America's Corrupt Political System's Fatal Partnership With Mass Apathy Among American Citizens

AMERICA’S CORRUPT POLITICAL SYSTEM’S FATAL PARTNERSHIP WITH MASS

APATHY AMONG THE CITIZENRY

 

                                                                         Written by James J. Crook

 

             Recent history has affirmed that capitalism is the most efficient and successful economic system in the world. The collapse of world communism is a testament to that. It did not and does not work. However, that is not to say that all is well with capitalism. In the 1920s, the world was not having an economic revolution seeking social and economic justice because there was an absent of virtue and truth in many of the arguments these socialists were making against capitalism. The issue then and still now was and is economic justice.

           

            Capitalism has become a black-and-white stigmatized word e.g. “capitalism” vs. communism. Capitalism being good and communism being bad. To just refer to the economic system known as capitalism is too simplistic. In truth, there are two kinds of capitalism. Legal capitalism and illegal capitalism. Legal capitalism is the good capitalism and illegal capitalism is synonymous with corporate exploitation, piracy, and plunder of the masses. Capitalism can be virtuous or evil depending upon how it is applied by Big Business. The Communist Manifesto had advocated the violent overthrow of all capitalistic states including America. America, like many present day European nations having a socialist political party, may have had a socialist political party to protect the masses in addition to the Democratic and Republican Parties, but for the Communist Manifesto’s advocating violence which immediately rendered it a treasonous enemy of the State and rightfully so. This resulted in the non-development of a socialist party in America. An American socialist political party would have addressed the basic needs of all American citizens and put the brakes on America’s growing aristocracy, especially regarding the plutocratic health care community’s disembowelment of the American family’s pocketbook. Such a socialist third party would have also slowed the growth of America’s rising economic caste system, quite familiar by the Nation’s minorities, many of whom work for less than livable wages. An American aristocracy and an economic caste system was never intended for this Nation by our Founding Fathers. The 14^th Amendment states there will be equal protection of the law for everyone. The U. S. Constitution never stated that corporations and multi-national foreign corporate forms were to replace America’s democracy and be allowed to dominate the United States Congress via corrupt and sellout Congresspersons “on the take”.

 

            Most Republican Congresspersons loath any type of social program of the government that addresses the basic subsistence needs of the population, and kneel at the alter of the private sector surviving on its known and 100% self reliance. As an idealistic economic principle, government should stay out of the private sector in a democracy and capitalistic state if it can. However, when the basic needs of the mass population is the issue, it is legitimate for government to intercede in the private sector. Philosophically, the only purpose of government is to serve the needs of the people. Basic needs of populations include - water and sewerage systems, damns to provide electricity to the masses such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, highways, parks, post offices, county hospitals, public housing for the homeless, public schools, free school lunches for indigent children, the armed forces, mass distribution of vaccines to head off pandemics, food stamps for indigent families without jobs or income to stave off starvation and inevitable revolution when the masses go hungry - to name a few.

 

            From the above examples and contrary to the tunnel visioned views of the Corporate America Party of Big Business, the Republican Party, there are real reasons for government social programs to assure that the basic needs of the population are met. One Republican Congressperson, as recently reported by National Public Radio, stated that he “will not vote for indigents riding on the backs of other taxpayers”. This calloused comment is tantamount to banqueting President Herbert Hoover’s stating, during the Great Depression, that as long as  he was in office, there would be ”no free lunch”. This comment was made around the time a whole town in New Mexico had not eaten in three and one half days, with a government warehouse full of food, eventually resulting in anarchy and the town marching on the government food supply, with the wise governor calling off all police resisance, seeing revolution on the horizon. President Franklin Delanor Roosevelt ended the population’s misery by opening up the floodgates to social programs that met the basic needs of Americans not being satisfied.

 

            America is no longer an 1800s agrarian society which was wholly self reliant in growing their own food and constructing their own log cabins. Americans are wholly interrelated today. If ships with produce, fruit, and meat did not sail into New York City harbor docks each day, the entire eight million people would starve. As a reminder to the socially blind and calloused Republican Party of Corporate America, long soup lines in New York City during the early 1940s were government social programs without which sustenance the people would have literally starved. Without such programs, as the French Revolution proved, there would be revolution and then Marshall Law to contain same, leading to a dictatorship in America. Regarding basic needs at the present time, over 51% of the population is going without health care. Unmysteriously, the reason for the rising inability of many Americans to provide for their basic needs on their own is they are unemployed because multinational corporations i.e. illegal capitalism has been outsourcing tens of millions of their jobs to Asia to save a few dollars per hour in wages, leaving them without income. Hence, the continuing issue of economic justice. These are the same multinational corporations who finance the political campaigns of Republican Party Congresspersons. This is the same Republican Party that allows “outsourcing” by corporations to strip mine American jobs, resists national health care, permits price fixing monopolies via un-policed corporate mergers, votes for Iraqi-type hoax wars that allows corporate defense contractors to drain the U. S. Treasury of a trillion dollar per invented war for armament sold to Uncle Sam, and permits banks and credit cards to chare obscene and hidden charges for overdrafts and late payments. The result is a rising aristocracy and the continuing disenfranchisement of the lower class poor and the latter’s entrenchment into an American economic caste system.

