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1210Lowdown_FINAL.qxd:1210Lowdown 30/9/12 7:09 PM Page 1 VOLUME14 NUMBER 10 OCTOBER 2012 The The moral purpose of a man’s ❛❛life is the achievement of his own happiness… Any help he gives [to the welfare of others] is an exception, not a rule; an act of generosity, not a moral duty.❜❜ ——RUSSIAN-AMERICAN NOVELIST AYN RAND, goddess of today’s far-right pols seeking “philosophical” cover for their agenda of selfishness and miserliness. WRITTEN BY JIM HIGHTOWER PUBLISHER, PHILLIP FRAZER Bootstrap BS, Grover Norquistian nonsense, and plutocratic pouts of corporate elites The Big Three Myths fabricated by right wing fabulists to frame America’s elections DURING THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS, a mess of plutocratic The corporate and moneyed elites (forgive a bit of redundancy myths has been growing like kudzu across our political land- there) must be freed from tax and regulatory burdens that impede scape. This aggressive ideological vine has crept from place to their entrepreneurial creativity; place, incrementally covering over the vital spirit of egalitarian- The First Amendment must be interpreted to mean that unlimited political spending of corporate cash equals free speech; and ism that defines us as Americans and unites us as a society. Deliberately planted and nurtured by various Koch-funded front Etcetera, ad nauseam, ad infinitum. groups, these invasive myths (let’s dare call them lies) have been The whopperites are trying to pass this stuff off as some sort of deep political “philosophy” rather than confessing that it is what it spread by assorted Ayn-Randian acolytes, advancing the anti- is: Shameless kleptocratic doggerel intended to disempower the democratic notion that corporations and the wealthy are America’s many and enthrone the privileged few. So, this issue of the Lowdown most able, virtuous, and deserving citizens. takes them on, debunking The Big Three Major Fables of Plutocratic Theology they’ve put out to try and frame the 2012 election. ow, with the presidency and total control of Congress up for grabs in this election year, the Koch-Randians are going THE “SELF-MADE” MYTH: The greatness of America, goes all out to entangle the national policy debate in their lies, the this one, is derived from the individual efforts of the strong. essence of which comes down to this overriding whopper: 1These are the “producers”—the worthy ones who make it on Government is an immoral, blundering menace that must their own, never needing a helping hand or accepting any kind of be shoved aside so a virtuous society run by gifted, self- freebie (certainly not from the government). The claim is that these N reliant “strivers” and efficient corporations can flourish. admirable achievers often rise from the humblest of origins to create If you swallow that bucket of a business and attain personal success, over- Kool-Aid, you might then be able to coming such hurdles as union organizers, accept all sorts of the right-wing’s government meddlers, and other “parasites.” current phantasmagoric policy We’re talking bootstraps, baby: Horatio Alger proposals: and Ayn Rand’s fictional supermen, the industrial Medicare must be replaced barons of the late 1800’s, today’s up-from-nothing high- with a privatized “VoucherCare” (or, tech billionaires, and such more accurately, “WeDon’tCare”) royal families of the corpo- medical system; rate plutocracy as Coors, DeVos (Amway), Koch, and the Waltons All poverty programs must of Walmart. In addition, all be slashed or eliminated to across the country, legions of “free”poor people from a crip- lesser lights shine with self-lit pling and shameful depend- luminosity, proclaiming their self- ency on public aid; made success, ranging from the The government framework richest landowner in town to—well, that sustains a middle class maybe—to your own worthless Rush- (from student loans to Social Limbaugh-worshiping brother-in-law, who, Security) must be turned over to Wall Street so bizarrely, sits in his well-worn La-Z-Boy, prat- individuals are free to “manage” their own fates tling on about how, by God, he got where he is through marketplace choice; without any government help. Such worker protections as collective bargain- This assertion of individual exceptionalism is said to be ing, minimum wage, and unemployment payments must be grounded in the 19th century writings of the eminent French political stripped away to remove artificial impediments to the “natural thinker and historian, Alexis de Tocqueville. Having traveled exten- rationality” of free market forces; sively in our country, de Tocqueville offered his assessment of the 1210Lowdown_FINAL.qxd:1210Lowdown 30/9/12 7:09 PM Page 2 TELL US WHAT’S 2 Hightower| Lowdown October 2012 IN OUR FOOD American character, and today’s hyper-individualists hail him for proclaiming