For the past fifty years in America Democrat and Republican ‘career politicians’, including all American presidents during this time, have ‘sold out’ the American middle class taxpayers to corporate conglomerates and their lobbyists. Many of the lobbyists are former powerful politicians themselves. American ‘fat cat’ politicians rely on corporate conglomerate, political contributions to keep getting re-elected decade after decade because all political leaders, on both sides of the aisle, know middle class Americans will not put up much, if any, resistance while they ‘play’ American voters for uninformed, self-centered fools.
Of course, ‘lives matter’ is more of a slogan for expedient political gain because it is not only politicians ‘selling out’ American ideals to ‘line’ their own pockets for big profits. Professional American athletes and Hollywood filmmakers also ignore human rights violations and abuse, and denial of freedom in Hong Kong and China, in return for big paychecks from China so American athletes and filmmakers are still allowed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to sell their products and performances in China.
We may never see another major American film studio or professional sports organization with any movie script or verbiage specifically criticizing China. As they say, American sports teams and Hollywood filmmakers all know ‘which side their bread is buttered on’ because the self-centered American masses, generally, could care less what goes on outside their own borders, and the world is well aware of spineless, millennial Americans’ lack of wisdom, experience and built-in weakness of ignoring the obvious, ‘burying their heads in the sand’ which some day may be useful in helping bring down American capitalism.
It is becoming clear, each and every day, that everything from corporate greed to culture war, grassroots lawlessness reigns supreme in America nowadays and the middle class, ‘silent majority’ electorate just rolls over and submits to it all. With the police ‘standing down’ from enforcing the laws, or the police walking off the job rather than risking their lives or now possibly even facing lawsuits for arrests ‘gone wrong’, or police calling in sick with the ‘blue flu’, and with state and local political leaders unwilling to protect the citizenry that elects them; critics charge, if low-paid police, high-paid, ‘fat cat’ politicians and well-intentioned activists cannot protect the people, then it may time to bring back local militia, like that used hundreds of years ago in America, to defend the local communities that may want more protection.
Once the American middle class finally ‘stands up’ to predetermine and protect their own destiny, the old Russian saying, “stoikiy muzhik” (standing man) will become their mantra, meaning when you get knocked down by the partisan border guards, you courageously still keep getting back up on your feet in defiance because middle class Americans, for the most part, are still proud and determined to do the ‘right thing’ for their family, loved ones and the communities in which they live.
However, there is a solution to the ‘mess’ Americans find themselves in today, but first let us understand how America evolved to get where we are today with the ‘unofficial’ history of American corporations. Not knowing is what makes the American public…the American public. All ‘career politicians’, just like Mafia mobsters, know that you give your people just enough so they do not hate you and turn on you, but you do not give them enough so they do not need you and decide ‘take you out’!
The U.S. was born in a revolt against the British monarch’s system of taxation, government and its British corporations. For 100 years after the Boston Tea Party revolt in the Boston, Massachusetts harbor and the ensuing Declaration of Independence in 1776, Americans remained extremely suspicious of corporate power and were careful how they granted corporate charters in America, including the powers that were granted to corporations.
So, initially, corporations were controlled by the states which granted charters to incorporate and the states could dissolve any corporation if it violated its state charter. Limitations were set by the individual states on how big and powerful companies could ever become. Moreover, corporations were NOT allowed to participate in the political process and they could not buy stock in other corporations. If caught doing so the consequences were severe. This means at one time in America long ago the American people, not American and/or foreign corporations, were in control.
So what happened? After the Civil War of 1860 in America, this essentially marked the beginning of the struggle between corporations and civilians. During the Civil War, corporations made huge profits off supplying war materials and services and thus began to ‘pay-off’ (bribe) legislators, judges and supposedly even Presidents of the United States. President U.S. Grant, who was the first elected President after President Lincoln was assassinated, has been accused by critics as one of the most corrupt Presidents ever. Before Lincoln was killed, Lincoln warned that corporations have become enthroned and corruption will follow as corporate power and money will be used to work on the prejudices of the people to help aggregate the wealth into the hands of a few, thus destroying what our Founding Fathers envisioned as the republic and the true spirit of democracy. Notice anything like this going on in America today?
Remember too that just a few hundred years before the Civic War, currency became standardized by the world aristocracy to maintain and sustain power, and to this day, everyone is still forced to use and borrow this same standardized currency from the aristocrat land owners who, in turn over hundreds of years, became the governments, bankers and insurers we have today.
No one in power paid much attention to Lincoln’s protest about the corruption of corporate power and money. In fact, corporations grew stronger and more powerful until they were able to have the laws governing their very creation amended so that states could not revoke corporate charters and corporate profits could not be limited to how they would be used.
Eventually, even the U.S. Supreme Court virtually turned on the U.S. citizenry by declaring in a single court case that a private corporation was entitled to protection under the Bill Of Rights, which then gave corporations all the rights and privileges enjoyed previously ONLY by the people and this also included freedom of speech.
Thus, freedom of speech gave corporations the same powers as private citizens. However, considering the vast financial and political resources wielded by corporations, they became far more powerful than the average citizen, essentially gaining more freedom and the ability to defend and exploit corporate rights and freedoms more than the citizenry.
This act by a few men on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to undermine the U.S. Constitution of one man one vote and equality in public debates. Sixty years later, Supreme Court Justice, William O. Douglas, said this one court case had no historical precedence to be based on and was illogical and unreasonable. This one great legal blunder in the 19th Century seems to have changed the whole idea our Founding Fathers had of democracy in government.