 

            The Republican Party is quick to discount and sweep away social programs that address the basic needs of America’s economic lower class i.e. America’s poor. What the party of big business needs to be reminded is America’s poor wouldn’t need any social programs if Corporate America did not exploit the labor market by paying American labor a less than livable minimum wage.  95% of the Nation’s wealth, it is said, is in the hands of 5% of the population. Compare this with exposes from Hurricane Katrina showing thousands of blacks living almost in tin sheds. Ex First Lady Barbara Bush callously stated, regarding social welfare efforts, “They [the New Orleans blacks] are living better now than before.” Upper middle and upper class Americans didn’t have and most haven’t a clue regarding this quite obvious American economic caste system. They would have a “big clue” if they and their children were a member of this abjectly disenfranchised class of Americans. This empirically is screaming social injustice. Equal opportunities in America were supposed to exist for all citizens, without exception, regarding education, jobs, quality of life, and the pursuit of happiness. The New Orleans blacks appear, quite obviously to have no upward mobility. Their disenfranchisement and the 14^th Amendment is a bad fit. While these 5% upper class aristocrats with 95% of the Nation’s wealth bask in their mansions i.e. palaces, America’s poor cannot even put food on the table or pay their utility bills, due to Corporate America’s exploiting these donkeys for less than livable wages. An example of this great disparity of wealth in America is an El Paso Neurologist who took 12 minutes to diagnose a pinched nerve in the low back, seen quite visibly from ex-rays by any layman, from three tests that he personally did not run, for which he bills $1,685 to insurance companies or Medicare. This type of exploitation represents an aristocracy in America, entrenched in placed by the Republican Party in its heavy resistance to President Barak Obama’s attempts to legislate a national health care system. Such exploitive charging is beyond obscene. It is evil. This scenario is always when the population allows Big Business to dominate the U. S. Congress with bribe-like transfers of big amounts of money to sellout U. S. Congresspersons.

 

            It is time to lay all idealistic illusions aside. America doe indeed have an economic caste system due to a Corporate America domination of the United States Government and replacement of its democracy with a Big Business oligarchy owning the government. In this American economic caste system wherein an upper class aristocracy prevails, most Big Business programs are designed to exploit the lower class poor because the latter does not have the financial resources to defend themselves. E.g. rich people do not overdraw their accounts. Only poor people with marginal incomes do. Hence, only the poor, already financially on their faces, are charged the $55 bank overdraft and collection charge for a $3.50 box of girl scout cookies, due to exploitive corporate creditor laws passed by Congress, when the overdraft charge used to be $0.25 and there would be no overdraft charge if the cash register was programmed to refuse credit at the retail store due to no funds in the account. Not just Corporate America but the government, at the local, state, and federal level is also in on the exploitation of the Nation’s poor, contrary to the 14^th Amendment’s equal protection of the law clause. The Texas Legislature, to its disgrace, recently passed House Bill 508 which represents a surcharge of $780 on anyone convicted of having no auto insurance. This surcharge is assessed in addition to the court fine for the ticket already paid by the driver, making the total payout to the local and state government of $1,130, payable at $35 a month for 36 months, for the no-insurance ticket. At first blush, the surcharge of the State of Texas appears to be double jeopardy as the driver has already paid the no-insurance traffic ticket, and a “taking” without consideration, both of which are Unconstitutional. Most drivers who do not have auto insurance are poor people who cannot afford the insurance as the same funds are used to buy food. To saddle these already down-and-out poor people with an additional surcharge of $760, after they paid the traffic ticket, is shameless and obscene, and in truth represents a Texas legislative scheme to raise more the state revenue, riding the backs of the already poor, driving the latter caste system members into a further miserable quality of life.

