Change. Change? What change? How about some meaningful change?
Three issues are at the top of the agenda. They share a commonality. They are healthcare, the economic crisis and the impending decision by the Supreme Court on Citizens United v. The Federal Election Commission.
The commonality they share is the usurpation of power by corporations and the destruction of a government of, by and for the people.
The Economic Crisis
One year after the economic meltdown came to the attention of the public with the disappearance of Lehman Brothers, what has changed? Several trillion of our dollars have disappeared. The survivors have a little less competition and a lot more profit.
They are not laughing at us and their toadies in Washington all the way to the bank. They are the bank.
New products have been developed on which to make high-risk bets with our money. If they win, they get obscene bonuses. If they lose, they get obscene bonuses. That may qualify as change for some but not for me. They are even returning to the same old derivatives.
Healthcare
As for healthcare, the Gang of Six has delivered a package that even the lobbyists would have been too ashamed to create. It costs the government more than at present. It costs policy holders more. It creates more bankruptcies. Now children, can you guess who gets all of that extra money?
They brag about two features: elimination of the bar for preexisting conditions and the elimination of annual and total dollar limits on coverage. Does anyone really think that the greedy whores cannot find other ways to eliminate you from their customer list?
If the increased costs of coverage drive people to bankruptcy court quicker than when there are coverage limits, what good does it do to have those limits removed? Again, you are likely to be removed from their customer list before you become too expensive for their profit margins.
The coup de grâce
Now we come to the Supreme Court. This case is unusual. It has already been before the Court. This is a case of corporations getting another bite from the apple. It is, at base, a claim that corporations are entitled to “free speech.” The betting is that the Court will reverse itself in favor of the corporations.
The case revolves around their self-serving interpretation of the 1st Amendment. I am curious as to whether that amendment also gives corporations freedom of religion.
Before going forward with a bit of history, fact and commonsense, I am providing a little respite, a humorous take from Stephen Colbert.
Our Founding Fathers were not exactly fans of corporations. They feared them and what they would do to the nation they had created. Their fears have been largely realized. The final elimination of whatever vestiges of the Founders’ efforts remain seems at hand.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, “I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
James Madison said, “There is an evil which ought to be guarded against in the indefinite accumulation of property from the capacity of holding it in perpetuity by . . . corporations. The power of all corporations ought to be limited in this respect. The growing wealth acquired by them never fails to be a source of abuses.”
James Madison, again, said, “The people are the only legitimate fountain of power, and it is from them that the constitutional charter, under which the several branches of government hold their power, is derived.”
From Abraham Lincoln we have, “I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country . . . corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.”
William Roscoe Thayer, in his biography of Teddy Roosevelt wrote, “I think that he took the deepest personal satisfaction in fighting the criminal rich and the soulless corporations, because he regarded them not only as lawbreakers, malefactors of great wealth, but as despicably mean, in that they used their power to oppress the poor and helpless classes.”
A Chinese proverb advises us, “Corporations have neither bodies to be punished nor souls to be damned.”
The list is endless.
When first created, corporations were given charters that terminated after 21 years. If I wish to invest a few tens of thousands in a sole proprietorship, I stand to lose that investment but am held responsible for all indebtedness and damage that may result. A group of people may form a corporation and have their responsibility limited to whatever they invested, except financial institutions which are bailed out by our tax monies.
That cannot be justified. Just ask those who lost their retirement or their kids tuition.
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It is unbelievable to me that the SCOTUS will find in favor of Citizens United. If it does, our future election campaigns will be a joke.
True. The last fig leaf will have been shed.
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