GOP CAN SAVE US BY SAVING THEMSELVES

Essentially, democracy was born around 1776. I seemed to be an unlikely result of hodgepodge of immigration into a new land mixed with the idea that the most precious commodity of all commodities was no longer precious. The immigrants brought all forms of political ideas but the new freedom released innate tendencies. The conflict was between individualism and the need to live together. What followed was so blatantly obvious it was acceptable to everyone. It was like self-awareness; a political awareness that all people looked at as something new; one-man one-vote. The use of the term ‘man’ was no accident. There was a pecking order or social order, which is politics, but also was solely the province of men. The value of land was rapidly re-imposed. The conflict was once again obvious; only men owned land and only landowners could vote. In addition, the government owned the most land. As land was re-distributed, power and wealth took over.

A series of individuals became extremely wealthy. Investment exceeded the capabilities of even the wealthiest people. They solved this problem through the mechanism of corporations or accumulated wealth, often including the government as a partner both in the form of authority and in the form of collective wealth. All people benefited from enhanced manufacturing of goods, food production, and interstate distribution via roads, cannels, ships, as well as via railroads. The country was growing economically. Against this background, something sinister was stirring.

The relationship between government and corporations required clarification. Which entity is sovereign under what circumstance? Any suggestion of government regulations of industry caused great concern that ripples throughout society. Corporate conduct without regulation is running out of control. Corporations wanted the freedoms of individuals but also wanted the power of government—dictatorial status. The only way this could be would be if corporations had complete control of government. In a democracy based on one-man one-vote, this is impossible unless we vote for it to happen. Either “we the people” are in charge of government or corporations are in charge of government; it cannot be both ways. We made a lot of social progress since 1776; however, one man voting to represent a family is not the same thing as one man voting to represent a corporation.

How is all of this plying out? The answer is that there is a third force or power in hierarchy dominance: individuals, government, and a force hidden from view in the form of corporations. Like social awareness, we are all aware that force is there and is in full operation and approaching dictatorial status. We have evidence galore that this is a fact; huge domestic and multinational corporations that do not pay taxes; price fixing in the gas and oil industry as well as in the airline industry; and the fact that our government is paying outlandish amounts in subsidies to sports franchises, corporate farms, and multinational oil companies to name a few. Something as simply obvious as the need of gun control cannot happen because it is something arms manufacturers do not want it.

We have laws against companies merging into monopolies but every day more and more companies are forming more and more monopolies such as Comcast and Time Warner, which was announced yesterday. Worse yet, the new monopolies do not involve one class of industry such as oil or transportation, but cross several un-related industries as the proposed merger between Apple and 54 other companies and only 5 divestures since 1988 and spanning several nations.

Many companies are more powerful than government: BP oil did what they wanted in the Gulf of Mexico and decided if they would let the government fine them. The government has not approved the construction of oil pipelines but oil companies are building more pipelines. Coal companies thumb their nose at OSHA and EPA regulations, and on and on. We have environmental disaster after environmental disaster.    

Corporations have control of the Supreme Court and our Congress. It is not our congress; it is not our Court, it is theirs. We see Koch brothers openly defy election law after elections laws. We see them openly threaten legislatures with primary challenges if the do not vote the way the want—a form of vote extortion. We see civil rights laws totally ignored, our public school system in jeopardy of privatization, and in spite of over whelming public support, we see “our” Social Security in danger of privatization after nearly 80-years of success.

We can look at the early 1900’s and learn a lesson; Theodore Roosevelt had to manipulate the two factions of his own Republican Party to coax corporate controlling legislation out of congress; one faction was corporate owned the other was drive by conservative ideology. He recognized two factions in the Republican Party. We have a similar situation today. The problem is that the modern conservative faction weakens its self by dividing into multiple sub fractions: religious, libertarian, individual hate the government, racism, taxes greed, and just plain Duck Dynasty foolishness. Nonetheless, in spite of their often-jingoistic nonsense, I believe the solid American conservative ideologist constitutes the major faction of the Republican Party, which is the faction we will have to appeal to restore order and crush corporate drive toward unbridled sovereignty.

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