How about the history of the evolution of the corporation, From East India Company to today, and the opposition to said evolution from the founding fathers to the progressive movement to today.

As in, "why didn't I think of that." It is right at the heart of the entire political question, and the heart of our corporate culture. And many people don't understand what they are, how they function, or where they came from. Bingo.

Here's a quick and dirty beginning.

[Montage of various corporate signs, logo's, etc.]

Voice over: They're everywhere. You can scarcely get through a single day without dealing with one. We work for them, buy our cars, gas, electricity, and even our groceries from them. They are business corporations, and life may seem unimaginable without them.

But what are they, where did they come from. Most importantly, how powerful are they, and who is behind them?

Something like that.

Now, next is to decide a focus. We will want the overall history, right back to the East India Company. But what do we want to focus in on? Recent history? The investors behind them? The way they function? Their social, cultural and/or political impact. Which of those or all of them?

Good to see you back in action, Pen. And BTW, I'm going to edit this to put it on the front page, and create a public group. But I'm waiting to see who's in, and to get a solid idea working. Then we'll invite other participants, once we know what we're doing. Or at least that's what I think we should do.

that from day one our founding fathers fought against them. I think we should look into WHY they fought against them, how the fight was lost, how our fight then reemerged as the progressive movement, etc.

on the East India Company. In 1770 there was a famine in Bengal that wiped out a third of the population, over 10 million people died. People resorted to cannibalism, it was so bad. The reason?

East India Company policies.

From Wiki:

the first remit of the Company was to maximise its profits and with taxation rights the profits to be obtained from Bengal came from land tax as well as trade tariffs. As lands came under company control, the land tax was typically raised by 3 to 4 times what it had been – from 10-15% up to 50% of the value of the agricultural produce. In the first years of the rule of the British East India Company, the total land tax income was doubled and most of this revenue flowed out of the country. As the famine approached its height, in April of 1770, the Company announced that land tax for the following year was to be increased by 10%.
The company is also criticised for forbidding the "hoarding" of rice. This prevented traders and dealers from laying in reserves that in other times would have tided the population over lean periods, as well as ordering the farmers to plant indigo instead of rice.

By the time of the famine, monopolies in grain trading had been established by the Company and its agents. The Company had no plan for dealing with the grain shortage, and actions were only taken insofar as they affected the mercantile and trading classes.

So right from the start it was all about profits, not people.

Notice that the model for early British Imperialism -- private business exploiting the locals, backed up by the government's military -- is the same model US corporate imperialism has followed. That would be an obvious parallel to point out.

Meanwhile, I'm interested in this connection between early British corporations and our own revolution -- which I am betting followed the same pattern as that in Bengal in 1770. That parallel would "seal the deal" in terms of clarifying the history -- an open the way for clarifying subsequent history.

Saw your comments at Malloy's forum. Good job.

the Bengal famine hurt the EIC financially. Short sighted greed leading to long term consequences. Another subtheme there I dare say. At this same time a fellow named John Hancock, yes, THAT John Hancock, was smuggling tea into the Americas. He and a few other smugglers we've all heard of, were able to undercut the cost of tea sold by the EIC.

Desperate for cash to offset their losses due to the Bengal fiasco, the EIC lobbied - the EIC had a very powerful lobby in Parliament back then, another parallel to today's situation we should definately make clear - the English Parliament to not tax them on the sale of tea. Favoritism and a clear tilting of the board so as to make competition with the EIC impossible. This not only destroyed any businesses in competition with the EIC, it made it so even Hancock and the other colonial smugglers couldn't compete, thus giving the EIC a complete monopoly on tea.

Samuel Adams, a great orator of his day, got the people of his town riled up and they refused to let the EIC's ships unload tea in their fair city. When the Governor blockaded the port and ruled that no ship may leave until it had unloaded, the people of the city went in one night and unloaded the tea themselves. You may have heard of the event.

It was called the Boston Tea Party and was the catalyst for the American Revolution. Seems we Americans never really liked the East India Company back in the day.

The corporation is an excellent topic, but its been done, and done well. You can see the entire documentary on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=FA50FBC214A6CE87

It can be looked at from another angle of course, in which case the documentary could be a good source of info.

A comparison between fascism and the US under Bush is what I would recommend, however, and for three reasons:

1. It is an emotionally charged topic; if by the end of the doc the viewer is convinced that he or she is on the brink of going to through fascism, the viewer would be much more inclined to do something about it. It has propaganda value that a more abstract topic does not.

2. Gathering visual material for the doc would be easy because the topic is historical and well documented.

3. There exists a concise ten-point comparison between the fascist MO and what has been happening in the US. It was written by Naomi Wolf (not Klein) as a Guardian article and expanded into a book. The article is short and to the point with plenty of examples. Check it out:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html#article_continue

All we'd have to do is pick several of these comparisons, find images and video for them, write a narrative, and we're done.