 

            A third socialist party, in addition to the Democratic and Republican Parties, is probably needed in America to protect the Nation’s economic lower middle and lower class citizens from legislated exploitation by Big Business i.e. Corporate American, and  to assure that the basic subsistence needs of America’s poor people are met. The United States is the only remaining industrialized nation in the world which does not have a national health care system., thanks to the resistance  of the aristocratic party of big business, the Republican Party. This aristocratic class needs a reminder from America’s lower middle and lower class citizens. These disenfranchised Americans represent well over 51% of the Nation’s population, and if organized and able to muster a successful voter turnout, such a majority would constitute the legitimate “government of the people”. America is not a government of Corporate America. It is a government of the people, or should be

 

            When aristocracies and economic caste systems deep anchor into a democracy or other form of government, such a widening disparity in the Nation’s wealth, in terms of social injustice, historically spells revolution such as the peasant uprising in the French Revolution which toppled its monarchy. Especially in America under the 14^th Amendment, economic justice must be provided to a majority of the citizenry in a democratic government to prevent such historical upheavals. The United States, due to mass exploitation by Big Business with the help of a sellout Congress, cannot be allowed to become the United States of Corporate America. Such a mass corruption is exampled in the hoax Iraq War which allowed multinational defense contractors to withdraw one trillion dollars from the U. S. Treasury from the mass sale of unneeded armament in an unneeded fake war, only made possible via the Republican Party. When disenfranchisement of the masses continues to increase, placing more political “ripples” upon the waters, such as Corporate America’s “outsourcing” tens of millions of American jobs abroad to save a few dollars per hour in wages, via legislated “free trade” laws, this bodes ill for the future political stability of any nation when its people can no longer pay their  bills. America’s immediate gratification aristocrats who step upon the hands and heads of the Nation’s poor leaving them hurting, should take heed from the messages of history. History usually repeats itself.

 

            Even though 51% of Americans are going without health care, Republican Party members in Congress, elected to represent the people and not Big Business, almost to the person, have entrenched in resisting President Obama’s national health care plan, and have been successful. In addition, the future of the Nation’s poor just got a bit dimmer, with the recent United States Supreme Court’s ghastly ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which declared all laws limiting Corporate America’s spending on political campaigns unconstitutional as a violation of First Amendment Freedom of Speech, and further that Corporate America could spend from its general treasury and was not limited to PAC (political action committee) money. In terms of Corporate America dominating the United States Government, this aberrant ruling is staggering when considering the unmatchable hundreds of billions of dollars in corporations’ general treasury. All non-corporate candidates  will be overrun by corporate political ads and drowned n terms of campaign rhetoric by corporations now able to legally able to buy up all airtime for campaign advertisements. Via such vast and unlimited corporate campaign spending power, Corporate America will now dominate the United States Government and transform it into a corporate department. This unfortunate future event will result in the unbridled exploitation of the American masses by Corporate America, which is always the case, as the latter’s only motivation is maximizing corporate profits. E.g. consider the secretly recorded major tobacco company’s board of directors ordering the tripling the nicotine content in theircigarettes to “hook the seven-to-twelve year old children’s market”. Even multi-national corporations will now be able to get any law passed that they submit to Congress, due to this nightmare U. S. Supreme Court decision.

 

            All is not well in aristocratic, economic caste system United States of America, as evil abounds in the form of predatory capitalism i.e. evil capitalism designed to exploit the masses. For a majority of Americans to attain economic justice, especially with the Citizens Unted U. S. Supreme Court ruling, by controlling illegal capitalism i.e.  exploitive capitalism, they will now have to wake up and depart from their apathetic ways and decide, en masse, to defend their Nation and their Country’s Heritage. Americans, especially the minorities and disenfranchised classes, will have to develop the controlling vote on a political grass roots level, in multiple political action committees on a local, county, state, and national level again in a true  “government of the people” to replace the present government of Corporate America. Other Big Business, courtesy of the Republican Party, will forever have its way in its continuing exploitation of the American masses. [Read Predatory Capitalism, written by James J. Crook, for an in depth of corporate exploitation]Unless Americans shed their present mass apathy and go on the war path attacking the present corrupt corporate domination of the United States Congress, upward mobility for over a majority of the American population will be continued to be shut down by Corporate America which now, thanks to an almost treasonous U. S. Supreme Court in Citizens United, has the legal power to own the American Government, to the demise of the Nation’s democracy.

 

America is only a government of the people if the people are willing to participate in the workings of their government and the democratic process. Otherwise, Big Business, thanks to the Republican Party, will continue to feast upon the disenfranchised masses. Regarding the calculated loss of upward mobility, it is presumed, for the disenfranchised masses, an example of this treachery is the  high cost of a college education now beyond the reach, for the most part, of America lower class poor. A college education being unreachable for many of the Nation’s lower class members, advanced education is now becoming a privilege of the upper middle class and upper class rich. This is interesting when considering the government can afford 12 years of undergraduate school, from the first to the twelfth grade, for the masses, which is three times more expensive than a four year college education, the latter being only one third the time required by the public school system in grades 1-12, for the one tenth of the undergraduate students who go on to college, or mathematically 4% of all students in the public school system going on  to college. From this, one can readily see that offering a free college education to the masses, as in the public school system,  is well within the economic resources of the state and federal governments.

