Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Stripmining America - Unpatriotically
It is time to apply the standard of patriotism to the U.S. multinational corporations and demand that they pledge allegiance to the United States and “the Republic for which is stands…. with liberty and justice for all.” This July 4, 2011 would be a good day for Americans to demand such a corporate commitment.
Born and chartered in the U.S.A., these corporations rose to their giant size on the backs of American workers and vast taxpayer-subsidized research and development handouts. When they got into trouble, whether through mismanagement or corruption, these companies rushed to Washington, D.C. for bailouts from American taxpayers. When some were challenged in foreign lands, the U.S. marines came to their rescue, as depicted decades ago by two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner, Marine General Smedley Butler.
So what is their message to America and its workers now? It is not gratitude or loyalty. It is “we’re outta here, with your jobs and industries” to dictatorial or oligarchic regimes abroad, such as China, that know how to keep their impoverished, and abused workers under control.
Note that these company bosses have no compunction replacing U.S. workers with serf-labor, but they never replace themselves with bi-lingual executives from China, India and elsewhere who are willing to work for one-tenth or less of the huge pay packages executives get from their rubber-stamp boards of directors in the U.S.
Just this week, the Wall Street Journal headlined “Big U.S. Firms Shift Hiring Abroad.” Veteran reporter, David Wessel writes:
“U.S. multinational corporations, the big brand-name companies that employ a fifth of all American workers, have been hiring abroad while cutting back at home, sharpening the debate over globalization’s effect on the U.S. economy. The companies cut their work forces in the U.S. by 2.9 million during the 2000s while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million, new data from the U.S. Commerce Department show.”
While Mr. Wessel acknowledges that other economies, especially in Asia, are growing rapidly, he noted that “The data also underscore the vulnerability of the U.S. economy, particularly at a time when unemployment is high and wages aren’t increasing.”
Keep in mind that, while receiving all the public services, subsidies and protections in this country, large corporations have been abandoning America by shifting jobs overseas and by making our country perilously and unnecessarily dependent on foreign governments that naturally put their own interests first.
For example, the drug companies no longer have any plant in the U.S. to manufacture essential raw ingredients for important antibiotics like penicillin. In 2004, Bristol-Myers Squibb closed the last such factory in East Syracuse, N.Y. The drug industry always made lots of money here. One of every two Americans are on a prescription medicine. But the pharmaceutical companies want to make more so they have moved their production to Asia.
In 2009, The New York Times reported that “the critical ingredients for most antibiotics are now made almost exclusively in China and India. The same is true for dozens of other crucial medicines, including the popular allergy medicine prednisone; metformin, for diabetes; and amlodipine, for high blood pressure.
This flight to Asia raises serious questions. Senator Sherrod Brown (Dem. Ohio) held hearings because he accurately believed that “the lack of regulation around outsourcing is a blind spot that leaves room for supply disruptions, counterfeit medicines, even bioterrorism.”
Industrial scale production of Penicillin was developed by the U.S. war production board in World War II and many drug companies made it in U.S. plants, until the Chinese government lured the industry there with many freebies and weak safety regulations. A few years ago 95 Americans died from a Chinese produced counterfeit ingredient in the drug heparin, an anticlotting drug needed for surgery and dialysis.
As Belgium drug industry consultant, Enrico Polastro, told The New York Times: “If China ever got very upset with President Obama, it could be a big problem.” The Times concluded: “So for now, like it or not, China has the upper hand.”
Who gave China that dominant position? U.S. multinational drug companies, who along with other big U.S. companies, pushed through Congress, with Bill Clinton’s support, ratification of both NAFTA’s and the World Trade Organization’s “pull down” trade agreements. They created the very globalized structure that they now claim they are beholden to in order to meet the global competition. Clever, aren’t they?
