Re: ONLY THE SUPER-RICH CAN SAVE US!, by Ralph Nader
Posted: Wed Oct 30, 2013 9:16 pm
CHAPTER 11
As the Dartford warbler was winging its way home -- it had had enough of Capitol Hill -- the Meliorists were winging their way to Maui. They had taken appropriate precautions, wearing their disguises as necessary, but they were feeling a little jumpy as they gathered in the familiar atrium conference room. All of them had been getting more and more calls from the press asking about links between them. All were having their offices and telecommunications systems swept regularly for bugs. Warren asked Bill Joy to open the meeting with a security update.
"Well, so far so good, according to my latest scans," Bill said. "There have been some attempts to hack into the secure website, but as far as I can tell, it's just a matter of the usual random hackers, maybe teenagers like the ones who broke into some of the Pentagon's sites three years ago. That will undoubtedly change now that the covey of CEOs who placed that WSJ ad have found a leader for their counterattack squad -- none other than Lancelot Lobo."
A ripple of surprise swept around the table. "Well, well, well," Jeno said gleefully. "So Lobo has crossed the aisle and chosen fame over fortune. Well, I licked him once, and I relish a return engagement."
"As for the hotel," Bill Joy went on, "it's clean, but once you go public, all bets are off. The probability of penetration will soar. All I can promise you is regular surveillance with the latest technology."
"Thank you, Bill. We know we're in good hands," Warren said. "Now let's turn to the major subject of our gathering, Invasion Congress. Patrick Drummond of our now properly fabled Secretariat has prepared an overall strategy, which I've asked him to present to us before we have supper. Patrick, the floor is yours."
"Thank you, Warren." Patrick rose and passed a document around the table. "What you see before you is a synopsis of the work of the finest minds in the field, men and women who have spent their careers striving to understand the interactions between Congress in all its parts and the people in all their parts and of course the corporations. I'm just the messenger and editor. For our guidance over the months to come, I've distilled a number of general operating principles for the drive to pass the First-Stage legislation, otherwise known as the Agenda, and I ask you to take the next few minutes to read them."
As one, the Meliorists directed their attention to the strategy paper.
When everyone had finished reading, Patrick said, "Well, that's it in a nutshell. A challenge, but doable, I hope you'll agree. I would just add that we should be alert to any changes that come along without legislation or regulation. For instance, the Coca-Cola board of directors is giving shareholders approval rights over severance packages that exceed 2.9 times the previous year's compensation. A very small step by a very large company, but it's got Wall Street quaking with fear that it will start a trend. Credit goes to your tireless efforts, Warren."
"Thank you, Patrick, but the credit goes to you for yet another superlative contribution. Let's break now to digest what we've read while we digest our supper. Then we'll reconvene at nine for an hour of silence. In the morning we'll have a freewheeling discussion driven by our shared sense of urgency about the magnitude of what we must accomplish in the five short months before the elections. We could all use a good night's sleep before we go at it."
***
And did they ever go at it. The morning discussion began with a review of the Congress Project's compendium. "I've seen plenty of strategy sheets on members of Congress in my time, but this far surpasses any of them," Bernard said. "The first two categories of legislators it identifies, the already convinced and the persuadables, will form the hard core, who are ready, willing, and able to carry the Agenda banner inside Congress. As we can see from the compendium's breakdown, these core legislators are a motley bunch, which is just what we want. They come from both parties, have diverse geographical, ethnic, religious, and occupational backgrounds, and sit on a variety of congressional committees, including the Appropriations Committees and the all-important Rules Committees. It would be nice if they also turn out to have higher-than-average energy levels, a sense of history, an impatience for change, and a reserve of courage for the coming battles. We shall see.
"For all its excellence, there is one exceptionally important category that doesn't receive enough attention in the compendium, in my view. I refer to the legislators' congressional peer groups. Warren, can I ask that your project manager give us a matrix for each member showing circles of influence -- say, a dozen of the member's closest colleagues, and the colleagues they respect or fear the most politically whether they're close to them or not? When the chips are down and outside pressure is bearing in on Congress from all sides, the peer groups will be the last stand of the corporatists. And believe me, they know everything there is to know about these groups' personal relationships."
"I have the project manager standing by for our feedback," Warren said. "I'll get him on it right away."
Paul gestured around the conference table. "If I say so myself, we've got a pretty good circle of influence right here. Should we try to meet personally with key legislators? If so, when and where? We'd probably make a big splash if we showed up at their offices back in their districts instead of in Washington. Can we get a heads-up on which members would be most receptive to meeting with us, aside from our own senators and representatives?"
"My take is that we should be selective and respond to the advice of our spotters on Capitol Hill so that our meetings will have the maximum effect at the most crucial juncture," Ross said. "We don't want to fritter away our personal capital too early. We should use it as the final push on any wavering lawmakers."
"Right," Phil agreed. "That's our maximum leverage time, when we know the most about why they're wavering."
Joe held up his copy of the compendium. "This can never see the light of day, you know, not beyond our trusted circle. If it falls into the hands of the press or the opposition, it will be seen as manipulative and cause a backlash among the legislators. The Secretariat and each one of us must exercise the utmost caution here, and the same with Patrick's strategy document."
"Point taken," said Peter to nods all around. "I'd like to go back to the core legislators for a minute. A lot of them will select themselves for the tasks of the Agenda once they sense the support and power behind them and see the feasibility of passage. Inch by inch in the past few months they've been bestirring themselves, reaching out to kindred souls inside and outside Congress, moving from a defensive mentality to an offensive readiness.
"The members of Congress are a bundle of emotions and calculations, sniffing the air, fingers to the wind, wondering about the new forces stirring in the country and moving in on Capitol Hill for a showdown. From this cauldron of imponderables will rise leaders, some of them unexpected, to drive the Agenda home. These leaders are critical, especially in a short campaign, and there can never be too many of them. They're the ones who will drive the schedule, refine the tactics, soothe the irritable, prod the procrastinators, and above all convey a felt sense in Congress of the inevitability of victory, a bandwagon effect. Members of Congress are like the voters in one respect -- they want to go with the winners."
"Yes," Bernard said, "and many of them also have an unfulfilled appetite to achieve something in this corporate Congress, which is widely perceived as having done very little for the people for a very long time. This, along with the Congress Watchdogs, the Zabouresk-Zeftel group of retired lawmakers and staffers, and perhaps some personal attention from us with the media in tow, will help to forge the inner congressional corps, while all the other Redirectional forces, including the PCC and the Clean Elections Party, will serve as the outside drivers of the Agenda. Then wave after wave of populist power, driven by a knowledge of all the abuses, by pain, anguish, and outrage, and by a sense of destiny for future generations, will roll over Congress, the White House, and the corporate lobbying establishment. Congress isn't used to wave after wave of populist power. In the past, most reformers have thrown everything they've got into their congressional battles all at once, and when attrition starts with the counterattack, there are no reserves left. Then offense turns into defense, and retreat turns into rout. Fortunately, the depth of our resources and the number and quality of our people permit us serial momentum."
"Well, okay, but it's not just that," Ted said fervidly. "Look at Genghis Khan and his mounted warriors. The military precision of his tactics overwhelmed and routed much larger armies as the Mongols conquered and united more of the world in forty years than the Roman Army did in four hundred, and with remarkable exchanges of trade and technology. Naturally I bring up this military analogy only because of its vibrant imagery for our campaign to pass the Agenda." Yoko sighed. "Naturally, but you'll forgive me if I don't pursue it. What concerns me is that 'Agenda' sounds so dry and impersonal. Surely we can do better. I move that we call it 'Agenda for the Common Good' when it goes public."
There was a moment of startled silence. It was such an obvious point Warren looked around the table. "Make it so, Patrick," he said, "and thank you, Yoko."
"You're welcome," she said, and went on to deliver her detailed plan for graphics, posters, billboards, theater, music, all the artistic expressions that would help people connect viscerally with the Agenda for the Common Good and see it as rooted in the best of America's past.
Bill Cosby volunteered a heresy. "But spare us the hip-hop MTV-generation hokum. We have to treat the young seriously, and therefore respectfully, which means no pandering. They're an important constituency. If we can get even a small percentage of them involved in, say, becoming lecturers on their campuses, think how much discussion and debate would be aroused in the high schools, colleges, and universities. From such ferments rise great social movements. Turn off the TV, the computer, the CDs and DVDs -- and I'm not just talking about the kids. Get together face to face, put your arms around each other's shoulders, fill the sidewalks, the cafes, the parks, the veterans' and union halls, the senior citizen centers. Refurbish the commons! We've got to galvanize the credibility groups around specific legislation. We've got to use all the dynamics that have been building since January to the utmost for the final drive behind the Agenda."
