Re: Whose Country is it anyway ? ( Prof. John Kozy )
wis...@yahoo.com
>
>http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KOZ20090704&articleId=14226
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>Whose Country is it anyway ?
>A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America
>
>by Prof. John Kozy
>
> Global Research, July 4, 2009
>
>
>
>A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the United States of America.
>This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at
>the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself.
>
>CNN interviewed a person recently who was seriously burned when his vehicle
>burst into flames because a plastic brake-fluid reservoir ruptured. Having
>sued Chrysler, he was now concerned that its bankruptcy filing would enable
>Chrysler to avoid paying any damages. A CNN legal expert called this highly
>likely, since the main goal of reorganization in bankruptcy is preserving the
>company�s viability and that those creditors who could contribute most to
>attaining that goal would be compensated first while those involved in civil
>suits against the company would be placed lowest on the creditor list since
>compensating them would lessen the chances of the company�s surviving. This
>rational clearly implies that the preservation of companies is more important
>than the preservation of people. Of course, similar cases have been reported
>before. The claims of workers for unpaid wages have often been dismissed as
>have their contracts for benefits.
>
>But there is an essential difference between a business that lends money or
>delivers products or services to another company and the employees who work
>for it. Business is an activity that supposedly involves risk. Employment is
>not. Neither is unknowingly buying a defective product. Workers and consumers
>do not extend credit to the companies they work for or buy products from. They
>are not in any normal sense of the word �creditors.� Yet that distinction is
>erased in bankruptcy proceedings which preserve companies at the public�s
>expense.
>
>Of course, bankruptcy is not the only American practice that makes use of this
>principle. The current bailout policies of both the Federal Reserve and the
>Treasury make use of it. Again companies are being saved at the expense of the
>American people. America�s civil courts are notorious for favoring corporate
>defendants when sued by injured plaintiffs. Corporate profiteering is not only
>tolerated, it is often encouraged. The sordid records of both Halliburton and
>KBR are proof enough. Neither has suffered any serious consequences for their
>abysmal activities in Iraq while supplying services to the troops deployed
>there. Even worse, these companies continue to get additional contracts from
>the Department of State. �A former Army chaplain who later worked for
>Halliburton's KBR unit . . . told Congress . . . �KBR came first, the soldiers
>came second.�" [http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/deyoung.html] Again, it�s
>companies first, people last. But Major General Smedley Butler made this point
>in 1935. [See http://www.scuttlebuttsmallchow.com/racket.html] And everyone is
>familiar with the influence corporate America has over the Congress through
>campaign contributions and lobbying. For instance, �the U.S. Chamber of
>Commerce has earmarked $20 million over two years to kill [card check].�
>[http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-card-check4-2009jun04,0,7195326.story?track=rss]
>Companies expect returns on their money, and preventing workers from
>unionizing offers huge returns. And on Thursday June 4, 2009 USA Today
>reported that, �Republicans strongly oppose a government run [healthcare] plan
>saying it would put private companies insuring millions of Americans out of
>business. �A government run plan would set artificially low prices that
>private insurers would have no way of competing with,� Senate Minority Leader
>Mitch McConnell, R-Ky, said . . . .� (Kentucky ranks fifth highest in the
>number of people with incomes below poverty. Why is he worried about the
>survival of insurers?)
>
>The profound question is how can any of it be justified?
>
>President Calvin Coolidge did say that the business of America is business and
>the American political class seems to have adopted this view, but the
>Constitution cannot be used to justify it. The word �business� in the sense of
>�commercial firm� occurs nowhere in it. Nowhere does the Constitution direct
>the government to even promote commerce or even defend private property. The
>Constitution is clear. It was established to promote just six goals: (1) form
>a more perfect union, (2) establish justice, (3) insure domestic tranquility,
>(4) provide for the common defense, (5) promote the general welfare, and (6)
>secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Of course, the
>Constitution does not prohibit the government from promoting commerce or
>defending private property, but what happens when doing so conflicts with one
>or more of its six purposes? Shouldn�t any law that does that be
>unconstitutional? For instance, wouldn�t it be difficult the claim that a
>bankruptcy procedure that protects business and subordinates or dismisses the
>claims of workers and injured plaintiffs establishes justice? How can spending
>trillions of dollars to save financial institutions and other businesses whose
>very own actions brought down the global economy be construed as establishing
>justice or even promoting the general welfare when people are losing their
>incomes, their pensions, their health care, and even their homes? These
>actions clearly conflict with the Constitution�s stated goals. Shouldn�t they
>have been declared unconstitutional? Although the Constitution does provide
>people with the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances,
>it does not clearly provide that right to organizations or corporations and it
>certainly does not provide to anyone the right to petition the government for
>special advantages. Yet that is what the Congress, even after its members
>swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, allows
>special interest groups to do. Where in the Constitution is there a
>justification for putting the people last?
