The coming serfdom.

[Javaman]

The corporate sponsored protests, aka teabaggers, birthers, etc., are means to an end of less government in their affairs. Aside from wealth and the obvious control, what are the corporations end game?

I believe so the can "buy up" a whole U.S. States.

You may think I'm crazy, but this is what I see happening.

Now that the supreme court is going to rule any day now that corporations can contribute to any political candidate just like a person, what keeps them from using their massive influence to keep buying one senator after another? Nothing.

They will control and manipulate them to the point that no laws will ever be passed that does harm to corporations or they deem an obstruction to their business.

The country will be divided into "sales territories" and the corporations will promote their brand of bullshit via their salesman. (read senator or reps)

They will push upon the US, their version of, first, corporate fascism, under the dwindling credibility of democracy. This will be followed shortly after by corporate serfdom. We already live with a version of that, abet a small version.
Just a massive version of the company store. Use walmart as your operating example.

Once the doors are flung open on corporate donations, we are done.

Everything from that point on will be controlled by the corporations.

If they don't want you, you will be fired, but not just from your job, but from life.

Your freedom of speech will vanish, because they will state that "even when you are not at work, you are still "representing" the company as an employee".

It's endless.

The privatization of every aspect of our nation will become the norm.

These easily manipulated mouth breather protesters, of the teabag variety, scream and shout about how government needs to be smaller, but their pea brains little rants fail to see the lurking corporate giant that keeps feeding them. But then again, I guess a salad shooter from walmart is more important to them then cheaper meds, quality health care, lower premiums, lower copay, and lower general costs. Or, gasp, a single payer or public option, which actually empowers the average citizen.

I'm waiting for the day when the White House is sponsored by AT&T. "This presidential state of the union speech is brought to you by AT&T, when you talk, we listen".

[villager]

1. Rollerball -- the first version:

Been coming for awhile...

[Javaman]

2. Yes, indeed.

I have to rewatch that again.

[Greyhound]

7. The remake (God awful waste of celluloid) is particularly ironic.

It represents exactly what Norman Jewison was warning us about in the first film.

[villager]

47. exactly so -- unless they were making a deconstructed comment with that remake

...far above our mortal understanding! ;-)

[Kievan Rus]

14. Paul Verhoeven's classic "Robocop" as well

[Javaman]

18. Brilliant movie. nt

[Vinnie From Indy]

46. My very first thought as well

They lost the eighteenth century in their vast "bubble memory" computer.

[anonymous171]

3. If corporations are people then they should be treated as people by the law.

I want to see corporations being tried in court as people. I want to see them arrested and imprisoned for any crimes they commit. I want to see some of the more heinous offenders executed by the state for their crimes.

[Javaman]

8. That would be nice.

The right would argue that they are special and can't be held accountable like a person.

Okay, fine. If that is the case, then if the corporation is found guilty of something, then they cease to exist for a specific period of time. Much like a person going to prison and losing their freedom. The corporation loses their ability to operate.

The continuation of sentencing corporations to monetary fines is a losing battle. Their wealth dictates that, what ever the fine, it won't hurt them in the long run.

If there is to be no stopping of operations, then crippling fines need to be levied.

But alas, a simple look at exxon and their refusal to pay the rest of the massive fine from the Valdez spill is enough to know how far that would go.

[anonymous171]

13. Yep. The state has no problem arresting and coercing the lower classes.

But when they are called upon to take on big money suddenly they lose their nerve.

[TransitJohn]

23. I'm all about revoking some fugging charters!

But that isn't likely to happen. How about amending the Constitution to reserve Constitutional rights to natural people? That's what we must do.

[closeupready]

4. 'coming'? Honey, it's BEEN here. You didn't get the memo, but it's been here.

n/t

[Burma Jones]

5. It can be a very comfortable serfdom........

[TorchTheWitch]

6. Corporations have long since bought the nation

Where have you been???

[Greyhound]

9. We've been serfs for a few generations already, it's just that now they are cutting

down on the gilding, so more people are starting to notice it.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

10. I keep hearing right wingers say that they don't want their healthcare determined by a bureaucracy

(and they're referring to a government one). They don't seem to have a response when it's pointed out that healthcare decisions are already being made for them by private bureaucracies.

