It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymore

[RealmOfThePureForms]

The fanatical religions ruled the world until science came along and brought some logic to the world. During this time of scientific discovery between the 18th and 20th century politicians ruled the world. But today both politicians and religious leaders are mearly rulers of the past. Today corporations rule the world.

I have done so much research and read so much about this subject that I am starting a book about the entire subject. But the facts are in and Americans are being duped into believing that these stupid problems between muslims and christians, between homosexual rights activists and people who are against homosexual marriage, between pro choice and pro life, between republican or democrat ACTUALLY mean something. Well if you are paying attention to any of these issues, if you truly believe these are the most important issues in our society today are any of those mentioned above, you need to get informed and understand that there is an entirely new system in place that hasn't existed in any time in world history except the 19th and 20th centuries. And now we are seeing just how far the experiment is going to go.

It is projected that depression will be the second leading cause of death and/or morbidity by the year 2020. Cardiovascular disease, which is currently the leading cause of death and morbidity in the industrialized world, is projected to become the number 1 single cause of mortality by 2020. - World Health Orangization

There is something very wrong with the world today. And the disease stems directly from the new global mega-corporation. This machine of absolute misery leaves hopelessness and depression everywhere it goes. It owns the politicians, it has more might through it's financial power than the most popular religious leaders do over their followers, and is breaking the backs of governmnets around the world forcing them to compete with eachother by lowering wages, living conditions, environmental laws, and safety regulations just to get their business.

Of the world's 100 largest economic entities, 51 are now corporations and 49 are countries.- Institute for Policy Studies in their Report on the Top 200 corporations.

What Americans are doing to their children and to their childrens children is nothing short is ensuring that they will live in a world that has no hope of getting better only more fascist and less democratic.

It was Americans that gave birth to the Constitution, a living document that could ensure that one day all people under it's laws would be free from persecution and have inalienable rights. Ironically it was the same American nation that is responsible for creating the newest form of dictatorship, corporate fascism. And if Americans continue to be ignorant of the real problems, and don't rise up to make amendments to the US consitution to remove the ability of corporations to use thr 14th amendment to claim they have the same unalienable rights as each individual citizen of this country, then the future of this country is going to be incredibly bleak and unforgiving.

In the year of 1886 in the case of Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Bell Railroad Company, Americans officially forfieted their rights of a fair and democratic election. We have not recovered that right since, and today we are in a more perilous crossroads than we have ever been before. I would urge every American who remembers their PATRIOTIC DUTY to be informed of their nation and not their favorite TV show each day to sit down and read this court case and understand the implications it has had on our society. We have entered an era of corporate fascism and if we do not amend the consitution to remove this grievous violation of our sovereign rights, we will lose them permenantly in a few short decades.


If the American people ever allow private banks to
control the issue of their money, first by inflation
and then by deflation, the banks and corporations
that will grow up around them (around the banks),
will deprive the people of their property until their
children will wake up homeless on the continent
their fathers conquered. - Thomas Jefferson


I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. - Thomas Jefferson

On Nov. 21, 1864 President Abraham Lincoln wrote a letter to Colonel William F. Elkins. "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes strong than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." Franklin D Roosevelt

You're country needs you now more than ever. Not to fight a war on terrorism, or a war of religions, or abortion or homosexuality or republicans or democrats, but a war for the very freedom that our Constitution was created to protect before it was mortally wounded by a single Supreme Court Case.

We need to reform the Populist movement of the late 1890s. Those of you who took US History in college know what this movement was.

And taken directly from this website

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/corporations.html

for this movement to succeed this time we must

* avoid being co-opted by existing political parties;(The Democrats and Republicans)
* heal race, class and gender divisions and actively resist any campaign to scapegoat disempowered social groups;(Do not let the rich corporate powers and their pawns in office use divisive tactics on us, we are all in the same boat fighting the same common enemy that tries to hide behind each of us and whisper that the people beside us are the cause of our problems)
* avoid being identified with an ideological category--"communist", "socialist" or "anarchist"--against which most of the public is already well inoculated by corporate propaganda;
* direct public discussion toward the most vulnerable link in the corporate chain of power: the legal basis of the corporation;(Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Bell Railroad company is the case they are taking about here)
* internationalise the movement so that corporations cannot undermine it merely by shifting their base of operations from one country to another.

