The word “corporation” derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a “body of people.” Entities which carried on business and were the subjects of legal rights were found in ancient Rome, and the Maurya Empire in ancient India. In medieval Europe, soon churches became incorporated, as did local governments, such as the Pope and the City of London Corporation. The point was that the incorporation would survive longer than the lives of any particular member, existing in perpetuity. The alleged oldest commercial corporation in the world, the Stora Kopparberg mining community in Falun, Sweden, obtained a charter from King Magnus Eriksson in 1347. Many European nations chartered corporations to lead colonial ventures, such as the Dutch East India Company or the Hudson’s Bay Company, and these corporations came to play a large part in the history of corporate colonialism.

During the period of colonial expansion in the seventeenth century, the true progenitors of the modern Corporation emerged as the “chartered company”. Acting under a charter sanctioned by the Dutch monarch, the Dutch East India Company (VOC), defeated Portuguese forces and established itself in the Moluccan Islands in order to profit from the European demand for spices. Investors in the VOC were issued paper certificates as proof of share ownership, and were able to trade their shares on the original Amsterdam stock exchange. Shareholders are also explicitly granted limited liability in the company’s royal charter. Make note, the corporation defeated the Portuguese forces…Halliburton, Blackwater(Ze), Bechtel, and more…we think our civilization has changed much over the millenia? Think again. Well, yes, it has, it has become substantially more corporate efficient.

Yet, we all think that those elites will change the rules for the betterment of the society at large. And we all see, continually, this does not happen. In fact, new recent laws were passed that allow corporations to spend any amount of money they wish to aid in the campaigns of politicians…

Yet, most people still expect Washington to put up campaign finance reform to make elections ‘more fair and honest’… People expect Washington to put together time limits for Senate and Congresspersons served… People expect a new President to take away some of the power given to them, that the previous President instilled while quietly ripping apart the Constitution they vowed so vehemently to protect… People expect to have their jobs… People expect to have their retirement they continually feed money to… People expect their Social Security and Medicare to be there… People expect their schools to give them an education… People expect their marriages to last their whole lifetime… People expect God to save them from their retribution.
People expect so much, but do not truly understand that they must fight for everything they expect…ALWAYS!

Most people spend so much time complaining about the shit that happens in their life, all the while thinking that their Senators, Congresspersons, Governors, City Supervisors, managers, bosses, etc. will have their interests in mind when negotiating or out fighting for their own cause. This, as a general rule, is just not the case. There certainly are exceptions to be found…

Most people continually fail to understand that no one will come to their rescue. NO ONE. We have seen and heard it here, by Anonz, Zen Lil, others, and our esteemed host, Michelle. “Who would you trust most to run the country?” One’s self, is the answer… There is nothing wrong with this, and we should all learn that this should be the answer WE ALL GIVE! Otherwise, you become victim and give your life to the betterment of someone else. But, we must learn!

Years ago, while doing some self help workshop, I participated in an activity called “Lifeboat”. It was designed that with the group of 100 people you must stand and explain why your life is worth living in order to attain one of the 12 seats of the “lifeboat”. It is an interesting exercise to how people see themselves in their lives and their role in society and community. People must tell their life story or their problems, wants, desires, etc. so that the others will vote you into the boat to be saved. In this exercise, I didn’t make the boat. Subsequently, it is imperative that we learn from our lives, circumstances and repercussions. Thus, later on in the workshop, we did another exercise called Queen for a Day. This was based on the old TV show titled the same (google it). In this exercise, contestants are told to tell the audience why their life sucks so bad that they should be the one to win the new refrigerator, or washer dryer set…I learned! I won! I was crowned Queen for the Day! I was the ONLY one to walk the room with the tiara… I told nothing of what my real life was. I told a story of what I thought would be a life I did not want to have. I designed a story that sucked so bad that the rest of the people would also hate to have that life so bad, too. I was rewarded for that ingenuity.