A few things:

--Since we don't have to, we should leave Democrat/Republican out of it.

--Our target is the folks, Middle America.

--the video should pit the viewer against the bad guys, the fascists. The message is: America is turning fascist right under your nose; better stop it now before the transformation is complete.

--we should thrown in a good measure of emotionally charged founding fathers quotes.

--keep it simple stupid

--avoid stuff that might turn the folks off, like, for example, appearing to invoke sympathy for people they perceive to be terrorists. Talking about a gitmo inmate during a scene comparing it to the gulag might fall into this trap, for example. We don't need to take on all of their prejudices, just one: the one about America being a free, democratic state under Bush. The rest we should maneuver around.

--the documentary's makers are patriots, talking to other patriots, the viewers. it's a message from patriots to patriots in a time of crisis. this message should be implicit, an assumption that is not stated.

--content wise, we should throw in a few links between corporations and fascist takeovers. ultimately, the puppet masters are the corporations. we should also tell them that every time they give their money to them, they are helping the fascist takeover.

anyway, i've said enough for now. what do you think?

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

BTW, Welcome back Pen.

It's good to see you.

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

The Corporation was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. Better than F-911. But it didn't address the history of the corporation. Its main thrust was "okay, so if a corporation is a human being, then what is its psychological profile?" Then using standard techniques, goes on to prove the corporation is a sociopath. That's not quite the same thing I was thinking we should go for. I think we should draw on what that doc did and go a bit further. I don't think people realize that corporations have been harmful, fascist and a threat to humanity from Day One. The history of the corporation is one of destruction, exploitation and murder for 407 years.

Another thing the doc The Corporation didn't delve into, something CG just touched upon above, is the question "Who are they?" With the incredible media consolidation going on, and with larger corporations gobbling up smaller ones, we can easily show the public that a very small group of people in fact own almost ALL corporations on earth. That in fact, nothing has changed from the days when a handful of British controlled the EIC and today when a relatively small group of wealthy families MONOPOLIZE the entire corporate system that pervades all facets of our lives - to the same horrendous effect.

I like your idea also. Perhaps we should carry out research on both concurrently and at some point decide which way to go because I see a lot of overlapping research being done in either case, fascism, as Mussolini said, being better termed corporatism. I would think the role of the corporation as the core and basis of fascism, without which fascism cannot exist is a pretty important point.

In either event, I'm already begun on a book which requires me to research the history of corporations in order to create the storys backdrop so when I saw CG's idea, it dovetailed perfectly with what I'm already intending to do. So I'll be researching the history of corporations quite thouroughly in any event. Whichever way we decide to go on the documentary, I'll be happy to dig up the facts we need.

I really like the history of the corporation idea.

Too bad it has been done, although we could still do our own, but I'd have to watch that one to see how ours might differ.

Initially I wanted and still want to ultimately do a documentary on Jeffersonian Democracy(or whatever name we call it).

This may be partly because it ties very much into a more theologically based idea I have called simply "The Kingdom". The differ in that one is more political and the other more theological. Otherwise they are very much the same.

But there is another reason I like the idea, and that is that it can have multiple purposes.

1. It can define us as a group and be a sort of video-manefesto (Videofesto?). It lets others know what we stand for, not just what we stand against.

2. It can educate the average citizen on the core concepts and orgins of the fundamental questions of politics and forms of governments.

3. It can also address the corporation--one reason why doing the history of the corporation as a documentary first appealed to me(to get some research and experience out of the way.

4. It also pulls the patriotic heart-strings and suggests a new radical way of doing things that it turns out may be radical, but isn't new, and more importantly is not un-American.

5. It hasn't been done as far as I know, specifically or even in form.

Sounds interesting. Can you elaborate a bit more?

1. The corporation.

2. Incipient fascism. This turns out to be a function of corporate culture.

3. Jeffersonian Democracy -- which of course is the solution.

Of course, they are all related -- and indeed, they are each central themes to what we are talking about. In other words, they are all themes we want to incorporate -- leaving the question of what the central topic ought to be. That central topic should pull in all of these themes. Or perhaps the way to think about it is what story brings in all of these themes.

Here is how I think about it, starting with "incipient fascism." The problem with that theme is that your average middle class American doesn't believe it. It sounds like a "conspiracy theory." But there is a reason why your average American is mostly oblivious to this incipient fascism. He ALREADY lives in an authoritarian society -- starting with where he works. The workplace is highly regimented and hierarchical, and he became acclimated to that regimented environment in school. So the authoritarianism that is expanding around him is largely invisible, because he's already used to it.

This suggests a storyline. The story isn't about incipient fascism, it's the more interesting story of how our society became so oblivious to it. That story is the history of the culture of corporate capitalism. Not the history of the corporation, but of the impact of the corporation on American culture -- the corporation being an inherently authoritarian institution.