 

[XShipRider]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

So your post boils down to "keep the masses busy worrying about
the next crisis" which allows the corporations and politicians to
run amok. Read as: Fear Factor on a global scale.

I agree with that notion.

I realize I took a simplistic approach to your original post.

I disagree with FDR in that the growth of private power does not threaten
democracy, it enhances it. That is, unless I am misinterpreting his quote.

 

[RealmOfThePureForms]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

So your post boils down to "keep the masses busy worrying about
the next crisis" which allows the corporations and politicians to
run amok. Read as: Fear Factor on a global scale.

I agree with that notion.

I realize I took a simplistic approach to your original post.

I disagree with FDR in that the growth of private power does not threaten
democracy, it enhances it. That is, unless I am misinterpreting his quote.

Exactly. Since the Santa Clara County court case corporations have had the ability to use their money and power to grow their own infrastructure rather than contribute their earning entirely to the communities they were built from. Because they were able to do that the charters that once existed no longer required them to be taken apart after the charter expired. So they could just grow and grow until they eventually died or got so large they threatened both the publics democratic rights and the state itself.

This is what Lincoln feared and what Thomas Jefferson wrote about when he said he feared for the peoples rights that their children would grow up homeless on the continenet their fathers conquered. But I am sure neither Lincoln or Jefferson had any idea what would happen after the Santa Clara County court ruling.

There is no point in all these stupid debates about abortion and homosexuality and politicial parties that is going on today. Gun rights vs anti gun protestors, death penalty advocates vs people who want it abolished, all these arguements are smoke screens, they are much smaller problems that the common folk can easily get involved in so they feel like they have made a difference in something. But these things are just smoke screens to keep people in the information age feelings like they have used whatever knowledge they learned for some "true cause". But the mega corporations still exist, and they are still growing stronger, and they are still gaining more and more control away from our politicians and the people with each passing year. In another decade there will be no more United States. Only a vast corporate infrastructure that has slapped its large tentacles around the entire US government and prevented any possible way to legally fight back.

We now live in a country where 1 dollar = 1 vote and each corporation has millions if not billions to spend vs our very small ability to contribute. 95% of all politicians that won office in the last 15 years spent more money than their opponent did. And corporations are the chief backers of politicians running for office.

People are so busy fighting the cause of the day, being suckered into fighting against eachother over the dumbest reasons that they don't even realize what's taking place around them. This is the worst violation of American freedom that we have ever known and barely a voice can be heard about what is taking place because it was executed so flawlessly and under such distraction that few people even know it's taking place and even fewer understand how.

 

[128shot]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

So if it wasn't for corporate business entities, how do you propose citizens make money to better themselves and others?

 

[RealmOfThePureForms]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

So if it wasn't for corporate business entities, how do you propose citizens make money to better themselves and others?

This is the biggest scam we have been brainwashed to believe. That we cannot make money without corporations.

Let me explain something about corporations. When they grow to large they no longer serve a positive function. Instead they rob everyone around them and take away the rights of people.

The best analogy I have come up with for this is to imagine America as a healthy human body. Small businesses represent the blood cells in our bodies. They are the lifeline of our bodies and without them we cannot survive. But what happens when our blood cells multiply so quickly that they fail to form correctly and fail to do what they are supposed to? Wel the medical term for that is called cancer.

Think of a mega-corporation as living cancer on the American body. They grow so much faster, they abuse the environment, they get around all the laws that were put in place to keep society free, and they use their money to buy politicians.

People have been taught to believe that we cannot function as a society without this cancer. This is the lie of the corporation itself. We can function, and we would function much better.

Imagine this.