Other unpatriotic acts include the oil companies who, despite being given a rich oil depletion tax allowance to invest in energy in the U.S., invested in oil production overseas. The U.S. is now dependent on foreign sources for most of its petroleum. Don’t forget the military-industrial giants that thrive on U.S. military expansion abroad and sell modern weapons to many dictatorial regimes which they use to oppress their people and endanger our own national security.
U.S. multinationals that export jobs abroad, show too little regard for our country, or to the U.S. communities that sustained them for decades. Greedy corporate lobbyists continue to press for more privileges and immunities, over those held by real humans, so as to be less accountable under U.S. law for corporate crimes and other mis-behaviors.
If U.S. companies continue to expand their rights of personhood through U.S. Supreme Court’s political decisions (eg. the latest being the notorious 5 to 4 Citizens United case opening up the floodgates of corporate cash against or for electoral candidates), then, they should be judged as “persons” and evaluated for their loyalty to their country of creation.
Since corporations are clearly “artificial” entities and not real human beings, narrower civil liberties standards can be applied to the impersonal and massive concentrations of power, capital and technology known as corporations
Independence Day July 4th presents an opportunity for a national attention to the need for calling out these runaway corporate giants who exploit for profit the patriotic sensibilities of Americans, but decline to be held any patriotic expectations or values.
Readers interested in joining such an effort for July 4, 2011 contact info@csrl.org.
42 Comments so far
Show AllHow can you have patriotism when the government is Outsourcing Citizenship?
In the war against the middle-class the government has been outsourcing jobs for decades. Now the government is going one step further. They are outsourcing citizenship to bring corporate citizens into their constituency, and give them the rights that go with it. This country started with an agreement between citizens and leaders. Over time we have evolved into shareholders (all shareholders are not equal) and owners. Our Constitutional rights as citizens have been stripped away while the Constitutional rights of corporations have grown. Today, a corporation has the same value as a natural citizen and made the law-of-the-land by the Supreme Court. This corporate citizen acts like a natural citizen. It looks to the government for the conditions to be productive so it can continue to grow.
Corporate citizens have become a weapon in the war against the middle-class. They can be used to take away the power of the vote form the middle-class. Corporate citizens can get congressman to listen to them and ignore the voice of the voter. This is why all polls in America show the government completely out of step with the majority of its natural citizens in every sector in society. On healthcare, education, taxes, war, environment and a host of others the people and the government are not on the same page. It’s not the government following the will of the people. Instead, it’s the government doing the bidding of its corporate citizens by writing legislation to legalize the assault on unions and teachers.
But, the needs of a citizen and the needs of a corporation are not the same. Natural citizens need and want opportunity and means to be successful and happy. They want government to provide a level playing field for all. Corporate citizens want and need control of the market to maximize profits. The natural citizen wants to live the American Dream and retire while the corporate citizen will be struggle to grow into an empire- builder. Natural citizens used to say their thanks with a handshake. The corporate citizen says thanks with a cash contribution.
The only weapon of the natural citizen is being taken away. He’s being disarmed. But, it’s not his guns he’s losing. What is being taken away is his VOTE. Given to those with citizenship, by the Constitution. The vote – the most effective weapon of the citizen to force the government to listen to him, is being given to corporations. Today their votes are meaningless. They have been made meaningless by a political system driven by money. Who can own the most government? A citizen’s vote has no political value to a congressman, he can’t put it in his war chest. In the battle between the natural citizens and the corporate citizens you only have to look at D.C. and see who represents who. There are thousands and thousands of these corporate citizens. The lobbyists and the think tanks and the media are grafting themselves onto the three branches of the government. It’s Ike’s worst nightmare.
Presidents throughout my lifetime have initiated foreign wars without the approval of the Congress. So why doesn’t Congress take back its power? Since all wars are now political the Congress would rather the White House start the war. The Congress will manage them. With war so profitable for corporate citizens why would they ever want to limit such a money making product? They wouldn’t. That’s why war is no longer a few pages every couple of hundred pages in history books. War is a part of our daily lives.
The government doesn’t have to be afraid. Votes don’t matter anymore.
