Luke Coffey studies and writes on U.S.-UK relations as the Margaret Thatcher Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He focuses in particular on defense and security matters, including the role of NATO and the European Union in transatlantic security.

Among his duties, Coffey helped shape British defense policy

Until going to the Ministry of Defence in 2010, Coffey worked in the House of Commons as an adviser on defense and security issues for the Conservative Party. He helped develop and implement policy initiatives on security and defense matters, in particular drafting the defense section of the party’s 2010 election manifesto.

Coffey’s commentary and analysis have been published in Great Britain’s Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Express and Sun newspapers

Digital outlets for his work include Huffington Post, CNN.com and FoxNews.com. Coffey has been interviewed by media outlets such as BBC, MSNBC, Sky Arabia, Al Jazeera, British Forces Broadcasting Service, Voice of America, the RT news channel (previously Russia Today) and dozens of other radio and television stations across the U.S. and overseas.

"Downton Abbey's" written by Julian Fellowes, a Tory peer, Baron, monarchist and husband-to-royalty, so right away you know it has a clear agenda. Restorative nostalgia to the max, and released to coincide with a fresh round of British austerity measures, the television series sees a family of early 20th century aristocrats living in a palatial estate and tended to by a sprightly band of servants. Sounds interesting?

Forget Renoir's "The Rules of the Game", Altman's "Gosford Park", and the past 500 years of human history and social theory. No. In "Downton Abbey", the class system exists for the benefits of those at the bottom, and proves as bothersome to those unfortunate few at the top as it does those lower down the social hierarchy.

Fellowes serves up the platonic ideal of an English aristocrat. Good, selfless and caring, our Lords and Ladys bend over backwards to serve their servants, graciously offering them jobs, assistance, compassion, awards and so forth. They are benign despots, all-powerful, their authority final, but more sage and caring than any elected politician could ever be. The rich, in other words, are socially responsible father figures. They are invested in their households, in their communities, and provide a far reaching social benefit; without the rich to mercifully protect them, the poor would be forced out into the cold to fend for themselves. Indeed, Fellowes frequently has his rich folk sacrifice their bodies, their status and their wealth for the servant class (joining war efforts, taking on limping servants etc). The message - rife with false binaries - isn't only that servants should be content with their roles, but that one, regardless of class, cannot and should not avoid servitude. Even the rich are servants to their fellowman.

Significantly, the series' villains are all either homosexuals, socialists or members of the servant class. In the second series, villains become figures of new wealth; modern capitalists who don't respect the supposedly loving, symbiotic relationships of late aristocracy. As the series focuses on an individual household rather than systems, the nobility and selflessness of Fellowes' aristocrats justify the system in which they spin. It's a very classically conservative notion of history (in actuality, servants couldn't look at, let alone speak to their masters), a proudly hierarchical world in which all social conflicts and tensions are resolved without any restructuring of class relations. Stratification is posited as being natural, optimal and only the deviant or repellent are incapable of adapting or finding accommodation within it. No talk, of course, of where our Earls and Lords acquired their wealth, land enclosures, the lives of the impoverished outside the mansions or how the system's social relations hinge on an in-build bondage ingrained within "economics" (ie money) itself. Elsewhere the series brings up occasional Big Issues (war, feminism, Ireland etc), but only to engage in the smug, back-patting afforded by hindsight. This is a benign, liberal aristocracy, for an age of "caring" capitalists.

All "Abbey's" arguments in favour for the class system were once put forth by George Fitzhugh, an American social theorist who published racial and slavery based sociological theories in the antebellum era. Fitzhugh essentially argued that Negro slaves needed "strong white daddies to look after them". That slavery "protects the Negro", "ensured that blacks would be economically secure and morally civilised" and that the evils of modern capitalism, which was gradually replacing slavery, would expose poor blacks to persecution and suffering. The new rich, Fitzhugh argued, were promoting a form of capitalist competition which would harm blacks. Afterall, the slave belongs to its owner, and owners take care of their capital, take care of what they own, provide them with food and shelter, unlike those pesky capitalists who merely rent labour. Fitzhugh even went so far as to defend slavery because "capitalists are anti Negro racists, whilst slavery is not racist".

