Where the GOP and Tea Party are in Lockstep: Corporatocracy Republished to Exposing ALEC

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Corporatocracy Republished to Exposing ALEC

by Bob SloanFollow for Exposing ALEC

REPUBLISHED from November 8, 2010 - UPDATE

Due to the new interest in corporation's involvement in writing the legislation enacted by our lawmakers for us to live by...and the ALEC Exposed document dump and stories exposing the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) I thought it appropriate to republish my earliest work from last year.  Much of it is about ALEC and the corporate pursuit of assuming government authority through manipulating our laws, privatization and deceit.  Last November there was not much interest on this issue, so this diary and those I'll subsequently republish have not been read by many.  I republish in an effort to again explain why what we're doing now to eliminate ALEC is so important.

Language In Our Evolving Society - Reprinted here in part from Federal PIECP and Program VIolations Blog, by Bob Sloan

As we move firmly into the 21st. century, Webster's Dictionary has had to update and re-publish their volumes on an evermore frequent schedule. This is due to new and creative words such as "twitter", Blogger", "Google", "Skype" and other similar words that define or adequately describe the ever changing world we live in.
As yet one new word that's being used more and more frequently remains without official definition. No, it's not "refudiate" that's circulating across the internet like a ping-pong ball on meth-amphetamine. The word is Corporatocracy. More and more of us find this word in our vocabulary. There's even a definition or two of this word found on the "Urban Dictionary" web site.

Here they are:

Corporatocracy
1. "A social and economic class of rulers, defined by their involvement in the ownership and management of large corporations. 2. The social and economic structures that empower and protect such rulers. 3. The political culture that serves such rulers.

2. "Rule by an oligarchy of corporate elites through the manipulation of a formal democracy.

3. "A type of government in which huge corporations, through bribes, gifts, and the funding of ad campaigns that oppose candidates they don't like, become the driving force behind the executive, judicial and legislative branches."
Corporatocracy is an important word for our generation and the social environment we find ourselves in here at the close of the first decade of this century. We already have oligarchy and fascism and both words evoke denials and sometimes nervous laughter when mentioned in the same sentence with America or United States. Individuals who research such things as language tell me there are subtle differences between these three words, but those differences are narrowing as we approach 2011.

One might ask what is the real meaning of "Fascism" in the 21st Century? Are corporatocracy and fascism similar in meaning or definition? Again, we must look to the Urban Dictionary for a current definition of fascism. One definition, contributed by Bertie Bumwhistle Urban Dictionary for the current "Version" of fascism.

Here it is - all 14 points:

Powerful and Continuing Nationalism:
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottoes, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights:
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause:
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Supremacy of the Military:
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Rampant Sexism:
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

Controlled Mass Media:
Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Obsession with National Security:
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

Religion and Government are Intertwined:
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

Corporate Power is Protected:
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

Labor Power is Suppressed:
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts:
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Obsession with Crime and Punishment:
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Rampant Cronyism and Corruption:
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Fraudulent Elections:
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

"14 identifying characteristics of Fascism by Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt. ("Fascism Anyone?," Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20)."
I'm college educated but not a scholar by any stretch of imagination or definition. But as I look around me I've begun to notice that there are changes that have been taking place for the past 25 years. These changes have always been subtle, hardly noticeable and cause no immediate concern or sound an alarm. At 62 I find myself yearning for the "good 'ol days" as most of us do as we approach our "golden years". This has allowed me to relive some experiences and compare today's way of life, government, relationships to the years of my youth.

Suddenly I am concerned and several alarms have begun sounding between my ears; klaxons, sirens, bells and whistles. The cause of this alarm is the ever-increasing involvement of private corporations in another new term we've learned; the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). A sub-culture has evolved over the past three and a half decades. It is composed of an assortment of influential corporations, state lawmakers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)and an unwitting society. Together they have allowed corporations to devise a means to profit from incarceration through privatization of: housing, medical care, commissary, feeding and transportation of state and federal inmates and detainees. Private interests are now found in all phases of our judicial system from juvenile holding facilities, jails, detention centers to adult prisons. In addition incarcerated individuals, men, women and youthful offenders have been put to work in prison industries to increase the profits for participating corporations.

