Corporate Governance on Steroids
In my book, yesterday’s horrendous and obscene 5-4 Supreme Court ruling in the case Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission spells F-A-C-I-S-M loudly and clearly. The court’s Bush appointees made certain that the vote went down as it did. Democracy is becoming obsolete as we find ourselves increasingly crushed under the boot of corporate tyranny.
This decision will have profound implications on us all. It has opened the floodgates for the fabulously wealthy corporations and powerful special interests because they no longer have to go through a process to vet their campaign contributions.
What the decision says in effect is that only those with unlimited wealth have a stranglehold on government. It renders Congress obsolete, in effect because there are no easy remedies for it either by Congress or the President. It benefits esoteric financial institutions and crushes real people.
The history of strengthening corporate personhood by granting corporations the First Amendment rights of “free speech” has proportionately eroded the First Amendment rights of real people.
The average American person understands nothing about this because the corporate media is screaming about non-issues through their radios, televisions, and computer speakers.
We already have the worst healthcare and the most unequal distribution of wealth of all developed countries because of corporate control. That’s because people already have little to no access to influence their “democratically” elected officials.
Hello, Mr. Obama. Can you hear me now? DUDE. WAKE UP! DUMP BIPARTISANSHIP. RHETORIC IS JUST RHETORIC. THIS IS WHAT COMES WHEN YOU DON’T FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OF THOSE WHO ELECTED YOU. YOUR PANDERING IS DISGRACEFUL.
Hello, people. Can you see the writing on the wall? With the economy in the toilet and a president who has consistently backed down from fighting corporate power, it’s all up to us, who are too busy scrambling to survive. If you aren’t homeless yet, it’s time to forget about lattes and reality television. Despair is not an option.Here’s a concept:
“In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins. Not through strength, but through persistence.”–Napolean Hill
Wake-up Calls from Haiti
Call me naive, but how is it I see the U.S. occupation of Haiti and the Israeli occupation of Gaza as “same whip, different dog”?
Listening to the news post-Haiti earthquake one gets an eerie sense of deja vu from the conservative* U.S. government’s response to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Remember the images of Iraqi-style military force used on “looters” in New Orleans after Katrina? All the lies that were spewed and the ones being spewed now? There is no looting and violence by the Haitian people (see “Misinformation” link below), and even if there were, how would you react if you and your loved ones had gone without food and water and medical attention for seven days straight after a disaster? Oops. Sorry. If you’re white and your self image is privilege, then you’re absolutely protected from these things, so you don’t connect all that much with disaster. Oh, and by the way, if you think Haiti has nothing to do with you, read:
What shocked me most about today’s news was the quick response after the disaster by the Haitian President René Préval after making a show of even caring for the Haitian people showed his true allegiance when he visited the Dominican Republic today: to rebuild Haiti according to the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint.
I decided to find out how universal that sense is becoming around the blogging community and in official opinion pieces from various news sources. Here are a few random samples I found (yeah, it’s a lot to read, but it helps me to strike down the leering twin specters of media hype and misinformation):
Haiti Disaster–Another Katrina?
Militarizing Relief Effort in Haiti
Profiting from Haiti’s Crisis: Disaster Capitalism in Washington’s Backyard
Why is the Haiti Disaster Response So Screwed Up?
Stop Them Before They Shock Again
Now the Tourists Arrive in Haiti
A little history might help uncover what’s behind the militarization of Haiti:
Haiti’s Tragic History Is Entwined with the Story of America
Haiti: a long descent into hell
Why the U.S. Owes Haiti Billions
Misinformation and Racism Have Frozen Recovery Effort at General Hospital in Port-au-Prince
…and on and on and on ad nauseum. I’m so sick of not wanting to send any money to help the Haitian people because my intuition tells me that it would never get to them, given the diversion of air traffic and world-wide humanitarian aid efforts. Where would my money end up? In some fat-cat’s pocket or stalled out on some plane? I have no way of knowing.
It’s the same hesitation I sensed about the siphoning off of donations to victims of Hurricane Katrina. I know those who desperately needed it didn’t get people’s heart-felt donations back then because even today, little has changed in their situation. How much more hellish is the disaster in Haiti, and how soon the ravenous piranha have already begun to make plans to re-build Haiti to enslave the people and force them to serve the wealthy?
Pat Robertson is a moron. His insanity bloomed in all its toxic profusion when he ignorantly blathered on about Haiti’s “curse” January 13 on Christian Broadcasting Network’s “The 700 Club.”:
Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.
But signing a pact with “the devil” and remaining crushingly poor is not how “the devil” works, you moron. When you sign a pact with the guy, you get all these earthly riches and powers and privileges. Sounds more like what you did, you cretinous bag of wind.
And lastly, I’m appalled by President Obama’s response to the disaster. What is he thinking sending the poisonous Clinton and Bush to raise funds for Haiti? These two’s humanitarian aid effort history is in the toilet. Oh wait, I get it. Obama knows what side of his bread is buttered and who is buttering it. Duh.
