Is it possible to use divide and conquer tactics on corporate America?

[yurbud]

It just occurred to me that the right has used this tactic effectively both overseas and at home: pit poor whites against blacks and immigrants, Sunnis against Shia, Hutu against Tutsi.

This should theoretically be easier to do with corporations since the divisions would not be based on prejudice but on a rational assessment of conflicting economic interests.

The two that would be most obvious are health insurance and oil. Both are fairly obviously screwing over other business interests.

Since large employers need to provide health insurance to compete for employees (at least at white collar jobs) they absorb a lot of that price gouging. These large scale consumers should be allies devising a single payer system or at the very least, tightly regulating the health insurance industry so people pay less and get more back in claims (and less goes to profits and executive compensation). The other option, not providing insurance at all, leads to higher taxes, more transient and less reliable employees, and definitely less loyal ones (If I know my employer doesn't give a shit about me, I'm going to fill my pockets with pens and staplers when I go home every night).

Oil is even worse for most businesses. As the cost of oil goes up, profits go down. Also, a big chunk of tax dollars go toward our military budget which is used to secure more oil for the the oil companies to sell, and they don't pass on that profit to the rest of us. It would be in the interest of most businesses to develop cheap, sustainable energy sources that are less vulnerable to being monopolized and that don't require massive government outlays to secure.

It would take some balls to make these kinds of arguments, and most democrats don't have any. Maybe Howard Dean could do this. But something has to be done before the bland, smiling, Chamber of Commerce types stomp our faces into the dirt.

[billbuckhead]

1. Boycotting Walmart would be a good start

[yurbud]

4. yeah, by teaching their employees to get medicaid, they soak other bus.

[porphyrian]

10. Boycotts only work if you can get enough people boycotting...

...to hurt the company monitarily, and that is not happening with WalMart. The only real way to hurt WalMart is to either enforce goverment regulations against their practices, taking legal action where appropriate, or to successfully steal their customer base through market competition. Neither is likely without incredible amounts of money.

[John Q. Citizen]

2. Many large corporations self insure.

[dflprincess]

3. But even those who self insure

usually wind up paying an outfit like UnitedHealth Care to administer their plan.

[yurbud]

5. is that cheaper?

[John Q. Citizen]

7. It is usually if you have a large enough group in the Corp. And

dflprincess is correct, many who self insure do contract for administration with existing private for profit or not for profit companies.

[yurbud]

8. What percentage do any variation of this? Probably still more expensive

[applegrove]

6. Hutu & Tutsi were against each other from the start. It is just that the

colonials encouraged such division to keep their indirect rule. British did it in Quebec & Indian sub-continent. They don't always create the differences. But they certainly don't want them solved.

Not when they can use it to get elected.

[yurbud]

9. point of analogy--find crack and widen it

We could do the same.

[applegrove]

11. Create tribalism? The Bush tribes are already cut up into little groups.

Groups that are not mutually exclusive. There are the racists, the religious wing nuts, the elites, the Oil people, the corporations looking for the fastest way to a monopoly, the military, the families with lots of money in the stock markets who will vote for the idea of perpetual markets..even if it means the end of the middle class..because they don't identify themselves as middle class anymore... (even though they are and will loose jobs).

Our job is to not fall into the trap of creating tribalism and acting knee-jerk. Our job is to use our empathy to fight for democracy (democracy requires empathy amongst groups).

So we reach out to our devout friends who are a little uncomfy with the total Ban on abortion but would like to see abortion less. We reach out to the mothers who want their girls to have safe sex & excellent birth control so that their daughters have great lives and can choose super husbands. We reach out to the wealthy who know that they do not need tax breaks..that they are as lucky as can be and that they will not like an America where there is not transfer of wealth every generation..and the worst parts of poverty are mitigated (starvation).

We appeal to the adults who want responsible government..not an adolescent Utopian one like Bush. We appeal to people who love their country so much they will not allow it to be turned into a caricature.

We need to not be taught by Bush & Karl Rove how to be adolescent, how to attack leaders because they are not exactly like us. The Repukes are of one mind (and that is delusional & scary..it implies no thinking going on). We accept our differences and that some of our leaders may have agendas not exactly like ours at times (Lieberman on Israel) but that he is being true to his family... and likely believes a long and lasting peace in Palestine & Israel will be better for the USA than anything else.

We need to use our empathy every day. To reach out. To not attack our own leaders. To keep our big Democratic tent. To understand that we have to be fiscally responsible (America is a debtor nation and cannot implement policies that do not pay back ... policies that pay back are education, universal health care, regulations in the markets, etc). The days of being rich western nations are over. We have tough choices to make. But that when the middle & working poor put out by living in risky job markets due to trade..that the rich owe something too. We have to put away childish things & desires (the world to stay the same as before).