This privatization of prisons and industries began at the same time that incarceration rates began to climb from our "War on Drugs" legislation in the 80's. At the same time (1979) the federal Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) became law. The "PIE program" as it is commonly called, allowed a relaxation of federal laws prohibiting the interstate sale and delivery of prisoner made goods in the U.S. It also encouraged partnerships between prison industries and private sector manufacturers so inmates could be trained and provided skills to enable them to seek gainful employment upon release and thus avoid recidivism.

Unfortunately, as with any other "capitalistic" endeavor, PIECP was analyzed by corporate interests with an eye on how to make money through this program. The first act was to establish private prison facilities through contracts with state and federal governments. The second was to initiate a plan to increase the rate of incarceration - and per diem profits - to provide a steady flow of workers...

Join us in New Orleans on August 5th for the Protest Alec demonstration!  If you can't attend you can donate to the effort at the site.

Originally posted to Exposing ALEC on Sat Jul 23, 2011 at 11:23 AM PDT.

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How Big Corporations Are Unpatriotic

Published on Thursday, March 28, 2013 by Common Dreams

How Big Corporations Are Unpatriotic

by Ralph Nader

Many giant profitable U.S. corporations are increasingly abandoning America while draining it at the same time.

General Electric, for example, has paid no federal income taxes for a decade while becoming a net job exporter and fighting its hard-pressed workers who want collective bargaining through unions like the United Electrical Workers Union (UE). GE’s boss, Jeffrey Immelt, makes about $12,400 an hour on an 8-hour day, plus benefits and perks, presiding over this global corporate empire.
Telling by their behavior, these big companies think patriotism toward the country where they were created and prospered is for chumps. Their antennae point to places where taxes are very low, labor is wage slavery, independent unions are non-existent, governments have their hands out, and equal justice under the rule of law does not exist. China, for example, has fit that description for over 25 years.

Other than profiteering from selling Washington very expensive weapons of mass destruction, many multinational firms have little sense of true national security.
Did you know that about 80 percent of the ingredients in medicines Americans take now come from China and India where visits by FDA inspectors are infrequent and inadequate?

The lucrative U.S. drug industry – coddled with tax credits, free transfer of almost-ready-to-market drugs developed with U.S. taxpayer dollars via the National Institutes of Health – charges Americans the highest prices for drugs in the world and still wants more profits. Drug companies no longer produce many necessary medicines like penicillin in the U.S., preferring to pay slave wages abroad to import drugs back into the U.S.

Absence of patriotism has exposed our country to dependency on foreign suppliers for crucial medicines, and these foreign suppliers may not be so friendly in the future.

Giant U.S. companies are strip-mining America in numerous ways, starting with the corporate tax base. By shifting more of their profits abroad to “tax-haven” countries (like the Cayman Islands) through transfer pricing and other gimmicks, and by lobbying many other tax escapes through Congress, they can report record profits in the U.S. with diminishing tax payments. Yet they are benefitting from the public services, special privileges, and protection by our armed forces because they are U.S. corporations.

On March 27, 2013, the Washington Post reported that compared to forty years ago, big companies that “routinely cited U.S. federal tax expenses that were 25 to 50 percent of their worldwide profits,” are now reporting less than half that share. For instance, Proctor and Gamble was paying 40 percent of its total profits in taxes in 1969; today it pays 15 percent in federal taxes. Other corporations pay less or no federal income taxes.

Welcome to globalization. It induces dependency on instabilities in tiny Greece and Cyprus that shock stock investments by large domestic pension and mutual funds here in the U.S. Plus huge annual U.S. trade deficits, which signals the exporting of millions of jobs.

The corporate law firms for these big corporations were the architects of global trade agreements that make it easy and profitable to ship jobs and industries to fascist and communist regimes abroad while hollowing out U.S. communities and throwing their loyal American workers overboard. It’s not enough that large corporations are paying millions of American workers less than workers were paid in 1968, adjusted for inflation.

Corporate bosses can’t say they’re just keeping up with the competition; they muscled through the trade system that pulls down on our country’s relatively higher labor, consumer and environmental standards.

Corporate executives, when confronted with charges that show little respect for the country, its workers and its taxpayers who made possible their profits and subsidized their mismanagement, claim they must maximize their profits for their shareholders and their worker pension obligations.

Their shareholders? Is that why they’re stashing $1.7 trillion overseas in tax havens instead of paying dividends to their rightful shareholder-owners, which would stimulate our economy? Shareholders? Are those the people who have been stripped of their rights as owners and prohibited from even keeping a lid on staggeringly sky-high executive salaries ranging from $5,000 to $20,000 an hour or more, plus perks?

