Corporate Domination Is the Defining Issue of Our Time
It’s not ‘wokeness,’ even war is just another mechanism to siphon public dollars, and our days of peaceful protest are numbered
Everybody knows it; our government is purchased. Special interest groups run the show. Lobbyists write the freaking legislation, handing the member of congress who introduces it some key talking points before it’s codified into law.
Politicians spend the overwhelming majority of their time on the phone begging for money and promising to return the favor, then making stock trades using information they’ve obtained in the hallowed halls of government. A place where really ‘going pro’ means to get a powerful committee spot, then cashing in and becoming a lobbyist yourself or getting paid seven figures to be on a corporate board and show up to a couple of meetings a year.
The federal budget is a pretext for handing billions in cash to corporations, and 99% of legislation passed in the last fifty years has been to the sole benefit of big business and oligarchy.
That famous Princeton study from 2014 said it best: America can no longer be considered a democracy. The will of the people and public opinion have almost zero effect on what legislation is passed.
From the ‘excess of democracy’ in the 1960s to that famous Powell Memo of 1973, directing business to get heavily and strategically involved in politics, the nation has been on a slow decline, hollowing itself out from the inside.
That famous Princeton study from 2014 said it best: America can no longer be considered a democracy. The will of the people and public opinion have almost zero effect on what legislation is passed.
From war to media, pharmaceuticals, real estate, agriculture, healthcare, immigration, the criminal justice system, and more, corporations have their parasitic tentacles in every aspect of America, and they’re coming for public education.
They’re supranational entities and have no real allegiance to the country in which they were formed. The only mission is to take, exploit, corrupt, and grow, citizens are of no concern.
It’s a global disease as these corporate giants have more wealth at their disposal than most nations and use that influence in America, Europe, the IMF, and World Bank to steal resources of small countries, exploit their land, use child labor, and threats of US government sanctions, covert operations, or straight-up military action if needed.
If ever held accountable by a smaller country's court, they just pack up and leave, never rectifying the damage, pollution, and death.
Domestically, the only government spending that is permitted has to go to corporate subsidies, bailouts, police, or the military; everything else is seen as a frivolous handout.
As Chris Hedges likes to say, a poor person is worth nothing to corporate America. But slavery and involuntary servitude are legal when they’re punishment for a crime, so there’s an incentive to lock up the poor in corporate-owned prisons, get $35,000 from the state per inmate, overcharge them and their families for everything from phone calls to soap, and make them work for nothing or a dollar a day for Walmart, McDonald’s, Sprint, Avis, Starbucks, Verizon, Aramark, Wendy’s, Compaq, Bank of America, a freaking call center, or any other massive corporate giant that is utilizing prison labor.
It is grotesque. And that profit incentive factors into America’s overly punitive system with barbarically long sentences.
The Steven Donziger case shows even the US justice system can be easily corrupted as Chevron used its might to be the prosecutor, judge, jury, and sentencer against the environmental lawyer who initially beat them in court.
And it’s only getting worse.
Domestically, the only government spending that is permitted has to go to corporate subsidies, bailouts, police, or the military…
It’s not a ‘woke government’ problem
It blows my mind how many right-wing ‘intellectuals’ get paid to run around the planet and talk about how ‘the left’ is all-powerful and ‘woke culture’ is destroying the world.
If the ‘radical left’ has ‘taken control of the government’ in America, why is the minimum wage still seven bucks an hour? The ‘radical left’ runs the show and yet the healthcare system hasn’t changed, there’s been no criminal justice reform, voting rights protections, immigration reform, higher taxes on the rich, higher corporate taxes, cuts in CEO pay, guaranteed maternity leave, sick days, the right to unionize, student debt forgiveness, lower tuition fees, police reform, anti-trust enforcement, or any other left-reform that real working people are demanding.
Most of those issues are quickly moving in a right-wing pro-corporate direction. So what the f*ck are the Ben Shapiros of the world screaming about all the time?
As for ‘wokeness,’ of course, one could find cringe case studies or somebody who got fired too quickly for an ill-advised tweet or miscommunication. That’s a problem, but far from the gravest threat to humanity or leading to the downfall of the ‘freedom-loving West.’
The overemphasis on identity and language is directly linked to corporate domination because it allows them a form of ‘promoting progress’ that doesn’t affect their bottom line. They can put a BLM banner on their website but still use child labor, prison labor, and pay their employees poverty wages.
It’s not because they’re ‘woke’ or give a single f*ck about minorities or the LBTQ+ community.
Politicians have to pretend to be doing something in Washington and talking about those issues doesn’t immediately affect corporate quarterly earnings.
The Republican version is to pretend to be Christian, lean into those themes, and say they’re standing up for constituents when they’re really doing nothing but corporate bidding.
The Democratic version — the barely lesser evil that used to be the party of labor unions but has sunk into corporate pockets deeper than the Marianna Trench — is to claim to be on the side of progress but not be able to actually implement higher wages, functioning healthcare, maternity leave, criminal justice reform, end the wars, or raise taxes on the wealthy because they’re owned.
Those issues cost donors money. Democrats might talk about them, but they’ll never truly act on them until there is election finance reform.
So, they lean heavily into identity and language. They kneel in Kente cloth for a photo op. They pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, use the correct verbiage, and promote non-revolutionary minority causes or adopt them to control the direction, the tone, and nullify them as a threat to corporate hegemony.
It’s window dressing masquerading as progress. It can be doubly sinister because it trivializes LGBTQ+ and minority rights issues when people's lives are really being affected.
