Dude, Where's My Country_ - Michael Moore [59]
But, in fact, the wholesale destruction of our economic future is based solely on the greed of the corporate mujahedeen. There is a master plan, my friends, each company has one, and the sooner you can get over not wanting to believe it, or worrying that to believe it puts you in the ranks of the nutters who thrive on conspiracy theories, then the sooner we have a chance of stopping them. Their singular goal is to take enough control over our lives so that, in the end, we’ll be pledging allegiance, not to a flag or some airy notions of freedom and democracy, but to the dictates of Citigroup, Exxon, Nike, GE, GM, P&G, and Philip Morris. It is their executives who now call the shots, and you can go vote and protest and cheat the IRS all you want to get back at them, but face it: You are no longer in charge. You know it and they know it, and all that remains is the day when it will be codified onto a piece of paper, the Declaration of the Corporate States of America.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women and their underaged children are created equally to serve the Corporation, to provide its labor without question, to accept whatever remuneration without complaint, and to consume its products without thought. In turn, the Corporation will provide for the common good, secure the defense of the nation, and receive the bulk of the taxes taken from the people . . .”
It doesn’t really sound that absurd anymore, does it? The takeover has happened right under our noses. We’ve been force-fed some mighty powerful “drugs” to keep us quiet while we’re being mugged by this lawless gang of CEOs. One of these drugs is called fear and the other is called Horatio Alger.
The fear drug works like this: You are repeatedly told that bad, scary people are going to kill you, so place all your trust in us, your corporate leaders, and we will protect you. But since we know what’s best, don’t question us if we want you to foot the bill for our tax cut, or if we decide to slash your health benefits or jack up the cost of buying a home. And if you don’t shut up and toe the line and work your ass off, we will sack you—and then just try to find a new job in this economy, punk!
That shit is so scary, of course we do what we are told, mind our p’s and q’s in our dreary cubicles, and fly our little American flags to show that yes, boss, we believe in your War on Terror.
The other drug is nicer. It’s first prescribed to us as children in the form of a fairy tale—but a fairy tale that can actually come true! It’s the Horatio Alger myth. Alger was one of the most popular American writers of the late 1800s (one of his first books, for boys, was called Ragged Dick). Alger’s stories featured characters from impoverished backgrounds who, through pluck and determination and hard work, were able to make huge successes of themselves in this land of boundless opportunity. The message was that anyone can make it in America, and make it big.
We’re addicted to this happy rags-to-riches myth in this country. People elsewhere in other industrialized democracies are content to make a good enough living to pay their bills and raise their families. Few have a cutthroat desire to strike it rich. If they have a job that lets them go home after seven or eight hours of work and then gives them the standard four to eight weeks of paid vacation every year, they’re relatively happy. And with their governments providing health care, good free schools, and a guaranteed pension to live well in old age, they’re even happier.
Sure, some of them may fantasize about making a ton more money, but most people outside the U.S. don’t live their lives based on fairy tales. They live in reality, where there are only going to be a few rich people, and you are not going to be one of them. So get used to it.
Of course, rich people in those countries are very careful not to upset the balance. Even though there are greedy bastards among them, they’ve got some limits