"You know, that reminds me of how the students at Yale came out in support of the custodial workers a few years back," Paul said. "There was a ton of coverage on it in the Connecticut papers, and I followed the whole thing closely. Remember that movie Death Takes a Holiday? Imagine what would happen in our country if the lower third of the workforce took a holiday. Start with the super-rich in Greenwich, Belmont, Beverly Hills, Scarsdale, or any affluent suburb in the USA. There would be no one to care for the aging wealthy -- their relatives would have to perform all those unpleasant healthcare duties like emptying bedpans, instead of sipping their martinis in the drawing room while pondering what bequests they were likely to receive from the afflicted. Who would serve the food, ring up sales in the malls and shopping centers and convenience stores, provide daycare for our little ones, sweat to harvest our crops, work for pitiful wages in nonunion factories? And of course, who would do the cleaning and picking up after us? I'm talking about the people whose eyes we avoid when we get off planes or walk past their carts in hotel corridors, the people we tiptoe around while they're mopping our public bathrooms, the people we ignore while they're clearing our tables or washing our dishes or mowing our lawns or hosing down our cars or wiping our butts in hospitals -- who would do their work?" Normally the essence of cool, Paul was turning red as he spoke. "I'll tell you who! The same people, only once we pass the Agenda, they'll be paid twice as much, with full benefits, so they can have a decent life for themselves and their families."
Listening in silence, Bill Gates remembered his own speech at Maui One about the importance of the core group shedding their anonymity and standing up publicly to convey the felt emotions behind their initiatives. Well, they had done that, successfully projecting an image of loners on a justice kick, idiosyncratic do-gooders on an adventure. All that would change on the fifth of July, when the Meliorists stepped forth together as a linked force.
***
Most of the afternoon session was taken up with the catapult on the Fourth of July and the critical uses of the hot month of August, when Congress closed down and its members were off junketing or politicking or on vacation. "The entrenched powers won't know what hit them, and even if some do, there will be so many decoys and distractions that they won't be able to react in time," Barry said. "The distraction campaign will have a second-and third-strike capability because of investigations now underway, courtesy of one of my epicenter billionaires. He's got graft hunters on the trail of suspected wrongdoers at high levels, including two White House special assistants to the president."
The Meliorists pored over a memorandum from their informants titled "The Lingering Atmosphere of Overconfident Greed and Power in the Corporate Trade Associations and Law Firms." Just what they suspected and desired. The big boys still thought their center would hold. The conversation moved to the specifics of the strategy of diversion, decoy, and distraction. As so often happened in their conversations, one voice emerged. This time it was Joe's.
"In the final analysis, our corporate adversaries are all about themselves, not about the monies and assets they're entrusted with managing. You have to hit them where they live -- what I call their petty gut -- and that goes for their buddies and defenders in Congress too. That's the most immediately felt and decisive way to distract them. So we get one of those core legislators we were talking about this morning to introduce a bill setting the salaries of members of Congress at the level of average household income, which amounts to a pay cut of about sixty-five percent. The bill will also strip them of their health insurance and their pensions until all Americans have those same benefits. Or Warren gets together with Peter Drucker on a national drive to restrict the compensation of CEOs and top executives to no more than twenty-five times the entry-level wage in their companies, to require full disclosure of the often intricate compensation deals, and to give shareholders full voting authority as owners. Or the PCC mounts a movement to cut off all corporate welfare so that companies have to rely entirely on consumer revenue from their products and services -- no more taxpayer subsidies and bailouts.
"Two more ideas, not to the petty gut, just to the gut. First, resurrect the federal chartering proposal of Republican presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Back then the slogan was 'National charters for national corporations.' It was a big debate in the Gilded Age -- the first Gilded Age, that is. But the company bosses liked the state charters, especially Delaware's, and the states liked the revenues they raked in from the perks they offered the corporations. It was a big deal for little Delaware -- at the time, about a third of its state income came from these chartering fees as businesses all over the country flocked to this corporate Reno. The courts were patsies. It was a cushy arrangement for the corporations throughout the twentieth century. Let's put a stop to it. Today's slogan should be 'Federal charters for global corporations.' Let's rewrite the charters for a just compact between these artificial corporate giants and real people. Let's have real regulators, real courts, a real level playing field.
"Secondly, stop the Washington regulatory merry-go-round by establishing a consumer and taxpayer watchdog within the government. In the seventies, a bill creating a Consumer Protection Agency almost made it through Congress several times, but it was blocked by the biggest combined lobbying effort ever. Why? Under the legislation, all the CPA was empowered to do was take the regulatory agencies to court if they were failing to enforce the law or otherwise evading their regulatory duties. Well, the very thought of this agency with its tiny budget of fifteen million dollars going after the FCC, the FDA, the FAA, the FTC, and the whole alphabet soup drove the business lobbyists to many secret meetings in their lair at the Madison Hotel. Just about every industry and line of commerce was represented. They finally got Congress to scuttle the CPA for good in 1979, but its specter is such that whenever any progressive member of Congress even thinks of reintroducing it, staffers send up alarums of political disaster and campaign bankruptcy. Well, that just tells us how terrified the corporate boys are of the CPA coming back. They've won by intimidating Congress, but hell, they'll be bear meat for us.
"So there are some decoys for you -- a one-two punch to the petty gut and the corporate gut. They're all understandable to the public, they'll poll well, and many will come with built-in human interest stories about life-destroying neglect, basic principles of fairness, and so on. Also, if we back them knowledgeably in public, the press we get will help create an aura of legislative likelihood."
"Great ideas, Joe, just great," Barry said, "but for now I think we should float them visibly and leave it at that. We don't want them distracting us. We've already got enough on our plates with the Fourth. Speaking of which, Promotions is having thirty million copies of the Declaration of Independence printed. On one side will be a facsimile of the original document, on the other a typeset reprint for ease of reading. In the middle of June we'll send them out in shipping tubes to the mailing list the Secretariat has compiled from all the Redirections. Bill Hillsman is preparing an ad campaign that will bring Patriotic Polly back to announce the mailing and urge citizens to substitute in their minds, each time the Declaration refers to King George III, the name of the current George or of a multinational corporation."
"Wonderful," Warren said. "It'll be great to see Polly back in action. And on Joe's decoy concerning obscene executive compensation packages and investor control, I'm happy to report that it's already in the works. What could be more fun than hoisting these overpaid critters by their own ideological petards? Hey, big shot CEO, you believe in capitalism? Then surrender to the authority of your company's owners, who will henceforth decide what you, their hired hands at the rarefied top, will be paid. No more of this monumental hypocrisy that lets you have your cake and eat it too. An investor control petition is on its way to the Securities and Exchange Commission even as we speak. The Investor CUB is all over this with me, and they are really beginning to flex their newfound muscles. Joining with them are John Bogle, the preeminent reformer of mutual funds, and two former SEC chairmen who were prominent Wall Street businessmen before going to Washington. These three have thousands of followers who have bought their books or listened to their lectures on investor rights and remedies, and I'll try to get Peter Drucker on board too, Joe. I anticipate that within two months, the momentum for investor control will reach the point of self-replication and move forward on its own steam, as we envision many of our projects will do. But let's get back to the Agenda now. Anything else?"
"Yes," Barry said over a round of applause for Warren. "Promotions is preparing a list of poll questions on the issues covered in the Agenda legislation. This is essential so the media will have numbers to plug into their stories. We'll send you the list early next week. If you have any suggestions about additional topics or the wording of the questions, relay them to my project manager. The polls will be done in about six weeks, and Promotions will time their release. The pollsters have been chosen for their sterling reputations and will make the polling methodology available to any inquiring reporter or legislator."
Ross spoke up. "I think we should canvass the blocked legislative proposals of the citizen groups for modest amendments or riders to be added to bills that will go through anyway, either in the ordinary course of business or because of our efforts. That would certainly build goodwill and morale among these long-besieged groups, without our having to enter into a close alliance with them and deal with their baggage. Include the simple, fair measures allowing workers to use the labor laws to protect themselves and we may arouse organized labor's demoralized rank and file. One of our goals should be to swell the turnout for Labor Day parades. Even in a union town like Detroit, the Labor Day parade is down to a couple of thousand people. Taking that number up by a factor of ten would catch the attention of legislators, both pro and con, who are sensitive to momentum. Let's set that as a minimum goal and have Mass Demonstrations work on stepping up the intensity and theatrics of the parades. Labor Day will be crucial to our kickoff when Congress returns from the August recess."
"Yes," Warren agreed, "after the Fourth, Labor Day will be the next milestone as we head toward a final congressional showdown, but allow me a few more words about June and July. We'll all have to move our own projects and initiatives along as rapidly as possible in June, because after the Fourth our time and energy will be focused on the Agenda. Joe and Bill's Pledge of Allegiance and 'America the Beautiful' feints are going to be the subject of congressional hearings in June. That should keep the radio and TV talking heads sputtering for the rest of the summer. Don Saul's bill legalizing industrial hemp, in addition to its various virtues in terms of the national interest, has become another distraction for the yahoos of the right. More and more lawmakers and agricultural establishment types are lining up behind it, and even some national security people are supportive because of industrial hemp's potential to reduce the importation of oil.
