Aren't CORPORATIONS more like INVADING ARMIES?

[AnArmyVeteran]

CORPORATIONS versus ARMIES OF OLD
Aren't corporations like small armies conquering as much territory as possible? And just like rogue armies, they don't care what they do to achieve their conquests.

Armies of old used to rape, pillage and destroy to increase their sphere of dominance. Corporations oppress and dominate people and take over their governments. They have an inherent lust to expand their business, driven only by profit. The armies of old were driven by a ruthless lust to expand their countries' boundaries. Are there any real differences between armies of old and today's corporations? What's the difference between an imperialist country and an imperialist corporation? Both are obsessed with conquest and occupation, taking whatever they can.

The results seem to be so similar. In each, conquered individuals were either killed, forced into slavery or severely oppressed. The actions of corporations regularly kill or harm their employees, and they treat their employees and conquered peasants. Corporations seek out the most vulnerable people in the world so they can exploit them, making them virtual slaves. And when they go to other countries corporations know they can force their workers to toil 14 hour days in extremely hazardous environments, that wouldn't normally be permitted in the United States.

Unlike armies, corporations have no allegiance to countries and have no regard for governments. Even the most powerful countries recognize other countries' boundaries, but not corporations, which are so powerful they can virtually own the governments where they fly their corporate flags. They have special forces soldiers, called lobbyists, who have special missions to attack the people of any country using their own government. And they never find a shortage of members of government who are all too eager to sell out their countrymen.

Look at TransOcean, one of the three corporations responsible for the Gulf of Mexico disaster. It flies the flag of the Marshall Islands to avoid maritime laws and has their head office in Steinhausen, Switzerland, a landlocked country, to avoid paying taxes to any country.

Conservatives say they believe in 'personal responsibility', but are always against regulations or laws that force corporations to act ethically, morally, honestly or responsibly. They seem clueless to the fact that when corporations act irresponsibly, it is the citizenry who end up paying, and that means money is coming from their pockets. But instead of placing blame where it should be placed, they instead just mindlessly attack the government. And government is the only weapon the people have against absolute corporate domination.

With our government becoming more and more a corporate whoredom, the chances of the US population retaining even a shred of representation is dying by the day.

So onward corporate 'armies' march, devastating everything in their paths, leaving a trail filled with wounded or dead democracies, oppressed people and a more unstable world...


(Note: I appreciate all feedback, positive or negative. We are all here to learn from one another and to try to make our country, and our world, a better place for all people.)

[Uncle Joe]

1. I view corporations as a reversion from the Enlightenment to a form of modern day Feudalism.

The concept of "We the people" posed too great a threat to the age old powers of wealth and privilege.

Thus corporations were created to replace the Duke, Count and Baron as buffers between the people and their truest, most accountable agents; that being representative government.

At first government had a grip on the power of corporations, but today those roles have reversed.

Any candidate perceived by the corporate media as a champion of corporate supremacy will curry their favor in all manner of coverage, thus helping to insure that corporate supremacist sympathetic candidates are elected.

This is a major reason as to why you almost never hear the Republicans cite the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution; a document they swore to uphold and defend with their lives, preferring instead to use the Revolutionary Declaration of Independence to the point that one of their leaders; not too long ago couldn't even tell the difference.

At least one member of the corporate media promptly scrubbed the video depicting that particular incident when Boehner claimed during a speech to be citing from the U.S Constitution which he always carries in his pocket only to cite the Declaration of Independence.

I remember during the Presidential race of 2000 when at least one corporate media outlet researched the family trees of Gore and Bush to determine which one had the most "royal blood," as if this should be a determinant for the American People's deliberation on who to elect as President, they proclaimed that Bush had the most royal blood.

Thanks for the thread, AnArmyVeteran.:thumbsup:

[ItNerd4life]

2. Just curious about the statement 'Republicans never cite the Preamble to U.S. Constitution'

I'm guessing the 'promote the general welfare' but am curious more about what you mean.

[Uncle Joe]

4. To be accurate, I said almost never and it's not just the general welfare part.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Reagen best summed up their mentality regarding Government; as being the problem, not the people's representatives and they promote it as such, while also disregarding Posterity, it's live for the day, dog eat dog and consume without regard to tomorrow.

I'm leaving on appointment and if I didn't answer all your questions, I will be happy to do so tomorrow.

[AnArmyVeteran]

5. I learned the Preamble in the 10th grade and I still know it by heart...

Just like some Christians like to cherry pick just the parts of the Bible that suit their agendas, conservatives cherry pick just the parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights that further their agendas, forgetting all the other rights guaranteed to all citizens of the United States.

The more fundamentalist a Christian is, the more they cherry pick just the most extreme quotes from the Bible. And the same goes for conservatives who are the most extreme. And when a fundamentalist Christian is also a conservative extremist it becomes a mutant force of absolute ignorance and intolerance.

[LiberalLoner]

8. Yup...they create their own reality, don't they? :) great post BTW! :) n/t

[AnArmyVeteran]

13. Yes they do! And I'm glad I'm not in their reality. Wouldn't it be lonely in their world?

It seems like the people who hurt others live empty lives with no meaning. That must be painful and very lonely. They can have my money, but they can't have my life...

Peace :)

[AnArmyVeteran]

22. I wish their 'reality' didn't conflict so much with 'our' reality. :)

...Their corporate dreams often make our lives a nightmare...
YASBTM

[ItNerd4life]

3. Interesting Analogy. You bring up some good points.

Consider how we have pollution laws to protect us from the corporate abuses.

But, how many Democrats support corporations also. Consider corporation love illegal immigrants in the U.S. because it drives wages down. So why do Democrats support illegal immigrants?
Every person seems to think about themselves, not about society.

