In an age when freedom is fast becoming the exception rather than the rule, imprisoning Americans in private prisons run by mega-corporations has turned into a cash cow for big business. At one time, the American penal system operated under the idea that dangerous criminals needed to be put under lock and key in order to protect society. Today, as states attempt to save money by outsourcing prisons to private corporations, the flawed yet retributive American “system of justice” is being replaced by an even more flawed and insidious form of mass punishment based upon profit and expediency. Continue reading →
With less than eight months to go before the next presidential election, political chatter among the candidates is ramping up and serious political discourse is declining. All the while, the corrupt government machine is taking advantage of a populace distracted by the political theater to advance agendas that are completely at odds with the nation’s fiscal, legislative and constitutional priorities. Indeed, the process of voting and electing a new president has become little more than an expensive, sophisticated ruse designed to deceive us into thinking we actually have a say in what happens in our government. However, the sad fact is that the United States government has ballooned into an overreaching, out-of-control bureaucracy accountable to no one in particular—not Congress or the president and least of all the taxpayers. Continue reading →
One of the key ingredients in a democracy is the right to freely speak our minds to those who represent us. In fact, it is one of the few effective tools we have left to combat government corruption and demand accountability. But now, even that right is being chipped away by statutes and court rulings which weaken our ability to speak freely. Continue reading →
The bedrock of the American republic is fracturing. The Constitution is being eviscerated by government leaders and their corporate allies. The system of checks and balances embodied in that document, the mechanism which prevents the United States from sliding into tyranny, is eroding. The walls separating the three branches of government, as well as those separating the government from corporations and the military, have collapsed. With the rise of the national security state, this process has accelerated. Now, thanks to a collusion between domestic police forces and the military, we are being subjected to an onslaught of military drills carried out in major American cities, SWAT team raids on unsuspecting homeowners, Black Hawk helicopters patrolling American skies, and endless foreign wars that drain our national coffers. Continue reading →
Americans have seen their freedoms decline on almost every front over the past decade. We have been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized (under the USAPATRIOT Act, banks are required to analyze your transactions for any patterns that raise suspicion and to see if you are connected to any objectionable people), and our activities watched. We’ve also been subjected to invasive pat-downs and whole-body scans of our persons and seizures of our electronic devices in the nation’s airports. We can’t even purchase certain cold medicines at the pharmacy anymore without it being reported to the government and our names being placed on a watch list. Continue reading →
Halloween is associated with many strange creatures, but none more so than the vampire. To most people, the vampire is nothing more than a mythic monster popularized in movies, television, books and so on. Yet the vampire, an amalgamation of ancient lore woven through with sex, fear, danger and gore, is no mere Hollywood creation. Continue reading →
As business transactions and social interactions migrate from the streets and stores to cyberspace, government and corporate officials are clamoring to exercise control over the Internet, which has become the bastion of democracy, anonymity and populism. Facebook’s facial recognition technology, corporate opposition to Net Neutrality legislation, and data retention mandates by Congress are all efforts to put the Internet under strict government and corporate control. Similarly, President Obama’s plan to create an online ID system which would aid in verifying the identity of Internet users communicating and initiating transactions on the web is yet another thinly disguised attempt to monitor, regulate and control the Internet. Continue reading →
On Friday, October 2, 1959, The Twilight Zone premiered on national television. Even though it was never a top 25 show, The Twilight Zone was an oasis in a television wasteland that captured a generation. However, it almost didn’t happen. Its subject matter troubled television executives, and the fact that the episodes often left viewers hanging went against formula. Continue reading →
The Christian Right, apparently having learned nothing from George W. Bush’s disastrous reign, seems determined to appoint yet another political savior, this time in the form of Rick Perry, the Republican governor from Texas. Continue reading →
If there is any absolute maxim by which the federal government seems to operate, it is that the American taxpayer always gets ripped off, and Americans would do well to keep that in mind as Congress and the White House debate whether or not to raise the debt ceiling from its current high of $14.3 trillion. For one thing, the grandstanding by both parties over health care costs and Social Security is nothing more than a convenient distraction from the glaring economic truth that at the end of the day, it’s not the sick, the elderly or the poor who are stealing us blind and pushing America towards bankruptcy. It’s the military-industrial complex (the illicit merger of the armaments industry and the Pentagon) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us against more than 50 years ago and which has come to represent perhaps the greatest threat to the nation’s fragile infrastructure today. Continue reading →
The transition to a police state will not come about with a dramatic coup d’état, with battering rams and marauding militia. As we have experienced first-hand in recent years, it will creep in softly, one violation at a time, until suddenly you find yourself being subjected to random pat-downs and security sweeps during your morning commute to work or quick trip to the shopping mall. Continue reading →
The stealing of America: The incestuous relationship between government and corporate America
Posted on April 25, 2012 by John W. Whitehead
The U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC not only gave unfettered free speech rights to corporations but paved the way for unlimited amounts of money to be poured into election campaigns, especially those of presidential candidates. However, what really made that ruling so significant was not that the court granted First Amendment rights to corporations—formerly reserved only for individual citizens—but that in doing so, the court legitimized an incestuous relationship between government and its corporate controllers. Continue reading →