Right now Wal-Mart pays $7.50 an hour. Well because Wal-Mart screws its employees so badly, it makes its prices a little cheaper. So a box of cereal at Wal-Mart costs .50 less than somewhere else. So Wal-Mart has lowered the price of cereal by 50 cents, and lowered your wage by 6 dollars. Without Wal-Mart small businesses that could be regulated not to be allowed to grow too large could pop up.

So instead of having Wal-Mart run by rich businessmen who are making millions of dollars a year, you would have 1,000 small businesses pop up to fill the gap left by Wal-Mart. And you know who would fill those businesses up? People like you or me, people in the local cities. They would pay better, and give better benefits than any mega corporation ever would.

One such business exists in my city. A small manufacturing business owned by a father and son. It pays $11.00 to start, gives FREE blue cross health care (300 dollar value a month) and offers 1-2 dollars worth of raises per YEAR.

Now imagine if Home Depot and Lowe's did not exist. These companies won't even pay 10 dollars an hour to the average worker and offer expensive healthcare plans. They treat their workers like trash, as all large corporations do, and owould fire any workers without care or concern if they knew that it would increase their profit.

When small businesses became cancerous mega corporate toomers, they changed in more ways then anyone could ever imagine. And in doing so they are destroying the freedom that we have fought to hold onto since the founding of this country.

The lie is that we can't exist without mega-corporations. That's what they want you to believe. You never challenge the things you believe you can't live without, and that's exactly what they are betting on you believing when they sell you the lie that you can't live without them. You can, and if we did, our nation would flourish with a large middle class. The 90% of the entire nations wealth that is currently in the hands of 1% of the nation (that 1% being the wealthy corporate elite) would be brought back into the people, and trillions of dollars would go back into small business commerce between local communities and cities instead of being lost up the corporate ladder.

 

[128shot]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

A corporation is a legal document, for starters.


So I imagine that small business is also a corporation, as it is a very popular way of ownership.



So you really didn't answer my question...

 

[RealmOfThePureForms]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

A corporation is a legal document, for starters.


So I imagine that small business is also a corporation, as it is a very popular way of ownership.



So you really didn't answer my question...

No the question was answered. Perhaps you didn't understand. There needs to be limits on the size that a business can grow.

And no a small business is not a corporation.

Main Entry: small business
Function: noun
: an independently owned and operated business that is not dominant in its field of operation and conforms to standards set by the Small Business Administration or by state law regarding number of employees and yearly income called also small business concern

cor·po·ra·tion Audio pronunciation of "corporation" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kôrp-rshn)
n.

1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
2. Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body corporate.
3. A group of people combined into or acting as one body.


A corporation is something that is much larger, more influencial and more evasive than a small business. We need to revoke from the US constitution the right of the corporation to use the 14th amendment on it's own behalf. The 14th amendment was created to protect African Americans from ever being enslaved again and corporations manipulated it to get what they wanted.

The answer is simple. There must be a limit on every small business that it cannot grow large enough to be considered a corporation.

A corporation was a charter (which could be considered just a legal document) Before the court case of Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacifc Bell Railroad Company in 1886. Back then corporations served the people and were disbanded after a period of between 10 and 80 years and the profits were redistributed back into the local community. Now a corporation is a living breathing entity with absolutely no morality or empathy for anyone around it. Now it exists for only one reason, to make profits at the cost of the environment, human life, and national soveriegnty.

Just remember this, corporations no longer have allegeance to the country they came from. Corporations have morphed into a new entity called Mega-Corporations. These corporations which dominate the American landscape have no loyalty to the American government or the American people. They will and have sold things to our enemies when we were fighting for our very survival.

During world war 2 IBM sold a special punch card system which was the precursor to the computer to Nazi Germany during World War 2. IBM made MILLIONS off it it. You know what it did? It helped the Nazis catagorize Jews, Americans, English, and French, in their nazi prison camps so they could more effectively execute and transfer prisoners to newer camps when old ones were getting filled too quickly.

