The Results of Corporate Control of the Government On Our Economic Well Being
by Shayne Munger article link
July 20, 2011 | OpEdNews
The only thing that Corporations doing business in America are concerned about is "Profit"! That is profit for the shareholders and the enormous salaries, perks and retirement packages (Golden Parachutes) for their executives. To hell with the average worker, the community they thrive in and the retired, the homeless, the unemployed, the underemployed, the sick, the children and the poor people in this country. Since 1980 and Ronald Reagan's Administration, they have used their money to purchase our Congressional Representatives, the People in the White House, the Judges in our Judicial System, the Justices of the Supreme Court, the State Legislatures and the Governors of these States. You think that we live in a Democracy but we sure as hell don't. If the Corporations can't buy an election with their enormous campaign and advertizing investments, they simply corrupt the individuals in power so that the wealth in the country flows to them and their wealthy investors. The following is the record of Corporate Control of America:
* Since the inception of the New Deal and the Great Society they and their political shills have systematically tried to and practically succeeded in eliminating the Social Safety Net in the Country. They are still at it at the present time using the corporate controlled and financed Tea Party Politicians and Activists to push their decades old agenda to cripple and even eliminate these programs.
* The Corporatist hacks in Congress have pushed laws through the system that have drastically lowered the tax burden of the wealthy and of Corporations compared to what it was BR (Before Reagan). The tax burdens on these entities are the lowest in the Industrialized World and they want to push them even lower! Their Tea Party Hacks in Congress and in State Governments are purposely ignoring the facts that tax increases to these privileged few are necessary to balance budgets and to bring prosperity back to the average American and thus restore the "American Dream"! They continue to want to put the tax burden and balance the budget on the backs of the poor and middle classes of the Country and thus give a free ride to their corporate benefactors. They have people believing that reducing taxes creates jobs and the wealth of the people at the top 1% of the economic pyramid will "trickle down" to the rest of us poor peasants. That is balderdash and proven erroneous many times. It is just another propaganda tool to enable the transfer of wealth to the privileged.
President Roosevelt: "In 1776 the fight was for Democracy in Taxation. In 1936 there is still the fight. Mister Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said "taxes are the prices we pay for civilized society'. One sure way to determine the social conscience of a government is to examine the way taxes are collected and how they are spent. And one sure way to determine the social conscience of an individual is to get his tax reaction. Taxes, after all are the dues we pay for the privilege of membership in an organized society. And as society becomes more civilized government, national and state and local, is called on to assume more obligations to its citizens. The privileges of membership in a civilized society are vastly increased in modern times. But I am afraid we still have many who still do not recognize their advantages and want to avoid paying their dues."
* In search of cheap labor for their corporate workforce they have sent millions of jobs offshore where they can get cheap exploited labor, they have to pay little or no benefits to these workers and their operations are not subject to the Labor Laws of the United States. Because of this they are raking in enormous profits. The Corporatist Politicians have passed laws (NAFTA, CAFTA, the WTO, the Chinese Trade Policy, tax deductions for shipping these jobs overseas, other favorable tax policies, etc) that have enabled these organizations that are not only making huge profits from this basic business model but using those tax loophole laws to avoid paying their fair share of the USA tax burden. Sometimes paying no tax at all. If you want to know where much of the profit goes is reflected i n the fact that according to some sources, chief executive pay is between 250 and 500 times that of the average worker. A typical example of the Corporatist Influence in our Government is the fact that Obama's Chief Economic Advisor is the CEO of General Electric (A company that paid no income tax last year). This "free trade policy" of the USA has contributed to a huge unemployment and underemployment problem in the US. This has contributed to the present 9.2 % unemployment rate (over 20 % if you include those underemployed and those that have given up looking for employment) which figures out to over 20 Million unemployed American workers. Another way to look at this is that the lack of over 20 million taxable jobs and the loss of fair corporate tax revenue have contributed directly to the deficit problem that we now face.