The solution is to democratize that corporate culture. The model is Jefferonian democracy -- as applied to an industrial society. So the storyline looks something like this.

The plot is a flashback.

1. Opening environment: The elements of a fascist takeover from the Guardian article -- with the added observation that most folks don't believe it.

2. Flashback to the American revolution and/or early Jeffersonian America. Specifically, asking "would Jefferson, Adams, Washington, or Tom Paine have put up with this?" Notice that the question isn't what the law allowed, or what the institutions were, it's how PEOPLE were -- the culture of early America. How did we get from there to here.

3. Early capitalism -- decisions about industrialization, railroads, etc. Cultural decisions about public schools. Cultural evolution of things like advertising, manufacturing, financial markets, big city political machines culminating in the McKinley era.

4. Reform of capitalism -- which ameliorates the problems, while preserving the basic culture. The frame is that "welfare state bureaucracy" was a later development. Capitalist society was already bureaucratized.

5. The postwar "national security state."

6. The collapse of the system -- and the authoritarian response.

7. The solution.

Notice that the story is "the corruption of American democracy" -- which is not framed as a recent story, but as a process that has been going on for 150 years. Now you might make most of the story some sub part of one of the periods -- probably the most recent threatened collapse. But you would need the "backstory" all the way back to the beginning.

In fact, here is another starting place. The sixties counterculture. It isn't a "counter culture," it's the original culture. Our incipient fascism has been a reaction to that "counterculture" -- which actually suggests a deeper problem with the corporate culture. That's something people can relate to. They know what the "counterculture" is -- and they know how corporate conservatives reacted to it. You can take a few simple examples -- smoking weed comes to mind -- and use that as your point of departure.

All of that said, let's keep our eye on our objective. We might come up with a storyline that is bigger than our present capability. That's okay. This is a demonstration project -- a prototype designed to show our chops, and get backing for a project.

In that case, I would lean toward Cowlick's "incipient fascism" primarily because it's easy to do.

Elaboration

I just finished watching that documentary "The Corporation" on YouTube. It is very good and I would like to watch the DVD which is claimed to have "333% more" material.

First, although, clearly politically slanted against corporations, the film is in general a profile peice on the modern multinational. The actual history and origin of the modern corporation is only about 5-10 minutes near the beginning of the film with a few later pieces adding to it indirectly. That is, we could easily produce a more thorough piece on corporate history if we chose. Actually, we could focus on any one characteristic of corporations and be fine, because as I said it is general overall film about corporations.

The film is also a different style documentary than I had in mind we would be producing, regardless of our topic. That is, that our style would be primarily still-images with voice overs-minimum production cost. The style I picture is more of a Ken Burns ("The War" on PBS) style documentary, mixed with the style of "The Corporation".

A hybrid between conceptual style and presentation.

In short, the corporation idea is still on the table.

In response to Pen, I feel--and watching "The Corporation" only affirms this--that most political documentaries diagnose a problem or situation but typically are very careful(too careful) of not giving a prognosis or of actually standing firmly behind an actual idea. I understand the reasons for this. But we are not bound by those reasons.

In anything we do, I believe we should not shy away from the fact that the film is a means of expression of who we are, regardless of the topic, and not simply informational or a investment for capital return. It should serve the purpose of promoting an ideology and should not deviate from that purpose. In other words, we are philosophers making a film, not filmmakers doing philosophy.

Jeffersonian Democracy should be thought of as our core identity. It is what we believe in. It is not just a lost ideal, that can never be achieved. It is an ideal that can be ahieved. But, that achievement is dependent on the education of the individual required to take part in the movement's achievement. It is important to realize that much of this film idea would coincide with us coming together and actually creating and defining our vision in detail while in the process of actually creating the film itself.

For instance, the idea as I have currently conceptualized it would involve defining various concepts such as democracy, capitalism, socialism, but those ideas themselves have no hard and fast agreed upon meanings, which would mean we would have to define them as they relate to our ideology.

As Joe suggested in a podcast a week or so ago, many people don't understand very basic fundamental ideas that form the bulk of their world-views. That is not to mention the history of those ideas. This Documentary would aim to educate the audience as to not only what democracy(for example) is but why it is, the ideas behind it, its origin, and the popular pros and cons. It would differentiate between political, and social democracy. It would contrast democracy with republicanism. It would Contrast Socialism and Communism. And so on.

My ultimate personal aim is to cover the major political and social movements, theories, and governments in order, both chronologically AND conceptually. Keep it as linear as possible, with occasional jumping back and forth in the time line used only for dramatic effect. An example would be, returning to an earlier topic thought to have been fully addressed earlier in the film only to deliver the missing piece of the puzzle as it relates to the current topic.

