The Socialist Collective Has Come!!

Pretty sad demonstration.  Notice the line of cops at the left.

Yes!

“Socialist collectivization” has come!

Only one problem – it’s collected at the top.

Many socialists have always believed that capitalism would eventually lead to top down collectivization. It is considered an indication of end-stage capitalism.  Or wishful thinking.

The trend under modern capitalism, it is argued, is toward a top-down command-model bureaucratic collectivism in which huge oligopolies administer prices, control the politics of investment and credit, buy off the political system and define cultural tastes and values while obtaining protection and support from the state.

Anyone prepared to argue with that?

It is not a good thing that under modern capitalism effective control over investment, credit and social planning is increasingly vested in the hands of unelected elites with their own class interests and which impose their own class-determined notions of the public good.

 Several years ago there was an article posted in Fortune magazine that 21 CEOs in this country got “golden parachutes” worth at least $100 million each. Twenty one. One hundred million plus dollar parachutes.  Each.

That’s not what they earn annually mind you.

That’s the payoff for losing their job.

The payoff is to “compensate them for the risk of being fired in a merger” and to encourage them to “act objectively” when faced with a decision which might cost them their jobs.

Heehee. We should all be compensated for that risk.  What’s your severance package?

It is time to look on oligopolies as the equivalent of nation states. Does anyone doubt that major corporations wield more power than most countries?  Is Exxon-Mobil more powerful than say Honduras? How about Argentina or Chile? You bet your ass it is.

It’s Chairman is a major power player in the world. What he thinks and does matters. And he has his own class values, makes hundreds of millions a year and has that golden parachute.

And he is an un-elected member of the ruling elite, chosen by members of his own class. How many of you know his name? (I don’t)

In the area of government it has become obvious that our “representatives” have been bought and paid for by elites at the top of the money pile. Both sides take the money. Thank you to the Supreme Court for making the situation even worse than it was.

Corporations already have personhood status; Obama’s secret trade deal which he is trying to fast track through a bought Congress will grant corporations the essentials of nationhood.

The gerrymandered House has been populated by ideologues who view “government as the problem” and who will effectively starve any “entitlement programs” characterizing them as “socialism”, while continuing to support unbridled military spending to what Dwight Eisenhower called that “military-industrial complex”. To these folks, regulation of corporate behavior is anathema. It’s the opinion they are paid to hold.

The Senate has been neutralized by archaic rules so that nothing, not even routine business, can get done with a simple majority. Neither party is willing to give up this power to paralyze, thinking ahead to when it will be in the minority. And so the stalemate continues while corporatism rides amuck. Nothing in Obama’s last half dozen State of the Union addresses had a prayer of being acted on – let alone passed. The saddest part is that he knew it before he even said it.

Thirty five or forty years ago one could always find several Republicans willing to work with Democrats and vice-versa. This is what made governing possible. Today the most conservative Democrat is considered far to the left of the most liberal Republican. No one even talks anymore – the hatred is visceral and palpable to the bone – in the chambers and in the streets.

Meanwhile our media spends an inordinate amount of time creating “news” out of thin air.   All of you who are tuned in have read about the journey of Kylie’s lips.

No?   You need to get out more.

Meanwhile its tough to get real news; little of it is worth a damn in this country.  You’re better off reading the blogs while being conscious that the NSA is probably watching what you read.

The media is now corporatist owned and part of the problem, best exemplified by “embedded journalists” (read in-bed journalists) to bring us the latest up to date military news the pentagon wants us to hear.

So what can we do? Our Electoral College system virtually destroys 3rd parties – the Electoral College overstates the winner’s popular vote margin, understates the loser’s and obliterates third parties. If a candidate gets 49.9% of the vote in every state and his opponent gets 50.1% he or she will get zero Electoral votes. That’s zero. And the election will be characterized by the bought media as a “landslide”.  Third parties have no chance without the complete demise of one of the two major parties.  As Emma G. said:  “If voting changed anything they’e make it illegal!!”.

The Supreme Court (thanks to my goombahs Scalia and Alito)  decision virtually granting “personhood” to corporations is so ludicrous as to border on obscenity.   We Italians know fascists when we see them.

A corporation is a legal construct.

I’ll believe a corporation is a person when we execute one here in Florida – or better yet, in Oklahoma, where it will not be  easy to wash the blood off of their hands from their last execution.    Barbarians.

How do you execute a corporation?  You revoke it’s charter for criminal activity.  Don’t expect that for the mega-banks charged with criminal manipulation of foreign exchange rates and interest rates.  Not one of their officers will go to prison.  The corporations will pay a few percent of what they stole in fines.

Big deal.

As to corporate personhood, ask those CEOs with $100 million parachutes if their corporation is a person.

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http://inthesetimes.com/article/12165/lets_talk_democratic_socialism_already

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Eugene V. Debs – Nothing much has changed.