement of the thirties, introduced Americans to new ways of thinking. At the same time the resistance by black people to jim crow in the south was slowly gaining strength as the opportunity to win rights in the name of countering soviet propaganda which blankly pointed to how racist capitalism really was to the revolutionary movements of Africa and Latin America like the African National Congress in South Africa and the July 26th Movement in Cuba. Although the movement started peaceful and patriotic, after brutal police beat downs, being sprayed with hoses, and murder of civil rights activists the movement realized that only through militant struggle could freedom be won. The whole culture of the 1950s was one of conformity, and consumerism despite lies of America being the “land of individualism. Bosses set up “company unions” and encouraged people to buy cheap conformed suburban housing. In Levittown, the first suburb, the peverted ideal American dream community meant no black people were allowed to live there. All this would culminate into an explosion in the 1960s.
in the 1960s, with the civil rights movement slowly gaining militancy and strength, and the ideas of the beats and third world revolutionaries like Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh catching on with students, the result was an explosive situation which saw the beginning of the modern day culture war present today. During the 1960s the country saw clear polarization not just between labor and bosses, but between social progress and conservative stagnation. People revolted in Watts and other cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. coincidently when he started radicalizing and speaking against the war, and also when police brutality had become too much for the people to accept. The government conducted the Warren Commission and declared a war on poverty to try to calm the revolutionary situation. The Black Panther Party, a militant black revolutionary organization forced the government to expand welfare when they opened community breakfest programs and took active roles in the forgotten urban neighborhoods all over the country. The chance for revclution slipped because each act of protest was each militant but isolated, or widespread but to peaceful. A Machine with one part broken can easily be fixed, but if all the parts break at once, only then will you get a new one.
The momentum of the movement of the 1960s against the war, abuses on civil & woman’s rights, and for greater democracy slowed due to the governments relentless will to crush the anti-war and black power movements, and with the Black Panther Party, in particular, the government viciously infiltrated and tore the movement to shreds by turning activist groups against one another as well as the members within them. COINTELPRO succeeded in planting big brother agents in positions of power that allowed them to derail the party into oblivion. The program was titled COINTELPRO, and it was the blatant suppression of free speech and a continuation of the legacy of the oppression that is inherent to any centralized top-down state.
The big event that represents the tyranny of government was of course Watergate. The Scandal which brought down President Nixon by revealing his participation in wiretapping of his electoral opponents through a break-in, and the subsequent effort to cover up the crime. Also revealed but hushed , was the workings of the American system of “democracy,” where American Airlines, 3M, Good Year, and Milk corporations made campaign donations in exchange for favorable policy on the part of the government. After it all collapsed and corruption exposed to the highest levels, congressmen and senators pushed Nixon bow out gracefully taking all the blame for a system that allowed him to commit crime in the name of “national security.” In exchange, Nixon would not be charged, and his cronies, take Erlichman and Kissinger for example, would face light charges of small fines and suspended prison time, or get off scott-free and be allowed to even stay in the White House. The result was that mechanisms for the perversion of democracy stayed, while one man took the fall. It would set the precedent that criminal doings once you were in the position of presidency, you had special privledge that ordinary citizens did not and that was the problem. It would lead to the Iran-Contra Scandal of the 80s and all kinds of presidential scandals that are now often cut short before they reach the highest office.
Foreign Policy in the 1970s to 1980s reflected the collapse of people’s movements. As the percentage of eligible voters dropped to about 50% in the 70s, moral-less neo-colonialism continued with Ford’s continued aid to South Vietnam in order to secure grounds for “oil exploration and tourism” as one congressman put it. After the North quickly toppled the southern puppet regime in 1975, Carter would refuse to aid Vietnam in its reconstruction despite the thousands of tons of bombs the US dropped on Vietnamese civilians, the napalm, the pellet-bombs, and village massacres like that of My Lai. Albeit, Carter was an Obama. He tried to bring re-inspire people in their country after the democratic lies with Vietnam and the Republican lies with regards to Watergate.
Reagan and the republicans would frame Carter as destroying American standing in the world after decades of US policy in support of an unpopular dictator, the shah, backfired and resulted in 52 US embassy employees being taken hostage. It wasn’t Carters fault, in fact it was more the fault of conservatives like Reagan who would advocate nonsensical anti-democratic support of pro-business dictators from Chile to Nicaragua and Afghanistan. However, Reagan would benefit and and usher in an era of neo-conservatism using this tactic of fear that would be used by conservatives until this day.
The Reagan-Bush era marked cuts in social welfare, curbs on free speech, and cuts on taxes for the wealthy. When air traffic controllers striked against Reagan’s conservative anti-union policies, he issued a decree to dimiss all of them. This action was a historic because it marked the reversal of presidents acting neutral in labor disputes. It was the tiannamen square of the American union. Reagan’s environmental policy helped establish the current carelessness of the government towards environmental degradation. He allowed businesses to decide their own environmental policy no matter how detrmimental. Reagan’s importance to the modern capitalist class is unique because his administration saw the thorough regression of gains made by people’s movements. Where Carter put solar panels on the White House, Reagan demolished them. Where a disease prevention program saving millions of lives could have been set up up, Reagan built a $1.5 Billion submarine for launching nukes en masse.