"Bill Cosby and Paul are still working on how to institutionalize the transformation of dead money into live money, but it's already clear that dead money is coming to life all over the place. Our epicenter billionaires are using their wealth to fund preteen civic training classes during the summer break; to lay the groundwork for new regional colleges whose principal major will be civic skills and analysis; to establish local awards for civic valor as Bernard suggested at Maui Four; to form a taxpayers' investigative organization that will expose wasteful federal and state budgets and their arcane systems of deferrals; to set up thousands of micro radio stations so that citizens can literally use their voices to build better neighborhoods and communities right there; to start a drive against teenage silliness and masochism and show the kids how commercialism is controlling their minds and their lives; and to launch a national veterans' movement to reclaim patriotism from its present misuse as a tool of censorship and conformity in the service of the oligarchs and the military-industrial complex.
"What is most amazing about this veritable blizzard of activity involving tens of millions of Americans is the way it has brought out their manifold talents and their best natures, which we all knew was the factor that would make or break our year's work. And the blizzard goes on. For instance, the next phase of the 'Pay the Rent!' drive against the broadcasters is scheduled for next weekend. Bill and Barry, will you give us a few words on this?
"Happy to," Bill Cosby said. "We've planned demonstrations in front of the major television stations in the fifty largest media markets. The signs, banners, and props will meet every criteria for graphic TV footage. We expect a minimum of five hundred well-briefed and motivated demonstrators who will move from one station to another during the six o'clock news hour so that the stations will have an opportunity to report live on what's happening right outside their windows. Most of them won't, which will prove to the community that they're willing to censor anything that affects their longtime freeloading on the public. Leading the demonstrations will be some well-known members of the community, though you can imagine how many others declined when they were approached to confront big media in their hometown. The ones who accepted were those who've been shut out for so long that they have nothing to lose -- labor leaders, neighborhood activists, community reformers. It's almost certain that the local newspapers will find all this newsworthy -- that is, unless they're owned by the companies that own the stations. In either case, we'll collect valuable data on which stations did or did not cover the events and why. There's also going to be a big demonstration in Washington, but I'll let Barry tell you about that."
"Well, barring rain, we'll have five thousand people demanding their rent in front of the National Association of Broadcasters headquarters off Connecticut Avenue. There isn't much room to assemble, but by the same token the surrounding streets will be packed for the photographers and cameras. All requisite demonstration permits in DC and around the country have been obtained."
"Thanks to both of you for the update," Warren said. "Also scheduled for next week is the long-awaited Report on Corporate Welfare. Jeno, a few words please."
"Well, it is a sizable tome. The title is 'Corporate Welfare Kings: Rolling the Taxpayers in the Service of Greed.' Nothing like it has ever been assembled before, which is why it's late, though I'm amazed the compilers didn't take many more months to finish. It has something for every ideology, viewpoint, and gripe, and the writing pinpoints each of these nerve endings in a very adroit manner. It includes a ranking of the Top One Hundred Welfare Kings based on a sound methodology and some very well done internal government agency memoranda that we obtained, on who gets the subsidies. For the press, the report will have long legs because it names thousands of companies in thousands of communities, including some of my own companies -- sometimes I simply had to do what my competitors were doing. Country club talk next week will get a lot less routine, I'll bet. The takers and the givers are going to know who they are in no uncertain terms, and the givers are not going to like it one bit. The report concludes with sensible recommendations about what needs to be done so that the people can find out about these giveaways, challenge them, and end them, or at least channel them toward broader public interest objectives. Of course Promotions has been well-briefed for action. I think the Clean Elections Party candidates should run with this issue too, because dirty money in campaigns is what greases the skids in Washington for all these massive detours of taxpayer money and corporate tax dodges."
"Thanks, Jeno. Does anyone have anything to add? What about you, Sol? You've been unusually quiet."
"Does a starving man have the strength to speak?"
"Apparently so," Warren rejoined. "All right, time for dinner, then our silence period -- you know the drill -- but let's depart from our meeting format in the morning. We've all got a lot of personal catching up to do since Maui Four, and I also think we need some time for informal discussion. Anything we've overlooked is more likely to come up that way."
By noon the next day, Maui Six was history, and the Meliorists returned to the mainland, but not before Warren reminded them to collect on their IOUs from the billionaires they'd cultivated. "We won't have much time to dun them after the Fourth," he cautioned.
***
The Sunday of Maui Six found Lobo -- that was what he liked to be called, just Lobo -- racking his brains in the solitude of his office high above Manhattan. Lobo liked to rack his brains. It gave him an adrenaline rush, fueled his imagination, and drove him to push the envelope further than any of his competitors. That was why he was the preeminent corporate raider.
His new job gave him plenty to rack his brains over. He'd read thousands of clippings, seen hundreds of video clips on the SROs' individual causes and confrontations. He'd consulted with the American Enterprise Institute and the other conservative think tanks. He'd met with trade association executives who should have been alarmed by the unprecedented eruptions all over the country. He'd devoured books and Harvard Business School case studies on how corporations and industries had counterattacked their adversaries in the past. He'd studied the way commercial interests had beat down reformist third parties. He'd debriefed his CEO bosses about their meetings with the SROs. He'd even tried to contact Dick Goodwin for a friendly tete-a-tete, but he was told this venerable man in the know and speechwriter to presidents was in London completing a stage play. It was all a quest through Preposterous Land -- but wasn't everything about the SROs preposterous until you looked around and saw that more and more, every hour of every day, they were rousing the country from its subservient slumber?
After all his exertions, Lobo came up empty. He had no real leads, no feet in the door, nothing. He'd been a chain smoker and stopped, replacing his cigarillos with raw carrots. Since accepting the CEOs' assignment, he'd devoured so many carrots that his skin was turning orange. Had he taken on more than he could deliver? If he failed, that would be big news, and his reputation as a world-beater would collapse. For years reporters had wanted nothing more than to see his arrogant pride pricked. They would be waiting and watching ravenously. Naturally he kept all these twinges of self- doubt to himself -- Lobo never confided, never! -- and consoled himself with the thought that he was still in the conceptual stage and had been instructed not to commence operations until the CEOs gave him the go-ahead.
Lobo's unwonted introspection didn't prevent him from moving quickly to prepare his capabilities for surveillance, infiltration, attrition, and the all-important assault on motives and integrity to sow fear of the SROs among the people and manufacture a mass sense of insecurity about the future. For these tasks, he called on the smartest dirty-tricks PR firm in Washington and hired hard-bitten experts in penetration tactics -- boy, did those guys look hungry! The more delicate job of marshaling the corporate world's "deadwood muck-a-mucks," as he called them, he would do himself, working intuitively on his assessment of which of them could be roused through his calculated provocations.
Of all the people Lobo had spoken to, only one really impressed: Brovar Dortwist. He had fire in his belly, a high sense of alarm, mental acuity, street smarts, and phenomenal Washington contacts. Lobo picked up the phone.
"Hello, Brovar, Lobo here. You remember our recent conversation?"
"Yes, of course, how are you?"
"Fine enough to invite you for dinner tomorrow evening at my office to talk about the SROs." Lobo explained the acronym, and the two men shared a laugh at CEO Bump's expense.
"Okay, I'll be there," Brovar said.
"Excelente. Adios."
The next evening, the dapper Dortwist arrived five minutes early and was admitted by a butler who seated him at a beautifully set table. A few minutes later, Lobo strode in and greeted him with an abrazo. Then he broke out a bottle of Dalmore 62 that he'd purchased in London last year for $22,000, and they proceeded to down three straight shots each in preparation for a bare-fisted strategy session.
Lobo looked his guest in the eye. "Brovar, in all my years of going after corporations, I never dreamed a fraction of what the SROs have been doing to them since early this year. It's an ingenious, deep, broad, diverse, clever, tough, motivating, empowering awakening of the masses. Social scientists might call it a breakthrough movement. And it appears that it's just getting started and there's a lot more on the way. The SROs are recruiting what the Marxists call 'a revolutionary cadre' from all ages and backgrounds. I must say, speaking as my old self, pre-conversion, it's almost inspirational when you think of the huge problems the country is experiencing. What do you say?"
The butler served the salad course. Brovar took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "I too find some of what they're doing not unacceptable. They're telling capitalists to act like capitalists and stop freeloading on huge deficits in Washington. But overall they're threatening the whole power system that assures stability and continuity, and that I cannot abide. Forces will be unleashed that they will not be able to control, even if they want to. When the people get a taste of power, they develop a thirst for more and more. The result is invariably tumult, chaos, anarchy, and collapse. We are the two people in the country who want to and can set forces in motion to counter this looming threat."
