September 14, 2006 at 15:44:40

Sovereignty

SAVE AS FAVORITE

VIEW FAVORITES

By John St.John (about the author) Page 1 of 1 page(s)

opednews.com Permalink

For OpEdNews: gramps - Writer

The first great corporation was The British East India Company. It ruled India for 300 years and was responsible for this food exporting country having intermittent famine. It was responsible for the American Revolution. Queen Elizabeth disbanded it because it was a threat to her sovereignty. In America sovereignty lay in the vote. Free Americans were sovereigns.

Today giant corporations have taken our sovereignty from us. The Senate just passed an appropriations bill for $648,000,000,000 of our tax money for the defense department. This is nothing more than a funnel to the corporations.

It was a simple matter for the good Queen to axe the East India Company because she was the sovereign. In America the Constitution put sovereignty in the hands of the people. But the corporations have easily taken our power from us. Unlike a kingdom where this power was easily exercised by the will of one person; today governments are bought by the corporations who control the means of communication, the educational institutions, and the press. Government agencies can no longer regulate them and we have become their subjects.

Although the corporations are composed of human beings; employees are limited to the inhuman bottom line where decision making is by “cost benefit analysis”. That is: if a product like an automobile with a faulty electrical system blows up and kills a number of families you only have two choices-"pay off the fines and lawsuits and bribe judges or recall these death traps. A single proprietor would face time in the penitentiary but you can't put a corporation in jail. Because of the runaway productive ability of the corporations; war has become economic policy. It is the only way that a depression can be avoided.

The last great depression only ended with WWII. When I got out of the army I could not buy my wife a washing machine or a refrigerator. For four years the only products produced were those that could be blown up or became obsolete. Five years of peace and the market had again become glutted with consumer products. It was time for another war. Since then we have been in one war or another and now are in a war against terrorists. Imagine! 648 billion dollars to fight a guy with a bomb strapped to his waist. The rationale for war has now passed all of the bounds of sanity.

What can we do? The problem is to eliminate the corporation as a business form and turn it into a cooperative. I can not see how even the simple process of taking away corporation personhood can be accomplished. The only answer is revolution-" revolution against the corporations and all of their toadies including the government. I dislike the thought of revolution because historically revolutions have usually ended with us being governed by even worse bastards that we overthrew. But what else can we do?

http://users.abac.com/homer

WWII veteran,cofounder of The American Veterans Committee. Editor of the dairy page for the California Farm Reporter. Organizer for Harry Bridges longshoremen. President Eagle Lodge number one, AFL Papermakers Union. Member of Impeach Bush.

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author
and do not necessarily reflect those of this website or its editors.

Contact Author

Contact Editor

View Authors' Articles

Book Recommendations for "Corporate Accountability"

The New Corporate Accountability: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Law

$65.00
Lowest New Price $58.17
Number of pages: 602
Publisher: Cambridge University Press