I saw you on Colbert last nite. Keep up the good work. I will be sharing this with everyone I know.

You came across as well as anyone I’ve seen on Colbert. Super! However, there must be a better tactic than stating something like: the banks should die so business can flourish… this just flies in the face of just about everything that this nation is all about, so although an excellent and worthy observation, change its formulation–it can be done, just keep looking…I even heard a very similar, but massively more marketable:) case at Wharton, no kidding.

I too saw Mr. Rushkoff on Colbert and was most intrigued with his timely and well presented ideas. As Mussolini explained Fascism, he noted that it really was “corporatism”. It is “group think” or “political correctness” at its very worst.
People are slowly waking up that corporations are no friend of the little man and in cahoots with both the government and banking. It’s a tight little clique that needs to be broken and I like Mr. Rushkoff’s optimism that these are times of opportunity and not crisis (yeah, crisis for the gov’t, banksters, ceos maybe). I wish this gentleman continued success in assessing our world.

Hi Douglas,

Excellent job — this is right up my alley. FYI, I posted about your awesome book and video at my tumblog and I hope this important message gains traction.

All the best,

Raymond Pirouz

Only four comments? I’m really shocked. Rushkoff, you need to circulate your ideas to mathematicians and economists. It sounds inhuman, but all things really are quantifiable, and the benefits of your proposal will prove it superior to business as usual as more people come forward and admit how their developments are arrested by the market’s unhealthy emphasis on an inaccurate perception of profit.

Use terminology that more people will accept more readily! “Corporatism” is too vague, and criticism of it is too stigmatized in the public eye. You end your first video with a choice between “serving humanity” and “killing life.” People won’t understand what you’re talking about! Most people aren’t creative enough!

You need some to do some math and some graphs like the TED guys like to do. People pay attention to that kind of thing. It’s more comprehensible and helps make ideas concrete.

Your work is exciting and, I think, draws together existing proponents of these ideas, but we need a catalyst!

Bravo!!!! I can stop writing now, I can’t believe how on the same page we are, except you published and I’m still on chapter 2.” ) kudos, you r a better spokesperson than I so hopefully this IDEA will gain traction. I’ll be buying your book, tomorrow.
Viva la human beings!!!!

I saw Mr. Ruskkoff on Colbert and applauded him . It’s so encouraging to find people who are seeing the bigger picture and explaining it in a way the average person can understand. Mr. Rushkoff’s experience with the barbecue brought me to tears as I have felt a sense of loss of community for a long time now and have been so busy working as a single mother that I haven’t found my way out of the isolation. I am reading the book now and can’t share it with others fast enough. I’ve sent links to this website to everyone I know. If more people can see the forest for the trees, I do believe we can see a shift in consciousness that will literally change the world.

Thank you for the work you are doing to rouse our sleeping humanity. Your ideas are both realistic and idealistic, a balance greatly needed if we hope to weather such difficult times. Best of luck in continuing to get this very important message out.

I am going to buy this book as soon as I can finanically afford to. I get paid two paychecks, first one goes to rent and the other goes to other bills i’m consumed with. I can really afford the book, but after seeing Mr. Rushkoff on T.V., I really feel that he has an evolutionary conception of the strategic direction our societies are heading towards. The idea of Life, Inc. is all so real and has opened up my eyes to seek greater processes in our life. Humans possibly have slowly degressed in our evolutionary life. It’s our instant to always search for anwers of our existance and through Governments and Corporations, they create guidelines or processes in which we live by. Those methods are to quantatively measure our life through means of statisical data and formulas which are not 100% accurate.

As humans, we control societies through these methods. So, what’s next? Will we evolve or should I say our societies evolve into other than what we currently process and quantify today? Should the Government be scared to research other options for us to live? or should we continue to strive to work our economies through those formulas which have flaws and ultimately result in human decision in the end point anyway.

The idea of Life, Inc. should be exposed and studied in education facilities so ourselves, our children and our leaders can figure out a better way to improve our lives and societies. We may learn new methods, processes and government or business role in our societies.

Mr. Rushkoff, I look forward to have the pleasure of reading your book. I can’t afford it at the moment but will buy one as soon as can.

