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Parent Article: Protest Launched Against Sinclair, Including Local Affliate WICD, Ch. 15 |
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Hidden with code "Duplicate post" |
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Re: more common sense? |
by thom pain
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
30 Dec 2004
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Response to more common sense....
Sure... a B.O.D. can be a form of democracy, kind of like giving the squires a vote but not the peasants (workers) or the freeholders (community)... but only for a select and privileged few...would you agree? Just like once upon a time in america, circa founding fathers time, 'democracy' was legally restricted to 'white, male, property owners (including human property)' and it was still revered as democracy? Kind of like that? Or maybe a Jim Crow democracy, poll tax and all?
Sure, even as a lowly worker or citizen, if you own a few shares you might get to register a small bit of consent or dissent occassionally.... but because the decision-making power in a corporate hierarchy is based on your power to, you might say, 'purchase votes'.... the power of an economically privileged few (whether acquired by the pure accident of birth or 'hard work') will almost always trump the will of a few pee-ons. As they say, membership does have it's privileges...doesn't it? Sounds more like our national elections than democracy. First the wealthy get to vote with thier cash, then we get to choose the lesser evil, or greater, from THIER choices... end of story. A 'free-market politbureau' of sorts.... Market-Leninism is here!! Woo-hoo and they'vegot Pravda (Truth?) too!!!!!!
Also, whether the 'free enterprise' the founding fathers supported and the corporate oligarchy that we have today look anything alike is highly debatable. In fact when Eisenhower, in no way some peacenik liberal by the way, warned of the dangers of rising power (corruption) of the Military Industrial Complex in the '50's he was only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Both he and Thomas Paine would probably, rightfully, call the economic and political reality that we have today what exactly what it is.... a 'plutocratic tyranny,' with an occasional plebescite to pacify the masses.
Plus, corporations generally are not like small businesses only larger. They have more in common with the robber barons that Teddy Roosevelt went up against (monopolies and cartels who desire domination of a market) than a general store. Their raison d'etre is about the same as Conan "crush your enemies, and relish in the lamentations of their women!," but in this case their enemy, as they see it, IS small and local businesses (think WalMart). Ask a struggling local business-person in town (besides a bar) what they think of the large MNCs on the edge of town and they'll tell you... they've told me. WalMart/Sinclair/Gap.... any of them, are not members of our community, they don't care about us anynore than they do a worker in a sweatshop in Juarez as long as they can fleece our money and productive effort (labor) from us before we choke on our Big Mac we're nothing to them! and the worker, comminity member, small business, or local entrepeneur is just another obstacle to increasing the profit margin or reducing the bottom line. (If they can't be reified or reducated... then they must be eliminated like defective widget).
I admit, I am no friend of the Republicans, even the old-style ones, (and the Dems are no better!! Good cop/Bad cop still a cop) BUT the nascent observations of Roosevelt and Eisenhower are correct the greatest threat to our economy and democracy is simply corporate power.
Power corrupts and Corporate Power corrupts completely!
Thom Paine where are you? America needs some Common Sense! |