[arbusto_baboso]

6. Lobbyists aren't their special forces.

Blackwater, Triple Canopy, and other private merc firms with REAL former special ops soldiers are their special forces.

Your analogy is more accurate than you realize.

[AnArmyVeteran]

7. Thanks Arbustobaboso, yeah, but lobbyists seem to fit in my analogy...

I know they have actual corporate special forces, but it would have taken a mini-book to incorporate all of that into my OP. I try to keep things as short as possible, but it's hard to do sometimes. What disgusts me are the private mercenaries making 100 times what our soldiers make. And face it, our military is just a low-paid mercenary force sent to battle to protect the financial interests of corrupt corporations, like Halliburton. It's sick that our soldiers are used for no other reason than to defend the rich, when most soldiers are from the poor or middle classes.

Conservatives like to say our soldiers knew what they were getting into, basically saying they deserved to die if they signed up. But not one soldier signs up to fight against a country that never threatened us. I would gladly fight on the front lines against any enemy of the US that tries to do our country and our people harm, but fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan isn't protecting America's freedoms. Those wars have nothing to do with freedom, and everything to do with funneling money into corrupt corporate coffers. I like that old slogan "Suppose they gave a war and no one showed up". What if everyone in the military refused to go where a corrupt commander in thief told them to go, like GW Bush???

Thanks for your nice words about my analogy...

[AnArmyVeteran]

19. I forgot to say, I like your suggestions, that will be in my Post 1433 version 2.0

We have more pirates per capita in the US than Somalia has. Except our pirates are all millionaires or trillionaires.

[EFerrari]

9. They're more like the mafia, which is where Perkins gets "economic hitman".n/t

[rhett o rick]

11. Sorry but I think you are giving the Mafia a bad name comparing them to corporations. nm

[AnArmyVeteran]

12. I think you're right. The Mafia was like a jaywalker compared to corporation crime

Remember when the Mafia and other gangs would shake down Mom & Pop shop owners? They sold them 'insurance' to protect them from being beat up or killed. But the Mafia were the ones firebombing shops and breaking hands of the shop owners. They they were selling insurance to 'protect' the shop owners from the 'insurance' sellers.

Sound familiar?

Mobster-type personalities soon learned it was easier to buy off officeholders into making their insurance scheme 'legal'. They began 'investing' in political whores who eagerly complied with their pimp's wishes. And the life and medical insurance scam was born.

There are no differences between the CEOs of large insurance companies and the leaders of the Mafia. They are all sociopaths. While the Mafia used to burn shops, rough up people, and keep them terrified, modern day insurance companies stop insurance coverage for people who are dying, cancel people's insurance and use legal loopholes to legally kill people for money.

What's the difference? Well, there is one glaring difference. The Mafia was a penny-annie operation compared to today's insurance cartel of mobsters. There were limited numbers of shop owners who could be intimidated into buying their 'insurance'. But now insurance companies will be getting massive amounts of money through laws that mandate they get paid. And it's all 'legal'.

"Justice" has nothing to do with legality. Insurance companies exist outside of every ethical or moral code. But because they have massive wealth they can purchase government whores who do their bidding and write laws which guarantee they will continue to make billions shaking down hard working Americans.

What President Obama needs to do is hire the equivalent of 1,000 Eliot Nesses to combat the massive amount of corporate corruption in this country. Bring back the Tommy Guns and set this new force of justice-minded people loose to clean up the sewer that the US has become. But President Obama will never do such a bold act. Although I was one of his delegates, I now know he lacks the guts to do what is right for the American people. The list of those he has betrayed keeps getting longer. And he could have been an instant hero, if only he surrounded himself with honest people who had the courage to go up against the sociopathic abusers in corporate America...

[rhett o rick]

15. I think pres Obama is in way over his head. nm

[rhett o rick]

10. I view corporations as robots that, once created, take over. nm

[AnArmyVeteran]

21. But dangerous robots, like those in horror movies...

They've certainly taken over. And they share a lot of the same traits as robots. They have no hearts, compassion or minds. It's like they are just mindless predators ready to consume or destroy anything in their path.

[troubledamerican]

14. NO. Corporations are like Invading SPIDERS.

Predatory & vampiric, yes -- but covert, surreptitious & clandestine.

[Sebastian Doyle]

16. I say we take advantage of the category created by the Bush Crime Family in recent years

and treat them all as "enemy combatants". Just throw them in prison. Fuck the trials.

[AnArmyVeteran]

23. Excellent ideas. But Bush's prisoners were mostly innocent though...

But I like the idea of indefinite detention of CEOs and executives, secret wiretaps of all their illegal activity, torture (of course), and we could declare war on them too.

Iraq posed no threat to the US, but Bush declared war on them anyway killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

BP have killed 11 human beings and possibly the entire Gulf of Mexico. That IS an act of war and an assault against the American people.

So according to the Bush Doctrine, we could invade anyone we want, so why not use our military to take over BP and seize all their assets and throw their executives in prison for life. Then seize all of the personal property of everyone at BP making more than $50,000 a year.

[PufPuf23]

17. Great metaphor

Anti-Enlightenment thinking.

Dogma is an anchor, reality is expansion and lessons learned.

Spirituality has to do with the reality of nature and religion has to do with dogma for human control by habit, dogma, and fear.

[AnArmyVeteran]

18. Well said PufPuf23...

A person can be very religious, but not be in touch with his spirituality at all, while a person who knows his spirit has no need or desire for religion. Spirituality is freedom-based, religion is fear=based. One is life, the other a slow death...

[Hannah Bell]

20. +100