Fellowes is doing the same. Or rather, the arguments are always the same, no matter the social reconfiguration taking place. Hence, slavery is good because slave owners take care of their slaves, aristocracy is good because the aristocracy takes care of their servants, and capitalism is good because employees take care of their labourers. What each argument does, regardless of historical time period, is posit the lower classes as dependent on power without questioning how and why this power is structured, created and propagated in the first place.

In the early 1980s, Immanuel Wallerstein, a renowned social scientist, outlined 12 characteristics which he believed were "unique" to modern world systems. His aim was to show that modern capitalism, in the affluent 80s, was a kind of "step up" from both the aristocracy of "Downton's" era and the feudalism of the distant past. By 1989, though, Wallerstein had completely reversed his position. All the presumably unique characteristics of the "modern world system" were also true of the medieval and ancient world systems. He could find no substantial distinctions that would satisfy his categorisations. The point isn't only that there were no clean transition from feudalism to aristocracy to capitalism as such, but that power proves capable of propagating itself.

But why would a series which glorifies the class system, posits class hierarchies as inherently benevolent and idealises master/servant bonds, be suddenly so very popular? Why would a series about inherited privilege, ineluctable servitude, be popular in an era of Occupy, Austerity, Bank Bailouts and massive corporate tax dodging? Perhaps because "Downton" presents a Utopian version of the past for the purposes of painting, and thereby bolstering, a contemporary system capable of weathering any upheaval or shock. Or perhaps it's simply a severe form of Stockholm Syndrome.

4/10 - See "Remains of the Day", "Eyes Wide Shut" and "Never Let Me Go". Worth no viewings

Lewis F Powell Jr, a real 21st century man if you like corporate personhood, genteel racism, hating on affirmative action, the death penalty, government secrecy, and think that rape victims don't “sustain serious or lasting injury". (Coker v Georgia)

Lewis Powell was a Virginia corporate attorney who turned down a nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1969 because the position didn't pay as well as private practice. Powell was a partner for the firm now known as Hunton & Williams LLP for 25 years representing railway interest and Big Tobacco. As Chairman of Richmond School Board, a position he held in addition to his day job, he went along with Virginia's defiance of Brown v Board of Education. When President Richard Nixon re-nominated him for the court in 71 – he accepted and became an Associate Justice.

The bulk of Powell's legacy – some may suggest “path of destruction” would be more accurate term – lies not on the Court or his private practice, but in a memo he sent just two months before his 1971 nomination and confirmation to the nation's highest court. Dated August 23rd, 1971 and sent to friend and Executive Vice President of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Eugene Sydnor it was titled “Attack of American Free Enterprise System”.

Powell urged corporate America to fund four coordinated and overlapping campaigns to take back America from the "liberals" and the "New Left:"
1. EDUCATION AND COLLEGE STUDENTS: "We have seen the civil rights movement insist on re-writing many of the textbooks in our universities and schools. The labor unions likewise insist that textbooks be fair to the viewpoints of organized labor. Other interested citizens groups have not hesitated to review, analyze and criticize textbooks and teaching materials…. Social science faculties (the political scientist, economist, sociologist and many of the historians) tend to be liberally oriented, even when leftists are not present."
2. PUBLIC MEDIA, ESPECIALLY TELEVISION: "The national television networks should be monitored in the same way that textbooks should be kept under constant surveillance. This applies not merely to so-called educational programs…but to the daily 'news analysis' which so often includes the most insidious type of criticism of the enterprise system…. Whether this criticism results from hostility or economic ignorance, the result is the gradual erosion of confidence in 'business' and free enterprise."
3. POLITICS AND POLITICAL POWER: "Business has been the favorite whipping-boy of many politicians for many years. But the measure of how far this has gone is perhaps best found in the anti-business views now being expressed by several leading candidates for President of the United States…. Business must learn the lesson, long ago learned by labor and other self-interest groups. This is the lesson that political power is necessary; that such power must be [assiduously] cultivated; and that when necessary, it must be used aggressively and with determination."
4. THE COURTS, THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM, AND LEGAL POLICY: "Labor unions, civil rights groups and now the public interest law firms are extremely active in the judicial arena. Their success, often at business' expense, has not been inconsequential…. American business and the enterprise system have been affected as much by the courts as by the executive and legislative branches of government. Under our constitutional system, especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change."