"I couldn't agree more. After all, I've made a pretty good living feeding off the overreaching greed of that 'whole power system,' as you called it. Let me bounce some thoughts off you. The usual corporate response to a serious challenge is to wear down the citizen groups or reformist politicians by confronting them at every point of potential victory. Remember when the environmental groups went to federal court to block the construction of the Alaska Pipeline and won their case? That big oil consortium simply went to Congress and passed legislation that reversed the court decision and then some. The enviros, while capable in court, had no second-strike capability in Congress, where money talks. All company strategists operate this way. If they lose in court, they go to the legislature, and if they lose in the legislature, they tie up the regulatory agency implementing the bill. If they finally lose at the regulatory level. they go back to court or to the Congress to overrule the rule. And all along the way they use the business media at full throttle to advance their mission. Meanwhile, the briefly aroused public loses interest and subsides.
"Question to you, Brovar. Is that how we confront the SROs, by pushing back at every point or intersection where they're pushing forward -- lobbying, litigation, media, Astroturfing, front groups, chambers of commerce, PACs, dealers and agents back in the communities, the whole ball of wax? You know what the complacent trade association world in Washington thinks. They declare that nothing has actually changed. Except for a few victories in small claims court, it's all been publicity, petitions, mobilization, and some new organizations that don't have anything concrete to show for themselves. There have been no new laws or regulations, they say, no official decisions, no company surrenders, nothing that's diminished the power of the corporate world in the slightest, blah blah blah."
The butler came in with the main course, Wagyu strip steaks with black truffle vinaigrette. Brovar waited for him to serve the food and clear the salad plates before he replied. "I'm not sure we have time to do all you've suggested before the SRO initiatives morph into real political, economic, and spiritual power on Capitol Hill and on Election Day, but what other choice do we have? None that's legal, as far as I can see."
"So," Lobo replied, "what you're saying is that we pursue a conventional all-fronts confrontation strategy, because we certainly don't want to do anything illegal. But just hypothetically, suppose the strategy fails and our clients are on the brink. Shouldn't we consider all our options under the rubric of skirting legality? There's not much risk if we're caught. We'll make sure our people are willing to take the modest punishment provided for by the modest sanctions of corporate criminal law, or else we'll have fall guys take the rap. I'm not talking about anything raw, just things like money flows, defamation, the usual dirty tricks. When time is short and billions of dollars are at stake, when power, position, status, and whole companies are at stake -- well, what is it the Boy Scouts advise? 'Be prepared.' Just hypothetically, of course, Brovar."
"Just hypothetically, Lobo, an old Chinese proverb says, 'He who plays with fire is likely to be burned.' Tidal waves are heading to Washington. Nothing like this has ever happened in any country -- the super-organized revolt of the older super-rich against the entrenched super-rich! It's the stuff of Hollywood, for heaven's sake. Automatic mass media. We usually crush our opposition because they have trouble getting any media. Now the media itself is being told to pay the rent, and the print press is having a field day reporting it. As for the members of Congress, they're quietly having nervous breakdowns from all the populist pressure building on them from back home. They can feel what's corning in an election year when their most senior legislators are being challenged by candidates from a well-funded Clean Elections Party. Sure, Lobo, unleash the conventional sallies against the SROs, but don't bet too heavily on our success in the time frame we're talking about. It's only five months to Election Day. Our side may have dawdled too long."
"You're provocative in the best sense, Brovar. So where does that leave us?"
"Well, that depends. How much money are your CEOs willing to spend once they give you the go-ahead? And do they have it in hand, or are they talking vague pledges?"
"I'm waiting on them for the answer. They've given me my office and staff budget, but they won't be ready to tell me how much they're raising and committing personally until late June. Usually in a fight between populism and oligarchy, oligarchy has to spend ten times more to have a chance to prevail. I mean, look at those solar festivals that people are flocking to every weekend now. They have credibility. We can't exactly match them with coal-burning festivals, can we? On the other hand, our side already has a multibillion-dollar infrastructure in place -- organizations, communications, media, transportation, captive legislators, a corporate White House, all kinds of networks around the country, an aura of invincibility. But does that infrastructure have the heart and the stomach for the fast-approaching battle? As of now I doubt it seriously. The big boys are too fat, dumb, and happy, too smug, too used to an unbroken string of victories. They may have to lose a few times before they'll wake up. I know none of this is news to you, Brovar."
"My rough guess is that just this year you're going to need five billion dollars. If the conventional counteroffensive doesn't work, you may be forced to fall back on those hypothetical tactics that we never discussed. If push comes to shove, you'll have nothing to rely on when the barbarians are storming the gates but fear, smear, and the Khyber Pass."
"The Khyber Pass?"
"Exactly. It's the mountain pass through which waves of invaders rode into the Indus Valley to conquer the Indian subcontinent. If they weren't stopped there, then India lay before them, essentially defenseless. A nice metaphor for our intensifying predicament. Let's assume the SROs mobilize so much popular force that they have the votes in Congress to pass a whole backlog of legislation that the liberals and progressives, so called, have been salivating for these last twenty- five years. Your last stand is the procedural power of the committee chairs and our seasoned friends in the leadership to block the legislation at every turn. They are the Khyber Pass where we can choke off the invaders, at least for this year. All bets are off after the election."
"Well, your sources must be telling you the same thing mine are -- that the SROs' legislative allies on the Hill are indeed preparing to introduce a wide brace of legislation, the whole liberal agenda on health insurance, a living wage, labor rights, investor rights, tax equity, pension preservation, consumer protection, energy and the environment -- the usual list. Our corporate clients have been discrediting, delaying, and blocking these measures for years. Those guys have the propaganda and the television dramatizations down pat. It's the new rising power behind these bills that changes the entire equation for us."
"Lobo, you have to tread very carefully here. Start the usual campaigns to discredit the bills as economically unworkable, too costly, too radical, too likely to undermine the precious free market and our global competitiveness. Trot them all out, brush them off, give them a new gleam, a fresh focus. But you may have to use smear tactics to save the ship when and if the time comes. If you deploy them too early, when you don't yet know whether the conventional campaigns are going to fail, they may backfire on you. The press will see them as acts of desperation by corporatists on the brink of defeat. Our friends in Congress will disassociate themselves from such tactics. I repeat, you have to be ready, you have to get those ducks in order on the QT, but you only want to use them at the eleventh hour, when you have everything to lose if you don't. It's a tightrope act of the first order."
"Excellent advice. Are you with me, Brovar?"
"Of course, Lobo."
"Dessert and brandy, Brovar?"
"Of course, Lobo."
As the Dartford warbler was winging its way home -- it had had enough of Capitol Hill -- the Meliorists were winging their way to Maui. They had taken appropriate precautions, wearing their disguises as necessary, but they were feeling a little jumpy as they gathered in the familiar atrium conference room. All of them had been getting more and more calls from the press asking about links between them. All were having their offices and telecommunications systems swept regularly for bugs. Warren asked Bill Joy to open the meeting with a security update.
"Well, so far so good, according to my latest scans," Bill said. "There have been some attempts to hack into the secure website, but as far as I can tell, it's just a matter of the usual random hackers, maybe teenagers like the ones who broke into some of the Pentagon's sites three years ago. That will undoubtedly change now that the covey of CEOs who placed that WSJ ad have found a leader for their counterattack squad -- none other than Lancelot Lobo."
A ripple of surprise swept around the table. "Well, well, well," Jeno said gleefully. "So Lobo has crossed the aisle and chosen fame over fortune. Well, I licked him once, and I relish a return engagement."
"As for the hotel," Bill Joy went on, "it's clean, but once you go public, all bets are off. The probability of penetration will soar. All I can promise you is regular surveillance with the latest technology."
"Thank you, Bill. We know we're in good hands," Warren said. "Now let's turn to the major subject of our gathering, Invasion Congress. Patrick Drummond of our now properly fabled Secretariat has prepared an overall strategy, which I've asked him to present to us before we have supper. Patrick, the floor is yours."
"Thank you, Warren." Patrick rose and passed a document around the table. "What you see before you is a synopsis of the work of the finest minds in the field, men and women who have spent their careers striving to understand the interactions between Congress in all its parts and the people in all their parts and of course the corporations. I'm just the messenger and editor. For our guidance over the months to come, I've distilled a number of general operating principles for the drive to pass the First-Stage legislation, otherwise known as the Agenda, and I ask you to take the next few minutes to read them."
As one, the Meliorists directed their attention to the strategy paper.
1. The members of Congress must be made to feel a heightened level of public expectation about prompt improvements in our country -- something similar to FDR's Hundred Days, only it won't be the president announcing this Agenda.