This is to prove a point. We are at a precipice in our global societal lives. We are all standing at the abyss. The global economy is shit, the global environment is damaged, the systems are broken. The economy is stagnate due to everyone. People and corporations are standing at the abyss, the unknown. Most people, real and corporations, are waiting to see what is going to happen, so then they can plan their lives, their retirements, etc. once again and try to get some of their ‘life’ back, and money flowing to them. But, generally, as we really truly know, that history will teach us nothing. Most people will begin to use credit cards again. Most people will ask their manager what is best for them and to have them go to the upper management to fight for it.

The statistic already show this. Many people have stopped looking for jobs, because the jobs just aren’t there. They have lost their momentum and their self esteem has been beaten and battered. The elite know this, so the jobs that are available or that will come back will be for less money in order for them, and their best friend the corporation, to maintain the higher profit margin. The elite and their friend the corporation will once again ask you the worker to believe that things have changed and to reinvest in them and they will handle your retirement plan… For most people, history will teach us nothing…

Many people have given up dreaming because their dreams have been taken away. Many people blame their circumstances on someone else. And for many, there are actions and reactions done by others that helped create their demise and situation, as well as, our global situation to become the detrimental economic social destruction tool. Yet, also, most people wait to listen and find the answers from the same people that created and continue to create the rules using the same game plan as before. In Washington, not much has changed in reference to Wall Street. Their rulebook has not changed by much. A few things were done to passify the masses, but if you go back to the trough and continue to play the credit game, you will once again get fleeced. If you go back to the trough and believe that Washington will save you, you will once again get fleeced.

It is not that I am a pessimist, actually I tend to be quite the opposite. It is just that the game is stacked. We have heard it spelled out by one of the main puppetiers, Anonz. Once people begin to TRULY understand this, and play the game knowing THIS, they will begin to play different and take more control of their own lives.

What kind of person are you going to be?!

mable, yes, Id like to add to your two to Lacy.
Lacy meet George, george meet Lacy, you two desrve each other.
…and you Lacy are exactly the reason why a SP (she who will not be named) has a shot at politics, that makes me ill…so if you want to think so little of yourself that your cool with being some mans chattel, have at it bc there are plenty of Georges out there to soak your undies over.

Sigh, nonetheless, Lacy, the ‘Zen Lill’s’ of this world will still stand up and fight for you and every other female to gain equality anc you will take it even if your kicking and screaming about your neanderthal…and I will deal with a male (or more than one if choose a polyamory situation) bc its what I choose to do not because anyone owns me and controls me bc we both/all want to be there, now that’s something to get wet, as well as seriously hot and bothered over ; )

I don’t address G anymore, the man isn’t worth wasting time over. And he thinks he wouldn’t be easily recognized as a bigot/sexist, oh puh-lease, he’d be the one in the room looking like an iPrick, tee hee

Have a great weekend, Luv, Zen Lill

But the republicans will do anything to prevent this from happening. They need the economy to be in the pits to profit at the poles.

I read this this morning in the Huffington Post. It made sense to me. What about you Main Dude?

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The middle class is getting whacked by the Great Recession. Fifteen million people are out of work, another 9 million workers can only find part-time jobs, and millions more have given up looking for work altogether. Those lucky enough to be employed are unlikely to see any substantial wage gains for years to come.

Millions of homeowners are facing the loss of their home and more than ten million are underwater in their mortgage. Most of the huge baby boom cohort is approaching retirement with little other than Social Security to support them, now that the collapse of the housing bubble has destroyed their home equity and much of the rest of their savings.

This pain is infuriating for two reasons. First, this was an entirely preventable disaster. The housing bubble was easy to see. Competent economists had long warned of its dangers.

The second reason why the current situation is infuriating is that we know how to get the economy out of this mess. We just need to boost demand. This can be done either with much more government stimulus, more aggressive monetary policy from the Fed, or pushing the dollar down to boost exports.

If this disaster was preventable and we know how to get out of it, why didn’t our leaders try to stop it before it happened? Why don’t they take the steps necessary now to get the economy moving again?

The answer to both these questions is simple; the politicians work for someone else. On Election Day, the politicians might need our votes, but they won’t get to be serious contenders unless they’ve gotten the campaign contributions of the big money crew. And the moneyed elite has been using its control of the political process to ensure that an ever larger share of the economy’s output is redistributed upward in their direction.

