The explanation is simple. The corporations and their system are much more dominant in the US than they are in any other advanced capitalist country. They have a monopoly of the mass political organizations, that is the two mass political parties are capitalist parties, bought and paid for by the capitalist class. Through these and the corporate state they control society. There is no mass workers party to counter act even to the slightest extent their propaganda political power and control.
Then there is the monopoly they have over the mass media. This is being challenged now by the social media but this unfortunately is still very much liberal in its outlook instead of socialist and working class.
And there is US foreign policy and its relationship to home policy. The US corporations want to rob and loot the rest of the world, and they need to keep their home population with them in this objective. After all the children of the owners of the corporations will not fight the wars. So the propaganda is always that we need to be ready for "war." It does not call it that. It does not have a ministry for war. It has a ministry for "defense." But who is going to invade the US? It is the US which invades other countries and in fact is the only country to have dropped a nuclear bomb on another country.
But what this "defense" propaganda is good for is to keep the US masses down and the US corporations dominant at home. If the country is always under the threat of attack then the US masses are more easily convinced that they must unite with the US corporations to defend the homeland. United we stand propaganda. Not much united we stand when it comes to wages, jobs, benefits, profits. What we have here is the US corporations assault on the understanding and consciousness of the US working class.
But every now and then the corporate dominance gets a bloody nose. In the 1930's the working class occupied the plants, increased union membership six fold and forced the corporations to make major economic concessions. This movement also increased the consciousness of the working class about society in general.
Then in the 1960's we had the great explosions of the black revolt and the anti war movement and the women's movement. What a great decade. It forced the corporate system to make major concessions on racism, along with the heroism of the Vietnam fighters it ended the Vietnam war and along with these events we had the women's movement which forced the corporations to make concessions on gender issues also.
However in spite of these great movements the US corporations are still much more dominant today than in any other advanced capitalist country. This is why life is so tough here. But the first signs of a new upsurge and change are in the air. The first signs of a US spring. The recent reaction to the de-funding of Planned Parenthood where they had to back down, the movements in Wisconsin and Ohio where the extreme right corporate agenda is being thrown back, the powerful anti racist reaction to the murder of Treyvon Martin the black youth in Florida, all these are signs of the first budding of the US spring.
This coming US Spring will throw back and weaken the corporate dominance of US society and make US life more humane. Hopefully it will have the power to establish a mass workers party and increase the unions by tens and tens of millions and end the capacity of the US corporations to go to war and occupations abroad. A new day is dawning in the US. What an enriched society it will become when the US masses in all their diversity and energy throw back the corporations and begin to express themselves and put their imprint on society and change the balance of forces to the advantage of the working people and not the corporations.
Sean.
No comments:
Post a Comment