2. This heightened public expectation must then be transformed into high personal expectations of each representative and senator. The attitude bearing down on them from all quarters should be something like "of course we know you'll do the right thing for the people, for our country." No threats of retaliation, electoral defeat, or other combative tactics. The carrot sings along the silent pendency of the stick -- the carrot in this case being not power or money but simply the deep approbation of their constituents. In the sixties, senior senators who were knee-jerk apologists for business suddenly turned into civil rights advocates and consumer champions. Why? Because the climate back home had changed.
3. The legislative Agenda should not come to Congress from a central source -- the eggs-in-one-basket mistake. The bills must come separately from separate sources. The core group's backup support is just that -- backup.
4. Public indignation should be directed at the greedy and callous in the corporate power structure, not at members of Congress, at least until further notice. This approach serves to divide the members from the corporatists and undermine the bonding between them. It may not be the approach adopted by angry constituents who have grievances far deeper than ours, but we can help set the tone. Insistence short of indignation leaves indignation at the ready, just over the horizon, just enough that they feel it gathering.
5. Except for the Blockbuster offer, the core group should eschew all campaign fundraising. If it becomes necessary to replace funds cut off by angry commercialists, your extensive epicenters can be urged to make up the difference. You do not want to be viewed as the "heavies" here. It is advised that the Blockbuster offer come directly from the National Trust for Posterity and its luminous board of trustees.
6. The more the flow of persuasions directed at the legislators comes from back home, the better the prospects for victory. The media will be looking for a central source of the initiatives. We have to be very aware of this penchant in the press.
7. The bills of the Agenda need to be ranked in terms of ease of passage, with an eye toward building momentum with each success, and also in terms of constituencies inside and outside Congress.
8. Although the Agenda has been framed to be easily understandable, it still needs symbols, slogans, even artistic and musical elaborations. We need concise emblems that will evoke our whole enterprise. For example, we can do an advertising blitz centered on a sentence like "This is the year when Americans will lift their country up to new heights of liberty and justice for all." Through constant repetition in the media and by word of mouth, the sentence is reduced to "This is the year," and everyone instantly knows what it means. What we're after here is team spirit on a grand scale. To the plutocrats: "Invest in the people -- it's the patriotic thing to do." A powerful message, and all the more so when it comes from mega-millionaires and billionaires.
9. The opposition must be distracted and fractured with decoys and feints. Bill G. and Joe are showing the way here with the Pledge of Allegiance and the National Anthem. We need many more such distractions, specifically conceived to deflect the energies of the lobbyists and special interests from the legislative Agenda on Capitol Hill. One suggestion is that the core group dramatize and personalize the issues by challenging the self-selected corporate team -- the CEOs you've met with -- to a series of television debates. People love contests and conflicts. Among the highest-rated TV programs are court shows, game shows, and sports shows. Flush the CEOs out in a battle royal, a political Super Bowl. They won't want to accept the challenge, but perhaps Lancelot Lobo will make sure that they do. There's a reason people remember David and Goliath, Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham, all the heroes and villains of literature: dramatis personae.
10. Surprise and alacrity are key in catching the congressional opposition off guard and moving the Agenda through. Historians of Congress observe that breakthrough legislation -- good or bad -- more often than not happens quickly, before a strike-back capability can get underway. This is not a hard and fast role -- it took Senator George Norris, the main protagonist, more than a decade of intense campaigning to pass the law creating the Tennessee Valley Authority -- but in general, the faster the better, especially when there is a vocal constituency demanding action on a glaring injustice. The quality of the drafting will help greatly to speed things along. Each bill will be close to letter-perfect when it is introduced.
11. Real-life stories, heartrending or hopeful, are essential to give life to the Agenda. Stories generate empathy, human interest, authenticity, and identification among people in similar circumstances. Promotions will need to set up a new team to be in charge of this. Barry's networks fit in beautifully here and will play a large role.
12. We must marshal all our skills of anticipation to prepare for setbacks and crises. They are bound to occur, particularly if the opposition takes the low road. Think of agitators infiltrating our rallies to sow disruption, or even violence and mayhem. The oligarchy may try a strategy of deniability by using rogue elements to do the dirty work.
When everyone had finished reading, Patrick said, "Well, that's it in a nutshell. A challenge, but doable, I hope you'll agree. I would just add that we should be alert to any changes that come along without legislation or regulation. For instance, the Coca-Cola board of directors is giving shareholders approval rights over severance packages that exceed 2.9 times the previous year's compensation. A very small step by a very large company, but it's got Wall Street quaking with fear that it will start a trend. Credit goes to your tireless efforts, Warren."
"Thank you, Patrick, but the credit goes to you for yet another superlative contribution. Let's break now to digest what we've read while we digest our supper. Then we'll reconvene at nine for an hour of silence. In the morning we'll have a freewheeling discussion driven by our shared sense of urgency about the magnitude of what we must accomplish in the five short months before the elections. We could all use a good night's sleep before we go at it."
***
And did they ever go at it. The morning discussion began with a review of the Congress Project's compendium. "I've seen plenty of strategy sheets on members of Congress in my time, but this far surpasses any of them," Bernard said. "The first two categories of legislators it identifies, the already convinced and the persuadables, will form the hard core, who are ready, willing, and able to carry the Agenda banner inside Congress. As we can see from the compendium's breakdown, these core legislators are a motley bunch, which is just what we want. They come from both parties, have diverse geographical, ethnic, religious, and occupational backgrounds, and sit on a variety of congressional committees, including the Appropriations Committees and the all-important Rules Committees. It would be nice if they also turn out to have higher-than-average energy levels, a sense of history, an impatience for change, and a reserve of courage for the coming battles. We shall see.
"For all its excellence, there is one exceptionally important category that doesn't receive enough attention in the compendium, in my view. I refer to the legislators' congressional peer groups. Warren, can I ask that your project manager give us a matrix for each member showing circles of influence -- say, a dozen of the member's closest colleagues, and the colleagues they respect or fear the most politically whether they're close to them or not? When the chips are down and outside pressure is bearing in on Congress from all sides, the peer groups will be the last stand of the corporatists. And believe me, they know everything there is to know about these groups' personal relationships."
"I have the project manager standing by for our feedback," Warren said. "I'll get him on it right away."
Paul gestured around the conference table. "If I say so myself, we've got a pretty good circle of influence right here. Should we try to meet personally with key legislators? If so, when and where? We'd probably make a big splash if we showed up at their offices back in their districts instead of in Washington. Can we get a heads-up on which members would be most receptive to meeting with us, aside from our own senators and representatives?"
"My take is that we should be selective and respond to the advice of our spotters on Capitol Hill so that our meetings will have the maximum effect at the most crucial juncture," Ross said. "We don't want to fritter away our personal capital too early. We should use it as the final push on any wavering lawmakers."
"Right," Phil agreed. "That's our maximum leverage time, when we know the most about why they're wavering."
Joe held up his copy of the compendium. "This can never see the light of day, you know, not beyond our trusted circle. If it falls into the hands of the press or the opposition, it will be seen as manipulative and cause a backlash among the legislators. The Secretariat and each one of us must exercise the utmost caution here, and the same with Patrick's strategy document."
"Point taken," said Peter to nods all around. "I'd like to go back to the core legislators for a minute. A lot of them will select themselves for the tasks of the Agenda once they sense the support and power behind them and see the feasibility of passage. Inch by inch in the past few months they've been bestirring themselves, reaching out to kindred souls inside and outside Congress, moving from a defensive mentality to an offensive readiness.
"The members of Congress are a bundle of emotions and calculations, sniffing the air, fingers to the wind, wondering about the new forces stirring in the country and moving in on Capitol Hill for a showdown. From this cauldron of imponderables will rise leaders, some of them unexpected, to drive the Agenda home. These leaders are critical, especially in a short campaign, and there can never be too many of them. They're the ones who will drive the schedule, refine the tactics, soothe the irritable, prod the procrastinators, and above all convey a felt sense in Congress of the inevitability of victory, a bandwagon effect. Members of Congress are like the voters in one respect -- they want to go with the winners."
"Yes," Bernard said, "and many of them also have an unfulfilled appetite to achieve something in this corporate Congress, which is widely perceived as having done very little for the people for a very long time. This, along with the Congress Watchdogs, the Zabouresk-Zeftel group of retired lawmakers and staffers, and perhaps some personal attention from us with the media in tow, will help to forge the inner congressional corps, while all the other Redirectional forces, including the PCC and the Clean Elections Party, will serve as the outside drivers of the Agenda. Then wave after wave of populist power, driven by a knowledge of all the abuses, by pain, anguish, and outrage, and by a sense of destiny for future generations, will roll over Congress, the White House, and the corporate lobbying establishment. Congress isn't used to wave after wave of populist power. In the past, most reformers have thrown everything they've got into their congressional battles all at once, and when attrition starts with the counterattack, there are no reserves left. Then offense turns into defense, and retreat turns into rout. Fortunately, the depth of our resources and the number and quality of our people permit us serial momentum."
