Requiem for the American Dream Page #5

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Each time, the taxpayer is

called on to bail out those

who created the crisis,

increasingly the major

financial institutions.

In a capitalist economy,

you wouldn't do that.

In a capitalist sytem that would wipe out

the investors who made risky investments.

But the rich and powerful,

they don't want a capitalist system.

They want to be able to run

to the nanny state

as soon as they're in trouble,

and get bailed out

by the taxpayer.

That's called "too big to fail."

There are Nobel

laureates in economics

who significantly disagree

with the course that we're

following.

People like Joe Stiglitz,

Paul Krugman and others,

and none of them

were even approached.

The people picked to fix

the crisis were those who

created it,

the Robert Rubin crowd,

the Goldman Sachs crowd.

They created the crisis...

Are now more powerful

than before.

Is that accident?

Not when you pick those people

to create an economic plan.

I mean, what do you

expect to happen?

Meanwhile, for the poor,

let market principles prevail.

Don't expect any help

from the government.

The government's the problem,

not the solution, and so on.

That's, essentially,

Neo-liberalism.

It has this dual character

which goes right back in economic history.

One set of rules for the rich.

Opposite set

of rules for the poor.

Nothing surprising about this.

It's exactly

the dynamics you expect.

If the population

allows it to proceed,

it just goes on and on like this until the

next crash, which is so much expected

that credit agencies,

which evaluate

the status of firms,

are now counting

into their calculations

the taxpayer bailout that

they expect to come after

the next crash.

Which means that the

beneficiaries of these credit

ratings like the big banks,

they can borrow money more

cheaply, they can push out

smaller competitors,

and you get more

and more concentration.

Everywhere you look,

policies are designed this way,

which should come

as absolutely no surprise

to anyone.

That's what happens when you put

power into the hands of a narrow

sector of wealth,

which is dedicated

to increasing power for itself,

just as you'd expect.

Concentration of wealth

yields concentration

of political power,

particularly so as the cost

of elections skyrockets,

which forces the political

parties into the pockets

of major corporations.

The Citizens United,

this was January 2009, I guess,

that's a very important

supreme court decision,

but it has a history and you got to think

about the history.

The 14th amendment

has a provision that says,

"no person's rights can be

infringed without due process

of law."

And the intent, clearly,

was to protect freed slaves.

Says, "okay, they've got

the protection of the law."

I don't think it's ever been

used for freed slaves,

if ever, marginally.

Almost immediately, it was used

for businesses, corporations.

Their rights can't be infringed

without due process of law.

So they gradually became

persons under the law.

Corporations are

state-created legal fictions.

Maybe they're good,

maybe they're bad,

but to call them persons

is kind of outrageous.

So they got personal rights

back about a century ago,

and that extended

through the 20th century.

They gave corporations rights

way beyond what persons have.

So if, say, General Motors

invests in Mexico,

they get national rights,

the rights of the Mexican

business.

While the notion of person

was expanded to include

corporations,

it was also restricted.

If you take the

14th amendment literally,

then no undocumented alien

can be deprived of rights,

if they're persons.

Undocumented aliens

who are living here

and building your buildings,

cleaning your lawns, and so on,

they're not persons...

But General Electric

is a person, an immortal

super-powerful person.

This perversion of

the elementary morality,

and the obvious meaning

of the law, is quite incredible.

In the 1970s, the courts decided

that money is a form of speech.

Buckley vs. Valeo. Then you go on through

the years to Citizens United,

(Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission)

which says that, the right

of free speech of corporations,

mainly to spend

as much money as they want,

that can't be curtailed.

It means that corporations,

which anyway have been

pretty much buying elections,

are now free to do it with

virtually no constraint.

That's a tremendous attack

on the residue of democracy.

It's very interesting to read the rulings,

like justice Kennedy's swing vote.

(Anthony Kennedy associate justice SC)

His ruling said,

"well, look, after all,

CBS is given freedom of speech,

they're a corporation,

why shouldn't General Electric

be free to spend as much

money as they want?"

I mean, it's true that CBS

is given freedom of speech,

but they're supposed to be

performing a public service.

That's why.

That's what the press

is supposed to be,

and General Electric

is trying to make money

for the chief executive

and some of the shareholders.

It's an incredible decision,

and it puts the country

in a position where

business power is greatly

extended beyond what it always

was.

This is part of

that vicious cycle.

The supreme court justices are put in

by reactionary presidents,

(associate justice)

who get in there because

they're funded by business.

It's the way the cycle works.

There is one organized

force which traditionally,

plenty of flaws, but with all its flaws,

it's been in the forefront of...

Efforts to improve the lives

of the general population.

That's organized labor.

It's also a barrier

to corporate tyranny.

So, it's the one barrier

to this vicious cycle

going on, which does lead

to corporate tyranny.

A major reason

for the concentrated,

almost fanatic attack on unions,

on organized labor,

is they are

a democratizing force.

They provide a barrier that

defends workers' rights,

but also popular

rights generally.

That interferes with the prerogatives and

power of those who own

and manage the society.

I should say that anti-union

sentiment in the United States

among elites is so strong

that the fundamental

core of labor rights,

the basic principle in the international

labor organization,

is the right of

free association,

which would mean

the right to form unions.

The U.S. has never

ratified that,

so I think the U.S. may be

alone among major societies

in that respect.

It's considered so far out

of the spectrum of American

politics,

it literally has never

been considered.

Remember, the U.S. has a long

and very violent labor history

as compared with

comparable societies...

But the labor movement

had been very strong.

By the 1920s, in a period

not unlike today, it was

virtually crushed.

A truck drivers strike

was climaxed by severe riots

with many casualties.

Open warfare rages through

the streets of the

city as 3,000 union pickets

battle 700 police.

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