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Revolution by Any Other Name...

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This is quite a departure from the public belief that corporations are considered “persons” and thereby have “First Amendment rights under our constitution”. This is just not the case. Many Americans will differ with you however, when you bring up the fact that corporations are the leading contributors to political campaigns in this nation. They will “claim” that corporations are protected and allowed to voice their political views under the First Amendment. Now you know the truth, they have no such right. Individuals that are members of corporations have the same rights as other Americans, but not as representatives of their employers.

 

Now that we have that “sticking” point out of the way, let us talk about the “extraordinary rights” that corporate entities seem to believe they possess. The stateless multinational corporations that have no allegiance to the United States or any other nation seem to think that they can operate in all areas of the planet without recognizing the laws of the particular nation they are operating in. Blackwater, whose employees routinely operate outside of the framework of Iraqi Law, have no particular allegiance to the nation of Iraq. That having been said, the firm also has not, and never will, unlike the United States military, have ever take an oath to uphold and defend the United States and the Constitution from all enemies, foreign or domestic. Taken at face value, the only recognizable entity that Blackwater is responsible to is the company itself. In unbeknownst to the majority of American citizens, Blackwater is not unique to corporations worldwide. Because some corporations were formed in the United States and have become household names, this does not insure that they have any particular allegiance to this nation or any other. Most corporations have allegiance to their “bottom line”, and nothing else.

 

This gives them Carte Blanche to destroy the environment, to break unions, to bring the wages down to an acceptable level that won’t hurt their “bottom line”. Many of these corporations think nothing of “outsourcing” American jobs when the wage levels and the climate that includes favorable labor laws and tax structures, favors the corporation. This is unlikely to change as long as the corporations are the ones financing the candidates for the Presidency and Congress. How can change take place when the people that ask for your vote are financed by the very same people that want to eliminate your job? I’m not trying to be fresh, but call your credit card company and make a payment arrangement or check your balance. If I didn’t know better I would say that most of the people on the other end of the telephone have been watching too many movies from “Bollywood”… or they are actually are in Bombay.

 

The only way that we are going to get our government back under control and controlled not by people that are indebted to the corporate structure, but to the American people, will be by revolution, this revolution that I am calling for is not a revolution against our government, but many will see it that way, but against the corporate influence that has pervaded every facet of American life. Corporate influence has threatened the very existence of America as a trusted servant of the American people, and has reduced our once respected Constitutional Republic to a corporate controlled fascist dictatorship that surrounds itself with the trappings of a representative republic.

 

We are not the first nation to fall victim to corporate fascism. From Rome to Vienna to Germany, Italy and now China, we have all been the victims of corporate “bottom lines”. The very make-up of our system of government has lulled Americans into believing that we have a system of “checks and balances” that will render the American people safe from tyranny. Sadly, the checks and balances that were written into our Constitution never prepared us for this; a system of stateless despots that are not ruled by one person or party (although that can be argued) but by corporate boards and monopolistic industries and banking interests that select, groom and finance our leaders to do their corporate bidding.

 

Supposing I have made my case; how do we take power from the corporate interests that control this nation and put it back into the hands of the American people? In all of the articles I have read, and all the exposes that have been written by people of both political parties both in America and overseas, I have yet to see a clear plan to bring these forces to heel. The perfect solution to restoring Democracy in America would be to enact true campaign finance reform. Unfortunately, we have neither the organization nor the time to embark on this plan of action. The only other solution to bring about change to this very real and pressing problem is through disruption of the corporate agenda and an attack on their most sacred icon; “The bottom line”.

 

The bottom line must be realized as two separate and distinct ideas. The corporatists understand that it embodies the health and economic stability of their many enterprises, from the price they pay for raw materials, the assembly line and the wages paid to their workers, the advertising and promotion of their products, to the distribution and accountability of all of these expenses contribute to their “bottom line”.

 

As far as the American people are concerned, the bottom line is something else entirely. It comprises the freedoms that we are willing to forfeit by allowing corporations to operate outside the rule of law. It comprises the willingness of the people to see their livelihoods’ sacrificed to insure that goods and services may be produced more cheaply and efficiently in places outside of the United States. It embodies the premise that retirement capital and Social Security will be there when their working days are over. It also encompasses whether or not their children or their grandchildren will be fighting in some nation that is saturated with depleted uranium in order that the defense industries like General Dynamics, Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin and others can cause enough carnage to meet their “bottom lines”. To the American people, our “bottom-line” is what we are willing to endure to keep this economy above water for the present, knowing full well that the bill will become due in the future. At what cost are we willing to delay the inevitable? This is truly our bottom-line.

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Tim Gatto is Ret. US Army and has been writing against the Duopoly for the last decade. He has two books on Amazon, Kimchee Days or Stoned Colds Warriors and Complicity to Contempt.

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