It's the Corporation, Stupid!
"There's a lady who thinks all that glitters is gold
And she's buying the Stairway to Heaven"
Led Zepplin
Stop thinking about citizens and society, these days it's all about consumers and markets.
Why are Birther's getting coverage?
Why are the Republicans holding the mic in our nation's dialogue?
Who stands in against Healthcare for all?
Who stands in the way of halting Global Warming?
Who stands in the way of Healthy Food? Clean Elections? Regulation in the interest of the General Welfare of Americans? Sensible foreign policy? Relief for Americans with no livelyhood?
The corporation.
This discussion almost immediately channels the inner centrist, the Responsible Serious Adult.
Democrats and Republicans alike get all aghast at such a statement. There's going to be several 'Where's your solution, buddy?' comments if this diary gets any play at all.
It's just amazing how the Corporate Agenda has burned into people's minds. How it can all sit right there, right in front of their face and they can miss it... The synapses just don't fire that way anymore - they can't, I guess.
The corporation creates our reality, literally. You can't escape it. They create and alter policy, entertainment, jobs, culture, fashion, and most importantly, our understanding.
They have colonized our minds with shit like:
- You can't fight city hall.
- The best government is one that governs least.
- Regulation is bad.
- Citizens are Consumers.
- Wealthy people are persecuted and need tax breaks.
- Profit is more important than People
Out of control, unchecked corporate power is at the root of most of this country's problems.
Change is Bad Business
We Fear Change.
Garth
Global Warming is stalled because giant corporate interests don't want the hassle.
They don't want to remodel all their plants. They don't want to pay for their pollution. They don't want the shake up of the markets. They don't want to change.
Change is expensive. It costs millions to just change letterhead at a big corporation. Industry leading corporations have taken up the Conservative mantle for one reason and one reason only, change is bad for business. Well, that and Conservatives will believe anything their leaders tell them - they're good little authoritarian followers.
It'd just be much better for all of us if you just shut up and let us make our money. We'll dream up some ridiculously expensive and profitable solution in Q4 of Doomsday Year.
Change benefits small players. The nimble, the agile, the creative, all of us have freedom to challenge the big boys if there's serious change within an industry.
You know how long it takes Chuck's Oil Change Shop, LLC to change their logo? How much it costs to change their signage? What about changing how they dispense with dirty Oil?
Contrast that with what it would cost Jiffy Lube in time and effort.
Enough said. Change is expensive and costs profits.
Like Shooting Fish in a Barrel
Flexibility is most readily achieved by fostering an environment of maximum competition. A key element in creating this environment is flexible labor markets. Many working people equate labor market flexibility with job insecurity.
Despite that perception, flexible labor policies appear to promote job creation. An increased capacity of management to discharge workers without excessive cost, for example, apparently increases companies' willingness to hire without fear of unremediable mistakes. The net effect, to the surprise of most, has been what appears to be a decline in the structural unemployment rate in the United States.
Alan Greenspan
Healthcare is stalled because labor is cheaper if people are held over a barrel.
If I'm laid off with 3 kids I'm likely to take work at any wage if it gives my family and I healthcare.
If I have 3 kids I'm likely to take a lower wage rather than lose my family's healthcare.
"But healthcare costs so much... It's such a drain on our businesses - it eats profit."
Well why are they not doing it then? Are they defrauding their stockholders? Are they cheating on their only mandate - create profits for shareholders? Of course not.
They've done the ROI. They know that healthcare is a major bargaining chip for employment. It's a carrot or a stick depending on where you are with your employee. You get the carrot if you're willing to take a lower wage. You accept the lower wage it's the stick for you. Regardless, the carrot and stick of employer provided Healthcare works to their advantage, otherwise it'd be right up there on the chopping block like Meddlesome Government regulation.
People not being protected from illness is good for corporate profits, plain and simple.
You know how I know that?
"It's the corporation, Stupid!"
They're job is to make money. If it were really costing them money they'd have sponsored some politicians and we'd have a public option already.
Trust Us
In essence, the Fed was telling Congress to lay off and let the experts handle things. "It's like buying a car in a used-car lot without opening the hood, and saying, 'I think it's fine,'" says Dan Fuss, an analyst with the investment firm Loomis Sayles. "The salesman says, 'Don't worry about it. Trust me.'
Matt Taibbi
The Corporate Sponsored Media puts out corporate sponsored news and entertainment (even on Public TV and NPR) to sandwich between advertisements. That's it. Think about it for a moment... please...
A Corporate Sponsored Media's responsibility is to generate revenue for their advertisers, that's it. If they do that they get paid and make money for their stockholders.
That's it. Their allegiance lies with the highest bidder. Why anyone would dare to trust them to deliver accurate information to people (the very thing that they sell to their customers, BTW) is totally beyond me.
How can you trust someone who's only allegiance is to the highest bidder?
Going past the Corporate Sponsored Media, we have corporate sponsored public policy - industry groups and business interests investing billions into legislating profits and favorable regulation. They write our laws and peddle their influence with hundreds of millions of dollars and face to face meetings over fine wine and Caviar on a daily basis.
The Public Option? Who do you think put the kill on that? Republicans?
HAHA! They can't tie their shoes these days. Baucus was bought and paid for long before the debate became public.
Credit Card Bill? NO on CAFE standards? SUV loophole? FDA and USDA regulation relaxation? Who wrote those bills? Biden, Hutchinson, Levin and Grassley? Come on! Totally, part and parcel corporate sponsored public policy - legislation of profits.
"It's the corporation, Stupid!"
How can we consume if we don't have money?
Bruce: It's a big world, mom. [spins globe] There's lots of places. [points finger at globe to stop and stops with his finger on the ocean]
Dave: The ocean Bob?
[Bruce leaves]
Dave: But you don't know anyone in the ocean!
Bruce: [sung] My parents try to put me down / just because fine ham abounds....
Bobby
It's a big world out there and America's tapped. Actually we're beyond tapped. Personally, locally, the states and Nationally, the United States is essentially insolvent.
We don't have the ability to consume any longer. Without that benefit, we are worthless.
Americans are over paid, demanding, self righteous, self respecting human beings who demand far more of the corporation than most other places on the planet - they demand a clean environment, fair wages, regulation in the public's interest, and to be treated fairly.
America without the deep pockets is a liability.
The life has been sucked out of this country time to trim the sails and head for a new far off shore, uncivilized and unaware of the tactics and strategies to liberate them from their wealth and incapable of protecting themselves through Government. They're desperately trying to get a decent life for themselves and a healthy society for their children and their children's children.
Seems like easy pickens to me.
Bringing it Home
The dots are connected, people!
Everybody sees it, Left Right and Center. The Left often screams about it, which is why they're not on TV. The Center runs away from it because it's a problem best handled after we get safely ensconced into the halls of power, and the Right is batshit insane and says that it's all Gubbermint's fault.
We're being gutted as a country by Corporations who give out more in bonuses to their executives greater than the entire State of Michigan's yearly budget after they get extorted with veiled threats of economic Armageddon.
Give them trillions and they pocket billions. Give them billions and they pocket millions. Give them tens of millions and they spit in your face and relocate to Indonesia.
It's the corporation, Stupid! and if they're not put back in check, everybody's gonna pay.