Why these corporate bosses can’t even abide one democratically-run shareholders’ meeting a year without gaveling down their owners and cutting time short. To get away from as many of their shareholder-owners as possible, AT&T is holding its annual meeting on April 26 in remote Cheyenne, Wyoming!
Pension obligations for their workers? The award-winning reporter for the Wall Street Journal Ellen E. Shultz demonstrates otherwise. In her gripping book Retirement Heist: How Companies Plunder and Profit from the Nest Eggs of American Workers, she shows how by “exploiting loopholes, ambiguous regulations and new accounting rules,” companies deceptively tricked employees and turned their pension plans into piggy banks, tax shelters and profit centers.

Recently, I wrote to the CEOs of the 20 largest U.S. corporations, asking if they would stand up at their annual shareholders’ meetings and on behalf of their U.S. chartered corporation (not on behalf of their boards of directors), and pledge allegiance to the flag ending with those glorious words “with liberty and justice for all.” Nineteen of the CEOs have not yet replied. One, Chevron, declined the pledge request but said their patriotism was demonstrated creating jobs and sparking economic activity in the U.S.

But when corporate lobbyists try to destroy our right of trial by jury for wrongful injuries – misnamed tort reform – when they destroy our freedom of contract – through all that brazenly one-sided fine print – when they corrupt our constitutional elections with money and unaccountable power, when they commercialize our education and patent our genes, and outsource jobs to other countries, the question of arrogantly rejected patriotism better be front-and-center for discussion by the American people.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His latest book is The Seventeen Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future. Other recent books include, The Seventeen Traditions: Lessons from an American Childhood, Getting Steamed to Overcome Corporatism: Build It Together to Win, and "Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us" (a novel).

Meet the CEO Who Cut Worker Pay in Half While Pulling in $21 Million Last Year

Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace  

Too Much: A Commentary on Excess and Inequality / By Sam Pizzigati

Meet the CEO Who Cut Worker Pay in Half While Pulling in $21 Million Last Year

CEOs these days aren’t just slashing worker jobs to add on to their own rewards. They’re slashing worker pay as well. 

 

March 25, 2013  |  

 

This article orignially appeared inToo Much, the inequality weekly. Sign up to receive free via email.

The founder of modern management science, Peter Drucker, considered excessive executive pay an assault on good enterprise management practice.
Peter Drucker, the analyst who founded modern management science, died in 2005 at age 95. At his death, business leaders worldwide hailed this
Austrian-born American for his enormous contribution to enterprise efficiency.

But Peter Drucker also cared deeply about enterprise morality. In his later years, he watched — and despaired — as downsizing became an accepted corporate gameplan for pumping up executive paychecks. Drucker could find “no justification” for letting CEOs benefit financially from worker layoffs.
“This is morally and socially,” he would write, “unforgivable.”

If Drucker were still writing today, he’d likely be even more unforgiving. CEOs these days aren’t just slashing worker jobs to add on to their own rewards. They’re slashing worker pay as well — and no CEO may be benefiting more from shrinking paychecks than Ford chief executive Alan Mulally.

Mulally has restored Ford to profitability, his many business and political admirers never tire of pointing out, without having to take any taxpayer bailout. But Mulally has indeed enjoyed a hefty bailout — from his workers.
Entry-level workers at Ford used to make $28 an hour. That rate fell by half when the auto industry financial crunch first hit five years ago and now sits a bit above $19. And since the crunch all Ford workers, not just entry-level workers, have given up cost-of-living wage adjustments and health benefits.

Auto industry execs have declared these worker concessions as absolutely necessary. Without lower compensation for auto workers, the argument goes, the auto industry would never become “globally competitive.” This same reasoning apparently doesn’t apply to compensation for Ford CEO Mulally.
Ford has just announced that Mulally’s pay package for 2012 nearly hit $21 million. His personal rewards for the year almost doubled the pay that went last year to his chief German rival, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche, and even more stunningly dwarfed the $1.48 million Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda took home.

But the magnitude of how well Mulally has done for himself — since Ford workers started coughing up concessions — only swings into real focus when we step back and contemplate the towering pile of Ford shares of stock he now holds. In just over a half-dozen years, CNN Money reports, Mulally “has amassed holdings valued at more than $300 million.”

Among America’s CEOs, of course, Mulally hardly stands alone. The outrageousness of American CEO rewards has been building for some time.
Back in 1986, as Forbes noted last week, America’s ten highest-paid CEOs together pocketed $57.88 million in compensation. In 2012, the top 10 pulled in $616.4 million, about five times as much as the 1986 total after taking inflation into account.

