And so we find ourselves in the early Twenty First Century in a pitched battle. Will we have a government of the Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations. Or a government of the People, by the People and for the People?
As we wait to see if the Supreme Court headed by a Corporate (well Republican, but it is a distinction without much difference) appointed Chief Justice will preside over a new era of politics wherein there are no limits on Corporate donations to political candidates….thus ensuring that all candidates will sell out to the Corporation who bids the highest…
As we wait to see if Corporations can keep their (almost literal) stranglehold on the Health of all Americans…
As we wait to see what new regulations the Financial Corporations will allow the government to impose on them… (Since we have “solved the ‘too big to fail problem by making banks BIGGER)
As we wait to see just how badly the Corporations will water down the Planet Saving Climate Change Legislation…
As we wait to see if Corporations can still blow the tops of of mountains and dump them in the sea…
As we wait to see how much influence the Military Industrial Corporations will influence our new President…
As we wait to see what the next move the Corporations will make to try to limit The Last Hope of a free People…the internet
And as we live in a world where Corporations help our government to spy on us, where Corporations determine what food is available to many of us, where Corporations are busily buying up the water supply, as Corporations determine what we see on our screens and what music we hear…
One must ask oneself, is this how it ends? Not with a bang but a whimper? The insidious and slow but inexorable incursions of Corporate Control of our government and our lives lacks the drama of ten thousand war heads of a Soviet first strike, or airliners bringing down buildings or some despotic dictator with a fierce mustache and no actual weapons menacingly waving his rifle from a balcony, but the creeping and quite literally fascist Corporate takeover of our politicians pocketbooks is perhaps to be more feared because of it’s subtlety and Glacial (if those still exist) Pace that hides the danger of robbing us of our rights and freedoms than any OUTSIDE nefarious menace.
How do you stop a Corporation?
Especially when your friends and neighbors and quite possibly you yourself either work for, are dependent on business from, or own stock in those very corporations?
How do you fight the Corporations?
When they so easily ….and cheaply….buy our politicians, adding each one to their basket as if they were eggs or rutabagas on market day? When every branch of the bureaucracy and each individual agency, and nearly all of the representatives in our representative government have come to so firmly and vociferously believe that their function is to serve what we used to call Big Business…before the Corporations told us to quit calling them that?
There are only two solutions, and those solutions have to be the Holy grail that above everything else every progressive…NAY!…every American seeks!
FULL Public Financing of every election from dog catcher on up and the abolishment of the interpretation of the 14th Amendment that proclaims Corporations to be Human Beings.
(Ironically, to keep them from bearing the responsibilities that real Human Being bear and to allow them to have powers that no real Human Being possess.
As Malcom said: “We’ve been hoodwinked. We’ve been had. We’ve been took. We’ve been led astray, led amok. We’ve been bamboozled.
Among all of the pressing issues of the day, this one fact, this one issue, this one indisputable reality stands above all the rest…
And so we find ourselves in the early Twenty First Century in a pitched battle. Will we have a government of the Corporations, by the Corporations and for the Corporations. Or a government of the People, by the People and for the People?
There may be small victories on Health Care or the environment …or in the laws that govern our political system through governing the electoral process…but until we convince….somehow…our Corporate Controlled government to rescind or severely limit these faceless conglomerations of greed, true democracy will not be safe. As long as commercial interests are able to outbid the interests of The People, our government will serve them, and not us.
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And everybody who got paid by big pharma said it was “safe”
http://www.theflucase.com/
All other concerns are currently irrelevant!
Then there should be corporate naming rights. You know little patchs on their suits telling you who owns them. Like Max Bacus Big Pharma.
but we can slow them down by giving them as little money as possible. Of course, at the rate things are going, that gets less optional for many of us all the time, no longer having much in the way of money to give anyone. But not everyone is a corporation. It’s important to remember that.