The influence this single memo has had in shaping world events and public opinion cannot be understated. Even the tone in which it was written and some of the writing devices used are still being used used to this day as they are meant to disarm critical thinking and trigger one to pursue an emotional rationale as opposed to a logical one.

Powell's goal in writing the memo was “changing how individuals and society think about the corporation, the government, the law, the culture, and the individual”. Replace “corporation” with “people's commune” and it sounds like a promo line for Mao's Cultural Revolution doesn't it?

Excerpt from Powell Memo:

“No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack... The sources are varied and diffused. They include, not unexpectedly, the Communists, New Leftists and other revolutionaries who would destroy the entire system, both political and economic. These extremists of the left are far more numerous, better financed, and increasingly are more welcomed and encouraged by other elements of society... “ August, 23, 1971 from “Attack of American Free Enterprise System” by Lewis Powell

(Right... Anarchists, Socialists, Communists have always felt so welcomed in America. It's like the American flag is actually a big red and yellow or red and black welcome mat.)

POWELL'S PATH OF DESTRUCTION – OUR CURRENT REALITY

Powell saw vast anti-capitalist conspiracies in many areas of public and private society and suggests a wide range of “counter” measures be taken to make America a safe place for those who believe that being for free-enterprise is the same as being for freedom.

First Powell hoped to energize both America's executive class and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. To do this he employed a standard set of alarmist rhetoric that not only framed the alleged “attack” as an attack on American freedom and America herself in absolutist terms, it also exaggerated the scope, effect, and immediacy of the perceived threats.

CHANGES AT THE U.S. CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

Up until shortly after the memo was circulated within the Chamber and the executive community, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was a fairly low-key organization that helped its member companies practice good business standards, help settle disputes, marketing, opportunities to network with other business people, and help companies navigate regulatory red tape. The Chamber actually AVOIDED getting involved in politics.

What Powell suggested in his memo was for the Chamber become a clearing house, a front group, a war chest, and the muscle in a fight to “save” free-enterprise in America. This represented a fundamental shift in how the Chamber operated and its mission. A shift in posture among the executive class at the companies that were Chamber members would also follow. The public and even the smaller “mom and pop” type businesses that were also part of the Chamber's membership wouldn't even be aware of this shift. Nor would Congress, at least not until the visits from the lobbyist and checks to their various re-election campaigns came rolling in.

CHANGES ON THE NATION'S CAMPUSES

First on Powell's list for concerted corrective action... The nation's college campuses and the “intellectuals” they harbor. Powell clearly fond the nation's campuses and the teaching staff as a threat to America itself. Powell spends considerable time in re-imaging the education process in this country. In reading his areas of concern and suggestions to corrective action one cannot help, but think of recent reforms and the current drive to “reform” public education. Powell calls for an oddly Lenin-like “constant surveillance” of textbooks and that pressure be applied wherever it needed to be applied to get textbooks changed to support “free-enterprise”. Think Texas State Board of Education who had Thomas Jefferson removed from history books because the board was “offended” by his comments on the separation of church & state.

ARTICLE: How Texas Inflicts Bad Textbooks on Us
www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/j...us/?pagination=false

Powell also called “equal time” requirements for conservative views on campus - implying that knowledge itself is somehow biased.

