CORPORATE POWER IS NOW ONE IN THE SAME AS GOVERNMENT POWER

[Orwellian_Ghost]

...

Corpofascism?

My argument comes at the issue from a different point of view. Instead of considering the above as traits of fascism, I believe that in fact, the fascist structure of government is what enables these attributes to manifest themselves. That fascist structure of government begins with the co-option of corporate and government interests becoming one in the same. This is the primary transition in the nature and operation of the government apparatus. Corporate power is not so much as protected; it is one in the same as government power. Hence the government is an extension of the corporate powerbrokers in society. Let me elaborate.

It begins with the unfettered control of government by corporate and business interests which leads to the detriment of the well-being of the many for the benefit of the few. Once the corporate and money powers have co-opted government, they are then able to work with government officials – who may have their own self-interested motives and ideologies – to instill policy that meets Britt’s thirteen other points.



So, fascism begins to manifest itself at the point when corporate interests highjack the operations of the government. Yes, business and government have and always been intertwined, it would be naïve not to think so. Yet, while intertwined in history there was a degree of separation and distinction between the functioning of each body. Each worked separately but in mutual respect of the other and would lend a helping hand to the other party. They mutually serve to promote each other. When working within the appropriate checks and balances, this enables a capitalist society to prosper and grow. After all, this is not fascism but capitalism at its very definition. In order for a society and its people to continue to be free and prosper the government must let economies thrive. However, in order for a society and its people to be treated equally and with justice, the government is needed to legislate and regulate the capitalist system so that it does not ultimately devour itself through its own desire for continual wealth. This is the act of mutual balance that is needed in a strong and healthy capitalist system.



A fascist government is one which is terminally ill with an incurable cancer. In a fascist society this system of mutual balance has completely and utterly collapsed to the point where government is not functioning as the representative of the people, but the security guard for the corporate interests. So if “experts” can throw around the word “Islamofacism”, let me make up a term “Corpofascism.”

...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18890.htm

[bonito]

1. Don't forget Globalization

Where wholesale investing on other shores at the expense of one's county's and welfare, outsourcing jobs ,importing products made by slave labor, union bashing ,opening the boarder for work for less pay for the benefit of the few.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

3. The Third Wave

....

Let us compare the emergence of the global information economy with the two previous waves of globalization :

The first wave was after slaves, previous metals and lands for raising export crops; the second wave was after new investment acquisitions, sources of raw materials and labor, and industrial markets. The third wave is after sources of mental labor, sources of information raw materials, and markets for information products. This is why the WTO pushed very hard to conclude as soon as possible the agreements on information technology, telecommunications and financial services.

The third wave requires freer movement of information across national boundaries. This has helped erode further the power of the State. While the State itself operated corporate monopolies during the first wave, and continued to be dominant over corporations during the second wave, it is finding itself less powerful during the third wave. Global corporations are now assuming the dominant role in the State-corporate partnership, in close collaboration with supra-national institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and the WTO.

As in the first two waves, the extraction of wealth from the rest of the world is likewise done under a mask that hides real intentions. The third wave hides behind such phrases as "information at your finger tips", "world without borders", "global village", instant access to the world's libraries", "free flow of information", or "TV with a million channels."

Behind the mask, the global information economy imposes its own global rule to facilitate the wealth transfer. The role of the nation-state shrinks, many of its functions taken over by private corporations. Global corporations continue to strengthen their political voice and clout, and directly enter into partnerships with local elites and local governments, often bypassing the host government as well as their own government. Corporate control of information, communications, and media infrastructures is strengthened through privatization and deregulation. National sovereignty is further curtailed by supra-national institutions like the IMF, WB, and the WTO.

