Payback & Return on Investment
Avedon Carol with two pieces of insight,* in one post no less, right next to each other!
I wonder what really happened when he [George W Bush] was in the TANG [Texas Air National Guard] that makes him hate the Guard so much. I mean, he sure seems to have it in for them. I also think it's well past time people started talking about the fact that, ever since 9/11, Bush has been bent on a program of weakening every mechanism America has for protecting our people – first responders in every category. He almost instantly started closing fire houses, weakening the police, and of course sent the NG off to foreign countries and left them (and their equipment) there. What's up with that?
But then, the big question everyone should have been asking all along is finally starting to peek over the edge of the wall: What does Bush, or any member of his administration, or any of his supporters, mean when they talk about "our freedoms"? It's certainly not freedom of religion or freedom of speech or freedom of the press; it's not the freedom to be secure in our homes and our persons; it's not even freedom of upward mobility. If they really mean "freedom for corporations to abuse us anyway they like," we should make them say so.
So, payback for the National Guard, perhaps because they didn't guard his AWOL record with enough secrecy?
As for those corporations — I could smack my head in disgust! of course it's about "freedom" for corporations — and "they hate us because they love our freedom" — I guess I'll be writing more in the future about corporations in America. Until then, I save time and energy by quoting myself from a comment that I made# at SW Anderson's Oh!pinion Blog:
People have become so accustomed to the idea that corporations in America are treated like people that it seems taken for granted — surely it must be in the Constitution or something.
Well, it’s not. Corporations operate at the pleasure of the government that, in turn, is of the people. That corporations have rights like people was a relatively recent court decision, and we the people are under no moral or legal obligation to maintain the hands-off attitude to taxation and regulation that corporate leaders — naturally — overwhelmingly prefer.
Who promotes the “free-market” philosophy and paint[s] it as the 11th commandment? Those who profit from it the most, of course.
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*Avedon Carol, "Blogtopiana", The Sideshow, 19 May 2006.
#JN Shaumeyer, comment to "Friday food for thought: free markets bite", Oh!pinion, comment dated 14 April 2006.
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on Friday, 19 May 2006 at 18.52
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Somewhere in my archives is a link to an article that demonstrates that it was not a court decision that gave corporations "personhood", but rather a notation by an upitty clerk. Someday, I hope, that will be corrected.