*To Obama: Bipartisanship? Oh please. You’re a such great actor and orator that you manage to appease those who elected you with words, but you’re actually a conservative lackey–i.e., George H.W. Bush’s Uncle Tom. Folks are getting hip to you, though. How much longer will you pretend to be someone you aren’t?
Oh, and by the way. While the corporate media is busy distracting you and lying to you about Haiti, the proposed “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” is on the chopping block, a right-wing billionaire with ties to Pinochet has won the Chilean presidential race, and Shell and Exxon sign Iraqi oil deals. Have fun, boys and girls.
“Economic Recovery” is a Joke
In his Clusterfuck Nation website, James Howard Kunstler spells out the probability that the U.S. economy has about six months before it collapses into a grave of its own making in Six Months to Live.
Let’s stop pretending it’s not so. Despite all mime-show attempts to staunch the hemorrhaging, the U.S. and most of the world economies are in free-fall.
The end of the banking system and the “consumer” economy (and good riddance) is one thing, but most truly disturbing are the stats on global food insecurity:
Perhaps the most troubling buzz in the air this first month of 2010 are rumors of coming food shortages due to widespread crop failures around the world in the harvest seasons of 2009 (Emergency Food Supply, Food Crisis For Dummies, 2010 Wall Street Predictions.) If the US Department of Agriculture hasn’t flat-out lied about crop numbers in 2009, the signs are that their statistical reports are at least inconsistent with real grain storage numbers and commodities prices. And why would the USDA tell the truth if every other federal agency is reporting gamed numbers? Given the crisis in capital and lending, one also has to wonder how farmers will be able to borrow money to get their crops in this year.
I can’t help seeing a parallel between the dire situation in post-earthquake Haiti and a same slow response for victims of Hurricane Katrina. But both of these seem to me to be harbingers of the greater scenario of the utter failure of responsibility of colonizers, bankers, authoritarians, and controllers of all stripes. In other words, the seeds of what we all face lay in the reality of New Orleans and Port au Prince. We are staring down an abyss, and that abyss is staring back at us.
Why Let Banks Survive?
Part 1 – Corrupt Banking Systems – Cartels Robbing the Public
First of five videos on how we’re being robbed and enslaved by banks.
They Will Not Control Us
They will not force us,
They will stop degrading us,
They will not control us,
We will be victorious!
The Search for Morale
Psychologist Bruce E. Levine asks: Have consumerism, suburbanization and a malevolent corporate-government partnership so beaten us down that we no longer have the will to save ourselves?
Are Americans a Broken People?
Why We’ve Stopped Fighting Back Against the Forces of Oppression
–from: Alternet
Climategate Game Lethal for Planet
Right-wing spin machine is behind the hijacked emails.
Read the evidence for yourself:
Koch Industries along with Sun Myung Moon and others like Rush Limbaugh and Sara Palin (oh yea, she’s so scientific) are behind the “teabaggers” and other vile obfuscations including “climategate”.
My conclusion: Nothing new. Spoiled kindergartners, ignorant bullies, and sociopaths are running the show, and it will be lethal for the planet.
Death Wraiths
They’re still around, and growing.
Read this:
Blackwater’s Private Spies: A Bush-era CIA Who’s Who
Now, turn off the “news” and read books.
This Two-tiered Healthcare System Blows
My spouse and I are now jobless.
Neither of us have health care.
A cut-rate dentist told me that after replacing a crown in my mouth three times and even though food continues to be trapped in it, I may still have to pay if I want it replaced a fourth time. Thousands of dollars for one damn crown even though I floss and brush religiously.
Yet wealthy people have no such troubles. CNN reports how easy it was for Steve Jobs to get a liver transplant as he moved to the top of a list of 16,000 people who were also waiting for livers.
This week it was reported that Steve Jobs, the CEO and cofounder of Apple, underwent a liver transplant two months ago. One detail concerning Jobs’s transplant seemed odd: The surgery took place at a hospital in Tennessee, some 2,000 miles from Jobs’ home in northern California. Why Tennessee?
The answer sheds light on the intricacies of the organ transplant system, as well as why it’s sometimes easier for people with significant financial resources to get an organ transplant. (Jobs’ estimated net worth: $5.7 billion.)
Livers are a scarce resource. In any given year, only about one-third of the people on the national transplant waiting list receive one, and as of late June, more than 16,000 people were on the list.
Yet it sometimes seems that celebrities in need end up at the front of the line when they need a transplant, and people often assume they get preferential treatment.
The chance for a public option in the “revamped” health care legislation looks pretty dismal as long as insurance lobbyists control legislation. Unless and until money’s grip on America is pried loose, we will continue to see despicable injustice perpetrated against those without the means to their right to health care, in other words, their rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
