Southie Progressive Magazine

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Corporate Fascism

Where is the outrage? Is the revolution ever coming? Bill O’Reilly gets fired for sexual harassment, yet Trump who brags about sexually harassing women (and who demonstrated his lack of respect for women with his lewd comments) is elected president?!

Corporations have created a corporate feudal system in which their employees are treated like wage slaves. There are no unions to protect them, and short term profit trumps workers’ dignity.

Capitalism is meant to serve humanity; humanity isn’t meant to serve the “golden calf” of capitalism. Regulation of Wall Street is necessary to ensure that corporate greed does not cause another Great Recession. It is the working class that suffers the most from Wall Street’s bad decisions.

This is why our Founders made the government–a government of the people, by the people, and for the people–the strongest American institution. However, corporate fascists (neoliberals) like Trump and the Koch brothers systematically weaken the federal government. Under the auspices of the Koch brothers and Trump, the corporation has become the strongest American institution. Hence, we live in a corporate fascist state, not a democratic-republic.

Our Founding Fathers repeatedly said that the people have a right to rise up against the government when the government no longer serves the needs of the people, when the government becomes tyrannical. But not enough Americans are outraged.

Weapons of mass distraction–in the form of reality TV, obsession with celebrities–and materialism have distracted us from our duty as citizens of a democratic-republic to have knowledge of the issues, and to rise up against dishonest despots.

With rights come duties; the duty to not only stand up for one’s own rights, but a duty to stand up for the rights of other citizens–no matter their race, creed, or religion.

Our ancestors died to ensure the survival of the American Republic. Will we honor them by rising up against corporate fascism and by reimposing the American Democratic-Republic, or will we be the generation that stood by apathetically and ignorantly while our republic was attacked and dismantled by corporate fascists like Trump and the Koch Brothers?—with their “tax reform bill” that takes away from an already struggling middle class in order to give more to the wealthy; with their attempt to dismantle the federal government by appointing people to the cabinet who promised to rid the federal government of the very same federal departments that they now run; with their support of Citizens United, which essentially allows special interest groups to bribe our elected officials.

I am reminded of James Madison’s prescient statement:

“The latent causes of faction are thus sewn in the nature of man… to persons of other descriptions, whose fortunes have been interesting to the human passions, have, in turn, divided mankind into parties, inflamed them with mutual animosity, and rendered them much more disposed to vex and oppress each other, than to cooperate for their common good… the regulation of these various and interfering interests, forms the the principle task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of government”
– James Madison, The Federalist (New York: 1818) Barnes and Noble pp. 53-54


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