By showing people what their social structures are and where they come from, we will show them why they are inherently corrupt and what can be done about it, but most importantly we will develop a sense of ownership of society in the individual film viewer. That ownership translates into both control and authority. It is at this time that we remind them how screwed the current political structure is and then suggest to them a different political theory, one that is very radical-by comparison to what pop-corporate-culture tells us is acceptable, but somehow seems familiar. Oh, thats right we briefly touched on it, but largely skimmed over it, much like our popular historical text-book knowledge does. It is Jeffersonian Democracy. It is here that we layout what its history, its theory, and how it applies to us today, and why it is imperative that we adopt it.

It is important to realize that this film is not only or even primarily for the average citizen, even though it's aim is to be easily watched and incorporated by the average individual. This film's topic is also a new way of looking at politics as well as destroying the grossly inaccurate and highly divisive modern concepts of liberal vs conservative, republican vs democrat, faithful vs secular. This is half the reason for the attempt at promoting a "new" yet "familiar" and actually old idea. How many people can quickly associate one of those labels such as liberal or conservative to the idea of "Jeffersonian Democracy"?

People already know things are messed up in their world. While I applaud films such as "The Corporation" for bringing aspects of the problem to the audiences attention, sooner or later, a "new" ideology has to be defined and promoted. The problem with change lies more in rallying people behind a specific solution rather than informing them that something is not working. They are also rightly suspicious of the familiar sounding solutions of free trade and democracy, and freedom and so on.

At some point we need a new party to gain power, A party that Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich can belong too. A party that represents another way of doing things, not just a spin-off flavor of the same old shit. Remember, that voters and non-voters everywhere and regardless of religion, class, or creed agree that politicians are corrupt. Just as the right uses that cynicism to their advantage, we can use it even more.
___

After having read CG's last post and talking with him, I think that he may be on the right path with the corporate culture. I would suggest partly framing the problem at the beginning of the film as being the culture war. We are told a war is waging between left and right. But is it really between left and right?

Keep in mind I still think we need to frame everything in a way that unites us with the the reasonable right. Here we would suggest that the real culture war is between democratic and corporate culture.

I still think we need to spend time defining ideas such as capitalism and democracy and we still need to spend time reviewing history. The only difference I would suggest here for the idea of Corporate Culture and fascism would be that we don't review all of history. We just focus on US history. We would review earlier points in history only to the extent that they directly relate to and are imperative for understanding some later idea in the film.

A side note - the way I have envisioned acknowledging the average person's ignorance without seeming condescending is simply by taking a video camera downtown (Charlotte NC Banking Capital) and asking Bank employees and factory employees on lunch break to define certain terms. Then putting a handful of those in the documentary.

________________________________________________

We need to all be writing down any ideas we have as far as visuals or narration or framing as we think of them as well, so as to not forget them.

For instance, while talking with Joe we had some ideas:

When talking about "Thinking outside of the box..." we describe people being blind to the current culture because they are already used too it like a rat in a maze has no idea about being able to exist in a green field without guys in lab coats hovering over him with walls channeling him toward the food pellets. This would obviously be accompanied by a video of lab techs scribbling on notepads while watching the rat scurry through the maze.

Another idea we had was in describing the need for the need for big government to COUNTER big corporations. Show an animated scale with government on one side and corporations on the other. Below each scale are random people. When one side is trimmed to small the other side collapses on the little faceless people.

While I was thinking to myself, I thought about how the corporation flourishes through a sort of monopolistic premise. Generica. You could take pictures of Burger King, McDonalds, Dairy Queen and ask "where on earth is this?" and the answer could be literally ANYWHERE ON EARTH. This thinking, of course, got me to thinking about the other extreme. That of the government controlling everything. Because you KNOW that's the knee-jerk reactionaries greatest fear. Big Government has the monopoly on everything.

Which is why we discuss the threat of the opposite polarity as clearly and harshly as we do the threat of the current polarity. A government that controls everything is just as bad. Naturally, and everyone must agree on some rational level, the only solution is a BALANCE. What CG calls the mixed social economy. That's when we hit them with what I think is one of the most powerful things CG ever printed, the CIA Factbook and how it shows that EVERY successful nation in the world operates on the premise of a socially mixed economy. The only right wing paradises are all shit holes. The only places where the government controls ALL aspects are shitholes too.

Then we can discuss what things, in a Jeffersonian Democracy, should be allowed and what shouldn't. The limits on enterprise AND government. The ideal balance.

Also, for copyright sakes, I think we should all take this to email. Joe knows mine, just send out an email to everyone who's in on this so we can get each others addy's and start collaborating.

Do we need to go to email?

This post, I believe is currently only visible to the secret underground layer.

Also, we talked about, once deciding on the topic and such among ourselves, allowing anyone to contribute to the project discussion. Is that a bad idea?