You should really read about what I am saying before you dismiss it. Our greatest presidents and founding fathers all knew about the power of corporations if left unchecked and they ALL spoke against it. But today, under the sirens song of corporate seduction, the lazy and uneducated apathetic majority of Americans have traded in any hope of real freedom and holding on to that which their forefathers fought so hard for.

They traded it in to be told "don't think for yourself, just buy yourself a big screen tv and everything will be ok. Oh that big screen tv is not keeping your attention anymore, well don't go out and understand the way the country is changing, instead buy a new sound system, you'll feel much better. Oh you're tired of the sound system? Well don't look into how us corporations are manipulating your entire life by telling you the only way you'll ever be happy is by buying our products, just keep buying them.

Even the few movies that dealt with this problem like Fight Club and the documentary movie The Corporation have had little or not effect on people. As the historians have stated the 10 stages that each civilization goes through before it is destroyed over and over as a warning, we have already entered the 9th stage of apathy into complecency. All that's left now is comlpeceny back into bondage.

 

[128shot]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/corporation



sounds to me like nothing more than the usual in doing business. A loop hole in direct liability. Any business can be a corporation, from a local mini-market on up.

 

[millsy]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

No the question was answered. Perhaps you didn't understand. There needs to be limits on the size that a business can grow.

And no a small business is not a corporation.

Main Entry: small business
Function: noun
: an independently owned and operated business that is not dominant in its field of operation and conforms to standards set by the Small Business Administration or by state law regarding number of employees and yearly income called also small business concern

cor·po·ra·tion Audio pronunciation of "corporation" ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kôrp-rshn)
n.

1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
2. Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body corporate.
3. A group of people combined into or acting as one body.

Am I wrong? I thought that ANY business could apply for corporation status, regardless of size. It could be owned and operated by a single person with no employees. And that it's a very smart thing to do for many reasons. For instance if your business went bankrupt, if you were not corporated then you could have your own personal assets seized.

I think that corporations are not evil in themselves, but that perhaps we should re-think laws that were created long before the multinational corporations could even have been imagined.

 

[Crispy]

RealmOfThePureForms,

I have to disagree with you here on some points.

I'll start though by agreeing that these "mega-corporations" wield a great deal of power through which they have the ability to affect policy, often times to the detriment of the people and the environment, and the desire to maximize profits and cut costs, being the driver behind decision making in business, more often doesn't factor in the human and environmental casualties of the business practices. True enough.

Couple of points though.

First your analysis dis-regards the advantages of large corporations which, through the acquisition of large amounts of capital, are able to leverage their growth in order to innovate their industries. The Robber Barron's of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while accumulating wealth at the expense of the laborers who worked for them, developed the innovative foundations of our modern industrial infrastructure. In the absence of such resources that large corporations have had at their disposal, we would be faced with a stagnation of technological innovation which would be a risk small businesses wouldn't or couldn't take. Also the growth of supporting businesses and secondary market businesses, typically the small business owner, is largely a result of big corporation's innovations and have been the cornerstone in the development of the American middle class. The growth of Microsoft for one has launched a whole new industry of small technology businesses which would never had been possible without Microsoft's innovative initiatives backed by its size in capital. Innovation has been the single biggest reason for the standard of living we enjoy and the vast workforce we have the capacity to employ and big corporations have been the primary catalysts for this.

Second, even with the influence that corporations have had over government, social reform and liberal ideologies have played and will continue to play a crucial role in guaranteeing that freedom and democracy is not compromised by private sector interests. This has been made evident throughout the 19th and 20th centuries labor movements and civil rights movements. Big corporations haven't always been on the same side of government but rather have been on the same side when the government prioritized on business growth as a necessity. Both Roosevelts necessarily stood against big business when it was necessary to sustain our society and our nation. Anti-trust legislation, Industrial regulation, anti-discrimination and worker exploitation laws have been on-going for the last century and will continue to be legislated in order to adjust to the changing needs of business and society.

I generally agree with your bullet list of the things we should do. I just don't agree that the "cancer" is multi-national corporations. There are deficiencies and benefits that these businesses bring to the table. Its more important to recognize the deficiencies as they present themselves and adjust policy as has been done in the past to minimize the impact of the deficiencies while supporting corporations who provide benefits to society.

