MadisonWorld: A Future Where Corporations Have Human Rights ... And Humans Don't

[Donnachaidh]

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/rj-eskow/34883/madisonworld-a-future-where-corporations-have-human-rights-and-humans-dont

Today we saw state troopers in Madison tearing peaceful protestors out of their own capitol after the state's Senate voted to deprive them of their rights. Video footage of that event should come with a label: Brought to you by the State of Wisconsin, a wholly owned subsidiary of Koch Industries.

Right now Wisconsin is serving as the prototype for United States 2.0, a newly reconstituted nation where corporations have all the rights of personhood without any of the responsibilities - and people have all the duties of personhood without any of the rights.

Welcome to your future. They're preparing it for you right now in America's heartland.

:snip:

Think of Madison as a laboratory where the nation's billionaires are field-testing the roll-out of their latest product: a quasi-democratic state where government exists exclusively to execute decisions made by corporate interests. The purpose of any field test is to find the bugs in any product before it goes into wider distribution. Maybe the team was a little surprised at the level of pushback they got. But hey,that's what tests are for.

More at the link --

[jemelanson]

1. It is Called Feudalism.

The continuation of the push to privatize everything. Then it will be complete, the Police, the Courts, the Fire Departments, the hospitals have already been privatized. The utilities will be privatized, the public schools will be privatized, all functions of government will be privatized. That means that Corporations will run it all. Forget about having any voice in the government, any choices, or any rights. Your only right will be the right to work for a corporation and die when you don't. Forget about small businesses, the corporations will not allow for any competition. Forget about owning your home, or anything else. The corporations will own everything. You then are reduced to the level of a serf, a slave, owned by those corporations. Forget about human rights, there will be no human rights. You will receive the education the corporation deems necessary for you to be a good slave.

Just set back and watch or stand up while you still can. If you do not wake up and take action it may just be too late. It has already started. If you do not believe me look at what is happening in Wisconsin and Michigan.

When Corporations are the Government

By RALPH NADER

It was Bill Clinton’s campaign strategist, James Carville, who in 1992 created the election slogan: “It’s the Economy, Stupid.” For the 2010 Congressional campaigns, the slogan should have been: “It’s Corporate Crime and Control, Stupid.”

But notwithstanding the latest corporate crime wave, the devastating fallout on workers, investors and taxpayers from the greed and corruption of Wall Street, and the abandonment of American workers by U.S. corporations in favor of repressive regimes abroad, the Democrats have failed to focus voter anger on the corporate supremacists.

The giant corporate control of our country is so vast that people who call themselves anything politically—liberal, conservative, progressive, libertarian, independents or anarchist—should be banding together against the reckless Big Business steamroller.

Conservatives need to remember the sharply critical cautions against misbehaving or over-reaching businesses and commercialism by Adam Smith, Frederic Bastiat, Friedrich Hayek and other famous conservative intellectuals. All knew that the commercial instinct and drive know few boundaries to the relentless stomping or destruction of the basic civic values for any civilized society.

When eighty percent of the Americans polled believe ‘America is in decline,’ they are reflecting in part the decline of real household income and the shattered bargaining power of American workers up against global companies.

more at link

http://www.counterpunch.org/nader11012010.html

[Cal33]

2. What else can one expect when there are too many sociopaths

holding high positions in corporations, as well as in government?
These are people with criminal mentalities -- Al Capones, in short.

They are doing what they can to enrich and empower themselves, at
the expense (including death) of everyone else. And they will
continue to do so. This is what criminals do.

The only way to deal with this situation is to vote them out of
office. It won't be possible to get all of them all, but reducing
their numbers sufficiently will have to do.