Hoa binh
Ralph, my good friend, I for one am eff-ing sorry that I gave you up and pulled the lever for Obama on the last minute when I shouldn't have done that. But I've appreciated your tireless efforts to inform and enlighten. To honor that, I wanna let everyone know or remind them of an article that you wrote nearly 10 years ago about "corporate patriotism" not too long after 9/11. I got to hand it to you that you really were on to something. Who knows how much 9/11 was an insider's job? Now I don't have all the science to confirm or deny the 9/11 Truth but if Corporate America still had it all so easy even after the Big Brother Act of 2001 passed, then that alone should tell you just how much of an insider's job 9/11 was as in more than enough to use monumental tragedy to distract and destroy. But what a surprise that Enron only followed on December 2001 with scandals year after that. But no, nothing much happened on reform and even Wall Street had fun poking at Sarbanes and Oxley for being toothless. Having been to China and India and noticing what the concentration slave labor camps were like, I gotta say that years of destroying farmlands in those countries and driving thousands of farmers to bankruptcy so that the bastards of Corporate America could set up shop and gut the wages along with the environment is the biggest long term act of TERRORISM but don't expect that to be talked about everytime the corporate media drivels on about the "global war on terror".
Folks, here is his article on "Corporate Patriotism" from 2001.
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1110-07.htm
max, I'm sure there are a lot of people who feel as you do for voting for Obama instead of Ralph. Looking at it in another way, since no one really knows what a new president finds themselves up against once in office, Ralph could well have had to let down those who voted him in as Obama has done, just maybe not in the same ways.
He may be doing far more for the country in the position he's always had than he could had done in the White House with the brick wall republicans. I can't think of anyone more well-known and trusted than Ralph Nader. It's only the last generation that may not know him well. We know when he speaks, that it's the truth. That's a very rare commodity these days.
"Ralph could well have had to let down those who voted him in as Obama has done, just maybe not in the same ways."
I was prepared for anyone to do their letting down but with so many disappointments to outright back stabbings to list that might as well have any of us writing a book, it's hard to see Nader coming anywhere close. I'm sure that Nader would do almost anything to hammer away at Congress just Reagan did unlike Obama and Clinton who dishonestly called triangulating a model for success. True, even Reagan had his share of letdowns of the Far Right but nothing like Clinton and Obama doing it on the Left. I dunno but our expectations have sunk to zilch so maybe we deserve a dupe like Obama. W, Palin, etc...
I don't know how old Ralph is, but I know it seems like I've depended on him for most of my adult life, and I'm heading into the middle seventies. Like you, I'm sure he would fight like hell for right, even in the White House. But none of us know what might raise it's ugly head once someone moves into that house. If someone had told me even six months ago that Tea Party Governors would start taking over towns, firing all the teachers and elected officials, and doing everything else they've done so far, I'd have told them they were crazy. That's why I also said Ralph may be helping us more by doing what he's always done, only with matters relating to what our government is doing to us, rather than trying to fight that brick wall in Congress.
Ralph is supposed to turn 78 next year but I'll check Wikipedia for that.
The "Tea Party" isn't much of a party at all. It's basically the same hardcore rightwing Republicans of the 1980s and early 1990s with a different name to look "new". They're a symptom of both political parties being totally out of touch with America. Firing public elected officials has usually been more slow and subtle but the "Tea Party" only did us a service of waking us up and testing our pulses. I dunno why they did it but they're already going back to the Republican establishment and showing us the frauds they are so none of this surprises me.
Ralph could well have had to let down those who voted him in as Obama has done, just maybe not in the same ways.
You must be very young or very uninformed about Ralph Nader. He doesn't give in. He's never given in. That's why they call him "The Unreasonable Man."
What makes you say that Ralph voted for Obama? He was interviewed after the election and asked what he thought about the election of Obama. Ralph said we will have to wait and see if Obama will be Uncle Sam or Uncle Tom.
