WHO IS SOVEREIGN

The New Jersey scandal over the George Washington Bridge shut down has turned into a search for the “needle in a hay stack”; they are looking for the smoking gun that will tie Governor Christie to the political scheming. They are searching for answers to a question that has been answered by definition; Gov. Chris Christie is a New Jersey politician. By doing so, they are overlooking the hay, which is growing corporate sovereignty.

It seems at the end of each trail investigators follow, they bump into a big business development such as the one at the foot of the bridge in Fort Lee or a Rockefeller Group development such as in Hoboken or the biggest money scheme of all, which is the Port Authority. These revelations all have one thing in common; as soon as investigators make an association with a big corporation, the investigations suddenly take another track. For example, can anyone tell me even the barest details of the billion-dollar development scheme in Fort Lee? I don’t know about how you feel about that much money but a billion-dollars is a lot of money to me and deserves to be part of the discussion. Who, what, how, etc?

In Hoboken, the only thing published was a vague reference to a traffic problem Mayor Zimmer was concerned about associate with the placement of this large development. She was refused Hurricane sand relief money unless she agreed to some thing a development firm wanted. The fact that the Rockefeller group was identified was surprising; what wasn’t surprising was that the association was immediately laundered with a disclaimer: if there is something wrong, it is not due to the Rockefeller Group.

If you are an investigative reporter, try to find out what businesses the Port Authority is involve in “behind the scenes”. You will have a big problem; their business dealings appear to be in a big tangled mess.

I am in the process of reading Doris Kerns Goodwin’s book, The Bully Pulpit.  President Theodore Roosevelt aided by the press, a little over 100 years ago uncovered, and corrected in part anyway, corporate excesses as they had to do with oil, transportation, beef industry, and the food and drug industries. In each case there were a common factors, there was collusion within and between corporations to cheat consumers. It didn’t make any difference who the corporations were or who the consumers were; it was corporation against working people. In addition, the Republican Party, the president’s own party, supported corporations. He deftly avoided that problem by recognizing two wings of that party. The good guys that were for the people, I think of George W. Bush and his compassionate conservative remarks, and Ronald Reagan and his drive to put everything in the hands of corporations as embodied in his trickle down economic policy.   Of course, Roosevelt identified with the compassionate wing.

Roosevelt worried that “conservatives” were going to end up all in one party with big businesses and workers end up in the other party with labor unions. The problem in New Jersey tells us that is exactly what has happened. There are no compassionate conservatives left in the leadership of the Republican Party, or if there is, they are a weak minority. Corporations, regardless of their business area, are colluding in covering up their misdeeds against working people. It is no accident the name ‘Rockefeller’ is associated with the New Jersey scandals: John D. Rockefeller, the worst corporate offender, to this day; he, and his method are idealized in the modern corporate dynasty and—unfortunately—in the Republican Party. Look at global warming, gun lobby, coal lobby, oil lobby, Grover Norquist then tell me who is sovereign; tell me that we can have the corporate regulations that we deserve.   

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