In addition to the earlier forms of wealth extraction practised during the first and second waves, new forms emerge or old forms acquire new importance. Monopoly rents become the main form of wealth extraction. Royalties from IPRs and other income from information rents assume major significance. Because of the huge disparity in costs, trade between information economies and other economies become even more unequal. Compare, for instance, a CD ROM which might sell for three hundred dollars, but is produced for around three dollars, to a typical Philippine product like sugar, which might sell for fifteen cents per pound. Much of the three hundred dollars in the price of 2,000 pounds of sugar would barely cover production costs, while much of the three hundred dollars in the price of a CD ROM would be profit. Technology also makes possible high-speed, finely-tuned financial speculation. As the importance of the nation-state recedes and national currencies buffeted by devaluation and other woes, corporations are able to purchase State assets and public properties at bargain prices.

New technologies of exploitation are introduced. First wave technologies were designed for the immediate plunder of our natural resources and human communities. Second wave technologies were based on material exploitation and intensive energy utilization. Third wave technologies are invariably information-based, centered on extracting the highest monopoly rents from the control of information infrastructure or information content. The best example of a technology that is at the leading edge of the third wave of globalization is the Internet. Advanced information and communications technologies make possible the convergence of media, entertainment, data, and communications. The application of information technology to genetic engineering and biotechnologies has transformed these fields into fertile areas for information monopolies, best illustrated by the patenting of life forms.

...

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1569

[unkachuck]

2. K&R....

"...where government is not functioning as the representative of the people, but the security guard for the corporate interests."

....the above is what we have today....our number one mission: take back our government from the corporations and wealthy, for until this is accomplished, little else will matter....

....and this nashing of teeth on DU over choosing corporate candidates for a corporate election to serve in the corporate government to do the corporate interest, is boggling my mind....

....but then my mind boggles easily....

[live love laugh]

5. Mind boggled here also. Hey I found out where they hid the Hillary threads...

GD Politics is full of Hate/Hil threads. As if it matters :eyes:.

[Yuugal]

4. We don't need another word for it.

Benito's word Corporatism sums it up nicely. I think what confuses some people is that they insist that the govt must be fascist to have fascism. Maybe this was the case many years ago but nowadays it seems democracy and fascism can get along quite well. I can still say whatever I want, its just that noone gives a shit and the corporate whore congress obeys the corporations who pay them the most and not the people. I can still own a gun, assemble peaceably, start a anti-govt newspaper or website. It just doesn't matter because the wheels of power only turn for them and not us. Until we wake up and shrug off our corporate overlords things will stay the same. When we've finally have had enough and give them a beating they will go back into hiding until we get sleepy again and then they will return to haunt and rob us.

[mmonk]

6. Yes, this is the real battle

of which all the others are part.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

7. These are the RESULTS

Capitalism is the Hallmark Card which invites fascism into any government or nation which sees money as God and it's controllers as the demigods of the state. These demigods of corporate control of the state are blind to the deprivations of the common citizen in regards the enfranchisement into the largess of capitalism of the lower classes of labor and middle management which are 9 to 5ers who struggle to make ends meet and often fail, losing their homes and lovers to the deprivations of capitalism.

It is evident, this morning, that human suffering is increasing in these United States by the day with mortgage foreclosures at record levels. The insolvency and indebtedness of the common workers is an indication that the corpofascist ideal is for the poor to suffer while the rich enjoy the fruits of the labors of these disenfranchised workers.

Workers come in many colors and all have been marginalized to the point of sitting at the kitchen table with a stack of un payable bills, and their associated fines and penalties.

We, as the little guys of the United States are punished when we pay late or cannot pay at all. Conversely corporations are bailed out of their woes by friends in high places, as seen with the Chrysler corporation's bail out with taxpayer funds and the Fed's bail out of greedy, predatory lending institutions who ravaged the middle class borrowers and then were repaid by the FED issuing more money to them as a hedge against their bankruptcy.

Meanwhile the Bankruptcy laws for consumers with credit card debt changed , also in favor of the bankers to the detriment of the workers.

These are the RESULTS of fascism regardless of the definition of this malignant parasite. The poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer, by design.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

8. Already rec'd

:kick: