In the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, scores of companies put out statements on their plans to “reevaluate,” or outright stop, their donations to members of Congress who had voted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Many of those initial corporate statements following the attack were flimsy expressions of concern, if that. Corporations and trade groups spoke of “suspending” or “pausing” their political giving, only to dump tens of thousands into the campaign coffers of members of Congress who voted to subvert democracy.
… … … …
Because of course they did…
Karl Marx was right. Capitalism is shit.
Communism isn’t that much better. It goes full dictator in an eyeblink
But then authoritarianism is pretty common no matter the system
btw
G’mornin’… it’s still dark out here
Capitalism wants us to think that communism is it’s only alternative. This is not true.
The government was foresale before January 6 and it remained foresale after January 6. Nothing fundamental changed. If you are running a corporation in America you have to be at the table where the deals are cut. The only way to get a place at the table is to pay elected officials. We have find tuned our bribery scheme in America so there is no ethical or legal bar to the bribery as long as you play the game by the rules–donations to the parties and campaigns to fund the media companies spewing infotainment. Remember all pigs are welcome at the American political trough, but hogs get slaughtered.
…except the “hogs” like Bezos, Musk and Gates aren’t getting “slaughtered”. In fact they aren’t even required to pay taxes.
The hog who might have broken the mold is Donald Trump, the darling of the infotainment industry. They have a hard time taking him down. His showmanship is gold in their coffers so the last thing they want is for him to be slaughtered.
The new murmurings of “violent insurrection” by Turtle and Qevin may be a foretelling of things to come. At that point, we start asking these companies’ boards whether they support people who encouraged violent insurrection.
“Surprise, surprise, surprise.”
— Gomer Pyle
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
— Benito Mussolini
So I saw this mentioned last night. It might be a useful tool if you want to keep track of the insurrectionists.
The 1%, aren’t they peachy?
Said it back when they paused: they would wait until the dust settled and no one was looking and come back when the coast was clear.
Not sure if there is a good way to boycott these companies because they get so much of our tax dollars in support.
All forms of government are perfect----on paper.
All of them—except one—fail completely once actual people are involved.
The exception is absolute monarchy, in which all power is vested in one person who may do as he or she pleases at all times.
So we make do with a patchwork of capitalism tempered with socialism, with a sprinkling of several other governmental ideas.
Society judges all of socialism based on communism’s worst operator.
For the Habermans and the Moonveses and the Todds and the $$$$$$$$$$$ machine of access “journalism”, Trump is a cash cow.
Even now.
Errr, it’s not just the legacy media. The current count of the word “Trump” on the front page of TPM 14 (down from 24 yesterday)…
Corporations are fully aware that GOP politicians are dishonest, they do not stay bought.
So of course they had to restart their donations to the party of wealth, the GOP.
Sick of their hypocrisy of course, but reading corporate-speak for the umpteenth time makes me doubly ill. What kind of drones have the job of writing that crap? Uggh.
Back in the day corporations were chartered and required to regularly renew that charter by proving they were a benefit to that community.
Now corporations can literally commit murder and still not have their charter revoked. If, as Roberts suggest, corporations are people, then they should suffer from malfeasance just as individuals do. But that’s not how it works.
Back in the 80s there was a movement in the USSR to establish cooperatives owned by the employees. They were generally successful and popular.
Indeed, REI is an example of a very successful cooperative. As a customer, I get a ballot for the REI board of directors every year along with a dividend check that is usually at least 10% of my purchases.
The system as it is is toxic and destructive. We can do better.
I would think a good start would be to sue the carbon industry into receivership for the damage they have obviously done and liquidate their assets. This would obviously tank the DJIA but “I don’t really care, do you?”