This policy has also led to the devastation and elimination of many heretofore Industries (Steel, Textiles, the Clothing Industry, Scientific Instrument Production, Auto Parts Industry, Heavy Equipment Manufacturing, Machine Tool Manufacturing, Appliance Manufacturing, and Computer Manufacturing, Software Manufacturing and Programming and many others) where the US was once a world leader and has really undermined the security of our Country because of it. We are no longer "The Arsenal of Democracy". I feel that these free trade and tax policies that have been pushed by the Forces of Greed have undeservedly rewarded the wealthy and CEOs in the Country have pushed the USA towards a third world economy where the rich and corporations are in control while the rest of the American people are exploited for their benefit! Instead of the Corporatist Tea Party Politicians and Activists pushing for cuts to Social Programs they need to address this idiotic situation as a deficit reduction option.
* They have created a Health Care System that is the most expensive in the World, delivers bellow average results and under serves millions of American Citizens all in the name of profit for the Insurance Companies, Big Pharma and Health Care Corporations.
* Our environment has been raped and exploited by these Corporations all in the name of profit for the few at the expense of our clean air, our pure water systems and streams, our scarred and polluted earth (open pit mines, mountaintop removal, mine tailings, fracking, radiation leaks, radioactive waste storage, oil spills, rocket fuel pollution, etc), the decimated oceans and our clear cut forests. And they still demand less regulation and a freer hand to continue this exploitation.
* Consumer protection has been systematically attacked and decimated by these Forces of Greed again to line the pockets of the Corporate Executives and the wealthy at the expense of us all. And using their politician corporatist shills they fight and block any consumer regulations and legislation that might bring a modicum of fairness to the treatment of the American Consumer.
* Our food supply that is being controlled by the Big Agribusinesses and Importers keeps periodically delivering poison to our tables. Again no relief from this outrageous situation from our, I mean the Corporate controlled politicians. Laws that routinely help the large Agribusinesses and bankrupt the family farmer are the name of the game for these Forces of Greed.
* Our politicians, I mean "their" politicians have allowed, through deregulation, the growth of Financial Institutions (Corporations) that are supposedly too big to fail and routinely rip off the consumer and investor for their enhanced profitability. The ultimate rape of this country and of the taxpayer by these Corporations was their $14 Trillion bailout by their Corporatist shills in Congress and the Administration during our recent financial meltdown. And amazingly not one of the executives of these Financial Institutions has been held accountable for their criminal behavior while causing this financial crisis.
* The Housing Industry and the Real Estate Market have taken massive hits due to financial crisis and the manipulations of the Financial Industry which helped create the massive financial crisis. Those manipulations included the creation of the Housing bubble, building of the sub-prime mortgage market, the financing of non-qualified borrowers, the selling of bundled mortgage instruments (including bad paper), etc. This housing collapse cost the home owners approximately $4.5 Trillion. This money went into the coffers of the Financial Industry prior to the collapse. The Fed Chairman and the shills in Congress for the Financial Industry helped create this Housing bubble by instigating and passing the deregulation of the Financial Industry. Meanwhile these financial creeps are reaping trillions of dollars more in the foreclosure of properties that are in trouble.
Quote from the Washington Times on December 17, 2010, "The U.S. housing crisis is entering its fourth year, yet Lender Processing Services says more than 2 million homes are in the process of foreclosure and another 2 million are seriously delinquent, having missed more than three monthly payments." Of course the politicians are slow in putting together legislation to help these homeowners that are being raped by the Financial Industry. Any help these exploited homeowners are given by our government will interfere with the profits that the Forces of Greed are reaping from this foreclosure process. So it stands to reason that the Corporatist Politicians will be loath to help these poor exploited Americans. In the meantime these crooks that caused this situation have been burned and were carrying the bad loans and financial instruments that helped precipitate financial crises on their books and were being threatened with closure and bankruptcy. But the Corporatist Politicians stepped in and bailed them out as out as part of the $14 Trillion bailout rip off of the American taxpayer.
* These Forces of Greed through their political control of the Federal Government and of the State Legislatures are trying to destroy our Public Education System with the goal of privatizing it and thus making the education of our youth a cash cow for the Forces of Greed. This is why do they have been attacking the teachers unions in the various States so as to weaken their influence over policy. This also goes along with their agenda of "dumbing down" Americans so that their policies will not be questioned and their propaganda machine will "brain wash" the electorate into swallowing their talking points and vote against their own self interests.
* The Forces of Greed are slowly but surely taking over and privatizing the correctional systems of this country all in the name of PROFIT!
* They have almost destroyed the Unions in the Country who were once responsible for creating the Middle Class in the USA. Because of their policies and those of the Corporatist politicians the once mighty USA Middle Class is being devastated.
