The Corporate State and The Subversion of Democracy

The Corporate State and The Subversion of Democracy

www.commondreams.org

The disparity between our oligarchy and the working class has created a new global serfdom. Credit Suisse analysts estimates that the number of subprime foreclosures in the United States over the next two years will total 1,390,000 and that by the end of 2012, 12.7 percent of all residential borrowers in the United States will be forced out of their homes. The corporate state, which as an idea is an abstraction to many Americans, is very real when the pieces are carefully put together and linked to a system of corporate power that has made this poverty, the denial of our constitutional rights and a state of permanent war inevitable. The assault on the American working class-an assault that has devastated members of my own family- is nearly complete. The U.S. economy has 3.2 million fewer jobs today than it did when George Bush took office, including 2.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs. In the past three years, nearly one in five U.S. workers was laid off. Among workers laid off from full-time work, roughly one-fourth were earning less than $40,000 annually. A total of 15 million U.S. workers are unemployed, underemployed or too discouraged to job hunt, according to the Labor Department. There are whole sections of the United States which now resemble the developing world. There has been a Weimarization of the American working class. And the assault on the middle class is now under way. Anything that can be put on software-from finance to architecture to engineering-can and is being outsourced to workers in countries such as India or China who accept a fraction of the pay and work without benefits. And both the Republican and Democratic parties, beholden to corporations for money and power, allow this to happen.

The below paragraph is something to ponder very carefully IMO..

Take a look at our government departments. Who runs the Defense Department? The Department of Interior? The Department of Agriculture? The Food and Drug Administration? Who runs the Department of Labor? Corporations. And in an election year where we are numbed by absurdities we hear nothing about this subordinating of the American people to corporate power. The political debates, which have become popularity contests, are ridiculous and empty. They do not confront the real and advanced destruction of our democracy. They do not confront the takeover of our electoral processes.

(visit the link for the full news article)



[edit on 31-5-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

Boy, is this article ever on the mark...We might as well change our name to The United States of America INCORPORATED...

This will bring about the complete destruction of this country as a whole if not stopped. These corporations are GUTTING this nation, and they own EVERYTHING and EVERYONE---Including literally all of our "hand-chosen" sock-puppet POTUS candidates...As well as all of the Major Mainstream Media outlets, which they use as a propaganda and brainwashing tool against the populace to shape opinion and herd the sheep to supporting their profiteering wars and other agendas...

As long as this is allowed to continue, they will draw us into endless profiteering wars, and continue to outsource all of our jobs to foreign countries, and the list goes on and on...

We are being "corporatized" into 3rd World status very quickly by these greed and power mongers...

The corporate state, begun under Ronald Reagan and pushed forward by every president since, has destroyed the public and private institutions that protected workers and safeguarded citizens. Only 7.8 per cent of workers in the private sector are unionized. This is about the same percentage as in the early 1900s. There are 50 million Americans in real poverty and tens of millions of Americans in a category called “near poverty.” Our health care system is broken. Eighteen thousand people die in this country, according to the Institute of Medicine, every year because they can’t afford health care. That is six times the number of people who died in the 9/11 attacks, and these unnecessary deaths continue year after year. But we do not hear these stories of pain and dislocation. We are diverted by bread and circus. News reports do little more than report on trivia and celebrity gossip. The FCC, in an example of how far our standards have fallen, defines shows like Fox’s celebrity gossip program “TMZ” and the Christian Broadcast Network’s “700 Club” as “bona fide newscasts.” The economist Charlotte Twight calls this vast corporate system of spectacle and democratic collapse “participatory fascism.”

www.commondreams.org
(visit the link for the full news article)

[edit on 31-5-2008 by DimensionalDetective]

This article is exactly on the mark...

These oil prices caused by CORPORATIONS are even starting to change the way we live everyday.

- SUVs are being left on car lots because no one wants one anymore...
- More people are riding bikes and motorcycles
- More people are STEALING gasoline from tanks
- More people won't be able to AFFORD TO LIVE because food prices are rising in tandem

Then there's the Iraq War sponsored by CORPORATIONS.

It's going to get worse. We "ain't" seen nothin' yet.