Calling for a war of ideas, for the people and against the U.S. corporate takeover now in progress
Well, we’ve finally ended one war (officially, at least). By the way, isn’t it so strange that nowadays, conducting more than one war at a time seems “normal”? Anyway, now that we’ve ended one, I have a proposal for a new one.
Now, I’m a man of peace, don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating war with Iran, as some – believe it or not – are. I’m not calling for a conventional war, nor even one like the “war on drugs” – as that is nearly as destructive as the kind with bombs.
No, I’m talking about a that war all good citizens should now engage themselves in. Everyone needs to sign up, not just the 1% of mostly low-income Americans who go to fight the destructive wars for the 1% with all the power and money. The war I’m proposing is a war of ideas, for the people, and against the corporate takeover now in progress.
Because, make no mistake, there is a corporate takeover underway. We’ve heard for decades about corporate takeovers of other businesses, but now they are out to take over our government.
Sound paranoid? Sure it does, even to me. But one look at the facts on the ground, and you can see the enemy of democracy flanking us on all sides.
With the help of corrupt elected officials and judges, corporations now completely fund our elections. If you want to win an election, you must bow down to the big money, and then be its servant once in office.
Corporations can spend unlimited sums of money to get their candidates elected, and can even do so secretly. Because the courts have ruled that “money equals speech,” these ever-more powerful entities drown out the rest of us, with their expensive “speech” versus our ordinary, neighbor to neighbor speech.
Corporations control the media beyond ad buys as well, telling us just what they want us to hear, via biased “news” coverage, specials, etc. And what they don’t tell us speaks volumes too.
One person, one vote is not served well with the dominant influence of a few in our media.
Oh, and big business increasingly count the votes as well, electronically, using secret, proprietary software. It’s not who votes, it’s who counts the votes — as Stalin (supposedly) said.
Also, we’ve helped them compartmentalize the electorate, by only watching the cable news we “agree” with, subscribing to the twitter feeds that reflect our point of view, hanging out with only “our” crowd on Facebook, and so on. Even Google searches return results tailored to our individual tastes, and advertising is increasingly adapted to our surfing tendencies online.
But to fight this necessary war, a war of ideas, we need to talk to those we’re less comfortable talking to. We need to let them know it’s OK to think outside their little boxes. That all these issues are thought about many ways by reasonable people, and so, if others with intellect are convinced of something, it’s at least worth an honest look. Without preconceptions.
One thing to bring to our fellow citizens’ attention is this: There is a big push for a constitutional amendment, which would reverse some very poor Supreme Court decisions, and declare that corporations, in fact, are not people. This is a good thing, and should be part of our new war.
But we should also press for congressional action, as outlined by this article on the Humor Times website. In it, James Marc Leas of Truthout.org argues that the Constitution includes “sufficient checks and balances on all three branches of government – including the courts – to prevent the kind of tyranny we now suffer.”
“Under our existing Constitution,” Mr. Leas says, “Congress already has the power to stop the court from making any more of the decisions that have allowed the 1 percent to buy elections. Then Congress can pass legislation reversing the unconstitutional decisions the court has made to corrupt elections.”
The provision he’s referring to in the Constitution reads: “The Supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact with such Exceptions and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” (US Constitution, Article III, Section 2.)
“Hence, under the Constitution,” says Leas, “Congress has the power to remove Court jurisdiction over financing election campaigns. Removing Court jurisdiction means that the court would not even be able to take up cases involving financing of elections. Congress and state legislatures will then be free to pass laws removing private money from election campaigns.”
So, we have our marching orders. If we want to keep our democratic republic, and not allow a corporate takeover which would render our country a defacto oligarchy, we must work hard to convince Congress to make the change Leas advocates.
And why not fight the war on two fronts? Let’s work for the constitutional amendment as well.
It’s time to fight, or lie down and lose what our forefathers gave us. Which will it be?
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