From www.adbusters.org

My last blog was about the five memes or psychological messages that discourage Americans from joining with co-workers, neighbors and other community members to fight the business and corporate interests that negatively impact so many aspects of our lives. These paralyzing messages, which bombard us constantly via TV, movies, newspapers, magazines and billboards, have become so pervasive that many of us unconsciously incorporate them into our belief systems. Moreover, even when we become conscious that we are being “brainwashed,” it requires constant vigilance to keep them from creeping into our thinking. In my own case, I have specific counter messages or mantras I repeat to myself to dispel them, a technique I learned from cognitive behavioral training:

1. The taboo against being “workers” or “working class”

Counter message:  Persuading American workers to think of themselves as “middle class” is a trick the government and media play on us to make us think our interests are the same as those of the middle class and ruling elite. No one, except for the power elite and the politicians, managers and professions who look after their interests, is safe in the current economic and political environment. Anyone who works for the government or corporate boss is a “worker.”  Because, unless they belong to a union, their employer wields all the power in deciding whether to pay them enough to live on and/or to provide decent working conditions (in 2002, I myself had the privilege of joining the New Zealand union, Association of Salaried Medical Specialists).

2. American workers have it better than workers elsewhere in the world

Counter message: American workers have it far worse than most industrialized countries, including Egypt (only 41 – out of 133 – countries have worse income inequality http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2011/02/mouth-dropping-data-on-us-income-inequality-ranking.html ). In the US, the average CEO makes 263 times as much as the average worker (http://www.aflcio.org/corporatewatch/paywatch/pay/). American workers also have far worse quality of life in terms of public services. All other developed countries guarantee all their citizens universal health care and basic education (which is no longer guaranteed in the US), subsidized child care, paid parental leave and a living wage.

3. Protesting and striking hurts our kids.

Counter message: Americans have a higher obligation to leave their kids a planet run by true democracy, in which they still have some chance of providing clean food, water and air (free of toxic pollutants and infectious disease) for their own children and grandchildren.

4. Corporate controlled government and media are too powerful for ordinary people to bring about change.

Counter message: The most powerful antidote to alienation and apathy is the empowerment that comes from engaging (if only with neighbors over a dangerous intersection) in collective political activity.

5. Americans need to leave politics and economics to politicians.

Counter message: No politician in history has sacrificed his own interests or those of his supporters to undertake reforms benefiting ordinary people – without being forced to by the mass mobilization of dedicated, well-organized citizens.

To be continued.