The TRILATERAL COMMISSION REPORT of 1975 [the subject of "If You Had the Power"] was a guide for top government, business, academic and media leaders--members of the Trilateral Commission--to make American democracy more viable in the future in the aftermath of the 1960s protest movements.

​

What we find in this report is an overriding concern with limiting the power of the American public, thereby making them easier to manage:

​

     *  American citizens should not have "meaningful lives" because that would "... pose an additional new problem for democratic government in 

         terms of its ability to mobilize its citizens for the achievement of social and political goals and to impose discipline and sacrifice upon its 

         citizens in order to achieve those goals."  (p. 7)

​

     *  Higher education was seen as only leading to frustration for the nation's citizens--college students because they wouldn't get the jobs they 

         were anticipating, and everyone else, because now they were paying for that failed education that didn't provide good jobs, and now the 

         college graduates were taking their jobs.

​

     *  The government didn't have to concern itself with full employment, because if the government didn't have a plan, and didn't provide 

         employment options, then the people's frustrations wouldn't be directed specifically at the government.

​

     *  Writing before the 2010 Citizens United decision, they concluded that because campaign finance laws were routinely broken, there was no

         point in trying to enforce them.

​

     *  If government and corporations focus on the details of people's jobs, workers will be placated; therefore, government and corporations 

         don't have to deal with the difficult issues of working conditions, productivity, and output in the workplace.

​

     *  Because the media emerged during the 60s as a powerful challenger to the government, it was proposed that the media be reined in, if 

         necessary, by government regulation.

​

This is what and how the top 1% think of us, We the People.  This is the life they envisioned for us back in 1975, and the life we pretty much have today.  It's no accident life hasn't much improved for the vast majority of us these past 51 years.  Our lives weren't meant to get any better...  

​

Sure... they knew that sooner or later, we would be back in the streets again, protesting against the misbehavior of our government.  They knew

this day would come.  But as long as we could be managed for the time being, that was okay.  As long as the cycle continued: 

​

         We make demands on the government -->  leading the government to spend money it does not have -->  which leads to inflation  -->

         which then causes us to turn inward and (they expected) apathetic, focused only on our own individual survival, that was perfectly fine.

​

What they were NOT expecting, in fact, what they said must NOT happen, was that we have personalized charismatic leadership,” (p. 102), i.e., an “imperial presidency.”  (p. 176).  They also warned against a weak president.  “The weaker a political leader is at home, the more likely he is to be traveling abroad,” (p. 104) since the appearance of success in foreign policy is easier to pull off than real success at home. 

​

They were also anticipating a functioning Congress, one that formulates overall goals, determines priorities, and initiates programs.”  (p. 176).  This, clearly, also did not work out as planned.

​

So... what do we conclude from this?

​

     1.      It is time we wake up and smell the roses.  For real.  For those of us who are not multi-millionaires, not even millionaires…  not even close…               it is time we recognize what we are truly up against.  And it is not those darn Republicans.  Or those awful Democrats.  On the vast majority 

             of issues, those darn Republicans and those awful Democrats are just regular folk like you and me, just trying to get by.  Trying to take care

             of their family.  Trying to provide for their children and their parents and their pets as best they can. 

​

     2.    We need to recognize that our primary beef isn’t with each other.  Our primary beef is with the top 1% who are determined to keep us down. 

            Determined to keep us squabbling with each other, instead of focused on who the real culprits are—the people who, by their—let’s just say

            it, unbelievably selfish—behavior, really are making our lives so much more difficult than they have to be.

​

     3.   We need to keep a very cool head. 

​

     4.   One of the very clear mandates of this report was that the government not be challenged.  A government that must not have a personalized,  

           charismatic, imperialistic president.  A government that should have a functioning Congress.

​

           If we find that we do have an imperialistic president and a non-functioning president, then what are we to do?

​

QUALITY OF LIFE and the CONDITIONS FOR CHANGE

​

In order for us to have a truly cool head, it would be very helpful to have a clear picture of where we are, and what we are looking at in terms of our collective situation.  We’ll discuss that a bit, then get back to our 1%ers. 

​

The historic place in which we now find ourselves has been a while in the making.  The paper “Quality of Life and the Conditions for Change” discusses how, by 1980—46 years ago—all segments of American life—political, economic, social, intellectual/cultural, international—were in chaos.  Across every one of these areas, accepted ways of doing things no longer worked, and our best experts in each field had no idea what to do instead.  Nothing tried had worked. 

​

As a graduate student, I came across this almost-overwhelming information quite innocently.  In 1980, I took a seminar, the subject was “Quality of Life.”  The single assignment for the class:  "Write a paper on 'Quality of Life.'  Whatever you want…"  Being both naïve and ambitious, I asked my history professor husband, “Please give me the best books that will tell me the quality of life in America today.”  He did.  I scanned/read them.  Learned the above.  Oh, my…

​

I couldn’t leave things there, so I went searching…  and I found a theory.  A theory of order out of chaos.  A theory of order out of chaos that had just won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, of all things!  I then painstakingly set about working to figure out if a chemical model would apply to a social model—it did!

​

This is very inspiring, for it tells us that we are going through a natural process, that it is the very movements that we make as we go about our daily lives, interacting with each other and our institutions that will supply the energy for the transformation as we “escape” to a “higher order” of organization in our society.  Or, at least that’s how it works out if all goes well…

​

We can take comfort in knowing that it is actually normal and to be perfectly expected that we would have so much craziness, or as the theory would have it, "perturbations" in our world...  And even that it make sense, theory-wise, that this craziness has increased!

​

But, and this is according to theory as well, there is no guarantee that things will go well.  That, in the end, is up to us.  For any change to be effective and lasting, the movement, the re-organization, must come from the “ground up.”  Which means we must actively reject the “top down” manipulation that has so captivated us while leading to so much heartbreak and mismanagement.  Thankfully, we have some very strong suggestions as to how to make those changes effective and lasting, and they have to do with following the democratic values preached by

prophets and sages since the beginning of history:   

​

                              Respect for human dignity

                              Justice 

                              Frugality

                             Moderation

                             Equality

​

"These values will not come to replace the contemporary outmoded values--competitive individualism, comfort, waste, infinite growth, and security through accumulation--because human beings suddenly learn altruism.  They will come to be the dominant values of the coming century, if at all, 

only if enough people are awakened to the necessity for the survival of the species....  With this growing awareness comes the possibility of a 

new shared political consciousness for reconstruction.  But the battle for survival is always a race against time.  The crucial question is whether 

we can adapt our institutions and ourselves to a rapidly changing environment--in time."  (1)

​

If we consciously choose these values, if we refuse to let ourselves get pulled into culture wars, or other distractions, and realize that it is only We who will watch over We the People, we have a golden opportunity to rethink our institutions, rebuild what has been torn asunder.  We definitely have it within our capacity.  If we recognize how very much We have in common, how very much We need one another, how much stronger We are together, We can come to this new understanding, for We are Out of Many One.

​

​

​

​

​

_______________

​

(1)  Barnet, R. J., and Muller, R. E., Global Reach: The Power of Multinational Corporations.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974, pp. 386-87

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​