Regardless, we will need to set up a site and email group just for this project. I look into setting that up.

We will also need a place online somewhere where we can archive our discussion and ideas while working on the project.

I don't know if the "Book" plugin for Drupal would help us with this or not. I'll have to look into that as well. It was designed for group collaboration for authoring a book, but it might work for this project as well.

We also might want to look into some kind of group mind-mapping software. I use Compendium, but It isn't really yet aimed at the the collaborative efforts of a group yet.

Joe, you refer to "Opening environment: The elements of a fascist takeover from the Guardian article..."

What article where?

Also, what are we asking specifically? I mean, how are we framing our review of US history and how far back in overall history as of now are we planning of going back. For instance, we may already know at some point that we're going to have to touch on pre-industrial agrarian society at some point or not. (That's just an example.)

I suppose what I mean to ask is whether or not the ultimate frame of the entire film is one that suggests primarily that our current corporate culture is unpatriotic, or whether that is simply a supporting or secondary point.

Is it that the culture is immoral, unnatural, inefficient, unsustainable?

That is, what is the primary reason we are opposed to fascism?

I get to it by clicking on Blogs and it comes right up, so I figure it's viewable by anyone, which is great and at this point, it could even go up somewhere to get attention to draw in more collaborators, but the actual work needs to be kept under wraps IMO or else someone else could beat us to it by taking our ideas for themselves.

This is supposed to function damn near like a Yahoo group -- and it used to back when we had version 4.7. But now the email notices don't work right, and I know that some non-members wandered in here when I posted something to the front page. So it's now the not-so-secret, not-very-far-underground lair. So until I get it working right, we might want to move somewhere private -- at least with respect to the substance of the project.

It is a topic that incorporates each of the themes we have identified, namely, incipient fascism, corporate imperialism, and Jeffersonian democracy. But it does something else . . .

It unites left and right, where the right is the libertarian right. Or stated differently, it drives a wedge between the libertarian right and the authoritarian right. [It also drives a wedge between the libertarian and authoritarian left.]

Here is why the libertarian left and right are divided. Their focus is on different tyrants. The libertarian right focuses on government tyranny. The libertarian left focuses on corporate tyranny. But of course, they are all part of the same phenomenon.

Here is another aspect of different focuses. The libertarian right focuses on legal freedom. The libertarian left focuses on the material means of freedom. The libertarian left has a tougher sell, because most people don't consider the means of exercising freedom as a question. Simple example. Consider the slogan for Southwest airlines. "You are now free to move about the country." In say, 1750, I was just as legally free to "move about the country" as I am now -- probably more so what with "no fly" lists etc. But there were no cars, no roads, no railroads, and certainly no airlines. So how meaningful was my freedom to travel from New York to California in 1750. It was about like saying that I am "free" to fly to the moon. "There's no law against it."

Which brings us around to social organization. That is what creates infrastructure within which one's freedom becomes meaningful. Social organization creates railroads, waterways, highways, air traffic control, and the industries that create locomotives, automobiles, and jet aircraft. In fact, there is even more basic social organization, that creates the most basic freedom of all. Consider the 30,000 year old cave paintings in France. Some guy had time to envision that project, and carry it to completion -- which included the freedom from the daily terror of survival to be able to do something uniquely human. He had "time to think" -- and his tribe gave it to him.

And there is the paradox. Society creates the infrastructure for freedom, but it can also be oppressive. The libertarian fears "government" because of its potential to oppress. But he overlooks its potential to liberate. Similarly -- and bizarrely -- he overlooks the potential of private economic concentration to oppress. He focuses on direct oppression -- some guy pointing a gun at you -- but overlooks indirect oppression in the form of "market forces" that force you to work, but deprive you of access to benefits YOU are creating.

All of this brings us around to "Jeffersonian democracy." Social infrastructure is something WE create. We create it for the physical and social infrastructure for freedom. "Democracy" is "self-government." It is the government we create for ourselves to regulate ourselves, and to provide for ourselves. Thus, it is primarily a small scale, local institution. Formal government isn't even strictly necessary -- and indeed, every human being participates in social infrastructure. This is the true "natural law," namely the organic requirements for society to exist at all -- including the natural limitations on society when it becomes oppressive.

As for what happens when social infrastructure becomes oppresive, "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and institute new government."

I could go on, because as you explore the deeper questions concerning the nature of freedom -- including, interestingly, "existential freedom" -- you also find things like "natural revolution." But we've got enough right here.

So if the theme is "freedom," what is the story.

We've lost our freedom, and the question is how.

What we are now facing the incipient loss of our POLITICAL freedom. Ah, but this isn't new. In fact, we've been losing our freedom, little by little, for a hundred and fifty years. We are facing "public sector tyranny" today, but we've been living under "private sector tyranny" for decades.

