Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Benito Mussolini
Once upon a time I was in politics. That was long ago, when I was young. Well, younger. I was one of four councilmen but also Mayor Pro tem and, for a period, Acting Mayor. It was a suburb of a major city.
An active railroad track ran through the very center of the town. It was a nuisance having to wait for a train to pass just to get to the other side. It was a problem we could not fix but there was another problem that was within our power to correct.
Before I had become involved in the politics of the city the railroad had decided they wanted to save some money. They wished to no longer cut the growth along their right-of-way. They put forward one of their executives as a candidate for the council. He won. He arranged for the city to keep their right-of-way beautified.
I have a slight aversion to spending public money on private property. So, I told the railroad’s councilman that spending our citizens’ tax money on the railroad’s property was not permitted by state law or the state’s constitution. Neither he nor his company took that well.
In fact, they refused to take responsibility for manicuring their right-of-way. They said that as far as they were concerned we could have a strip of tall grass and weeds running through our fair city.
In addition to being unsightly, that tall grass and weeds would limit vision at the crossings. It would also become home to vermin, a health hazard. I decided to insist that they take care of their property. I prevailed upon a couple of friends to run for the council. I helped them. They won. One of them replaced the railroad’s councilman.
Their response was to threaten to just burn the growth. That would leave an ugly black streak through the center of the city. They and their attorneys sat at the council meeting with the smug looks of people who knew they had won. Whoops, I didn’t cave in.
I offered some alternatives. One was to require any train within the city limits to have a railroad employee walk ahead of the train yelling a warning every 50 feet. Another was that a train could not block a crossing for more than two minutes.
I also offered to have the city cut the grass but send the bill to the railroad. Refusal to pay would result in denial of entry to the city or holding the train as collateral until the bill was paid. With my two friends and I having 3 of the total of 4 council votes, there was no question that we could enact the necessary ordinances.
There were quite a few threats, sputters and such. Selected words from the Anglo-Saxon language were reportedly heard. Eventually, they conceded defeat.
I wasn’t St. George slaying the dragon. I wasn’t Han Solo defeating the Empire, or even Jar Jar Binks. It was not a battle that will be studied in upper level poli sci courses. It was just a story of a corporate attempt to screw Joe Q. Public (not Joe the Plumber) that took place on a small stage.
They experienced one of their rare losses. Corporations rule our lives and take advantage of us in myriad ways; some obvious; some less so. Corporations invade our lives far more pervasively than the government would ever contemplate. They are fascists. They are the primary enemy. This was just one story. In this country there are 300 million of these stories (with apologies to Naked City).
{ 12 comments }
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Look at other sites to see what you like and what you don’t like. Keep making changes. Never be satisfied.
Премного благодарен, что просветили, и, главное, как раз вовремя. Подумать только, шесть лет уже в инете, но про это первый раз слышу.
Editor’s poor translation:
Much obliged, enlightening, and most importantly, just in time. Just think, in the six years I have already been on the internet, I believe this is the first time I hear this perspective.
Thank you. I wish there were more people explaining these matters, so it would not take you so long to find them.
That door swings both ways.
The gasoline company I worked for has a station in a smallish Ohio town. It has a decent sized lot with three entrances. Two are on the main street and one is on a side street. They are necessary to get customers in and out in a timely fashion. The building is very old and unsightly. When we applied for a permit to demolish and replace the old, unsightly building with a new state of the art building, we were informed that an ordinance had been passed that designated only one entrance per so many feet of road frontage. As long as we made no changes, we were “grandfathered” and the ordinance did not apply to us. If we got the permit and replaced the building, we would have to comply with the new ordinance and could only have one entrance instead of three. This would ruin our business as the station was on a very busy street and one entrance would be a bottleneck and customers would simply avoid our business. We asked if the city would not prefer a new, shiny, state of the art building to our old, unsightly building to which they said, yes. We asked if they could allow us to keep the three entrances we already had and they said, only if you don’t replace the building. So, we still have an old unsightly building and three entrances. I guess the town showed our corporation who was boss!
Agreed. You didn’t have the advantage of an intelligent mayor (pro tem) such as me.
Curb cut restrictions are common among ordinances. We did make a few exceptions when building the largest mall in town.
Perhaps of more interest to you was the case of the Gulf station. It was on the corner of the intersection of the two major thoroughfares. We had a sign ordinance that was very restrictive but was used as a model across the South. Business signs had to be on the building and could not move or flash. This had to do with both appearance and safety. The next town up the road was a neon jungle. Almost everyone in our city wanted to avoid that. Also, such flashing and movement was a distraction to drivers.
Understanding the situation, that a fixed sign would face in only one direction, we passed a waiver to allow a large, rotating Gulf orange ball sign at the corner of the intersection. Weren’t we nice?
The point of the post, however, was the attempt by a corporation to impose their desires on the citizens of our fair city. You have, or should have, a degree of influence over a political body. You have none over a corporation.
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