All of American History has been a struggle between working people, students, and the American people against a handful of wealthy planters, industrial robber barons, and reckless wall street investors. Today, Americans have been left jobless and homeless or without a loved one due to circus games of executives and investors in the housing industry and the war for oil in Iraq started by the politicians who represent the companies that contribute to their campaign, not the people who their supposed to represent. Capitalism makes profit come before democracy. It is why foreign policy has been skewed to support vicious dictators like Pinochet, Noriega, Batista, and the Somozas and why slavery and Jim Crow segregation haunts our history. It is why strikes were crushed, and students disenfranchised from elections and even the right to free speech today in my very own school. American History has, and will have until a social revolution occurs, a path of conflict between rulers and the people because no matter who is put in charge, the nature of the state is one born from racist slavery and free market capitalism. These foundations cannot be completely reformed from the state because they helped develop and bring the ruling class of the U.S to what it is today. History in our schools has been taught in a incoherent and “patriotically” blemished manner that causes many students to lose interest. While the telling of history has become more democratic in recent years due to the internets creation of a global community, and the end of the cold war opening up third way voices, there is still a long way to go before people understand the truth in history; the crimes not just the glories. This will inspire people to then act to change things in the today.
Works Cited
"About the Smith Act Trials." Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. 2 June 2009. The Smith Acts severely inhibited American Democracy during the McCarthy era. This is the story.
D. Roosevelt, Franklin. "On the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program - July 24,." Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. 24 July 1931. 2 June 2009. FDR's address in favor of social programs and explanation of them. I used the address in connecting FDRs role in saving the US economy with appeasing people through social welfare programs
"Economic Indicators during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression (III). | The Economic Populist." The Economic Populist . 8 June 2009.
Graphs illustrate the effect of the cuts in social programs on the economy during New Deal.
"Index of US Foreign Policy Documents." University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. 2 June 2009
Loewen, James W.. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 2007. Resource; similar to A People's History
Martin, Joseph Plumb. Private Yankee Doodle. Harrisburg: Eastern Acorn Press, 1998. Story of a young farmer's enlistment during revolution
New York Community Media Alliance. "Voices That Must Be Heard: Divide and Conquer: Clintons exploit Black-Latino tensions - New York Community Media Alliance." New York Community Media Alliance. 7 June 2009
Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Black Equality: 25th-Anniversary Edition. New York: Hill And Wang, 2008. Covers struggle of black people to win their rights starting with slavery and reconstruction. instrumental in discussion of civil rights movement
Weigley, Russell F.. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. In depth exploration of American War History, particularly useful with Civil War, Revolutionary War, and WWII
Zinn, Howard. People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.). New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005. Explores popular movements and government abuses throughout American History. Useful throughout paper
During WWI, the government coerced unions into waiving their rights to strike in the name of the war and better working conditions. IWW recognized the supposed improved conditions as a fallacy and striked anyway while unions like the American Federation of Labor, an elitist “skilled” labor-only movement, sold out and gave into government controls which have kept this organization stagnant even til this day. The split in the labor movement gave the government room to attack.
Government response to the peak of union radicalism and strength in the form of IWW was to raid their headquarters in all over the country in the name of national security and arrest their leaders in what became known as the Palmer Raids. Nevertheless, union struggles pushed the government to pass trust busting laws under President Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft. Because of the struggles of the labor movement, corporations do not have as great a power to hustle working people not only in terms of worker’s wages, but also in terms of collaborating to keep prices high as well as out-right lie in advertisement.
After subduing radicalism in the labor movement, the 1920s was a period of conservatism and gilded prosperity for investors. Capitalism thrived like never before for about nine years, bringing untold wealth to the already wealthy. Then one day in 1929 the pyramid scheme collapsed and millions ended up jobless all because of unregulated gambling on wall street. Suddenly the people had power to change things again and during the thirties America brought its self near socialism in order to avoid the end of the capitalist system. Not only did Communists align with liberals and liberals with unions and anarchists in a big united coalition against fascism worldwide, but the president of the United States was forced to expand the role of the government to something that finally served the people setting up pubic works projects, social security for the elderly, medical care for the poor, and other greatly needed reforms to once again calm the people from social revolution.
Textbooks declare that the end of the great depression was due to the industrial expansion of the economy during WWII. What this meant was that only by building on the industry of death, the armed forces, could the broken system return to some sort normal economic situation. Part of the reason for the depressions length was that FDR, despite being more progressive then his predecessors, was still in the historic role of presidency and didn’t feel comfortable with spending to much on the people. So in 1936, ignoring signs of recovery in areas where the government was setting up social programs, FDR cut New Deal programs and the economy again slumped and then slowly revived itself until the war when FDR introduced the Second New Deal.
WWII was a tragic war in which millions of young working people were drafted up, sent of to war and killed, same as 3 decades earlier. The common argument is that it was necessary to destroy fascism. The truth was that the bosses and the government did not care to much about fascism, rather they didn’t mind it as long as it didn’t clash with the United States and its allies. They let it spread untouched to Spain despite the heroic struggle the Spanish people put up. They let it spread to Czechslovakia, Austria, Ethiopia, etc. Businessmen like Ford for example even sold trucks to Franco’s fascist forces in Spain, because in the end profit is more important than supporting democratic forces. The U.S. regained its economic confidence by sustaining little damage on the homefront and coming out on top, but the lives it cost will never be forgotten, and the men and women who volunteered in the Lincoln Brigade to fight in Spain, the very first battle against fascism, those who would not put up with America’s blind eye to fascism, must never be forgotten even if they are often ignored.