The only way to beat these monsters is to be the adults. That is how they did it in WWII. Every single family if the Allied forces gave up a huge tonne of flesh. Every single one. They ate the same porridge every single day for 6 years if they were poor. Family men in the middle of wealthy careers shut it down and put on a uniform and put their lives on the line. And if they got wounded, they went to a hospital, got healed and put on that uniform again and went back to the war. Information on how the British had broken Nazi code was kept hidden and people were sent off to their deaths to protect the battle plan. Children were sent across oceans to live with 'god knows who' on another continent so they could skip the invasion of england if it ever happened. It was messy. It was painful. It was awful. And that was the only way to win. EVERYONE GAVE UP SOMETHING HUGE (often many things) for 6 years.

The only thing we have to give up is our Utopian dreams that the West will somehow be as rich as it always was. Then we can really see what is at stake.

What is at stake is that elites like the Bush family want the middle class and the working poor to take the brunt of the loss of wealth.

The allies didn't find a crack & widen it. The allies fought for humanity and empathy and responsibility and true freedom from oppression. And then they had learnt something when the war was over..and had to give up all their neocolonies.

[yurbud]

12. create gaps between corporations and businesses not people

That's all very nice, but not the point I was making.

Think of certain businesses as mad dogs or serial killers.

You don't try to give them a hug.

You isolate them or put them down.

Right now, we essentially have ALL of corporate America against us.

As oil prices rise, it shouldn't be too hard to convince large chunks of corporate America that their interests are not the same as the oil companies.

[applegrove]

14. I don't think Microsoft is against you - though it has the hubris of many

a big corporation. I don't think you can generalize about corporations. Many of them are Kool-Aid drinkers. But I do not thing you correct the problem by threats and hatred. I think you hate the leaders of hate. And then you encourage the followers.. to rethink the direction of their lives. You have to empathize with them and say "yes - the West is not as rich as in the previous 70 years, and we all have to make adjustments and have lean programs and concentrate on the programs that really help people have better lives and save money (education, SS, universal health care) but we cannot go on a spending spree. And we have to trade with the world because outside the USA is where ALL the growth will be. And you either participate or you get shut out - and live in the dark ages.

You have to look beyond your own needs to the needs of others and appeal to them at that level. The corporates in America will not be better off if they are so hated that they get shut out of the middle east or China. They have "brands" and America is a "brand" and what are they doing with that brand right now?

You cannot assume that they are all wrong. There are shades of grey. I mean the economies of China, Russia, Brazil & India will be 10 times as great in size (middle class) as those of the West all put together. So what are you going to do? Ignore those people? What - there are 3 Billion of them?

Bush likes to punish people who do not agree with him because he has potty training issues and likes to see others uncomfortable (a type of sadism). He & his cabal have taught that to their followers. We should not be learning anything from that leadership at all.

The value of a human being should always be found in the content of his/her heart. The same as the value of a corporation.

Walmart has a dark heart. We quite rightly concentrate our worry and anger there. Wal mart is a lesson for the others of how not to be.

You cannot simplify things into black and white. You have to stand back & look deeper & be educated.

The tribalism (hate anyone outside your own narrow group) that the Bush WH and the GOP have worked hard to create is the exact opposite of democracy and the coming together of people to vote as a majority. Tribal groups are notorious for going for limited local power in their local chiefs instead of national power. Tribalism creates a whole pile of 'local kings'. Then people hate the 'other' and spend all their time fighting and making attacks on the 'other'. So they never put their heads up long enough to vote for their best interest at a national level.

Creating & promoting tribalism & the adolescence it requires is the GOP way of getting power. (Patriotism is tribalism too). Otherwise the people would vote for their best interest instead of some tribal vision - that gives them nothing but 'us vs.them' existence.

The last thing we should do is think black & white or go tribal. Empathy is the way out.

[yurbud]

15. some tribes are cannibals--if you show them empathy, they will eat you

You and I fundamentally agree on solutions and how to deal with PEOPLE. The difference is, corporations are not people. They are money making machines purposely designed to minimize personal responsibility and guilt.

Don't take my word for it. Read Milton Friedman's "The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits"

http://www.colorado.edu/studentgroups/libertarians/issues/friedman-soc-resp-business.html

Empathy has the same effect on it that it has on toaster, vacuum cleaner, or terminator.

As someone posted here elsewhere, it's very hard to convince someone to see what they are paid not to.

[applegrove]

16. Thank you for the link. No, no, no ...you do not deal with the sociopaths.

You appeal to the people who have voted for them. Only 4% of the population is unfeeling. Sixty percent will follow authority if pressure is put on them..and they are told they have no responsibility for their actions - even it it causes great pain to others.

