Capitalism and the TPP: A Kinder, Gentler Totalitarianism

By Dennis Weiser, Truthout | Op-Ed

Corporate propaganda has convinced the populace that government alone is to blame for our problems, rather than the fusion of corporate power and government decision-making. (Image: Businessmen backlit via Shutterstock)

Doug Hughes, a mail carrier, flew a gyrocopter under the radar to land on the Capitol lawn to deliver letters to every member of the US Congress urging them to get real campaign finance reform done.

John Kerry's Senate farewell warning that corporate money threatens to steal the American democracy is belated. US democracy has already been stolen. The only question is: Can it be recovered, and, if so, how?

To respond appropriately to the italicized events noted above, consider two questions:

1. How can any campaign finance reform possibly be effective until we dismantle all multinational corporations, perform the gene-splicing that will permanently remove the tendency toward monopoly and contamination from the organizational DNA inherent in all organized commerce?

2. How can we expect to dismantle all multinational corporations unless we get all electronic media advertising (especially cable and network television, radio and print media) money out of political campaigning?

The answer to both questions is the same: We can't. The Corporate Advertising-Marketing-&-Lobbying Fog Machine has bamboozled the American people into misguidedly blaming government alone for our problems instead of recognizing the complete fusion of corporate power and government decision-making (this, by the way, is the definition of fascism according to Benito Mussolini, who presumably knew what fascism was). Corporate strategy now dominates our government and dictates all government policy.

The traditional corporate line of defense supposedly justifying this situation and perpetuating the status quo is the shouted mantra: "We Create Jobs!" Multinational corporations exploit a blurry equivocation in the public mind (they actually planted it there), which identifies multinational and transnational corporations with the totality of corporate business, with all of commerce, with entrepreneurialism and with the political agenda that drives multinational denizens in every industry to preserve the status quo of their power, privilege and profits in the name of unsustainable growth and unattainable "progress." These propagandizing delusions deserve to be excised and therefore merit the following responses:

1. Multinational corporations do not create jobs for the majority of citizens. In more than 400 years of its history, corporate capitalism has never created meaningful work or a decent standard of living for the majority of citizens. Multinational corporations destroy US and global employment opportunities by currency gambling, by forced austerity via IMF and WTC predatory loans, by off-shoring jobs to cheap labor markets in Asia, India, Central America and Mexico à la NAFTA, CAFTA, and the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Act (TPP), for which President Obama is currently seeking prior fast-track trade authority to secretly finalize the TPP and Trade-in-Services Agreement (TISA).

Please continue this article here: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31341-sheer-cupidity-capitalism-and-the-tpp-a-kinder-gentler-totalitarianism