 

[RealmOfThePureForms]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

Crispy you do make some good points about corporations positive roles. I just feel that in the 20th century we have entered a new era of corporate dominance that we have never experienced in the history of the world. We cannot accurately predict how these corporations are going to affect our society but if we look at what is aking place now we can begin to understand that these corporations do give us more negative circumstances than positive ones.

If we take our lesson from history, we know exactly how these robber barrons work when they are not under government control. We know that they try to manipulate the system, that when a law is passed to stop them from doing something they try to get around it to do the same thing.

We saw this in the 19th century. We know that before government regulated corporations that they did not pay overtime, they used child labor, they paid no healthcare, they paid no workers compensation for dangerous jobs that often left workers with lifetime injuries and no way to make a living.

My fear is that these corporations of the past challenged our government while they were in their infancy. Today the corporations have much more power and they are international putting their ability to function above the common laws of a particular nation. They can and often do pit one nations laws against another to overcome the laws that they do no like.

What will happen in 15-20 years if corporations continue to grow. Wal-Mart already employs 1 million American workers. Corporations will eventually reach a point where they not only dominate the private sector, but they can manipulate the public system by blackmailing the government into giving them what they want.

Imagine 15 years from now Wal-Mart employs 3 million workers. The US population is 300 million. Wal-Mart employs 3% of the entire US workforce. At the same time Wal-Mart has spread its business to Europe employing another 2 million. A law is proposed in the USA to limit Wal-Marts growth. So Wal-Mart threatens to pull out it's business in the USA and cause a huge political scene and embarass all the politicians who want to limit Wal-Marts power. Wal-Mart is threatening to pull 3% of the US job market sending the USA into an depression. The politicans pull the legislation for fear that the people would blame the massive economic ramifications of Wal-Marts threat on them and would elect new politicans. All of this takes place behind the scene in closed doors. Wal-Mart has affectively become powerful enough to blackmail the government.

This is the very real threat that Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR all feared. That the private sector would get so powerful, that power would condense so quickly and into the hands of only a few, that it would wield enough power to directly threaten the government economically so that the government would no longer challenge it.

This is the fear that we face in the future. In the future, government power will not be as strong as it was in the past. It will not be able to put out legislation that would prevent the dangers of corporations from becoming a reality. And with each new generation born into an increasingly less free corporate environment, it will be like slowly boiling a frog alive. Nobody will notice the temperature started at 60 degrees for one generation and slowly rose to 300 degrees 7 generations later. Our children and our childrens children will one day wake up a continent completely owned by a few rich men in a private sector. You will buy all your foods from Wal-Mart. All your computers from Microsoft. All of your banking will be done at Bank of America, and we will cease to be free anymore.

 

[RealmOfThePureForms]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

Crispy read this article.

[Moderator Mode]

9. Copyrighted Material - All material posted from copyrighted material MUST contain a link to the original work.
Please do not post entire articles. Proper format is to paraphrase the contents of an article and/or post relevant excerpts and then link to the rest. Best bet is to always reference the original source.
Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

[/Moderator Mode]

 

[Crispy]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

If we take our lesson from history, we know exactly how these robber barrons work when they are not under government control. We know that they try to manipulate the system, that when a law is passed to stop them from doing something they try to get around it to do the same thing.

We saw this in the 19th century. We know that before government regulated corporations that they did not pay overtime, they used child labor, they paid no healthcare, they paid no workers compensation for dangerous jobs that often left workers with lifetime injuries and no way to make a living.

You also need to consider that its in no corporations interest to discredit or diminish governments who support them just as its not in the governments interest to bring down a Walmart. Remember that it was JP Morgan who provided the bail out of the Bank Crash during TRs term. The Robber Barrons weren't abusing power so much as taking advantage of the rules of the game at the time. They were also being responsible contributors to the countries economic growth. Governments and Corporations are mutually dependent entities that require each others services in order to survive and prosper.

