if not we

The corporatocracy that America has evolved into is not the form of government designed for this land by the Founding Persons. Nowhere in any of the founding documents, from the Declaration of Independence over the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution, is there any mention of this land existing in a perpetual state of war that benefits the controlling interests of a handful of massive corporate entities at the expense of civil liberties.

Thomas Jefferson saw an aristocracy of corporations as a threat to humans’ natural rights; and James Madison warned that war is the most dreaded enemy to public liberty. Regardless of these prior warnings, however, America has become exactly what our exalted forbears feared most - a quasi-republic ruled by corporations that together have enough wealth to buy elected officials and siphon real wealth (in the form of gold) out of the economy using perfectly legal methods (the Federal Reserve System, which is a private corporation).

This system will not change anytime soon. The corporations (and the few families who own them) that wield such enormous power are not about to step aside in favor of the freedoms and democratic institutions imagined for us by the Founding Persons. If the existing corporatocracy wanted to let wealth trickle down, wealth would have trickled already; if it wanted to solve unemployment and eradicate poverty, it would have solved and eradicated already. America’s monied ruling class has had centuries of time during which and vast resources with which to create in this great land an utopia of prosperity for all at the expense of none. This author proposes, therefore, that we the People set aside a few small parcels of land (similar to the reservation system) within America in which they who control the undemocratic and unconstitutional corporatocracy may do whatever unimaginably rich persons do besides breathe and eat. On the rest of the land, however, the People ought set up a form of government - one that closely follows the text of our Founding Documents, which include the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution - that to us shall seem most likely to effect our Safety and Happiness.

All power stems from the People, and the existing structures exist only because we allow them to exist. If we are not to bring about the true promise of this grand experiment, then who? And if we are not to do it now, then when?

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥

on corporate rule

A horse keeps being a horse even if a group of people call it a cow. And a house keeps being a house even if a group of people call it a tractor.

Similarly, a republic ruled by corporate interests keeps being a corporatocracy even if a group of people call it a democracy. When corporations receive trillion dollar bailouts for the failure of the financial risks they took; when corporations can exploit natural resources for their own profit then sell them back to the very citizens who owned said resources in the first place; when a country fights world wars to promote or protect the profit-making ability of its corporate rulers; in such instances a republic is a corporatocracy and must be recognized as such.

There is nothing wrong, ultimately, with a republic being ruled by corporations, so long as the citizens of that republic know the truth of things and aren’t purposefully blinded by consumerism, nationalism, or patriotism. Giving citizens a cheap and easy way to flee the consequences of corporate rule and institute a new Government as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness is, however, a honorable, legal, and moral necessity.

americanifesto / JPR / whorphan / 場黑麥