The Corporate Crime Reporter dissects a blog some of you (probably most) have never heard of which will eventually list 37 reasons to favor big business interests (including working against “environmental zealots”, thinking highly of Medicare Part D, fighting the so-called death tax, favoring drilling in ANWR). Linda Rozett admitted that the site is run by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
One sentence in the CCR essay stuck out to me:
It doesn’t take a genius to figure this one out ”“ vote for big business ”“ primarily Republicans, but big business Democrats like Joseph Lieberman will do.
Earlier I was thinking about big corporate media and which politicians have done so much in recent years for these corporations. The Republican-majority FCC are working on removing more of the barriers to media ownership so large media outlets like Clear Channel can own more outlets. Localism decreases or vanishes, public affairs shows that criticize the status quo disappear, and media corporations try to bamboozle you into believing that more channels means better choices.
Who’s done considerable work on these grounds before? The Democrats.
Under Pres. Clinton, copyright was extended by 20 years (largely at the behest of Disney who wanted to keep early Mickey Mouse movies out of the public domain), the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was enacted (largely at the behest of corporate publishers of electronic media who use this power to make sure that even if copyright ever expires, it will remain illegal to circumvent the copy-prevention code on most electronic media), and the 1996 Telecommunications Act was signed into law (which has reduced media diversity, according to a study the FCC wants buried).
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was predictably bad news for everyone involved; millions of protesters around the world told both corporate-led parties to not invade. But the Democrats were overwhelmingly in support of the invasion and continue to agree to its continuation and funding. In 2004 their presidential candidate argued that the Iraq war was being mismanaged, not that it was illegal, unethical, and must end immediately.
Competition is hard to hear about because, as I’ve mentioned many times before here, both parties know how to get along to fight mutual threats. The two parties run the so-called TV debates with an iron fist, setting the barrier to inclusion impenetrably high and kicking out a ticket-holding Ralph Nader when he went to watch the debates via closed-circuit TV from another building. The last thing these two parties want someone who will talk to you about how the corporate paymasters don’t really care which party is in power.