Big uproar!!! Nader is a racist and called our new President, the first African American elected to such a high office, an Uncle Sam. No. He asked that question and we can now clearly see the answer. Obama is no Uncle Sam caring about the American people. He is Uncle Tom and working for the master.
WTF are you talking about? I never said that Nader voted for Obama. Go back and read my post. By the way, I'm not following you on your second paragraph but Uncle Sam has been a f-tard for years and Obama's part of that and the "Uncle Tom" for Corporate America and the MIC. No shame, no honor.
An enormous, seldom discussed, factor in the demise of the American working class is it's "addiction to driving" which carries with it a panoply of associated expenses, including auto loan payments, normal maintenance, insurance and deductibles, uncovered repair costs associated with collisions and of course, what has now become the largest and fastest increasing expense by far--fuel costs.
Until we realize this, beyond the expected screaming at fuel prices, and act expeditiously, there is no way to save the situation.
We see more ads than ever for automobiles on the television so the "pushers" who want to maintain this addiction aren't going away any time soon.
The average person sees no alternative but to continue to pay and pay, and Congress has no answer except to mandate higher fuel efficiency standards--far too little--and the benefits come far too late.
A "paradigm shift" is needed immediately for transportation in order to reduce the amount we pay each year in imported oil costs.
Though alternatives exist, the most effective ones require that collective action be taken to implement them. Yet there seems to be no understanding among politicians that revolutionary changes are needed--they all operate on an "incremental" basis for the rare occasions where they address the issue.
For more analysis see:
http://greeneconomypost.com/car-culture-public-transportation-3633.htm
Addiction to driving or simply forced to drive due to economic and environmental circumstances? Big difference there. Politicians know that change must come but they're not really interested unless they can get bigger bribes out of it and that's not gonna happen.
If change doesn't happen soon, the "death spiral" caused in large part, by automobile purchase and operating costs, will continue unabated, until it hits solid ground.
This will surely occur before mid-decade (an eventuality of which Dr. Fuel-Man Chu seems to be completely unaware).
I just got back from being with family (from my dear mothers funeral) in the Stafford-to Dale City Virginia area. This area is complete car-dependent madness. I will soon have a spare plug-in electric motor scooter to sell and was thinking of asking one of my borthers or sisters if they wanted it. But after being in that area, I realized that such a vehicle (30 mile range 45-50 mph top speed) would be useless. In the Pittsburgh area, this scooter gets me everywhere, but it seems even the most basic trips or commutes in Virginia would exceed the range of the scooter, or you would get run over by a car-addled commuter.
One would think that land along I-95 was free when one sees the irrational degree of land waste and sprawl and consequent dependence on cars.
But you do have a choice, you could leave your awful suburban hellhole as most of the next generation of my greater family is doing. A few live in DC, another in NYC, another in the Fan Distrcit of Richmond, one brother lives in Toronto and I live in Pittsburgh - all places wher you can walk and take public transit - or where at at least using economical motor scooters is practical.
Condolences on your mother's passing.
SABO: I, too, send prayers for your Mother. I think you'd agree it's an ideal time to have completed one's natural life-span; and now She can view the coming chapters (of our Earth in a massive Transition State) from a more liberated vantage point. The cognition of the soul continues... if you have recall of your dreams, your Mother will probably send you a message or two from that "domain."
With the price of gas rising, I may learn to use a scooter soon, too.
Thanks, but to say my relationship with my mother (and father who died 16 months earlier) was difficult would be an understatement. A sample can be had in my comment on the Sagan "pale blue dot" article.
I grieved far more over the illness and death of my cat Buddhi Bläten, a year ago in march, than I did either of my old parents. The death of my parents brought with it a lot of uncomfortable feelings from the past, but not a lot of grief.
First off, my condolences to your mother and God/Goddess bless her soul.