that “self-interest” is the driv- to hell with everyone else. In de Tocqueville’s assess- FOOD FIGHT, EVERYONE— ing ethic and special genius of our society. See, exult ment, Americans have an ingrained sense that we’re let’s all join the fun! the true believers, even a Frenchman can see that all in this together—a characteristic that tempers the Actually, this is neither fun greed has been a social good, for it unleashes the animalistic, gorge-yourself-and-go impulse. This is not nor a fight that America’s entrepreneurial creativity of the righteous rich. derived from altruism, he noted, but a pragmatic real- consumers and organic food In July, Barack Obama stumbled into the unforgiv- ization that one’s well-being in a democratic society producers wanted to be in, ing brambles of this myth when he said in a Virginia is inextricably tied to everyone else’s well-being. In but we’ve been forced into speech: “If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build short, we need each other. That understanding is the it by a cabal of corporate that. Somebody else made that happen.” Instantly, essence of America’s uniting ethic of the common profiteers and their govern- the Republican echo chamber went KABLOOIE! good—a concept so essential to who we are that the ment enablers. For 20 years, “Obama Insults Small Business Owners,” screeched Founders engraved it right at the top of the Constitution, they’ve plotted to hurl fields- Fox TV, and Lord Limbaugh, with his usual sophisti- declaring that a core purpose of this nation’s historic full of “spoiled” food at us, cated analysis, snarled that the comment shows experiment in self-government is to “promote the including corn, soybeans, that Obama “hates this country.” general welfare.” cereals, bread, and snacks. But wait—the whopper-tellers were intentionally THE “GOVERNMENT CAN’T DO ANYTHING” These foods have been editing Obama to pervert his meaning. Here’s his MYTH. This hoary canard has been around since spoiled by corporate geneti- comment in context: “If you were successful, some- 2there’s been a right wing, but it’s been pushed cists rejiggering the very body along the line gave you some help… Somebody relentlessly since the Reagan era by such hawkers of DNA of our foodstuffs. helped to create this unbelievable American system corporate-think as the Cato Institute (founded in 1974 that we have that allowed you to thrive. by Charles Koch). This is the founding myth of today’s They’ve taken genes from Somebody Grover-Norquistian nonsense that we must privatize other species (including invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a busi- animals and bacteria) and ness—you didn’t build that.” every public function and reduce government to a spliced them into nature’s It was the roads and bridges that Obama was refer- mere appendage of the corporate order. The claim own healthy products. The ring to, not the business! He even went on to say is that corporate executives are necessarily efficient, industry says that these explicitly, “We succeed because of our individual cost-effective managers who must be responsive to consumer (i.e., public) wants and needs, so better genetically engineered initiative, but also because we do things together.” that they should run things than the bloated, self- crops increase yields and Despite the storyline of today’s libertarian fabulists, serving, out-of-control, do-nothing bureaucracies make food cheaper, but in even those stern, 19th century titans of American of government. fact GE yields are down and industry—Astor, Carnegie, Duke, Gould, Mellon, Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, et al.—were hardly Where to start? How about with Mitt Romney’s grocery prices are up. The paragons of go-it-alone individualism. Far from hating rebuke of the president’s “you didn’t build that” state- real purpose of DNA engi- government, these self-proclaimed “free enterpris- ment? “To say that,” snorted the vulture capitalist neering has s imply been to ers” were extremely enterprising at freeing up gov- from Bain, “is to say that Steve Jobs didn’t build Apple create plants that absorb ernment power and resources to help them amalga- Computer.” No, Mr. Mitt, it’s to say that Jobs couldn’t more pesticides. mate their private empires and personal fortunes. have built it without the helping hand of the so-called And excuse me, but if They brazenly bought public officials, laws, regula- do-nothing government. The internet, for one monu- these tampered products tions, and court rulings to get subsidies, land, permits, mental example, was invented in a government labo- are so great, you’d expect rights-of-way, contracts, monopolies, police actions, ratory and developed with federal funding, and the big food manufacturers to and other major government benefits. computer itself was the product of public financing, not of corporate investment.