The Real Culprit: Corpocracy

By J.D. Suss

12/16/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The Democratic tide in the recent elections is, potentially at least, a force to be reckoned with. Now, citizens-who-care can watch to see if these new members of Congress will squander their mandate in hopelessly fruitless witch hunts on the so-called “issues,” while the real culprit continues to bedevil them. That real culprit? – corpocracy[i] (rhymes with “hypocrisy”). Corpocracy, also called “corporatocracy,” is de facto rule by mega-corporations in conjunction with international banking, corporate-owned media, and the enabling collusion of government and/or a network of governments. These Big Money[ii] plutocrats are the real enemies of our tattered democracy. Our elected representatives need to begin calling them to account and, quite simply, rein them in.

Railing against the corrosive influence corporations inflict upon democracy is often met with the same kind of mindset that would make Luddites out of those who clamor for sustainable technology. The charge of conspiracy theorist is the label immediately attached to anyone who has the audacity to offer a discourse on corpocracy. And before any intelligent discussion can ensue on the subject, the framing has already done its work; corpocracy is summarily dismissed as “extremist fringe-speak” for ideas too outlandish to merit serious attention. But, thanks to the courage of people like John Perkins,[iii] the word is slowly-but-surely emerging that democracy is being critically threatened, perhaps already “disabled,”[iv] by the interests of Big Money, whose mischief both at home and abroad seemingly knows no bounds. Besides having infiltrated all three branches of government, its corrupting influence extends into almost every think tank and major university in the U.S.[v] Be that as it may, the reader is invited to exercise the right to freely (re)assemble his or her mind and to continue reading.

To fully grasp the idea of corpocracy, one must see it as a crisis of consciousness. Fundamentally, we might ask ourselves: What is driving our everyday thoughts, feelings, and beliefs so as to produce a sense of reality about which we all can agree, more or less, is worth living in and fighting for? The answer? – It is our consciousness, a phenomenon steeped in this agreement or consensual reality that is further flavored by a particular, viz., “American,” culture trance.

From its earliest days, America was a nation built upon the advertising, buying and selling of commodities for the purpose of realizing ever-increasing profits. But with the maximization of profits as the overriding incentive, inevitably people and the world around them, become marginalized. This became especially evident as the corporate entity gained in prominence and the techno-industrial elite was more and more empowered. The greed of wealth accumulation continues to deplete scarce natural resources. The cumulative effect is a ravaging of both the environment and the social fabric of peoples unfortunate enough to be living amid such resources. And yet, to sustain a material comfort that is never quite sated, an ever-growing consumption must be constantly encouraged. Enter Big Money, which gladly encourages never-ending consumption patterns – so much so that corporate capitalism is now synonymous with democracy in the minds of most of the citizenry, including its representatives. The sad fact is that we have been turned into complacent consumeroids. We are now the beneficiaries of a material comfort that has succeeded in making us overwhelmingly passive with regard to what goes on in our government, not to mention what is going on in the rest of the world. As Harvard professor and unrepentant, status quo theorist, Samuel P. Huntington, tells us, “democratic societies ‘cannot work’ unless the citizenry is ‘passive.’ [vi]” Shockingly, in the United States less than 50% of voters vote in elections – elections that fail to meet the standards that Jimmy Carter uses to gauge free and fair elections abroad. Therein lies one telling measurement of our passivity.

Big Money’s overwhelming interest in profits over people is largely responsible for a kind of preservation of its base that is composed of a citizenry invested in the status quo. That broad swath of middle Americans buys into comfortable, complacent lifestyles as a kind of divine right to be enjoyed by the world’s foremost “bringer of democracy.”

Such is the subtle yet insidious effect of a consensual reality and culture trance in which Americans – and worse, their elected representatives – are swimming. Most of us have adapted early to a status quo consciousness that has fed us the noble myths of our nation. Indeed, intrusive commercialization such as TV helps to keep the minds of the masses programmed to stay in thrall to these myths (and whatever else those with money to buy advertising or to finance TV shows wish us to believe). However, the current state of the nation, a nation now often referred to as a national security state, belies those myths. And so, to the extent people still invest the U.S. with these myths of America as the “city upon the hill” – presumed to be benevolent and morally justified in its dealings around the world – there exists a faulty or deficient consciousness. Although steadily deteriorating, this deficient consciousness none-the-less remains potent in its ability to blind us to the real enemy within that silences the true will of the people.

LINK