Authority, Fear, the Performance of Compliance, and Death Valley Days.

Mike Elk tries to ask a question and congressional staffers snatch the mic from him, and a room accepts this Orwellian police state drama because, well, it IS an orwellian police state.

People are trained to take the side of authority. The training is very effective.

Elk was trying to ask a question of Honeywell CEO David Cote.

http://usw7-669.com/story/honeywell-continuing-deceive-workers-and-community

Obama is scheduled to give a speech today at Honeywell’s corporate headquarters in Minneapolis.

Honeywell….longtime favorite for the US state dept, and Pentagon. http://washingtontechnology.com/articles/2012/01/20/5-top-contractors-dirty-30.aspx

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2012/01/tax_advocacy_group_names_honey.html

And David Cote is an enthusiastic union buster…recently at Honewell’s uranium plant (you cant make this stuff up, honestly). Now, in Hollywood film, the plucky reporter who tries to ask a question of an oily over manicured CEO would be cheered. Because the performance is in ritual space, but in “real” life (sic) the performance of self is one of an obedient lemming.

There is a direct line to Reagan through all of this. The Reagan dream….

I leave you with some of Mike Elk’s work on Honeywell, and David Cote…and its an excellent piece and a great look into the slimy toxic soul of corporate leadership…

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13227/when_people_become_labor_costs_fortune_celebrates_honeywell_ceo_ignores_uni/

PS I suspect fifteen years ago, the cannibal trope was more dominant….certainly forty years ago it was, as we were closer to an earlier image of colonialism (fifty years ago, or sixty, it was Ramar of the Jungle)…

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/01/cdc-denies-zombies-existence_n_1562141.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/31/alexander-kinyua-kujoe-agyei-kodie-ate-brain-heart-roommate-maryland_n_1560149.html?ref=mostpopular