There's your story. We escaped social oppression from European elites, came to America and created democratic self-government. This included social equality and radical democracy. We created government that serves to promote our freedom. But we wound up creating a new elite. That new elite was hampered by political institutions that prevented it from ruling directly. So it created in indirect means of oppression. It created "privatized tyranny." The institution at the heart of privitized tyranny is the business corporation. Interestingly, that new elite uses the language of "freedom" to justify its tyranny.

The purpose of this documentary is to untangle that rhetorical mess, and "return to fundamental principles."

Notice that there is a critique of both left and right. The right ignores material conditions of freedom. If you have to spend 16 hours a day, seven days a week in order to eat, you're not very free. On the other hand, the left overlooks the purpose of those material conditions. They focus on "feeding the hungry," but that is just the beginning. Doling out "free lunch" to people, but otherwise providing them no access to other infrastructure, might relieve them of having to work constantly to eat, but so what? They don't want to simply eat.

As Shakespeare said, "what is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more." The goal isn't "feeding people" it is "freeing people." Feeding people is part of freeing people, but that is only a part, and a small part at that. What people really want is not to be fed, but the means to feed themselves -- and do a lot more besides.

In other words, the purpose of anything that might go by the name of "socialism" is to create access to the infrastructure of freedom. Any "socialism" that fails to do that, is a "socialism" that has missed the point. Interestingly, our New Deal socialism worked, precisely because it created opportunity to fully participate in the economic, social, and political life of the community. Other forms of socialism -- Soviet style state socialism, for example -- failed to do that, and so were rightly considered to be oppressive.

So there it is. All of the themes in a simple story about the betrayal of American democracy -- which betrayal is presented in a larger and more subtle context that the most recent outrages. The story contains the ideology of "freedom through social organization" -- including the possibility of social organization becoming destructive of freedom. Hence, Jefferson's provision for "when any government becomes destructive of these ends."

I just got the brainstorm. Not "libertarian socialism." Flip the terms. "Social libertarianism." Interchangeable with "Jeffersonian democracy."

"infrastructure of freedom"
great phrase, and it flips alot of the RW notions of what constitutes freedom on it's head. Lots of interesting metaphors to be had there that tie into the myths of our Nation's beginning; The pilgrims, etc., It's one of those concepts has the potential to smash through the lies that so many working people have been conned into accepting by our modern day snake oil salesmen...

[note: i'm hereby doing away with capital letters: reaching for the shift keys with my pinkies while typing is giving me a weird species of carpal tunnel syndrome, and a period is a good enough indication of the end of a sentence. you got it: i'm carrying my anti-capitalism past a new frontier, ha ha.)

yeah, i like the idea of "social libertarianism." if i were to define it, i would say it means small or no government combined with an economy that is free of interest, interest of the accruing and ultimately ruinous kind. i wouldn't include this in the documentary, however, because of the k.i.s.s. principle.

i like joe's topic and plan for the documentary. i do think that it incorporates all three important points. however, i wouldn't include the discussion about the different kinds of libertarians. instead, i would boil it down to a contrast between:

a. jeffersonian democracy, meaning Freedom.

and

b. corporate capitalism, meaning fascism.

we start off talking about jeffersonian democracy as the american ideal, framing it as freedom. we point out how the american revolution was basically a war against the east india company, a corporation.

we then move on to how corporatism insidiously crept back into america through the legal system, and we chart the cumulative corrosive affects that it had. we show how the culmination of this trend was fascism.

[and here i have a new (as far as i am aware) good example, the nuremberg trials: the nuremberg trials tried, convicted, and executed all of the, mainly military, government personnel involved, but once it had done that and the time came to go deeper into who was ultimately responsible, just when they were about to look into who put hitler into power, just when the corporate puppet masters were about to be exposed, the nuremberg trials were shut down. no shit, look it up.]

then we bring in bush, inc., pointing out all of the corporate connections in the administration (appointing a coal power lobbyist to be the head of a governmental agency responsible for monitoring the industry, etc.) and contrasting its values with the values of jeffersonian democracy.

and that's it. we don't need to bring in a political discussion (not that what joe was saying was that the political discussion he included here should be in the doc); all we need to do is point out that the bush administration and neo-con rethuglican values are un-american.

if we were to encourage people toward a solution, i think we should encourage them toward simply not buying corporate garbage and saving their money. sure, political philosophy gives us all hard-ons, but i'm damn sure that it leaves my neighbors feeling stupid and less-than. and, of course, that's not why we are here. we're not here to make folks feel stupid and less-than, they already feel like that on a daily basis--first their bosses make them feel like that, then tv, then their wives, then their kids, and finally pigs like rush limbaugh jump in and exploit the hate and confusion that they feel.

if anything, we should point them in the one guaranteed, simple route to destroying that which is oppressing them: millions of purchases of corporate garbage, made by slaves, and at the expense of the environment, and with no guarantee even that the products won't end up killing them when used.

