To whom are they accountable?

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Public views of the Citizens United v. Federal...
Public views of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our country is in deep trouble.  We have a slew of people who believe that all taxes are bad- even if they are necessary to fix our schools, roads, trains, air, and water.  Only if they are used to kill other people do they like taxes.  (It is amazing to me how many of these same people believe that all life- even those that have not been born- takes precedence over the living… unless, of course, they are immigrants.)

Making this situation worse are our lobbyists.  Because these lobbyists are in total control of many of our legislators.  At the state level, ALEC, a virtually wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries (the private firm owned by Charles and David Koch), controls almost every blue state controlled legislature.  (You DO know that ALEC has these legislators swear allegiance to the ALEC program, as a consequence of obtaining funds.  Which means the wishes and needs of the people who elected them don’t count at all.)

At the Federal level, we have the Citizens United decision, which provides businesses more rights than the average citizen. (We should just pass a law declaring that corporations are NOT persons.  That obviates the Citizens United decision.  After all, have you ever heard that Texas was executing a corporation?  Obviously, then,  they are not citizens.)

Letting these situations continue is problematic.  After all, the shareholders do NOT control the corporation.  The executives- or perhaps a single executive does.  (Don’t believe me?  Rupert Murdoch own a very small minority of the shares in ‘his’ companies- but he has more than 40% of the voting shares in each.  So, if you own stock, your vote doesn’t really count.  And, that’s but one example.)   And, that means that only corporate self-interest holds as they promote political stances.  So, it’s no longer one person one vote, but one dollar one vote.  It guarantees that the 1% control- the ones who control the corporations that obtain in the US- have the votes and to heck with the rest of us.

Another approach is to demand that corporations detail each political contribution they make.  As a matter of policy, they are not so required.  The SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) can enforce this disclosure rule.  (Oh, wait.  They are not enforcing the rule that already exists to require that corporations disclose the ratio of executive pay to employee pay, either.)  But, not having this information, makes it much tougher for folks like me to decide whose product I should buy- because I only want to enhance the business of companies that exercise moral authority.

This situation obtains even though those funds that control more than $ 700 billion of corporate assets (about 8% of the money invested in the stock market) demand it- and 1 million commentators (on the SEC site) also do.

What do you think should happen?

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2 thoughts on “To whom are they accountable?”

  1. What do I think should happen?
    I think that people should concentrate on being happy in their own lives and doing what they think is correct in their own lives.
    And then, they would be happy regardless of what anyone else was doing or not.
    What goes around comes around.
    If people are truly doing wrong, they will reap the consequences of that without any help from anyone.
    Attention to anything just increases it.
    It is Law. Universal Laws. Laws that operate regardless of your political slant, opinions, belief in them or not.
    Or, if you want to stay in the game you are talking about, then make a huge amount of money like those other guys and control what you want like you think they do. 🙂 (not really, just kidding)

    Well, you asked what I thought…..

    🙂

    That is what is great about this country.

    Kathy
    Kathy Hadley recently posted..How Many Hours A Day Are You Being Brainwashed?

    1. Well, the experiences of this world demonstrate that rarely happens. Would be nice, but we must act given the realities that obtain, Kathy.
      For example, I can always want to be happy, but when someone is robbing my house, actions other than exuding happy thoughts are required.

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