Big money from big corporations threatens the little guy

Check out Thom Hartmann’s excellent book “Unequal Protection“. Excellent treatise on how corporate politics has dominated the nation going back to before the revolution. In fact, the American revolution was brought on by the American resentment of a British massive company, the “East India Company”, owned by the royal family, which suppressed the free market in the colonies via predatory trading practices.

Hartmann tells a story of how the struggle between corporate power and individual rights has gone on for centuries, and has never been satisfactorily resolved. Much legal history in this book: corporations (starting with a milestone case in 1886 where the Southern Pacific Railroad claimed and (strangely), sued Santa Clara, California, arguing that they were being unfairly taxed, that corporations are protected by the 14th amendment, which guarantees the right of all persons to equal protection, without respect to color or creed. (it was passed after the civil war ended, to keep former black slaves from being treated as property) After that, corporations had all rights of a natural person (i.e. free speech, etc.)

Corporations can’t be jailed and they are immortal. If a corporation hurts or kills someone, they can’t be held accountable by jail or a death penalty. They are only answerable to their shareholders, so profit takes precedence over good citizenship. Not good for us real persons.

Corporations are concentrating power (with money). Because they pay much less in taxes than individual citizens, they have an advantage. This is where it gets disturbing. Keep in mind that taxes are an extremely contentious subject, especially today.

Corporations spend a lot of money spreading information through advertising (or mis-information).

Look at News Corporation, the owner of Fox News. They have a large audience eager to believe what Fox says about taxation. But there is a corporate agenda at work. They are expressing corporate opinion, disguising it as unbiased reporting.

Fox News hates the left, and tell us that President Obama is a radical, that he was not born in the US, that he and the Democrats are conspiring against the people. But their “conservative” slant is a sham! They are in it to divert attention from what is important. By diverting attention to these side issues, they are actually enhancing big corporate power and .

News Corporation loves to talk about the “TEA” party”. Islamic mosques in Manhattan and gay marriage? How awful. Privatizing social security? Repealing medicare improve it? Great, lets roll the clock back. It would help large corporations profits,

NO APOLoGIES to Big oil and big coal companies. We don’t need more public subsidy of gas and oil. We do need a more sustainable infrastructure and building stock.

Remember that President Bush and his allies were in charge for 7 years before our national economy started south. The so-called conservatives have no right to complain. They got a trillion dollar tax cut in 2001, they started an unnecessary trillion dollar war in Iraq. They bailed out the banks with a 700 billion dollar program.

Leftist conspiracy? Socialist President? Hunh?