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.

Carousel of Clowns

We don’t have elections anymore, we have popularity contests with constant reporting on the amounts of campaign cash a candidate has raised, and who raised the most. Basically, it amounts to the candidate with the most money, is the one Wall Street, the top 1%; and the major corporations are backing. You know this candidate is never for the ‘common good’ but instead is going to cover Wall Street’s back if elected.

After the New Hampshire primary, Mark Shields syndicated columnist said the biggest difference he’s seen in this election since the Citizens United ruling is that “money is king”. It was reported that Rick Santorum did poorly in the New Hampshire primary because he couldn’t afford TV ads. During the week of the South Carolina primary Mitt Romney went from being in first place to Newt Gingrich being in first place. When Gwen Ifill asked voters what prompted them to change their minds, they couldn’t pinpoint any specific reasons. David Brooks, columnist for the NY Times, said, all those ads have absolutely no influence on voters.

Once again as in all issues the line is drawn, either you believe the TV ads or you don’t. Mark Shields said “when Jim Lehrer used to host the debates he would go out beforehand and tell the audience, no yelling or screaming and no applauding. And if it happens, I'm going to put the camera right on you and humiliate you.”

The Romans used to say “give them bread and circuses”, now we don’t even get the bread, we get the orchestrated media circus of these pep rallies fixed with ringers in the crowd, all conveniently camouflaged as intellectual debates. These present day examples of ‘The Greatest Show on Earth’ just goes to prove that P.T. Barnum was right, even today there’s “a sucker born every minute”.

Policing Battle Ground USA

Hypocrisy is in the news a lot lately. Unfortunately most of it relates to the sex life of Newt Gingrich and not the real hypocritical issues, such as states having rights. Republicans contend that states have rights and should decide for themselves whether or not they have to comply with the mandatory purchase of health insurance.

In Vermont, the state legislature passed a law prohibiting pharmacies from selling prescription information to pharmaceutical corporations. The view of the state is that the prescribing information belongs to the physician and the physician has the right to decide whether or not to sell this information. The Supreme Court over ruled the state, saying the decision violated free speech.

The people in the state of California voted to ban sale of violent video games to anyone under 18. The Supreme Court over ruled the voters and tossed out the state mandate.

When the state of Georgia passed laws protecting citizens from unethical lending practices, the federal government over ruled them, saying federal laws prevailed over state laws.

In matters of corporations and banks the federal government decides. With the federal government outsourcing our wars to military contractors, and the SJC’s allegiance to the rights of corporations over states, declaring the US a battleground is all the more disconcerting. Will the federal government over rule the states to team up with corporations as a means of policing the new battleground USA?

Where is the Republican outcry against this assault on laws protecting states from the unconstitutionality of military law imposed by the federal government?

And this is not to be construed as a defense for Democrats, they’ve been silent on this abominable declaration that the US is now a battlefield, it’s just easier to point out Republican hypocrisy on this issue.

In the end, both Republicans and Democrats are paid off to support military contractors along with the collusion of the federal government with corporations as a means of providing services, including policing the streets of America; building prisons and using the police to fill them to capacity and beyond.

Individualism vs. Collective Monopoly

Milton Friedman argued that reducing the government and lowering taxes kept inequality from rising, and helped the poor more than social programs ever could.

Hard to believe considering the Nation magazine reports the collective wealth of the bottom third of Americans is barely hovering above the poverty line. One in three Americans either lives in poverty or is one broken leg away from it. Friedman also argued as a nation of self reliant individuals, too many government regulations and social programs like those in the New Deal, led to the struggle between individualism vs. collectivism.

For decades the monopolies who make up the “collective” few have campaigned to eliminate equality of opportunity for individuals by convincing us, the public, that without steadfast devotion to the “unfettered free market”, our liberties and freedoms would disappear.

However it seems the opposite has happened. With fewer laws and less regulations, millions of Americans have become poorer and powerless against the “collective few“. With millions ending up with less economic freedoms, fewer liberties and no political influence, the inequality of wealth has become glaringly obscene, unconscionable, and downright cruel.

Adam Smith, proponent of the free market, believed rules were necessary to reign in the crookedness of human nature. Smith said, even though it’s unlikely that members of the same trade speak together, the conversation usually ends up in a conspiracy against the public. 　

Who is ALEC?

Who’s writing the laws? ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, is writing the laws. ALEC is described in the Nation magazine as “the Nation’s largest, non-partisan, individual public private membership association of state legislators” and is made up of 2,000 legislators and 300 corporate members.

The Washington Spectator reports ALEC is the single largest source of pro-corporate anti-regulatory legislation in the country, and describes them as a “corporate funded corporate bill-mill, cross dressing as an association of state legislators.” The Nation wrote ”dozens of corporations are investing millions of dollars a year to write business-friendly legislation that is being made into law in statehouses coast to coast, with no regard to the public interest” says Bob Edgar of Common Cause.”

According to the Washington Spectator, ALEC was founded in 1973 by a small right wing group of activists and elected officials such as Paul Weyrich, who with help from brewing magnate Joseph Coors, set up the Heritage Foundation. Buz Lukens another founder lost his seat in 1990 after being convicted of paying a 16 year old girl for sex. And Woody Jenkins whose campaign commission paid a fine for filing false disclosure forms while Tony Perkins (now director of the Christian right Family Research Council) was his campaign manager.

The Nation also reports bills introduced in Virginia, Maryland, Arizona, Kansas, Oregon, Illinois and South Carolina, mirror the ALEC model’s with some state’s bill coming directly from ALEC written legislation. Stacks of new ALEC inspired laws passed in Ohio and Wisconsin with both governors former ALEC alums. Voter ID is an ALEC agenda with 33 states introducing voter ID laws. And the Nation magazine states-“Corporate donors retain veto power over the language, which is developed by the secretive task forces”.

The Spectator lists some of the corporations supporting ALEC as Koch Industries; Exxon-Mobil; Wal-Mart; AT&T Services; and GlaxoSmithKline. ALEC’s private enterprise board includes Exxon-Mobil; Koch Industries; Entergy, and Peabody Coal.

Between the secretive writing of legislation and the legalized corporate ownership of politicians, thanks to Supreme Court‘s Citizens United ruling, it seems pretty well sewn up to be a corporate government against the people. Real issues affecting the lives of everyday Americans will not be addressed by any politician; their corporate masters won‘t allow it. The problem is, with all the corporate money being paid to buy the politicians, and pay the media to overlook; spin & whitewash the issues, most people see only the PR spin, and are hoodwinked… they buy it “hook, line and sinker“, and even clamor for more of the same.