We've Created a Frankenstein Monster

Thanks to Barbara Baty.

We've Created a Frankenstein Monster
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Steve Cyester wrote this in 1996:

It has all the "rights" of human beings, but few of the limitations. It has the world's resources at its disposal, and is unencumbered by borders, states, or nations. Granted immortality by its creators, it amasses wealth and power beyond the capabilities of human beings. It corrupts schools, governments, and imposes its will throughout our society. It controls most of our access to food, housing, energy, and other important resources. By manipulating the news in all forms of media, it determines what is the "truth" in the eyes of most people. If we have the audacity to fight back against its tyranny, we find ourselves the object of harassment, lawsuits, firings and sometimes even murder.

Are we speaking of a malevolent God of some sort? In a sense, we are. We are describing the corporation. How have we allowed our own creation to turn into a
Frankenstein with such immense power over our world?

In the early days of our country, corporations were created to perform tasks that might not be done otherwise. Building toll bridges or roads was a typical purpose for which people allowed a corporation to exist. Their existence was authorized by a charter, a license to operate which could be revoked at any time
if the corporation caused harm to the people. This country's founders were well aware of the potential threats of corporations. Thomas Jefferson spoke of the need "to crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Corporations were kept under tight citizen control. In almost all states, these restrictions applied:

-- Corporations' activities were strictly limited to the purpose for which they were created.
-- Charters were granted for a limited time, after which the corporation's charter would expire unless it was decided that the people's interests would be serve to extend it.
-- Corporations were explicitly chartered to serve the public interest. Profit for shareholders was a secondary consideration.
-- Corporations could be terminated if they engaged in activities not specifically permitted in their charters or if they were considered not to be serving society's interests.
-- Charters did not prevent owners or managers from being prosecuted for criminal acts.
-- Corporations were prohibited from making any political or "charitable" contributions.
-- Corporations could not own stock in other corporations, and could not own any property not essential to their task.

Most of this important history is unmentioned today, and our children go through school without ever questioning corporate-dominated society. Through gradual corruption of our government and our courts, corporations have abandoned their proper role as tools for improving the lives of real people. So thoroughly
have our laws been perverted that corporations are now considered "natural persons" in our courts, and given "Bill of Rights" protections. Thus, our courts now permit exactly what the Bill of Rights was created to prevent: domination of public thought, discussion and policy. Corporations corrupt our schools, media, and government, and we know it! However, we continue to let power concentrate in the hands of corporations, even while their impacts become increasingly destructive to our freedom and prosperity.

Every day, there are people around the world fighting oppression of women, the poor and minorities. Others struggle to stop environmental destruction or the corruption of their governments. All these problems, and more, have roots in uncontrolled corporate power. We must attack at the roots to halt corporate corruption, and to put corporations back in their rightful place as servants, not masters of the people. In almost every state, corporate charters give citizens
the right to fight back against corporations that are harming them. It is up to us to re-educate ourselves, enforce these laws, and take further action to
regain control from the corporate Frankenstein.

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Relief is On the Way

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Whoever wins the race for the presidency, the whole world will thank its gods that the worst president in U.S., or world, history, has just stepped down. This man, George W. Bush, tried actually to turn the U.S. into a fascist country. For, by definition, a country whose politics and programs are run by rich corporations is a fascist country. And Bush also worked hard to destroy the middle class-- the backbone of our democracy.

The guy knew nothing of humility; at every opportunity, he strutted, smirked, and pea-cocked before the cameras with a look of complete ignorance ("I haven't a clue") combined with a contradictory look of arrogance. Due to his shenanigans, our foreign policy was also the very worst imaginable, causing billions to hate the U.S.A., and creating many more opportunities for our enemies, including Al-Qaeda.

He failed absolutely to ever capture bin Laden; the Bush family and the bin Laden family had financial and economic ties on many levels; did Bush ever really want to catch the murderous thug?

His staff was not much better than George himself, containing such stellar but criminal stars as Dick Chaney, Condy Rice, and others equally shady. For the sake of corporate welfare, they all cooperated to try to reverse the laws that protect our ecology and, for years, denied the very existence of global warming. Bush and Co. did everything wrong; when they had an opportunity to do good, they always vetoed it or otherwise ruined it. They did more damage, during the last eight years, than all the terrorists combined. They continuously blocked sound ideas in
Congress that would have helped the middle class, and gave great tax-breaks to the very rich, and to corporations. Every time that he had the opportunity, bush stood up for and defended the corporations, corporate welfare, and corporate profit; yet never did he defend the common "blue collar" worker or common householder.

Bush's "ideal government" was one in which not only fascist economic principles dominated, but in which the government could spy on even its own innocent citizens; it did away with several legal rights, and defended the horrors of torture. This government evolved into an alien thing that was not only "unAmerican," but "antiAmerican."

It was, in short, a nightmarish disaster. Neither Americans nor the rest of the world can afford four more years of this horror.
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