Benito Mussolini used to define Facism with the merger of government with big business. If so, we are increasingly approaching a radical change in political philosophy in the United States.
The corporate ties of the major political parties is well-known, particularly in the case of the Bush Administration. President Bush and Vice President Cheney began rewarding their corporate allies almost immediately with Cheney's "Energy Task Force", which still has not released its documents despite multiple court orders. Indeed, the non-partisan GAO was told that if it continued to push for information related to attendees to Energy Task Force meetings that its budget would be cut.
The most recent example of the corporation running government comes from California, where a look at the MS Word Meta Data from a recently released draft letter shows that the MPAA is writing memos for the state Attorney General.
While this document spans multiple issues, including copyright and intellectual property issues, the biggest issue is that it is a blatant attempt by industry to write government policy, and that government meekly assenting. This is not how the democratic process should work. This is about a powerful corporate entity forcing governmental policy on the American people. This must change.
If these types of activities are allowed continue, they spell the end of American Democracy. The will of the people will continue to be subverted by unelected corporate interests. This represents one of the many problems with Justice Powell's argument that corporations are people and have free speech rights. When a corporation can be executed, imprisoned, sent to war via the draft, pay their fair share of the tax load, or vote, then they will have the rights of citizenship. Then they can have legitimate political influence and free speech.
Posted by Chris at March 17, 2004 01:42 PM