After the War, presidents Truman and Eisenhower presided over a national purge led by Senator McCarthy. The purge, often called “McCarthyism” or “The Red Scare (pt. 2),” aimed at squashing dissent and promoting conformity in the new age of planned suburban life. The Smith Act along with countless state laws curbed peoples right to advocate anti-government ideas or hold anti-government political meetings. With every passing generation came new wisdom and a group known as “the beats” , with roots in the Lost generation of writers and artists of WWI and perhaps even the militant labor movement of the thirties, introduced Americans to new ways of thinking. At the same time the resistance by black people to jim crow in the south was slowly gaining strength as the opportunity to win rights in the name of countering soviet propaganda which blankly pointed to how racist capitalism really was to the revolutionary movements of Africa and Latin America like the African National Congress in South Africa and the July 26th Movement in Cuba. Although the movement started peaceful and patriotic, after brutal police beat downs, being sprayed with hoses, and murder of civil rights activists the movement realized that only through militant struggle could freedom be won. The whole culture of the 1950s was one of conformity, and consumerism despite lies of America being the “land of individualism. Bosses set up “company unions” and encouraged people to buy cheap conformed suburban housing. In Levittown, the first suburb, the peverted ideal American dream community meant no black people were allowed to live there. All this would culminate into an explosion in the 1960s.
in the 1960s, with the civil rights movement slowly gaining militancy and strength, and the ideas of the beats and third world revolutionaries like Ernesto “Che” Guevara, Mao, and Ho Chi Minh catching on with students, the result was an explosive situation which saw the beginning of the modern day culture war present today. During the 1960s the country saw clear polarization not just between labor and bosses, but between social progress and conservative stagnation. People revolted in Watts and other cities after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. coincidently when he started radicalizing and speaking against the war, and also when police brutality had become too much for the people to accept. The government conducted the Warren Commission and declared a war on poverty to try to calm the revolutionary situation. The Black Panther Party, a militant black revolutionary organization forced the government to expand welfare when they opened community breakfest programs and took active roles in the forgotten urban neighborhoods all over the country. The chance for revclution slipped because each act of protest was each militant but isolated, or widespread but to peaceful. A Machine with one part broken can easily be fixed, but if all the parts break at once, only then will you get a new one.
The momentum of the movement of the 1960s against the war, abuses on civil & woman’s rights, and for greater democracy slowed due to the governments relentless will to crush the anti-war and black power movements, and with the Black Panther Party, in particular, the government viciously infiltrated and tore the movement to shreds by turning activist groups against one another as well as the members within them. COINTELPRO succeeded in planting big brother agents in positions of power that allowed them to derail the party into oblivion. The program was titled COINTELPRO, and it was the blatant suppression of free speech and a continuation of the legacy of the oppression that is inherent to any centralized top-down state.
The big event that represents the tyranny of government was of course Watergate. The Scandal which brought down President Nixon by revealing his participation in wiretapping of his electoral opponents through a break-in, and the subsequent effort to cover up the crime. Also revealed but hushed , was the workings of the American system of “democracy,” where American Airlines, 3M, Good Year, and Milk corporations made campaign donations in exchange for favorable policy on the part of the government. After it all collapsed and corruption exposed to the highest levels, congressmen and senators pushed Nixon bow out gracefully taking all the blame for a system that allowed him to commit crime in the name of “national security.” In exchange, Nixon would not be charged, and his cronies, take Erlichman and Kissinger for example, would face light charges of small fines and suspended prison time, or get off scott-free and be allowed to even stay in the White House. The result was that mechanisms for the perversion of democracy stayed, while one man took the fall. It would set the precedent that criminal doings once you were in the position of presidency, you had special privledge that ordinary citizens did not and that was the problem. It would lead to the Iran-Contra Scandal of the 80s and all kinds of presidential scandals that are now often cut short before they reach the highest office.
Foreign Policy in the 1970s to 1980s reflected the collapse of people’s movements. As the percentage of eligible voters dropped to about 50% in the 70s, moral-less neo-colonialism continued with Ford’s continued aid to South Vietnam in order to secure grounds for “oil exploration and tourism” as one congressman put it. After the North quickly toppled the southern puppet regime in 1975, Carter would refuse to aid Vietnam in its reconstruction despite the thousands of tons of bombs the US dropped on Vietnamese civilians, the napalm, the pellet-bombs, and village massacres like that of My Lai. Albeit, Carter was an Obama. He tried to bring re-inspire people in their country after the democratic lies with Vietnam and the Republican lies with regards to Watergate.
Reagan and the republicans would frame Carter as destroying American standing in the world after decades of US policy in support of an unpopular dictator, the shah, backfired and resulted in 52 US embassy employees being taken hostage. It wasn’t Carters fault, in fact it was more the fault of conservatives like Reagan who would advocate nonsensical anti-democratic support of pro-business dictators from Chile to Nicaragua and Afghanistan. However, Reagan would benefit and and usher in an era of neo-conservatism using this tactic of fear that would be used by conservatives until this day.