"Well, okay, but it's not just that," Ted said fervidly. "Look at Genghis Khan and his mounted warriors. The military precision of his tactics overwhelmed and routed much larger armies as the Mongols conquered and united more of the world in forty years than the Roman Army did in four hundred, and with remarkable exchanges of trade and technology. Naturally I bring up this military analogy only because of its vibrant imagery for our campaign to pass the Agenda." Yoko sighed. "Naturally, but you'll forgive me if I don't pursue it. What concerns me is that 'Agenda' sounds so dry and impersonal. Surely we can do better. I move that we call it 'Agenda for the Common Good' when it goes public."
There was a moment of startled silence. It was such an obvious point Warren looked around the table. "Make it so, Patrick," he said, "and thank you, Yoko."
"You're welcome," she said, and went on to deliver her detailed plan for graphics, posters, billboards, theater, music, all the artistic expressions that would help people connect viscerally with the Agenda for the Common Good and see it as rooted in the best of America's past.
Bill Cosby volunteered a heresy. "But spare us the hip-hop MTV-generation hokum. We have to treat the young seriously, and therefore respectfully, which means no pandering. They're an important constituency. If we can get even a small percentage of them involved in, say, becoming lecturers on their campuses, think how much discussion and debate would be aroused in the high schools, colleges, and universities. From such ferments rise great social movements. Turn off the TV, the computer, the CDs and DVDs -- and I'm not just talking about the kids. Get together face to face, put your arms around each other's shoulders, fill the sidewalks, the cafes, the parks, the veterans' and union halls, the senior citizen centers. Refurbish the commons! We've got to galvanize the credibility groups around specific legislation. We've got to use all the dynamics that have been building since January to the utmost for the final drive behind the Agenda."
"You know, that reminds me of how the students at Yale came out in support of the custodial workers a few years back," Paul said. "There was a ton of coverage on it in the Connecticut papers, and I followed the whole thing closely. Remember that movie Death Takes a Holiday? Imagine what would happen in our country if the lower third of the workforce took a holiday. Start with the super-rich in Greenwich, Belmont, Beverly Hills, Scarsdale, or any affluent suburb in the USA. There would be no one to care for the aging wealthy -- their relatives would have to perform all those unpleasant healthcare duties like emptying bedpans, instead of sipping their martinis in the drawing room while pondering what bequests they were likely to receive from the afflicted. Who would serve the food, ring up sales in the malls and shopping centers and convenience stores, provide daycare for our little ones, sweat to harvest our crops, work for pitiful wages in nonunion factories? And of course, who would do the cleaning and picking up after us? I'm talking about the people whose eyes we avoid when we get off planes or walk past their carts in hotel corridors, the people we tiptoe around while they're mopping our public bathrooms, the people we ignore while they're clearing our tables or washing our dishes or mowing our lawns or hosing down our cars or wiping our butts in hospitals -- who would do their work?" Normally the essence of cool, Paul was turning red as he spoke. "I'll tell you who! The same people, only once we pass the Agenda, they'll be paid twice as much, with full benefits, so they can have a decent life for themselves and their families."
Listening in silence, Bill Gates remembered his own speech at Maui One about the importance of the core group shedding their anonymity and standing up publicly to convey the felt emotions behind their initiatives. Well, they had done that, successfully projecting an image of loners on a justice kick, idiosyncratic do-gooders on an adventure. All that would change on the fifth of July, when the Meliorists stepped forth together as a linked force.
***
Most of the afternoon session was taken up with the catapult on the Fourth of July and the critical uses of the hot month of August, when Congress closed down and its members were off junketing or politicking or on vacation. "The entrenched powers won't know what hit them, and even if some do, there will be so many decoys and distractions that they won't be able to react in time," Barry said. "The distraction campaign will have a second-and third-strike capability because of investigations now underway, courtesy of one of my epicenter billionaires. He's got graft hunters on the trail of suspected wrongdoers at high levels, including two White House special assistants to the president."
The Meliorists pored over a memorandum from their informants titled "The Lingering Atmosphere of Overconfident Greed and Power in the Corporate Trade Associations and Law Firms." Just what they suspected and desired. The big boys still thought their center would hold. The conversation moved to the specifics of the strategy of diversion, decoy, and distraction. As so often happened in their conversations, one voice emerged. This time it was Joe's.
"In the final analysis, our corporate adversaries are all about themselves, not about the monies and assets they're entrusted with managing. You have to hit them where they live -- what I call their petty gut -- and that goes for their buddies and defenders in Congress too. That's the most immediately felt and decisive way to distract them. So we get one of those core legislators we were talking about this morning to introduce a bill setting the salaries of members of Congress at the level of average household income, which amounts to a pay cut of about sixty-five percent. The bill will also strip them of their health insurance and their pensions until all Americans have those same benefits. Or Warren gets together with Peter Drucker on a national drive to restrict the compensation of CEOs and top executives to no more than twenty-five times the entry-level wage in their companies, to require full disclosure of the often intricate compensation deals, and to give shareholders full voting authority as owners. Or the PCC mounts a movement to cut off all corporate welfare so that companies have to rely entirely on consumer revenue from their products and services -- no more taxpayer subsidies and bailouts.
"Two more ideas, not to the petty gut, just to the gut. First, resurrect the federal chartering proposal of Republican presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Back then the slogan was 'National charters for national corporations.' It was a big debate in the Gilded Age -- the first Gilded Age, that is. But the company bosses liked the state charters, especially Delaware's, and the states liked the revenues they raked in from the perks they offered the corporations. It was a big deal for little Delaware -- at the time, about a third of its state income came from these chartering fees as businesses all over the country flocked to this corporate Reno. The courts were patsies. It was a cushy arrangement for the corporations throughout the twentieth century. Let's put a stop to it. Today's slogan should be 'Federal charters for global corporations.' Let's rewrite the charters for a just compact between these artificial corporate giants and real people. Let's have real regulators, real courts, a real level playing field.
"Secondly, stop the Washington regulatory merry-go-round by establishing a consumer and taxpayer watchdog within the government. In the seventies, a bill creating a Consumer Protection Agency almost made it through Congress several times, but it was blocked by the biggest combined lobbying effort ever. Why? Under the legislation, all the CPA was empowered to do was take the regulatory agencies to court if they were failing to enforce the law or otherwise evading their regulatory duties. Well, the very thought of this agency with its tiny budget of fifteen million dollars going after the FCC, the FDA, the FAA, the FTC, and the whole alphabet soup drove the business lobbyists to many secret meetings in their lair at the Madison Hotel. Just about every industry and line of commerce was represented. They finally got Congress to scuttle the CPA for good in 1979, but its specter is such that whenever any progressive member of Congress even thinks of reintroducing it, staffers send up alarums of political disaster and campaign bankruptcy. Well, that just tells us how terrified the corporate boys are of the CPA coming back. They've won by intimidating Congress, but hell, they'll be bear meat for us.
"So there are some decoys for you -- a one-two punch to the petty gut and the corporate gut. They're all understandable to the public, they'll poll well, and many will come with built-in human interest stories about life-destroying neglect, basic principles of fairness, and so on. Also, if we back them knowledgeably in public, the press we get will help create an aura of legislative likelihood."
"Great ideas, Joe, just great," Barry said, "but for now I think we should float them visibly and leave it at that. We don't want them distracting us. We've already got enough on our plates with the Fourth. Speaking of which, Promotions is having thirty million copies of the Declaration of Independence printed. On one side will be a facsimile of the original document, on the other a typeset reprint for ease of reading. In the middle of June we'll send them out in shipping tubes to the mailing list the Secretariat has compiled from all the Redirections. Bill Hillsman is preparing an ad campaign that will bring Patriotic Polly back to announce the mailing and urge citizens to substitute in their minds, each time the Declaration refers to King George III, the name of the current George or of a multinational corporation."
"Wonderful," Warren said. "It'll be great to see Polly back in action. And on Joe's decoy concerning obscene executive compensation packages and investor control, I'm happy to report that it's already in the works. What could be more fun than hoisting these overpaid critters by their own ideological petards? Hey, big shot CEO, you believe in capitalism? Then surrender to the authority of your company's owners, who will henceforth decide what you, their hired hands at the rarefied top, will be paid. No more of this monumental hypocrisy that lets you have your cake and eat it too. An investor control petition is on its way to the Securities and Exchange Commission even as we speak. The Investor CUB is all over this with me, and they are really beginning to flex their newfound muscles. Joining with them are John Bogle, the preeminent reformer of mutual funds, and two former SEC chairmen who were prominent Wall Street businessmen before going to Washington. These three have thousands of followers who have bought their books or listened to their lectures on investor rights and remedies, and I'll try to get Peter Drucker on board too, Joe. I anticipate that within two months, the momentum for investor control will reach the point of self-replication and move forward on its own steam, as we envision many of our projects will do. But let's get back to the Agenda now. Anything else?"
