CORPORATE GREED AND WHAT IT DOES TO US

By Ruth A. Sheets

Back in the 1980s, corporations noticed that their friend, Ronald Reagan would give them pretty much whatever they wanted, with little accountability.  Reagan didn’t start it, but really pushed  deregulation and the offshoring of manufacturing and other work to get poor foreign workers to do the corporation’s work for a pittance.  Too bad for us!    Corporations even got tax breaks for their trouble and for hurting American workers, although once moved overseas, they did not have to think of the American workers at all.

Jobs here were kept as lo paying as possible and regulations began dropping off, benefiting the corporations, but sometimes endangering workers, customers, and others touched by the operation or product.  We were told over and over, it was all for America and if workers wanted a job, they would have to take what was offered.  Unions began falling out of favor, being blamed for disrupting the “march of progress.”  Ronald Reagan and his Republican followers smiled at their success in making the rich richer and the middle and working-classes poorer.  They didn’t care much about the truly poor because, they were all welfare cheats, right?

The “good” jobs, supposedly being created from deregulation often paid poorly.  At least two salaries were needed to support a household, often more than two. 

As corporations, their owners, and CEOs became wealthier due to tax rates coming down and regulations going away, they began to see new ways to manipulate the economy and our government.   Their wealth let them support candidates in elections at every level.  When they found that to be very profitable, they began looking elsewhere to see what they could do using their money and the power that arose from it. 

The tech revolution happened while deregulation was ramping up.  Those new corporations were owned and operated by young white guys who got an idea, dropped out of college, and foisted their new ideas onto people who were looking for something new and got it.  They also got something old too, white men wanting to run their corporations with no oversight and no taxes, while demanding a nearly impossible work life from their employees.  The jobs usually paid pretty well, so workers sacrificed almost everything to meet the hyperactive CEOs requirements.   

Over time, Rich men and corporations looked to gain complete mastery of Wealth World.  They looked around again and realized they must be sure to win all legal cases brought against them and their negligent practices.  Deregulation was simply not enough.  They began subtlely buying judges, justices, and members of our Department of Justice so corporate cases would be regularly ruled in favor of the corporations.  Donations to The Federalist Society and other right-wing organizations let universities train young lawyers to be the puppets the corporations needed, some of those institutions, Ivy League, yep, the universities supposed to be educating quality lawyers who actually believe in the rule of law.  The training these future corporate lawyers received taught them to twist the law to make it say whatever their corporate masters wanted it to say.  They got really good at it. 

Those newly minted conservative lawyers rose in the corporate order and some became Federal judges, then justices of our Supreme Court under Republican presidents.  They did not suddenly become fair judges/justices who actually listened and ruled on the constitutionality of the case, but ones who bowed to corporate desires at nearly every turn, Constitution be damned!

Citizens United, the 2010 Supreme Court case that called corporations persons and said money is speech was their masterpiece.  The conservative SC justices claim to be originalists, but, we all know that’s nonsense.  There is no way any modern human being could possibly know what the Founders were thinking.  And, one thing for certain, none of our Founders would have thought a corporation (company) could be a person and would never have seen money as speech. 

Corporations wanted money to be speech so they could more easily pump money into buying more candidates.  Chief Justice Roberts and his Klan complied by contorting the First Amendment so it would look like the Constitution allowed something beyond ridiculous.

Under W. Bush, during the “Great Recession,” (2008-09), members  of both parties, approved a “bail-out for banks and other large corporations (too big to fail).  That money should have gone to mortgage owners so they could pay back what they borrowed instead of paying the banks who had caused the recession.  The banks and other collection agencies had no idea of what to do with all the foreclosed properties they now owned.  The ignorance of all concerned led to the destruction of neighborhoods and people’s lives.  A whole crew of hedge fund-type corporations came on the scene, contributing to the chaos, and are still around and guess what, doing chaos. 

