“You blame bad govenment for not imposing controls on naughty corporations, but the corruption of government happens because of the vast amounts of money poured in by corporations to buy influence.”

First, I never wrote that I blamed bad government for not imposing controls on naughty corporations, and this type of distortion is a common practice of yours when you’re constructing your next straw man argument. 

My statement and sentiments are quite the opposite of your gross misrepresentation of them. Government SHOULD impose controls on corporations, and it is IMPERATIVE that the government apply those controls equally and fairly to all parties. Those controls are called LAWS, and as long as those laws are in accordance with the Constitution, it is one of the primary functions of the central government to make sure everyone is held to them. It is only when, as you say, corporations pour vast amounts of money to buy influence, that the process works contrary to the intentions of the FF’s. You seem to accept the flawed premise that because big corps can, and do, game the system, that the system needs to be scrapped. That’s about like saying that since players constantly break the rules of the game, we should simply give up trying to enforce the rules, and invent a new game.

You constantly trash “Capitalism” as though it were the CAUSE of systemic abuse by corps, the government, and the incestuous relation between the two. That is the perception of a child. Capitalism is a concept, and at the root of that concept is the right of individuals to own property, the right to enjoy the fruits of their labors and inventions as they see fit, and the right to make whatever deals they regard as most prudent, with other individuals; all of course within the boundaries of Constitutional law. When people game that concept, or abuse the privilege that concept embodies, it’s not the concept that is at fault, but the people who’ve abused it.

Freedom is another concept. In a relatively free country it is reasonable to expect a higher degree of crime. Are you going to make a parallel argument that freedom sucks because more crimes occur in a free society? This is essentially the argument you constantly use to smear Capitalism. In an extremely strict and oppressive dictatorship, where everyone’s activities are heavily monitored, crime is usually low. Do you want the same type of government oppression dictating how much we’re all paid, what we produce, how much we ask for our products, and how we use our property, if we’re allowed to own it? 

The trade off we accept for having more freedom is that we’ll expect more crime. The trade off we must accept with Capitalism is that there will be greater possibilities for abuse, but that only requires more vigilance by the referee to spot and penalize those abuses. 

You seem to believe that huge multinationals are autonomous and beyond control, and that may be true to some extent. The question you fail to ask is, “How did they get that way?”. If you trace the genesis of all of those coercive monopolies, you’ll find generous amounts of government fertilizer that helped them grow so large. THAT is the tie that must be severed, as it is a tie, or relationship, that is destructive to the intentions of the FFs. If the government were to eject all lobbyists, remove all government buttresses, and reveal the amounts of influence money paid by EVERYONE, and maintain a level playing field, then your scary multinationals would begin to decay as smaller entities make inroads into their territory. Monopolies and multinationals can only exist if the game is fixed, not because there is something wrong with the rules or intent of the game. 

As an ex-Democrat, I amaze myself because I’ve come to feel somehow that the only way to correct some of the major problems that have arisen because of the cesspool that Washington has become is at the local and state levels.  Our blogs usually cover national issues.  

At the state level, I see mostly blind loyalty in the state parties (at least in my state) to the national party.  I would love to see the states begin to undermine the national parties by breaking away and figuring out how to have state political parties that get to work independently somehow from the national parties.  I’m too inexperienced and can’t think it through, but it’s the current party system that I would like to see undermined.

Another socialist, the late Michael Harrington believed that the presidents of multi-national corporations did not look in the mirror every morning and ask how they could screw (his word) Americans – a view commonly held by ’60s ideologues.

As far as the government being out of whack, I agree but not for the same reasons as you.

The federal government was never intended to control our retirements, medical care, and frankly most aspects of our lives. Something goes wrong we look to the federal government to fix it which they never do – they make it worse.

Actually, my views on Article V are the result of reading quite a few scholars of the constituion who say exactly what I’m saying: once you open the door to a constitutional convention you are not bound to consider only the initial argument or amendment. It’s actually open-ended at that point.

My view of corporations is not based on a perception that they are somehow evil but on the actual fact that, in their worldview, they are amoral that is: without any duty towards or reference to morality or ethics. If you say: “Bill Gates, you have a monopoly on all the operating systems on the face of the earth – you are a bad man.” He will very rightly reply: “What are talking about? I just did exactly what you tell businessmen to do: crush your enemies, destroy your competition by any means necessary, corner the market and acquire all of everything.”

In our culture’s adulation of Capitalism we have chosen to ignore that reality – to our detriment. Corporations will always strive to become monopolies, it is unreasonable to expect them to do otherwise. In like wise, capitalism depends upon the many being pillaged by the few -that’s just the nature of the beast.

Where we make our mistake is that we equate capitalism with democracy in our minds – when, in reality, they are antithetical. That’s why we can listen to so-called ‘conservatives’ for decades as they spew corporate/fascist propaganda thinly disguised as promoting ‘business interests’. Nevermind that all these schemes inevitably result in even more disparity between rich and poor, even more concentration of wealth amongst fewer an fewer, ever more debt being loaded on our children’s children.

We have to get over our belief that, because we lost the lottery last week, our odds of winning are better this week…

Hey oowawa, has this happened to you. My post was up, and even made it to the recent comments box, then poof, it was gone. 

Admin: Is it ever going to be possible to engineer this newish formate so that we can click on comments in the “recent comments” box, and go straight to them? We all waste a lot of time searching for comments, especially on the longer threads, when we’re trying to respond to comments that pop up in the recent box.