Corporations Without Conscience

There once was a time in the US, when actions had moral consequences. The book “The Gentle Infantryman” by William Boyd Young is about an American soldier fighting in Germany during World War ll, and while the names are fictitious, the book states the events are real.

The soldier writes of an officer planning the moves of the troops using push pins on a bulletin board without fully realizing that the push pins represented real people. His bulletin board movements are difficult to accomplish on the battlefield and wreak much suffering upon the troops doing the actual fighting. The commanding officer is later encouraged to tour the scene of battle, and after seeing all the carnage resulting from his bulletin board strategy, this officer resigned immediately.

Unlike the General who was willing to observe the consequences of his actions, there is a great disconnect between actions and consequences of global corporations. The leaders of these corporations push us around like we’re pins on a bulletin board. Just as the WWll officer was detached from his actions, so aren’t the CEO’s of banks and mega corporations. They have no clue what their actions inflict upon real people. Furthermore, unlike the officer, they don’t care about the suffering the consequences of their actions bring to millions, as long as they make the most profit possible.

When the Supreme Court said corporations are people, they created a moral inequality based on money, considering the fact that the corporatists (the corporate people) have more money than many citizens will ever earn in a lifetime. They used this wealth to build an industry of financial tactics to dismantle all New Deal banking regulations, bringing millions of Americans into economic hardship and financial insecurity.

After decades of this legal onslaught, it’s now just a handful of men who control giant industries upon which we all depend. And they will have no argument to their decisions, much as the WWll officer heeded no warnings and men died needlessly.

This is why corporations are not people, unlike the officer of a different time, they have no conscience. They exist only to maximize profits at whatever the human cost. They are detached from real human beings and think only of mega profits and who’s “earning” the most.

Conservative Crush

An Iraq War veteran writes in the Nation magazine about one of his missions in Iraq to restore order. As he explains it “you go in with one mentality: crush the other side.”

After attending the Occupy Wall Street protest at Zuccotti Park, this same veteran said “Of course, if my goal was to crush free speech, I might use a little misdirection too. As in any war, I would dehumanize the enemy: make sure the protesters aren’t perceived as ordinary people with legitimate concerns but rather as hippies and anarchists who force police to work overtime on the tax payer dime. Then I would send far more police than necessary, pre-emptively ordering some troops into riot gear, to stir tension and make escalation inevitable. The singular focus thus becomes the “clashes”: police and protesters absorb one another’s frustrations, and I’ve successfully contained the problem by pitting the 99 percent against itself, while eclipsing the issues that led to the protest in the first place.”

And this from an AP news brief -“Boston spent $1.4 million on police overtime at the Occupy Boston encampment, but overall police overtime was down in 2011 by about 6 percent.“ “A media representative for Occupy Boston tells the Boston Herald there was no need to spend $1.4 million to patrol and dismantle the encampment because protesters were not “an armed gang“. Both of these articles were printed in February 2012. Chilling when read side by side.

The tactics of suppression of free speech are being used at this very moment, but this is being eclipsed by taxpayer funded contraception, and bases on the moon. The Occupy protests did not require restoration of order, because there was no dis-order. They required the rule of law be applied for a redress of grievances, which was denied. The law, our law, is being subverted; but no political party seems to be interested in this assault on freedom and liberty. The “made for TV“ assaults capture all the attention.

And since conservatives admire experience so much, perhaps they could appreciate the experiences of a recent combat veteran who understands when laws are not upheld, suppression will be enforced; with the singular goal of “crushing the other side“, even if it’s the side of our constitutional rights to legally change our laws for the common good. Those in power holding the purse strings will suppress any and all that gets between them and total control. No public outcries of disagreement will be allowed.

Class Envy Doesn't Discriminate

Mitt Romney said he is not going to apologize for being successful, which misses the whole point. Success is not on trial, it’s the less than stellar, and underhanded business/banking practices conducted throughout the past half century that should be on trial.

According to the book “Age of Greed”, by Jeff Madrick, during the seventies when stock prices were low, Wall Street investment banks began looking for other ways to make profits, and created the LBO (leveraged buy out). If a company had low stock prices, they became a potential target for a hostile takeover. To stay in business, many companies began acting like they were being taken over by lowering wages and slashing employees.

Wall Street investment banks started the LBO mania, and investment banks represented both the buyer and the target. This allowed them to have insider information concerning a company which was being targeted or purchased. Knowing both sides of the merger prompted Wall Street bankers to take big risks betting on the new merged companies. This was just one of their “less than stellar” business practices which corrupted the rest of the sectors of the economy to the point of being totally dependent upon the financial engineering of Wall Street to make a profit.

When Wall Street investment banks became public, they could use other people’s money, subsequently they became the innovators in this new world economy of finance where risk was no longer a deterrent to bad business practices.

Hostile takeovers still rage today; Bain Capital is involved and helps fund them. This is why there is discontent and resentment for those who have been successful in the bad business practices banks have brought us. On top of that, the banks get their funds replenished from the Federal Government, and it’s back to business as usual. But for homeowners and taxpayers in general it’s a totally different story. Millions of Americans have lost all financial value in our savings and especially in our property. Our life’s work, gone. But after loosing all that, it’s our taxes that are replenishing the coffers of the banks. We’re not envious at all… we’re angry that we’ve been robbed for following the rules. Look what the banks along with the government’s help has done to us. Mitt Romney calls it class envy. Far from it, it‘s an understanding that banks have wrecked the financial system as we knew it.

Nomi Prins in her book “It Takes a Pillage” said, “on Wall Street it’s not even how much, it’s who is making the most money that counts.” Talk about class envy, it’s everywhere, and especially on Wall Street not just Main Street.