Yesterday I posted a video of the one and only, George Carlin, speaking about choice in America. I wanted you to watch the video, in hopes that you would have a day to really sit and think about your life and how much choice you have on a day to day basis. I wanted you to think about, maybe even research, the fact that America isn't run by the federal government, but by the people who own it. The public information, that nobody seems to know about, explains it simply... our society is run by corporate America.
Since WWII, America has created a capitalist society like no other, one where corporations and industries run the government, not just the economic structure. Essentially, there are really only a few corporations that control the resources of this country. In sociology, this is explained through Conflict Theory, the idea that elites control the wealth and the resources, therefore controlling the people. But that is really what we have in America. Corporations and groups, that own the "choice" we have to make in our daily lives. One example is AOL/Time/Warner. This corporation actually controls and profits from numerous other companies. They own companies in almost every aspect of a person's daily life (TV, film, music, magazines, comic books, internet, etc.). Another example is General Electric, one of the wealthiest companies in America, which made $14 billion in profit last year, paying ABSOLUTELY NO TAXES. On top of this, NBC didn't cover the story about this issue, because NBC is owned by General Electric. If that isn't power, I don't know what is.
But these companies aren't the only ones. This is seen all over the place. It's called corporate synergy. The idea is that major companies will greatly succeed financially if they merge together. This creates more wealth for less people (2 companies that originally required 2 CEO's, now only needs 1 CEO) and with more wealth comes more power. Now these few people have total control over the resources and distribution of resources, probably the greatest power of all. They control the price of food, the price of gas, the price of water, and they even control the media. In a society where the number of free thinkers decreases daily, we have corporations controlling the information and news that gets to us. They decide what we are allowed to hear about, and what should be hidden from us, which is just a way of controlling thought.
Even our financial system has been tainted by this ridiculous system. Remember the $700 billion the federal government gave to the banks to bail them out? That's more than we spend on defense every year in our budget! And why? So bankers and business thugs can give themselves big bonus's, leaving the poor and middle class to rot. That my friends, is power. When you have the United States government in your back pocket, you can get away with anything. Isn't it interesting, that after one of the worse economic meltdowns in American history, not one single person has seen jail time? Its been established for quite some time, that wall street and corporate America drove the country into the ground on purpose, as they made as much money as possible - yet not one person went to jail for it. This is power, greater than any the world as ever known. These corporate elites control our lives and what we can and can't do. If they want a law passed, they get it passed (Koch Brothers and Governor Walker in Wisconsin - eliminating worker rights). If they want money, they get it. The top 1% of this country owns 80% of the wealth, and the number of poor is growing, while our middle class disappears.
In the end, you have no choice, because most of the time, your "choice" really just feeds the machine that enslaves us all. For all of my Simpsons fans - you can either choose Kang for president, or Kodos... it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day, you're going to be a slave. And that is exactly what we are.
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