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Establishment Fears Organized Challenge to Corporate Power

Remember the hacked Stratfor emails? Stratfor's is a geopolitical intelligence firm, whose establishment clients

get direct access to our analysts and to our global networks, enabling them to better assess geopolitical risk, make strategic investm
ents and expand into challenging regions.

One of the most overlooked or forgotten revelations of those emails had nothing to do with particular events, people or places. Rather, Stratfor revealed the establishment's fear of a movement challenging corporate power. Their email related to the Yes Men's activities surrounding the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal India poison gas disaster.

Stratfor analyzed whether the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster would lead to an increase in anti-corporate activism.

"With less than a month to go [until the 25th anniversary], you'd think that the major players -- especially Amnesty -- would have branched out from Bhopal to make a broader set of issues. I don't see any evidence of it," wrote Bart Mongoven, Stratfor's Vice President, in November 2004. "If they can't manage to use the 25th anniversary to broaden the issue, they probably won't be able to."

The Yes Men cited the e-mails, which continued well into 2011, as evidence that anti-corporate activists and movements such as Occupy Wall Street are having an effect.

"Just as Wall Street has at times let slip their fear of the Occupy Wall Street movement, these leaks seem to show that corporate power is most afraid of whatever reveals "the larger whole" and "broader issues," i.e. whatever brings systemic criminal behavior to light," the group said in a release.

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GDAE Podcast - Episode 39

December 18, 2010 Episode of GDAE Podcast

Episode 39 Conversation on Corporate Power

• Corporate Power: Conversation on how excessive corporate power is creating dysfunctional elections, health care system, financial system, news media, and its affect on American democracy and its citizens..


• Prosecute Bush: Obstruction of justice in Spain and Germany by US officials exposed by WikiLeaks. Emerging facts have a way of forcing democratically governed countries to choose between maintaining their status as democracies or admitting that they are authoritarian states. If they choose to maintain their status as democracies, they have to prosecute high officials for crimes.

Click to Download Episode 39.

Recent Series: Can the Populist Left & Right Unite to Challenge the Establishment and Regain Control of Our Republic?

The answer is "yes," as history has proven. Check out the 9-part GDAE Podcast series that explores how common people across the political spectrum can come to the aid of our democracy.

GDAE Podcast Episode 29

• Motivation for reaching out to the conservatives, from a progressive perspective

GDAE Podcast Episode 30

• The Power of Ordinary People

GDAE Podcast Episode 31

• Left & Right Populists Working Together: to fix our flawed democracy
• What is a "principled" conservative: Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone magazine has some thoughts
• Audit the Fed: Bernie Sanders leads the Left & Right to push for Senate Unanimous vote on Amendment to "audit the Fed."

GDAE Podcast Episode 32

• Left & Right Populists: The American Populist movement of the 1800s with Jim Hightower (Bill Moyer's Journal).
• Left & Right United: The Tenth Amendment with Michael Boldin (Mother Jones Magazine).

GDAE Podcast Episode 33

• Principled and Unprincipled Conservatives: Will Bunch, Author of "The Backlash: Right-Wing Radicals, High-Def Hucksters, and Paranoid Politics in the Age of Obama," on the Tea Party movement and the recent primary elections.
• Principled and Unprincipled Liberals: Glenn Greenwald, former constitutional and civil rights litigator now writer and blogger.

GDAE Podcast Episode 34

• Conversation with Vince Tola: Perspectives on the potential of principled people on the left and right to join forces and reassert the power of the people over our democratic institutions. Vince is a public school teacher and Maryland Green Party organizer.

GDAE Podcast Episode 35

• Case-study from Electoral Politics: David Sirota on Tea-party-backed candidate for US Senate in Colorado, Ken Buck.
• Shared Left/Right Populist Anger: CNN interview with David Sirota explains Bush & Obama failure on Financial Bailout.

GDAE Podcast Episode 36

• Motivation for Reaching out to the Political Right on Issues of Common Concern: Preventing the Drift toward "Barbarism".
• Right-Wing TV/Radio Incitement: The case of Byron Williams who attempted to murder eleven people in San Francisco after listening to Glenn Beck and others.
• Walden Bello: A historical perspective on the Drift toward "Barbarism" and its relation to the Moviation to reach out to genuine conservatives.
• 2006 Conservative Essay: "Now Is the Time for a Left-Right Alliance: A rebel alliance already exists that could stop Bush administration attacks on the Constitution."

GDAE Podcast Episode 37

• History: Demagogues take advantage of bad economic times for political gains including the use of government to enrich themselves.
• Three economists see three futures: Pretty Bad, Very Bad and Absolutely Catastrophic.
• Call for unity among principled conservatives and progressives: Unite to counter-act dangers of demagogues during the coming hard times.

Source:

GDAEman.Com

Power of Principled People on the Left and Right

I continue to explore a subject that is summed up in the question,

"Do populists on the left and right have enough in common that they could join together and challenge the status quo establishment?"

I'm not talking about political party "bi-partisianship" in Washington. I'm referring to activists who advance positive change on the basis of promoting principled values and not necessarily through party politics.

The notion of "principled" seems to be a core concept that helps define what I'm talking about above. When I say "principled" I mean that they have consistent political views. Their ideology is consistent. Because, when somebody espouses what is supposed to be a core value, like saying that "freedom means minimal government intrusion in our lives," but then turns around and supports capital punishment at the hands of the same bumbling, corrupt, excessive government they want to limit.... I see it as inconsistent at best and perhaps even hypocritical.... they certainly aren't principled in their political views, because they are flip-flopping on their principles.

Since I come at this subject from the Left, my perspective is to ask the question,

"Which people on the right could be partners with people on the left?"

and up crops the answer,

"principled people who share common concerns about abuse of power in our country. People who are concerned that our democratic ideals are being subverted."

More on this:

Examples of Left/Right Collaboration to Secure Power for the People

Un-Tapped Power-Block

Connecting the dots back to the last post,

People are rejecting both parties. The quick reversal of public support for the Democratic Party ... reveals something deeper. ... general repulsion of the establishment political parties by a large swath of the public has not yet become an accepted part of the mainstream narrative. ... This is in part because the establishment media controls the narrative to a large extent.

Which is where we left it.

The corporate media are intertwined with the political establishment that is being rejected by more and more people. The political establishment has become impotent and people don't want half-measures. The media, drinking from the same punch bowl of celebrity and money, do a dance of poking and prodding the political establishment, but they also employ half-measures; we don't get quality news.

It seems that polls suggest people reject the media establishment too, but then it also seems that people still tune in to it and parrot it. (Is there some TV-addiction involved?). Perhaps the growing media reform movement will become more popularized and create a ground swell of the public tuning out; effectively boycotting TV.

This scenario might be more plausible than first meets the eye. One reason is that media reform is a topic that appeals to both the left and right wings; it's a cross-over subject. That means there is a natural block of people whose numbers are larger than on other issues that split the left and right.

Other examples include opposition to the financial bailouts with no strings attached, the call to audit the Federal Reserve that gained a unanimous vote in the US Senate, numerous civil liberties issues like the government spying on US citizens and the erosion of Habeas Corpus, just to name a few. On these subjects, there is a history of the left and right coming together in a power-block.

I think this power-block, despite its natural instabilities, has significant untapped potential that could be organized.

I'll leave it there for now, but if you're curious about this topic, check out More on the Left and Right Joining Forces.