Comments On David Sirota's
New Book: Hostile Takeover
By Stephen Lendman
12 May, 2006
Countercurrents.org
I'd like to begin my commentary on David Sirota's important new book Hostile Takeover with my strong endorsement of his fine work. Everyone should read it to learn what's really going on around us that affects us all in the most important ways I know and which most people at best only vaguely understand on many if not most of the major issues. Those who read it will learn in stunning and graphic detail how large corporations in league with government at all levels serving their interests and not ours are destroying the democratic pillars of our society. The result now evident when we know the facts David presents is a great irreversible harm to the great majority unless we can collectively act in time to reverse the destructive path and economically downward trajectory we're now on - all planned and implemented by our elected officials in service to their generous corporate benefactors. In his important book, David lucidly explains the problem in detail and gives us an action plan to fight back.
Introduction
When I first heard about David's new book, I was very eager to read it. I had to be as earlier I wrote and got published a long article by the same title. David's approach and mine covered some of the same ground but differed as well including the subtitles we chose. My approach was to concentrate on the economic consequences of corporate size and dominance to ordinary people. David did the same, but as was clear from his subtitle, he did it by documenting in powerful detail "how big money and corruption" control the political process for their own gain. He also goes further to show how we can fight back to regain the essential rights we've lost. I covered some of that myself in an earlier article I wrote called Democracy in America - It's Spelled C-O-R-R-U-P-T-I-O-N. It's posted on my blog site - sjlendman.blogspot.com. In his book, David gives more than just an account of how our government was bought. He presents the evidence in "handbook" form, exposing the lies and myths politicians and corportions tell us, and gives us an action plan to fight back and win.
David and I both know that corporations exist for one purpose only - to make a profit. I explained in my writing that corporate law mandates that publicly owned corporations serve only the interests of their shareholders and do it by working to maximize the value of their equity holdings by increasing sales and profits. They have to do this and don't have a choice. Should they do otherwise, the companies would likely face legal consequences and their top executives dismissal. But David explains that in a democratic society, government is supposed to serve the people and act as a counterweight to unrestrained corporate power which left on its own could destroy society. At times in the past, our elected government actually passed laws and did that, if imperfectly. But that was then, and this is now - a brave new world order. It's one with giant corporations literally running amuck in charge of everything: writing the laws, making the rules, deciding who governs and how and who serves on our courts. Tey even have to sign off on it before the nation goes to war. Those wars have nothing to do with national security threats (we've had none since WW II), making the world safe for democracy or deposing tyrants. I've explained this in other writing also on my blog site including exposing the sham of the so-called "war on terror" which is nothing more than a bogus scare tactic to get the public to go along with bad policy. That policy includes waging war, although they're only fought as a last resort when less extreme methods don't work.
Why resort to war? They're fought to control markets, vital resources like oil and cheap labor to help those same corporations make more profits. In that kind of world, there's nothing to stop them from operating as legalized private tyrannies (with their own armies we pay for through taxes) exploiting us (and the planet) for their gain and doing it as another author explained in his book called The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Those who can pay can play, and those who can't have no say and don't get their way. Money not only talks, it rules the world.
>the rest of the long review, chapter by chapter
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman120506.htm