The Reagan-Bush era marked cuts in social welfare, curbs on free speech, and cuts on taxes for the wealthy. When air traffic controllers striked against Reagan’s conservative anti-union policies, he issued a decree to dimiss all of them. This action was a historic because it marked the reversal of presidents acting neutral in labor disputes. It was the tiannamen square of the American union. Reagan’s environmental policy helped establish the current carelessness of the government towards environmental degradation. He allowed businesses to decide their own environmental policy no matter how detrmimental. Reagan’s importance to the modern capitalist class is unique because his administration saw the thorough regression of gains made by people’s movements. Where Carter put solar panels on the White House, Reagan demolished them. Where a disease prevention program saving millions of lives could have been set up up, Reagan built a $1.5 Billion submarine for launching nukes en masse.
All of American History has been a struggle between working people, students, and the American people against a handful of wealthy planters, industrial robber barons, and reckless wall street investors. Today, Americans have been left jobless and homeless or without a loved one due to circus games of executives and investors in the housing industry and the war for oil in Iraq started by the politicians who represent the companies that contribute to their campaign, not the people who their supposed to represent. Capitalism makes profit come before democracy. It is why foreign policy has been skewed to support vicious dictators like Pinochet, Noriega, Batista, and the Somozas and why slavery and Jim Crow segregation haunts our history. It is why strikes were crushed, and students disenfranchised from elections and even the right to free speech today in my very own school. American History has, and will have until a social revolution occurs, a path of conflict between rulers and the people because no matter who is put in charge, the nature of the state is one born from racist slavery and free market capitalism. These foundations cannot be completely reformed from the state because they helped develop and bring the ruling class of the U.S to what it is today. History in our schools has been taught in a incoherent and “patriotically” blemished manner that causes many students to lose interest. While the telling of history has become more democratic in recent years due to the internets creation of a global community, and the end of the cold war opening up third way voices, there is still a long way to go before people understand the truth in history; the crimes not just the glories. This will inspire people to then act to change things in the today.
Works Cited
"About the Smith Act Trials." Department of English, College of LAS, University of Illinois. 2 June 2009
D. Roosevelt, Franklin. "On the Purposes and Foundations of the Recovery Program - July 24,." Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum. 24 July 1931. 2 June 2009
"Economic Indicators during the Roaring Twenties and Great Depression (III). | The Economic Populist." The Economic Populist . 8 June 2009
Graphs illustrate the effect of the cuts in social programs on the economy during New Deal.
"Index of US Foreign Policy Documents." University of Wisconsin Digital Collections. 2 June 2009
Loewen, James W.. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 2007. Resource; similar to A People's History
Martin, Joseph Plumb. Private Yankee Doodle. Harrisburg: Eastern Acorn Press, 1998. Story of a young farmer's enlistment during revolution
New York Community Media Alliance. "Voices That Must Be Heard: Divide and Conquer: Clintons exploit Black-Latino tensions - New York Community Media Alliance." New York Community Media Alliance. 7 June 2009
Sitkoff, Harvard. The Struggle for Black Equality: 25th-Anniversary Edition. New York: Hill And Wang, 2008. Covers struggle of black people to win their rights starting with slavery and reconstruction. instrumental in discussion of civil rights movement
Weigley, Russell F.. The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973. In depth exploration of American War History, particularly useful with Civil War, Revolutionary War, and WWII
Zinn, Howard. People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.). New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2005. Explores popular movements and government abuses throughout American History. Useful throughout paper
Wednesday, May 27
American History: The People vs. The Tyrants (Part I pre-20th century)
Been busy lately and haven't had much time to blog but this right here is my thesis on the entire Span of U.S. History. Its a rough draft in the making for my AP US class. I'll put sources up later in part II where I cover the twentieth century in more detail. This is sort of just the preamble. I decided to start at the revolution in order to show how the roots of the capitalist sham were rotten to begin with, and remain that way today despite the gains made by people through centuries of heroic struggle.
When one studies American History in depth, no matter what period, the events that have taken place only make sense when analyzed through a lens of the rich landowners fighting a war against the common American citizen. From the inception of the revolutionary war where the planters hijacked the struggle of farmers and workers discontent with oppressive colonialism, until the crackdowns on unions and “red subversives,” and the tyranny of reaganomics; America’s story has been one of ordinary people struggling for human rights against their all powerful “representatives.”
The revolutionary war was a war with its roots in the working people. Ordinary people who wanted the right to free speech written in stone due to their proud tradition of self-governance that emerged due to the impossibility of royal rule three thousand miles from Britain. Blacksmiths, farmers, young field hands some as young as fourteen or fifteen took up arms and organized in the Sons and Daughters of Liberty to rid America of royal tyranny. Yet it was the planters, lawyers, and wealthy merchants who took up command positions and argued in the continental congress. The rural and urban poor who fought and died in the war went unremembered and unpaid, while the wealthy planters who had remained behind the lines of combat rung in all the praise Washington, Jefferson, and Madison probably didn’t fire a bullet yet they took the glory and fame. This theme would remain a constant in American History from this point onwards.
