Corporate Police State advances
More and more in the US, we see corporations gaining more and more control of the government. Not in all cases, of course, and come companies are still hit hard by government regulation, control, and lawsuits—but look at the overall picture. For example, corporate tax rates:
The graphic above is by Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch. This graphic is from Demos. Contact mhirsch@demos.org for high-resolution file.
Taxes reflect only part of the takeover of the government. The current US Supreme Court, with its aggressively corporate-friendly rulings (including the right to unlimited political contributions, along with such things as severe time limits on when a lawsuit for pay discrimination can be brought (so short that in the typical case, by the time the persons discriminated against discover the facts, it’s too late to bring a case)).
The occasional corporate setbacks are minor compared to corporate advances in control. When the tide comes in, the water does not advance in a straight line: some waves surge farther up the beach than others, but keep your eye on the overall trend. The overall trend in the US is toward corporate control of the governement.
Here’s an amazing example, reported by David Sirota in Salon:
As if we needed any more evidence that the United States is fast becoming aCorporate Police State (i.e., systematically deploying police power to protect narrow corporate interests), make sure to check out this jaw-dropping story that broke in Canada late Friday. It details how the British Columbia Supreme Court uncovered what it says is a massive collusion between computer giant Cisco and U.S. law enforcement — a collusion that seems designed to use criminal prosecution to stop a whistle-blower’s antitrust case against a powerful politically connected corporation.
The machinations in this case are complicated, but the basics go like this: Ex-Cisco exec Peter Alfred-Adekeye filed a whistle-blower suit against his former employer Cisco in civil court — a suit that could compel the company to pay millions in damages for allegedly “forcing customers to buy maintenance contracts,” according to the Vancouver Sun.
Cisco subsequently responded with two moves designed to intimidate Adekeye: First, the company filed a counter civil suit against him for allegedly “using a former colleague’s computer code to illicitly access Cisco services worth ‘more than $14,000.’” Then, the corporation had its allies in U.S. law enforcement cite the civil counter-suit to issue a whopping 97 criminal charges against Adekeye. In other words, instead of following Adekeye’s civil case with criminal antitrust charges against Cisco, U.S. authorities were convinced by the corporation to add criminal charges to Cisco’s counter civil suit against Adekeye (this move to add state-sanctioned criminal prosecution to a corporation’s civil action, of course, is a textbook definition of a Corporate Police State).
Ultimately, U.S. authorities demanded the Canadian government extradite Adekeye for prosecution, and Canadian officials proceeded to follow U.S. orders by arresting and detaining him. However, on Friday, a top Canadian court rejected the extradition request, issuing a stunning ruling that goes way beyond one whistle-blower dispute. As reported by the Sun (emphasis added): . . .
Canada, of course, also allowed a lawsuit for damages for the innocent Canadian citizen that the US kidnapped, sent to Syria for torture, and ultimately released when it was discovered that he was completely innocent of any wrongdoing. (The US courts won’t allow the lawsuit: “state secrets privilege” according to the US government. So tough luck on the torture.)
