Historian
Dr. Gary Girod tweeted: “If there's an oil crisis & oil companies are
making record profits, a healthcare crisis & healthcare companies are
making record profits, a financial crisis & finance companies are making
record profits, then the companies are the crisis.”
“Good Americans” must not question corporations’ greed, and the power they buy with their wealth.
Corporations are endowed with legal personhood, while human beings are denied access to basic healthcare.
Corporations can write our laws and buy our judges and politicians, to the degree they have become the immortal demi-gods we all must serve.
This indicates the US is an oligarchy, the opposite of a democratic republic. It is a corporatocracy.
No wonder we hardly ever see this word in our corporate media.
Yes, avarice is endemic to the human species, but greed is the number one American "virtue", in its faithful obeisance to the infallible "Free Market God" under the Holy Order of Capitalism.
Western Religions may call greed a sin, but our special American culture will revere and serve mammon over helping the sick and poor.
Nobody cares so much about this obvious cognitive dissonance when the almighty dollar is within grasp. Compassion recedes with growing wealth. The same is true for religious fundamentalism.
Hypocrites ignore the more humane values of their faith. It's true for conservative Muslims and Jews, but even more so with conservative Christians.
The utter absence of "love your neighbor" is almost universally reflected in Trumpist Catholics and the evangelical radical Right. They'd rather donate their money to greedy TV preachers, mega-church millionaires, and even Donald Trump, than see the "unworthy and lazy", aka brown people, get food, shelter and healthcare.
We can't allow all that "free stuff" go to the undeserving poor, can we? Capitalism and the Free Market God frown on that, just as they frown on democracy.
Indifference to human suffering, and even hate, are usually far stronger than love in their hearts.
Obviously corporations have no conscience. This enables the confluence of right-wing evangelical and corporate interests to suppress equality, democracy and a representative republic.
But they do love their money and the political power it buys, almost as much as they love themselves and their self-righteousness.
Bless their hearts.
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11 comments:
Companies have been gouging Americans and driving up prices for decades and Americans swallow the excuse that it is supply and demand. Capitalism needs regulation.
Anonymous,
While covid-related supply issues have been a factor, record corporate profits show us the other side of the coin. Since gouging is a toxic essence at the core of capitalism, regulation is the sane course.
Those of us who recognize this reality, and vocally support Constitutional regulation of commerce will always be attacked and falsely accused of being "leftists who hate America".
It is the authoritarian nature of the radical Right. Theirs is the indoctrinated mindset that somehow Biden jacked up gas prices at the pump, disrupted the supply chain, and caused global inflation.
They live in a world of lies, resentment, anger, hate, and scapegoating. All of which are at the core of fascism.
The prognosis for our democratic republic has never been so grim.
I disagree. I think the core is criminal greed. They want money so bad they will comit crimes including murder and robbing the entire country to get more money. I'm not sure I would define that as fascism.
Criminal greed itself isn't fascism. When entwined with government and political agendas, it becomes a characteristic of fascism.
At minimum, one could also say the core of fascism is criminal greed, for wealth and power, at the expense, injury and deprivation of others. The alliance of such criminal greed with the bigotry, lies, resentment, anger, hate, and scapegoating of white nationalism is very much protofascism.
It all stems from the authoritarian nature of the radical Right.
From American Heritage Dictionary:
Fascism n. A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.
US Holocaust Museum lists the early warning signs of fascism:
EARLY WARNING SIGNS OF FASCISM
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Disdain for human rights
3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
4. Rampant sexism
5. Controlled mass media
6. Obsession with national security
7. Religion and government intertwined
8. Corporate power protected
9. Labor power suppressed
10. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
11. Obsession with crime and punishment
12. Rampant cronyism and corruption
I don't see these greedy, criminal corporations grabbing at, or looking for political power, just money. They could care less about the issues you listed as long as they are making money. Except in cases where they can influence (payola) laws passed by politicians to their financial benefit.
Anonymous.
Can you see this perspective?
Having economic/financial power and control over government officials is indeed power.
I think corrupting and bribing politicians to pass corporate written laws IS political power. This is power stolen from the people, and is destructive to representative democracy. That is by all definitions a form of political power and a feature of fascism.
By the above definition, "the merging of state and business leadership" is inherent in fascism.
What power can stand against that? The will of the voters will be suppressed in rigged elections controlled by the radical Right. If you don't see that is a real developing threat, you should do some research.
Can you see how corporate power is reflected in these warning signs of fascism?
2. Disdain for human rights
5. Controlled mass media
8. Corporate power protected
9. Labor power suppressed
The rest of the warning signs have long been the agenda of authoritarian radical Right white nationalists.
Banks, corporations, Republicans, and radical Right nationalists have no use for democracy. American blindness to this reality paves the road to fascism.
Another feature of fascism is gross inequality under law.
This is one of thousands of examples.
Pamela Moses, a Black woman, gets 6 years in prison for trying to register to vote, not realizing she was ineligible due to a probation officer’s mistake - but 2 Florida men from the Villages get 50 hours of community service after admitting to voting for Trump multiple times.
You may be right, but they don't care about that political power only the money.
Money matters foremost, and money empowers them to get more money. Suppressing democracy is good for business, even if it isn't their primary intent. It's their means to an end.
People like the Kochs, Mercers, and Murdochs are not in it just for the money. They buy politicians to flex power to further their political agenda.
Any time Big Money influences legislation, or buys judges, political power is being effectively wielded.
That's the New American Way. And democracy is in its way.
but what exactly goes on up there in mahogany row? where the faceless corporate gods rule - or is it just another terminal?
Darms,
Machiavellian scheming, corporate lawyers writing legislation, CFO's writing checks to buy politicians, etc.
In other words, Democracy, American style.
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