RiverDog wrote:For the situation you have described, gridlock is the only viable answer short of revolution. Granted, it doesn't solve the problem, but it doesn't make it any worse, either.
I'm not nearly as paranoid with corporate America as you and Cbob are. This isn't like the late 19th century when true robber barrons like Harriman, Rockefeller, and Carnegie ruled the country. I take Winston Churchill's view of capitalism...that it's the world's worst economic system...except for everything else.
Paranoid? I just stated fact.
Do you believe corporate leadership cares more about The United States Constitution or the well being of their business? Who funds politicians? What do they fund them to do?
This is not paranoia. This is all very open and very much tied to the self-interest of human beings. It would be no different if humans with less wealth had the same power as corporations. The only thing that allows corporate leaders to influence politics is the large effect they have on all aspects of our society naturally. People needing to survive will support what makes their life easier. Corporations are making everyone's life much easier and more entertaining with their toys. There is no motivation to upset this apple cart. Why care that much if the cocoon is comfortable?
I could write a book on this subject. I will shorten it. There are no conspiracies. Everything is happening very much in the open and naturally. There is no fight by the public against it because they do not care about concepts like liberty, honor, decency, or the like. Those ideas are far from their minds. It will continue to be far from their minds. The sheer number of people has increased the scale of everything and there is no going back unless we have some extreme depopulation. Managing 7 billion people and growing worldwide has created a situation where we have no choice but to create efficient, powerful, effective institutions that manage people on a mass scale. Management of people is naturally corrosive to liberty, but helpful for food distribution, housing, and all the needs and wants of humans. If the human goal is survival, it is a natural progression for nations to grow into each other and give up parts of their culture on all sides to form a global culture. It was inevitable as the wandering human group becoming tribes and villages and cities and city states and counties to nations to larger nations to an entire world. When this progression occurs due to large populations of humans growing into each other, we have no choice to blend a global culture for survival. Differences cause conflict, conflict causes resource problems, and the way to eliminate conflict is to homogenize as naturally as possible into a global culture. It is inevitable absent a huge depopulation.
All the ways to accomplish globalization are occurring naturally without conspiracies, from growth in the size of corporations, larger governments, and organizations like The United Nations, G-20 trade meetings, and the like. You can read all the ways America is changing due to the influence of globalism out in the open. No paranoia or conspiracy required. It's more a matter of whether you like it or not and I don't like it. Then again I'm heading to the dinosaur graveyard as the young take over the world until they grow old and see their world change.
Just think of how different this world is from the era of your grandparents or when we were young. I still remember a time without personal computers, cell phones, and the Internet. The generations born now won't know the lack of such things at all. They are just beginning to push even further into a genetic modification meaning human control of all aspects of the genome. This tech will only continue to advance.
I'm just a curmudgeon seeing the future and not liking many aspects of it while at the same time acknowledging that there is no choice in the matter. 7 billion humans need to survive, be entertained, and that many people produces a lot of very smart, ambitious people willing to go where no man has gone before when it comes to science doing whatever is necessary including casting aside old values to progress.
