★★★★★ 5
How Corporate America created free-enterprise Jesus to undo the New Deal
This book tells the history of how corporate America have tried to undo New Deal reforms since the 1940s by creating a new free-enterprise religion, and to erode the separation of church and state.
Corporate America’s creation of a free-enterprise selfish Jesus began in 1935 with the founding of an organization called Spiritual Mobilization. Some of the corporations who donated money to this and similar organizations include: American Cyanamid and chemical corporation, Associated Refineries, AT&T, Bechtel Corporation, Caterpillar Tractor Company, Chevrolet, Chicago & Southern Airline, Chrysler corporation, Colgate-Palmolive Company, Deering-Milliken, Detroit Edison, Disney, DuPont, Eastern Airlines, General Electric, General Foods, General Motors, Goodwill, Goodyear Tire & Rubber, IBM, J. C. Penney, J. Walter Thompson, Mark A. Hanna, Marriott, Marshall Field, Monsanto Chemical Company, National Association of Manufacturers, Pacific Mutual Life Insurance, Paramount Pictures, PepsiCo, Precision Valve Corp, Quaker Oats, Republic Steel Corp, Richfield Oil Co., San Diego Gas & Electric, Schick Safety Razor, Standard Oil Company, Sun Oil company, Sun shipbuilding company, Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation, United Airlines, US Rubber company, US steel corporation, Utah Power & Light, Warner Bros. Pictures, Weyerhauser.
In the 1930s, corporations were well known to have brought on the Great Depression with their tremendous greed and dishonesty. The New Deal reformed the financial system, distributed wealth more evenly, provided a social safety net, protected the people by regulating businesses to protect them from unsafe and unhealthy food, drugs, and other products, toxic pollution, aided farmers in slowing soil erosion to prevent more dust bowls (and feed Americans for hundreds of years-- good topsoil is America’s most important treasure), and other public services that benefited everyone.
The New Deal embodied the ideals of the Social Gospel, a movement dedicated to the public good, economic equality, eradication of poverty, slums, child labor, an unclean environment, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and war (Wiki Social Gospel).
Corporate America fought against these reforms and has been trying to undo the New Deal ever since then.
One of their most successful tactics was getting religious leaders to spout a new version of Jesus – a free-enterprise, Ayn Rand, selfish Jesus and eradicate the Social Gospel Jesus of the New Deal.
At first ministers and people saw through since this propaganda was obviously craven corporate self-interest.
So the propaganda was crafted more subtly, and sold to conservative religious leaders. Congregations then listened to sermons about the free-enterprise Jesus with open hearts and minds, which they would have laughed at if the speaker were a CEO. The new religion taught them to hate unions, social welfare, to fear and hate government, to be against abortion and birth control (mainly because the more people there are, the less industries have to pay them). It was broadcast from conservative religious radio and TV stations, and in the secular world.
This is why you don’t have a chance of talking Uncle Bob out of voting for demagogues at the Thanksgiving table – you’re attacking his religion and core beliefs he’s heard since his first sermon, and his brain shuts down in anger. He’s been taught since he was a baby that he should hate and fear government, not corporations.
People like to say that capitalism is imperfect, but the best system that exists. Well, it’s great at raping, pillaging, and poisoning land, water, and air than any other system. Industrial farming is depleting aquifers and eroding and compacting top soil to the point where it won’t produce much food after centuries rather than millennia. Global conventional oil production, where 90% of our oil comes from, peaked in 2005 (Aleklett et al. 2012; Kerr 2011; Murray 2012; Newby 2011; IEA 2010; Zittel et al. 2013), declining at a rate of 6% now and increasing to 9% by 2030 (Hook 2009). According to the Department of Energy, you’d want to prepare at least 20 years ahead of time for peak oil (Hirsch 2005), yet here we are 12 years after peak conventional oil, with both Democrats and Republicans assuming that endless growth on a finite planet will fix things. We don’t have endless energy, it turns out that earth is not a giant gas tank, and even if it were, exponential growth would drain it in centuries.
There isn’t a single endeavor that doesn’t depend on energy, especially supply chains, mining, logging, construction, and road building, which are done with heavy-duty trucks, which can only accomplish their work with diesel engines that burn only diesel (Friedemann 2015).
Since the social net is funded by an ever-expanding working population and growth, social security and Medicare are Ponzi schemes, as well as our financial system, which depends on growth to pay back debt. The corporations are about to get the death of the New Deal they’ve so wanted via the decline of our fossil-fueled civilization.
There is no political party that can fix this, so it’s time to strengthen your community to become more resilient, self-sufficient, and able to supply food and other essentials locally. To fix water and sewage infrastructure. It’s time to embrace the social gospel and help community members less fortunate than you in the years ahead.
Aleklett, K., et al. 2012. Peeking at peak oil. Berlin: Springer.
Hook, M., et al. 2009. Giant oil field decline rates and their influence on world oil production. Energy Policy 37(6):2262–2272.
Friedemann, A. 2015. When trucks stop running, Energy and the Future of Transportation. Springer.
Kerr, R. 2011. Peak oil production may already be here. Science 331:1510–11.
Murray, J., et al. 2012. Oil’s tipping point has passed. Nature 481:43–4.
Newby, J. 2011. Oil Crunch (Fatih Birol). Catalyst. ABC TV.
IEA. 2010. World energy outlook 2010, 116. International Energy Agency.
Zittel, W, et al. 2013. Fossil and nuclear fuels. Energy Watch Group.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2017
