It Is The Corporations, Man
December 26th, 2011
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Corporations cannot force you to use their product or service. If you don’t want to watch Fox News you can always change the channel to MSNBC. We only have one government. We are forced to be the consumers of its laws.
We can’t decrease the power of the corporation by increasing the power of the government. Campaign contributions are given to congressmen by lobbyists who represent corporations to influence lawmaking. This is a fact. There is no getting around this.
The best way to reduce the power these corporations have over the legislative process is to support candidates who want smaller government. It is insane to think you can limit corporation’s power by increasing the power of their main weapon, government.
When Barack Obama started enacting his legislation it became clear. He wasn’t the man standing against the corporations for the little man. He was standing on the side of his corporate donors against the corporations who did not donate to his campaign.
Candidate Obama had this to say on February 10th, 2007:
“the cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests,” “turned our government into a game only they can afford to play. (Schulte, 2011)
That seems to be much different from President Obama who pays back his campaign contributors big.
“nearly 200 of his biggest donors have landed plum government jobs and advisory posts, won federal contracts worth millions of dollars for their business interests or attended numerous elite White House meetings or social events…” (Schulte, 2011)
(Donald H.) ”Gips, a vice president of Colorado-based Level 3 Communications, delivered more than $500,000 in contributions for the Obama war chest, while two other company executives collected at least $150,000 more.” (Schulte, 2011)
“Obama named him ambassador to South Africa. Meanwhile, Level 3 Communications, in which Gips retained stock, received millions of dollars of government stimulus contracts for broadband projects in six states.” (Schulte, 2011)
That is small potatoes compared to federally mandated health insurance. If the Supreme Court decides that the government can force a citizen to buy a product, imagine what the lobbyists would try to force us to buy. They could force all U.S. citizens to buy any product if it were for the greater good. If the government mandated that every U.S. citizen buy and wear a helmet at all times thousands of lives would be saved every year. Do you want to be forced to wear a helmet everywhere? That is equally justifiable as a law forcing citizens to buy health insurance. It is ironic that the supposed biggest anti-corporate candidate is trying to be the president who increases corporate power the most.
This is an area where we see a lot of overlapping in ideas between The Tea Party movement and the Occupy movement. Both movements completely acknowledge the major flaw in our government that allows lobbyists to undermine the legislative process. The Tea Party’s solution just makes the most sense: Reduce the government's control over business and therefore business’ control over government and our lives.
Works Cited
Schulte, F. (2011, June 15). Top Barack Obama donors net government jobs. Retrieved December 25, 2011, from Politico.com: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56993.html
~RC