>
>How this situation could have arisen is a puzzle? Haven�t our elected
>officials, our justices, our legal scholars, our professors of Constitutional
>Law, or even our political scientists read the Constitution? Have they merely
>misunderstood it? Or have they simply chosen to disregard the preamble as
>though it had no bearing on its subsequent articles? Why have no astute
>lawyers brought actions on behalf of the people? Why indeed?
>
>The answer is that a political-economic oligarchy has taken over the nation.
>This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at
>the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself. Businessmen
>have no loyalties. The Bank of International Settlements insures it, since it
>is not accountable to any national government. (See my piece, A Banker�
>Economy, http://www.jkozy.com/A_Bankers__Economy.htm.) Thomas Jefferson knew
>it when he wrote, �Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does
>not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their
>gain.� Mayer Amschel Rothschild knew it when he said, "Give me control of a
>nation's money and I care not who makes the laws." William Henry Vanderbilt
>knew it when he said, �The public be damned.� Businesses know it when they use
>every possible ruse to avoid paying taxes, they know it when they offshore
>jobs and production, they know it when the engage in war profiteering, and
>they know it when they take no sides in wars, caring not an iota who emerges
>victorious. IBM, GM, Ford, Alcoa, Du Pont, Standard Oil, Chase Bank, J.P.
>Morgan, National City Bank, Guaranty, Bankers Trust, and American Express all
>knew it when they did business as usual with Germany during World War II.
>Prescott Bush knew it when he aided and abetted the financial backers of Adolf
>Hitler.
>
>Yet somehow or other the people in our government, including the judiciary, do
>not seem to know it, and they have allowed and even abetted businesses that
>have no allegiance to any country to subvert the Constitution. Unfortunately,
>the Constitution does not define such action as treason.
>
>America�s youthful students are regularly taught Lincoln�s Gettysburg Address
>and are familiar with its peroration, �we here highly resolve that these dead
>shall not have died in vain�that this nation, under God, shall have a new
>birth of freedom�and that government: of the people, by the people, for the
>people, shall not perish from the earth.� If that nation ever existed, it no
>longer does. And when Benjamin Franklin was asked, �Well, Doctor, what have we
>got�a Republic or a Monarchy?� he answered, �A Republic, if you can keep it.�
>We haven�t. What we have ended up with is merely an Unpublic, an economic
>oligarchy that cares naught for either the nation or the public.
>
>To argue that the United States of America is a failed state is not difficult.
>A nation that has the highest documented prison population in the world can
>hardly be described as domestically tranquil. A nation whose top one percent
>of the people have 46 percent of the wealth cannot by any stretch of the
>imagination be said to be enjoying general welfare (�generally true� means
>true for the most part with a few exceptions). A nation that spends as much on
>defense as the rest of the world combined and cannot control its borders,
>could not avert the attack on the World Trade Center, and can not win its
>recent major wars can not be described as providing for its common defense.
>How perfect the union is or whether justice usually prevails are matters of
>debate, and what blessings of liberty Americans enjoy that peoples in other
>advanced countries are denied is never stated. A nation that cannot fulfill
>its Constitution�s stated goals surely is a failed one. How else could failure
>be defined? By allowing people with no fastidious loyalty to the nation or its
>people to control it, by allowing them to disregard entirely the
>Constitution�s preamble, the nation could not avoid this failure. The
>prevailing economic system requires it.
>
>Woody Guthrie sang, �This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land,� but it
>isn�t. It was stolen a long time ago. Although it may have been �made for you
>and me,� people with absolutely no loyalty to this land now own it. It needs
>to be taken, not bought, back! America needs a new birth of freedom, it needs
>a government for the people, it needs a government that puts people first, but
>it won�t get one unless Americans come to realize just how immoral and vicious
>our economic system is.
>
>
>
>
>John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social,
>political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the
>Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years
>working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially,
>in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has
>written a number of guest editorials for newspapers. His on-line pieces can be
>found on http://www.jkozy.com/ and he can be emailed from that site's
>homepage.
>
Folk's, if you think the economy is shakey now just wait until late
winter 2009.
ted
>
>
mg
> On Sat, 04 Jul 2009 17:20:03 GMT, jazzerci...@hotmail.com (-) wrote:
>
> >http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=KOZ20...
> >familiar with the influence corporate America has over the Congress through
> >campaign contributions and lobbying. For instance, “the U.S. Chamber of
> >Commerce has earmarked $20 million over two years to kill [card check].”
> >Economy,http://www.jkozy.com/A_Bankers__Economy.htm.) Thomas Jefferson knew
> >homepage.
>
> Folk's, if you think the economy is shakey now just wait until late
> winter 2009.
>
> ted
The Dow is currently at 8280 and the S&P is at 896. What's your
prediction for the stock market in the late winter?
Job loses for June were 467000 and the current unemployment rate is
9.5%. What your prediction for the those figures in late winter?