 

With the present level of corruption in Congress now dominated by Big Business, a socialist party as a third party is probably what America needs to leverage such corruption in defense of the population, and to curb the many evils of illegal capitalism i.e. predatory capitalism and bring abusive capitalism back to within legal limits, Teddy-Roosevelt style, to end Corporate America’s present pirating of the masses. Much reform is needed in America. But reform is always needed in America as a continuing process and dynamic of a democracy as the Nation is a growing work-in-process at all times. America’s ship of state must be continually stirred away from treacherous waters by a concerned and sensitive population. A good starting point is to get Corporate America i.e. Big Business out of the government and to bring to a halt the Nation’s growing aristocracy and entrenching economic caste system, never intended by the 14 Amendment. The people’s support for a national health care program, as already existing within all other industrialized nations, would be a good first step to demonstrate the people have departed from their mass apathy ways and are now willing to defend America.

 

Economic justice will not be a reality in America until the Nation’s apathetic masses become politically pro-active and start organizing at the grass roots level, such as the Suffer jets of the past defending women’s right to vote. Similar movements by the people are now needed to get Big Business out of government. Probably, three fourths of the present members of the U. S. Congress and all of the Republican Party members, should be purged of political corruption - especially considering no impeachment  proceedings to remove President George W.  Bush when discovering he lied about the reasons for attacking Iraq - and voted out of office. Axiomatically, the purpose of government is to serve the people and not special interest groups. Further, the U. S. Congress should pass the 28^th Amendment to the United States Constitution curbing the power of the United States Supreme Court to assault the Nation’s democracy regarding the court’s pro-Corporate America invasion of the legislative branch of the government, reversing 100 years of anti-corruption legislation designed to keep Big Business out of government, and to end the authority of Corporate America’s unlimited spending from its general treasury funds on political candidates which will setup the eventual domination of Congress by Corporate America and multi-nationals, ending a government of the people. We will have instead a “corporatocracy”. If Congressional remedial action to curb the U. S. Supreme Court’s attack upon Congress and the Nation’s democracy aren’t soon commenced, the Nation’s democracy will be replaced by a corporate oligarchy, setting up a vast spoil system  that will dwarf that of Mexico.

 

To restate, there is much wrong with America today. The Nation’s apathetic population must transform into a pro-active citizenry to save this Country as we have known it and its Heritage, from morphing into a political system unrecognizable by all and beyond the control of the American people to change. Political leaders, at a grass roots level, must marshal local citizenry into banner carrying, vocal, parading dissenters, to put heavy pressure upon its Congressional Representative for reform action, regarding Corporate America’s present takeover of Congress, current political corruption, and the U. S. Supreme Court’s handing the American Government over to Big Business. Reform movements, historically, are always successful if the people can just get started. If the United States of America is to remain great, its people must be willing to defend it. Otherwise, all of us, on the horizon, will be future immigrants to a more prosperous nation, looking for employment to support our families.

 

Corporate America and Big Business must be extricated from the United States Congress for things to get better while there is still a government left to get better. Apathetic Americans must defend what they have, their democracy and way of life, or they may not have it much longer. It will no longer be amusing when millions of Americans start migrating out of the Country in search of a job to feed their children. But it will be too late. Illegal capitalism is an abject evil that must be stopped by the people before it destroys the Nation and there is no great legacy of individual freedoms and a high quality of life to pass onto our children. It is assumed, if Americans care about nothing else, they still care about their child or children and their children’s happiness and future. If Americans do not resist governmental corruption in its marriage with Big Business, it will mean that its citizens have lost faith  in their government and feel any patriotic effort on their parts will be useless and in vain. In this event, the American population will not defend their Nation. That will mean America is already gone. Their explanation for not resisting the things currently destroying the USA would probably be “I am only waiting for fate to deliver America into the abyss.” Where will Americans go then, without a homeland and tossing away 200+ years of glorious history and heritage of individual freedoms and  prosperity unmatched by any nation in the world?

 

The questions presented to Americans now is “Who stands by America”? Who will defend her? Who will protect American jobs and American homes? Who cries for America. I do. Do you? In the movie, The Patriot, the father wouldn’t defend the new nation UNTIL his own child got murdered in front of him by the enemy. He was helpless to stop it. It is hoped that 21^st Century Americans will not wait for that tragic event to happen before they start defending their United States. At that point, however, it may be all over but the shouting. A case of lost opportunities.

 

Food for thought.