Will we vote for corporate capitalism or the common good?

As a business communicator, I admire a good marketing plan. For example, when Nike’s “Just Do It” campaign developed their ad targeting women, I was impressed. “I believe there’s an athlete in everyone,” one woman says in the signature ad. It helped move me off the couch to start jogging; I still buy Nike shoes. And it’s helped Nike weather troubles with athlete endorsements and factory conditions in Asia.

Since I’ve written a few marketing plans myself throughout the years, I’ve learned to spot them in action. And I’d been saying, “There has to be a marketing plan for conservative political interests somewhere,” when I stumbled across an article in August 2011, acknowledging the 40th anniversary of something called the Powell Memorandum. (Read the document here: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/campaigns/global-warming-and-energy/polluterwatch/The-Lewis-Powell-Memo/) This memorandum, penned by former Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell, is the blueprint for American political history during the last 40 years.

Written in 1971 when Powell was working as an attorney and sitting on the board of 11 corporations, it outlines for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce an extensive list of tactics to protect the interests of America’s largest corporate citizens. Paranoid about liberal activism in the 60s, Powell believed corporate America should exercise much more political influence. His tactics include shaping the political environment within higher and secondary education via: staff appointments, speakers, textbooks and curriculum, especially in graduate schools of business.

With regard to the wider public, Powell suggested developing think tanks to craft research and messages designed to favor big business. To disseminate them, television, radio, print publications, books, journals and paid advertisements should all be used. Consequently, today most major media is owned by corporate conglomerates.

Finally, Powell suggested corporate powers turn their efforts to the political and judicial arenas. The key to this strategy was money – to both parties, with efforts targeted to wean Democrats from union influence. Yet over time, more dollars began to flow to conservative political challengers.

In a web article about the Powell Memorandum, Bill Moyers and Company posted an excerpt from Jacob S. Hacker and Paul Pierson’s book Winner-Take-All Politics: (http://billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a-call-to-arms-for-corporations/2/) “By the end of the 1978 campaign, more than 60 percent of corporate contributions had gone to Republicans, both GOP challengers and Republican incumbents fighting off liberal Democrats. A new era of campaign finance was born: Not only were corporate contributions growing ever bigger, Democrats had to work harder for them. More and more, to receive business largesse, they had to do more than hold power; they had to wield it in ways that business liked.”

The height of this plan’s success was the current Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, unleashing loads of corporate cash into the current election.

Great American businessmen have long understood that a business cannot survive without customers. Henry Ford made sure to pay his employees a wage large enough to allow them to buy the cars they helped make.

But unfortunately, current corporate leaders (And I’m talking about large international companies, not small Main Street businesses.) have lost sight of their place in the American community, squeezing larger profits via staff cuts, government subsidies, tax breaks and public contracts without giving back via taxes and living wages to employees. Their leaders do not acknowledge responsibility for the common good.

As Hacker and Pierson’s book points out, this corporate agenda provides money to both political parties. Yet the majority now flows to Republican politicians, represented at the top by Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

So no matter what you may feel about President Barack Obama, if you’re part of the 99 percent, following the money means you have a better shot with the incumbent. That’s your choice – corporate capitalists or the common good.

Will we make an informed choice?

Ok, I admit it. I’m ticked off about the debate. Why?

Not because media pundits, who live for a good figurative shoving match, gave Round 1 to Romney. I’m angry because I see an unengaged citizenry refusing to acknowledge this stuff matters.

What set me off? Facebook.

Yeah, I know it’s a social networking site. People routinely post stupid things. I annoy people by sharing articles with an alternative perspective on politics and religion. I’m well aware most are probably ignored. But as one of my college professors used to say, “Even a blind pig occasionally finds an acorn.” Sometimes I get a person’s attention.

But I blew a gasket the morning after the debate because too many intelligent people I know refused to watch. Really, you’re going to opt for Honey Boo Boo?

Is it any wonder the American people get nothing from their representation in government?

The whole idea of a democracy is citizen involvement, but when citizens refuse to do their work, they have no right to complain about the product. Americans only want to show up every four years for the main event – the election of the President. And then the best we bring is some vague impression of who is “likeable” or “presidential.”

If we know anything about policy or the issues, it probably comes from an ad – TV or direct mail, like the one I received from the Romney campaign recently.

In the past year, both my husband and I were inexplicably registered as Republicans. The only response I got when I marched into the auditor’s office to correct that error was a shrug and a “wishful thinking, I guess.”

As a consequence, we now get Obama and Romney campaign literature. I tend to toss both, preferring to use my own research to evaluate records. However, this flier caught my attention, first, with a large photo of president Obama.

Next came the headline: “President Obama will continue to grow government. More runaway spending. High taxes. More jobs lost.”