I will assume for a moment that all democrats are the in the 40% who will question authority (many of those it seems have some education so they question authority because they know the meaning of it - and do not idolize - perhaps this is what Bush means when he says..intellectual elites.. meaning the people who will now cow to "authority".

So that give us a whole pile of people who the Bush WH & his cabal of monsters have been coercing with tribal authority (hierarchies are tribal) be it corporate or religious. These people also know empathy. That is what we appeal to. The 96 who do have empathy..

So we meet the followers of Bush who really are great human beings but who hand over their soul to 'some economic expert'. And we diminish the 'authority' by becoming just as well versed in economics as them. By being experts too on how to survive economically in these changing times. We have Buffet, Gates, Soros & others who stand with us on some issues. So we take the authority of how to lead a country economically back.

To do this.. we have to know our stuff and accept that the labor deals of the past are gone because America will never be as wealthy as it was in the past. That we have no choice to not join in free trade. All the growth in the world will be in the middle classes of India, China, Russia, Brazil and not in the West - where our middle classes are mature.

We totally ignore and have nothing to do with their creepy leadership. You are right about that. You do not deal with the devils at all. You totally fog and blow smoke in the sociopaths direction. You do not allow them to engage you in anyway. And you do not knee-jerk react to their ploys to get a rise out of us.. or to exhaust us emotionally.

[yurbud]

18. don't tribalize internationally

The way to stop the race to the bottom is to figure out how to pull up workers in other countries, which again conflicts with corporate agenda of driving down the cost of labor including the political power of labor to negotiate for fair wages.

That's why it's in our interest to see real democracy and advancement in the Third World instead of bankrupting and breaking them as the neo-liberal agenda does.

[applegrove]

19. Don't say neo-liberal! Never use that word around me. They stole

the word Liberal from the Democrats. That is our word. They are neocons.

Yes - what the neocons have done is finally convinced the right wing that trans-national tribalism is not a way to have peace on the planet. At least in the Middle East.. transnational tribalism is Islamic Fundamentalism for instance. So now the neocons encourage democracy in the Middle East. Because Democracy works against tribalism. So to break up the great Islamic Fundamentalist Tribe that American Foreign policy created.. they now want small democracies.

Democracies that follow their rule of law and share resources amongst the people are a way to ensure no one group (elite) gets too much power or wealth. That was a big mistake. The Saudi Elites own way too much of America. Tribalism is elitism and it creates uber wealth. Those uber wealthy are diminished by paying taxes and being forced to use Oil Wealth to build schools and meaningful markets for all the people in the country. Then they are busy working and being free instead of being tribal.

It is the opposite the neocons want in the USA. Because they want elite rule (& decision making not hindered by democracy) they want the USA to be tribal. So while they want the rest of the world to be democratic (and not join up into big huge competitive nations) democracy is the new foreign policy. Small democracies are easier for huge multinational corporations to dominate. If many democracies get together then they get big and their corporations can rival American ones.

So tribalism is the medicine for the USA so that democracy is weakened and the American elites can grow uber rich. While everywhere else that uberrich class is discouraged. That way the USA can dominate..even when it does not have either the people or the resources to do so.

The cost is that now the uber-rich in the USA have to make sure the Middle Class in the USA is diminished. The complete opposite of democracy. Then once diminished.. people will be tribal and overly loyal to the corporations they work for or are dependent on.

Stoping tribalization around the world (except in non-economic tribal hierarchies that do not teach economic independance like religion) means that the labor movement and other movements have some work to do.

Apparently public goods are no longer allowed to be delivered by the market. Only corporate goods can be devlivered using the efficient market. Public goods like education and values have to be delivered by word of mouth or the internet (a busy highway) or something. BULLSHIT! The market belongs to humans and it is elites who have messed it up since the dawn of time.

[yurbud]

20. my bad--neo-feudalism better?

[yurbud]

13. WWII pit some business interests against others

A lot of American business people were enamored with fascism, and it's a minor miracle that FDR got the US in the war AGAINST Hitler instead of with him.

Frankly, the immediate profit of war profits of war probably seemed like a sure thing compared to the slightly uncertain outcome of trying to push the US fascist.

[applegrove]

17. In the end, the people of America were willing to do great things to

help the cause. It took them a long time to see.

I think the lesson of these awful days is the delusion that is America... the creation myth that kids are taught.. that America is above it all as the first democracy. There are Billions of people all over the world who have lives just as valid as an American's is. They survive knowing they are part of a whole. And they learn about each other.

The neocon seem to be demanding that the US populace get stupider about the rest of the world. All the while..the wealth of America will depend entirely on the number of kids who go into the sciences.