You see the progress we’ve made to bring us to the point in history we are today, having recently elected a black president and having won certain rights like union laws and important civil rights, is only due to the struggles of movements of people against tyrannical government. Throughout the antebellum period and the period of “Jacksonian Democracy” supposed “grand” reforms were made to make the United States more democratic like abolishing property ownership as a requirement for your right to vote. Jackson was forced to take these steps in order to appease farmers like those who nearly overthrew the government in the Whiskey and Shay’s Rebellion. It still however left black people disenfranchised which led to the civil war.
The Civil War was essentially a contest between Northern Industrialists who realized slavery was not profitable because it left half the country to be content with the backward plantation economy unchanged since the slavery’s beginnings, and southern plantation owners who figured why even pay for the people’s labor? Lincoln was not a real abolitionist and the emancipation proclamation only came because of the pressure abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown had shown, as well as the support of blacks in fighting for the union and paralyzing the southern economy by fleeing to northern lines. Government approved text books like McGrawHill American History A Survey frames the rioters against the New York Draft as throroughly racist. The reality is that these were working people who didn’t want to die in a rich mans war. Of course many who participated were racist and blamed blacks for the draft, but this was because the divide and conquer tactics of the ruling class makes the masses fear each other and hate each other based on race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever they find convenient to use in order to super-exploit a group a make higher profits as they had done for hundreds of years with black people and now do today with Mexican and Latin American people.
Reconstruction after the civil war gave the north power over the south and so in the name of “taking it too the south”, progressive reforms were passed giving blacks voting rights, civil rights, and power like never before. Yet the rulers ended this experiment quickly because in the end, the lives of those who died in battle fighting against slavery didn’t matter to much when compared to a new era of focusing on industrializing and exploiting working people like never before.
The Gilded age saw laissez-faire capitalism evolve to its fullest and most ruthless form in the name of industrialization. Workers worked in miserable factory conditions with no labor rights and no fair wages. When workers unionized the government and bosses attempted to suppress them with the army, national guard, police, and private detective agencies like Pinkerton Detective Agency. This continued into the 20th century thanks to the stubbornness of the government and industrial bosses in granting workers any rights at all from the start of militant union in the early 1860s until the early 1900s when progressivism forced the government to make some reforms to appease the militant strikes that rocked the country conducted by the Industrial Workers of the World Union, the Western Federation of Miners, and other militant unions.
To be Cont'd
When one studies American History in depth, no matter what period, the events that have taken place only make sense when analyzed through a lens of the rich landowners fighting a war against the common American citizen. From the inception of the revolutionary war where the planters hijacked the struggle of farmers and workers discontent with oppressive colonialism, until the crackdowns on unions and “red subversives,” and the tyranny of reaganomics; America’s story has been one of ordinary people struggling for human rights against their all powerful “representatives.”
The revolutionary war was a war with its roots in the working people. Ordinary people who wanted the right to free speech written in stone due to their proud tradition of self-governance that emerged due to the impossibility of royal rule three thousand miles from Britain. Blacksmiths, farmers, young field hands some as young as fourteen or fifteen took up arms and organized in the Sons and Daughters of Liberty to rid America of royal tyranny. Yet it was the planters, lawyers, and wealthy merchants who took up command positions and argued in the continental congress. The rural and urban poor who fought and died in the war went unremembered and unpaid, while the wealthy planters who had remained behind the lines of combat rung in all the praise Washington, Jefferson, and Madison probably didn’t fire a bullet yet they took the glory and fame. This theme would remain a constant in American History from this point onwards.
You see the progress we’ve made to bring us to the point in history we are today, having recently elected a black president and having won certain rights like union laws and important civil rights, is only due to the struggles of movements of people against tyrannical government. Throughout the antebellum period and the period of “Jacksonian Democracy” supposed “grand” reforms were made to make the United States more democratic like abolishing property ownership as a requirement for your right to vote. Jackson was forced to take these steps in order to appease farmers like those who nearly overthrew the government in the Whiskey and Shay’s Rebellion. It still however left black people disenfranchised which led to the civil war.
The Civil War was essentially a contest between Northern Industrialists who realized slavery was not profitable because it left half the country to be content with the backward plantation economy unchanged since the slavery’s beginnings, and southern plantation owners who figured why even pay for the people’s labor? Lincoln was not a real abolitionist and the emancipation proclamation only came because of the pressure abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown had shown, as well as the support of blacks in fighting for the union and paralyzing the southern economy by fleeing to northern lines. Government approved text books like McGrawHill American History A Survey frames the rioters against the New York Draft as throroughly racist. The reality is that these were working people who didn’t want to die in a rich mans war. Of course many who participated were racist and blamed blacks for the draft, but this was because the divide and conquer tactics of the ruling class makes the masses fear each other and hate each other based on race, ethnicity, religion, or whatever they find convenient to use in order to super-exploit a group a make higher profits as they had done for hundreds of years with black people and now do today with Mexican and Latin American people.
Reconstruction after the civil war gave the north power over the south and so in the name of “taking it too the south”, progressive reforms were passed giving blacks voting rights, civil rights, and power like never before. Yet the rulers ended this experiment quickly because in the end, the lives of those who died in battle fighting against slavery didn’t matter to much when compared to a new era of focusing on industrializing and exploiting working people like never before.
