A World Quite Mad

...she's worth 12 million dollars. To top that off, she makes two million dollars a year. And I thought congressional members made an absurd amount of money. That totally pales in comparison to the $174k a year that they make, even with the 26 weeks of vacation. Ridiculous.

These media jackals keep saying that they don't know what these people are protesting. Yeah, they can't say because it would take more than the two second sound byte to do so. The list is fuck-off long as to just how jacked up this system of ours is. I believe it can be fixed though. There was a ton of greed and avarice in the 1920s and our grandparents paid for it with the Great Depression, and it took a while, but things turned around and were even better than before. I just hope that Obama grows a pair and rivals FDR when historians look back on this era.

In case you weren't paying attention, a few days ago the Supreme Court basically ruled that a Corporation has the same "rights" as you and me. If you had been reading the news, you'd probably have missed this, because no major news network bothered to actually report it. Surprise, surprise. Oh, sure, some had letters or editorial opinions about it, but it wasn't news worthy. We all surely knew that the Corporations were in charge. After all, they give to both parties, and every single official in Washington is indebted to them in some way. Sure, Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life, which is supposed to put them above fearing for their position, but they can still be impeached by congress. And since the Corporations have Congress in their pocket, if the Supreme Court doesn't go along and toe the line, they can and will be dissolved.

I decided that it would be fitting to rewrite the Declaration of Independence in favor of the Corporation, seeing as that is what we have become. Enjoy. Feel free to share, just link back here. I call it "The Corporate Declaration of Independence"

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for Corporations to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with a Government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Corporations are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Business Models, Deregulation and the pursuit of Profits. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Corporations, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the Corporation to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Bottom Line and Profits. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that Corporations are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of regulations and worker protections, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Oversight, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Such has been the patient sufferance of these Corporations; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present United States Government For and By The People, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Oversight over these Corporations. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

They have refused their Assent to Deregulation, the most wholesome and necessary for Corporate Profits.
They have forbidden their Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till their Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, they have utterly neglected to do our bidding.
They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of slave labor, unless those people would be given the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right unknown to them and formidable to a free people only.
They have called together legislative bodies at times unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from our Lawyers, for the sole purpose of fatiguing us into compliance with their measures.
They have dissolved Committees repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness their invasions on the rights of the Corporations.
They have refused for a long time, after such disolutions, to cause others to be appointed; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the Corporation remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of worker strikes from without, and bankruptcy from within.
They have endeavoured to prevent the Corporations of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, so that we might pay them slave wages.

They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing their Assent to Laws for establishing the Judicial Rights of Corporations.
They have made Corporations dependent on their Laws alone, for the tenure of their existence, and the amount and payment of their worker's salaries.
They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Regulators to harrass our Corporations, and make them comply with worker protection laws.
They have kept among us, in all times, Federal Regulators without the Consent of our exective boards.
They have affected to render the People independent of and superior to the Corporate power.
They have combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our business model, and unacknowledged by our lawyers; giving their Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of Federal Regulators among us:
For protecting them, by a Laws, from retaliation for any Fines which they should impose on the Corporations of these States:
For cutting off our free Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Off Shore Tax Shelters:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for using Child Labor and worker abuse:
For abolishing the free System of Monopolies in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein government Oversight, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute Oversight into these Corporations:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Corporations:
For suspending our own Executive Boards, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

They have abdicated Free Market Capitalism here, by declaring us out of their Protection and passing Laws of Oversight against us.
They have plundered our CEO's pay, ravaged our stock options, dissolved our Monopolies, and destroyed the lives of our Executives.
They are at this time transporting large Armies of Regulators to compleat the works of Bankruptcy, Regulation and Oversight, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Overseer of a Corporatocracy.
They have constrained our fellow Corporations, caught in Pyramid Schemes, to become the informants of their friends and Brethren, or to lose their Tax Exemptions by their Hands.
They have excited worker insurrections amongst us, and have endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our Enemies, the merciless Union Organizers, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished desire to protect workers of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define the leader of a Free People, is unfit to be the ruler of Corporations.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Worker brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our organization and the cost of doing business here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these Oversights, which, would inevitably interrupt our ability to use them as slave labor. They too have been deaf to the voice of business and of Profit. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in Hostile Takeovers, in Peace useful workers.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the Corporations of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good Corporations of these States, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Corporations are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent Corporations; that they are Absolved from all Laws and Protections for their Workers, and that all political connection between them and the benefit of the Worker, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Corporate States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, run roughshod over Workers, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent Corporations may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Business Models, our Lawyers and our sacred Profits.

Jefferson and the rest were great men, but they weren't capable of saving us from ourselves.

I had another ten page rant about Obama in my inbox this morning. This time from Senator Jim DeMint (Republican) of South Carolina via Townhall.com. Crackpots. They're asking me to sign some petition against unions, because how dare workers organize. Really though, the letter was half attack on Obama and half attack on unions.

I'm not saying unions are all they are cracked up to be, perhaps we could use some reform in that area, but if workers want to unionize they should be able to. My grandmother was in a union when she worked at a factory in the 1970s and she liked it and she made very good money. When I worked for a big box retailer, whose name will remain unsaid, they used scare tactics against any type of organizing, implying that anyone who dared attempt to unionize would find themselves without a job, and saying they had an "open door" policy that meant we didn't need a union. Really? I beg to differ. I think that unions give workers leverage, and the Corporatocracy doesn't like that, because it might eat into their profit margin if workers start demanding enough pay to live. And the sad thing is, the people I worked with who lacked critical thinking skills, were persuaded to believe that unions are a bad thing.

But the thing that really pissed me off about this drivel in my inbox, they don't bother to say what the number is on the bill, or the actual title of the bill, they just call it a "Card Check Forced Labor Bill" which I'm damned sure that's not the name of it, so I can't find what bill they're talking about, and I don't really have time to dig much for it. That in and of itself is underhanded. They spout a bunch of stuff, and make it extremely difficult for anyone with half a brain or a questioning thought in their head to go and see if what they're saying is even true. Oh, and of course at the bottom of the rant, surprise, surprise, they ask for money. There's also a disclaimer at the bottom saying they're "non-partisan". My ass.

Some choice tidbits from the ten page rant:

"You see, passage of the so-called "Card Check" Bill is all that stands between the union bosses and total control over hundreds of thousands of America's small businesses . . .

. . . not to mention the hundreds of millions of forced-dues dollars that will immediately be seized from American workers' paychecks...

Any workers who refuse to sign the so-called "union authorization cards" would find themselves victims of lies, intimidation, threats, harassment -- and worse -- from union militants...

And when you do, please consider a generous contribution of $500, $250, $100 or $35 to the Committee."

They make it sound like the union is going to come in with billy clubs like it's the Republican National Convention and start beating people if they don't want to unionize.

So, I finally found what it is, I had heard of it, but it had slipped my mind. The Employee Free Choice Act. Because you know, it's a terrible thing that employees have a choice about whether they are represented or not. I find the rhetoric in their stupid newsletter a turn off (i.e. Obama is a socialist communist devil worshipper... okay it didn't go quite that far but it might as well have), and I have this sneaking suspicion that it's lies, but I seriously don't have the time right now to go through all their points and research it.

I will say though, that there was a time in this country, when we were prosperous where almost every industry was unionized. Those days are gone. The Corporatocracy has shipped all the high paying jobs overseas and have reduced what they pay to the ones that are left here. So you can't make enough to live any more without a college education, and even then it's dicey.