If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him. And we will show that we can–along with the American people–begin to push those freedom solutions at work in every area of our society.
About a million people have commented on Jim DeMint’s prayer to "break" our first African-American President by thwarting his attempts to reform and extend health care. But few–at least that I’ve seen–have connected it with another lingering news story: the role of C Street in pushing hyper-capitalist policies.DeMint is the most senior C Street resident not currently embroiled in a sex scandal (or the cover-up of it, in Tom Coburn’s case). And while his roomies all scramble to keep their jobs in the aftermath of being proven utter hypocrites, DeMint has taken the lead attacking health care and–significantly–counterposing it to "freedom solutions."
This is what C Street is really about–fighting back any check on hyper-capitalism. As Jeff Sharlet explained in a recent interview,
Sharlet: Exactly. However you look at it, The Family is effectively a union busting organization. They’re particularly concerned about the Teamsters and the Longshoremen. They thought they were run by some sort of devils. The Family was instrumental in the breaking of the spine of organized labor.
One of the things that makes them different from other Christian conservative organizations, and I think even upset some Christian conservative organizations, is that the issues for them are not abortion or morality or same-sex marriage. The important issue to them is what they call Biblical capitalism, and I think what even some conservative observers looking at them call crony capitalism.That needs to the be the story here: the loudest opponent to health care reform is advocating the position of a morally discredited fascistic cult, that he’s interested in defeating a wildly popular policy so as to replace it with Orwellian "freedom solutions."Sure, the opponents of health care reform are partly people–like Ben Nelson–being spoonfed honey by the insurance industry’s bean counters. But there are others–notably this loudmouthed and unrepentant member of the Family–who are opposing it as a rallying cry to some fundamentally authoritarian whack-jobs.
DeMint is going to continue to get face time for his outrageous comments. We would do well to emphasize that he’s a morally hypocritical cult member just like Ensign and Sanford.
I saw The Family’s influence when I spent time at a megachurch in Colorado Springs run by Ted Haggard, who a lot of people are now familiar with because of a sex scandal. Haggard had 11,000 church members believing that the most important aspect of the gospel related to free trade. He had ordinary folks talking about getting rid of steel tariffs as God’s work, and they did so, he said because where capitalism goes, God follows.
And it certainly wasn’t the only such group. The American Enterprise Institute arose from the same fabric. "AEI was founded in 1938 as the American Enterprise Association by a group of businessmen led by Lewis H. Brown. AEA’s original mission was to promote a ‘greater public knowledge and understanding of the social and economic advantages accruing to the American people through the maintenance of the system of free, competitive enterprise’… Its stated mission is ‘to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism — limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate’."
Unlike Abraham Vereide the preacher, Lewis Brown was an Industrialist, CEO of the Johns-Manville, the Asbestos Company. He was, however, a strong supporter of the same free market, pro-business, anti Union, anti-New Deal ideas as The Family. Brown knew that Asbestos caused cancer and kept it hidden for decades. After his death, his Company was dissembled and held responsible for the countless deaths from mesothelioma. His American Enterprise Institute is still involved in trying to cap the payout for that disorder. And oh the havoc these anti-FDR holdovers have caused in these last eight years in their modern incarnation – The Neoconservatives.
emptywheel is correct in her use of the term "hypercapitalist." These anachronistic organizations and others have been at work since the Great Depression to fight Communism, Socialism, and promote Free Market Capitalism. Their secret tenacles into government became visible when they finally "won" with George W. Bush and Richard Cheney. emptywheel is also correct to focus our attention on Senator Jim DeMint [R-SC]. His line, "If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him" is the whole point of The Family’s pseudo-religious Christian Fascism. When they say, "freedom solutions," they mean Free Big Business, Free Market Capitalism, No Social Programs, No Worker’s Rights – they mean close to the same thing Hitler meant, without the uniforms, and "with the Cross of Jesus, Marching on before"…
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