The Century of the Self

"This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." - Adam Curtis

I don't know how good and accurate Adam Curtis is, but his work is powerful and fascinating. I always learn a great deal from his videos. He's certainly done a lot of work with the BBC. I'll set up links to more of is material.




Part 1

Part2

Part3

Part4

The Corporation as a Person

We all know that a corporation is legally a person. That's how they can contribute to political campaigns and have "freedom of speech" and all the rights (and more) than we do as people. Indeed, this is one of the most egregious determinations in American history. Were corporations not "people" much would be different. With this decision, hugely powerful and rich corporations can contribute to campaigns, and can finance independent ad campaigns for political purposes using massive corporate resources. Have a look at this:

www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/664

Interesting stuff. Really.

Dictatorship

There has been, recently, a growing chorus of doubt and concern about whether Hugo Chavez was making himself into a dictator. He was proposing eliminating term limits for the president, granting himself extraordinary powers to legislate and introducing socialist and cooperative property forms among other things. All of this was worrisome save one fact: he was proposing to accomplish this via a referendum. Indeed, he lost the referendum and has accepted that fact, though he reserves an interest in continuing to pursue those objectives in the future. On reflection, this is not dictatorship. Rather, it's democracy.

Dictatorship would be where the leader simply declares the law with no concern for legislative process. Alternatively, the leader might accept legislation and then issue statements, written and verbal, describing to what extent and in what way he would enforce the legislation. Often dictators shun elections. In other instances they accept the elective process, but subvert it. This can be done by denying likely opponents the ability to vote, or by falsifying the vote or by using other authorities, such as the judicial, to declare an election for the dictator when, in fact, he has lost.

Another sign of dictatorship is the lack of Habeus Corpus, arrest without charges, indefinite detention without legal representation or trial and the use of torture. There is no indication that Hugo Chavez does any of these things.