But will you just drop your hatred of the suburbs and get over your obsession with going electric? Packing everyone into the cities doesn't work, never has and never will. I know there are issues with the suburbs but bashing us for living there and calling us racists I don't take kindly to. The cost of living in Pittsburgh far exceeds the costs of living in the surrounding suburbs. Fix that. Now, I'm open to electric cars and scooters but it's not gonna replace our oil driven autos or motorcycles. My take is we combine it with walking, trains, biofuels, and others. You realize that if it's electric that we'll be mining and burning more coal and uranium if we don't end up invading the Congo or China to keep our Li batteries as cheap as possible, no?
Dennab, you're doing the best you can and I applaud you. Some people don't appreciate the fact that there's different ways to achieve good. Rural, suburban, or urban, no place is perfect. Life is what each of us tries to make it out to be and the best we can do is try to share ideas and suggestions and lay off wishing people ill will shit. You seem to be doing your part good for the most part but now the question becomes how we can motivate others to do likewise even when they're in different environments and situations.
""The cost of living in Pittsburgh far exceeds the costs of living in the surrounding suburbs.""
???
You can get a nice townhouse in Pittsburgh, within a short stroll of Italian groceries, restaurants, bars, and farmers markets with local produce for about $80,000. Yes, there is also room for a garden in the back - and it is even quieter than many suburban areas..
I don't think you have even been to a real city. Me, I never encountered a real sense of community and neighborhood -solidarity until I moved to a the city - at least a rust belt one.
But if you want to live in an area where everything exists for the benefit of gasoline burning machines instead of humans, knock yourself out.
What are you comparing a townhouse in Pittsburgh to? A townhouse or big home in the suburbs? If the former, then I would rather live in the suburbs but if the latter, then yeah I get your point. I've been to big cities, just not lived in one. I'm not saying that I'm for keeping the gasoline powered machines running and I'm not. But telling us to just switch from suburbs to cities and gasoline to coal/uranium is just cutting corners at best and not addressing the issue of sustainability.
It can be an addiction. I was raised in L.A. where the first thing you are aware that you know is how many days till your 16th birthday when you can get a driver's license. Somehow I lucked out and recognized it for what it was midway through my life and moved to a place where I could survive without owning a car (there aren't many such places left). I've been in recovery for nearly four decades now.
Even if some politicians recognize in some dim backwater part of their brains that "revolutionary changes" are needed, they wouldn't last long if they were to speak out against the automobile in the U.S.A., and now, in much of the rest of the world that seems to all want to get in on the Southern California way of life.
I'll be even more direct then Ralph. Many of these huge Int'l Corps. based in America are in essence run by traitors and foreigners. They sent the factories offshore these last 30 yrs. , they have bankrupted our economy and are now actively in the process of gutting whats left of the Gov't and the once mighty Middle Class that paid for it. They've also bought the Congress, WH and the Courts and are now preparing to greatly limit our rights and liberties through more false flag wars for full spectrum Corp. dominance. ONLY a REVOLUTION will suffice to take back this country for its people NOTHING else will work because the so called system is now rigged from the easy to fix computerized election results to the SCOTUS. Obama is nothing more then another Corp. middle manager doing the powers to be's bidding. If we want real change its going to ONLY happen when millions take to the streets and highways of this rapidly descending 3rd world country and take it back from the CORP. thieves and pirates that now have it. My guess though is that in the short run the American dream is OVER.
A revolution needs a rallying cry. How about, "A Corporation is not a Person." These six words can be embraced by everyone except the richest 1%. Mr. Nader has previously proposed a Constitutional Amendment to abolish Corporate Personhood, and his proposed Amendment began with these six words.
It is critical that that the revolution embrace and expand upon the Wisconsin model, which was supported by firefighters, police, teachers and all public servants, labor unions, as well as activists of all degree. It should be easy to gain the support of anyone on Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, or fixed income by informing them how they are getting screwed, and by whom. Similarly, it should be easy to include the black community, the working class whose jobs have been deported, etc.
