GUEST COLUMN: FRANK PRINZEL PLUS: A BONUS VIDEO!

Corporations Rule You, Not You  by Frank Prinzel

INTRODUCTORY NOTES: Frank is a liberal political activist, a musician, songwriter, and is semi-retired from a career in the audio and video production industries. Frank is also the principal writer and gracious, congenial host of The Frank Factor.

It's The Corporate Power, Stupid

Since becoming more and more involved in politics in America I have gone through some changes and hopefully will continue to. When I started, it was in response to the 2000 election debacle that lead to the installation of the immoral, corrupt and treasonous Bush Administration. I was initially more of a mainstream Democrat as it was the only place for a Progressive to go that had a chance in achieving power. I was shocked at the terrible performance of Al Gore in the debates and later his surrender to the shenanigans of the Republican party in bullying him out of the race but I thought it was not indicative of anything deeper and maybe just a case of misguided good sportsmanship.

"... if the Republicans were in our position they would have anything their rotted, shriveled hearts and brains desired and then some! Put it this way, if Republicans wanted Medicare for all... we'd have medicare for all and within the first few months of the administration."

Since that time I have spent a great amount of time attacking the Republican party and the social Darwinists and moral Neanderthals that populate it. Then as the years passed I saw that the Democrats in Congress failed at every turn to counter the rush to corporate fascism and the mainstreaming of perpetual war after September eleventh. My focus intensified on the Democrats. For a long time I interpreted their do-nothingness to be a result of their timidity and their just-so-gosh-darned-niceness.

Then in 2009, after the destruction of America wrought by the Republican majority and the Bush administration, Americans overwhelming voted in Democrats signaling a mandate for a change in direction. A solid Democratic majority was voted in by elections across the nation and in November an African-American Democrat won the Presidency by what, compared to the margins of Republican candidate Bush in 2000 and 2004, was a landslide!

Democrats had a super majority in the first months of the 2010 administration and a Democratic President elected on a platform of “Hope and Change”. So I ask you, what could one reasonably expect from this situation? What did this say about the desire of the American people?
 

• To continue as the Republicans had because they were so well liked?

• To continue as the Republicans had, but just tone it down a bit?

• To reach out to the Republicans for their input because they were really on to something good before Americans threw them out of office?

• To take a look at how Republicans handled their majorities, minorities and Presidency over the last eight years and respond with as gentle and bipartisan a hand as they had?

If you answered yes to any of those questions stop reading-you are an asshole. Let me tell you what a “sane” observer would surmise. They would read the victories by the Democrats as a strong signal for a change in direction, not a little teeny weeny change but a change commensurate with the obvious mandate against the previous administration's direction as reflected by the percentage of victories by Democrats. That is the only sane interpretation. Now, what did I expect to see?

I expected to see a Democratic majority of this type use its political capital to enact... wait for it -- Democratic policy! What is Democratic policy?
 

• Would it be the transference of trillions in tax dollars to private corporations as a reward for reckless, irresponsible behavior handed out with little or no oversight?

• Would it be the continuance of decimated and impotent oversight of those same corporate institutions through the failure to re-enact or craft legislation as a response to their devastating irresponsibility ?

• Would it be to continue the war in Iraq?

• Would it be to expand the war in Afghanistan?

• Would it be to continue the Patriot Act?

• Would it be to immediately remove single payer from any health care reform considerations?

• Would it be to allow the minority to write health care legislation?

• Would it be to let pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies write health insurance legislation?

• Would it be to include a mandate that Americans purchase private health insurance?

It goes on and on. Do you think if Republicans swept into office and Congress like the Democrats that they would do something quite similar to these things all the while asking for Democratic minority permission? No, but they would do those very things and more! Do you start to smell something very, very rotten here? I do! I say that if the Republicans were in our position they would have anything their rotted, shriveled hearts and brains desired and then some! Put it this way, if Republicans wanted Medicare for all... we'd have medicare for all and within the first few months of the administration.

"They don't want no big government bureaucrat getting between them and the CEO lackey that denies them life saving medical treatment, medicines, raises premiums and drops their coverage! They want the government to keep their hands off their Medicare!"

So What's the Deal?