Over that same 26-year span, average weekly wages for America’s workers barely increased at all.

So what should we be doing about CEO compensation? In France, the newly elected government of President François Hollande has placed a 450,000 euro cap — about $580,000 — on executive pay at the 52 companies where the French government holds a majority stake.

This cap will essentially limit executives at these publicly controlled companies to no more than 20 times the pay of their lowest-paid workers.
The French people, for their part, would like to see their government apply a similar cap to executives at all corporations, not just those companies where the government holds a controlling interest.

Earlier this month, just after Swiss voters passed a national referendum that bans executive signing and merger bonuses, a major French pollster asked whether people favored or opposed creating a “maximum wage” for all corporate CEOs. A whopping 83 percent of the French public supported the idea.

The French may have been reading their Peter Drucker. American CEOs, Drucker believed, should earn no more than 20 or 25 times their worker pay. Last year, in Great Recession-ravaged Michigan, Alan Mulally pulled in over 500 times the pay of Ford’s lowest-paid workers.

 

Sam Pizzigati is the editor of the online weekly Too Much, and an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies.

16 Giant Corporations That Have Basically Stopped Paying Taxes -- While Also Cutting Jobs!

  Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace  

AlterNet / By Paul Buchheit

16 Giant Corporations That Have Basically Stopped Paying Taxes -- While Also Cutting Jobs!

It's a golden age for corporate profits. So why don't our biggest corporations pay more taxes?

 

 

 

March 18, 2013  |  

 

The brackets are set for the big dance — the dance around tax responsibility. Most of the teams are in the bottom bracket. In this league, the lowest score wins.

Outside the stadium our nation's kids and seniors and low-income mothers may be dealing with food and housing cuts, but on the corporate playing floor new low-tax records are being set again this year. Just as this is a golden age for sports, this is also, as noted by the New York Times, "a golden age for corporate profits."

Corporations have simply stopped paying their taxes, perhaps using the 2008 recession as an excuse to plead hardship, but then never restoring their tax obligations when business got better. The facts are indisputable. For over 20 years, from 1987 to 2008, corporations paid an average of 22.5% in federal taxes. Since the recession, this has dropped to 10% -- even though their profits have doubled in less than ten years.

Pay Up Now just completed a compilation of corporate tax payments over the past five years, using SEC data as reported by the companies themselves. The firms chosen are top-earners who have filed 10-K reports through 2012. Their US Tax figures represent the five-year total of "current" payments.

The 64 corporate teams paid just over 8% in taxes over the five-year period.

The Slink Sixteen

General Electric: The worst tax record over five years, with $81 billion in profits and a $3 billion refund.

Boeing: In addition to receiving a refund despite $21.5 billion in profits, the company ranked high in job cutting, underfunded pensions, andcontractor misconduct.

Exxon Mobil: Made by far the largest profits in the group, but paid less than 1% in U.S. taxes, and yet received oil subsidies along with their tax breaks. Unabashedly reports a 2012 "theoretical tax" of over $27 billion, almost 90% of its total income tax expense. The company was also near the top in contractor misconduct.

Verizon: Second worst tax record, with a refund despite $48 billion in profits.

Kraft Foods: Received a refund from the public despite $13.5 billion in profits. Also a leading job-cutter.

Citigroup: One of the five big banks who are estimated to get a bailout/refund from the American public amounting to three cents from every tax dollar.

Dow Chemical: Received a refund despite almost $10 billion in profits.

IBM: Paid less than 3% in taxes while ranking as one of the leading job cutters, and near the top in contractor misconduct.

Chevron: In addition to a meager 4.3% tax rate and a share of oil subsidies, the company has been the main beneficiary of tax-exempt government bonds.

FedEx: The company paid less than 5% in federal taxes while relying on the publicly-funded Post Office to deliver thirty percent of its ground packages.

Honeywell: Less than 6% in taxes, a leading job cutter, near the top in instances of contractor misconduct, and run by the "Fix the Debt" CEO with the largest pension fund.

An 8% tax rate, a leader in job cuts and underfunded pensions, and in the top 20 of contractor misconduct instances.

Notable for an 8.4% tax rate, job cuts, offshore holdings, and the top U.S. spot on the contractor misconduct dollar list.