He also recommended the “balancing” of faculties and subject matter. Where ideology was not generally considered among academia, Powell actually suggests that ideology be a consideration to address the “issue” of ideology. This kind of shallow, crony academia is how a person like Jason Richwine gets a PhD from Harvard's Kennedy School with a paper that claims that Hispanics are genetically inferior to whites in 2009. He based the data in his paper on a previously discredit work, The Bell Curve.

ARTICLE: Why Did Harvard Give a PhD for a Discredited Approach to Race and IQ?
www.thenation.com/blog/174291/harvard-ph...-fired-heritage-fou#

Powell suggests the “issues” first be addressed at the college level, but once those are on the re-bound that high school and other levels be of education be addressed. Think of the current debate on school reform, efforts to vilify teachers and their unions, and the push to privatize public education through the use of Charter Schools.

Powell certainly had an excellent strategic mind for he saw an opportunity to not only address what he saw as the number one threat to free-enterprise and America – the nation's campuses – but also how addressing the issues on campus in the correct manner one could build an interlocking web and self re-enforcing support and validation and that this web could be made to radiated outward, addressing other points of constraint elsewhere and working complimentary in a cross-functional pattern.

SELF VALIDATING KNOT OF SUPPORT OR POISON PILL IN THE HEART OF THE EDUCATION SYSTEM

It was clear to Powell that The Chamber of Commerce needed to start hiring their own scholars and speakers. The Chamber then makes them available to the press, the governing boards of colleges and universities. These scholars also begin churning out papers that can then be cited to substantiate claims that free-enterprise is good and everything else is bad. This not only builds a record for the press – so over time they feel more comfortable citing these “facts”, it builds the scholar's or speaker's reputation as they become more “highly cited”, which puts pressure on the educational system to get some of “those conservatives” on their networks and in their newspapers. All the while – these scholars will be reviewing and complaining about the “lack of balance” on campus as well as reviewing and complaining about text books – in other words constantly driving the system as a whole further and right by redefining where the center should be and erasing a broader non-ideological based perspective quite literally from the history books.

ARTICLE: The Powell Memo and the Teaching Machines of Right-Wing Extremists
www.truth-out.org/archive/item/86304:the...rightwing-extremists

ARTCILE: Right-Wing Rollback: The Powell Memo
www.zcommunications.org/right-wing-rollb...-by-chip-berlet.html


RELATED AUDIO:

Mic Check Radio: The Powell Memo: occupythemedia.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-16T23_41_01-07_00

Talk Nation Radio: Carl Gibson on Shutting Down the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: occupythemedia.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-17T02_38_54-07_00


Occupy Radio: Activists Targeted by Corporate-Backed Laws: occupythemedia.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-17T09_21_40-07_00

Air Occupy: Ag Gag Laws with Paul Shapiro: occupythemedia.podomatic.com/entry/2013-06-17T02_31_29-07_00

OTHER LINKS:

The Powell Memo (also known as the Powell Manifesto): reclaimdemocracy.org/powell_memo_lewis/
Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_F._Powell,_Jr.
The Powell Memo: A Call-to-Arms for Corporations: billmoyers.com/content/the-powell-memo-a...ms-for-corporations/
The Lewis Powell Memo - Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy: www.greenpeace.org/usa/en/news-and-blogs...rint-to-/blog/36466/

In September 2010, it was reported that the TaxPayers' Alliance was organising an event sponsored by several American lobbyists and groups involved in the Tea Party movement, including the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation] The Alliance has also sought advice from the Tea Party leadership, with Matthew Elliott stating in September 2010: "We need to learn from our European colleagues and the Tea Party movement in the US. It will be fascinating to see whether it will transfer to the UK. Will there be the same sort of uprising?"

All three founders, and a number of TPA staff members have associations with the Conservative Party and have strong links with the Freedom Association

TPA's campaign manager Susie Squire ....became a special adviser to the Conservative Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith.

According to another report, Americans for Prosperity, another Tea Party group which claims to have 1.5m activists and is headed by oil billionaires, Koch brothers of Koch Industries, was also represented at the London conference, and helped fund it.[36]