The reason that there was little interest in cracking down on the housing bubble is that Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and the rest were making a fortune from the financial shenanigans that fueled the bubble. Former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin personally pocketed over $100 million from this fun. Why would they want the government to rein it in?

Of course, when the bubble did finally blow and threaten their banks with bankruptcy, the Wall Street crew just ran to the government for help. And they got trillions of dollars in loans and loan guarantees to ensure that they would not be victims of the crisis they had created. Now that they are back on their feet, with Wall Street profits and bonuses both again at near record levels, they see little reason to concern themselves with the measures that might set the economy right for the rest of us.

After all, the steps necessary to revitalize the economy could mean some inflation. This would reduce the value of the debt owned by the wealthy. And the wealthy don’t see any reason that they should risk any of their wealth just for the good of the economy.

We have enormous ground to cover to restore an economy that works for the vast majority, but the first step is to know where we are. The upward redistribution of the last three decades has nothing to do with the market and a belief in “market fundamentalism.” This is about a process where the rich and powerful have rewritten the rules to make themselves richer and more powerful.

For example, they wrote trade rules that were designed to put downward pressure on the wages of the bulk of the U.S. workforce by placing manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in China and other developing countries. This had nothing to do with a belief in “free trade.” They did not try to subject lawyers, doctors or other highly paid workers to the same sort of international competition. They only wanted international competition to put downward pressure on the wages of workers in the middle and bottom, not those at the top.

This elite has instituted a system of corporate governance that allows top executives to pilfer companies at the expense of their shareholders and its workers. Top executives are overseen only by a board of directors who owe their hugely overpaid sinecures to the executives they supervise. And of course the Wall Street barons themselves are given a license to gamble with the implicit promise that government picks up their tab when they lose.

No progressive movement will make any progress until we understand the battle we are fighting. Our income is a cost to the rich. They will look to cut it wherever they can, whether this is wages for private sector workers, pensions for public employees, or Social Security for retirees. That is their target.

We have to fight back using the same logic. Their income is our cost — the multimillion dollar bonuses for the Wall Street wizards is a direct drain on the economy. So are the bloated paychecks of top executives and their lackey boards. Progressives must be prepared to use all the same tactics to bring down the income of the rich and powerful that they have used to reduce the income of everyone else.

This means restructuring the rules of corporate governance to put serious downward pressure on the pay of top executives. The highest paid workers (doctors, lawyers, and economists) must be subjected to international competition in the same way as manufacturing workers have been subjected to international competition. And, we should sharply limit the extent of the patent or copyright protections that are exploited by the drug industry and the entertainment and software industries.

We have to put the focus on the ways the rich have rigged the rules and place this at the center of political debate. The three decade-long battle over tax cuts for the rich is important, but at the end of the day it is a side show. If we let them steal all the money at the onset, it really doesn’t make much difference if they end up letting us tax a little of it back.

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It’s really not Obama’s fault if the democrats have been cowered into not supporting his request for a new round of stimulus money.

Robert

Livid with anger, the girl’s escort strode over and shouted, “You lewd bastard!” at the celebrity. Then he unzipped, pulled out his penis and said, sneering, “you can autograph this for me!”

After peering at the bared organ, the star looked up. “I’m sorry, fella, but I can’t
sign my full name on that tiny thing, would my initials do?

Sure you feel justified in wishing the worse for us here in America. But can you grasp that just as not all Arabs think alike neither do all Americans. I like Michelle find what Bush and Cheney did to be war crimes.

But our justice system requires a process before we bring others to justice. Sometimes it fails us, but for the most part it helps us to stay a united country because we believe in its promise. “justice for All, Equally applied.”

Use this forum Michelle has provided to purge to say how you feel about your loss. But do not allow others to excite you to mindless violence against those who may be innocent of intending any malice towards you or yours.

We have a party in this country that fosters that kind of mindless hate towards their fellows Americans. It is disgusting to watch how easily people can be persuaded to hate by demagoguery.

It has been often argued on this blog that one third of my race is predisposed to it. I hope not.