Apple: Where to begin? Avoiding federal taxes, avoiding state taxes, hiding overseas earnings, engaging in intellectual property schemes, using the "Double Irish" to transfer profits from Europe to Bermuda, and underpaying its store workers despite conducting most of itsproduct and research development in the United States.

Pfizer: One of the leaders in stockpiling untaxed profits overseas, and right behind Merck in contractor misconduct dollars.

Google: A master at the "Double Irish" revenue shift to Bermuda tax havens, while using tax loopholes to bring a lot of the money back to the U.S. without paying taxes on it. Recognized as one of the world's biggest tax avoiders.

Microsoft: Named as one of the biggest offshore hoarders while using tax strategies to bring much of their untaxed money back to the U.S., where it also avoids state taxes.

The Fouling Four

GE, Boeing, Exxon, and Apple. Merck almost crashed the party, but the competition was too stiff.

The Winner?

No one wins this game. In a financial sense they do, but the gains are outweighed by the greed and irresponsibility of tax avoidance.

All these companies, after using our infrastructure and technology and research facilities and higher education and national defense to build incomparably successful businesses, are now doing everything in their power to avoid paying anything back, while instead using a carefully manipulated set of "legal" business writeoffs and exemptions and loopholes to cut their tax bills to almost nothing. And all the while they rant about the unfairness of the U.S. tax code.

The real madness is that human beings are suffering because of the tax games corporations play.

Paul Buchheit teaches economic inequality at DePaul University. He is the founder and developer of the Web sites UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org and RappingHistory.org, and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Rich CEOs Trying to Pay Even LESS in Taxes

  Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace  

AlterNet / By Steven Hsieh

Rich CEOs Trying to Pay Even LESS in Taxes

That offshore haven isn't enough?

 

 

March 19, 2013  |  

 

A lobby group for more than 200 CEOs is launching a campaign to reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and loosen restrictions on offshore tax havens, reports The Hill.

“It’s time we reclaim America’s home court advantage by modernizing tax policy in a fiscally responsible way so all U.S. businesses can create jobs, innovate, grow, compete – and win,” Business Roundtable resident John Engler said in a press release.

The Business Roundtable’s announcement comes right off the heels of a Wall Street Journal analysis revealing that  60 corporations shielded 40 percent of annual profits by collectively stashing $166 billion offshore in 2012. Also, a study by PayUpNow.org shows 64 corporations paid just over 8 percent in taxes from 2008 to 2012. Some of these companies are the same ones pushing for a 10 percent corporate tax cut.

Meanwhile, the CEOs pushing for lower taxes continue to pay themselves exorbitantly, further widening the gap between corporate heads and regular Americans. The New York Times reports that CEO pay rose five percent last year, during a time of “stubbornly high unemployment and declining wealth for many ordinary Americans.” And in 2011, AFL-CIO notes that S&P 500 executives “made, on average, 380 times the average wages of U.S. workers.”

Last week, President Obama convened closed-door meetings with Republican lawmakers to discuss stand-alone corporate tax reform. Reuters reports that Obama told Republicans he’d support a revenue-neutral corporate tax reform plan.

"If he's agreed, and he has, that the lowering of rates with the corporate tax will be revenue neutral, there's no reason we can't do that now," Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) told Reuters.

But other Republicans and pass-through organizations that pay the 40 percent individual tax rate want a complete overhaul, rather than just stand-alone corporate tax reform.

“To us, tax reform means comprehensive. That means corporate, individual and pass-through,” Brian Reardon, executive director of the S Corporation Association told The Hill. “In our experience, the vast majority of the business community is united around that idea.” 

While businesses and lawmakers continue debating reduced taxes for corporations and the wealthy, low-income Americans brace for oncoming sequester cuts to food and housing programs.

Steven Hsieh is an editorial assistant at AlterNet and writer based in Brooklyn. Follow him on Twitter @stevenjhsieh.

A Vulture Capitalist for a Vulture Culture

October 14, 2012 at 11:44:28
 

By Robert S. Becker (about the author)     Permalink

Tag(s): Banksters; Business; Capitalism; Corporate; Culture Of Corruption; Culture Of Deception; Government; Leadership; Mining; Reactionary; (more...)

