Current Events, the Truth of the Matter

In our country the Government and Wall Street have a relationship that can no longer be ignored. What use to be "Capitalism" has turned into Corporate Welfare. Corporate Welfare State or Corporatism, that is the Question.

Does the word "Corpocracy" come to mind? Probably not as most people are not familiar with the term, but If I said "Fascism" everyone would know what I meant. In Fact, the two terms basically mean the same thing. The only difference is in Fascism the Government takes over Corporations. In a Corpocracy the Corporations take control of the Government.

Basically, what I am saying is Corporations work too close with our Government. In fact, you see the same people going from Corporations to Government seats and back again.

"one of the most notable bits of U.S. corporatism is the 1886 court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. This case had been brought before the Supreme Court to determine if corporations, as juristic persons, could be established as government-controlled tax entities, which were entitled to receive tax guidelines that were not granted to other citizens. Although the Supreme Court never issued such a ruling on the case, The Federal Government resumed as if it had; not only were corporations granted special tax exemptions, they were given many of the same rights as citizens themselves." Same rights include the right to own land and own other Corporations.

Furthermore, not only were corporations given equal rights, they were given more rights, such as the ability to file under an 1120 tax form. This protection granted to corporations—the act of corporatism through sovereign immunity—may directly conflict with The Bill of Rights, under its Ninth Amendment, which reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Either corporations as juristic persons are protected equally to other persons—and enumerated in a way that is not denied to other persons—or they are not equal, and therefore not protected under The U.S. Constitution.

Republican President Ronald Reagan echoed Republican President Herbert Hoover and others who claimed that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs represented a move in the direction of a "corporatist state." In particular, these critics focused on the National Recovery Administration. In 1935, Herbert Hoover described some of the New Deal measures as "Fascist regimentation." In his 1951 memoirs he used the phrases "early Roosevelt fascist measures", and "this stuff was pure fascism", and "a remaking of Mussolini's corporate state". (For sources and more information, see The New Deal and corporatism.)

Franklin D. Roosevelt in an April 29, 1938 message to Congress warned that the growth of private power could lead to fascism:

"The first truth is 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 other controlling private power."

But that is old news. To bring it up to the day, there use to be a ban on corporate spending on political campaigns because, of coarse, they are not people but thanks to the Supreme Courts ruling in Citizens United vs Federal Election Commission case this ban has been removed fully establishing Corporate Personhood. Overturning a Law that has been in place since Teddy Roosevelt. This makes it obvious that "We The People" no longer have a voice in our own country, as if we really did beforehand.

Even President Obama (not that I support him) has criticized this ruling saying it "gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington – while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates." Later he went on to say "this ruling strikes at our democracy itself" and "I can't think of anything more devastating to the public interest".

On January 27, 2010, Obama further condemned the decision during the 2010 State of the Union Address, stating that, "Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities."

But he is not the only critic of this ruling. To name a few Democratic senator Russ Feingold, John McCain, Sanda Everette (co-chair of the Green Party), Ralph Nader (lawyer and advocate of individual rights). As you can see its just one a few people, but people from all over the political spectrum.

But what is being done about it? NOTHING! Just like everything else, We're all going to just bitch about it. I'm not leaving myself out, I am bitching!

The United States has be hijacked!

The Merger between Corporate Power and State Power can be summed up in one word, and I hate to use this word but no other word can describe it better, Fascism. Yes, Fascism. The Fascist leader Benito Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state"

In his own words:
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini.

Sadly, we are seeing this in the United States. The Mass of Americans do not see what is going on because they do not understand Fascism. Americans has been taught to see Fascism by its symptoms and not its structure.

"While we, Americans, have been trained to keenly identify the opposite of Fascism, government intrusion into and usurpation of private enterprise, we have not been trained to identify the usurpation of government by private enterprise (Corporations)." Which is exactly what is happening.

The Bourgeoisie is a Social Class of people that have come out of the Middle class to own the "means of production" through wealth, education, social, and economic power.

Karl Marx was right, as he saw the Bourgeoisie would come to "own" the Capitalist society and this has happened as the Corporations that have grown up around us having a bigger pot of gold than "We The People". We have seen them buy our Congress and other seats of power. The Corporations make their own laws based on what interest they have.

Imperialism is considered the control by one state of other territories. Through political or military means (direct imperialism), the imperial power may take over the government of a particular territory, or through economic processes (indirect imperialism) OR "the creation and maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination."

Vladimir Lenin in 1916 wrote a book called "Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism" where he states:

"Imperialism emerged as the development and direct continuation of the fundamental characteristics of capitalism in general. But capitalism only became capitalist imperialism at a definite and very high stage of its development, when certain of its fundamental characteristics began to change into their opposites, when the features of the epoch of transition from capitalism to a higher social and economic system had taken shape and revealed themselves in all spheres. Economically, the main thing in this process is the displacement of capitalist free competition by capitalist monopoly. Free competition is the basic feature of capitalism, and of commodity production generally; monopoly is the exact opposite of free competition, but we have seen the latter being transformed into monopoly before our eyes, creating large-scale industry and forcing out small industry, replacing large-scale by still larger-scale industry, and carrying concentration of production and capital to the point where out of it has grown and is growing monopoly: cartels, syndicates and trusts, and merging with them, the capital of a dozen or so banks, which manipulate thousands of millions. At the same time the monopolies, which have grown out of free competition, do not eliminate the latter, but exist above it and alongside it, and thereby give rise to a number of very acute, intense antagonisms, frictions and conflicts. Monopoly is the transition from capitalism to a higher system."

I am a Libertarian Socialist. I am in no way a Marxist, a Communist, nor a Leninist but I cannot read these books on political theory and ignore the fact that things Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin have said are correct and are happening before our eyes.

People should not shun Karl Marx because he was the "Father of Communism" nor Lenin for his theories. I do not agree with things either one of them done but I would be ignorant and stupid to not see and ignore the parallels between today and their theories.

Books I would recommend:

"Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism"
"The State and Revolution"
"Our Enemy, The State"
"Das Kapital"
"The Communist Manifesto"
"Wage-Labour and Capital"

Documentaries I would recommend:
"The Corporation"
"Secrecy"
"Surplus: Terrorized Into Being Consumers"
"This Revolution"
"The War on Drugs"
"What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire"
"Where have all the Flowers gone?"
"Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media"