I propose having a big musical concert, or several concerts, with the biggest stars, all built around promoting the six words. ("The concert for We the People")
Sort of like Farm Aid, only much bigger. Some of the big stars would decline to participate because they are owned by the Corporations. For example, Clear Channel would threaten to ban their music from 1500 radio stations, and prevent them from playing at Corporate-owned venues. Of course, we can count on Willie and Neil. If enough big stars join up, then the Corporations will be powerless to stop the momentum. Sales of the recordings could top Woodstock.
This article brings to mind a passage from "Is the World Too Big to Fail? The Contours of Global Order" by Noam Chomsky, published here yesterday:
___________________
"In Adam Smith's defense, it should be added that he recognized what would happen if Britain followed the rules of sound economics, now called 'neoliberalism.' He warned that if British manufacturers, merchants, and investors turned abroad, they might profit but England would suffer. But he felt that they would be guided by a home bias, so as if by an invisible hand England would be spared the ravages of economic rationality.
The passage is hard to miss. It is the one occurrence of the famous phrase 'invisible hand' in The Wealth of Nations. The other leading founder of classical economics, David Ricardo, drew similar conclusions, hoping that home bias would lead men of property to 'be satisfied with the low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations,' feelings that, he added, 'I should be sorry to see weakened.' Their predictions aside, the instincts of the classical economists were sound."
___________________
As Nader doubtless knows all too well, the insatiable predatory nature of capitalism, especially when metastasized into multinational corporate capitalism, is antithetical to nationalistic "patriotism"-- for the sake of discussion, accepting Nader's implied characterization of "patriotism" as virtuous, benevolent civic responsibility and integrity.
Despite oxymorons like "corporate ethics", "business ethics", "corporate responsibility", etc., the naked truth is that corporations are by definition entirely dehumanized, amoral artificial creations-- Frankenstein monsters-- whose primary goal and purpose is to maximize profits for shareholders and allow top executives to become obscenely wealthy.
Regardless of how outrageous and unfair it is, the raw, absolute power of money-- wealth-- ensures that corporate predators will not be brought to heel or book in the name of humanitarian compassion and justice.
I'm only a half-assed backyard birdwatcher, and no ornithologist, but the brown-headed cowbird comes to mind. The female cowbird doesn't hatch and raise her own young, but literally sneaks her eggs into clutches of eggs in other birds' nests.
When the eggs hatch, the "host" bird mother parents the cowbird chicks along with her own-- although the cowbird parents have been observed remaining in the vicinity, keeping an eye on their young.
Sometimes the medium-size cowbird leaves the eggs in a much smaller birds' nest. In some cases, this means that the host bird mothers' own chicks, and sometimes even the host mother herself, dies from starvation or exhaustion because the oversized cowbird chick(s) gobbles up most of the food.
And for reasons which are still not understood, if the intrusive cowbird egg(s) fail to hatch, the parent cowbird will attack the nest and smash ALL the eggs.
OK, the parallel isn't exact. But the point is that corporations have the "cowbird" mentality. They could care less about the nest that made their life possible, or its inhabitants. And like the hapless little starlings and finches, there is no countervailing force or entity to protect their eggs or safeguard their starving chicks.
The Amerikan power elite, and especially the political class, is composed of once and future cowbirds, or cowbird-friendly allies. This elite may be unable, and is certainly unwilling, to leash and tame the cowbird corporations.
A minority may express sympathy or resolve, and seek to provide hope and reassurance that things can change for the better. But plaintive, righteously indignant, or scolding chirps don't seem to have much effect, or provide sufficient leverage to even slow down the burgeoning cowbird population, much less halt it in its devastating tracks.
Thanks, O.S. "You learn something every day." Up until now, I would have never known there was such a thing as Republican birds. Hmm.. could that be where the concept of right WING came from?
If?
"So what is their message to America and its workers now? It is not gratitude or loyalty. It is “we’re outta here, with your jobs and industries” to dictatorial or oligarchic regimes abroad, such as China, that know how to keep their impoverished, and abused workers under control."
