Although the Republican Party is normally the preferred ally of the major corporations, far too many Democrats take their money and sing their tune. The greatest threat to our country and to the Middle Class is the unholy alliance that has developed between the corporate class and the political class. In nearly every sector of our economy, capitalism is in rapid retreat, as industry after industry morphs into a functional oligopoly or even a monopoly where consumer wants and needs count for nothing.
Even as small businesses are far too bogged down with bureaucratic demands and excess regulation, the large corporations are free to act virtually unfettered. Every reform is fought tooth and nail, then methodically watered down until it is virtually meaningless. The mantra that "the customer is always right" that was the rule in America a generation ago is gone forever.
Republicans and complicit Democrats stripped consumer accountability from state and local government during the Reagan years and now the only check on the giant corporations is housed in Washington where only a sustained public outcry can turn around even the most egregious of corporate behaviors. The giant corporations run roughshod over the consumer and tailor their products and services to tightly fit their business profit plans with little regard for what the consumer really wants.
That is why we have to waste the day flying through Atlanta or Chicago or Dallas to go to one of the coasts, because it fits corporate wishes not those of consumers.
It is why despite the fact that cell phones have become our emergency lifelines, we can’t get reception five miles off the main highways because it doesn’t fit the telecom companies business plan.
It is why you have to buy the premium package with fifty or a hundred inane channels to get the sports or science channel you want.
It is why KV Pharmaceuticals feels that it was perfectly within it's rights to buy up marketing rights to an important pre natal prescription drug that had been profitably marketed at $15 and raised the price to $1500.
It is why hospitals won't let you bring a bottle of Bayer Aspirin into the hospital for your own use but will prescribe the aspirin and charge you $70 for it.
And it is why the CEO of a publicly held company, United Healthcare recently retired with a golden parachute worth one billion dollars.
Liberals, Moderates, and Conservatives need to rise up against the political class for letting these things happen. We need to support candidates who have the courage to end the unholy alliance between the political class and the corporations who fund them.
Instead we are all played against one another. We’re distracted by the exploitation of our differences on social issues. We're told we have to cut the Social Security and Medicare benefits we have all earned and depend on to solve the deficit problems brought about in large part by corporate greed and recklessness.
Our corporate puppet government has given us a system in which we pay twice as much as all the other first world countries for the same quality of healthcare, and in which private sector contractors are paid $500,000 a year by the Pentagon to do the work of a $40,000 a year US Army sergeant.
The taxpayer’s money is not being wasted on the safety net, it is being stolen from all of us in both pre-tax and after tax income because our Government looks out for the jackals instead of the people.