The Gilded age saw laissez-faire capitalism evolve to its fullest and most ruthless form in the name of industrialization. Workers worked in miserable factory conditions with no labor rights and no fair wages. When workers unionized the government and bosses attempted to suppress them with the army, national guard, police, and private detective agencies like Pinkerton Detective Agency. This continued into the 20th century thanks to the stubbornness of the government and industrial bosses in granting workers any rights at all from the start of militant union in the early 1860s until the early 1900s when progressivism forced the government to make some reforms to appease the militant strikes that rocked the country conducted by the Industrial Workers of the World Union, the Western Federation of Miners, and other militant unions.
To be Cont'd
Monday, April 13
The Crisis in Higher education
The education system in the US is in crisis. In New York there have been three campus occupations since the new year. Most recently, on April 10th, New School students occupied a building and were gassed and beaten by police in a brutal raid.
The occupations were indeed crushed however the courage the students had in coming together and standing up against injustices in American colleges has created a buzz. College education has become increasingly unaffordable, public schools are underfunded due to the two prolonged wars the US is fighting, and more and more students each year are looking to attend university and each year student take heavy loans just to be able to afford these expensive institutions. Others are sucked into the military just so they can afford their education.
The issue is that education is NOT a tool for recruitment, it is NOT a exclusive club where students do not know where their money is going and board members pocket large profits, education is NOT the stifled conformed atmosphere that its essential commidification has turned it into. Education is a right and should be not bought and sold.
conservatives have attacked professors who think freely in the mainstream media and published books encouraging the witchhunt of radical professors. The atmosphere of a prison has been created in place of what is supposed to be the most important time of one's life. Until education is completely free and universal, students will continue to organize and resist no matter how severe the police repression or adminstrative consequences
Sunday, April 12
Boom, Bust, Broken... Time for Revolution not just change
I'm kinda a History buff. Last year I got the highest possible score on the Advanced Placement Global History test earning college credits and this year I plan on accomplishing the same in the Ap American History exam. American History, as conformed, distorted, and packed with outright lies, as it is in the American public school system, still reveals lots about the nature of the capitalist system when you are learned in revolutionary marxist thought.
My teacher is having complete review sheets for the entire American history experience and as I have lost my textbook, I am forced to google terms that have slipped my mind. googling the panic of 1819, America's first homegrown recession, I typed
"panic of" and then sat their enjoying the utter stupidity of our system. Every few years since 1819, at least once per decade, our economy does what it is doing now. It has panic where millions lose their homes, lives, jobs, personal fortunes, and are forced to start up from scratch after the fuckheads in charge figure out how to put a big enough band-aid on the shotgun wound that is capitalist economics.
I am convinced capitalism is broken. Only a crackhead could think otherwise as the boom and bust cycle that has existed since the days of scalped natives and whipped slaves all the way up til today, the age of ponzi scheme crooks and greedy bankers. It is not logical, it is inefficient, leads to hunger, leads to homelessness, unemployment, and the destruction of our enviroment.
It is time for nationalization, it is time for economic planning. Not economic planning for bankers and bosses, but within our own communities and for hard working people so we can keep our homes, jobs, and lives. Humans and lives are not chips and coins to be gambled with at a casino we are intelligent so why the fuck do we stick with this system?
The bailouts, which AIG has shown, do not work as an economic band-aid could be used to provide public works projects & jobs, fund a healthcare system, or build a universal university system so youth like me have a future. Perhaps the bailouts, as inefficient and draining of the American people as they are, will save the economy this time, as they have before. But I can promise you if they do, I'll be writing this same post soon after when we again are all crying about the next economic meltdown.
My teacher is having complete review sheets for the entire American history experience and as I have lost my textbook, I am forced to google terms that have slipped my mind. googling the panic of 1819, America's first homegrown recession, I typed
"panic of" and then sat their enjoying the utter stupidity of our system. Every few years since 1819, at least once per decade, our economy does what it is doing now. It has panic where millions lose their homes, lives, jobs, personal fortunes, and are forced to start up from scratch after the fuckheads in charge figure out how to put a big enough band-aid on the shotgun wound that is capitalist economics.
I am convinced capitalism is broken. Only a crackhead could think otherwise as the boom and bust cycle that has existed since the days of scalped natives and whipped slaves all the way up til today, the age of ponzi scheme crooks and greedy bankers. It is not logical, it is inefficient, leads to hunger, leads to homelessness, unemployment, and the destruction of our enviroment.
It is time for nationalization, it is time for economic planning. Not economic planning for bankers and bosses, but within our own communities and for hard working people so we can keep our homes, jobs, and lives. Humans and lives are not chips and coins to be gambled with at a casino we are intelligent so why the fuck do we stick with this system?
The bailouts, which AIG has shown, do not work as an economic band-aid could be used to provide public works projects & jobs, fund a healthcare system, or build a universal university system so youth like me have a future. Perhaps the bailouts, as inefficient and draining of the American people as they are, will save the economy this time, as they have before. But I can promise you if they do, I'll be writing this same post soon after when we again are all crying about the next economic meltdown.