Sure corporations will do anything to maximize profits, the very nature of capitalism, but at the moments in History where this central principle was at odds with the needs of the times the government did respond and not just to check the corporations, but also to preserve them and to preserve the system. Any economist or Knowlegeable Business professional would conclude that if it weren't for government intervention during economic crisis of the past centuries, capitalism and corporations would've been crushed under the weight of their own principles.

My fear is that these corporations of the past challenged our government while they were in their infancy. Today the corporations have much more power and they are international putting their ability to function above the common laws of a particular nation. They can and often do pit one nations laws against another to overcome the laws that they do no like.

This is an important observation and also an inevitable consequence. But I'll submit to you that while Multi-National corporations can and do take advantage of the globalizing economy they're also helping other countries raise their standards of living to that of the prosperity we've been able to enjoy here. Look at India and China who, at first glance pose a threat to US companies but ultimately are providing a valuable counter balance to US world power a solely economic sphere while increasing the standard of living for their people. Its this very phenomena that's making friends of enemies.

What will happen in 15-20 years if corporations continue to grow. Wal-Mart already employs 1 million American workers. Corporations will eventually reach a point where they not only dominate the private sector, but they can manipulate the public system by blackmailing the government into giving them what they want.

Imagine 15 years from now Wal-Mart employs 3 million workers. The US population is 300 million. Wal-Mart employs 3% of the entire US workforce. At the same time Wal-Mart has spread its business to Europe employing another 2 million. A law is proposed in the USA to limit Wal-Marts growth. So Wal-Mart threatens to pull out it's business in the USA and cause a huge political scene and embarass all the politicians who want to limit Wal-Marts power. Wal-Mart is threatening to pull 3% of the US job market sending the USA into an depression. The politicans pull the legislation for fear that the people would blame the massive economic ramifications of Wal-Marts threat on them and would elect new politicans. All of this takes place behind the scene in closed doors. Wal-Mart has affectively become powerful enough to blackmail the government.

This is the very real threat that Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR all feared. That the private sector would get so powerful, that power would condense so quickly and into the hands of only a few, that it would wield enough power to directly threaten the government economically so that the government would no longer challenge it.

This is the fear that we face in the future. In the future, government power will not be as strong as it was in the past. It will not be able to put out legislation that would prevent the dangers of corporations from becoming a reality. And with each new generation born into an increasingly less free corporate environment, it will be like slowly boiling a frog alive. Nobody will notice the temperature started at 60 degrees for one generation and slowly rose to 300 degrees 7 generations later. Our children and our childrens children will one day wake up a continent completely owned by a few rich men in a private sector. You will buy all your foods from Wal-Mart. All your computers from Microsoft. All of your banking will be done at Bank of America, and we will cease to be free anymore.

My central argument here is that while all of your observations about Multi-National Corporations acting in their own interests to maximize their profits is certainly true, its in no corporations interest to destroy the foundations upon which they were built. Where there is wealth there is certainly power and to that end big corporations enjoy a great deal of power and influence and will always do so but that doesn't make them a sadistic entity in our midst without dependencies upon governments. They're not murderers or destroyers, they're sill creators. Todays governments play a vital role in sustaining and checking corporations because they provide the infrastructure required to sustain corporate enterprises (ie they provide the roads through which GM can profit from cars). They provide the regulation necessary to ensure corporate sustainability without which corporations would necessarily collapse through changing economic conditions (Airline bailouts etc.).

Also the existence of corporations small and large in general only serve to provide what is demanded to begin with. We have gas guzzling, environmentally desttroying SUV mania in this country because we want it. We want to truck our families around in big, safe, convenient vehicles. If people didn't appreciate wal-mar they wouldn't shop there and wal-mart wouldn't be the huge corporation they are. I'm a programmer and run a small business with microsoft products.

I wouldn't worry too much about the coercive powers of big corporations because while they'll coerce governments to a certain degree it doesn't serve their interests to coerce governments beyond that which would bring the government to its knees.