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

I kinda like that. It's not a regular Libertarian, it just takes the Liberty part of it and adds a social aspect. Makes me remember back at the Molitov Cocktail Lounge when we couldn't come up with a better phrase than Anti-Corporatist.

Social Libertarianism. That's great!

The central theme is "freedom" -- as opposed to corporate fascism.

"Freedom" may be further defined using the term "Jeffersonian democracy" -- where the democracy of the early US is the paradigm for "freedom" and "democracy". We might also develop the notion of "social libertarianism", keeping in mind the KISS principle.

Those themes -- and any subthemes -- will be presented in the following basic storyline, which may be described as: The rise and decline of Jeffersonian Democracy. Or perhaps the rise and "betrayal" of Jeffersonian democracy.

The plotline looks something like this -- which we will be revising as we go along.

1. Environment: Present fascist conditions. War without end, surveillance society, Patriot act, Gitmo, and we need to include the workplace authoritarianism most people experience.

Flashback to:

2. Organic democracy and freedom of early America. "What happened?" That is what the film is about.

The film becomes basically a survey of American history -- as interpreted through the lens of "Jeffersonian democracy betrayed." This breaks out as follows -- continuing my number system. Do not look at these numbers as equal in time. The medieval society part, for example, will be like 5 minutes. In and out to give them the general idea.

3. Late medieval society -- to provide the contrast. What we came here to escape.

4. The development of organic democracy until the Revolution. We might also do a subplot about Native American social organization, as furnishing a deomcratic paradigm.

5. The "Golden Age" of Jeffersonian Democracy. Maybe relying on DeToqueville's description from the 1830's.

6. Industrialization. Railroads, tarriffs, early modern corporations.

7. The Guilded Age. Primarily the subversion of freedom into "economic freedom." In fact, there was a whole legal concept called "economic due process" -- now discredited, but epitomized in the infamous Lochner v. New York decision in 1905. This is really where the modern bourgeois notion of "America" was born.

8. The New Deal -- framed as a brief restoration of Jeffersonian democracy . . . but not quite.

9. The National Security State and Corporate Imperialism.

10. Incipient Fascism.

11. Solutions.

That seems like a good ballpark outline to get started.

Each section will have to be further defined as to what aspects we are interested in. So the following organization of effort suggests itself.

1. Refine the storyline, and the constituent parts. This is ongoing.

2. Research. It seems to me that we can be free flowing with this at first. Basically, decide what you think ought to be included, research the details, and then we'll pick and choose from there. You should be getting used to the idea that we are going to be developing a lot more material than we actually use. Personally doesn't bother me, since I like research stuff anyway. As we narrow down our "episodes" we will focus in the research.

3. Locate still and video footage. We are looking for "public domain," but if we find something that is "must have," we will try to get permission, if we need it.

4. write the script, and record the narration.

5. Edit.

Aaron is working on a group that incorporates the book module. In fact, you will notice in the navigations something called "Freedom film." Go in there and check it out. It's actually kinda slick. We can create an outline, then child nodes under the outline. There are also comments so we can discuss and develop each area. There are issues with respect to privacy, which we are working on. We can go with a yahoo group if necessary, but I think the book module is the way the fly.

I have the following as participants:

Me, Aaron, Pen, Cowlick, ReSleeper, and Angel of Mercy. I plan to PM a couple of other folks and see if they want to join in. Anybody lurking who wants to help, now would be the time to do it.

Sounds good to me.

I came across a cache of documentaries today that are similar to what we want to do. These are not 100% reliable and have some conspiracy theory, not-exactly-sure-what's-going-on type aspects, but they're made by folks, for folks, so they're straight up our ally:

http://www.truestoriesvideoblog.info/
(click at the bottom of the page for the index; it's a big one.)

This particular video has a direct bearing on Jeffersonian democracy. I don't agree with the theory behind it (the ultimate problem is capitalism, not banking, which is a part of capitalism), but it has direct relevance to what we've been talking about and it'll knock your socks off. Believe me. It's 3 1/2 hours long, but you'll see what I mean by watching 1/2 hr or so starting from about minute 36:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&hl=en-CA

Let me just add: The Constitution of the United States and its values is something that all Americans should be turned-on to. We, Americans, really do have a glorious history fighting oppression. Right-wing propaganda has turned most Americans into zombies.

We have a history defeating these motherfuckers. Lets do it again!

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

The video I linked to finally reveals itself as a Milton Friedman inspired ideology.

Which means it's bullshit. But notice how reasonable it seems.

Parts of it, like the one starting at minute 37, are legitimate, in my opinion. The other parts are true-believing propaganda.