Sunday, February 24
Who Rules America
A substantial number of Americans, some two-thirds, view the government as being "run by a few big interests looking out for themselves." The results of the University of Michigan's poll raises an important question, one which cannot be easily dismissed by pundits who try to cast an illusion of American democracy; a nation ruled "by the people for the people". Just who rules America? In his class relations study, Michael Zweig found that the majority of Americans are in the working class. So It should come as no surprise that 60% of Americans feel alienated from economic and political decision making when, as Zweig estimates, it makes up 60 percent of the U.S. workforce.
Modern capitalistic society is characterized by three main classes: an elite and small capitalistic class who own and manage large income-producing properties; i.e., corporations, banks, real estate and agri-businesses, a large working class who do not have their own means of earning a livelihood and must sell their labor power to earn an income, and a middle class of professionals, entrepreneurs, and managers that reside between the two. So just who rules America? Who are the "big interests looking out for themselves? They are as G. William Domhoff states are "the owners and managers of large income-producing properties; i.e., corporations, banks, and agri-businesses, along with the the managers and experts they hire".
The Social Upper Class
Michael Useem in The Inner Circle states, "The upper class consists of the social network of established wealthy families whose status is preeminent , whose culture and identity are distinct, and whose membership is closed to nearly all but those of proper descent". Generally speaking, wealth can be defined as the ownership of marketable assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate. Income is the amount of wages, dividends and interest paid out to an individual yearly. The people commanding the greatest wealth and highest income are part of the upper class. The .5 to 1 percent of the population that makes up the upper class is also the .5 to 1 percent who owned 39.7 percent of the financial wealth in 2001.
The upper class has it's own exclusive social institutions which include private schools, summer resorts and retreats, and social clubs and gatherings. Large and well known Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Standford are heavily populated and favored by the upper class in receiving distinctive education. As a result, social clubs also play a unique role in differentiating members of the upper class from other members of society. Membership into these clubs can range from a few to tens of thousands of dollars, as well as being subject to a rigorous screening process. The Links in New York, Pacific Union in San Francisco, Chicago Club in Chicago and the infamous Bohemian Club in San Francisco are a few social clubs with a high concentration of members from the corporate community. The 25 largest industrials have one or more directors as members in one or more of these clubs. Highlighting how the upper class is closely interwined with the corporate community.
The Corporate Community
The nationwide upper class is not only a social class but a economic class deeply rooted in the corporate community. G. William Domhoff states, "Several studies show that those 15-20% of corporate directors who sit on two or more boards, who are called the "inner circle" of the corporate directorate, unite 80-90% of the largest corporations in the United States into a well-connected "corporate community". Chase Manhattan Bank has 45 such connections to other corporations and financial institutions, Wells Fargo Bank has 41 and General Motors 33.
Exxon, the world's largest oil company, contains a large concentration of "interlocking directors". For example, according to Endgame, James R Houghton is not only on the board on Exxon, but is also Chairman and CEO of Corning Inc, on the boards of MetLife, Inc, Corning Museum of Glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pierpont Morgan Library, Harvard Corporation, member of Business Council and Council on Foreign Relations.
This highlights the fact that despite competition among the corporate community, there exists cohesion due to their opposition to the liberal labor coalition, anti-corporation and anti-globalization activists, leftists and environmentalists, which derives from their common goals and values and pursuit of profit.
The Policy Formation Network
The corporate community and upper class are supplemented by a wide range of nonprofit organizations such as think tanks, foundations, and policy discussion forums, which itself forms a policy formation network. These institutions play a critical role in creating debates over public policy and in shaping public opinion. The corporate community and upper class have the ability to dominate these organizations due to the fact they were founded by members of the upper class and are funded by large corporations. The Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation are the most highly influential of foundations. Brookings Institute, The American Enterprise, Business Council, Business Roundtable and the Urban Institute are a few of the more important think tanks and policy groups. In fact, the Business Roundtable was highly influential on the corporate community victory of NAFTA. Policy discussion groups bring together directors, managers, government officials and other wealthy or influential people to discuss local and international issues, as well as political, social and economic issues. These groups frame the debate and set the terms for new economic, foreign and other policies.
So Who Rules America?
Despite competition among the corporate community and threats of hostile takeovers, there exists a cohesion rooted in a strong class consciousness which derives from profit motives and capitalist class interests. "Through open and direct involvement in policy planning, through participation in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government" the upper class are able to rule America and influence decisions affecting the bottom 80% of the population. This power stems from their great concentration of wealth which is derived from ownership and control of large income proudcing corporations. As Domhoff states allowing corporate leaders to "invest money where and when they choose; expand, close, or move their factories and offices at a moment's notice; and hire, promote, and fire employees as they see fit. These powers give them a direct influence over the great majority of Americans, who are dependent upon wages and salaries for their incomes. They also give the corporate rich indirect influence over elected and appointed officials, for the growth and stability of a city, state, or the country as a whole can be jeopardized by a lack of business confidence in government."
Suggested Reading:
Who Rules America by G. William Domhoff
The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. by Michael Useem
The Founding Fortunes: An Anatomy of the Super-Rich Families in America. by Michael Allen
Top Down Policymaking by Thomas Rye
The Power Elite. C Wright Mills
Democracy for the Few Michael Parenti
-blackstone
Modern capitalistic society is characterized by three main classes: an elite and small capitalistic class who own and manage large income-producing properties; i.e., corporations, banks, real estate and agri-businesses, a large working class who do not have their own means of earning a livelihood and must sell their labor power to earn an income, and a middle class of professionals, entrepreneurs, and managers that reside between the two. So just who rules America? Who are the "big interests looking out for themselves? They are as G. William Domhoff states are "the owners and managers of large income-producing properties; i.e., corporations, banks, and agri-businesses, along with the the managers and experts they hire".
