I’ve been listening to Bill Moyers and Bill Maher. They were talking about government. Moyers said (and I paraphrase):
Both the Republican and Democratic party’s have become so entrapped by the flood of money from corporations and Wall Street that Congress doesn’t represent people anymore, they represent corporations.
I have written blog posts in the past to the effect that corporate America has bought Congress and that if people want to regain control of their government they will have to acknowledge that situation and buy it back.
But that comment by Moyers made me realize I wasn’t viewing the picture broadly enough. I think about Wendell Potter’s admonition to us all about how for-profit health care insurance company’s are fighting reform because of the deleterious effect it would have on their profits, at the expense of people.
Potter made it crystal clear that those company’s jump to the tune of Wall Street’s demand that they continually increase their earnings per share year over year else are punished by stockholders selling off their shares of ownership.
Each quarter the corporations report their earnings and profits. Each quarter Wall Street analysts pour over those reports and pass judgment on whether the corporations meet Wall Street’s expectations or not. If they do meet or exceed expectations the corporation’s stock values promptly begin to rise as investors buy their stock. If they do not meet expectations investors dump their stock and move on to a more profitable corporation to invest in.
Over the years corporate America have begun to spend millions upon millions of dollars in contributions to both the Republican and Democratic Party’s in order insure the corporation has the ear of and can influence members of congress to act in the best interests of the corporation.
Over time members of Congress increasingly have opened their ears to those special interests and closed their ears to their citizen constituents back in their home districts.
This corporation-Congress “partnership” has continued unabated for years.
I then thought of last Sunday’s Town Hall Meeting to which all of Nevada’s Congressional Delegation had been invited to attend. Senators Reid and Ensign and Congressman Dean Heller, particularly should have attended because they represent the people of Pahrump. None attended.
Considering the import of Moyer’s observation, one can conclude the reason none attended was because those citizens who did are not important enough for them to waste their time. Moreover, one can conclude those Pahrump citizens are no longer represented in Congress, if they ever were.
I can also believe that UnitedHealth, Aetna, Wellpoint and Cigna have the attention of members of Congress because that is where the money is. Those 200 souls that attended that meeting in Pahrump cannot possibly match the money influence of those corporations, or any other.
The Declaration of Independence from dominion and control of the English monarchy was prompted by the colonist dissatisfied with British rule.
The rumblings I hear in these modern times stems from dissatisfaction with our government. If I am correct in my perception that our government is under the dominion and control of Corporate America and Wall Street wherein our government has been hijacked by floods of money which has turned our elected representatives into mere puppets of Wall Street and corporations then the question is what does one do?
The answer was provided by the Founding Fathers in their wisdom in adopting the Constitution of the United States. We have a Republic, Ben Franklin said, “if you can keep it.” Each election cycle is a period of time in which citizens of this Republic can reflect and determine the quality of the representation being afforded.
If the dissatisfaction and broad and deep enough the citizens of the Republic can change the government by the simple vote.
So, if you think we have morphed into a government of the corporation, by the corporation the remedy is to elect representatives who will represent you and your interests, rather than big business and Wall Street. Your next opportunity to impose term limits will be less than a year away when the 2010 primary elections are held.
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