U.S. Corporations Are Openly Trying to Destroy Core Public Institutions. We Should All Be Worried
Trader Joe's, SpaceX, and Meta are arguing in lawsuits that government agencies protecting workers and consumers—the NLRB and FTC—are "unconstitutional."
Trader Joe’s has become the second company in a month to sue the National Labor Relations Board for being “unconstitutional,” following the lead of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, as both companies face board charges for firing employees. These two major corporations aren’t alone in attempting to protect their interests by undermining public institutions; Meta is also arguing in an ongoing lawsuit that the Federal Trade Commission is unconstitutional.
A legal expert told Motherboard that these companies are attempting to take advantage of what they believe is a friendly Supreme Court—judges currently lean right by a six-to-three margin—while they can.
In a nation where corporations literally have more rights and fewer responsibilities than people, I see this as theater.
The owners will get their way. They own this fucking place.
I'm going to start an employee-owned guillotine manufacturing company
I'm going to create custom electronic components as attachments for the guillotines. In particular, a screen that can be placed in front of the user. A Heads-Up Display.
Congress:
INCORPORATION IS A PRIVILEGE
It is far beyond time for these shitheads' privileges to be revoked.
Yup. If corporations are people, then where is the death penalty when you actually need it.
Exactly! Also, for lesser punishments, maybe sometimes rather than meaningless fines, revoke some patents or trademarks.
Certain people are asking SOME of the right questions, but the actions allowing these narcissistic ass hats to run wild is certainly clear.
We need a solid change of guard in the US to wrestle us back from teetering on the edge of a true Corporatocracy, but I fear we're kind of already there having seen what's happening with all these companies just absorbing smaller entities at breakneck speed to remove competition, and little to no barriers to slow or stop them. Everyone is so quick to sellout instead of working hard to compete. Pretty sad.
bernie was literally the last hope we had to bring change, and guess what;
obama, clinton personally killed that potential progress
if anyone is to blame its fucking Obama and the DNC for demanding conservatism in the face of fascists.
Bill Clinton killed off any rejection of Reagan. The rest is the lack of any political structure beyond the state and corporations.
obama and clinton personallly interfered with, and prevented his being chosen by the DNC at the DNCs request in 2016.
obama the conservative prevented progress by enabling other conservative democrats to endorse the conservative hillary over bernie.
fuck obama
Lol. GPT much?
Let them amalgamate, because the new guard will be OK with seizing entities working against national interests and it'll just allow a entire sectors to fall immediately into government control to serve the people while billionaires cry.
It's like we're being invaded, but it's by corporations instead of an army.
It's likewe're being invaded, but it's by corporations instead of an army.I've been saying from the beginning that the thing Trump did that would truly damage the country the most was appoint these justices
Yup. And McConnell was right behind him going at light speed with other federal court judge appointments.
I think the broader concept being worked on here is to 'dissolve' governments, or at least relegate them to a back seat while corporations are in the drivers seat.
I'm surprised form of corporate nationality hasn't been introduced, where some guaranteed set of rights is extended to you by a corporation, for an annual fee.
I also think this highlights a fundamental issue with constitutional republics, is that they failed to imagine a scenario where corporations would eclipse governments in the capability to wield raw power. This is why I dismiss arguments about censorship and freedom of speech on social media platforms. Its not about private versus public ownership, its about the power to suppress and reach. I don't think we can fault victorian era framers for not quite understanding the impacts technology would have on these things.
Snow Crash presented a United States balkanized into little corporate microstates around every franchise, where the Federal Government was just one more franchise operator. Border crossings between Days Inn and Pizza Hut felt surprisingly credible, even in 1992, when Microsoft was the poster child of tech-nopoly. Nevermind the actual company towns of the 19th century, with their own currencies, their own laws, and their own police. The East India Company. Monopoly tends to see government as irrelevant but sometimes useful tool.
Snow Crash in the most prophetic book I've ever read, and I've read a lot of books.
Haven’t read Snow Crash for this exact reason. Like The Handmaid’s Tale or Black Mirror, it’s too prophetic and not really a form of escapism.