The last sentence in this paragraph shows exactly what the plan for U.S is, and it's progressing with amazing speed. The banks are holding the country hostage by sitting on all the money and doing nothing, while the newly "elected" Koch governors and members of Congress strip it of everything resembling a healthy society. They're "getting us impoverished and under control by the soon to be fascist government."
"Giant sucking sound") Ross Perot should run again if he's still around (Only the Superich Can Save Us) with Ralph as his running mate.
Perot had some sanity up until he endorsed W in 2000 when he should have tried Gore or Nader. His corporation Perot Systems turned out to be a huge failure. Perot was great in the 1990s but from 2000 and after, he was another sucker to the status quo.
Thanx maxpayne
Sometimes I wonder about Nader. He is too smart not to see the bigger picture. I get the impression that he is trying hard to play within the "rules" in order to obtain at least some media coverage. But the game is rigged, the rules are crooked, and so Ralph is always fighting a losing battle. I guess he has decided that small victories are the best he can bargain for. His latest book, "Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us", is a strange thing. He appeals to the humanity of beings who are manifestly anti-human. Gates, Buffett and co. will never save us. The system itself only allows the vicious to get to the top. There are no conscientious billionaires out there. Billionaire philanthropy is an oxymoron. Surely Nader sees this? Then what is he doing? The sheep doesn't ask the shepherd for mercy. It eats, bleats, and when the time comes obediently goes to its own slaughter.
This is exactly what the American population is doing today.
The manifest insanity of our era begs the question - are our rulers merely insane, or is there a method to their madness? The oligarchs are destroying America. Are they merely greedy, or is there a larger plan? Because a few more decades of the current treatment will bring about a neo-feudal post-human system. Such a system is largely in place even today. People are "educated" in increasingly hideous schools that are quickly becoming indistinguishable from prisons. Literacy rates are dropping. Folks can't find France on the map. Grown men can't cope with elementary algebraic operations. The next step is the corporate job - for those who can land one. An atmosphere of fabricated fear sullies the whole fabric of society. Imaginary terrorists lurk at every corner. Pedophiles threaten the increasingly close-minded and closed-in children. The ghost of poverty, immiseration and homelessness hangs above every adult - this in the era of unimaginable technological splendor, when 5% of the population can feed, clothe and house everybody without even working "full-time".
People live in a virtual prison that is gradually merging with the real.
Surely this is not coincidental. There is a malign hand somewhere, guiding the process to its abominable conclusion.
The time has passed for soft talk and compromise. Obama is a war criminal and a traitor. Greater men than him (an understatement to say the least, considering Obama's spectral entity) have hanged for lesser crimes. Institutions like the "schooling" system, the corporations, the federal reserve, the CIA, etc, are beyond reform. They must be annihilated. We have to call for the total destruction of the CIA, television, the bizarre "wars on" (when they are wars OF) terrorism and drugs. The prisons and the military pose a terrible problem - because the people they house have been destroyed. I'm not sure they can ever live outside of their institutions.
Horrible problems face us from every direction - and are getting worse. What about the food we eat and the water we drink? The food is becoming inedible! The GMO lunacy is exploding like a supernova. We are reaching (or have passed) a point at which ridding the planet of GMOs may be impossible. Madness!
Nader is a veteran and surely he knows what he is doing. Hedges has gone berserk, but are his histrionics producing anything worthwhile? But then, Hedges is another serious person - he has chosen his strategy - let him pursue it. This war, which is perhaps the last war, an invisible war, won't be fought in battalions. We may combine, but only accidentally. This is a war to be fought at the individual level. We'd better hurry, because the enemy approaches his victory.
