Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Speaking Corporatese




“Sergeant Toomey:  What would you do if the entire Japanese Army were behind you?
Private Eugene Jerome: Surrender and get some sleep.

Private Selridge:  If this keeps up, we'll lose this war. They'll be speaking German in Chicago.” 

from Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon


Today it’s not obvious to identify those who want to destroy the basic foundation on which we preach freedom, the Great Middle Class and the pinnacle of democracy.  


President Roosevelt referred to them as  Economic Royalists and “Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob”. 


President Truman said: “The Republican Party, … favors the privileged few and not the common everyday man.”  President Jimmy Carter said that we are now an Oligarchy.  


And now today we speak Corporatese.  Our news media speaks of Dow Jones Industrials, NASDAQ, which does not reflect the happenings of the majority of working Americans, but in reality reflects the Wall Street gangs.  


We speak of Corporate Inversions which is the moving of American jobs and American factories to other countries. We speak of Off Shore Tax Havens. All legal.   


Our cities throughout the Rust Belt, the name given to our devastated industrial heartland, resemble the bombed out cities of WWII Germany.  


Detroit, for example, had a population of over 2 million residents in its heyday and was listed as the richest city in America due mainly to its industrial base revolving around the manufacturing of automobiles.  


Today the population of Detroit is under 700,000 with the difference in resident’s abandoned houses resembling what time did in lieu of bombs.


The text book definition of Profit is a measurement of efficiencies between competitive companies. Since we no longer enforce the Sherman Anti Trust Act via Ronald Reagan, profit has morphed into a destructive force entity with Conspiratorial Capitalism thrust upon us today coupled with the monopoly factor.  


We see, for example, the increase in prices for life saving medicine increasing 600% to 3,000% for no other reason but that big Pharma can.  


We have replaced text book Capitalism with Conspiratorial Capitalism, a systemic corrupt system bought and paid for by legislators and corporate lobbyists.


Conspiratorial Capitalism is the collusion among legislators, right-wing judges, and corporate mass media.  The federal government lowers the tax rate for the wealthy, stops enforcing the Sherman Anti-Trust Legislation, anti-labor and essentially gives corporations and Wall Street free will.  


We now have a corporate press free from the Fairness Doctrine, which the FCC under Reagan in 1987,  left broadcast corporations worry free about broadcasting in the public interest." 


There is nothing in the corporate news about the decline of the middle class, which the last 35 years has left America destroyed while the Republican agenda of closing factories in the United States to the tune of 50,000 factories and moving American jobs to China continues. 


Republicans continue  blocking legislation to restore American manufacturing industry. We do not enforce our tariffs that all other countries use to protect their manufacturing base!


The powerful right-wing network that hijacks state politics and government through the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) continue their nefarious agenda of wealth redistribution upwards to the rich. Composing legislation, calling for a conference of all state legislators to attend, then handing out previously composed legislation for the legislative attendees to take back to their state legislation to vote upon is what ALEC is about. And, with a majority of Republicans in many state legislatures, the vote is “Aye.”


Our health care is like no other in the world and defines what profit means today by holding hostage and skimming off the top to a destructive degree.  The health care insurance is a sham with CEO billionaire “banksters” reaping rewards. Health care has morphed into a disease. 


How can we define and justify profit with private prisons?  Where can efficiency occur in this prison for profit industry except by sacrificing basic human needs?  The Private Prisons takes the word profit to a disgusting definition.


A new business model for profit is government subsidies. The largest retailer is the apparent founder of this business model whereby they pay their workers below substance wages. Their employees then apply for food stamps and medicaid in order to live, all subsidized by the American taxpayer.


Ronald Reagan’s infamous 9 words: “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”  Reagan’s First Inaugural: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” 


From this foreboding idea that government is incompetent sprang the buzz word “privatize”.  Let’s privatize everything! 


The Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act (PAEA) is a United States federal statute enacted by the 109th United States Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 20, 2006, a poison pill mandating that the USPS pre-fund 75 years of benefits for its employees within a 10 year window.  


An all inclusive example of Corporatese is GOP Governor Rick Snyder of Michigan who Installed Emergency Managers to sell off city assets to the rich. 


