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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Powerful Forces Shredding Our Constitution: "The Rise of the American Corporate Security State"
http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/23805-the-powerful-forces-shredding-our-constitution-preface-to-the-rise-of-the-american-corporate-security-state<...>
now, taking stock years later, we have to recognize that no foreign terrorist shredded the Constitution. Nor did we, as citizens, bankrupt the nation. Powerful forces inside the country did. And worse than that: they intend to keep doing it. They have yet to be stopped. This is the real reason to be afraid: the rise of the Corporate Security State. The Constitution gave us three branches of government to ensure that no one small faction could control the state. Each of them is failing us.
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The Corporate Security State is tipping the balance between the self-interest of a governing corporate elite and the rights of the rest of us to freedom, privacy, safety, and fairness. We can see the power shift manifest in six clear and evolving trends since 2001:
Average citizens are subject to ever-expanding surveillance by the government-corporate complex.
Control of information by the government-corporate complex is expanding.
The separation of powers established by the Constitution is eroding. Rights guaranteed by constitutional amendments are becoming irrelevant. Reporting a crime may be a crime, and informing the public of the truth is treason.
The government-corporate surveillance complex is consolidating. What has been a confidential but informal collaboration now seeks to legalize its special status.
Financial reforms enacted after the crisis are inoperable and ineffective because of inadequate investigations and intensive corporate lobbying.
Systemic corruption and a fundamental conflict of interest are driving us toward the precipice of new economic crises.
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Such a country can only be maintained with greater repression of dissent and suppression of the truth. This is why the government is into deeper and broader surveillance. Instead of funding education and health care, clean air, and water, our taxes are paying for intrusive electronic monitoring - of us.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)This needs to go to the Greatest Page.
Aerows
(39,961 posts)because you are absolutely right.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)kick
DJ13
(23,671 posts)appal_jack
(3,813 posts)Just interpreting and applying the Bill of Rights as written would restore so much. If we really, really upheld the simple and straightforward applications of fundamental freedoms outlined by the founders, combined with the greater equality gained in the ensuing centuries via the enfranchisement of women, the Fourteenth Amendment, and now anti-discrimination policies regarding sexuality, we could have a truly wonderful, free, and relatively egalitarian country.
k&r,
-app
marmar
(77,114 posts)mountain grammy
(26,663 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)johnnyreb
(915 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts)CrispyQ
(36,552 posts)Kick.
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)They provide time & money to the corporations who then provide us with media, politicians and education to match their desires.
If one never steps a foot out of the bubble, one can live as clueless, happy and carefree as they can afford.
They don't want to know and they pay for the privilege of not knowing.