"Yes," Barry said over a round of applause for Warren. "Promotions is preparing a list of poll questions on the issues covered in the Agenda legislation. This is essential so the media will have numbers to plug into their stories. We'll send you the list early next week. If you have any suggestions about additional topics or the wording of the questions, relay them to my project manager. The polls will be done in about six weeks, and Promotions will time their release. The pollsters have been chosen for their sterling reputations and will make the polling methodology available to any inquiring reporter or legislator."
Ross spoke up. "I think we should canvass the blocked legislative proposals of the citizen groups for modest amendments or riders to be added to bills that will go through anyway, either in the ordinary course of business or because of our efforts. That would certainly build goodwill and morale among these long-besieged groups, without our having to enter into a close alliance with them and deal with their baggage. Include the simple, fair measures allowing workers to use the labor laws to protect themselves and we may arouse organized labor's demoralized rank and file. One of our goals should be to swell the turnout for Labor Day parades. Even in a union town like Detroit, the Labor Day parade is down to a couple of thousand people. Taking that number up by a factor of ten would catch the attention of legislators, both pro and con, who are sensitive to momentum. Let's set that as a minimum goal and have Mass Demonstrations work on stepping up the intensity and theatrics of the parades. Labor Day will be crucial to our kickoff when Congress returns from the August recess."
"Yes," Warren agreed, "after the Fourth, Labor Day will be the next milestone as we head toward a final congressional showdown, but allow me a few more words about June and July. We'll all have to move our own projects and initiatives along as rapidly as possible in June, because after the Fourth our time and energy will be focused on the Agenda. Joe and Bill's Pledge of Allegiance and 'America the Beautiful' feints are going to be the subject of congressional hearings in June. That should keep the radio and TV talking heads sputtering for the rest of the summer. Don Saul's bill legalizing industrial hemp, in addition to its various virtues in terms of the national interest, has become another distraction for the yahoos of the right. More and more lawmakers and agricultural establishment types are lining up behind it, and even some national security people are supportive because of industrial hemp's potential to reduce the importation of oil.
"Bill Cosby and Paul are still working on how to institutionalize the transformation of dead money into live money, but it's already clear that dead money is coming to life all over the place. Our epicenter billionaires are using their wealth to fund preteen civic training classes during the summer break; to lay the groundwork for new regional colleges whose principal major will be civic skills and analysis; to establish local awards for civic valor as Bernard suggested at Maui Four; to form a taxpayers' investigative organization that will expose wasteful federal and state budgets and their arcane systems of deferrals; to set up thousands of micro radio stations so that citizens can literally use their voices to build better neighborhoods and communities right there; to start a drive against teenage silliness and masochism and show the kids how commercialism is controlling their minds and their lives; and to launch a national veterans' movement to reclaim patriotism from its present misuse as a tool of censorship and conformity in the service of the oligarchs and the military-industrial complex.
"What is most amazing about this veritable blizzard of activity involving tens of millions of Americans is the way it has brought out their manifold talents and their best natures, which we all knew was the factor that would make or break our year's work. And the blizzard goes on. For instance, the next phase of the 'Pay the Rent!' drive against the broadcasters is scheduled for next weekend. Bill and Barry, will you give us a few words on this?
"Happy to," Bill Cosby said. "We've planned demonstrations in front of the major television stations in the fifty largest media markets. The signs, banners, and props will meet every criteria for graphic TV footage. We expect a minimum of five hundred well-briefed and motivated demonstrators who will move from one station to another during the six o'clock news hour so that the stations will have an opportunity to report live on what's happening right outside their windows. Most of them won't, which will prove to the community that they're willing to censor anything that affects their longtime freeloading on the public. Leading the demonstrations will be some well-known members of the community, though you can imagine how many others declined when they were approached to confront big media in their hometown. The ones who accepted were those who've been shut out for so long that they have nothing to lose -- labor leaders, neighborhood activists, community reformers. It's almost certain that the local newspapers will find all this newsworthy -- that is, unless they're owned by the companies that own the stations. In either case, we'll collect valuable data on which stations did or did not cover the events and why. There's also going to be a big demonstration in Washington, but I'll let Barry tell you about that."
"Well, barring rain, we'll have five thousand people demanding their rent in front of the National Association of Broadcasters headquarters off Connecticut Avenue. There isn't much room to assemble, but by the same token the surrounding streets will be packed for the photographers and cameras. All requisite demonstration permits in DC and around the country have been obtained."
"Thanks to both of you for the update," Warren said. "Also scheduled for next week is the long-awaited Report on Corporate Welfare. Jeno, a few words please."
"Well, it is a sizable tome. The title is 'Corporate Welfare Kings: Rolling the Taxpayers in the Service of Greed.' Nothing like it has ever been assembled before, which is why it's late, though I'm amazed the compilers didn't take many more months to finish. It has something for every ideology, viewpoint, and gripe, and the writing pinpoints each of these nerve endings in a very adroit manner. It includes a ranking of the Top One Hundred Welfare Kings based on a sound methodology and some very well done internal government agency memoranda that we obtained, on who gets the subsidies. For the press, the report will have long legs because it names thousands of companies in thousands of communities, including some of my own companies -- sometimes I simply had to do what my competitors were doing. Country club talk next week will get a lot less routine, I'll bet. The takers and the givers are going to know who they are in no uncertain terms, and the givers are not going to like it one bit. The report concludes with sensible recommendations about what needs to be done so that the people can find out about these giveaways, challenge them, and end them, or at least channel them toward broader public interest objectives. Of course Promotions has been well-briefed for action. I think the Clean Elections Party candidates should run with this issue too, because dirty money in campaigns is what greases the skids in Washington for all these massive detours of taxpayer money and corporate tax dodges."
"Thanks, Jeno. Does anyone have anything to add? What about you, Sol? You've been unusually quiet."
"Does a starving man have the strength to speak?"
"Apparently so," Warren rejoined. "All right, time for dinner, then our silence period -- you know the drill -- but let's depart from our meeting format in the morning. We've all got a lot of personal catching up to do since Maui Four, and I also think we need some time for informal discussion. Anything we've overlooked is more likely to come up that way."
By noon the next day, Maui Six was history, and the Meliorists returned to the mainland, but not before Warren reminded them to collect on their IOUs from the billionaires they'd cultivated. "We won't have much time to dun them after the Fourth," he cautioned.
***
The Sunday of Maui Six found Lobo -- that was what he liked to be called, just Lobo -- racking his brains in the solitude of his office high above Manhattan. Lobo liked to rack his brains. It gave him an adrenaline rush, fueled his imagination, and drove him to push the envelope further than any of his competitors. That was why he was the preeminent corporate raider.
His new job gave him plenty to rack his brains over. He'd read thousands of clippings, seen hundreds of video clips on the SROs' individual causes and confrontations. He'd consulted with the American Enterprise Institute and the other conservative think tanks. He'd met with trade association executives who should have been alarmed by the unprecedented eruptions all over the country. He'd devoured books and Harvard Business School case studies on how corporations and industries had counterattacked their adversaries in the past. He'd studied the way commercial interests had beat down reformist third parties. He'd debriefed his CEO bosses about their meetings with the SROs. He'd even tried to contact Dick Goodwin for a friendly tete-a-tete, but he was told this venerable man in the know and speechwriter to presidents was in London completing a stage play. It was all a quest through Preposterous Land -- but wasn't everything about the SROs preposterous until you looked around and saw that more and more, every hour of every day, they were rousing the country from its subservient slumber?
After all his exertions, Lobo came up empty. He had no real leads, no feet in the door, nothing. He'd been a chain smoker and stopped, replacing his cigarillos with raw carrots. Since accepting the CEOs' assignment, he'd devoured so many carrots that his skin was turning orange. Had he taken on more than he could deliver? If he failed, that would be big news, and his reputation as a world-beater would collapse. For years reporters had wanted nothing more than to see his arrogant pride pricked. They would be waiting and watching ravenously. Naturally he kept all these twinges of self- doubt to himself -- Lobo never confided, never! -- and consoled himself with the thought that he was still in the conceptual stage and had been instructed not to commence operations until the CEOs gave him the go-ahead.
Lobo's unwonted introspection didn't prevent him from moving quickly to prepare his capabilities for surveillance, infiltration, attrition, and the all-important assault on motives and integrity to sow fear of the SROs among the people and manufacture a mass sense of insecurity about the future. For these tasks, he called on the smartest dirty-tricks PR firm in Washington and hired hard-bitten experts in penetration tactics -- boy, did those guys look hungry! The more delicate job of marshaling the corporate world's "deadwood muck-a-mucks," as he called them, he would do himself, working intuitively on his assessment of which of them could be roused through his calculated provocations.