Jason

Bravo – great direction, like you video but have to comment on one thing that has made a Huge change in my life recently…

If North American people stopped eating the corporate garbage food they have been conditioned to buy… they wouldn’t be tired until bedtime. Healthy body then mind!! You are what you eat Mr. Modified Corn Stuffs…

Cheers!
J

The book that has defined Rushkoff is the brilliant “Coercion: Why we listen to what they say”. Rushkoff looked at advertisers, scammers, religious cult leaders etc., and studied the techniques they use to get “us to listen to what they say and ultimately believe them”. It goes far beyond “persuasion”, into the realms of coercion and even stronger. It can be summed up as follows: “In whatever area that coercion is practiced, the routine follows that same pattern… generate disorientation, induce regression and become the target’s transferred parent figure.” In other words, disable rational thought and manipulate behavior at the unconscious and emotional level. The corporate media are masters at this, and have in recent years acted as an extension of the centralized corporate/governmental propaganda machine, as well as amplifying the fear generated by certain recent notorious and catalyzing events.

I love this. Your intelligence and wisdom are a true gift to humankind. Thank you.

While disease is a way to make money what incentive could there be to prevent it? Healthcare (the industry) is actually thus promoting disease and its management in a ‘top-down’ authoritative model and could not but do this when diseases (conditions) are the ‘raw material’ for the industrial process. Healthy people would destroy business while sick people are the potential for profit.

Donny has a very valid criticism. Rushkoff paints a very abstract picture. While I agree 100% with what he says, his ideas are not quite concrete enough for me to truly grasp. I understand what corporatism is doing to our lives and I understand that it is an overwhelmingly complex subject, but I would certainly appreciate a more scientifically grounded work. I am no stranger to elevated prose, and I do enjoy my literary theory at times, but when such abstraction is used to argue for something of this nature, something not fundamentally creative, it tends to sound too much like rhetoric.

So you read the book and felt this way? Or you watched the videos and ached for more, but don’t have time/inclination to get the scientifically grounded part?

It’s hard to convey the historical, factual, and contextual evidence in 3-minute “dispatches.” These are meant more to convey the reasons why someone might want to learn the history and do the work of digesting that material.

Dear Douglas,
I’m just finishing last pages of your book and I’ve to say it was a wild ride. You’re bringing up excellent points which were long time the unspoken secret of the American society, which hardly anyone dares to open or accept. I come from former communist block country, I spent 1/3 of my life in communist era, 1/3 in the transformation era (days before the corporations penetrated into our daily lives) and 1/3 in the new democracy aka capitalism era. I’m glad that you are seeing the same symptoms of rotting society from US as I’m seeing from the abroad view. I have no right to judge what people are doing in US, but since I lived in US in 1994 I couldn’t avoid the feeling that the whole USofA is just going in the wrong direction. I had many discussions with my friends in North America and very few are able to realize points that you discuss in Life inc. I was puzzled why they don’t see it and why they don’t believe me. Your book helped me to understand some of the reasons for it and hopefully armed me with more arguments for future discussions. People who were born into capitalism don’t have the reference experience for comparison, so they don’t know that things are broken. We’ll have 20th aniversary of the velvet revolution next month. When I watch news from 1989 and news from today, they are saying very same message but in different words with different expressions but the message and the subliminal propaganda they are trying to pass on to the public is very same. That did not change. The happiest years were transformation years between the two regimes, I’m hoping we’re close to end of another cycle and your book will help to empower people for a real change, not just obamachange. Thanks again, you helped me to understand that my world view of the capitalist world is sane and it might actually be more correct than the commonly accepted perception.
Sincerely,
Lukas

Spreading this as much as possible, and where ever applicable, together with the documentary “The Century of Self”.

Sincerely, Gabriella

Douglas, thank you!

I have quoted from your talk at the NY Web 2.0 event and embedded your video talk on my site. In respect for your originality and because you referred ,when speaking about the idea of beyond free, to simply being asked.

I am belatedly asking if I may share your timely and urgent wisdom in this way?

James (NZ)

Of course you may, I am honored. And even more honored to be asked.

(If this constitutes some bizarre protection of an IP conspiracy, then so be it. To me, it’s just human engagement and acknowledgment. No DRM required.)

Your book has put words on my slow realization that the world we live is a corpocracy. After reading your book I keep coming back to it to re-read paragrahps here and there as I try to make sense of this world.

I totally agree with post #5 here. You need to do more to reach a wider audience. I suggest you make 5-10 min flash animations of the main themes in your book. Here’s a great example of how to communicate a complex and overwhelming issue in a captivating and memorable way.
http://crisisofcredit.com/ (I have no affilitation with this site, just thought your book could benefit from a similar approach).

Keep up your great work!

/Fredrik

I believe this!