Daily Kos

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  •  They see no crime here (3.93 / 15)

    I believe that is the crux of this particular conflict between our two sides. Republicans I talk to truly think that direct contributions from Corporations to Politicians is natural and right. We need to 'hammer' home that:
    1. Corporations have only their self interests and these are antithetical to the common good. (Pollution is good from their standpoint, if it lowers their cost of doing business.)
    2. Corporatism, where legislative power is given to corporations, is a cornerstone of Italian Fascism.
    3. If we want a country where the government looks out for the good of its people, we must keep a healthy distance between corporations and government power.

    Or else we are back in Italy, 1925
    "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato." ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State".)  Mussolini.
    (credit to Wikipedia)
    •  Corporate Personhood (4.00 / 16)

      The United States is currently a corporate sponsored theocracy run by a very cynical and thoroughly un-American dominant class.  They've thrown in religion as a wonderful distraction for the masses - our time's bread and circuses.

      Corporatism IS the problem, and dismantling corporate personhood is the answer.  Corporatism could not be the many-headed hydra that it currently is without support from US law, law which essentially views a corporation to have the same rights as an individual citizen.

      Corporations exercise their "right" of free speech by outspending voting citizens in local, state and national elections time after time.  (I'll get back to you when my individual annual earnings are in the billions, and I can donate millions and millions to all my favorite candidates...)

      The most worrying aspect of all this is that these corporations are international and multinational, i.e. they have no vested interest in the success of any individual country (such as ours, USA), as long as they have freedom to operate their business inside a country free of as many restrictions as possible.  They are motivated by earnings, and the bottom line doesn't care if America succeeds or fails as a nation.

      Indeed, a good arguement can be made that corporations have long been preparing to abandon America to second tier nation status.  They have placed people in office for decades who have dumbed down the general level of education, starved the national infrastructure into desparate decline, created a small but significant oligarchy, and grown the underclass while squeezing the middleclass so hard with taxes that they have become 60-hour a week workbots trying to ensure that their jobs don't get outsourced.

      Indians and Chinese are viewed as the next great consumers, and their sheer numbers, as well as their dictatorial and/or corrupt governements, make them far more attractive to deal with than trying to rectify the impacts of greed on the long-term American economy.

      http://reclaimdemocracy.org/personhood/  

    •  Rule of law, rule of law, rule of law. (none / 1)

      Doesn't matter what anyone "thinks" is right.  In Texas, the law bars corporate contributions to political campaigns.

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