 

[Crispy]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

Crispy read this article.

[Moderator Mode]

9. Copyrighted Material - All material posted from copyrighted material MUST contain a link to the original work.
Please do not post entire articles. Proper format is to paraphrase the contents of an article and/or post relevant excerpts and then link to the rest. Best bet is to always reference the original source.
Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107 http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html

[/Moderator Mode]

Did I post copyrighted material? I didn't quote anybody or any article.

 

[RealmOfThePureForms]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

Did I post copyrighted material? I didn't quote anybody or any article.

Apparently the mod didn't bother to read the rules he just posted.

the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—
(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The mod also didn't bother to read the authors remarks on his own website which clearly stated that his written articles could be reproduced to show other people the truth about corporations, and yet the mod failed to even bother to read before taking action.

This is still America, we still have the right to exchange information and ideas. This nazi crap of censoring people isn't right.

 

[jallman]

Re: It's not the politicians or the religious fanatics you should be afraid of anymor

This is the biggest scam we have been brainwashed to believe. That we cannot make money without corporations.

Let me explain something about corporations. When they grow to large they no longer serve a positive function. Instead they rob everyone around them and take away the rights of people.

The best analogy I have come up with for this is to imagine America as a healthy human body. Small businesses represent the blood cells in our bodies. They are the lifeline of our bodies and without them we cannot survive. But what happens when our blood cells multiply so quickly that they fail to form correctly and fail to do what they are supposed to? Wel the medical term for that is called cancer.

Think of a mega-corporation as living cancer on the American body. They grow so much faster, they abuse the environment, they get around all the laws that were put in place to keep society free, and they use their money to buy politicians.

People have been taught to believe that we cannot function as a society without this cancer. This is the lie of the corporation itself. We can function, and we would function much better.

Imagine this.

Right now Wal-Mart pays $7.50 an hour. Well because Wal-Mart screws its employees so badly, it makes its prices a little cheaper. So a box of cereal at Wal-Mart costs .50 less than somewhere else. So Wal-Mart has lowered the price of cereal by 50 cents, and lowered your wage by 6 dollars. Without Wal-Mart small businesses that could be regulated not to be allowed to grow too large could pop up.

So instead of having Wal-Mart run by rich businessmen who are making millions of dollars a year, you would have 1,000 small businesses pop up to fill the gap left by Wal-Mart. And you know who would fill those businesses up? People like you or me, people in the local cities. They would pay better, and give better benefits than any mega corporation ever would.

One such business exists in my city. A small manufacturing business owned by a father and son. It pays $11.00 to start, gives FREE blue cross health care (300 dollar value a month) and offers 1-2 dollars worth of raises per YEAR.

Now imagine if Home Depot and Lowe's did not exist. These companies won't even pay 10 dollars an hour to the average worker and offer expensive healthcare plans. They treat their workers like trash, as all large corporations do, and owould fire any workers without care or concern if they knew that it would increase their profit.

When small businesses became cancerous mega corporate toomers, they changed in more ways then anyone could ever imagine. And in doing so they are destroying the freedom that we have fought to hold onto since the founding of this country.

The lie is that we can't exist without mega-corporations. That's what they want you to believe. You never challenge the things you believe you can't live without, and that's exactly what they are betting on you believing when they sell you the lie that you can't live without them. You can, and if we did, our nation would flourish with a large middle class. The 90% of the entire nations wealth that is currently in the hands of 1% of the nation (that 1% being the wealthy corporate elite) would be brought back into the people, and trillions of dollars would go back into small business commerce between local communities and cities instead of being lost up the corporate ladder.

well, forgive me for being a bit simplistic and possibly totally off the mark...but dont you think it might be best if society as a whole were willing to pay 50 cents more per box of cereal in exchange for wal-mart workers getting 6 dollars an hour more? If society doesnt see the benefit of that, then how can you blame wal-mart for delivering on society's expectations? Its a free market system which means society sets the standards and vendors deliver based on expectation. Those who do that best succeed and those that fail to conform to demands are doomed to fail.