We live in a complex world far removed from the simplicity and self-sufficiency of hunter-gatherer tribes or even large agricultural plantations and manors. Our complex world requires a large government and we are going to be governed regardless. The question is whether we will be governed by a representative one or by one elected by the board of directors whose only interest is in profiting for themselves.

[leveymg]

11. In James Coburn's "The President's Analyst" (1967) AT&T is the Gov't

The CIA and the KGB work together, and the FBI just can't quite grasp that. The truth has been out there for a long time.

The issues of confidentiality, paranoia, the roles of psychiatry and psychotherapy, and supervision are all dealt with in a vividly satirical and enjoyably surreal way (such as the scene where Shaefer sees his own psychiatrist/supervisor to discuss whether he should take on the job as the President's analyst: they meet in the Whitney Museum in New York and the supervision jumps from room to room necessitating a commentary on modern art). The surrealism of the film and the sight of Dr. Sidney Shaefer playing the gong in a psychedelic rock band while they're all tripping on LSD blend in with powerful social satire, and even break from the satirical thread altogether. Of note, Godfrey Cambridge plays the CIA agent who has vetted Dr. Shaefer by undergoing an analysis with him; during an early scene, he tells an extraordinary story about racism from his youth.

Overall, this is one of the more effective psychedelic-era comedies. It is generally viewed as a satire, and as such has two rather unexpected themes: one, its representation of the KGB and the CIA is far more sympathetic than its representation of the FBI; two, its view seems to be that liberalism, or an American liberalism, is conquering America and that conservativism is on its last legs. These themes may be naïve, or satirical themselves, and in the latter case, are certainly ironized by the pending decades--long conservative backlash that would see figures like Nixon, Reagan, and Gingrich crush the druggy, sexual optimism of The President's Analyst.

[Speck Tater]

12. Climate change, failing economy, and the collapse of civilization will end their game.

When the few thousand remaining human survivors on earth are all huddled together in the the arctic and antarctic livable zones, corporations won't even exist any more. So why worry about them?

The changes headed our way are so massive that worrying about insignificant things like corporate power, health care, and politics is utterly pointless. Those things are all quickly passing, soon to be moot distractions that don't matter one whit.

[Hannah Bell]

15. bs

[Javaman]

19. care to elaborate? I'm curious. nt

[Hannah Bell]

24. your picture of a few remnants huddling at the poles.

and the "nothing matters" trope.

[Javaman]

26. Um, I'm the OP not the previous poster.

But I believe I get your point.

So you believe that resources are infinite?

[Hannah Bell]

29. sorry for mistaking your identity. your question = non-seq.

on edit: to be more clear, obviously resources on earth aren't infinite.

that fact has nothing to do with the op's picture of a remnant human band huddling at the poles due to climate change, or the op's assertion that this prediction means political activity = futile.

[Javaman]

34. No actually, it's not. In reference to the previous posters comment...

it dovetails quite nicely into the whole doomer scenario. Climate change is happening, but prior to that becoming full blown, we are going to be dealing with resource depletion prior to that.

No resources + climate change = massive die off.

So, I'm assuming you are a reasonably intelligent person and don't believe that resources are infinite.

Cheers!

[Hannah Bell]

37. the fact that resources aren't infinite doesn't constitute proof the op or the doomer

scenario = true.

nor that political activity = futile.

however, it does well to gather people under the banner of fatalism & apathy, where they may be herded by the ptb like cattle.

[Javaman]

39. Well, in my defence...

I'm experiening a bit of depression today.

I know, cop out. LOL

Just curious, that's all.

[Hannah Bell]

40. my comments aren't directed at you personally. hope your day gets better.

[Javaman]

42. Cheers! Thanks :) nt

[Javaman]

16. Very good point.

there are certain things that I hope for, to which, I'm called a doomer.

resource depletion will, I hope, begin their fall, but not without a lot of corporate violence first. In the form of hostile take overs and the use of private armies.

Couple that with rising ocean levels, less and less arable lands and choking heat, it will be all they can do to maintain their corporate image.

I think at that point, corporations will devolve into fiefdoms, then fail altogether as the worlds problems become insurmountable.

Then begins the general collapse.

200 years from now, no one will know what an AT&T is, let alone; was.

The world resets.

[Echo In Light]

20. "The world resets." Yes, that sums up this epochal era.