Democrats did not pay sufficient attention.  There was only mild protest at the time and Democrats did little to counter what Republicans and their corporate owners were doing to our economy and our society.  With the courts’ blessing, Republicans began undermining the Voting Rights Act and passing all kinds of voter suppression laws beginning in the former Confederacy and Confederate wannabee states; allowing insurrectionists to hold office despite the Constitution forbidding it; corporate price gouging with impunity; corporations refusing to pay taxes, making all kinds of excuses for why they shouldn’t have to pay taxes; tech corporations permitting on their platforms, lying and misinformation that endangers people’s lives; American citizens being targeted for actions that should be no business either of corporations or our government and so much more.  Lately, Republicans have steered the corporate ship through the waters making sure it didn't matter what the ship ran into, it would have legal smooth sailing, and it mostly has. 

Our environment is in danger, mostly due to the actions of corporations, but corporations have found ways to evade the blows of responsibility.  They have picked up and mostly adopted a language of caring about the needs of the people and how they are ready to help (lies, of course).  They speak of equity and diversity and how important these are while still harboring toxic workplaces that are seldom challenged.  

Corporate officials mention "climate change" but only when they have to.  They encouraged avoiding the term “global warming” (which describes what is really going on), in favor of “climate change,” (which sounds softer and less scary). 

The corporations most involved are predominantly white-owned, white-CEOed, and white lawyered.  Despite their public words, they care as little as possible about the environment (since most of the people currently impacted are people of color and poor white folks).  Ocean rise, stronger storms, wildfires, and any of that climate change stuff, they erroneously believe won’t touch them because their wealth will keep them safe.  Wealth World will be protected for a while, but not as long as they think.  Their money, a lot of it is invisible and dependent on economies functioning.  Right now most economies that matter to American corporations are functioning, although closer to the edge than they have been for a while.  How often can one clean up after wildfires and hurricanes and for how long and still maintain a semblance of economic functioning?  Republicans have been complicit in letting corporations believe they are invulnerable (unless another bigger corporation wants to take them over). 

But, Republicans live in a fantasyland where members of the House of Representatives can lie about nearly everything with impunity.  Their Speaker can whine about all kinds of things that really don't matter in the long run because they meant nothing in the first place (Hunter Biden's laptop).  Congress Republicans can essentially ignore what corporations are doing and continue to do despite the damage to the planet.  Corporations are convinced they can't do anything to stop what they are doing  if they are to survive in their cut-throat world (which of course, they helped to create). 

We the People need to do a better job of educating the public about what is going on and what we as a people are investing in.  We need to show people just how precarious our climate situation is with real images and stop saying "we don't know if this disaster is just a 'normal' part of weather in this area or climate change."  It's all climate change/global warming now.  We need to remind parents, particularly white ones that if they want a positive healthy future for their precious children they have to start voting for people who actually care about them.  Having an "R" behind one's name is nearly a guarantee the person will not be someone who will stand with or fight for them.  Those “Rs” will most likely give even more advantages to the corporations who will do nothing until forced.  Money and power are their addictions both corporate and Republican, so it is hard to see how We the People can break through. 

We do have to try though, for the sake of those who come after us, the ones from whom we have borrowed this planet.  

Maybe it will take just one or two large corporations to stand up and ignore what other corporations are doing, and go in a better direction.  Someone needs to start it, though.  I would like to see pharmaceutical corporations stand up to the courts and keep selling and distributing abortion pills since we all know they are safe and effective, despite what a bunch of conservative white male judges/justices claim. 

Yo Democrats!  You could propose bills that would give incentives to corporations who actually do work to save our environment and want and value diversity in their corporate leadership and in our society.  We need a group within our government who can identify those corporations and note the advances they have actually made in those areas, not just what they have said and written in their reports which are often full of lies and unmet intentions.  It could work to move our nation toward properly regulating corporations and stopping the pathetic idea of corporation personhood and money-speech.  We could move toward corporate sanity.  Please, at least try it!