It's a great time to read Chomsky: "Requiem for the American Dream"

[lostnfound]

I just finished a simple book by Noam Chomsky called "Requiem for the American dream: the 10 principles of concentration of wealth and power".

It is not dense -- it seems written with a 6th grade education in mind. And it's short. But it contains separate, green colored pages at every chapter with brief excerpts from pivotal original documents (such as the Lewis Powell letter warning the Chamber of Congress that business needed to aggressively combat the attacks (by the left, by the colleges, the media, intellectuals, etc.) on the "free enterprise system".)

The 10 principles are:
1. Reduce democracy
2. Shape ideology
3. Redesign the economy (mfg replaced by bank bubbles)
4. Shift the burden
5. Attack solidarity (social security is a dangerous idea)
6. Run the regulators
7. Engineer elections
8. Keep the rubble in line
9. Manufacture consent
10. Marginalize the population

Reading Chomsky is often like looking through an x-ray machine at the American political system and economy. If we want to break through the bubble of rightwing programming that has made the masses vote against their own interests in such large numbers, the concepts in this book need to be widely disseminated.

[TexasBushwhacker]

1. He is a national treasure n/t

[lostnfound]

2. Apparently the book is based on a film

Yes he is.

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. They have it on Netflix

Other places too

[lostnfound]

3. A telling comment about "healthcare" bill today is example

I heard this statement on MSNBC about the "healthcare" bill today:
"This is the most unpopular legislation proposed in a generation, and the president is doing nothing to sell it."

That's very telling.

Is that not a clear sign of plutocracy, not democracy?

The job of the president is to manufacture consent of the public so that they accept egregious policies that they otherwise would oppose.

[lostnfound]

5. Concise phrase: "an excess of democracy"

Conservatives and the establishment fear "an excess of democracy". The election of a buffoon and a puppet could actually be seen as a dark shadow of "an excess of democracy", but when the phrase was first coined it was referring to the fear that lower classes, women and people of color have their own opinions about government and allowing too many people a seat at the table would make government "unmanageable".

[lostnfound]

6. Alan Greenspan described "worker insecurity" as a strength of our economic system

People afraid of losing their jobs are more compliant and less demanding of higher wages.