And with net neutrality we can change how publicity works. Do we still have net neutrality? I forgot to check today.
on second thought,
blame the Media.
I remain skeptical about the intentions of this administration. i don’t think they are evil, I just think it isn’t all about us. Or about us at all.
If the whole change thing was serious, this is where it should have started. Obama’s team is smart enough to have known that.
is the person whose site you posted on. The other site you posted on I mean.
Ironic?
Marx was right about one thing: the Capitalist system will destroy itself. Unbounded greed and the pursuit of unlimited expansion are destined to corrupt and destroy any institution. The challenge for decent people will be to avoid being in the blast radius when the final explosion occurs.
Consider the insanity of corporate zombies like GM, AIG, and Citibank being “managed” right into oblivion with unlimited taxpayer funding. Obama is sitting on a time bomb while making reassuring speeches.
once you open a can of worms you need a bigger can to get them all back into………
I do not believe we can get them back in the can……
corporations that is…….
Elephant meet room. The future centers of finance are in Asia. The western world financed a gold rush there which made our own pale in comparison and the fact is “they” just don’t need our markets anymore. We are in fact a pain in the ass to the profit margins of the Davos jet set.
Americans are America centric, might I say ignorant of the global interests that supercede the interests of the US.
How many of Obama’s staff members owe their allegance to global organizations rather than the US.
whatchamacallits…
…So often I find myself saying, “Wow! This is your best diary yet!” I really like this one.
We’ve all been bamboozled.
If I understand things correctly (which I may not) corporations that employ low wage, part time workers stand to benefit from the public option because it will take the pressure off them as far as providing benefits. For this reason I am surprised such companies aren’t vocal supporters of the public option.
of money and its accumulation. The American myth of “rugged individualism” is contradicted by the logic of our “pure” capitalist model where “the fittest” among us actually band together in packs, a more effective method of aggression. The average person in our culture is forced into worshipping money too because in our society that object is the only way to exist short of begging. And that’s because capitalists have brainwashed the nation into believing this is the only way things can work, a mass delusion reinforced daily by the corporate media. And this results in a nation in desperate need of reform, prepared to reject “public” healthcare because insurance companies will be deprived of the opportunity to make profits?
“Capitalism” hittiong theaters this week … he’s supposed to be on the new Jay Leno Show tonight, with a clip.
FWIW.
Hell, Bernie Madoff should be President.
This whole country is built on lies, waste, fraud, murder, embezzlement, and destruction.
As far as the earth goes, it’s nothing but a big Ponzi Scheme and is going to end like all Ponzi schemes do, some day, with a disaster, and everybody standing there with their pants down wondering what the fuck happened.
Meanwhile they buy up the airwaves, the satellites, the cables, and they pipe it directly into our brains that America is The Greatest, and that They are on Are Side. And if you’re mad about anything it’s your neighbor’s fault, be he an idiot conservative or a candy-assed commie liberal.
I’ve watched this simply get worse and worse since 1980 and it’s not going to get any better, there’s really no way it can. The course has been set, the ship has hit the iceberg, the band is playing, and the corporations have run off with the golden lifeboats.
Basically? We’re screwed, the whole world is screwed, and in the coming years it’s going to be largely a matter of luck and wealth as to whether or not your DNA will be part of the next generation of human beings.
MONEY is the CORPORATE BORG’s life blood, its reason for existing, PROFIT above all else!
If “We the People” & “our” elected “public servants” outlaw the PROSTITUTION of politics by PUBLIC CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM, “true” reform that would TAKE THE MONEY OUT OF POLITICS, then & only then will the CORPORATE BORG die!
One thing is certain if the CORPORATE BORG does not die, then “We the People” will witness the DEATH of democracy & see Washington DC, Wall Street, the Pentagon & the Media, the four heads of CORPORATE EMPIRE, become the worlds largest WHOREHOUSES, where “anything” can be had for a price, where the very soul of humanity can be sold for PROFIT.