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Vulture culture by http://timkla.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/how-to-avoid-a-vulture-culture"and-create-a-culture-of-construction/

Delusional Romney belief systems -- whether more trickle-down folly, indefensible tax cuts, or "God's on our side" exceptionalism -- serve as cover for an ever nastier, reactionary vulture culture. Under-regulated vulture capitalism preys on government regulation and legislation, environmental wellbeing (decimating forests, ocean life, coastal waters, and strip mining sites), low-wage workers here or overseas -- plus badgering phantom "socialists" who challenge spoiled-brat banksters, Koch Bros., or the Rove brigade. That overfed horde sustains the extremist GOP vulture culture, at war with women, fair taxation, democratic elections that count minorities, gay rights, basic science, and healthy food -- in a word, rationality.

In these terms, Romney's braggadocio about his Bain pillaging speaks to the prevalent bullying that informs the Bush-Obama era. The "unseen drone" is more than a missile but a metaphor for widespread predation, decimating innocent civilians along with shadowy combatants. Big business has betrayed any high-sounding boast as "agent of progress" -- when innovative, new products served the entire community -- instead, favoring old-time regression that freely exploits people, places and resources.

By calculation -- with obfuscation and influence peddling -- the most powerful corporate chiefs are by default our national "resource planners." Today's Citizens United leverage assures reactionary vetoes against even deliberation of systemic advances. All politicians sell change, but hote neither Obama, nor Romney offer serious plans for jobs, energy, transportation, education, and tragically not climate change. Gridlock and cultural-symbolic clashes serve the status quo, along with both national tickets.

And yet contradictions surface: a majority may still endorse fuzzy Yankee exceptionalism yet realizes that chronic ineptitude (or worse) marks top leaders as rather unexceptional failures. 77% surveyed by the Harvard Center for Public Leadership (CPL) agree "the country now has a crisis in leadership," with confidence at the lowest recorded levels. Nevertheless, in defiance of logic, that same number fantasizes our biggest problems only need "effective leadership," as if entrenched systems don't rule the roost.

So let's ask: does Romney, riding a snippet of debate chicanery, really offer "effective leadership" to befuddled undecideds, per his surge? Is this gelatinous gasbag, stamped by his own party a "vulture capitalist," an adult answer to an ongoing leadership crisis? And does this crisis not extend well beyond business to other realms, namely pedophile-shielding church hierarchies, silenced religious figures, sports executives, or media frauds, among others?  

Exquisitely Anti-majority
 
So, with disregard for campaign logic, let alone majority interests, Romney-Ryan defiantly pitch lower taxes for corporation and billionaires, less regulation (on top of already shredded rules), far less reliable health care coverage, less funding for infrastructure, education and unwanted pregnancies, plus more surges of Bush-Cheney military belligerence? What gives -- and how can this jaw-dropping agenda, were it fully exposed, capture that undecided sliver of voters?  
What's astonishes me is how dramatically Romney's pro-business creed is blind to our decade-long parade of corporate meltdowns, from BP and mining disasters to the ongoing Japanese nuclear disaster. Does the vast majority view big energy, big pharma, or big ag and big mining interests, let alone nefarious Wall Street bankers, as "effective," fair-minded or law-abiding partners managing to a better tomorrow?  

Bad CEOs have made power a dirty word, and the CPL survey above identifies the least trusted group in America, below even abysmal Congress: the noxious conglomerate called "Wall Street." And this week the beat goes on, "Wells Fargo sued by feds for reckless lending practices."  

The CEO as Menace

Look at the body blows delivered since 2000 to the prestige of the overpaid CEO establishment. Set aside jailed schemers, like Madoff or Abramoff, even doltish has-beens like GE's Jack Walsh spouting this week's craziest conspiracy. Count the unindicted CEOs, like Tony Hayward of BP, or the mining bosses getting only wrist slaps, despite negligence that killed dozens. Or the mind-boggling Rupert Murdoch News Corp. saga, where stupidity, unrestrained gall, and lawbreaking spanned years and continents.  

Yet the most conspicuous blows are the media mug shots of craven Wall Street banksters who facilitated the Great Recession and destroyed middle-class assets by the trillions. The full publicity awarded this CEO gang explain their depleted standing and make their names commonplace: Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimond, John Thain and Vikram Pandit, plus enablers like Tim Geithner. Do you believe Blankfein once defended his "virtuous cycle" of investment cronyism as "God's work"?

Not only are many scurrilous CEOs still in power, outrage continues over astronomic executive salaries: what once averaged 50 times the typical worker can now exceed 500 times that base. Though American labor gets outsourced as "too expensive," limitless funds protect fantastic compensation packages, especially when top dogs mimic Mitt's vulture talents -- shredding jobs, pensions, and companies.

