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Edited on Wed Oct-27-10 06:12 PM by OlympicBrian
"US corporatocracy" - the system of government that serves the interests of, and is essentially run by, corporations. It primarily seeks to further ties between government and business--where corporations, multi-national corporations, conglomerates, and private parties including highly-paid corporate executives(a tiny elite) and political organizations are the primary control. Areas of control span from direction and governance to contrived mass-media visages of elements, ideas, and persons within the country. This system retains the superficial appearance of being a democratic republic, by relying on long-standing faith in the democratic voting, legislative, judicial, and executive processes--but below the surface, it is a system of government without true representation of the people. Major activities of the corporatocracy include carrying out economic planning notwithstanding the 'free market' label. A tiny elite group benefits financially from the system, at the same time they are granted tax-free mechanisms. Because the major interests served in the system are corporate-related, the general welfare of the country suffers. As a result of the massive disparity in distribution of wealth within the consumer-driven economy, demand necessarily relies on easy credit, and/or economic boom/bust cycles. The US Federal Reserve is intimately involved in creating these, but in doing so, has recently run up against a fundamental math barrier (near-zero interest rates). The US Treasury is used as long-term source of income for the tiny elite, through a series of complex transactions and events which obfuscate--but ultimately leave the taxpayer and our children bearing the cost of such benefit to the tiny elite. The corporatocracy relies on communist China (and other foreign) underpinnings for sources of cheap production, labor, and credit--and possibly also on communist Chinese political influence channeled through anonymous political organizations. In addition, as a recent development, the system increasingly ensnares the US judicial branch within its overall goals. In fact, the judicial system enhances the finances of the system and protects the corporatocracy as if it had the same--if not more--rights than the individual (the Citizens United decision); it does so against the will of 80 percent of the people. "Unlimited, anonymous funds" allowable through corporate donations results in a huge "multiplier effect" on speech given the nature of high-tech media and broadcasting--a fact apparently not accounted for in the Citizens United decision.
Moreover, at the nucleus of the corporatocracy is an unelected body--the US Chamber of Commerce. This powerful group is extremely well-financed through unknown entities, and is becoming increasingly involved in corporate, media, electoral, legislative (lobbying), and judicial activities. Thereby, the corporatocracy achieves an unprecedented fusion of formerly separate powers, in spite of the fundamental principles of separation upon which America was founded.
In short--we have one great beast--no longer with checks and balances, and no longer for the American People.
"I hope we shall... crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and to bid defiance to the laws of our country."
- Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 1816. "Shall we make our own comforts, or go without them at the will of a foreign nation? He, therefore, who is now against domestic manufacture must be for reducing us either to dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed in skins and to live like wild beasts in dens and caverns. I am not one of these; experience has taught me that manufactures are now as necessary to our independence as to our comfort." - Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Austin, 1816. "The selfish spirit of commerce knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain." - Thomas Jefferson to Larkin Smith, 1809.
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