Here's the deal! There is one common denominator to these scenarios and it's not you and me. You know what it is, and now you have proof. It is corporate power. The American government is subservient to corporate power plain and simple. To help understand this you might try thinking like a trillionaire CEO and his comrades. If we want to protect our power and influence what might we do? Would we just take part in the electoral process exercising the same rights and privileges as shared the other three hundred million Americans? Would we place our trust in the will of the majority? Would we pick that one party that represents our goals and just hope that they win for our sake?

Now for those with an atom of common sense, we know the answer is a big, fat corporate socialism NO! Of course not! You create the most secure situation, you control both the players in the game! But it's not just that, you have to protect yourself from being discovered. How best to do that? Well, this shakes out as basically the trillionaires club against the suckers (that would be you and me) dichotomy so how do you keep the suckers (us) off your scent? Let them think they have a chance, let them think they are really voting for people who represent them and their interests. Then to really perpetuate the sham, toss the rabble an issue or two as if to say “see, we're on your side”. And beyond that, you blame the bad guys... always blame the bad guys for getting in the way of those progressive issues you voted for. It's a numbers game really.

"Can the American Consumer Livestock shake off the corporate brainwashing propaganda and fight back at our political pit bosses? This one can!"

The Republicans openly represent corporate power, that's their schtick. They sell corporate power and exploitation to their numbnut constituents and partners in crime by painting all things progressive as nasty, like cooties to little kids and the little kids want to be part of the club so they keep punching themselves in the arm with cootie shots to ward off the liberal infection. Securing for themselves a nice big herd of self flagellating consumer livestock. They don't want no big government beurocrat getting between them and the CEO lackey that denies them life saving medical treatment, medicines, raises premiums and drops their coverage! They want the government to keep their hands off their Medicare.

Then there's us, the pesky social progressives and general awake people. What to do about us? We vote for Democrats and Democrats are traditionally progressives and liberals and those are political ideologies that protect the consumer livestock from being tricked into the slaughterhouse. That's a big nuisance to big business. It's easy! Buy yourself some Democrats. Their cheaper than Republicans and can really come in handy. But what if people get suspicious when these Democrats start voting like Republicans? Why, that's a job for the marketing department! What did the marking kids come up with?

We need a catchy name, something that says progressive, something that throws the livestock off the scent. How 'bout “Blue Dogs”? Blue Dogs! Yeah, I like it! Blue, like the blue states, the Democratic states, the liberal states, the progressive states! Ah, but what will they really be? Red pigs! That way with enough of the Red Pigs on the payroll Democrats never have to worry about having a solid super majority, or any majority for that matter. Our Red Pigs can save the day! Done deal!

The Responsibility to Set This Mess Aright Rests With Us

Where does that leave us? In line at the slaughter house, that's where! The game is rigged, the deck is stacked and Blue is Red. So what can we do? I say, first and foremost we have to agree that corporate influence must stop. The road map to accomplishing that will likely take many turns but until we attack the real cancerous tumor of corporate bribery and extortion in governance we don't really have a chance. The latest right wing activist Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. the FEC is a ticking time-bomb. At every step since nine eleven corporate power has pushed you close and closer to the slaughterhouse and has been winning with a marketing strategy that plays very well in Kansas. Can the American Consumer Livestock shake off the corporate brainwashing propaganda and fight back at our political pit bosses? This one can!

This article is another in a series of attempts to reach those who still cling, as I did, to the belief that the problem is with the Republicans. It is not. It is with us as Americans for not putting a stop to this cancer of corporate exploitation in our governance! The responsibility to set this mess right rests with us. With every passing month, week and day we loose more and more of our power as citizens. I will spare you the Kumbaya crap. This isn't about making nice with people that stand for just about everything we're against. It is about rising to the occasion and uniting our own like minded base and fighting against the monster of money and power that is expanding at every turn and to America's detriment. I wish it were a matter of just electing candidate that can't be bought and that is certainly part of the solution but just like we don't sell hand guns at the check out counter in Seven Eleven's, we have to remove the baskets of corporate cash from the halls of Congress and our government at every possible level.

- Frank Prinzel -

... AND NOW ...  A BONUS VIDEO! ...

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