True maybe but what if Nader already knows that the system is rigged but is trying to figure out which way is the best way to defeat or bypass it? I've read some of his articles where he'd literally beg president Clinton, Bush, Obama, etc... to do the right thing on this or that even when there was no chance that they'd follow up on it. I'd say he's like all of us and not just us here on this site but all over the political spectrum.
good comment
If corporations _are_ persons, they are psychopathic ones. "Privatization" institutes new psychopaths that prey on the other kinds of people. They take over municipal parking meters, tollways, the military, oil, schools, even water--for a single purpose: profit.
None has a heart, a conscience, a soul. None can practice restraint. People fall for it because of salesmanship presenting the masks of partnership between government and corporations who promise to use "technology" to enhance public service.
In my little hometown, Clarion, PA (which I left 50 years ago after high school), 800 of the 6,000 population have sustained the community for 105 years with a median salary (now) of $52,500 per year from working for "the world's largest maker of glass packaging," Owens-Illinois.
Current CEO, Albert P.L. Stroucken, has decided that he'll move the Clarion plant, "one of the company's most expensive facilities to operate due to its obsolete infrastructure" to Thailand. No doubt building the "infrastructure" of the plant there will save the company untold money. How? Cheap metal from Korea and coolie labor.
The existing plant in Clarion with its experienced and loyal workers isn't for sale--Owens Illinois "will not sell the property to competing glass or plastic manufacturers." Not only 800 jobs in this charming Appalachian community will be lost, but also the $270,000 in government revenue and $60,000 in property and employee taxes the plant generated.
So Mr. Stroucken thrusts Clarion in the heart with the knife of anti-unionism and efficiency and moves the jobs to Thailand where his profits will be enhanced by those workers’ lack of good wages, no union representation, no healthcare costs, no safety regulations, and unregulated disposal of plant wastes.
This is one small instance of the heartlessness of America's corporatocracy. Mr. Stroucken's salary will be now enhanced with a major bonus provided by the happy Board of Directors.
My little hometown with my mother and siblings and 150 cousins is in its death throes, its only industry shuttered by greed.
This kind of tragedy is happening all over America. People are desperate.
Mr. Nader has been correct so many times on so many issues. His citing the drug industry is certainly apropos. We are all dependent on our "pills".
Mr. Obama, like the corporations, has no heart, no soul, no conscience, no restraint. What are we going to do? I've personally gotten hundreds of people out into street demonstration both in my home town and in Washington. No matter the issue, no matter how many of us there are, our society's directors brush us and our firmly held convictions all aside.
Voting drives seem useless. Even door to door canvasing and providing free rides to the polls flushes out only a tiny percent of legal voters among the public. Hope is dead. Apathy and dullness swallow us up and even Mr. Nader is unable to awaken us. In 1928, the Nazis won less than 3% of the vote in Germany.
None of our heroes can prod us into actions beyond pushing buttons on the remote: Rachel Maddow, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, Bill Moyers, Keith Olbermann, Naom Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Paul Krugman, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher. None.
We do need Mountain-top Removal: huge mechanical efforts to get utterly rid of the Kings of the Mountains.
"None of our heroes can prod us into actions beyond pushing buttons on the remote...."
It's not like they really try though. Giving soft voice speaches and level headeded analysys once in a while about what's going on in US now is not going to raise citizens from their warm zombie sleep... Anger is what makes people go out and do something about something that makes them feel that way. Why dont these supposed champions of the people get together and keep giving the same message over and over again until it REALLY sink in( not just "yeah i know we r screwed. oh well" reaction). No need to lump all the issues together until average person just can't take it anymore cause its so depressing with nobody really giving any ways out - just stick to ONE... But they don't relly give a damn do they...
"It is time to apply the standard of patriotism to the U.S. multinational corporations and demand that they pledge allegiance to the United States and “the Republic for which is stands…. with liberty and justice for all."
The pledge of allegiance was written by Francis Bellamy, who was a "socialist".
We are dealing with capitalists, that have allegiance only to profit.
Oh, and I voted for Ralph.
The symbol for corporations must be a cyclops, gigantic and dumb with a single focus.