Here was Gov Snyder’s game plan: give $1.8 billion in tax breaks to the wealthy and corporations at the expense of Michigan cities’ budgets, then ask the individual cities to make up the difference. 


Knowing that this shorting the cities of expected revenue sharing, many cities would have hardships and struggles to make up the difference, especially cities with large black populations like Benton Harbor, who lost a children's lakeside park to a rich private golf park, given in perpetuity by the Klock Family in memory of their lost child to the children of Benton Harbor.


When the individual cities fell behind in their fiscal obligations, Rick Snyder sent in his appointed Czar, an Emergency Manager to sell off the city’s assets, in other words a transfer of wealth upwards.


Let’s privatize everything because the Market Place is the best arbiter of freedom!  Just a few examples of innumerable …


Perhaps the enemy is only an idea, albeit a bad idea.  The solution would be to educate the American public through the mass media.  But the mass media is owned by 6 corporations who speak only Corporatese!  Therein lies the problem.


Friday, February 14, 2025

The Moral Compass





Today, overwhelming evidence shows that people vote against their own best self interest.

Ike was last legit Republican President, Nixon conspired with Viet Nam to continue the war (Treason), Reagan conspired with Iran to hold the hostages, (Treason), George H.W. Bush came from Reagan, George W. Bush was appointed by SCOTUS, and Trump lost the popular vote.


Paul Weyrich, religious conservative political activist and commentator of the New Right said: “I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”


The GOP wins power by the slimmest margins, only because the election process is theirs through Gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter crosscheck purge, corporate so-called news, SCOTUS Citizens United, Electoral College, Billionaires with Dark Money.  It would take a tsunami of progressive voter turnout to overcome.


Sen Whitehouse’ reply to GOP when they ruled “because we can”: “Don’t think when you have established the rule of ‘because we can,’ that should the shoe be on the other foot, you will have any credibility to come to us and say: ‘yeah, I know you can do that, but you shouldn’t.”


The Dumbing Down of America with 40 years of  Reagan’s “Government is the Problem”, no Civic Classes taught in school, and his appointing Bennett Education Secretary who despised public education, can be traced to the source of our woe.


Long standing Eloise Psychiatric Hospital is now a strip mall, golf course & condominium thanks to Reagan’s policy of making mental illness a homeless problem.


Irony: the poor & disenfranchised cleave to the very people who cause their Woe - the GOP. Why? “If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” - Malcom X


The Republican Health Care Plan: “Don’t Get Sick, And if you get sick, Die Quickly” - Alan Grayson 


Who are the nefarious “They” that we keep referring to in our everyday political discourse?  James Madison, fourth President of the United States, in his Federalist Papers No. 10, explained that Factions, like minded groups, were the natural state of man.


A Faction when standing alone is Benign, but when aligned with other Factions is dangerous when the uniting Cancer is HATE coupled with fear and prejudice. That’s the “They” and the GOP is the Cancer.  


Here is a short list at random of issues which the Republican Party votes against solving:

  1. Toxic waste
  2. Homelessness
  3. Guns
  4. Hunger
  5. Pregnancy
  6. Cancer
  7. Hate
  8. Tearing children from their parents
  9. Cutting Medication
  10. Lack of Healthcare
  11. Coivid 19
  12. Misogyny
  13. Student debt
  14. Racism
  15. Poverty
  16. Autocracy and strongman government
  17. Untreated mental health, closing Eloise
  18. Air and Water Pollution

Reminded:

“Well, all I know is what I read in the Papers.” - Will Rogers


Visitor from Planet Ethics would agree with Deepak Chopra that “The Nature of Reality in the Conscious Mind is thru Stories.“ The Corporate Media controls the stories, is owned by five corporations, and is the source of our woe. Main Street Media shows no guilt in replacing Journalism with Infotainment.


The GOP is the antithesis of ethics. What is mysteriously scary is the question: are Republican Candidates the Fomenter or Reflection of their Electorate?


The GOP has "morphed" into an "incredibly dangerous" party, says Ken Burns.  "It's going to be difficult for the Republican Party to figure a way to escape the specific gravity of the darkness that engulfs it."