They’ll use a term like ‘Latinx’ but won’t help the Dreamers, give immigrants clear a path to citizenship, higher wages, safer working conditions, or — because foreign policy plays a massive part — won’t allow a country like Guatemala true autonomy over its natural abundance, get it out from under the neocolonial structural adjustment programs imposed by the IMF or forgive loans whose principal has already been paid back and was usually taken out by a US-backed dictator to buy weapons to use against his own freaking people.
They won’t do any of that. But they’ll be shocked and horrified and stand with their immigrant brothers and sisters when Trump says something xenophobic or posts a freaking burrito bowl picture with his thumb up on Cinco de Mayo.
And it’s only getting worse.
They pretend to be on the side of the oppressed, use correct verbiage, and promote non-revolutionary minority causes or adopt them to control the direction, the tone, and nullify them as a threat to corporate hegemony.
Business plays the game too
Recession, COVID, and war — it doesn’t matter — corporations win; employees and working people lose. There’s a reason organizational psychologists like Adam Grant do the podcast circuit and get paid mad money to speak to companies and try to help workers find meaning in their bullsh*t jobs — it’s the US version of the net outside the window at WorldCom that catches the poor souls who are trapped in prison conditions making our iPhones.
In America, it’s a day session in the conference room where a speaker tries their best to get employees ‘not to jump’ and ‘find meaning’ in their grey-ass offices, under fluorescent lights, while they get ten minutes to eat lunch from a vending machine, and spend fourteen hours in a chair at a screen, but only get paid for eight, as they make money for a corporate behemoth that did billions in profits, billions in stock buybacks, and sent out billions in dividend checks to shareholders, but would kick them out the door in a heartbeat.
But don’t question any of that, Kind Employee. HR just sent an email about a very exciting diversity seminar, and there’s now a ‘mindful practice booth’ on the third floor that is really just a large locker that employees can wedge themselves into and scream bloody murder outside the audio range of their ‘team members.’
It’s a charade.
Big Business can keep paying employees barely-livable wages and dodge their taxes but have some uber-cringe speaker like Robin freaking DeAngelo at their corporate headquarters, and then claim they’re ‘making a difference.’
It’s a similar dynamic to Democrats in government.
We’re not going to materially help you, get you better healthcare, or higher wages, but we will tweet the right things, pretend to support progressive causes, and act like employees’ misery is all about their freaking mindset.
Big Business can keep paying employees barely-livable wages and dodge their taxes but have some uber-cringe speaker like Robin freaking DeAngelo at their corporate headquarters, and then claim they’re ‘making a difference.’
The purveyors of bullsh*t
In this corporate-owned world, it is bananas to me that seemingly intelligent people can go off on how ‘the radical left’ is running the government and destroying the nation.
How Steven Pinker can give talk after talk — using questionable numbers — about how everything is evolving swimmingly.
Or how Bill Gates can tweet a ridiculous and misleading chart claiming we’ve almost eliminated poverty while he’s the largest landowner in America, actively keeps poor countries from getting the vaccine and medicine in general, and is trying to own third-world nation’s food systems.
There are a boatload of right-wing loons that parrot this sh*t. I don’t know what planet these people live on, if they’re genuinely ignorant, or if they’re sinisterly trying to distract — my guess is the latter, especially when it comes to Bill-frequent-Espste!n-Island-visitor-Gates.
Wages have been stagnant for fifty years. Sixty-four percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Almost half the country doesn’t have $400 to their name. Household debt levels are at all-time highs. Child poverty is the highest among developed nations. Deaths of despair are continually rising. And labor’s share of economic gains has been shrinking year on year for decades.
Meanwhile, the stock market, corporate profits, profit margins, stock buybacks, dividends, and CEO pay are all setting freaking records.
That’s the entirety of the story right there, and it applies globally. Most people are getting ground into dust and suffering while the biggest parasites are rolling in wealth.
And it’s only getting worse.
And people are speaking on four-hour-long podcasts bemoaning ‘wokeness?’
We’re not going to materially help you, get you better healthcare, or higher wages, but we will tweet the right things, pretend to support progressive causes, and act like employees’ misery is all about their freaking mindset.
But there is a greater awareness and anger at corporate ownership and exploitation. And Big Business America is very aware. They haven’t been helping militarize police for decades, buying multiple passports, and building their escape bunkers for a random rainy day; they feel the energy of the country.
An ever-desperate populace of unemployed, barely employed, and hungry will surely object to this continued exploitation until exhaustion. I think the summer of 2020 and January 6th were opening acts.
Corporate America will be ready and quickly react to any even peaceful mass mobilization of working Americans.
The Steven Donziger case shows the levels companies are willing to sink to. That along with Standing Rock and the Line 3 pipeline protests were models corporations are going to build on, following, spying on, harassing protesters, and working with and sometimes reimbursing local police forces.
In a move that will undoubtedly be replicated soon in other ‘liberal democracies,’ Canadien PM Justin Trudeau froze the bank accounts of protesters. And independent media outlets in the US are already being locked out of their PayPal accounts for daring to have dissenting voices.
This new ‘Ministry of Truth’ rolled out by the Biden Administration will surely be another tool in the belt of oppression. When the government is owned by corporations, their ‘truths’ will undoubtedly harmonize perfectly.
It’s bleak, it’s dark, it’s madness, and, after all of these doomscroll pieces, one would think I’m a much more somber person than I actually am, but I meditate and draw inspiration from the small victories.
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
There is positive momentum building in the world. Unions are on the come-up in America, and dollar dominance is being shaken a bit.
Hopefully ‘we the people’ can find our voice, retake control of our power centers from corporate forces, and save our planet.
One love.