Today, in many cases, corporate trusts are far too powerful to be challenged and the court system seems to tend to consistently favor corporate interests. Also, many critics feel that America is now ruled by a coalition of government and business interests. Unlike a military takeover that could be pointed to, American corporations waged a gradual, subversive, covert takeover of power. Now many corporations are more powerful and have more net worth than many countries. The top 500 corporations in America today hold at least 40%, or probably more, of the world’s wealth. They control the airwaves, bankroll elections and constantly lobby legislators to set their own industrial, economic and cultural agendas.
We, the American people, have lost all control and have unknowingly even accepted it. We go to corporations on our knees and say please do not do this or do that. Have we forgotten how to stand up straight? The unofficial history of American corporations is a story of democracy derailed. The revolutionary spirit has been effectively suppressed. We, the People, have been reduced to servitude.
We, the affluent People, may be in no mood to revolt against our way of life…consumer capitalism. The masses seem unmoved by ecosystems collapsing all around us and wholesale corporate takeovers. We seem more concerned about getting good seats at sporting events while ordering up drinks to celebrate our newfound wealth provided by corporations and the stock market.
Today, you are either a player on ‘the inside’ with your hand in the cash register and your head in the sand with your lifestyle choices being approved by the unaware, unknowing and uncaring mass news media, OR you are on ‘the outside’ looking in and are considered to be of no consequence, just a pawn for ‘the players’ to push around as they see fit. Are the power elites ignoring the angry rebels? As with most revolutions, the elite never really seems to notice the rage that is building invisibly, except for flashpoint revolts like the Black Panthers of the 1960s, the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1970s, the Paris Latin Quarter Riot of 1968, the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s & 70s, the Soviet and Berlin Wall collapse of the late 1900s, the 1910 Zapatista Mexican Revolution, and yes, even the Seattle protest of 1999 which was rage against the World Trade Organization (WTO), all of which planted the much needed seeds for social change.
Remember, the WTO has given corporations so much power that even countries are essentially powerless to enact legislation capable of fighting the biggest worldwide corporate conglomerates. Now, is it any wonder then why a large number of activists gathered in Seattle in 1999 to protest against the WTO? Radicals in the past have fought for intangible ideas that seem like dreams. Today, we look back and ask was there ever any doubt that these particular events and social movements would not affect social change?
In future protests against corporations they may be chanting “remember Seattle”, like Americans used to chant “remember the Alamo” in the fight to take the now state of Texas in the U.S. from Mexico. Remember the movie The Fight Club? In a strange way this movie expresses consumer rage against the deadening forces of commercialism, consumerism and corporate takeovers. The movie’s main characters harness the discontent of a generation whose identities have been forged from clothes, cars and other creature comforts. In the movie, government officials tell the band of rogues that they are wasting their time, like trying to fight a 700 pound gorilla government. However, the anarchists remind the government, and its corporate overseers, that the People they are trying to keep down are the same people that government and corporations depend on to cook, clean, service, produce and even haul the trash, as well as, guard them at night, so in the long run do not mess with the People. So, the bottom line to all this may be something as simple as, “remember Seattle!”
Making matters worse to muddy the political waters, lawyer lobbyists and political activists, representing big business as well as left-leaning and right-leaning activist groups, setup what sound like grassroots organizations ‘for the people’ when, in fact, too often they may actually be phony fronts posing as representing ‘the people’ in order to convince voters to vote a certain way, or think a certain way about particular political, social, economic and environmental issues.
These phony grassroots organizations may actually represent those who want to take away the rights and freedoms of the people they are actually purporting to protect, all in the name of certain ‘for profit’ corporations and/or political activist groups that are actually covertly funding the phony, ‘for the people’ grassroots organizations.
Short story made long, well, here is the solution to defunding conservatism and liberalism and freeing American middle class slaves. What is needed is an urgent grassroots mission to identify and mold a new breed, and next wave of liberty- minded Democrat, Republican and Independent political party candidates, activists and community leaders for everything from national government leaders, to state and local government leaders, and public school leaders who will promote liberty and well-intentioned thought through responsible and accountable government, no matter how big or small government needs to be to accomplish this.
In the near future, through the use of all the latest technological advances we have made so useful during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, American schools and universities should start COMPETING for, instead of duplicating, knowledge that is disseminated to students to foster competition between schools and universities, creating new ‘leading’ institutions in knowledge dissemination, instead of the ‘disconnected and duplicating’ institutions of knowledge like we have today. For example, today, we basically put out 5000 homogenous classes of the same calculus lessons to 5000 schools. This means we are not using the latest technological, online teaching advances, discovered during the coronavirus pandemic of 2020, to put out the latest knowledge discovered in calculus, and the latest ways to learn it, to all students everywhere. Consequently, all students do not get the latest discoveries in knowledge. And unfortunately, at this stage in higher education, this is likely to continue.
Why? Because too many schools and universities are selfish with the knowledge used and discovered by the intellectual elites they employ, and besides, they are still teaching the same ways they taught throughout the far gone 20th Century. Once again, too bad for all students and the American middle class who lose again, and the intellectual elites win again, thinking if they give up all their latest ideas to the mediocre masses everywhere then it may erode their elite, ruling class status.
A grassroots movement to change things starts, generally, not on the national level in Washington, D.C., but primarily starts at the state and local levels of government where most actual government decisions and spending occurs.
SUPPLEMENTAL SOURCES: RAWSTORY NEWSLETTER 5/18/15 and WALL STREET JOURNAL NEWSPAPER SEPTEMBER 2019 and ADBUSTERS MAGAZINE WINTER 2000 and DEFUND CONSERVATISM BY AMERICAN ACTIVIST, NED RYUN JUNE 2020 and AMERICAN ECONOMIST, EDUCATOR AND FORMER SECRETARY OF U.S. TREASURY, 1999-2001, LAWRENCE SUMMERS