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Week In Review: John Perkins & Russ Baker on Secret Empires
Americans voted for change and are getting frustrated with the lack of it, but both of Wednesday's guests are experts on the powerful forces holding the status quo in place. John Perkins is the author of Hoodwinked
and Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
, and has written about how corporations push politicians around and even threaten them with violence. Russ Baker, meanwhile, is the author of Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, the Powerful Forces That Put It in the White House, and What Their Influence Means for America
and has written extensively about the military-industrial complex. They both argue that it is nearly impossible for one politician--or even a body of them--to fight the massive private industries that so effectively control and direct the powers of even the U.S. government.
They argue the only weapon we have is public opinion and public pressure--and we need to bring it to bear not just on the government, but on the corporations.
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Great stuff. Organizing public pressure is what we need, but we need to know the specifics of what to go after. We need to figure out what laws and Supreme Court rulings and interpretations enable all of this, and start to spread that around so we know what and who to finger! Those are the attractor factors that can lead to system change. Organizing to demand stuff won’t work because of the way things work in Congress and the Supreme Court. That is what happened with healthcare reform, which is a test case. We’ve got to be specific, call individuals in Congress and on the Court out on their responsibilities for why things are the way they are, and educate everybody about all of this so there is no confusion.
By AlbyFlugzeug on November 14th, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Excellent- not sure why some of this sounds actually new, like revealed truth, but it did. Perkins is wonderful the way he can analyze and present what’s going on. But i am with laura when she expresses doubts about what “the people” can really do, pointing out that the military industrial complex has won everything for the last 50 years. I do agree with his inspirational enthusiasm about what’s been happening in Latin America.
By gritona on November 20th, 2009 at 10:07 pm