The Flag of the Corporate States of America
“We the executives of America’s corporations, in order to form a more impregnable conglomerate and indivisible merger, establish privilege, insure domestic equity, provide for our common defense, get everyone off welfare, and bless our security in perpetuity for ourselves and our posterity, do declare and enact this Charter for the Corporate States of America.
When in the course of economic events, it becomes necessary to dissolve labor unions, assert political hegemony and assume the powers of the Earth, granting us equal station to Nature’s God, which entitle us to enforce a decent respect from the opinions of mankind and causes us to require separation from the restrictions put upon the common consumer and thus, a declaration of our superiority. We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are NOT created equal! Some, endowed by their creator with certain fiduciary prowess; granting them rights and privileges to preserve life, liberty, and pursuit of property. When Government becomes destructive to this end, it is the right of the stake holders to abolish such forms that would prevent Capitalism from reigning supreme or acknowledging any rights of the commoner, because it sounds too much like Socialism.
When despotic legislatures and an informed citizenry seek to subject those of wealth and station to such unjust acts as taxation of our profits, regulations upon our business practices, legal challenge to our monopolistic tendencies, prosecution of corporate officers for their creative financial endeavors, and accountability for product liability; it stands to reason that this long train of abuses and usurpations, pursue invariably the same objects within the design of that most feeble and unwieldy form of Government, Representative Democracy.
In keeping with the highest form of managerial practices, accounting standards, stock ratings, brand recognition, and immunity from personal culpability; we the executives of the Corporate States of America, do hereby ratify and impose this Constitution upon all of the consumers living within the real estate parcel known as America. With blessings from God, the Almighty Rand, we beseech your favor and insider information.
Score!”
Some of you will recognize that much of the verbiage and phrasing of this polemic was taken directly from the preambles of the Declaration of Independence and of the U.S. Constitution. It is scary how easily our sacred words could become the profane doctrine of profiteers. The Tea Party is due some credit: they are actually exercising their First Amendment rights to free speech and redress of grievances with their Government. Unfortunately for all of us, their grievances are ill-conceived, misinformed and manipulated by those whose interests do not really include their rank-n-file members, and whose knowledge of history is grotesquely absent at worst, or skewed and distorted at best. But they are being used, complicit in their own self-deception, by a class of people who consider the “patriots” lambs before the slaughter. A slaughter that will happen to all citizens deemed mere plebeian consumers by a power mongering and wealthy elite that seek to control it all. Ever read A Handmaids Tale?
“You are waging class warfare” decry those pulling the levers of power as if victims of their own success. Of course these folks don’t want to acknowledge class warfare! They’ve already won! And one huge hidden truth that most “god fearing” and “humble working folk” never want to admit is this…they want to be the wealthy people to whom they both bow and resent! Why do you think money controls the attention of so many people’s lives? However, there are many wealthy people like George Soros, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates Sr. and Jr. who seek justice and fairness for all.
Since many a foolish citizen is convinced that cutting the sinew of our form of government, which will happen if a Constitutional Convention actually ever takes place, it will be as Upton Sinclair predicted when he said, “When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.”
Does anyone remember who said, “and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”? Well, if you thought Abraham, you were half right. It was President Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, not Abraham of the Old Testament at Nahor. This piece may be satirical, but it conveys a thematic tone all too prevalent in the modern collective psyche in both America and many other societies as well: outrage, brewing to hatred, accelerating toward violence, but hiding fear and anxiety. We humans use humor to give us psychological distance from those things that otherwise shake our world view. So have a good laugh and know that, of course, the government would never let this happen.
Of course, it will depend greatly on who owns the government? It’s citizens or the corporations? Kismet?
by Stephen Cocconi © 2011
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