The video is BULLSHIT mixed in with TRUTH. That's how it goes. We all have to think for ourselves.

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

is to interject a song I was thinking of, two or three times throughout the doc. You know that old song Anything Goes? Well, you could break up the doc with this song and pictures putting words at the bottom. Say we just talked about how the corporatists embraced Friedmans "free trade" philosophy. We could show all the things that got changed because of that and then, when the songs gets to "Anything Goes", we flash some obscenity made possible by "free trade". At some other point in the doc, when we discuss the excesses of our current government vs what Jefferson said our government should and shouldn't be able to do, at the end we break that part from the next part with the song, showing Jeffersons ideas juxtaposed with what's happening today and when "Anything Goes" sings out, flash up a pic of torture at abu graib, post up pics of kids mutated by depleted uranium, etc.

Just a thought, anyways.

Or at any rate, I've heard it but didn't know what it was called. Who did it, where can I find it, etc. Hard to evaluate the image your giving. It sounds interesting, but I'd like the audio to go with vieual image you're painting.

Unrelated matter, the group email system now works again. Also the privacy has been restored, and Aaron is setting up the film group. Watch your email and/or PM box for invitations to join.

from 1934. I can't find a sound file on the internet, but I'll keep looking.

"Anything Goes" is a celebration of that generation's newfound sexual liberty contrasted to the Victorian mores of the preceding generation. At least that what the song thinks of itself, because if you were a loaded Londoner in the mid-late 19th c. you were getting serviced at a rate that probably doesn't have its match in all history.

But to get to the point, I'm not sure associating the thrill of sexual freedom with the thrill of making billions through unbridled capitalism works. That juxtaposition can be read in a way that would work against us. Our intent in using it would be to call attention to corporate irresponsibility by suggesting that they are going about their depredations with the kind of carefree lightheartedness expressed in the song: they are committing serious crimes and pretending that it's "no big deal, chill out, man--anything goes."

The problem is that it is hard to beat carefree lightheartedness, per se, especially in our culture. In America, he is right who is happy. A happy person can't be a criminal, it is thought, and neither can a guy in a suit. Remember the ear to ear Jesus smile on Tom DeLayed's mugshot? We would run the risk of looking jealous and resentful. Plus, to my taste, it's a bit too much of a liberal bourgeois type of move, something PBS would do. I think we should look for something that doesn't depend on sarcasm, but is more direct.

I'm thinking Dustbowl times folk music, maybe. Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, and the gazillion other excellent musicians from that time and the real life stories that they tell through their ballads. There's loads of great country music and great--political--country music and much of it is in the public domain. A scent can spontaneously invoke a memory that is decades old, and so can a song spark a movement that has lain dormant in a people for a long, long time. And that's what we want to do.

You know, come to think of it, I'm sure that with a bit of digging we can even come up with songs from the time of the American Revolution and the time of Jefferson that express the same things that we are expressing. For example, it was either Adams or Jefferson that had as his political slogan something like "I will kill the Bank." I bet there's a song about that from that era, and I bet the folks now loosing their houses to the banks that predatorily lent them the money in the first place would be inspired by such a song.

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

Sorry for the double post; I can't for the life of me find a delete button.

really obscene things. There are some things so obscene that they make a visceral reaction right to a persons core of right and wrong. ANYTHING goes with corporatism. ANYTHING. That's the point. The juxtaposition of this light hearted phrase and something truly vile.

The songs going along, we're showing Iraq, facts about depleted uranium, then "Anything Goes" WHAM! The most hideously deformed child you can find a picture of (and I've got some pictures as some of you may remember) deformed thanks to depleted uranium.

The songs going along, we just talked about multinationalism using it's global power to bypass American laws against slavery and the song his "Anything Goes" and WHAM! Child whores. Graphic, visceral, hateful.

"Anything Goes" WHAM! Horrendous torture.

By the end, we can take that Anything Goes and put up vast profiteering and it will have that same WHAM! effect.

Get my drift here?

Ah, OK, I see. That is different from what I thought you meant.

Those who do not learn to reread are doomed to read the same thing over and over.

The problem is that it is hard to beat carefree lightheartedness, per se, especially in our culture. In America, he is right who is happy. A happy person can't be a criminal, it is thought, and neither can a guy in a suit. Remember the ear to ear Jesus smile on Tom DeLayed's mugshot? We would run the risk of looking jealous and resentful. Plus, to my taste, it's a bit too much of a liberal bourgeois type of move, something PBS would do. I think we should look for something that doesn't depend on sarcasm, but is more direct.

Spot on.

I can't disagree with the song suggestion because I simply haven't heard it that I know of. I like the idea but as the quote suggests it will be tricky, because we absolutely want to avoid walking into the same trap the left seems compelled to walk into time and time again when it comes to these sorts of presentations.

I do like the idea of looking up old public-domain songs too.