Banksters survived by bawling, "we're too big to fail," but there was no public illusion about gross negligence, if not criminality, thus inciting both Occupy and Tea Party alike. What undermines this vulture culture are huge Wall Street bonuses given free market hypocrites who socialized losses while privatizing profits.

Moguls Worse as Politicians
The other, final truth that shadows Romney's wobbly bid is that autocratic bosses make lousy elected officials, out of sync with the messy work of governing, public policy, stakeholders, and what House zealots malign as "compromise." There are crystal clear reasons no top executive since Herbert Hoover has gained the presidency (W.'s baseball dilettantism aside). Tycoons either lose at the polls (George Romney, Steve Forbes or Ross Perot) or dive bomb after election (item: Florida's disgraced governor was once a disgraced health care CEO).

Of course, Romney was never a genuine CEO, neither creating, nor managing long-term, value-added products that benefited workers, community and customers. Imagine the potential damage were this bullying technocrat, estranged from common folk who depend on government, to boss a roughshod White House. As one awful CEO can destroy an established, highly regarded concern years in the making, consider how Romney, after Bush, would further cripple the power and efficacy of federalism for decades.

More Reactionary Than W.
 
Further, President Romney is already more beholden to reactionary billionaires than Bush in office. Plus, why wouldn't an "unzipped" Romney practice what he knows best, vulture capitalism, to show off his ruthless "ruling prowess"? Expect anti-Robin Hood ideologues set to prey on the 47%, with workers already depicted as the enemy, and refuse millions desperate for job training, education, and basic life assistance.

Congenitally-compromised rightwingers refuse to understand that the needy, ill-educated from families shattered by stress can't pull themselves (or the country) up by their bootstraps. Overcoming the Great Recession takes genuine opportunity -- with aspiration, education, and a few bucks, whether small-business or family loans -- and that mandates a community willing to help neighbors through hard times. Alas, that New Deal mindset, were Romney elected, would remain the arch-enemy of his entrenched vulture culture.

Educated at Rutgers College (BA) and UC Berkeley (Ph.D, English) Becker left university teaching (Northwestern, U. Chicago) for business, founding and heading SOTA Industries, high end audio company from '80 to '92. From '92-02 he did marketing (more...)

           

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.

 

 

America: A Corporate Police State?

September 26, 2012 at 11:33:14

America: A Corporate Police State?

By Burl Hall (about the author)

Joseph Lyons quotes from Chaiken, 1985, (p.8) "The shift of police service delivery to the private sector is taking place in basically four ways: 1) default; 2) accommodation and cooperation; 3) enabling legislation; and 4) by contract" (Chaiken, 1987, p. 8). Default transfers occur when the government does not meet a pressing need for law enforcement services, leaving private companies to fill the vacuum. For example, affluent neighborhoods which experience a rash of crime often feel they have to provide more protection than thepolice can provide. They then contract with a private security for armed security patrol. 

An example of this was in the Westwood section of Los Angeles. After several drive by shootings and an armed robbery, the neighbors organized to contract with Westec Security for $85 a month per resident for an armed guard patrol 24 hours a day. 

Accommodation and cooperation occurs when the police informally rely on private security personnel to perform tasks they prefer not to do; in return, the public police provides needed services such as responding expeditiously to calls for assistance from the private security personnel. For example, private security companies are providing security and shelters for the homeless in New York City. A provision of this unpleasant service allows officers to spend their time in police functions, and when fights or other incidents occur at the shelter, they respond expeditiously to those calls (Chaiken, 1987). 

Sounds benign enough. But there is more. And, these were the old trends from the 1980's. We, the public, have been like frogs in a pan of water where the fire is slowly increased to the point that we don't realize we are being boiled alive. These old trends were just the beginning of what is now being revealed as a nightmare that may ultimately be exposed as a corporate police state that is now in the making and becoming more powerful. Perhaps we frogs can awaken to the nightmare awaiting us? Or is it already too late? 

The way this frog effect was orchestrated by the corporations was and is beautiful! The general population was easily manipulated into allowing for corporate policing due to reported inefficiencies of the existing public police departments brought on by budgetary cuts that enabled legislation passed in several states that allows specific types of private security personnel limited police powers. For example, in some cases, campus police at private colleges and universities and retail security personnel not only have arrest powers in case of theft from their employers, but they can also book an alleged offender and testify in court as the arresting officer (Chaiken, 1987). Sounds benign enough. Private companies helping overworked and understaffed police? 