* Lobbyists and the corrupt politicians under corporate control have helped create a huge Defense Budget to deliver bloated contracts to the corporate contractors and thus ripping off taxpayers like you and me
* Their influence helped instigate numerous wars and incursions by the US that have created enormous wealth for the war profiteers and for the Oil Industry in particular and in the process we have killed millions of people to satisfy the greed of these Corporate Profiteers while costing us taxpayers $4 Trillion to date with more to come. If more countries that are going through insurrection and unrest problems were oil producers we'd have even more wars and incursions instigated by our Forces of Greed politicians. Why aren't these costs being addressed in the Deficit talks? Probably because the Forces of Greed are profiting to much from these wars!
* Finally they have taken control of all the major news outlets through financial manipulation and monopolistic purchases so that we are consistently feed disinformation and propaganda to further their agenda and to excuse their excesses. There are very few legitimate investigative reporters left in the main stream media and the mouthpieces for the Forces of Greed continually batter the public with lies and half truths to further this Corporatist agenda and to elect their political shills.
* Now these Tea Party Idiots in Congress are proposing a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. In that Amendment they are proposing that it take a 2/3 majority vote in Congress to raise taxes thus continuing to free the Corporations and the wealthy from paying their fair share of the cost of our government and continue to saddle the rest of the 99% of us with that burden. This is the law that is now in effect in California and has crippled the once great economic engine of that State.
So my question is, when are the American people going to wake up and throw off this tyrannical corporate control of our political system. When are we going to tell the corporate political hacks that the $14 Trillion deficit is not the result of spending on the Social Programs that have helped Americans for decades but the result of the previously outlined corporatist agenda to transfer the wealth of the Country to the privileged few? Are the American people ever going to stop believing the lies and half truths that are being fed to them through corporate controlled media on a daily basis? When are we going to demand solutions to the clearly catastrophic problems that are so obvious from our political representatives and hold them accountable if they don't deliver? We need to demand that a Constitutional Amendment be passed to reverse the Supreme Court Decisions that established "personhood" for corporations instead of the bullshit demand for passing the idiotic Balanced Budget Amendment that is being pushed through Congress by the Tea Party corporate shills! We need to eliminate corporate campaign contributions to political campaigns and PACS. And after electing leaders that are not beholden to the wealthy and Corporations we need our representatives to put in place and progressive legislative agenda to swiftly address the above problems that are leading our country into becoming a second rate third world type of economic disaster.
To accomplish this we need to:
* Support the October 6, 2011 Movement: Sign on, get others to sign on, get organizations to sign on, labor unions, locals, environmental groups, social justice groups, peace groups, etc.
* Join, get your non-biased news, be a supporter and contribute to the discussions and actions of progressive and liberal organizations like MoveOn.org, Democracy For America, Democrats.com, The Daily KOS, The Liberty Underground, The Liberal Democratic Party of the USA, Progressive Push, etc.
* Join online talk groups to share ideas (i.e. Americonscience, DiehardDems, libertyundergroundtalk at yahoogroups).
* Protest, sign petitions, speak out and take to the streets when asked to support actions against the corporate controlled establishment and corporate controlled politicians and their agents (the Tea Party, etc).
* Support the Liberal and Progressive politicians that are already in elected offices by volunteerism, emails and letters of support, requests for legislation, donations and supporting their PACS.
* Stop donating to the Republican and Democrat Organizations (i.e. DNC and the RNC). Support non-corporatist individuals only.
* Register as an Independent and then support progressive, liberal and Green Party candidates (not Republicans, Blue Dog Democrats, New Democrats or DLC Democrats) by contributions (whatever you can afford), time as a volunteer, letters to the editor, town meetings, protests etc. I'm recommending the Green Party as they do not accept corporate money. And make sure that in elections you vote for these kinds of non-corporate controlled candidates! DO NOT VOTE FOR THE LESSER OF TWO EVIL CANDIDATES! If you have to start write in campaigns against any corporatist candidate!
* Organize, Organize, Organize, Speak Out, Speak Out, and Speak Out!!!!!!!!!!!
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." -President Dwight D. Eisenhower April 16, 1953
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Shayne Munger: I am a rabid progressive liberal from California.
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