Fw: How corporate power can undermine Democracy --- RFK, Jr.

This sums up what has happened to America- the corporate beast has stolen personhood, and has usurped power from we the people.  

In the name of the Prince of Peace, who battles the kings of the earth allied with the beast (Rev 19: 19).

Carol Wolman

----- Original Message -----

From: Ken Freeland

To: kenfree@swbell.net

Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 10:24 PM

Subject: FW: How corporate power can undermine Democracy --- RFK, Jr.

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Justice Freedom [mailto:justice_freedom@earthlink.net]
Sent: Sunday, June 05, 2005 9:04 PM
To: ba-cesi; eb-cossi
Subject: How corporate power can undermine Democracy --- RFK, Jr.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has some perceptive comments on Germany in the 1930s (see below), which is very, very close to where we are today in America.  The corporate interests think they are using Der Furher, but find out too late he is using them.          - Dan

key text in article "Crimes Against Nature" by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. :

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-01.htm

 

I was taught that communism leads to dictatorship and capitalism to democracy. But as we've seen from the Bush administration, the latter proposition does not always hold. While free markets tend to democratize a society, unfettered capitalism leads invariably to corporate control of government.

___________

 

In 1863, in the depths of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln lamented, "I have the Confederacy before me and the bankers behind me, and I fear the bankers most."

Franklin Roosevelt echoed that sentiment when he warned that "the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any controlling power."

Today, more than ever, it is critical for American citizens to understand the difference between the free-market capitalism that made our country great and the corporate cronyism that is now corrupting our political process, strangling democracy and devouring our national treasures.

Corporate capitalists do not want free markets, they want dependable profits, and their surest route is to crush competition by controlling government. The rise of fascism across Europe in the 1930s offers many informative lessons on how corporate power can undermine a democracy. In Spain, Germany and Italy, industrialists allied themselves with right-wing leaders who used the provocation of terrorist attacks, continual wars, and invocations of patriotism and homeland security to tame the press, muzzle criticism by opponents and turn government over to corporate control. Those governments tapped industrial executives to run ministries and poured government money into corporate coffers with lucrative contracts to prosecute wars and build infrastructure. They encouraged friendly corporations to swallow media outlets, and they enriched the wealthiest classes, privatized the commons and pared down constitutional rights, creating short-term prosperity through pollution-based profits and constant wars. Benito Mussolini's inside view of this process led him to complain that "fascism should really be called 'corporatism.' "

While the European democracies unraveled into fascism, America confronted the same devastating Depression by reaffirming its democracy. It enacted minimum-wage and Social Security laws to foster a middle class, passed income taxes and anti-trust legislation to limit the power of corporations and the wealthy, and commissioned parks, public lands and museums to create employment and safeguard the commons.

The best way to judge the effectiveness of a democracy is to measure how it allocates the goods of the land: Does the government protect the commonwealth on behalf of all the community members, or does it allow wealth and political clout to steal the commons from the people?

Today, George W. Bush and his court are treating our country as a grab bag for the robber barons, doling out the commons to large polluters. Last year, as the calamitous rollbacks multiplied, the corporate-owned TV networks devoted less than four percent of their news minutes to environmental stories. If they knew the truth, most Americans would share my fury that this president is allowing his corporate cronies to steal America from our children.

***********************

For complete article, which deals with the horrific bush crime record on the environment, go to:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1120-01.htm

 

 

 

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— Be afraid, be very afraid.

- neo-conservatives' fear-mongering statements

 

— Be not afraid.

- Pope John Paul II

 

— There is but one reason for our presence in Iraq — to destroy it. As the neo-cons have told us in unequivocal terms, their purpose is to "end" states, to annihilate them. Are we listening?

 

— GIs killing and dying to defend our country and our freedom??!!! Our freedom is most in jeopardy when we are at "war." And will we ever be able to give up this myth of "defense" which pops up whenever the u.s. attacks a small, defenseless country?

 

— . . . former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's incisive remark of December 10, 2001 to German N-TV that the activation of Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty on mutual assistance among the alliance members was illegitimate, since "proof had to be delivered that the Sept. 11 terror attacks came from abroad . . . that proof has still not been provided." Three and a half years and many failed commissions and investigations later, it has still not been provided.

- Webster G. Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA (Progressive Press, Joshua Tree, California, 2005), p. 6

 

Daniel Stone

justice_freedom@earthlink.net