CF and the ilk like him do not love democracy or the constitutional republic.
They are still infuriated that the American people rejected corporatism and neo-conservatism in the last election. The social values conservatives stayed home by the millions because they felt betrayed by the Bush administration.
Nothing at all indicates a trend to fix that as evident in the Republican Party, which then is foredoomed to defeat again this fall.
Let's have an end to this consistent accusation of "corporatism" on the part of conservatives by taking a good look at what
corporatism is... and just who it is that's practicing it.
Main Entry:
cor·po·rat·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈkȯr-p(ə-)rə-ˌti-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1890
: the organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within their jurisdiction
Corporatism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Corporatism is NOT the same as lobbying. It's an entirely different thing. Bear in mind that lobbying is protected by the 1st Amendment.
Corporations lobby and donate to both major political parties, and in the last election, Democrats received more donations from Wall Street than Republicans, with Barack Obama doing particularly well for himself. And we didn't see him turning those dollars down, now did we?
Corporations are not always 'for-profit' businesses. By definition:
cor·po·ra·tion (kôrp-rshn)
n.
1. A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
2. Such a body created for purposes of government. Also called body corporate.
3. A group of people combined into or acting as one body.
4. Informal A protruding abdominal region; a potbelly.
corporation - definition of corporation by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.
So... essentially, all the 'non-profits' lobbying our government are also "corporations". But unlike the for-profit businesses... they get a seat at the policy table. ie. La Raza's participation in drafting the failed 2006 comprehensive immigration bill, the UAW's involvement in GM and Chrysler's bankruptcies, ACORN's access to federal funding, etc.
Groups like SEIU, the UAW, La Raza, NAACP, ACORN, etc... are just as "corporate" as any 'for-profit' business. And yet these groups consistently have a place at the policy table. "Compassionate conservatives" like G.W. Bush and progressives like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama have pulled out the chair for these people. What's worse, is that we have politicians in Washington who trade their influence for political support:
Breitbart.tv Uncovered Video: Obama Leads SEIU Chant After Vowing to ‘Paint the Nation Purple’
That's a "corporation" Obama's speaking to.
So, we have progressives utilizing the power of non-profit corporations for political purposes... but they have a long history of using "corporatism" to engineer "planned economies".
When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President of the United States in March 1933, he expressly adopted a variety of measures to see which would work, including several which their proponents felt would be inconsistent with each other. One of these programs was the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which, with its codes and industry organizations, was said by some critics to have a certain resemblance, as an economic institution, to Mussolini's corporatism.[1][2][3][4][5][6] This comparison was made at the time, and it was not always a critical one; even Winston Churchill had praised Mussolini. Churchill controversially claimed that the Fascism of Benito Mussolini had "rendered a service to the whole world," showing, as it had, "a way to combat subversive forces" — that is, he considered the regime to be a bulwark against the perceived threat of Communist revolution. At one point, Churchill went as far as to call Mussolini the "Roman genius ... the greatest lawgiver among men."[7] FDR's personal letters reveal that he was impressed by what Mussolini was doing and said that he kept in close touch with that "admirable gentleman."[8] Mussolini himself praised the New Deal as following his own corporate state, as quoted in a July 1933 article in the New York Times, "Your plan for coordination of industry follows precisely our lines of cooperation."[9]
The New Deal and corporatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Today, we have our federal government under Barack Obama OPENLY involved in not only 'non-profit' corporations but 'for-profit' ones as well. We have ownership stakes in the auto manufacturing and the banking industry. We're micromanaging the healthcare industry as of 2014 and will be creating an entire new industry of carbon credit trading if this cap-and-tax fiasco gets through.
One of the clearest examples of why the current atmosphere of "corporatism" in Washington is NOT in the best interest of the American people is this recent business with GM. Not only do we have our government incapable of acting as a fair arbiter of disputes in such matters as the Toyota recalls... but we have the Treasury Department actively DECEIVING us. GM's recent advertisements proclaiming the repayment of their government loans were, in essence, a LIE that Treasury allowed to stand. These people paid us back with our own money.
Fair Game - At G.M., Repaying Taxpayers With Their Own Cash - NYTimes.com
So, we have a government, that once more is acting as a player on the field rather than the referee. And in the REAL WORLD... if they got caught trying to mislead investors, they'd be prosecuted.
This kind of misleading statement would be actionable under Sarbanes-Oxley had it been made as part of a disclosure statement. It might still yet be actionable if the SEC concluded that GM intended to mislead investors into buying GM shares the same way Whitacre wanted to encourage car buyers to come back to GM by falsely claiming that they had repaid taxpayers in full. However, that would mean that the SEC would have to investigate the role of the executive branch to which it belongs in the endorsement of WhitacreÂ’s statement. Any investigation of this would have to originate in Congress, and theyÂ’re not likely to engage, either Â… at least not this year.
(more...)
Hot Air NYT: GM, Treasury lied about bailout repayment
Bottom line... the "conservatives-are-corporatists" meme fails on every level. The current administration makes the GOP look like a bunch of pikers when it comes to corporate influence. Even FDR looks like a rank amateur when compared to Barack Obama. And before you try to deny it... best to excavate GE's Jeffrey Immelt out from beneath Barry's left butt-cheek.