Of all the people Lobo had spoken to, only one really impressed: Brovar Dortwist. He had fire in his belly, a high sense of alarm, mental acuity, street smarts, and phenomenal Washington contacts. Lobo picked up the phone.
"Hello, Brovar, Lobo here. You remember our recent conversation?"
"Yes, of course, how are you?"
"Fine enough to invite you for dinner tomorrow evening at my office to talk about the SROs." Lobo explained the acronym, and the two men shared a laugh at CEO Bump's expense.
"Okay, I'll be there," Brovar said.
"Excelente. Adios."
The next evening, the dapper Dortwist arrived five minutes early and was admitted by a butler who seated him at a beautifully set table. A few minutes later, Lobo strode in and greeted him with an abrazo. Then he broke out a bottle of Dalmore 62 that he'd purchased in London last year for $22,000, and they proceeded to down three straight shots each in preparation for a bare-fisted strategy session.
Lobo looked his guest in the eye. "Brovar, in all my years of going after corporations, I never dreamed a fraction of what the SROs have been doing to them since early this year. It's an ingenious, deep, broad, diverse, clever, tough, motivating, empowering awakening of the masses. Social scientists might call it a breakthrough movement. And it appears that it's just getting started and there's a lot more on the way. The SROs are recruiting what the Marxists call 'a revolutionary cadre' from all ages and backgrounds. I must say, speaking as my old self, pre-conversion, it's almost inspirational when you think of the huge problems the country is experiencing. What do you say?"
The butler served the salad course. Brovar took a bite and chewed thoughtfully. "I too find some of what they're doing not unacceptable. They're telling capitalists to act like capitalists and stop freeloading on huge deficits in Washington. But overall they're threatening the whole power system that assures stability and continuity, and that I cannot abide. Forces will be unleashed that they will not be able to control, even if they want to. When the people get a taste of power, they develop a thirst for more and more. The result is invariably tumult, chaos, anarchy, and collapse. We are the two people in the country who want to and can set forces in motion to counter this looming threat."
"I couldn't agree more. After all, I've made a pretty good living feeding off the overreaching greed of that 'whole power system,' as you called it. Let me bounce some thoughts off you. The usual corporate response to a serious challenge is to wear down the citizen groups or reformist politicians by confronting them at every point of potential victory. Remember when the environmental groups went to federal court to block the construction of the Alaska Pipeline and won their case? That big oil consortium simply went to Congress and passed legislation that reversed the court decision and then some. The enviros, while capable in court, had no second-strike capability in Congress, where money talks. All company strategists operate this way. If they lose in court, they go to the legislature, and if they lose in the legislature, they tie up the regulatory agency implementing the bill. If they finally lose at the regulatory level. they go back to court or to the Congress to overrule the rule. And all along the way they use the business media at full throttle to advance their mission. Meanwhile, the briefly aroused public loses interest and subsides.
"Question to you, Brovar. Is that how we confront the SROs, by pushing back at every point or intersection where they're pushing forward -- lobbying, litigation, media, Astroturfing, front groups, chambers of commerce, PACs, dealers and agents back in the communities, the whole ball of wax? You know what the complacent trade association world in Washington thinks. They declare that nothing has actually changed. Except for a few victories in small claims court, it's all been publicity, petitions, mobilization, and some new organizations that don't have anything concrete to show for themselves. There have been no new laws or regulations, they say, no official decisions, no company surrenders, nothing that's diminished the power of the corporate world in the slightest, blah blah blah."
The butler came in with the main course, Wagyu strip steaks with black truffle vinaigrette. Brovar waited for him to serve the food and clear the salad plates before he replied. "I'm not sure we have time to do all you've suggested before the SRO initiatives morph into real political, economic, and spiritual power on Capitol Hill and on Election Day, but what other choice do we have? None that's legal, as far as I can see."
"So," Lobo replied, "what you're saying is that we pursue a conventional all-fronts confrontation strategy, because we certainly don't want to do anything illegal. But just hypothetically, suppose the strategy fails and our clients are on the brink. Shouldn't we consider all our options under the rubric of skirting legality? There's not much risk if we're caught. We'll make sure our people are willing to take the modest punishment provided for by the modest sanctions of corporate criminal law, or else we'll have fall guys take the rap. I'm not talking about anything raw, just things like money flows, defamation, the usual dirty tricks. When time is short and billions of dollars are at stake, when power, position, status, and whole companies are at stake -- well, what is it the Boy Scouts advise? 'Be prepared.' Just hypothetically, of course, Brovar."
"Just hypothetically, Lobo, an old Chinese proverb says, 'He who plays with fire is likely to be burned.' Tidal waves are heading to Washington. Nothing like this has ever happened in any country -- the super-organized revolt of the older super-rich against the entrenched super-rich! It's the stuff of Hollywood, for heaven's sake. Automatic mass media. We usually crush our opposition because they have trouble getting any media. Now the media itself is being told to pay the rent, and the print press is having a field day reporting it. As for the members of Congress, they're quietly having nervous breakdowns from all the populist pressure building on them from back home. They can feel what's corning in an election year when their most senior legislators are being challenged by candidates from a well-funded Clean Elections Party. Sure, Lobo, unleash the conventional sallies against the SROs, but don't bet too heavily on our success in the time frame we're talking about. It's only five months to Election Day. Our side may have dawdled too long."
"You're provocative in the best sense, Brovar. So where does that leave us?"
"Well, that depends. How much money are your CEOs willing to spend once they give you the go-ahead? And do they have it in hand, or are they talking vague pledges?"
"I'm waiting on them for the answer. They've given me my office and staff budget, but they won't be ready to tell me how much they're raising and committing personally until late June. Usually in a fight between populism and oligarchy, oligarchy has to spend ten times more to have a chance to prevail. I mean, look at those solar festivals that people are flocking to every weekend now. They have credibility. We can't exactly match them with coal-burning festivals, can we? On the other hand, our side already has a multibillion-dollar infrastructure in place -- organizations, communications, media, transportation, captive legislators, a corporate White House, all kinds of networks around the country, an aura of invincibility. But does that infrastructure have the heart and the stomach for the fast-approaching battle? As of now I doubt it seriously. The big boys are too fat, dumb, and happy, too smug, too used to an unbroken string of victories. They may have to lose a few times before they'll wake up. I know none of this is news to you, Brovar."
"My rough guess is that just this year you're going to need five billion dollars. If the conventional counteroffensive doesn't work, you may be forced to fall back on those hypothetical tactics that we never discussed. If push comes to shove, you'll have nothing to rely on when the barbarians are storming the gates but fear, smear, and the Khyber Pass."
"The Khyber Pass?"
"Exactly. It's the mountain pass through which waves of invaders rode into the Indus Valley to conquer the Indian subcontinent. If they weren't stopped there, then India lay before them, essentially defenseless. A nice metaphor for our intensifying predicament. Let's assume the SROs mobilize so much popular force that they have the votes in Congress to pass a whole backlog of legislation that the liberals and progressives, so called, have been salivating for these last twenty- five years. Your last stand is the procedural power of the committee chairs and our seasoned friends in the leadership to block the legislation at every turn. They are the Khyber Pass where we can choke off the invaders, at least for this year. All bets are off after the election."
"Well, your sources must be telling you the same thing mine are -- that the SROs' legislative allies on the Hill are indeed preparing to introduce a wide brace of legislation, the whole liberal agenda on health insurance, a living wage, labor rights, investor rights, tax equity, pension preservation, consumer protection, energy and the environment -- the usual list. Our corporate clients have been discrediting, delaying, and blocking these measures for years. Those guys have the propaganda and the television dramatizations down pat. It's the new rising power behind these bills that changes the entire equation for us."
"Lobo, you have to tread very carefully here. Start the usual campaigns to discredit the bills as economically unworkable, too costly, too radical, too likely to undermine the precious free market and our global competitiveness. Trot them all out, brush them off, give them a new gleam, a fresh focus. But you may have to use smear tactics to save the ship when and if the time comes. If you deploy them too early, when you don't yet know whether the conventional campaigns are going to fail, they may backfire on you. The press will see them as acts of desperation by corporatists on the brink of defeat. Our friends in Congress will disassociate themselves from such tactics. I repeat, you have to be ready, you have to get those ducks in order on the QT, but you only want to use them at the eleventh hour, when you have everything to lose if you don't. It's a tightrope act of the first order."
"Excellent advice. Are you with me, Brovar?"
"Of course, Lobo."
"Dessert and brandy, Brovar?"
"Of course, Lobo."