Whether our nation is a corporatocracy rather than a functioning representative democracy is an empirical issue to be decided by the facts. Chomsky's analysis that we are ruled by corporate and political elites is supported by yesterday's Supreme Court decision -- contravening 100 years of congressional and judicial precedent -- giving corporations the right to spend unlimited amounts of money bankrolling their preferred candidates for political office. Some predict, I think correctly, that the Court's decision is the final nail in the coffin of whatever hopes we may have had that we could resuscitate what has been a failing democracy already on life-support. From now on, we should not be under any illusion that successful candidates for office will be anything but political prostitutes -- bought by corporations to do their bidding. The floodgates of oligarchic rule have opened.

Did you see any mention of the Court's decision on this morning's news programs? I didn't. Nowhere on CNN's list of "Hot Topics."

A check of mainstream broadcast media transcripts on Lexis-Nexis shows that, on the day after the ruling, there was only a brief discussion by Mark Shields and David Brooks on The Newshour as well on NPR radio. That's it. NBC's Today show devoted all of 126 words coverage to the most significant Supreme Court ruling in a century -- one that will radically transform our lives in countless unforeseen ways -- compared to:

845 words: Olympic ice dancers Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto discuss upcoming Olympics and their skating history

1363 words: P. Allen Smith discusses healing power of plants

1565 words: Ladies' Home Journal's Margot Gilman and sleep specialist Dr. Carol Ash discuss tips for helping get a better night's sleep

138 words: Dog rescued from swollen river; storms in Arizona

Why the deafening silence? Aren't the media supposed to inform us about important issues affecting our lives?

Not surprising, since the mainstream media are corporate owned. What else would we expect? They are not going to shoot themselves in the foot and criticize what is in their own interest. So, we happily skip along obsessed with John Edwards' and Tiger's sexual indiscretions, the latest celebrity scandal du jour, and in fear of terrorists attacking our local shopping mall.

Mainstream, corporate-owned media are banal and vapid - and dumb us down - for a reason: to inure us to the darkness of the cave and make its darkness seem like illumination, and the shadows cast by the puppet masters seem like reality.

Here's an interesting article by Joe Conason, "Where are the real populists now?"

And another from the Los Angeles Times, "Who are the judicial activists now?"

At least the print media haven't been muzzled and censored . . . yet.

The effect of propaganda on what we believe

Institutionalized lying and deception are nothing new: witness ongoing revelations of the extent of corruption at the nexus of political and corporate power. All of these instances of institutionalized deception, lying, and covert (and overt) propaganda and manipulation by government, media, and business, undermine freedom and democracy by interfering with your ability to function as a well-informed guardian of your interests.

In our second week of class, we will study Plato's Allegory of the Cave. What relevance do you think Plato's Allegory of the Cave has for understanding how your beliefs can be manipulated and shaped by others? To what extent do you think that your life is immune to being controlled by the invisible hand of covert propaganda?

What are some examples of how beliefs, attitudes, or behavior in our society are manipulated and shaped by propaganda, deception, the "manufacture of consent," and the dissemination of misinformation?

Is there anything (perhaps suggested by Plato's allegory of the cave) that you can do to prevent yourself and others from being misled and manipulated by those who seek to treat you as an ill-informed slave to their interests?

How our government works: where's the outrage?

Glenn Greenwald: "Just think about how this works. People like Rubin, Summers and Gensler shuffle back and forth from the public to the private sector and back again, repeatedly switching places with their GOP counterparts in this endless public/private sector looting. When in government, they ensure that the laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall St. firms, literally abolishing all safeguards and allowing them to pillage and steal. Then, when out of government, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented when in government. Then, when their party returns to power, they return back to government, where they continue to use their influence to ensure that the oligarchical circle that rewards them so massively is protected and advanced. This corruption is so tawdry and transparent -- and it has fueled and continues to fuel a fraud so enormous and destructive as to be unprecedented in both size and audacity -- that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage."

(Glenn Greenwald, "Larry Summers, Tim Geithner and Wall Street's ownership of government.")

An interesting juxtaposition of ideas and events. . . .

As we consider lives that are caught in the maw of the economic meltdown, read the following story: "Humbled banker parts with yuppie past."

With so many jobs in the financial sector being lost, perhaps we should reflect on the value of jobs tied to trading in money. The kind of dissolution experienced by the loan officer referenced in the CNN story was predicted by Karl Marx in "The Power of Money," in his Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844:

"That which is for me through the medium of money – that for which I can pay (i.e., which money can buy) – that am I myself, the possessor of the money. The extent of the power of money is the extent of my power. Money’s properties are my – the possessor’s – properties and essential powers. Thus, what I am and am capable of is by no means determined by my individuality. I am ugly, but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women. Therefore I am not ugly, for the effect of ugliness – its deterrent power – is nullified by money. I, according to my individual characteristics, am lame, but money furnishes me with twenty-four feet. Therefore I am not lame. I am bad, dishonest, unscrupulous, stupid; but money is honoured, and hence its possessor. Money is the supreme good, therefore its possessor is good. Money, besides, saves me the trouble of being dishonest: I am therefore presumed honest. I am brainless, but money is the real brain of all things and how then should its possessor be brainless? Besides, he can buy clever people for himself, and is he who has [In the manuscript: ‘is’. – Ed.] power over the clever not more clever than the clever? Do not I, who thanks to money am capable of all that the human heart longs for, possess all human capacities? Does not my money, therefore, transform all my incapacities into their contrary?

If money is the bond binding me to human life, binding society to me, connecting me with nature and man, is not money the bond of all bonds? Can it not dissolve and bind all ties? Is it not, therefore, also the universal agent of separation? It is the coin that really separates as well as the real binding agent — the [. . .] chemical power of society." (Marx)

Welcome to double-standard America: Salon.com

Welcome to double-standard America, by David Sirota

The Alfalfa Party: Nexus of Power and Politics

This article is about a year old, but it reveals the nexus of power and politics -- as President Eisenhower put it -- the behind-the-scenes incestuous workings of the military-industrial-congressional complex. It also paints a self-congratulatory picture -- along the lines that Chomsky presents -- of those in Washington who regard themselves as "the best" -- as opposed to the rest of us -- the "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders," as referred to by Walter Lippman.

From Court to Jester

The hidden cost of the credit crunch, By LAURIE ESSIG

Here's an interesting article that recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education that connects the dots re consumerism, body image, and gender stereotyping. . .

The hidden cost of the credit crunch, By LAURIE ESSIG