Guest Blog by Gail Segreto - A Corporate-Coup

May 9, 2017  An opinion by Gail Segreto

Of course everyone is talking about the actions of the president.  And this is a big deal.  We have a president and his entire executive branch based on an illegitimate election. 

Today we have an investigation of the players at the White House and the president fired the person investigating them.  

The reason given is that this action was recommended by the attorney general because of how the Clinton investigation was handled.  But we must remember that Jeff Sessions had previously recused himself from anything related to the election.  So how could he make such a recommendation.  The entire executive branch is corrupt. 

Yes, this stinks.  But it is just one part of a very serious situation.  We are seeing the final stages of a coup.  This is not the usual sort of coup.  It has been developed and played out over several decades.  I am talking about the corporate takeover of the nation.  

A shift in values and how the government represents and rules the people usually comes radically and dramatically, with a revolution of some kind. This time it comes from a long process of re-shaping the people's values with a program of propaganda, and what we now call fake news.  

This started as an economic policy under Reagan.  He helped to establish ALEC, an organization to bring government and business together.  It became a powerful force for changing state and national legislation to be more favorable to business.  But like any organization that operates in secret, they became corrupt, or maybe ALEC was actually designed to be so.   ALEC corporate members provide legislators ready-to-go bills for things like "Right to work" where workers see their rights diminished, or the proliferation of for-profit educational companies that take high tuition fees and leave graduates without full services.   

We see more and more consolidation as companies merge into mega corporations, often to the detriment of citizens, especially when it comes to communication and the media.  

As this movement gained momentum they used some hot issues like abortion to create a division among citizens.  And then they could wrap any other idea inside the hot topic and link them together earning favor for any topic by association.  

They became experts in persuasion and the use of sound bites and in supporting the development of news media specifically supporting their goals while calling all others the "liberal media".  Demonizing the opposition has been a key strategy.   They began to cast doubt on any science that was not favorable to business.   And they gerrymandered districts to insure extreme candidates success while  passing laws to suppress the vote.

I am sure there are many republicans who believe in the old republican values of serving the people with the least amount of government interference.  But the philosophy has become extreme. A profit motive without regulations will never be beneficial to the populace. The evidence is overwhelming that business will take advantage of workers, putting their health and lives in danger; and of allowing dangerous products to remain on the market and even fighting the science that proves the danger.  

In the last 20 years business has become so bold that CEOs do not hesitate to pay themselves and top people in the company salaries and bonuses that are truly outrageous while demanding to reduce regulations so they can grow the company.. meanwhile the numbers living in poverty balloon. 

We are they only developed country in the world without health care for all.  This is because we are beleaguered by a corporate, for-profit health care system.

In 2008 our country was brought to our knees because the supposedly smartest economists in the country at the Federal Reserve, the SEC and the Treasury Dept did not see the collapse coming when I personally know of several dozen people including myself, who saw it coming.   But it was good for banks so these traitorous experts let it all happen. 

Then we had the great tragedy called the Citizens United decisions where the Supreme Court determined that corporations have the same rights as individuals and spending money is the same as free speech.   It has been an influence free-for-all since then. 

We have been kept in wars for 16 years with no end in sight and all for oil and the profits that come to the military industrial complex.  War is profitable.  We have a belligerent president flirting with war on 3 fronts and with a real possibility of a nuclear weapon in use.    But this is as much a distraction strategy as state department policy.

Now we have this narcissist of a president supported by the GOP and being used by the GOP to achieve their cold hearted goals to promote business and the wealthy at the expense of the majority of the people.  The combination is more awful and devastating than anyone could imagine.  

• The cabinet is filled with wealthy corporate figures with backgrounds in complete opposition to the goals of the departments they now head.   
• Family members of the president have wide ranging power and specifically directed to suggest how to restructure the government.  
• There is enormous potential for known and unknown conflict of interest with the president and several of his cabinet. 
• Media is demonized to an extreme and blocked out from some events.
• The executive branch is fighting with the judicial branch.  The president and his people make comments about changing libel laws and many other outrageous, statements.  
• The president threatens to shut down the government in September if congress does not give him a budget he likes and threatens to let the national health care system collapse too.
• And all this in an environment where lies are the norm, just alternate facts, and they are accepted and ok!
• The administration is under investigation for ties with Russia.
• Several current or past administration members have lied about contacts with Russia.
• The president openly admires world leaders with the worst human rights abuses.
• And now he fires the guy who is investigating him. 

In a way it may be fortunate that Trump is here for this culmination of the corporate takeover.  He is so impulsive and ignorant on so many things that he is already tripping up.  The big question is if those who can take him down will do so.   I think they will run in circles for a long while but even when Trump is gone the corporate takeover may still resume.

It is up to the great masses of people in the USA to come together as one voice and say we want a government for and by the people.