Last week’s Supreme Court decision to grant corporations individual status is a horrifying development that removes centuries old limits to campaign contributions. Since this country was born, our statesmen have warned us about corporations. The founding fathers addressed it by granting corporations very limited short term powers. Since then many leaders have agreed and, for example, Teddy Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower are two Republicans who tried to curtail the powers of corporations. In President Eisenhower’s final address to the nation before leaving office, he warned us about the growth of the military-industrial complex. He was our most famous General and yet he feared the power of the military and famously said “The people want peace so much that someday governments will have to get out of their way and let them have it.”
Sadly, his warning about industry is coming true. While right wingers scream about an imaginary government takeover, corporations are quietly doing it. World-wide, corporations are operating outside the laws and controls of governments. Their only concern is profit. They don’t care about workers’ lives or safety. They don’t care about the environment. (When offered green alternatives that will save them money a year from now, and help the environment, they choose next quarter’s profits. )
All of our goods, services and even food supply are increasingly controlled by fewer and fewer corporations. Our food is therefore more unsafe. The last few years have seen several different disease-laden foods flood our stores. (I keep warning my farm born husband to wash fruits and vegetables when they don’t come from our backyard because they may be contaminated.)
Media outlets - newspapers, magazines, television, radio - those things which influence our opinions - are controlled by only a few corporations now. Because of this we see the same few sound bytes being played over and over wherever we turn. These oft-repeated phrases permeate our consciousness, whether they are true or not. It’s frightening to me to see that Fox News is number one, because there is no more biased “news” source. If you want to have a mind of your own, watch CNN or PBS or you’re likely to be infected by Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck like bad spinach. And if you want truth, turn Rush and his ilk off and boycott their sponsors. But I digress.
Corporate lobbyists unduly influence our congress. The main reason it has been so difficult to pass any kind of health care reform the last 60 years is that millions are spent on lobbyists and advertising to defeat it. If health care does pass, most of us will probably like it, just as we now appreciate our social security checks and Medicare. But now that corporations, even those controlled in China, Japan or Saudi Arabia can contribute more towards campaigns, our politicians will be even more completely controlled by big business. And, please, don’t even mention labor unions. That does not balance the equation. That is like putting an ant and an elephant on a see-saw and claiming they can balance.
Joy Leeper lives in Pittsburg.