The Social Upper Class
Michael Useem in The Inner Circle states, "The upper class consists of the social network of established wealthy families whose status is preeminent , whose culture and identity are distinct, and whose membership is closed to nearly all but those of proper descent". Generally speaking, wealth can be defined as the ownership of marketable assets such as stocks, bonds, and real estate. Income is the amount of wages, dividends and interest paid out to an individual yearly. The people commanding the greatest wealth and highest income are part of the upper class. The .5 to 1 percent of the population that makes up the upper class is also the .5 to 1 percent who owned 39.7 percent of the financial wealth in 2001.
| Financial Wealth | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Top 1 percent | Next 19 percent | Bottom 80 percent | |
| 1983 | 42.9% | 48.4% | 8.7% |
| 1989 | 46.9% | 46.5% | 6.6% |
| 1992 | 45.6% | 46.7% | 7.7% |
| 1995 | 47.2% | 45.9% | 7.0% |
| 1998 | 47.3% | 43.6% | 9.1% |
| 2001 | 39.7% | 51.5% | 8.8% |
The upper class has it's own exclusive social institutions which include private schools, summer resorts and retreats, and social clubs and gatherings. Large and well known Ivy League schools such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia and Standford are heavily populated and favored by the upper class in receiving distinctive education. As a result, social clubs also play a unique role in differentiating members of the upper class from other members of society. Membership into these clubs can range from a few to tens of thousands of dollars, as well as being subject to a rigorous screening process. The Links in New York, Pacific Union in San Francisco, Chicago Club in Chicago and the infamous Bohemian Club in San Francisco are a few social clubs with a high concentration of members from the corporate community. The 25 largest industrials have one or more directors as members in one or more of these clubs. Highlighting how the upper class is closely interwined with the corporate community.
The Corporate Community
The nationwide upper class is not only a social class but a economic class deeply rooted in the corporate community. G. William Domhoff states, "Several studies show that those 15-20% of corporate directors who sit on two or more boards, who are called the "inner circle" of the corporate directorate, unite 80-90% of the largest corporations in the United States into a well-connected "corporate community". Chase Manhattan Bank has 45 such connections to other corporations and financial institutions, Wells Fargo Bank has 41 and General Motors 33.
Exxon, the world's largest oil company, contains a large concentration of "interlocking directors". For example, according to Endgame, James R Houghton is not only on the board on Exxon, but is also Chairman and CEO of Corning Inc, on the boards of MetLife, Inc, Corning Museum of Glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Pierpont Morgan Library, Harvard Corporation, member of Business Council and Council on Foreign Relations.
This highlights the fact that despite competition among the corporate community, there exists cohesion due to their opposition to the liberal labor coalition, anti-corporation and anti-globalization activists, leftists and environmentalists, which derives from their common goals and values and pursuit of profit.
The Policy Formation Network
The corporate community and upper class are supplemented by a wide range of nonprofit organizations such as think tanks, foundations, and policy discussion forums, which itself forms a policy formation network. These institutions play a critical role in creating debates over public policy and in shaping public opinion. The corporate community and upper class have the ability to dominate these organizations due to the fact they were founded by members of the upper class and are funded by large corporations. The Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation are the most highly influential of foundations. Brookings Institute, The American Enterprise, Business Council, Business Roundtable and the Urban Institute are a few of the more important think tanks and policy groups. In fact, the Business Roundtable was highly influential on the corporate community victory of NAFTA. Policy discussion groups bring together directors, managers, government officials and other wealthy or influential people to discuss local and international issues, as well as political, social and economic issues. These groups frame the debate and set the terms for new economic, foreign and other policies.
So Who Rules America?
Despite competition among the corporate community and threats of hostile takeovers, there exists a cohesion rooted in a strong class consciousness which derives from profit motives and capitalist class interests. "Through open and direct involvement in policy planning, through participation in political campaigns and elections, and through appointments to key decision-making positions in government" the upper class are able to rule America and influence decisions affecting the bottom 80% of the population. This power stems from their great concentration of wealth which is derived from ownership and control of large income proudcing corporations. As Domhoff states allowing corporate leaders to "invest money where and when they choose; expand, close, or move their factories and offices at a moment's notice; and hire, promote, and fire employees as they see fit. These powers give them a direct influence over the great majority of Americans, who are dependent upon wages and salaries for their incomes. They also give the corporate rich indirect influence over elected and appointed officials, for the growth and stability of a city, state, or the country as a whole can be jeopardized by a lack of business confidence in government."
Suggested Reading:
Who Rules America by G. William Domhoff
The Inner Circle: Large Corporations and the Rise of Political Activity in the U.S. and U.K. by Michael Useem
The Founding Fortunes: An Anatomy of the Super-Rich Families in America. by Michael Allen
Top Down Policymaking by Thomas Rye
The Power Elite. C Wright Mills
Democracy for the Few Michael Parenti
-blackstone
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