the OTHER paper
                                                                  Box 11376
                                                           Eugene, OR 97440
                                                                April, 1996

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                    Corporate colonization of our minds

                            by Wanda Ballentine

          "American society is disproportionately shaped by the
          outlooks, interests and aims of the business community,
          especially that of 'big business.' The sheer power of
          corporate capital is extraordinary. This power makes it
          difficult even to imagine what a free and democratic
          society would look like if there were public
          accountability mechanisms that alleviated the vast
          disparities in resources, wealth and income, owing in
          part to the vast influence of big business on the U.S.
          government and its legal institutions."

                  -- Cornell West, "The Role of Law in Progressive
                                                    Politics," in
                The Politics of Law 468, 468-469 (David Kairys ed.
                                                           1990).

     This corporate power has emasculated American liberalism, claims
     Ward Morehouse, co-founder of the Program on Corporations, Law and
     Democracy (POCLAD). It has transformed America into a profoundly
     conservative culture which worships at the altar of "economic
     growth." Anyone questioning this sacred cow, which is -- by any
     definition -- unsustainable, is marginalized.

     Partner Richard Grossman asserts that our language, and thus our
     way of thinking, has been "corporatized" by corporate hirelings
     trained to use language as "a manipulative, diversionary,
     coercive, and distortive mechanism." We act like the colonized
     people described by anthropologists, he said: "It's the best we
     can get; don't rock the boat; this is the way it's always been."
     This has created what Morehouse calls the "TINA" phenomenon -- the
     belief that "There Is No Alternative." It is this idea, the
     internal co-option by the corporate vision, that is the greatest
     obstacle to confronting corporate power, not the power itself. The
     challenge is to examine our relationship with corporations, to
     determine how we have been affected, and to free ourselves. What
     would it be like to be a free, self-governing people? What do we
     really want in a society?

     Grossman suggests we start by expunging the following phrases from
     our vocabularies:

        * "Corporate responsibility" -- an irrelevant term, says
          Grossman. A corporation should either do what it is chartered
          to do or be dissolved. It is not chartered to "bastardize the
          democratic process, shape public debate, manipulate our
          language and values, or pit communities against one another."

        * "Corporate accountability" -- Elected officials are,
          theoretically, accountable to the people who elect them --
          but to whom are corporations accountable? Corporations are
          chartered by states, which represent the sovereign people;
          technically they are accountable to "we, the people." "We
          should not have to fight a revolution to dissolve a
          corporation that has exceeded its authority and caused
          massive harm," said Grossman. We fought that revolution in
          1776. But we have forgotten who we are, and it may take
          another revolution to restore our rights.

        * "Corporate citizen" -- A corporation is a legal fiction with
          neither the responsibilities nor the rights of a citizen.

        * "Corporate America" -- America represents a lot of things,
          and while there has always been a gap between ideals and
          reality, the ideals hold. We are a sovereign people governed
          by the constitution. America is the people, not corporations.

     Self-governance/Corporate anthropologist, Jane Ann Morris, also
     with POCLAD, provided an overview of what self-governance entails
     and how this area has been colonized by corporations.

        * Access to unprejudiced information.
          Corporations control research centers, universities and think
          tanks, influencing what research will be done and how. They
          provide "free" information to schools. The new term
          "infomercial" recognizes that advertising is now being
          promoted as "information." Corporations control information
          about their operations. At one time, states, stockholders,
          and sometimes even the public had access to corporate books.
          It rarely occurs to anyone to ask these days. (A shareholder
          in a dairy cooperative tried a few years ago, going all the
          way to the Supreme Court -- she lost. And that was a
          cooperative.)

        * Ability to collect opinions about information.
          Corporations create and manipulate opinion though advertising
          and the influence that gives them on programming. They take
          control of public debates by defining not only their own
          position, but that of their opponents, marginalizing the
          latter by defining it as ridiculous.

        * A forum wherein people deliberate issues and make decisions
          without undue influence.
          Corporations take control of this arena as well via the
          tremendous influence they exert on the legislative process
          via PACs. They not only lean on legislators, they help write
          the laws. When things don't go their way, they withdraw
          support and can use a PR blitz against the offending
          legislator. (Former Sen. Udall, when blitzed by the mining
          industry for trying to reform the 1872 Mining Act, remarked,
          "I didn't see the light, but I sure did feel the heat.")

        * Implementation.
          This last stage is the one arena left to the people -- in
          regulatory battles and the courts. Corporate power has
          sometimes been halted or restricted through these means -- at
          great cost of time, money and energy, of which they have a
          great deal more than their opponents. But even that
          effectiveness is being eroded by corporate influence on the
          regulatory agencies and the push to deregulation. They want
          it all. Morris discovered this in a battle over a nuclear
          plant in Texas, which she documents in her book, Not in
          Anybody's Backyard.

     "The real learning," she said, "occurred after the book was
     written." She had chronicled what she thought was a unique event
     -- they had organized, followed the rules, done the research,
     testified (in three-minute testimonies on small points). Right
     clearly appeared to be on their side - and they lost. Instead, she
     found her story duplicated many times in many places across the
     country. The purpose of regulatory agencies is to determine how to
     grant a permit to build or mine or cut, not how to prevent it. The
     battles of Warner Creek, the Umpqua and Hyundai stand in
     testimony.

     Corporate spokespeople speak out of both sides of their mouths
     regarding regulatory protections -- on the one hand, they assure
     us the laws are "more than sufficient" to protect workers,
     consumers and the environment; on the other, they rail at the
     restrictions and work constantly to undermine them. Morehouse
     reported that when a huge Formosa Plastics Corporation PVC
     facility was dumping highly toxic wastes into the Gulf of Mexico,
     and he contacted the EPA to demand action, officials admitted they
     knew what was happening, but informed him that "enforcement is
     discretionary."

From the OTHER paper, April, 1996, pg. 7, POB 11376, Eugene, OR 97440.
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