Contracts between government agencies and private security companies for a specific task have become so commonplace that they are beginning to blur traditional distinctions between private and public providers. Public police agencies are, in some areas, entering into contracts to provide special or additional police services to private organizations or neighborhoods on a fee basis (Chaiken, 1987). 

What has this led to? Gary Johnson, Presidential Candidate through Liberatarian Party states it beautifully with his prediction that "we will find ourselves with a heightened police state and our military intervention is not going to cease...Shoot first, ask questions later."

Could he be on target with this statement? Could the privatized police force be an instrumental piece to taking away of citizens rights for the sake of corporate domination? Our government has already been taken over by the corporate industrial elites. Isn't the privitization of the police just another movement in this holographic trend of privitizing everything, including schools, medical care and, closer to the issue, prisons (see http://www.apfn.org/apfn/private-prisons.htm). 

In this same vein, policing some of the most dangerous US cities has quickly become the newest line of business for many private companies, which have already replaced police officers in cities from Portland Oregon to Baltimore Maryland.

This phenomenon now runs deeper than the normal shopping center or bank security guard. While in many cases private security personnel act more as city cleanup, organization or local ambassadors, we now find ourselves pushing for armed private security personnel to patrol the streets, perform arrests and transport civilians. This is a cause for concern, especially because of the more controversial issues surrounding the role of private military and security companies abroad in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, e.g., Halliburtin. (http://costanzo.org/Rex/Commentary/cheney_halliburton_circle.htm). 

Cities have been turning to the private sector for a variety of reasons. Some local and state governments are under pressure from budget deficits and are often convinced that privatized industries are more cost-effective than state agencies and bureaucracies. Furthermore, cities often have an overstretched force that cannot respond to increases in crime, so private contractors are seen as a quick fix and an easy force multiplier. 

But the question we must pose is this: Is it ok that we have private companies, in many cases giant corporations, running our lives in just about all arenas: edcuation, law enforement, the food we eat, and our medical care? The movie Corporation did a wonderful job of linking the behavior of corporations to the DSM-IV diagnosis of sociopathic personality disorder. (see trailer at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xa3wyaEe9vE). Is this what you want running the schools that are educating your children? Do you want these people policing your neighborhood? Do you want them in all arenas of your life, what you eat, the clothes you wear, what you do in bed? They already dictate your medical care, your work environment, and the economy. They have judges and politicians in their back pockets, and they have your kids under their thumb in the school and in the violent games being played to entice them into the warrior mode. Is this what we want? We are allowing sociopaths to wrap their gruesome hands around the throats of our kids! Meanwhile we work hours on end and worry about paying the bills racked up by the corporations to keep us slaves. 

How do we become independent of this Monster? It isn't a pile of independently operating monsters. It is one Monster composed, as all of us are, of several billion cells. Yet, as we are billions of cells opearting as one person, then so is the Monster. Begin by starving the monster. Buy your food from local businesses, not from grocery chains. Grow your own. Empower yourself in community. 

Begin a movement towards community based schools and get the corporations out of your kids' lives. You be on the board of that school and you take charge of the upbringing of your child. Empower yourself, empower your community. The future generations call out to you. Be creative. The movement must be diverse, not standardized. Make it so diffuse that it can never be killed. 

If you want to chime into the conversation on this issue, join my wife and I at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/envision-this/2012/09/27/vision-for-the-present-of-envision-this-radio where we will be discussing issues near and dear to us while envisioning the future direction of the radio show.

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 References 

Chaiken, M., & Chaiken, J. (1987). Public Policing - Privately Provided.

(National Institute of Justice Contract No. J-LEAA-011-81) Washington, DC: U.S.

Department of Justice.
Lyons Joseph: http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/Content/getdoc/cbe81692-8662-46ed-a59b-b3861986f301/Lyons.aspx

http://www.mexidata.info/id2279.html ubove, S. (1995, September 25). High Tech Cops. Forbes, 156, 44.

Jody Ray Bennett- Author Jody Ray Bennett is an independent writer and author, independent journalist, designer, musician and globetrotter

Burl is an avid writer and publishes to OpEd News while also blogging regularly on http://anewgaia.ning.com. Burl's primary passion is in the unity of world religions to science and the holographic nature of the universe in which the part mirrors (more...)

       

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.