Damn. You just clicked in my brain why I can’t start those type of books.
So are the people who started the whole sovereign citizen thing just doing Snow Crash as like a 4chan troll? The Gushing Granny of leagalese?
I'm pretty sure the power of the East India Company exceeded that of some governments.
I agree and have considered this. It's why I consider the failure to be glaring and obvious.
Why own the government when you can just subcontract it? Less hassle and you have somewhere to deflect blame.
Don’t give them any more ideas.
That's just laissez-faire.
Aren't we already there? And have been for a while?
Democracy is unconstitutional. Only old men in robes may decide!
PS: Older article on this most important issue: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/we-are-witnessing-the-biggest-judicial-power-grab-since-1803/
We should all be gathering torches and pitchforks.
Why revert to old tech when drones seem to be so effective?
Have any publications zoomed out further on this subject to include the book publishers trying to squeeze libraries with the costs of ebook lending? And the attempts to funnel money to private schools via vouchers under the auspices of "school choice"? I'm sure there are many other examples to include, but these are a couple that came to mind.
Written well, it could be a great overview or deep dive, and I suspect there are likely a number of books covering different aspects of this as were relevant at the time of their writing.
I wonder how many new "friends" Clarence Thomas has made since these lawsuits started...
Yes, it is called fascism
This is corporatism rather than facism. Don’t be like the anti communist idiot and miss apply the word everywhere like they do with socialist.
Well fortunately I'm entitled to my own opinion and if you knew anything about fascism you would know that corporatism and fascism go hand in hand.
Oh I agree they go hand in hand. But they are not the same thing.
Yeah, and I know the Mussolini quote you're referencing. Mussolini was deliberately dismissing the several aspects of fascism that made it look re brutal than mere corporatism. The integration of mobilized militias with government, the criminalization of all descent and popular organization, the elimination of out groups, etc.
You're being dismissive of what rights we have to protest and organize. Or the rights of some people to just exist. Guessing you don't use them so why would you appreciate them.
Only person that is dismissing others rights, like individual opinion, is you.
To paraphrase James Baldwin, 'we can love and disagree with each other, as long as that disagreement isn't about my humanity and right to exist'
corporatism is indistiguishable from fascism. when corporations rule the state, the state's interests include the maintaining of the corporatocracy, and the corporations serve the state. every social institution becomes subsumed either by the state directly or by corporate interests directly, but regardless of which expression of power seizes the institution, they are serving the fascists state.
qed
In a way yes. But also in a way no. As there isn’t a state. There are just corporations. There is no state to feed.
the state must protect the private property claims.
That lacks imagination. This is America, after all. We can have corporate armies and police.
the courts are still part of the trappings of legitimacy.
Why? Can’t corporations simply claim ownership manifest destiny and all that.
one time i went to a labor studies department at a Big University and i said "i have a bachelors degree and i think i'd like to maybe go for an advanced degree in labor studies before i find myself singing union hymns on the street corner out of sheer frustration" and we talked for a while about the kind of organizing the professor himself had done and some of his colleagues, and i expressed frustration, then, with the existence of taft-hartley because it hamstrings union organizing so much, and the professor said, i shit you not "we got some good rulings out of the nlrb"
i was flabbergasted. we don't need the nlrb if we can throw wildcat strikes and solidarity strikes, which the NLRB will never support.
all this to say i hope the nlrb is abolished because then the professional labor organizing people won't have an excuse not to attack the real problem.
Not just in the US. But yeah.
As a reminder, Trader Joe’s is a foreign company.
Excuse me? What the fuck? Get the fuck out of here assholes. How did someone not throw this case out? This is why I don't support US companies anymore especially the mega corporations. Good thing I'm not American but good luck to my southern neighbours
well, we failed to solve for prevention of the 'billionaire' class, so they are going to use those funds to dismantle democracy.
we got what we paid for.
why should most of us be worried? most of us can't do shit; they are literally not going to listen to us
Isn’t that worrisome, though? It’s not as if our complete lack of influence is any reason to just chill out and wait for death. Or maybe it is?
This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius ♒️