That stopped me before I made it to the trash can because these claims are wrong.

First, let’s take the claim President Obama has grown government with runaway spending.

As Factcheck.org notes: “The truth is that the nearly 18 percent spike in spending in fiscal 2009 — for which the president is sometimes blamed entirely — was mostly due to appropriations and policies that were already in place when Obama took office.” http://www.factcheck.org/2012/06/obamas-spending-inferno-or-not/ Yet this article goes on to explain at length the complexity of government spending and our current situation, making it clear no one party is to blame.

Second, will taxes increase under President Obama? Well, as this article on Think Progress notes, income taxes under Obama are at an historic low. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/11/514384/taxes-30-year-low-obama/?mobile=nc%C2%A0 Factcheck backs that up. http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/tax-facts-lowest-rates-in-30-years/

And in the future? Well, the Romney flier didn’t specify which taxes, but I’d guess they are including the cost of the Affordable Care Act. Again, I’ll defer to Factcheck: http://www.factcheck.org/2012/07/biggest-tax-increase-in-history/. Brooks Jackson writes: “In short, there are too many moving parts in both the ACA and in earlier tax laws to make simple comparisons that are valid for all purposes. . . . Despite all these uncertainties, one thing is abundantly clear. There’s no way the ACA’s tax and other revenue increases come close to being the largest in U.S. history.”

Finally, declaring President Obama will lose more jobs denies reality given reports this month that indicate he may finish this term with net job creation, as this Bloomberg article outlines: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-27/payroll-revisions-signal-economy-has-created-jobs-under-obama.html The Romney ad’s claim also makes no reference to the horrible economic conditions President Obama inherited. To deny his efforts to prevent greater economic turmoil is to deny reality.

But then acknowledging reality would mean admitting policies under the previous Republican administration led to the current economic uncertainty.

As Stephen Colbert once said, “It is a well known fact that reality has a liberal bias.” Unfortunately too many citizens pretend what they do won’t make any difference, so they can watch crappy reality TV without guilt.

If you plan to vote, do your homework.

Do we want government run like a business?

One of my nephews posted a clip on Facebook last week from The Daily Show’s coverage of the Republican National Convention. In it, the Daily Show decides to streamline America, running government like a business.

Hilarity ensues as Daily Show correspondents confront delegates from states receiving the most federal budget assistance while paying the least in federal taxes. As they tell a delegate from Mississippi who opines the market should decide if an organization succeeds or fails: “Whoa, dead last in per capita income — you are costing the government $20 billion!”

“Suddenly, when actually faced with the numbers, running America like a business didn’t seem like a good idea after all,” deadpans Daily Show correspondent John Oliver. “And it was every state for themselves.”

The final scene pitted Minnesota, Wyoming and Mississippi against each other to “keep their job,” with one of their delegates making the pitch to stay in the union.

This comic theater asks a serious question. Do we really want our government run like a business? Because the goal of business is profit.

As an example, let’s take schools. Our schools were developed to educate our children. Is this goal compatible with making a profit?

I know as a former school board member that schools make business decisions: from which vendor to purchase milk, bread and gasoline or how to cost-effectively air condition a building. But the first and foremost concern is providing the best education for kids. Do we really want to sacrifice that goal for profit?

Do we want to hire the least expensive teachers i.e. the least experienced, less educated teachers and perhaps fewer of them – to ensure a profit? Because that is the choice we’ll make if we run a school like a business.

And that’s one of the problems with some of the new privatized educational models being pushed, such as online schools. In states like Iowa, where school is financed on a per pupil basis, online schools will receive the per pupil amount. But any money they save by cutting expenses will go directly toward their profit. See how that works? From taxpayers’ pockets to private profit – instead of to educating students.

Results for online schooling to date are mixed at best, certainly indicating a need for at least more research. In an article last December titled “Online Schools Score Better on Wall Street than in Classrooms,” Stephanie Saul of the New York Times wrote of the leading online education company, K12 Inc.: “Instead, a portrait emerges of a company that tries to squeeze profits from public school dollars by raising enrollment, increasing teacher workload and lowering standards.”

I’d note the same business model is used plenty of other places. Again, google “Iraq no-bid contracts.” Google Enron. Or, MF Global. Heck, read George W. Bush’s resume, and check out Matt Taibbi’s latest Rolling Stone article titled: “Greed and Debt: The True Story of Mitt Romney and Bain Capital.”

In fact, the last few years have given us one example after another of businesses run into the ground, yet we’re still insisting business operates better than government.

Americans have lost sight of the social compact we make to act in community for the benefit of all – or at least as many as possible. Certain things are too important to be driven by something as mercenary as money.