Or, as George Carlin put it, 'the planet ain't goin' anywhere - WE ARE!'

[anonymous171]

17. What? The Earth isn't going to turn into a gigantic oven.

Everything is just going to become more scarce, which would fit right into the wealthy's plans. They will become more and more powerful as resources become more and more scare because they own the means of distributing those resources.

[daleanime]

27. In the mean time...

those little issues slow down our response to the bigger problems you hint at, so maybe they do matter?

[TransitJohn]

31. If by soon you mean on the geologic time scale, then yeah, sure

but we should still be trying to affect positive change for ourselves and our progeny, don't you think?

[FlyByNight]

21. A handful of industries already run/own the US...

...from Wall St./big finance, to PhRMA, to the healthcare industry, to the military-industrial complex, to the prison-industrial complex, etc., etc.

Congress isn't inclined to check executive power anymore and they've been reduced to middle management due to the tsunami of corporate money. The US is now, pretty much, a proto-fascist, corporatist state.

And once the Supreme Court rules on that Citizens United case...

:scared:

[anonymous171]

22. The Military Industrial Complex is controlled and run by Wall Street.

[Javaman]

25. That's true. I had forgot what Obama had said about Alabama

that one health care corp has 90% of the business in that state.

"Congress isn't inclined to check executive power anymore and they've been reduced to middle management"

Brilliant statement.

If they rule in favor of the corps, life as we know it, just doesn't change, it gets a complete make over.

[Soylent Brice]

28. Javaman, you are on a roll today.

i don't think the SCOTUS will let this get through, but the fact it even came this close should be a huge wake up call for everyone.

of course, if i'm wrong, we're all fucked anyways and it doesn't matter.

so, i hear Norway is pretty cool...


http://www.ssb.no/en/

:shrug:

exodus anyone?

[Javaman]

33. I would like to think that this is a wake up call...

But alas...

I don't know what's with me today, I'm actually quite depressed over a personal issue in my life at the moment. I guess this gets my, "I'm worried over everything" creative juices going.

Cheers! :)

[Soylent Brice]

35. i hate to say this, but...

i hope you're depressed more often.

lol

[Javaman]

38. LOL :) nt

[Statistical]

30. You are mistaken. That isn't even the case before the supreme court.

Nothing in the case is about donations to candidates. Period.

Please read about Citizens United v. FEC before jumping to "oh noes".

[Javaman]

36. Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce.

This is important because that was the Supreme Court case which ruled that restrictions on campaign contributions by corporations, unions and other organizations were legal despite their infringement on First Amendment rights.

Simply put, if the Supreme Court decides to overturn Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, it will mean that any restrictions on campaign spending by corporations will be invalid because they violate those corporations’ right to freedom of speech.

“The court, at the very least, is considering reversing more than 100 years of campaign finance precedent prohibiting corporate spending,” Paul Ryan, associate legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, told The Hill. “It would be a pretty large step, and remarkable step, for the court to overturn a century of public policy.”

Judicial observers fear overturning the 1989 ruling would mark the beginning of a wild, unbridled era where elections are won by the highest bidder.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/05/will-supreme-court-allow-unlimited-corporate-contributions-to-election-campaigns/

[Statistical]

41. None of that implies unlimited DONATIONS.

The issue is can campaigns SPEND money not DONATE money.
If you read the transcripts or listened to the oral arguments that point would be very clear.

Also it is very unlikely the court will get a majority on completely blowing the doors wide open.
We are looking mostly likely at a modest compromise.

There are essentially 3 camps:
no changes: 4 votes
minor changes: 2 votes
substantial changes: 3 votes

Scalia can't win w/ 3 votes. The liberal 4 can't win with 4 votes.

One side will need to attract the middle to get 5 or 6 votes that likely will require some compromise and meeting in the middle.

[Javaman]

43. Huh, thanks for the explanation and insight.. :) nt

[damntexdem]

32. Too optimistic -- serfdom may be a much higher status than what Americans are heading for.

[juno jones]

44. Yes both serfdom and slavery denote a status that, while lowly,

Is still valued as a tool or possession and given a certain amount of maintenance such as food and shelter to keep it functioning.

I don't think we have any intrinsic value to our nascent overlords. We are 'free to starve' here.

[juno jones]

45. K&R!

I am in much the same mood right now. :evilfrown: